S9 E5: Top Real Estate Agent Interview with Realtor Justin Ford 2023

Justin Ford (00:04):
For sale by owner, the number one reason why they’re selling by owner is because they don’t feel that they can accomplish their goal by working with a real estate agent. My goal is to let them know that if I get through my script and get to a point where I say, “Hey, if I could show you how to put the same amount of money in your pocket or more, and help you sell it sooner than later, what would stop you from at least wanting to take a look at that?” And they usually say, “Nothing.” What is the definition of an objection? The definition of an objection is it’s an unanswered question in the mind of a seller. They don’t think that they can accomplish what they’re looking to accomplish with an agent. And so I take them through my script, asking them the questions, guiding them down the path of realization that, “Hey, I know you don’t think you can accomplish this, but if I can show you a way to accomplish this, would it be worth sitting down for about 20 or 30 minutes?” And they always say yes.

Ren Jones (01:15):
It’s that time. Welcome to Roadmap, How to Take Three Listings a Week Until You’re Ready for More. Each week we interview a great agent who’s taking several listings each week, each month, and we have an exciting guest today. First, let me introduce my co-host from Cincinnati and surrounds, Sarah Close. Welcome, Sarah. It’s great to have you back.

Sarah Close (01:41):
It is great to be back. Thanks for having me, Ren.

Ren Jones (01:43):
Great. Sarah is no stranger to this industry. She’s been doing this for a good while.

Sarah Close (01:50):
A really a long time.

Ren Jones (01:52):
She sells, I don’t know, 150, 180, maybe 200 homes this year. I don’t know. What is the goal for this year?

Sarah Close (01:58):
The goal for this year is 200 units.

Ren Jones (02:00):
200 units.

Sarah Close (02:02):
I’m off to a good start.

Ren Jones (02:03):
And she has about 550, 570 agents?

Sarah Close (02:08):
570, yeah.

Ren Jones (02:09):
And several offices in the Southern Ohio area that serve southern part of Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Indiana, that whole region.

Sarah Close (02:18):
You got it. We are the tri-state.

Ren Jones (02:20):
They’re knocking them out of the park. She’s no stranger. She is the first customer on Vulcan7, the very first customer on Vulcan7. Tried it and said, “Hey, this is great.”

Sarah Close (02:32):
Beta number one.

Ren Jones (02:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the only reason we thrived. We just kept saying, “Sarah.” And they’re like, “Oh, she’s doing it. Well, I’ll do it.”

Sarah Close (02:43):
Yeah. I’ll take my check now.

Ren Jones (02:45):
Right. Yeah, check’s in the mail. Check’s in mail. Good. We’ve got an exciting guest today, and actually he was on this show about a year and a half ago.

Sarah Close (02:53):
Sure was.

Ren Jones (02:53):
We want to see what we learned now because it’s infectious. One of our best shows, to be honest with you. So you guys are in for a real treat. From, and we’ll learn, Michigan, Florida, I think he has a team down in Florida. And last time I heard he was aiming towards adding into Chicago, and who knows what all. He may be on Mars or something at this point. We’ll find out. Welcome, Justin Ford.

Justin Ford (03:27):
Hey, guys. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. I’m excited to be back.

Sarah Close (03:32):
Great to see you.

Ren Jones (03:32):
Glad you’re here.

Justin Ford (03:34):
Yeah. That’s awesome. Sarah, very first Vulcan7 user. That is amazing.

Sarah Close (03:39):
Yep. I was in it. Baby carriage.

Justin Ford (03:41):
I love it. That’s awesome.

Ren Jones (03:43):
Yeah, I know. Her parents had put the headset on.

Sarah Close (03:48):
That’s right.

Ren Jones (03:48):
She’s like that little mobile, and that’s how she dialed swinging that little mobile.

Sarah Close (03:51):
That’s exactly right. I think it’s funny because when that was just getting started-

Ren Jones (03:56):
That’s the first mobile dialer, Mobile.

