Best of The Walkthrough: Our Must-Listen Highlights from 2020

Our first year is in the books, and what a year it was! A national pandemic shut real estate down, at least temporarily, and some states declared real estate agents “non-essential.” Despite that, real estate defied all expectations during our national economic recession. Low inventory collided with low interest rates and made bidding wars a regular thing.

Helping us sort it all out this year were guests including Tom Ferry, Karin Carr, Sarita Dua, and Brian Boero, just to name a few.

In this episode of The Walkthrough, host Matt McGee shares some of his favorite interview clips from this year’s shows, and explains how they fit into the show’s mission to “explore how great agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable.”

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered automatically: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered automatically: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube

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Links and Show Notes

• Join our Facebook community for The Walkthrough listeners
• HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center
• Subscribe and listen to The Walkthrough: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | YouTube

Full Transcript

(SPEAKER: Matt McGee, Host) We’ve almost made it to the end of 2020, and what … a … year.

It all started innocently enough. I actually traveled across the country in January when HomeLight had a big presence at Inman Connect in New York City. February seemed pretty normal too. And then…

[sound effect: glass breaking]

…everything fell apart in March. The coronavirus hit. Real estate was shut down in many parts of the country, at least temporarily. In some states, you were declared non-essential.

But while much of the economy was crashing around you, real estate stayed strong. The housing market defied expectations. It was arguably the brightest light in the national economy.

Still, there were plenty of challenges. Inventory was lower than ever. Bidding wars more common than ever. Open houses, door knocking, pop buys, and client events? Forget it. 2020 didn’t care whether you got your license three months or three decades ago.

Bonnie: I’ve been an agent for just over 29 years in Portland, Oregon. And, you know, so I think I know something, right? You think you know something. But the truth is every day you have to be open to learning, what new thing do I need to know?

Matt: That’s Bonnie Roseman talking to me back in April from episode 11 of “The Walkthrough.” As I think back about how this year played out, I hope this podcast helped answer that question for you every week. What new thing do I need to know?

On every show, you hear me say this, I say that we’re on a journey to learn how the best agents grow your business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable today. On our last episode of 2020, I wanna share some background on that. Why do I say that on every show? And more importantly, how did it show up in the 40 episodes that we published over the past 9 months?

It’s our best of 2020 year-in-review episode. This is “The Walkthrough.”

(INTRO MUSIC)

Hi, everyone I’m Matt McGee, editor of HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center. Welcome to “The Walkthrough” and welcome to our last episode of 2020. This one’s gonna be a little different than normal. I wanna peel back the curtain for the next couple of minutes and talk about why HomeLight spent the past nine months doing a weekly podcast. And then for the rest of the show, I’ll illustrate that why with some of my favorite highlights from the 40 episodes we put out this year.

This is the point in the show when I explain why you should listen and subscribe to “The Walkthrough.” I say that you’ll learn what’s working right now from the best real estate agents and industry experts in the country. And then I say, we’re on a journey to find out how great agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable. Have you ever wondered why I say that? Grow your business. That’s easy enough, right? Everyone wants that. But in HomeLight’s case, there’s a little more to it than that. And then what’s with standing out from the crowd and becoming irreplaceable?

Let me explain.

As a business owner, you may have a motto or a mission statement. Something that describes who your target client is, what their needs are and how you can solve them. We did the same thing with “The Walkthrough.”

When a buyer or seller comes to HomeLight to find an agent, we wanna connect them with the best agents in the country. That’s why it’s important to us to help you grow your business and be the best agent you can be.

Our target audience for this show is successful real estate agents like you. You have happy clients, you have a successful business, but maybe you’ve hit a plateau and you wanna level up. Instead of 30 transactions a year, you wanna do 60 or instead of 100, you wanna do 200. You have an itch to keep improving. That’s why I say that we want to help you grow your business.

When you look around the industry, it all looks the same. Everyone’s saying and doing the same things. All the Facebook posts, all the listing videos, it all looks the same. And you realize that. Maybe you don’t look or sound much different from them. That’s why I say that we wanna help you stand out from the crowd.

Meanwhile, you see the industry changing all around you. Lead generation is changing. Lead conversion is changing. Your clients love you, but let’s face it, they can go online and look at homes or find out what their home is worth without any help from you. What’s worse, some people and companies are saying that agents like you aren’t even necessary anymore. They think technology can replace great agents. We don’t think that. That’s why I say we wanna help you become irreplaceable.

All of that is why we created “The Walkthrough.” It’s why I say in every episode that HomeLight believes in real estate agents. It’s why I say that this show is a journey.

