What To Do When Your Sphere Isn’t Converting — Jake Garay, NY

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 I cannot believe that a simple act of seeing an article that talked about the top agents on social media right now led me to talking to you today, Jake. Because when I pulled your numbers and your team's numbers after I read that article before I contacted you, it said that you, before the age of 30, your team had closed over $300 million in sales. It's almost a joke all the time. It's like a pinky, it's a pinky out number. You have to like say it with an evil laugh, but you've closed a huge amount of business with your team. Obviously you didn't do it alone, but it's a big deal. But it's a huge number, especially before the age of 30. So I wanted to say first, welcome to the show. But now I want to know how you did it. Like, how did you get started? Get started. What's your origin story? I mean, we want to know everything.



 Awesome, Matt. No, I'm very happy to be here. Very excited.



 So my real estate journey started really before I was an agent.



 My family's background has always been in real estate. I grew up, my father owned a construction company growing up. And so I really kind of started my real estate education at a very young age. I remember on like the day before Thanksgiving when we'd have all from school going with him and working on construction sites, or every time it snowed, we'd go and he owns a bunch of investment properties. We'd go and we'd do like snow removal and help him with management when we were off in school and stuff like that. So I always say like, that's kind of where my interest in real estate began. I started as an agent. I got licensed in 2015, so I'm on year nine now. But my real estate career, so to speak, it took me about two to two and a half years before I really decided to go full time. I got in originally just to source deals on the investment side. I think a lot of people who have that interest in real estate investment, they think, oh, if I'm going to be an investor, why don't I go out and get my license? And what I found out pretty quickly was if I was going to have that license and I was going to actually be active in the business, I might as well really be educated, go full time and see where it goes. It was kind of like a dipping of the toes in the water, so to speak, in the beginning.



 And then over time, as I kind of got more and more serious about it, I really started to see results. And that's what made me decide like, okay, I think there's something here. Let me really dedicate myself to this. And really, like I said, it was in the beginning just kind of trying to look for whether it be off market deals, whether it be building relationships, all of that type of stuff in the beginning. And I think that's kind of the reality of it. I think it's kind of like when I got my license. So it wasn't like I said, oh, you know, I was 20 years old and I wasn't like, oh, let me go out and become a real estate agent, right? Because I don't think anybody who really grows up is thinking that's the career that they're going to end in or end up in. But that's kind of how I got here. Yeah. Well, so just a huge commonality. And I think this is something that I'm seeing in agents that are successful in



