Joining Team Lally in this episode is Matt Wagner, owner of Radio And Television Experts. Matt talks about his roots and family from Chicago and how the culture built around radio has influenced his career. He also talks about how he transitioned to working with Real Estate agents and helping them become influencial radio personalities in their local area.
Read word for word from our interview with Matt Wagner of RATE:
Announcer: It’s time to enter the world of real estate in Oahu with Hawaii’s only true real estate radio show, the Team Lally real estate show. Grab a pen and get ready to take notes! For the next full hour, Hawaii’s premier real estate leader, Adrienne Lally and Attilio Leonardi will bring you the latest in real estate news and real world strategies on how they can guarantee to sell your home at a price and deadline you agree to! Or they’ll buy it! Now, here are your hosts, Adrienne and Attilio!
Adrienne: Welcome to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it. If you have any questions you can reach us at 799-9596 or check us out on the web at www.teamlally.com!
Attilio: Oh hey everybody this is Attilio! Let’s see here. You know what I was doing, I was looking at a waterfall the other day, just enjoying all the uh, ozone that was coming off of there and cleaning up my lungs and this lady came up to me, tapped me on the shoulders and said, hey, uh, she started me asking a bunch of tax and legal questions and I said those are great questions, but I highly recommend you seek the appropriate licensed professional. And then I said, but Mom, what other questions do you have? So if you hear anything on the show sounds like uh tax advice, go run that past a CPA. If you hear anything that sounds like legal advice, Adrienne, who should they run that by?
Adrienne: They can run that by Myron Kamihara of Kamihara law.
Attilio: Kamihara Law?
Adrienne: Yup! And you can call them at 352-6417.
Attilio: Okay.
Adrienne: So give Myron a call.
Attilio: Alright so you’ve got some pearls of wisdom you want to share with our listeners?
Adrienne: I do; I think last week I was trying to share all twelve of them but I got cut off after three.
Attilio: Get the hook!
Adrienne: (laughing) So, this is the twelve—
Attilio: It’s by law! You can only share three pearls of wisdom.
Adrienne: Okay so this is from the twelve steps to improvement.
Attilio: Twelve steps?
Adrienne: Yes.
Attilio: Sounds like, well, you, do you have a drinking problem?
Adrienne: Twelve step program to improvement. So last week I shared the first three steps. I’m going to share three more since I’ve been cut off.
Attilio: Step one: put the tequila away!
Adrienne: No. So first, okay, no, “You must decide if you want to change.” You’ve got to just make that decision.
Attilio: You know I think everybody can handle that step!
Adrienne: Yes.
Attilio: I think a lot of people decide to, the, the challenge is they don’t do the doing part.
Adrienne: Alright next is “You must change the way you think and who you hang out with.”
Attilio: So the way you think and who you hang out with.
Adrienne: So you’ve got to take a look, who are those people that you’re spending the most time with?
Attilio: You know my good friend Joey, he just got out of prison and he shared something very important with me. He says, don’t break the law.
Adrienne: That is important, don’t break the law.
Attilio: I said Tony that’s good advice, thank you.
Adrienne: Good people you’re hanging out with!
Attilio: Yeah!
Adrienne: Alright, next one is “Put a rubber band around your wrist and snap it every time you fail.”
Attilio: Snap it every time you fail.
Adrienne: You know that kind of ties into, so we’re taking BOLD right now. Its business objective life by design. And we have a little purple band that is like your mental, your mental attitude diet.
Attilio: So it’s a physical reminder right, or if you’re one of those dudes with long hair and you just want to put your hair up in an ugly looking samurai top-knot. That would be helpful use of that rubber band too.
Adrienne: (laughing) No but what’s the purpose behind the, the BOLD bracelet.
Attilio: The BOLD bracelet—change your attitude!
Adrienne: Change your habits, so every time you say but or try, you’re supposed to move the hand over or if you’re negative.
Attilio: Here’s a quote for you. Did you know people with uh, big butts use the word butt a lot?
Adrienne: No.
Attilio: That’s true, it’s scientifically proven.
Adrienne: Really?
Attilio: Yei!
Adrienne: Where are you getting this information from?
Attilio: Oh no, no, let me rephrase that. Uh—people who use the word butt a lot have big ones.
Adrienne: Okay. (laughing)
Attilio: That’s true!
Adrienne: Okay!
Attilio: It’s scientifically proven. By the way! If you either preface it or say it after the phrase “scientifically proven”—
Adrienne: It’s true.
Attilio: That automatically says whatever you say before or after that, completely true. Scientifically proven.
Adrienne: Or is it like, 80% of speakers on stage will make up statistics on the spot?
Attilio: No, it’s, 67% of all the facts—
Adrienne: Oh, okay.
Attilio: That 87% of the speakers bring up on stage is completely made up.
Adrienne: Okay, got it. So can we believe you?
Attilio: Yeah! I, my butt, I have no butt, I had a huge butt when I first started in this business and I’ve worked my butt off and so it’s, its’ real small now.
Adrienne: Okay, on that note I think that we need to talk about uh, our property management tip of the week. Brought to us uh, by Duke Kimhan of Hawaii Pacific Property Management, home of the rent guarantee.
Attilio: You know I had a, we just had a client walk in today, true story. by the way, that’s another way to make things, something sound factual, just say that phrase.
Adrienne: True story.
Attilio: True story. And you’re supposed to say, “Do tell.”
Adrienne: Okay, do tell.
Attilio: Okay, uh, basically they walked in today and they said, so here’s uh, you realtors out there, we get a lot of realtors out there and we always, we do the eye roll when we get the people that are moving to Hawaii and they want to, hey can you help me find a rental? The common challenge that they run into is that when people in other markets and it doesn’t have to be here in Hawaii, the landlord, what does the landlord do to incentivize realtors to show their property?