Sarah Close (03:58):
It is. And I remember Ren came into my office and I had my dog at work with me, and then I turned around and my golden retriever has a set of headphones on so he can dial.

Justin Ford (04:09):
That’s awesome.

Sarah Close (04:11):
It was all good.

Ren Jones (04:12):
Good deal. Was that Scotchie?

Sarah Close (04:21):
Uh-huh. The one and only. The one and only. So glad you are back, Justin. Thanks for joining us today.

Justin Ford (04:22):
Yeah, excited to be back. Thanks for having me.

Sarah Close (04:25):
Oh, it’s our pleasure.

Ren Jones (04:26):
Good deal. Now, last time we tuned, you were probably selling 120, 150 homes. You’d been doing this eight years, now you’re what, nine and a half? And you brought some powerful tools to us, a nice little spectrum of stuff that people can take away. So folks, what I want you to do is reach down, pull your seatbelt a little tighter because we’re in for a wild ride. Ready? Okay. Sarah, work with our contestant.

Sarah Close (04:55):
Contestant number one.

Ren Jones (04:57):
Great prizes.

Justin Ford (04:58):
Come on down.

Sarah Close (04:59):
That’s all good. So all kidding aside, tell us a little bit about what your plans are for 2023 and how you are reading the market, and what you’re doing to make sure this is your best year ever.

Justin Ford (05:12):
Yeah, absolutely. And so 2023. Interesting. So I’ve been in the industry now for 18 years. I always joke and say I got license when I was 12. But came into the industry in the mortgage business back in 2005. So I’ve seen the ups and downs of the market. I know a lot of agents who are new in the last 10 years have only known a great market. And so to see some shifting taking place, to obviously see a lot more expireds than what we’ve seen over the last three or four years, I think we’re honestly heading into a more balanced market. It’s nothing to be afraid of, but it’s going to take work. It’s like the last couple of years have been just like, I don’t want to call it easy, but almost easy, especially if you’re on the listing side.

Ren Jones (05:59):
Yeah, I don’t know that it was easier because if you were working with buyers, it was painful.

Justin Ford (06:04):
Yeah. It was painful on the buy side. But if you were on the listing side, I mean.

Ren Jones (06:06):
If you’re on the listing side.

Justin Ford (06:10):
It was a great couple of years as a listing agent. And so, I think it’s just getting back to more of a balanced market, and we’re excited about it, to be able to see in our market, 20, 30, 40 expired listings every day now versus last year, two years ago, three or four, just gives us more opportunity to get in front of sellers and more opportunity to take listings. And so we’re really ramping it up here in 2023. I’m bringing some new agents on and we’re growing and expanding. And I’m hitting the phones every single day. And so, definitely excited for where we are.

Ren Jones (06:48):
Yeah, and to be fair, and I know agents that have been only in this last five or six years aren’t looking at it that way. But I would rather, if I was brand new, start in this market than last year.

Justin Ford (06:59):
Absolutely.

Ren Jones (07:00):
Because there’s way more opportunity, way more. Your buyer deal’s going to go through. There are more opportunities to reach a seller and get the listing because you call for sale by owners, they’re like, “Oh, you should have called three hours ago. We just sold.”

Justin Ford (07:13):
Exactly.

Ren Jones (07:14):
It’s a little easier.

Justin Ford (07:15):
Yeah, it’s definitely a great time to get into the business. Because I always say, if you can learn how to succeed in a more balanced market like this, you can succeed in any market, and there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Ren Jones (07:28):
Right. Balance is a good thing. And I don’t call it balance when you go from a two-month supply of homes to three, when six is normal, honestly.

Justin Ford (07:37):
Yeah.

Sarah Close (07:39):
Ren, you make an excellent point. That is definitionally what we consider to be a balanced market, somewhere in the neighborhood of that six month range. With anything below six being considered a seller’s market. And above, of course, a buyer. And we’ve been redlining so much into that seller’s market. I think it’s interesting, a lot of talk about, oh, it’s a bad market. Well, it depends on what side of the table you’re on. And each deal has each side of the table.