 the business. I think there's a lot of people really specialize or started by specializing in investments. And the two interesting things I think about that are number one, when you specialize in investments, you're really at the heart of what real estate is all about, which is building wealth through owning property. And there's about a million ways to do it, but that's usually how the curiosity gets stoked. But then number two, in this specific market that we're in right now, the best way to make money is by finding opportunities and pitching those opportunities to clients or connecting those opportunities to clients versus what most agents, unfortunately, seem to be trying to do is to sell them, sell clients on themselves or to sell clients on the idea of buying a house. And I think that when you're in a high interest rate environment, when you're in a competitive environment, those things are just harder to do. And you're really trying to make three sales. When you focus on investments, it's an opportunity. It's money. It's black and white. The numbers either work or they don't. And it becomes a whole different conversation. So it's cool that you started that way because I'm sure you've kind of kept that kind of kept that vibe and that vision the entire the entire time. Yeah, for me, I always say I'm kind of like the anti real estate agent because honest to God, I got into the business largely because my father was like, I hate most real estate agents and I have a hard time building relationships with them. They don't speak the investment language, the new construction language, and they don't have the background in it. And I'm tired of people kind of trying to bring me overpriced deals. And then when I try and sell something, they want to sell it for 80 cents on the dollar just to make a quick buck and get the sale done. So I always say I'm kind of like the anti agent. I also think from the investment side of things, there's so many parallels to people who are doing a high volume of investment transactions to being an agent. I know a lot of my friends who are in the investment side, they just invest, whether they're wholesalers, flippers, buy and hold investors, but a lot of what they're doing to source deals and then going through the transaction process, they're moving real estate just like an agent does. They're solving a specific problem for a homeowner just as much as anybody else as an agent is. And so a lot of the tactics that I deployed in my business early on, I learned from my background in investing beforehand, whether it was direct mail marketing, whether it was lead generation, all those different things, even just how to source and track my business from a numbers perspective. And some of the systems I still use in my business today were from whether it be courses I took as an investor or from other investors that I know who use that on the investment side. So in a lot of ways, there's, it's not that big of a difference between being an investor and being an agent. It's really just the vehicle and the mechanism for how that transaction is done. That really is what draws the difference. And then obviously if you're a buy and hold investor, the wealth building part where you're actually accumulating the assets is a lot different because I always tell every single flipping client and wholesaling client that I have, you know, you're in the same business as me. If you go out and you don't do your transactions this month or next month or next year, the income stops, right? If I stop selling, the income goes away. As an investor, if you're buying and holding and accumulating, you know, that's where the residual income comes in. So a lot of the systems and mechanisms are the same from the investment and the agency side of things. Well, and I think it's such a great way to, I guess, start branding yourself and start getting people to think, why should I use a 20-year-old kid when there's realtors everywhere, right? Like you were able to show how you were making money in real estate and that's attractive to people, right? And I think especially you, you know, it's hard to say that you were like an early adopter on social media because it's been around since like way before you were an agent. However, you know, you're doing more on it and you're doing it extremely well from a brand perspective. So walk me through what you do on social and kind of like what that has helped you to build and kind of your unique take on it. Yeah. So obviously the journey on social media from when I got serious about it, which was really, we were doing things on social media, even on the investment side, before I even got into business as an agent. So I've always been a big proponent that social media is where all the attention is and therefore as a business owner, any business owner, regardless of what business you're in, you need to have a presence there. That's how you can speak directly to your consumer. And I'm very, very big on brand. So like I always tell everybody, you have a personal brand, right? Whether you're a business person or not, your brand is just what people think of you when you're not around, right? Like if you say Coca-Cola, you have a thought of what that means. If you say Mercedes Benz, you have a thought of what that means. Well, people have a thought of what you are as a person and who you are as a person, whether you're in business or you're not, right? So like you have to first off think that you have a brand regardless of if you want one or not. Secondly, you have to take control of that brand, right? If you're going to have it anyway, you might as well have that. So what do you think people thought of you when you first got into real estate and were posting on social media?



 So probably like what the hell is he talking about? Why is he talking? Because I think in sales, what deters a lot of people is you think that when you go and you start in your business, everybody's going to come and support you. But they have preconceived ideas of who you are as a person. And if they don't think that you're someone who's trustworthy or if you're someone who is reliable, they're not going to do business with you. So you have to do business and find other people to do business with. And for me, they probably were like, what the hell is he doing? Like why is this 20 year old kid in an industry dominated by people in their 50s and 60s? None of us were interested at 20, 21, 22 years old in real estate. Everybody was in college and everything else. So I think for me, it was tough. I mean, on the flip side of things, I was very fortunate because I was always an athlete growing up. I was always the captain of my sports team and things like that. And I was always in a position where I think I had some level of respect. So people would listen to me to some extent. Now, maybe not 40, 50, 60 year old people were buying houses, but some of the younger people, which is why in the beginning I did focus on the younger demographic, right? My primary client base in the beginning was first time home buyers and specifically people who were potentially going to be renting or potentially buying condos. And I helped them to buy multifamilies. Using my investment background, I kind of changed their mindset and went into buying two family homes where they could live in one unit and rent out the other and live for free. And that was like the niche that I developed in the beginning based on who I was as a person and what my background was. And that was intentional for my friends and family and everything else that I was speaking within a sphere of knowledge that I was comfortable within and not pretending to know something that I didn't know. Let's put it that way.