Adrienne: So basically they’ll pay like a cooperating fee. So they’ll offer—
Attilio: Equal to?
Adrienne: Equal to one month’s rent. So they’ll offer incentives for realtors to show rental properties but here—yeah here, no there is no co-op, there is no benefit for you as a relator to show the property.
Attilio: You know I asked the Scottish property owner, uh, do you guys pay uh co-op to realtors to show your property and you know what he said? No. That’s a Scottish no. “No!” He said, no we don’t! So anyway, um, if you, so a lot of times realtors make the mistake, if you have someone coming to you requesting help, true story, they did walk in today to our office, so drop in, uh, good friend of ours and she was bringing I think her friend, friend of a friend, and they said we need help finding a rental and I said great, we can help you with that and uh, went through the whole conversation of how our rental market works here, it’s a pretty tight market, and then I asked the by the way question which is?
Adrienne: Have you ever thought about just buying a home?
Attilio: And you know what she said? In fact, we were going to look for a little bit but our bigger intention is to buy. Because we were here seven years ago and we’re kicking ourselves for not buying!
Adrienne: So it’s important to just ask more questions and—
Attilio: Number one be helpful.
Adrienne: And be helpful, yeah.
Attilio: Number one, be helpful, contribution, don’t just blow people off because you never know where it may be leading to.
Adrienne: Well, you know we have done in the past, and I know that um, that Duke’s team has done this, because as a, sometimes buyers they have a—or no, not buyers but renters will have a relocation benefit and the relocation company will pay to make sure that they find the housing. So uh, don’t quote me on the amount but I do know that they will do a rental finding if you are a renter and you need help. So, they are helpful, even though that’s like, that’s not what they normally do, but they are uh there to help. So you can give Hawaii Pacific Property Management a call at 445-9223 or check them out online at www.hipacificpm.com.
Attilio: Alright. And you know what, they’ve got that crazy rent guarantee, what’s that all about?
Adrienne: So basically if they don’t rent your home, in thirty days, they’ll pay the rent.
Attilio: No way!
Adrienne: They’ll pay the rent.
Attilio: That sounds crazy.
Adrienne: It is; it is pretty crazy. they’re crazy.
Attilio: Well, they’re either crazy or they’re good. Call them up and find out which one it is! You know what you’re going to find out? It’s both!
Adrienne: They’re both.
Attilio: They’re crazy good.
Adrienne: Alright so reach out to them 445-9223, tell them that you heard about them on the Team Lally real estate show.
Attilio: Hey, I think I see Jody on the line from uh.
Adrienne: No, Jody’s not on the line.
Attilio: Ah, I’m just saying that because that’s our segue to give her mortgage tip of the week.
Adrienne: Okay, yes, but she’s not on the line.
Attilio: Well here’s the deal folks um, interest rates are still—this is what she would say if she were on the line.
Adrienne: Okay, this is what she would say.
Attilio: (high voice) Hello everybody, interest rates are still kind of— (regular voice) you know, she would say interest rates are still low um by the way I looked back. From 1981 until forward do you know what the highest interest rates were? Until today?
Adrienne: 18%
Attilio: 18.93%! So if you guys are thinking like uh, 3.5, now it’s 4, 4.2, 4.5, and you’re like oh man, that’s so high. Not even close! 1983, 18.93%—
Adrienne: And you are, you’re not making that stat up.
Attilio: No, that’s—
Adrienne: You were making stuff up before.
Attilio: We had to do a presentation and I had to look up that information and in case of the 650 people sitting in the audience, in case somebody Googled it, um I wanted to be uh, share factual information. So uh, 18.93%! So uh, predictions from Freddy May, Fanny Mac, um, all of the big uh, government lenders out there, into the first quarter of 2018, is maybe 4.2/4.3 but still the mid-4.5’s.
Adrienne: Yup but it’s still a, it’s still a great interest rate and still a great time to buy.
Attilio: So if Jody were on the show this is what she would say, by the way what’s a good number and website to reach her?
Adrienne: You can reach Jody at 488-5510. Or check her out online at www.pacrimmtg.com.
Attilio: Here’s the advice that she’s going to give you. There’s’ two times to, the best times to, to plant the tree.
Adrienne: It’s uh, now.
Attilio: No, twenty years ago.
Adrienne: Oh, twenty years ago.
Attilio: And?
Adrienne: Now.
Attilio: And now. And the two times to buy real estate is?
Adrienne: Twenty years ago.
Attilio: And?
Adrienne: Now.
Attilio: That’s it. Alright, are we getting ready to take a break?
Adrienne: Yeah, let’s take a short break. But don’t go too far, we have a very special in-studio guest joining us.
Attilio: His name is Matt Wagner, he’s not a doctor but he does play one on TV. Stay with us!
[Music fades to commercials]
Announcer: The Team Lally real estate show continues.
Adrienne: Welcome back and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program or we’ll buy it! I’m Adrienne—
Attilio: And I’m Attilio!
Adrienne: If you have any questions just give us a call at 799-9596 or check us out on the web at www.teamlally.com.
Attilio: Hey! Our special guest—
Adrienne: Yes.
Attilio: Are you pointing at me? It’s for you to read!
Adrienne: Oh, okay! Well you can start.
Attilio: Okay, I’ll start. Here we go. Our special guest today has become known around the real estate industry as the premier consultant for helping top agents effectively use media to become local celebrities in their area. They create a steady flow of easily converted prospects.
Adrienne: In 2004, he founded Radio and Television Experts and has built exclusive relationships with the most influential national and local personalities in the industry. Let’s welcome our guest, owner of Radio and Television Experts and our good friend, Matt Wagner!