Ren Jones (08:07):
Yeah, when you look at it, okay, so you go on the market now with a $450,000 house. There are seven offers, it sells for 525,000. People are worried about the interest rates. Now you go on with a $450,000 house, it sells for a 410, and the payments are the same, the payments are exactly the same.

Justin Ford (08:26):
Yep.

Sarah Close (08:28):
The deal still got done.

Ren Jones (08:30):
If you’re buying a house, why do you care? Your payment’s going to be the same for the same house.

Sarah Close (08:36):
Well, and the one thing also that we’ve talked about, and Justin, I’m sure you’re going through this with your team, is that idea that you might marry the house, but you get to date your interest rate. And there’s a lot of ways that you can modify that interest rate so that it is the favorable terms that you need for affordability.

Ren Jones (08:53):
I love that analogy.

Sarah Close (08:54):
Yeah, it’s really useful. Talk to us a little bit about your team. When they’re getting in the mornings, what kinds of activities do you have them going through? What activities are you going through personally? What would be your recommendation? I know you spent a lot of time, when you were on our show last, talking about mindset. And obviously that’s a very key foundational piece of your success.

Justin Ford (09:15):
Absolutely.

Sarah Close (09:16):
Talk to me about that right now.

Justin Ford (09:17):
Yeah, I think everything is about following a process. And when look at following that process is ultimately going to lead you to hitting your goal, then you just show up differently every day. I just spoke at a real estate conference a couple of weeks ago, and I was talking about how a lot of times you set a big, lofty goal for the year. And it’s like, oh my gosh, I want to sell a hundred homes this year. I want to make $300,000 this year. And a lot of times agents don’t really have a game plan or a blueprint on how they’re going to get there. And what I teach is, if you just show up every day and you talk to 20 or 30 people, and you commit to your daily prospecting, you’ll have more people than you can handle to talk to because it’s just a numbers game.

(10:01):
And so I always like to bring it back to your daily routine. If you own the morning, you win the day. And really having a strong morning routine is so important. And so for me, it’s getting into the office and on the phones by 08:00 AM. And I call expireds and for sale by owners until at least 10:00 or 11:00. And then I do my lead follow up, and that has been my morning routine since I got into the business. And so I teach the same thing to the agents that are on my team. I teach the same thing when I’m coaching agents. It’s getting disciplined and the consistency of showing up every day and just putting in the work. Because if you do that, the results will show up.

Sarah Close (10:39):
Absolutely. Talk to us about the anatomy of those. You’re saying 08:00 to 10:00, you’re kind of doing your initial contacts, your lead gen, then you’re doing your follow-up. Do you have a particular structure that you follow that you use? Like, okay, when you hit the phones at eight o’clock, what do you do first? And then walk us through that.

Justin Ford (10:57):
Yeah, so I go right into Vulcan7 and I load the off market folder and the for sale by owner folder at the same time. And then obviously, I start dialing. And so usually it’s going to be off market first, but sometimes I’ll reverse engineer it and I’ll take the oldest or the newest that came in first, so I flip it and then it’s the bottom of the list that I’m actually calling because everybody’s usually calling the top of the list. So I’ll call the bottom of the list sometimes. And I just gave one of my tips away. So definitely do that if you’re watching, but flip the list and then you get more people answering.

(11:37):
And for sale by owners are always going to answer when you’re calling because they think you’re calling with a buyer. With expireds, they know their home came off the market. They still answer, but for sale by owners want to talk to an agent that hopefully has a buyer. So if I can get to the for sale by owners first, a lot of times, that’s where my bread and butter is. I set expired appointments, but for sale by owners, that’s one of my favorite sources to call. And so I’ll call one or the other first, and I don’t do them separate. I know some people say, “Well, I’ll call off market then end my dial session, then I’ll go back and call for sale by owners.” I do them at the same time because I don’t want to lose that five to seven minutes or whatever it is to reset your dial session and get back into the flow.