 Real estate has a lot of contracts. I want our podcast to have a social contract as well. Here's what I need from you. Your listings at the show and you get something valuable out of it or you hear something that you think that's awesome. I want you to send me a DM on Instagram or if you find my email, send it that way. The more feedback that I get helps me to put together better shows and attract better guests. I think it's interesting, right? Like you stoked people's curiosity. So it's like a new younger agent posting on social media. People are like, "Why is this guy here? What's he talking about?" Even if they knew you already, like, why would I listen to him? But then they start, they click in it because they're curious and maybe they click on it because they're haters and that's okay, right? And they see, "Oh, Jake bought a multi-unit. Jake is living in one unit and renting the other ones out. That's a great idea." "Well, if Jake can do it, I can do it. Oh, well, now I'm hooked and I want to reach out to Jake to find out if he can help me do that."



 It's almost like a very specific opportunity that you're creating for them because so few people at that age are doing that, that now they're like, "I work with Jake. I can do it." And you're kind of creating that American dream for them. And what ends up happening is the people who do it have a specific type of mindset, right? So if you're 22, 24 years old and you're buying a two family, you're probably interested in finance, you're interested in business, you're interested in investing, who do you hang out with, people who also have those interests? So all of their friends started buying multi-families as well. And then I became the go-to guy for everybody between the age of 20 and 35 who wanted to become a "house hacker," right? Where they live in one unit and rent out the other. And that was really how I built my business in the beginning. And that led to building relationships with bigger clientele to where all of a sudden I'm selling four and six and eight and ten and twelve unit buildings. And all of a sudden these 200 and $250,000 two family sales are becoming $1.1 and $1.4 million multi-family commercial building sales. So that was kind of a gateway to a bigger type of transaction. And also just spending a lot of time getting face to face and educating people. Like I would just go around to real estate investment groups and meet with people and say, "Hey, let's go grab a cup of coffee. Let's see if our goal is aligned. Let's talk about what you're trying to do, what I'm trying to do." And just kind of learn about what people were trying to do. I mean, I had so many clients who came to me and were like, "Hey, Jake, I want to buy a house. I'm trying to save up some money. I think that I could probably buy in the next 18 months." I had one client who was 20 years old when I met him. He said, "I want to buy in the next 18 to 24 months." He bought three houses in the next 12 because he realized that he could buy one, roll that into the next one, roll that into the next one. And at the age of 23 years old, he owned four houses. So it's one of those things that once people understood the process, and obviously me, as their – I always say I'm not a salesperson. I'm an advisor. As their advisor, I help them through that process and they're going to tell everybody about that. So that was just how to generate referrals and everything else. I love that. I have an agent in my market and his thing is very similar to that. His whole printout or digital flyer that he gives people is, "This is what your wealth will look like 10 years from now if you buy today." And then again in two years, again in two years. And this is what your wealth will look like if you rent for the next five and then start your homeownership journey back. And it's extremely powerful whether he's meeting with someone who's 20 or whether he's meeting with someone that's 60, a six-year-old first-time home buyer. Because if home prices go up on average 5% a year, this is what it looks like. If it's 10% a year, this is what it looks like. If your initial down payment on that first property is between 3 and 20, this is what the math looks like. And it's just such a fascinating place to be. So I think we missed something that I want everyone to understand first. And we missed the areas that you serve because we're talking a lot about converting renters into buyers. And in some markets, it's easier, harder, et cetera. So what is your market and then what feeds your market? I guess I want to give people an example of the price points where you sell and then the rent points where your clients are coming from or are accustomed to. So it's obviously, I'll say this, my market is we're in the Hudson Valley, New York State. So we are essentially once you leave New York City north, we're everything north of the city. Our coverage area specifically is about 75 miles north of the city and south. So once you get outside of New York City, we cover basically that entire region. So it is a large region. We've done transactions in the city, in the boroughs as well. But most of our focal point is I'd say in the 50 to 75 mile range north of New York City, north of Manhattan. That is our largest driver.