Attilio: Matt Wagner, aloha!
Adrienne: Welcome! Welcome.
Attilio: Welcome to the show! So uh, welcome to the islands! As ___ would say, welcome to the islands.
Matt: Thank you!
Attilio: Uh, so what um, where, you know so Hawaii, local style, we like to get to know the person a little bit. Before we get down to business. So tell us about yourself. Um, Matt where did you grow up?
Matt: I grew up in Chicago, go Cubs! And uh, I, I, Chicago if you know radio, is like the home of some of the biggest radio shows ever. Uh, biggest radio shows, Steve Dog, Gary Myer, um, you’ve got uh, ____, Crazy Guy, um, Animal ___ and you mean, anyone who’s worked in the radio industry generally knows someone from Chicago that ___ radio because it just was, just really interesting personalities and so, from a, from a child up, deep down I want to be a DJ, until I realized that unless you’re, you know, doing endorsements, you don’t make any money, you know with that, so I, I guess, I discovered the world of sales but I’ve always had a real interest in the connection that radio personalities have with the general public. And that always fascinated me and so that’s what led into uh the work that I got into.
Adrienne: So the work that you got into, what exactly is that? Can you share with our listeners?
Matt: (laughing) Yes! So basically um, I, I ‘ve worked at a radio station for a lot of years but my goal was to make somebody stand out, whether it was a jingle, whether it was an endorsement, whether it was a talk show, whatever it was, I’m the youngest of five kids. And if you know, if you come from a big family, you know because you guys have kids, the youngest one is always the one that’s going to fight for attention. So I had to fight for attention and I learned how to do that in a marketing sense on radio. So, any time I, I get into radio it’s like what can I do with this particular client to make them jump off the page and get people’s attention. And so, I just started getting into the sales side of radio at a young age and it just kind of evolved and then back in 2002, I met a real estate agent in Oklahoma, Jake Kinder, and wound up dabbling in his business because I just, I wanted him to become the resource to real estate, not just some guy trying to sell houses. And so, by making him basically the best friend with the popular morning host, there, he is, is, listing volume doubled but he wound up you know, building a team and then he introduced me to a lot of other top realtors and so I just discovered there was a real niche in the radio industry where there weren’t people really training other people in how to be successful in radio. And so it just kind of evolved and here we are 12 years later and you know, got 200 agents and 200 markets and having a lot of fun!
Attilio: Alright! So that’s the whole story I think—no.
Adrienne: You know, what’s funny is that—
Attilio: We have more questions.
Adrienne: We actually had um, we came to you through Jake Kinder, I think I’d heard him either like on a podcast or it was through, on the internet, somehow, looking through his site and I just somehow came over to you, and I’m so glad you know, that, that he had that connection because we were just super impressed with his numbers and what he’d been doing. We’re like what, how? How is this, how is he capable of this?
Attilio: Well let’s talk about the, how you came up with the formula. It worked for them. And now you’ve duplicated this formula with how many agents now?
Matt: About 200.
Attilio: 200! So I think that’s validation in itself, no science, no surveys required! No scientifically proven statements necessary! That if it worked once and it’s worked 200 times, um, it’s a good thing. Break it down for us, I mean, it, I don’t know if any of this stuff is like trade secrets, or what you want to share or not share, but you know, in a nut shell, what are, what are some key points of the formula?
Matt: Well for example like in, in, a news talk radio, you have someone like Shawn Hannity or Glen Beck that are very controversial but also very popular personalities. By working with them in multiple markets, we’re able to have exclusivity, where they only work with our agency because they know that we work with the best agents in eh world. And so because of that, normal, the normal processes, you might try, you know, go to a station, offer to give Shawn Hannity money, he doesn’t know you from Adam and so he’s a lot more leery and his managers are a lot more leery but when they’ve been working with us for many years, we now get that in, much like we’re doing now with ___, Rascal Flats, uh same thing, or with Barbara Corcoran. You know, you use on TV. When you begin to get a reputation, and so now when their managers talk to their other mangers, they know you know what? This is a great group of realtors, you can trust them, don’t worry, you know, you can, you can believe in them. They’re good, they’re good for it.
Attilio: You have a question, Adrienne?
Adrienne: No, do you have a question?
Attilio: I’m full of questions. People tell me that I’m full of certain things but I know questions are one of them. Um, but uh, so tell us, you know, you’ve been um, I think one of the unique things is that you create a mastermind opportunity uh, you have a get-together once a year and I, uh, tell us, tell us more about that. I mean what’s important about, you know, you create this formula for us, we’re all duplicating it, but I think for Adrienne and I, one of the big huge tertiary, maybe we didn’t even expect this type of benefit, was the ability to network with agents at our level or above in markets all across the United States. How do you make that happen?
Matt: Well, this is interesting because when I first started with this, I only had about a dozen agents that I worked with and you know, what I began to discover was all of these agents, even though they come from different markets, they all have a lot of the same problems in common. And so, by getting them together and talking shop, now they get to share a lot of the same ideas and so progressively it got to be 30 or 40 agents, then 50 to 100. And then when it just started growing in numbers, it just made more sense to have one weekend, where people from Remax, Keller Williams, independents, Coldwell Banker, all these different groups could merge together and because they worked in the same markets because we work generally with one agent per market, no one had a fear of sharing because they all felt that what they shared wasn’t going to be out in the public. So they could really open up and be more, be more helpful with other people and the neat thing is you’d have some guy that might be doing a thousand units a year, some might be doing 100, it didn’t matter about their production, it really mattered about what were the best ideas that everybody can copy and learn from each other.