(12:23):
And then once I’ve gone through my existing calls, so the brand new expireds, the brand new FSBOs, then I’ll go back and I’ll call for sale by owners that are a week plus older, and then I’ll work those. And by that time, you’re going to have a handful of them that obviously, they know their home’s not selling for sale by owners, so they’re more ready to talk to you. Then I’ll also call old expireds. And after that, I’ll go right into my lead follow-up, which I use the appointment setting option in Vulcan7 where I go in and I set all of my lead follow ups in.

Sarah Close (12:55):
Okay. Talk to us about how you use that setting to keep up with your follow-ups. Do you put them in the calendar or how do you do that exactly?

Justin Ford (13:03):
Yeah, I put them right in there. So obviously, you guys know, so if you click on the appointment button, it allows you to save that contact specifically, or that lead into the calendar. So I pick a time on the calendar that I’m going to follow up with them. I do my lead follow up at the same time every day. So any day that it’s time to do lead follow-up, I go into the appointment setting calendar, and then I just click on all of those people that I need to follow up with for that day and just run it through the dialer just like you would for sale by owner or expired list.

Sarah Close (13:34):
That’s a great idea. It’s very efficient. Will you mind sharing with us a little bit about the dialogue that you’re having success with when you’re calling for sale by owners? What does that conversation look like, usually, if you’re on the phone?

Justin Ford (13:46):
With the for sale by owners, it’s real simple. For sale by owner, the number one reason why they’re selling by owners because they don’t feel that they can accomplish their goal by working with a real estate agent. And so my goal is to let them know that if I get through my script and get to a point where I say, “Hey, if I could show you how to put the same amount of money in your pocket or more and help you sell it sooner than later, what would stop you from at least wanting to take a look at that?” And they usually say, “Nothing.” And what is the definition of an objection? The definition of an objection is it’s an unanswered question in the mind of a seller. And so they don’t think that they can accomplish what they’re looking to accomplish with an agent.

(14:30):
And so I take them through my script, asking them the questions, guiding them down the path of realization that, “Hey, I know you don’t think you can accomplish this, but if I can show you a way to accomplish this, would it be worth sitting down for about 20 or 30 minutes?” And they always say, “Yes.” If you can get them to that point, there’s no cost or obligation to meet with me? What does it hurt?

(14:51):
It’s so funny too, because many of them, after they say yes to that question, they’re like, “Well, no, wait, wait, wait. No, I don’t want to meet with you.” And I always say in my mind, I got them. And then I always have to take them back. “Well, the only reason I asked that question was because you said if I could get you the same amount of money or more, would you be open to meeting with me?” And they’re like, “Well, yeah.” Sometimes I got to double close them on it, but that’s it. For sale by owners, if you can overcome the objections and let them know that, you can accomplish your goal and potentially walk away with more, based on statistics, let’s meet. Let me show you what I can do for you.

Sarah Close (15:29):
That’s awesome. What I like about that is you’re very upfront. You’re not coming in with an, I’ve got a buyer or let me see if I have a buyer for your house. It’s very direct. And that lets you have integrity when you’re in that meeting.

Ren Jones (15:41):
And really works very well.

Justin Ford (15:42):
And I know there’s a lot of different strategies out there, and there’s a lot of people that teach a lot of things. And a lot of that stuff works. I’ve always been taught the old-fashioned way is, you know what, I’m coming to show you how to sell your house. Because the whole thing about, I can bring you a buyer or let me bring a buyer. I’ve gone into houses where someone says, “Yeah, this guy told me he had a buyer. He showed up, he didn’t have a buyer. And then he tried to convince me to list with him.” And it’s just, people feel icky. They feel like they were kind of duped or lied to.

Ren Jones (16:13):
And they were.

Justin Ford (16:16):
Yeah, I never want to be that guy. I want to come in, show you what we can do to get the job done, and that’s it.

Sarah Close (16:23):
Yeah. That’s awesome. Okay, so I’m a for sale by owner, you’ve set an appointment with me. After I get off the phone and I don’t really know what happened, but I know now I got some guy coming to my house. What is the next thing that happens? Do I get a pre-listing package from you? Do I get an email follow-up from you? Do you call and reconfirm? Talk to me a little bit about that time between appointment set and appointment held.