 All five boroughs, we could break down what boroughs drive, what type of buyers. We can break it down to we have a large weekend home market now, but we also have a large and our biggest driver of our market is people leaving New York City and moving into the Hudson Valley full time. So depending on which county you're in determines the price point. Like right now I'm in Dutchess County. That's where I grew up. That's where I'm from originally. And when I got into the business, the median price point was 240,000 in 2015. Now it's 450. So it's grown significantly over the last nine years. Now we have markets outside of New York City that the median price point is in Westchester County, 1.1 million. So it's a much more expensive market, again, driven by New York City. But because of the cost of living and because of the cost of renting, the renters, it's still much more affordable to buy. So for example, in New York City, an apartment that's a one or two bedroom could cost you anywhere from four to six thousand a month in lower Westchester. It's the same. It's not very cheap. It's not much cheaper. In Dutchess County, you could rent a two bedroom and it's anywhere from two thousand to three thousand a month. We have luxury apartments that are thirty five hundred a month and you're still seventy five miles north of Manhattan. Whereas you can go out and buy a mortgage or buy a house and obviously interest rates have driven up the cost of that significantly. But it's still cheaper to buy than it is to rent. And then specifically, especially for first time home buyers, if they're buying multifamilies, we can still get it to the point where you're only paying under a thousand dollars a month to have what's comparable to an apartment that you would rent for, say, twenty five hundred to three thousand a month. So it is much more affordable for people to buy than it is to rent. And that's been kind of our messaging over the last 10 years call. And that's what's driving a lot of our sales. We have a very low inventory. I know everything around the country is varying right now. It's just on the phone with someone who has eight months of inventory in Florida. And in our market, we only have two months. And that's kind of across the board. No matter if you're just outside the city or 90 miles north of the city, really, New York as a whole has an extremely low inventory problem. And that's because New York City, a lot of the people in New York City are leaving the city. It's not as bad as what you see on the news. Everybody says New York City is dead. It's definitely not dead. It's crazier and busier than it's ever been in New York City itself. And that's driven by people coming from other states and internationally to New York City, a lot of foreign nationals moving to the city. And then the people have been in the city for five, 10 years saying, you know what, it's time to leave. I mean, this is a trend that we've seen for the last 10 years. In 2015 and 2016, 60% of our buyers above 400,000 were coming from New York City. So it's not a COVID driven trend. It's not a politics driven trend. It's a trend that's been happening really historically forever. It's just been amplified by remote work. It's amplified by people's ability to commute two days a week instead of five. So all of a sudden that hour and 25 minute commute isn't that bad, two or three days a week. And so that's kind of been the largest driver of our market. And we have no inventory across the board. You go out to Long Island, you go into the Hudson Valley, even in New York City. New York City is in more of a balanced market, but still not a ton of inventory to choose from. I mean, we'll have buyers who are looking for six to 12 months and can't find something. Yeah. And I mean, we're very similar to that where I am in Michigan. I mean, we're at about a month of inventory on the west side of the state right now. And it's been that way for almost two and a half years now. We got down to half a month of inventory. But what I find really interesting about what you're saying and what I want people to take away from that is that you guys have a tremendously large understanding of where your buyers are coming from and what's forcing those migration patterns. And from a marketing perspective and from a branding perspective, no matter where you're operating in the country, you need to understand that. So you can, number one, place your marketing materials in the right place. Number two, so you can craft the right message. If you know that the remote situation for work is changing, if you know what companies are laying off, what companies are doing huge hiring experience, you can really start to figure out where you need to place more marketing to get in front of the right people. You guys obviously know your numbers and that's been extremely helpful for you in placing people into the right places, pitching the right type of investment ideas, making those kind of rent to buy comparisons with very specific amounts. And I love hearing that. So what I want to see, you talked a little bit about when you first got into business, your sphere wasn't using you. And maybe that was because of your age. Maybe it was because of something else, but you fixed the problem. So when your sphere, this is a problem I think all agents have. They get into the business. I asked them in my first meeting with them when they're brand new, "Hey, why did you get into real estate?" They're like, "Oh, I wanted flexibility and independence." That's a terrible answer, by the way.