Attilio: And I think, and there’s two ways people learn right? They have the what they share with you on the stage and then more importantly, uh, Matt uh, he has a room off to the side with a couch, you lie on the couch, he sits behind you, he says that’s interesting, tell me more about that and he takes notes, he’s not listening to a podcast, he’s really listening to you . . . no, you don’t have, you don’t have these private therapy session but um, you know we have get-togethers and you know there’s the dinner get-togethers, all the opportunities, you even create opportunities for us to get people, we’ll be watching a baseball game. So it’s not, and we’re having fun, but everyone’s such die-hard you know, if you cut us we bleed real estate that we’re always doing the shop talk all the time and some of, and Adrienne, do you agree or disagree, some of our best ideas that we got from ___ were just those off the stage conversations?
Adrienne: Yeah, off the stage and even you know, conversations that don’t happen at the mastermind because you know, we’re reaching out to the other agents and wanting to bounce things off. Right?
Attilio: Well let’s talk about how this benefits our consumers right here in Hawaii.
Adrienne: So it’s not just, I would say that it’s not just um, us, we have like a whole network of agents that are all mastermind together with the best and brightest ideas!
Attilio: You know when you go to those elevators and there’s like mirrors on all the walls? And you look in the mirror and it’s like you can see like a whole bunch of yourself behind you? It’s that same concept but without alcohol or drugs involved that we have with this mastermind group where there’s a whole bunch of people behind us, that we’ve tapped into. We have a private uh Facebook group. If there’s any concept or marketing approach that we use to help a seller, sell their home, are we just testing it on the, are sellers the guinea pig for that?
Adrienne: No!
Attilio: No!
Adrienne: No, we’re, we’re just basically duplicating what’s worked in other markets so. So Matt, which leads me to, with the strategies, with those over 200 agents, is it going to be the same strategy in every market or how do you determine what’s going to work and what doesn’t work?
Matt: Well that’s, that’s a really good point because for example, you might be in an area that’s almost a destination market, so a lot of people moving in or military market, for example. Not every market’s a military market, but so where there are, there might be a military market in Fort Hood, Texas, where you can learn one little thing of what they’re doing to better serve their clients in that market. Or you might be in a high-end market, say for example like San Diego, and you can learn what’s one more way to present a high-end property there that works really well. When I see these conversations float back and forth all the time on the ___ board, it’s interesting because there’s so many of them, are all about how can we make a better consumer experience. And to see people exchange ideas like that back and forth, it just, it’s good for the industry.
Attilio: Yes.
Matt: And, and I think what, and before I discovered this I was working with about 15 different industries on radio and I still do, we still take out projects from time to time with people from different industries but the thing I love and I can go to bed at night, sleeping well on, is that at the end of the day, the people that I’m helping are making a better, we all know somebody that’s been burned by a bad experience in real estate. And so the fact that we’re, me and my team ae contributing to helping agents be exposed, that are great agents, it’ll truly take uh, a higher level, what the consumer needs and really address them. That’s good, that’s a good feeling. It’s not like you’re helping some business, you know, anyone can advertise on the radio and who knows how credible they can be, but we truly are helping and I think that’s why ___ got involved with this with Rascal Flats, that’s why Barbara Corcoran likes our agents I mean, she knows that at the end of the day, I remember when Glen Beck even, when he was starting his network and said this is really cool, these people are really going to help people, because he went through three different realtors to sell his home.
Attilio: Oh, wow!
Matt: And so he knew the frustration as a person, what this means! And so now that he can save his listeners all that time of hiring someone that may not be as effective or limited, he was really helping you, and I feel the same way, I think it’s a good, a good thing to watch this, on a higher level.
Attilio: Now I know when a business gets to a certain level, because it’s happened for us, for our recruiting, what’s, what’s been the big shift for our recruiting? Are we, are we recruiting or attracting?
Adrienne: We’re now at that attracting phase, where people every day are coming to us wanting to know how, how can they be a part of, of Team Lally. What do I need to do to get on the team?
Attilio: And thanks to Mat and Radio Television Experts for helping us get that message out there! Are, I’m going to guess that you guys are at that attracting phase of, of Radio Television Experts, where you’re not really having to chase people, I know you guys are still, uh, hungry and you will approach people that are the top in their market. Are uh, you know with that many agents, are there any markets left?
Matt: Oh yeah!
Attilio: There are?
Matt: There’s plenty.
Attilio: Okay.
Matt: Yeah, you have a lot of smaller areas I mean that, that people don’t, there’s not agents that have teams that really want to grow. That’s really a big key. There’s still a lot of these smaller towns and it’s crazy because these small towns, you can buy radio spots for $20-$30-$40. I mean, and they could, they could be on two or three stations for $1000-$2000 a month, it’s crazy! And then especially when you see bigger names like Barbara Corcoran being used or now ____ with Rascal Flats or uh, you know, Shawn Hannity, it’s small towns, people can’t believe that a national voice recommends someone in that little town. Because you just never hear it. It’s—
Attilio: Now. And, and it’s more than just being the ability to write a check to join your organization right? I think you, we’ve had conversations with you that, you do want to have people that are part of this group that you’re going to want to enjoy having a dinner with and if they don’t fall in that criteria just because they’re top producers or can write a check, it doesn’t necessarily mean you want to be in business with them.
Matt: Absolutely! I mean the thing is, it’s all about culture. I mean you start with your culture and your team. We look at the culture of the type of radio personalities that we use. We look at the type of culture at the agent that we’re looking to bring into our network because ultimately they’re going to be dealing with other ___ members. You’re going to sending referrals to this agent and if this agent can’t handle a good referral, that looks bad on me. Or, and if I have an agent that says something stupid, you know, to Barbara or misrepresents, it can affect our whole network, so we’re very, very careful on screening and that’s why we are only in, I’d say we’re only in 200 markets you know there’s 400 radio markets. Roughly. So, we’re very selective still on the kind of person that we want in our group.