Justin Ford (16:42):
I’ve never sent a pre-listing package. I know a lot of people preach doing that. I know it works. I’ve just never done it, and I get great results. So I’ve just never done that. And so I usually call earlier in the day just to confirm the appointment, and then I go out on the appointment.

Sarah Close (16:58):
Yep. That’s super simple.

Justin Ford (17:00):
One of the things I will say that I do that has really helped me, especially as a high I, being an expressive, a lot of times punctuality is not our strong suit. But even if you’re not a high I, anything in the DISC, when you’re setting appointments and you’re going on a lot of appointments, I cover pretty much our whole metropolitan area, so I could be on one side of town and going to another side of town for an appointment. And so when I set appointments, I always say, “I’ve got today between 04:00 and 05:00 or between 05:00 and 06:00, which one works better for you?” “Well, between 05:00 and 06:00.” “Great. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you a call on my way to your house, and I could be there as early as 05:00 or as late as 06:00, depending upon my appointment previous to yours.” So it gives me like a one-hour cushion in case I’m running late because I never rush a listing appointment.

Ren Jones (17:50):
That works for a very expressive high I.

Justin Ford (17:56):
And even if you’re meeting with an analytical, which if you’re on time, you’re late, they respect that as well because you’ve set an expectation that it’s going to be between 05:00 and between 06:00. And as long as you’re there between 05:00 and 06:00, you’re on time.

Ren Jones (18:10):
That’s a brilliant thing because that’s where agents shoots themselves is, “I’ll see you at 05:30.” And then at 05:38 they pull up, and the people go, “Get out of here.”

Justin Ford (18:21):
Yeah. So to me, when I learned that, years and years ago, it’s really helped me because even if you get stuck in traffic-

Ren Jones (18:32):
You don’t have to grovel and text them.

Justin Ford (18:34):
You don’t have to worry about getting a ticket because you’re racing over because you’re going to be late. If you need to stop and use the restroom or grab a bite to eat or whatever it is, you’ve got that cushion if you need it, and it’s worked great.

Ren Jones (18:44):
Wish I’d had that idea when I was listing property.

Justin Ford (18:44):
That’s a great tip.

Ren Jones (18:50):
I’m going to use that.

Sarah Close (18:52):
So when you’re doing your calls, you mentioned 20 to 30 dials. Is that 20 to 30 contacts? Or what do you have as a target or a goal in mind for yourself and also for your team members?

Justin Ford (19:04):
Typically, the goal is, for me, 20 to 30 contacts per day. Not dials, 20 to 30 contacts or conversations basically, because I know my conversion ratio is, for every 10 people I talk to, I set a listing appointment. The other day I talked to 10 people and set three listing appointments. So I know my conversion ratio. But what we teach is if you’re a new agent or you’re just starting out prospecting, you need to make minimum 30 to 40 contacts a day because for every 25 people you talk to, you should set an appointment.

Ren Jones (19:38):
Right. The batting average is not going to be that high at the beginning, and so you need to buy a little insurance, and do 30 to 40 a day so that at the end of the week, you’ve put some couple of deals together.

Justin Ford (19:48):
It’s all about the contacts. I usually allocate a certain amount of time for my prospecting. So I’m going to prospect for three hours, whether it’s 15 contacts or 25, where I am right now in my career. Back in the day, I would prospect 4, 5, 6 hours a day and set 4, 5, 6, 10 listing appointments because I wanted to stack my whole week. And so I wanted to be on two to three listing appointments every single day. But I always teach, if you’re new and you really want to be effective in this, it’s got to be 30, 40, 50 contacts per day.

Sarah Close (20:26):
Sure, that makes a ton of sense. That makes a ton of sense. So in terms of an appointment goal, you’re looking at two a day. Does that equate to 10 for you per week or is that 8 per week? Do you have a target zone for that?