 And then after they tell me that, and I'm like, "Awesome, cool." I say, "Where did you think your business was going to come from or where do you think it's going to come from?" And they always say, "My sphere." And they say, "Well, your sphere probably already knows the 3,000 other agents, but also your sphere might not want to work with you simply because you're new." Or they're going to tell you, "Tell you what, I'm not going to be your first sale.



 Go figure it out somewhere else. And if you're still in business in a year, call me then." So it doesn't always work. It's not always that easy. What did you do to solve that problem?



 So it's funny that you say that because I was just going to say, too, anybody who's in the business, if you've been in the business, let's say, less than five years, you will eventually get business from your sphere if you're in the business long enough. Most people leave the business before they actually get to see the fruits of their labor, so to speak, with their sphere because it does take four, five, six years sometimes for people to actually say, "Oh, you're still in the business? Let's call Jake. Let's call Matt. Let's go do some business with them." For me, it was very intentional. I was trying to be as tactical as possible about getting in person and getting in front of people that I didn't know, but were maybe at arm's length from the transaction. So I would go and join networking groups with other business owners in the area, people who I knew that were giving out referrals or interacting with people who could potentially be buying a home or selling a home. Sorry. I have to pause you right there because what you just said was huge, and we need to expound on that. So you said you figured out what types of people in your community were poised and already prone to giving out referrals, and you surrounded yourself with those types of people. I really want to make sure people understand that because there are so many people out there who are not referral minded, who are not in an industry that they need referrals or that they think about actively referring people. But if you can surround yourself with people who are already good at making referrals to other service professionals and then get them to like you or then figure out a way to offer value to them, you're at least connecting to the right type of people who would refer you. I love that. So I interrupted you, but I needed to shine your light on your brilliance for a second. Okay. Keep going. Some of those, just to give some examples, right? I went out and I'd go and meet with contractors and construction workers. These are people who are going in the door of homes that are being renovated that people may say, "Oh, why are you renovating the house?" "Well, we're planning to sell it in six months."



 Hello, right? I mean, insurance agents. Obviously, there's obvious ones with mortgage people, but attorneys. I have some of my best attorneys are people that I developed relationships with, and yes, I referred them business in the beginning, but guess what? Now they're personally my clients, and they're people that I'll get four to six referrals a year from. So it was just going out and networking and not just networking.



 People hear this and they go to networking events, and they just grab a bunch of business cards, and they just go around, "Hey, I'm Jake. Hey, I'm Jake." And they just do that. That's a business card? Right, exactly. And I was always like, "Hey, Matt, it's great to meet you. This is what I do. Let me grab your number. I'd love to get a cup of coffee with you in a couple days. Hear about what you're doing." I always made it like, "I'd love to hear about how I could help you out. I'd love to hear about how I could send my clients your way. I'd love to hear about how I could refer you business." Right? Because naturally, if you go and sit down with someone for a half hour, 45 minutes, and you're saying, "Matt, let me hear about your business. What do you do? How can I send you referrals?" At the end of that conversation, they're going to say, "Well, how can I reciprocate? How can I do business with you?" It's a surprise to me. Yeah. Exactly. And so it was a lot of getting to build personal relationships and then following up. So many people go out and meet with people, and they never follow up. They never even send that thank you email. "Hey, it was great meeting you. Hey, thank you for taking me out for a cup of coffee or for meeting for lunch." Just following up and saying, "Hey, how can I help you today?" Just going out and doing that over and over and over and over again. So many people want the lead gen funnel. They want to like, "Oh, I want to run a Facebook ad, and I want to bring in 100 leads, and I'm going to run them through a CRM, and they're going to have automated follow-up, and I'm going to use artificial intelligence. They're going to do this, and then I'm going to have five sellers."