Adrienne: So there’s 400 radio markets. You guys are in 200 of the 4(00), so you still have a lot of room to grow?
Attilio: Yeah.
Adrienne: So with the um, with the agents’ requirements, what, do you prefer that they have a team or what, you know, what do you look for in an agent?
Matt: Yeah! For example, like, everybody knows someone who makes good ribs right? I mean, you might have that person that makes phenomenal ribs. Well what if you went on a 10 o’clock news and said, hey, Adrienne cooks the best ribs in Honolulu, come by her house anytime. Or, there’d be a line out the door and you couldn’t service them.
Adrienne: Yes.
Matt: But now if you owned a restaurant, with a staff and a cook and a wait staff, now you’re ready for that explosion of business. So it does make sense to have a team already successful that this can now take to the next level.
Adrienne: Alright, we’re going to take a short break, but stay with us!
Attilio: Hey, you know and if you’re a business owner, you’re going to learn some great marketing tips from Matt Wagner, Radio Television Experts. Stay with us!
[Music fades to commercials]
Announcer: It’s the Team Lally real estate show. Here’s Adrienne and Attilio!
Adrienne: Welcome back and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program or we’ll buy it! I’m Adrienne—
Attilio: I’m John Travolta.
Adrienne: And if you have any questions you can reach us at 799-9596 or check us out at www.teamlally.com.
Attilio: Well, hey folks, I’m not John Travolta, but that was the Beejies. And uh, anyways, so we still have Matt Wagner here in the studio. We’ve got some more questions for you. Um—
Adrienne: But who is Matt Wagner?
Attilio: Do tell!
Adrienne: Matt Wagner, he’s uh, he’s the owner of Radio and Television Experts. And our good friend. He’s uh here on vacation and was so kind to spend one day of his vacation here with us.
Attilio: And he brought his beautiful wife!
Adrienne: Yes. So—
Attilio: Are you going to say hello to her?
Matt: I will! Hey, Rachel!
Rachel: Hello!
Attilio: Anyways, so we had some more questions uh. One of the questions we were, we were kind of talking about during the break and how you came across the ___ uh situation but we call it oblique learning where you end up going somewhere else that has maybe nothing to do with your industry and then either learning something or making connections. Tell us more about how that happens.
Matt: Yeah, it was pretty funny because I, for a couple years I really thought the next, the next stage, I would love to be more involved with country music artists, but you know, you don’t just go and knock on their door and offer them a check, and just, there’s a real tight approval process. You’ve got to go through their record label, you’ve got to go through their managers and their managers want money before the artist even sees it. So, I mean I got turned away offering $1 million to several A-level artists and I was offered like smaller level you know artists that I just didn’t feel I could truly present to our group as being top-quality that I feel good about. Because anything I present, I always want to, I don’t need the money anymore, and so to me and even when I did, I, you know, I’ve always felt like unless I could, unless I would stroke a check for this myself I can’t recommend this to somebody else and so what’s interesting is last summer I was, I was on Facebook and I happened to notice a guy who owned a moving company. And you know, we’ve, since we’re not just real estate, besides, working with top, top 200 agents in eh country, we’re also working with a lot of other different industries with different product, and so I happened to run across a moving company, Black Tie Moving and I happened to notice that they were doing a launch party for their new location in Nashville. And I happened to notice uh, that the owner, dressed in black in the middle, with his buddy ___ of Rascal Flats and Josh ___, million-dollar buyer, and I thought huh! This is interesting, this guy understands celebrity endorsements like I do! So I private messaged him and said hey, pretty impressive you know, entourage, you know, are you, are they doing endorsing for you? You know, and he said no! And I’m like huh. He said, I said does that interest you. And he goes yeah! I said, you know what I’m going to be, I’m going to be speaking at Dave Ramsey’s conference in a couple weeks, I’ll be in Nashville, can we grab a beverage together. Sure! So we sat down, talked about it, winds up he’s hunting buddies with ___ and he’s also uh, done uh, this kids play together and so he worked out a, he’s working on a project with Gary, so Gary said yeah man, anything you need, I’ll do for you! You know and so my response was well, anything? And it’s funny, I said you know what their biggest song ever was, right? One of their, one of their top five, “I’m Moving On.” And so, that became the stimulus so we started a conversation with, we pitched Gary about it, Gary loved the idea, we got a chance to meet, and uh, he loved the whole concept of what we’ve done, like with Barbara Corcoran, with Shawn Hannity, with, we’ve already got an established face of realtors that he can now use as a network to help other people just like he saw that song gave emotional support for them during the stressful time. He can now offer that to his fans and so that’s how that relationship evolved. So, you know, in entertainment world there’s a small circle of people who knows who, and they all talk. Right? So, so when the one manager talks to the manager, they say, hey is this group worth it, are they good, are they credible? They all, they all, when they say yes, that helps. In fact, I just heard ___ and for ESPN, we had the ESPN deal because of our relationship with Glen Beck. They looked at his network, saw what we did with him and so they can trust us and so, that’s, yeah that’s kind of how that whole thing evolved, but had I not looked out to other industries, I may have never discovered that option, that opportunity.
Attilio: Black Tie Moving Company. I was, when you were talking I was thinking what if, we’ve had a moving company, I call it um, Black Belt Moving Company. If your stuff doesn’t break while we move it, we will!
Adrienne: (laughing) We’ll break it for you!
Attilio: We’ll break it for you! Black Belt Moving Company. Um, so let’s talk about um, you know, let’s say I’m a local entrepreneur listening, you know, you’ve got all this depth of knowledge and years of experience in marketing. If you, if you just, if you wanted to share, you know, your top three tips for helping a local entrepreneur in Hawaii uh gain more market share or just you know, get the phones to ring or inquiries to come in. What would be your top three recommendations?