Justin Ford (20:39):
Yeah, if I can get out and be on one listing appointment every single day, that’s the bare minimum. I’m happy with that. Obviously, if I can line up more, then I’ll go out on more. And obviously, now I’m handing off deals to people on my team and stuff. But if I can set one to two listing appointments every day, and I can be on at least one a day, five a week, 20 a month, that’s solid.

Sarah Close (21:05):
That’s awesome. That’s very cool. Talk to us a little bit about mindset. So it’s a dynamic market. What are the conversations you’re having both with yourself and with your team members?

Justin Ford (21:18):
When it comes to mindset, I always say mindset is what either makes or breaks us. It’s either the thing that propels us to success or it’s the thing that keeps us from succeeding. And even in the coaching that I do, teaching people how to prospect through the prospecting bootcamp, we spend a lot of time on mindset. And even when I’m speaking, I tell people, “I can tell you what dialer to use. I can give you a free script book. Most agents know what to do, but it’s the mindset that’s holding them back.” And I really, really focus on my own mindset because I know that that’s going to be the thing that’s going to create the success for me.

(21:55):
But when I’m teaching agents, it’s, if you can master the mindset game and you can identify the obstacles that you’re going to have to overcome and the limiting beliefs that you have, and we can work on those consistently, then over time you are going to see the consistency and the success that you’re looking for. But you have to know that it all starts with mindset. It all starts with mindset.

Sarah Close (22:17):
Oh, that’s an excellent point. You touched on your prospecting bootcamp. What types of practices do you recommend for, let’s say I’m a newer agent or I’m looking to kind of fine tune my skills. What kind of regimen do you recommend for script practice, dialogue practice, conversation sharpening? What do you find is most effective?

Justin Ford (22:38):
Right out of the gate, in week two, we tell all the agents in our class, write out the expired script five times a day for the next seven days, role play one to two times per day. And then after we do that for a week, then it’s write out the for sale by owner script three times a day while you’re still writing out the expired script one to two times per day. Because the more you can internalize it, the faster you’re going to be able to show up and be more confident and sound better on the phone.

(23:06):
And that’s the beautiful thing about this skill, is you can expedite the learning curve. If you want to master the script, then you know what, write it out every single day, five times a day for the next 30 days. If you want to get better, line up two to three role plays every single day. You can expedite the learning curve to be able to internalize it so you don’t sound like a robot. So you’re not reading off of a script. And when you know what you’re saying, you just show up more confident. And so I always tell people, if you really want to learn this, then your skill work needs to be a top priority and it has to be every day.

Sarah Close (23:45):
Yeah. What do you think that time commitment is? If an agent’s going to really nail this, what expectation should they have for time on drilling, essentially?

Justin Ford (23:55):
I would say minimum one hour a day for skill work. But it doesn’t take long to write out the script. It may take five to seven minutes to write out the script. So if you need to do that five times, call it 30, 35 minutes that you’re writing out scripts. And then you’re doing two role plays, which are about 15 minutes each, and you should be doing that literally every single day.

Sarah Close (24:16):
Yeah. Well, what is it? memorize, internalize, and then you can improvise.

Justin Ford (24:21):
Have to, absolutely.

Sarah Close (24:23):
That makes a lot of sense. Talk to us about other supporting casts in your lead generation efforts for listing business. What other things are you doing as an agent or as a full team that you feel is helping you guys drive market share for your organization?

Justin Ford (24:38):
Yeah, I think systems and processes are super important. One of the things, I started my career with Jeff Glover here in Michigan, that he taught me was the importance of having leverage. Because when you have leverage and you can just show up and do what you do best, you can really just focus on that. And so I’ve really outsourced every aspect of my business to where I can literally just prospect and set appointments and go on appointments, and that’s it. So by having that other supporting staff in place, it allows you to be able to really dial in.