 It's just not how the business works. It's a relationship-based business, and the only way to really grow is to build relationships. And if you build a bunch of them, yeah, you might not get 10 referrals a year from one person, but if you have 10 people referring you once, that's all you need.



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 [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Let's talk about this year. You and your partner have built the team up. You're doing well over $75 to $100 million a year in sales. Who are you looking forward to being intentional with? What types of people, businesses, community stuff in 2024? We've got nine months left. I'm sure you want to hit some record levels. What are you guys intentional about looking to this year? For me, from a sales standpoint, for relationships, I'm trying to develop within the business for the sales team. It's a lot of investors, developers, people who are maybe in an era right now with commercial real estate and with investment real estate where it's really hard to find good deals. I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to help these people. I literally just had a show with a client. After they end the show, the numbers just don't make sense. The cap rates are too low. The interest rates are too high. I'm just basically like, "Hey, let's figure out a plan to go through your current portfolio and figure out ways to develop additional income within the properties that you already have." We're setting up a meeting to look at building an accessory dwelling unit on one of his properties to generate additional income with one of the builders that I work with. It's like looking at other ways to add value. I'm not going to get a sale out of that. I don't make any financial-- No, there's no permission for you in that. No. It's the long-term play of you get to sit down with your clients and be their financial expert despite the fact that you're a real estate agent and not a financial advisor. It's super funny that you say this because we're a mortgage company. We email all of our clients once a year and ask them if they want to do an annual financial review. We talk about investment properties. We talk about their portfolios. We talk about everything. Sometimes we're just like, "Dude, you need to put more into your 401(k). You'll save on taxes." Or, "Dude, you need to get referred to as so-and-so." Or, "You need to sell this property. It's killing you." But you never know what's going to happen, and you're always adding value. It's such a huge piece, and I love the fact that you guys are doing that. I go through all my clients, and I do what's called an annual real estate review with them. That's shocking, Mr. Moore. I say to them, I say, "Look, your financial advisor, at least once a year, will sit down with you, go through your assets, go through your income and look at where you can improve and what you can do to grow your financial wealth." This is, in a lot of cases for a lot of people, the largest financial instrument, the largest financial asset, why would you not, as their ... I always say, "I'm not a salesperson. I'm an advisor." Why, as their real estate advisor, would you not sit down with them and evaluate their real estate portfolio the exact same way? That's exactly what we do. We sit down with them. We explain what's going on with the market. We show them where the reports are in terms of values and where the market's heading. We look at comparable sales. We don't make representations on value. It's not to say, "Hey, your house is worth $500,000. Your house is worth a million bucks." It may lead to that conversation, and it often does lead to a comparative market analysis, but it's really just overviewing the portfolio and staying top of mind. Guess what? If I sell someone a house in 2020 and I do that for 10 years straight when they go to move in 2030, if there's no shot in hell, they're going to list that house with somebody else. It's repeat business again. To your point before with where we tactically development of relationships and things like that, one of the largest reasons that I started my podcast was to get tactical about building those relationships. Because instead of me reaching out to a builder and saying, "Hey, I'd love to earn your business," it's much easier to reach out to them and say, "Hey, I'd love to highlight your business and interview you for an hour about what you're doing in some of your upcoming local projects," something like that. Now I sit down with them for 30 to 45 minutes to an hour, and guess what? At the end of that conversation, we've now built a relationship that's going to continue into the future. It's not like, "Hey, I want to sell you," it's, "Hey, I want to build a relationship and figure out how I can highlight you and highlight your business."