Matt: Uh, can I give four?
Attilio: Sure!
Matt: (laughing) Well I like to say there’s, there’s four reasons and I’ve, I’ve stuck with this or I’ve watched the truth of this over about 20 years plus. In media, probably over 200 markets, probably with uh, 3-400 clients. And it’s really knowing why radio works or why radio fails. You can find very similar principles to television as well. Number one knowing who your audience is. Oftentimes you ask well who are you going after? People say well everybody! Well that’s not true. You know, so for example like in real estate, we know that we want that person who’s between 30 and 50 years old or above, that’s a seller, that’s not a buyer, and we know that they’re generally, and that, that they’re in a financial pocket that we want to target. So when you know that part and you know who your target is, that’s the first step. And then the second—because that’s how you take your radio station, because you want the station that’s going to reach the most amount of people in the target group that you want to talk to. Because if you’re talking to the wrong group, it doesn’t matter how good your message is. You’re going to attract the wrong kind of people. But the second thing is knowing the message. Uh. making sure that your message hits on the most important value to that person you’re targeting. If you don’t have a message that means anything, it’s going to fall flat. And if there’s no call to action, there’s no, you know, selling proposition, people forget about you because you know, let’s face it, they hear hundreds of ads every day.
Adrienne: Got to have something that stands out!
Matt: That’s exactly right!
Adrienne: You’ve got to stand out.
Matt: And something of value. I think you said it and I’ve often said it for years, the most popular radio station is not the station you think it is. It’s WIFM. What’s in it for me?
Attilio: And do you know what the most populated state in the United States is?
Matt: State of confusion?
Attilio: Go ahead, Adrienne.
Adrienne: The state of denial!
Matt: Oh!
All: (laughing)
Matt: I thought it was the state of confusion.
Attilio: That’s the second most occupied state.
Matt: But, but no, the third thing would be making sure that um, you have the right frequency, the right times that you’re looking at to talk to those people and then fourth making sure that internally your team, when the phone rings, this is often missed, that they properly convert what you bring in store. Um, we used that analogy before about the restaurant. If a restaurant owner has no staff or his staff is limited, you’re going to get overwhelmed very quickly. And I’ve seen that with business. You’ve really got to know when is the right time to be able to, to be able to advertise.
Adrienne: And then be prepared!
Matt: That’s it!
Adrienne: And be prepared for when the, when, when, when the people are calling in and know what to say.
Matt: Yup!
Adrienne: And actually we spent today doing that with our team which was a lot of fun.
Matt: Yeah!
Adrienne: We had some of our local talent come to the office and educate the team on how, you know, like how important it is to use the, the, the language and to build rapport the same way they do on air.
Attilio: They both sang the tune from uh, “The hills are alive with music.” “Getting to know you! Getting to know,” (singing) so that, so they came in and we got to know them. And we have some long traditions and, and connections with Steven. He’s one of our personalities.
Adrienne: Yes!
Attilio: And Chris! Chris I’ve known since high school. Steven, Steven was back in the day when—
Adrienne: He was our, he was our first producer.
Attilio: He went, back in the day—
Adrienne: Four to five years ago.
Attilio: When the Team Lally real estate show was just a germ, it was a microbe! Way back in the beginning and here we are, now we’re four years old! We can finally walk.
Steven: Now you guys are just professionals.
Attilio: Yei! We try to be. Anyway what, what other questions do we have for Matt?
Adrienne: So, I guess Matt, could you share with us maybe like your, your, your biggest success? Or your biggest success story. Your favorite success story.
Matt: Wow.
Attilio: Or a funny one! Ha!
Matt: Wow, well I, I, I, it’s hard, that’s hard because there’s so many different levels. I think that what, and maybe I’ll just share this because this is kind of what all launched the whole radio revolution. I had this little guy, I was in this little bitty town, Laughton, Oklahoma, and I meet this realtor who I’m spending a whopping $400 a month. And you know, we bought five spots a week, Monday through Friday, $20, but the position was right, the station was right, and he doubled his business. And from there, it launched into him inviting me to a conference, where I got to meet other people. And I progressively started my own business which I think the lesson is that especially if you’re in any level of sales whether it’s real estate or radio, or whatever it is, never ever ever underestimate what you perceive to be a low-end or bottom-feeding situation. Because even though he only spent, well a whopping $100 a month, or what a week, it would be $400 a month, a whopping $62 in my pocket, that evolved into a multi-million-dollar business. And so that wouldn’t have happened had I not taken him seriously or had not given him that high level of customer service for such, what I perceived as a low amount. So I think that probably stands out, I mean there’s a lot of other stories beyond that, but I think that alone is a very powerful lesson. And you never know who that person will talk to, and how that will change your life.
Attilio: Yeah, like the uh. guy who walks into your office with the jeans and the T-shirts with holes in it, and ends up being a multi-millionaire and doing business with you just because you treated him, regardless of what he looked like or what your perception of him was. Hey! Speaking of that, Brooks is on the line, shall we bring Brooks on? And we’ve got more questions for you Matt, so stay with us.
Adrienne: Yes!
Attilio: Brooks, are you there?
Brooks: I am here! How are you guys!
Attilio: What do you want to share? What do you want to share with us today, what kind of coming soon property do you have?
Brooks: Well this week coming soon we’re going to head back out with, it’s been a while since I’ve taken out our listening audience to the wonderful sea-country development out there in ___. ___. The community is called ___, that’s the ___ section of sea country and I have coming soon this really nice townhome. It’s on a corner lot, which makes it uh, a nice and uh, spacious yard. There’s the most spacious Linai area actually in the whole development there is featured in this particular unit and it’s on the view side so the ___ Mountains, that whole big, right there is just all part of the view-scape from this unit. It’s priced to go! And it’s coming live, it’s going live uh, let’s see, I just wrote it down and now I have it, so it’s going live on the 27th, and our open house will be on March the 5th our grand open house so come on out and see us and ___ and sea country out on the Westside.