(25:13):
Obviously, somebody that’s just starting isn’t really going to be able to do that. But once you get to a certain number of deals which, again, if you call consistently and you really make the commitment to doing this, your deals are going to increase pretty quick. And so the first hire should be at least a transaction coordinator, some type of showing assistant. I don’t show homes. We work with buyers, but I don’t personally show homes. And so I literally just focus on the listing side of the business.

(25:42):
I think technology is huge, having a great CRM, having a way that you can add a great value proposition to sellers when you’re going in on listing appointments. If you’re just doing the three P’s, you’re probably not going to win against someone like myself. We call the three P’s, take pictures, put a sign in the yard and pray something happens. And I always tell people, I do those three P’s, but I’m going to do so much more. And so I think having a very strong listing presentation is going to help. And then taking advantage of all the different lead sources and opportunities that are out there to just give you more at bats.

Sarah Close (26:20):
That makes a lot of sense. So you touched a little bit on off markets, cancels and expired, and for sale by owners. What other legs are on, I would call, your lead source stool?

Justin Ford (26:34):
So there’s a lot of great referral sites out there. We definitely take advantage of a lot of those. I know a lot of agents kind of frown on, let’s say a HomeLight because they’re like, “Well, I don’t want to pay a 30% referral fee.” And I say, “Well, if I sent you my cousin because he wanted to buy on your side of town and I asked for a 30% referral fee, would you take it?” “Oh, absolutely.” “Well, then why wouldn’t you take one from HomeLight?”

Ren Jones (26:56):
Yeah. Good.

Justin Ford (26:56):
Yeah, so we take advantage of all of those. I’m with EXP, so we have a pretty large network of real estate agents all over the country. My team’s up to about 125 people, so we share referrals all over the country with each other. So we get a lot of referrals shared to us. I’ve partnered up with a pretty awesome lender who we’re doing some stuff with. And so, we’re just looking at not our business only as one source, but looking at how can we take advantage of every source of business out there to really grow what we’re doing.

Sarah Close (27:30):
Sure. That’s exciting. So it sounds like 2023 is off to a great start. What is the goal for this year?

Justin Ford (27:36):
2023, the goal for production is I just brought on a few new agents, and our goal as a team is to do 250 transactions. I’ve always kept a small team because I’m really focusing on our expansion team, doing a lot of coaching and speaking now. Just wrote a book, and so I have a lot of other things going on. But my personal goal is usually around a hundred. If I can get around a hundred, do 30 million personally, which has been my average for the last four years, that’s a great year for me.

Sarah Close (28:08):
That’s very cool.

Ren Jones (28:09):
And did you go into Chicago?

Justin Ford (28:13):
We’ve expanded into other markets through our expansion team, rather than going and getting licensed. Because I am licensed in Florida, and I am licensed here in Michigan, I decided not to pull the trigger to get licensed in Chicago because when we were together, I think it was in the summer of 2020, I still had my own brokerage. And when I moved over to EXP, I decided to go more of expansion where finding agents in other markets and then partnering with them, creating lead opportunities for them, and not having to get all the licensing in all those different areas.

Ren Jones (28:43):
Yeah, I get it. There’s nice advantage there, or a win-win in a way.

Justin Ford (28:48):
Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Close (28:50):
Very cool. Very cool. Tell us a little bit about your book. What authorship did you have on this?

Justin Ford (28:57):
Yeah, so I think I shared my story a little bit the last time I was on here. But I had a rough start back when I was late teenager, 19 years old. I got into quite a bit of trouble through drugs and alcohol. Acquired eight misdemeanors and a felony, sold drugs to an undercover cop, overdosed, almost died. I got beat up by the police and just was really like a menace to society. And at 19, I checked myself into a faith-based treatment center, became a Christian, and it changed my whole life. And so I wrote a book called Unleashed: Seven Key Principles to Breaking Free and Breaking Through, where I talk about my story, but then I talk about seven principles that I’ve applied to my life to go from where I was to where I am today.