Our goal this year was to explore what makes you successful, what makes you different, and what makes you irreplaceable to your clients. And not just to explore, but to start a movement of agents like you who believe the same things we believe.

And that’ll be our goal next year, too. I mean, I might change the wording a little bit, I don’t know, maybe I won’t. That’s one of the things we’ll be thinking about while we’re on our holiday break.

Today, I’m going to ask you to join me one last time in 2020 to use that lens, grow your business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable as we look back at our best of “The Walkthrough” for 2020. So, play the music, Chris, and let’s get started.

(MUSIC TRANSITION)

Matt: One of my favorite shows of the year was when we had Brian Boero on show number 13, back in May. Brian is the co-founder and CEO of 1000Watt, an agency that works exclusively in real estate. I’d been reading their blog and newsletter and I just knew that this would be a great conversation. We talked about branding, we talked about all kinds of things. But I still remember today when we talked about the sameness of real estate marketing. And Brian said something that hit me so hard, I had to stop the podcast right in its tracks so I could repeat what he said, not once, but twice about the need to stand out from the crowd. Listen to this.

Brian: The essence of marketing is doing or saying what your competitors are unwilling to say or unable to do. And therein lies differentiation. Differentiating yourself is absolutely imperative. You have to say something different, smarter, better, more insightful, more emotionally resonant than the next guy or gal. You have to.

Matt: I’m gonna repeat that again right here. The essence of marketing is doing or saying what your competitors are unwilling to say or unable to do. And therein lies differentiation. So, so true.

When I think of differentiating yourself and standing out from the crowd, I think of a few other guests too. Back in March, it was our fourth show. Karin Carr, an agent in Savannah, Georgia shared her system for winning new business from YouTube. Get this. Karen told me that she has earned more than $100,000 in GCI from just one of the videos that she’s posted on her YouTube channel. And overall, 70% of her business comes from YouTube. Karen’s even written a book and she offers courses for agents who wanna tap into this opportunity. But she told me how it all works. And the secret, that’s her word, not mine, the secret is to be different. On YouTube, you do not ask for the business.

Karin: They’re not coming to find a Realtor. They are coming to find out what is it like living there and do I think that we would like it? So, you make your video and you’re giving them all of this information, totally free, asking for nothing in return, not promoting yourself, just being very friendly and approachable and likable on camera. And the people who have very similar personalities as you are attracted like a magnet. It works so well.

Matt: Tyler Tresize is an agent in the Toledo, Ohio area whose success has helped him stand out from the crowd. He did 100 sides in just his second full year as a licensed agent. In episode 27, Tyler told me how he made it happen. We spoke for almost an hour and I don’t think I’ve come across an agent with such an intense desire and mindset to overcome obstacles and succeed. At one point in the conversation, he told me about the inspiration that he got from his new agent training when he was the least successful agent in the room.

Tyler: I could actually remember going to the first training at my brokerage and feeling like I was an inch tall. And I remember sitting in that room thinking, you know what? The next time I ever come back to this room, I’m definitely not gonna be in last place. But that’s just kind of the mindset, right? I mean, you’re just gonna have to get it done. I knew that I wasn’t gonna be in last place for very long.

Matt: If you’re looking for a way to differentiate yourself in your advertising, think about trying Instagram story ads. You’re probably already using Instagram for organic social media posts. But back in episode 25, marketing consultant, Susan Wenograd, shared all kinds of strategies and tips for advertising on Instagram, specifically in Instagram stories. And she agreed with me that this is a great way to stand out from the crowd because there are almost no real estate agents doing it.

Susan: Yeah. I mean, there’s just no small businesses on there. And I think the perception is like, oh, it’s because it’s new and it doesn’t work. And I’m like, no, they’re either just unchecking it because they don’t trust it and they don’t know anything about it. Or they ran terrible feed creative that looked terrible there and they’re like, this doesn’t work and they unchecked it. They’re not not running there because it doesn’t work, I can guarantee you. It definitely works. You just have to do it the right way.

Matt: Just a couple weeks ago, Los Angeles-area agent Anthony Marguleas told me how he’s set up his team and brokerage to be different and to stand out from the crowd. For the past 20 years, he’s kept a database of off-market properties, sellers who might be willing to sell if the circumstances are right. It’s something I bet very few agents in your market are doing. And it’s a great way to find inventory, especially in times like this when so few homes are on the market. Here’s Anthony explaining the idea in episode 39.

Anthony: In our marketplace, there’s approximately 115 homes on the market in Pacific Palisades where we cover. We have off-market, approximately 100 properties off-market in addition to what’s in the multiple listing service. So, that’s really, really powerful information. It’s taken us about 20 years to put together because we’re constantly adding to it, we’re constantly updating it because it’s a lot of work.