Attilio: Hey, Brooks, do you, do you agree that we, at any given time, you’re a listing partner, you’re one of our listing partners, have we had anywhere from 10-15 properties coming soon?
Brooks: Oh, yeah!
Attilio: Easily, right?
Brooks: Sometimes individually uh, our listing partners individually have that many.
Adrienne: And that’s times three which could be like 30.
Brooks: 30! Yeah!
Attilio: If you can do the math!
Adrienne: I can do the math. It’s easy math!
Brooks: I’ve done math before.
Attilio: Easy math! So here’s the easy math for you folks. There’s a phone number. What’s that phone number for the hotline?
Adrienne: Yeah, you can give our buyer hotline a call at 234-4421. And anyone of our awesome buyer agents can help you to navigate through our coming-soon inventory!
Attilio: Now, Brooks, you’ve been in the business what, 18 years?
Brooks: 18 years as a licensee, another 2 years as a, uh insular ___ in escrow and loan officer.
Attilio: Yeah, mortgage business, uh, all of that stuff. Hey, real quick, if you’re a seller out there, what would be your top three tips for the seller in order to maximize their sale price?
Brooks: Well, to have the property looking really good from the outside, curb appeal is awesome. Have it priced right, so it’s priced to sell, not to sit. And uh, let’s see, and get the inside de-cluttered and cleaned! That’s my thoughts there.
Adrienne: He missed a step.
Attilio: Oh, the P’s!
Adrienne: No, no, no! Hire Team Lally!
Attilio: Hire Team Lally.
All: (laughing)
Attilio: You know Brooks is such a giver, he just wanted to share this information with no expectation of return, but you know what?
Adrienne: I’ll ask for it!
Brooks: Adrienne, that’s a little bit of a quiz! Huh, you’re quizzing your team members! Okay, good job!
Adrienne: Excellent tips, Brooks! Thank you!
Attilio: No, excellent tips, Brooks, you’re a wealth of knowledge, that’s why I can depend on you answering these questions on the fly. Thanks so much for being on the show today.
Brooks: Thanks!
Attilio: And uh thanks, Brooks!
Brooks: You bet!
Attilio: Alright so we’re back with, back with Matt Wagner. Where’s he from?
Adrienne: He’s from the Radio and Television Experts. He’s the owner. And he’s visiting us from Southern California and we’re honored to have him here, he’s here on vacation, spending some time here in the radio station—
Attilio: Hometown San Diego.
Adrienne: Yeah!
Attilio: Hey, you know I heard a podcast about those uh, harper seals in ___. Have you ever, it sounds like there was a big debate between the human beings and the seals. Did you ever, did that—
Matt: No, but I learned something interesting. Actually, I learned why sharks attack humans.
Attilio: Why?
Matt: Because most humans swim like seals.
Adrienne: Oh!
Attilio: Gotcha.
Matt: And because of that, that’s a primary feeding food for seals. And so because of that, humans mimic that, the, the sharks are confused and view humans as food.
Attilio: Alright, so you surfers out there, stay away from where the seals are at.
Adrienne: Or just don’t swim like a seal! Like figure out how to swim like something, like a fish, instead of a seal. Or something—
Attilio: Quick uh, quick scientific fact, I have a proven, proven thing here to share with you both. Do you know why uh, sharks like Japanese tourists?
Adrienne: Why?
Attilio: Because uh they have ___ in the middle. (laughing) ___ is like a little plum that’s in the middle of sushi and so, and you’ve got to explain that for my non-local listeners over here. But they like Japanese tourists because they’ve got ___ in the middle! Anyway.
Adrienne: That’s gross.
Attilio: Our local people are like laughing right now. They’re just besides themselves and they’re like that’s a terrible joke but you know they’re going to be repeating it at work.
Adrienne: Okay.
Attilio: Anyway, we’ve got more questions for Matt. Matt uh you know you’ve, I like the fact that you’ve gotten to the point in your business where you know, the money part is not, it’s not necessary for, for your decision making so yours is always, uh talk about, I like, here’s one of your key phrases. What is Matt’s, one of his key phrases?
Adrienne: He’s all about humble implementation.
Attilio: Let’s talk about, see, I—
Adrienne: Let’s touch on that, you knew it was coming.
Attilio: Tell us about, what does that mean?
Matt: Well, obviously there’s two words that’ll change your life. Humble implementation. And this really can apply to any, any aspect of your life. You’ve got to be humble enough to recognize, you know what, there’s something bigger than me. But I can learn something from everybody. So being humble and open-minded to learning something and taking another viewpoint but then the real world, most of this information is lost and you see the—you guys go to a lot of conferences, do a lot of learning and yet it’s the all about the implementing or the putting it into practice and the things you’ve learned. So you could hear great speeches all day, in fact, you, a lot of times you’ll go, oh that was such a great speech, or that was such a great, you know program. Well what did you learn? What did you use? What did you do to change your life because of that? That’s the difference and when I look at the top producers in eh world, in fact, you guys, I think you guys won an award at a conference for being uh students which truly boils down to being implementers because you’re constantly learning what can I do but more importantly and I think walking around your office today, I see where those things were implemented and you actually put, took, put them into practice and that’s really the key in any level of life. You can hear or you can read all the great books, go to all the best seminars, but until you can implement even one of those things, it’s all useless. Unless you, unless you put it into practice and so I’ve watched it with the top agents and I’ve seen the agents go from 100 transactions to 200 to 400 to 1000. They’ve all been people that are quick to learn and not be, not be too high in themselves but then say ok, I’m going to learn and I’m going to get better and now how I can I put this into practice in my own business. Even above the, you never hear them say oh that won’t’ work in my life. That won’t work in my market. They go what if it could work and then they give it a shot, they see the results.