(29:39):
Because I’ve always had people share, “Hey man, your story is so impactful. You need to write a book one day.” And so I finally decided to write the book and really use it as an inspiration piece to help people know that it’s not how you start, what matters is how you finish. And everybody goes through things in life. And I think oftentimes some people think because they’ve experienced such hardship or they’ve gone through such hard times, or they’ve made poor decisions that that defines them. And so they kind of stay stuck there. And I always tell people that everybody has a story. Everybody’s gone through some things. And rather than being ashamed of it, rather than allowing it to keep you back, use it to go out and tell somebody else where it could potentially inspire or help them. And so I wrote the book to really get it into the hands of people who really need to just discover their purpose and really find out that their life is more than what they’ve done and the mistakes that they’ve made.

Ren Jones (30:33):
And if they can change their thought patterns, they can change their life. And a lot of times, and for all of us, even when we’re doing fairly well, we’re running the same tape over and over.

Justin Ford (30:44):
Yep. Absolutely.

Sarah Close (30:47):
That’s well said. That’s really exciting. What a gift.

Ren Jones (30:50):
And what a contribution the book is.

Justin Ford (30:52):
Thank you. I appreciate that.

Ren Jones (30:54):
They can find it on Amazon?

Justin Ford (30:55):
Yep. Right on Amazon. It’s, again, called Unleashed. And also got a podcast that we started a year ago called the Justin Ford Unleashed Podcast, where it’s real estate based, and we just talk about a lot of different areas of real estate like faith and marriage and finances and health, and all the other areas of real estate that matter, that allow you to show up and dominate real estate even more when you have those other areas taken care of.

Ren Jones (31:19):
You going to supersede or follow after Dave Ramsey and kind of take that over at some point in time.

Justin Ford (31:27):
It might be in the plans. You never know.

Sarah Close (31:29):
He’s got to have a successor.

Ren Jones (31:31):
I’ll driving down the road. It’ll be like, “This is Justin Ford.”

Sarah Close (31:36):
That’s awesome. That’s really cool. Well, what an exciting way to approach your business. And what a shining, it’s coming from positivity and it’s coming from abundance, and that’s exciting. That’s really neat.

Ren Jones (31:52):
We’re very, very grateful for this. This is very helpful for a lot of people. It’s wonderful having you back. It’s nice to see that you’re almost double what you were last year, or a year and a half ago or whatever it was when we talked last. And you’ve got this thing down tight, so I think that’s wonderful. And where would they find that podcast? I guess wherever they get their podcasts, right?

Justin Ford (32:16):
Yep. Spotify, Apple, Google. And if you even just Google Justin Ford Unleashed Podcast, it pops up. It’s on pretty much every platform.

Sarah Close (32:31):
That’s exciting.

Ren Jones (32:31):
Good, good, good. Well, hopefully that’s a call that’ll get a lot of people checking that out and checking it out and following it, and maybe taking an extra couple of listings this month as a result of that.

Justin Ford (32:39):
Yep. And you can find it on YouTube.

Ren Jones (32:41):
Every month. Every month.

Justin Ford (32:42):
Yeah. It’s on YouTube as well, I forgot to say. So you can find the video version of it on YouTube.

Sarah Close (32:47):
Very cool.

Ren Jones (32:48):
Good. Perfect.

Sarah Close (32:49):
Oh, that’s exciting. Well, we’re really excited for what you’ve got in front of you. You’re going to have an awesome year. And more importantly, continue an amazing career that’s giving back to others.

Justin Ford (32:58):
Thank you.

Ren Jones (32:59):
Yeah. When you’re coming in contribution for everybody, you just automatically win as well. So it’s fun to lift up everybody else and then find yourself with a wealth of opportunity as a result of that. So it’s a beautiful thing.

Justin Ford (33:14):
Yes, sir.

Ren Jones (33:15):
Good. Thank you for being here. Thank you co-host, Sarah Close.

Sarah Close (33:20):
Thank you. I appreciate the chance to get to spend some time with you both. So thank you.

Ren Jones (33:25):
This is going to be a great year. And I think we’re already on a roll. So thanks everybody for being here. We’ll see you next week.

Sarah Close (33:32):
All right. Take care, everybody.