 I think every salesperson out there, regardless of what you sell, you need a mechanism that lets you reach out to a random other successful person without being salesy. If I want to reach out to you, I mean, of course I want to reach out to 100 million dollar realtors. My reach out to you is, "Hey, let's do a podcast. You'd be a great guest." But it's the same thing like you're doing for builders. It's the same thing if you have a lot of agents do a business of the month on social media. That is the easiest, smallest way to start doing that. But that way you can go through your ... You can start with going through your past clients and your database to say, "Who owns a business or manages a business that I can reach out to?" Start close to home. Number two, where are the places you patronize, the local coffee shop you go to every day? Then number three, once you get it going, look for VIPs that have the ability to be in those referral-minded spaces and feature them. Arnest that conversation and then do it often. And oftentimes they'll feature you too. So Jake, I mean, I think anyone listening should have at least 30 ideas of ways that they can grow their business. And I'm hoping a couple of light bulb moments. But if they want to check out your podcast or if they have buyers who are moving to the New York State area, how would they get a hold of you? So easiest way is probably through Instagram. It's just my name, Jake Garret. I also have a YouTube channel. That's where you can see the full-length podcast. There's podcasts everywhere. You can listen to podcasts, Apple, Spotify, everything like that. And yeah, I mean, I would say probably just shoot me a DM on Instagram. All my contact information is there as well. You can give me a call, send me an email. I love talking to people. It's my favorite part of the business. I love talking about the business. I could do this for the next 12 hours if you couldn't tell.



 So yeah, that's probably the easiest way.



 So would it be okay to assume that if a realtor refers you a really nice, juicy million dollar deal, you will take them golfing somewhere good. I know you're an avid golfer. Oh yes. Anyone who wants to golf, that's more important. Just call me about golf and we'll talk about that. Very, very important to have priorities. So I resonate with that. I'll hit you up for a pickable tournament in a couple of months. I also love that. You're working on that, right? You got to get good at country club sports in general. If you want to be a networker. That's a whole other conversation. I joined a country club just to generate leads and referrals. It's paid for my membership every single year with, uh, you know, relationships that I've built in sales that I've developed through that. Well, I almost have to make it. I got to go there. So country clubs were a big thing. You know, I talked about with realtors, you know, 15, 15 plus years ago when I first got in, you joined one now it's paying for your membership. Walk me through just one minute of like what people should know about like the social clubs, clubs, join the club, right? It may hurt in the beginning, but be active. You can't join it and then never show face. I joined and I got involved in all of like the golf leagues and everything else went to all the events and guess what happens? You build relationships, never talked about business, never asked for business once. Naturally, when people find out eventually what you do, they'll ask and then you continue the conversation. And really what it boils down to is we're in a business. Thankfully that we have high ticketed sales. So if you make a couple of sales, it typically I'm not, I'm not joining, you know, $100,000 a year country club, but if you join a country club that's reasonably priced or a social club that's reasonably priced, you know, couple of sales a year will pay for that membership and it's relationship capital. And then it's also great. I mean, we do client appreciation events at those that country club. So it's another great place to bring the clients and bring out clients. There's a whole world of possibilities just in that alone. I know people whose entire business strategy is just joining social clubs and going there and building relationships. So it's again, just getting in front of people and building those relationships.



 And I feel like we could summarize this entire episode by saying, Jake, you have a lot of irons in the fire and we've come to talk about 10 different ways that you guys get business and that excites me. And so that's what I want everyone to take. Take one of Jake's ideas, add it to your strategy list, have one more iron in the fire, pick up one or two more buyers, generates more listings, the more listings we all generate, the more homes we can all sell. And that is a wrap for today's episode. Go leave us a review on the podcast store. I can't pay you for it because I'm too cheap, but please, please do it. It'll help us get more great guests like Jake. Jake, thank you for your time today. Thanks Matt. I really appreciate it.