Attilio: Yeah, I think, I don’t think people realize that the uh, the gap or the distance between idea and implementation is vast. And that’s a critical difference and, and Adrienne share with Matt, what’s the difference between a want-repreneur and an entrepreneur?
Adrienne: Well, the want-repreneur like they, they want, they want to be there, they want to be doing it but they’re not willing to execute. Right, they’re not willing to do the steps that it takes to get to where they need to be. As an entrepreneur.
Attilio: You know I like having entrepreneurs like you, Matt, on the show. One of the questions we ask our entrepreneurs, you weren’t born an entrepreneur right you were working for the man originally. How did you bridge the gap between uh, what we call signing your checks on the back to signing them on the front? Going from working for someone else to working for yourself.
Matt: That’s a really good question and I’ll, I’m not asked that a lot but I love talking about it because uh, I used to be, I actually uh, tried doing my own agency thing and I, Barbara Corcoran ___, because it was associated with a negative thing, right? So it was bad, it was bad. So but what I learned from that was, when I was in radio, I, I, I failed at the first attempt, to try to become my own ad agency, but when I went back to radio, I decided you know what, I’m going to study how the best ad agencies work. I’m going to watch how they do their billing, I’m going to watch how they work their message, I’m going to watch the forms they use, I’m going to study their best approach so that when I do this eventually um, I’ll be, I’ll go in with a better game plan. And so I think joining a successful team and joining and watching and learning like Tony Robbins says “Success leaves clues.” Study the people that are successful. Study why they’re doing it and then do it yourself! And it’s not that hard to do, most people don’t have the stick-to-it-iveness or the drive or the focus or the long-range vision to stick with something.
Attilio: And uh, what would you, you know, if you had um, any advice for the entrepreneurs that are, they’ve still got that day job, they’ve still got that day job, and they’re trying to bridge that gap um, to, to becoming an entrepreneur full-time. What, how did you know that you were at a point where you could leave that day job?
Matt: I was in a, I was in an interesting crossroads because I was in Oklahoma and I was working at a station and I was managing about 50 accounts, non-real estate, I mean just all wide variety. I was booking 4 music venues uh talent for them, and then I was also discovering this real estate thing on the side, so I was just getting tugged in different directions and what I also learned from was you need to have your business at a certain level that when you know that you can walk away, you have enough money saved that you’re committed to but that you’ve got a good foundation and you can surround yourself with the right people. Like I’ve made sure that I had a good accountant because I suck at, at math. I mean that, that’s not my best strength. I made sure that I had the right um, other people managing certain aspects of my business because if you just think you can do it all, you’re not, you’re going to fail fast.
Adrienne: You’re doomed!
Matt: Right. So identify what your best strengths are and identify and embrace what your weaknesses are. Find the people that are great at what you do and I also found out that, that the other mistake I hint people make is they try to start a business based on just a good concept where there’s no proof of success. When I launched, a real key to my launching my business was I had a great model of success of someone that I worked with who became my spokesperson, Jake Kinder, the one we talked about. You know, I had that in the beginning and so he became my best salesperson. I think too many people try to start a business without any really truth, truth of, factors of success, right.
Adrienne: Like the track record. Yeah.
Matt: And that’s, and the thing is, is if you don’t have that, it’s so much harder to go down that road. So make that, and that’s why I say, don’t worry if you’ve made somebody you know, um, you made a lot of money off that person. Even some people will do something pro bono or for free just to get that testimonial so that now they can take that testimony and grow from it.
Attilio: Alright. So we’re coming to an end of another awesome real estate radio show. Uh, remember we’ve got career night, if you do want to ever get into the business of real estate.
Adrienne: Yes, March 6th!
Attilio: March 6th is career night!
Adrienne: From 5-6, go to our website.
Matt: Can I say something about that?
Attilio: Sure, go ahead!
Matt: So, if, if I was a realtor and I lived on Honolulu, I can only tell you that I would either work for Team Lally, I would get into a different business or I’d move! (laughing) I say that because you guys are some of the most progressive um, constantly learning to get better group that we have.
Adrienne: Thanks, Matt! Okay, thanks for listening and thank you to our sponsors!
Attilio: Jody Tonga and Derek Tonga of Pacific Rim Mortgage!
Adrienne: Bradley Mariame of Allstate Insurance!
Attilio: Nathan Baker, Pillar to Post Home Inspections!
Adrienne: Ben and Tony Mamoon of Triple A Roofers Hawaii!
Attilio: Janice Myrland of Dream House Drafting!
Adrienne: John Speed of Kilauea Pest control!
Attilio: Duke Kimhan of Hawaii Pacific Property Management!
Adrienne: John Minard of ____Plumbing.
Attilio: And uh, Thomas Patterson with Patterson Land Surveying!
Adrienne: Myron Kamihara of Kamihara law!
Attilio: If you want to get ahold of nay of our sponsors just go to www.teamlally.com.
Adrienne: We also want to give a big thank you to Steven, Chris, and Matt here in the studio with us today!
Attilio: Chi-hoo!
Adrienne: Make sure to tune in next week we’ll have an awesome guest talking about something that’ll change your life—
Attilio: Forever! This is the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed—
Adrienne and Attilio: SOLD PROGRAM!
Adrienne: If we can’t sell your home at the agreed upon price in your time frame we’ll have it bought for cash.
Adrienne and Attilio: THANKS AND ALOHA!