So, because of things like these off-market database, we have been very successful. I’ve personally sold 17 properties off-market in one year alone. So, it’s been tremendous for our business and having the mindset, the productivity mindset of finding properties that are not currently in the multiple listing service.

Matt: If you run a team, we did a few episodes for you that stand out for me when it comes to talking about doing things differently. Back in episode 17, I spoke with Aaron West, a HomeLight Elite Agent in Modesto, California, and also team leader of the West Experience Real Estate Group. Aaron did a deep dive into his interview process for hiring new agents, and it was something else. They do five interviews before they hire anyone. And not only do they actually call the person’s references, but they also ask those references to provide a second level of references. Talk about being different. Listen to this.

Aaron: And then we always ask for another reference that can speak to us from that one, about the person that we’re considering hiring. And we’ll try and go two or three deep on both of them. And what that does is it kind of gets past their sister-in-law and their best friend and, you know, the friend of theirs that they still work with that they go out to beer with all the time that are all going to say really good things about them.

Matt: You probably know that big teams are the big trend right now. I heard a speaker last year at a major real estate conference say, “It’s just a matter of time until joining a big team is the only way to grow your business.” Melinda Elmer disagrees. When we spoke in May, she was leading a three-person team in long beach, California, and they were on pace to do a hundred deals this year. She’s keeping her team small on purpose because that allows them to provide knock-your-socks-off customer service. In episode 14, Melinda told me that personal touch is what sets them apart and earns them business and referrals.

Melinda: We’ve already shown him such good customer service just in the last week that he decided to hire me and pay me a full fair commission versus somebody else who worked…who farmed his little community, who was even willing to do it at a 1% commission. They really saw that I was willing to go the extra mile and now he’s already called me with a referral.

Matt: One last clip about standing out from the crowd. Gary Gold made a really practical point about why that’s necessary today. He’s a luxury agent in Beverly Hills, and you might recognize his name. Back in 2016, Gary sold the Playboy Mansion — that Playboy Mansion — in a $100 million deal. In episode 11, we talked about how the industry is changing and how easy it is to get leads these days. Let’s face it. You can run a Facebook ad and get 50 leads in a couple days or, I mean, even a couple hours, if your budget is high enough. But as Gary points out, 10 other agents have that same lead. So, you have to set yourself apart to win that business.

Gary: You really need to be very, very disciplined in this business in terms of lead conversion, that’s where all the money is. And that is, you know, we can talk about all this stuff, economy, COVID. What really, really matters, and in my opinion, it’s very, very easy to get leads today. Leads are a dime a dozen. The rub is for every lead you get, 10 other people have that same lead. That’s the deal, and where all the money is going from being that 1 of 10 to that 1.

Matt: That’s a sample of some of the shows where we went deep on things you can do to stand out from the crowd. And it’s also a perfect transition into the grow your business piece of our podcast’s mission statement.

Maybe the best example of this focus was the series we did this summer with Elmer Morales and Jackie Soto, HomeLight Elite Agents in the Los Angeles area. Elmer and Jackie are not only HomeLight Elite, but they’re also “Best of Zillow.” So, when it comes to online leads, they are crushing it. Over the course of an hour they basically shared their entire system for converting online leads, the whole thing in detail. I did a two-part series with them and it was so popular with listeners that I brought them back for part three, just to answer listener questions. It was really tough to choose just one highlight from their appearance on the show, but I went with this clip here, where I asked them how they feel about the idea, the complaint that online leads are bad.

Elmer: Online leads is something that we’ve been working on for seven years now. So, the one thing we’ve discovered is an online lead is only bad if you’re not prepared to deal with the nurture and how to answer phone calls and speak to lead. If you don’t have systems in place, Matt, then that lead source is gonna be really bad.

Jackie: We have a saying here and it’s there is no bad lead. There is no bad lead. At the end of the day, that connection is so valuable, whether they’re ready right now, whether they’re never ready. If you had a connection with a human being and you serviced him well, guess what? That human being has a mother, a father, a sister, brothers that…or friends, coworkers that may wanna buy or sell. And if you met this person and provided value at that appointment or on that phone call, they may think of you if you can nurture this relationship well enough as the professional to refer business to.

Matt: That’s Elmer Morales and Jackie Soto from our three-part series, it was episodes 20 through 22. I love that series so much and those quotes so much because they speak to the importance of having systems and processes in place. I’m a systems guy. I mean, I really believe that repeatable systems are the surest path to success, especially in an industry that can be as emotional as real estate. You’re helping people make what is probably the biggest and most important purchase of their lives.

To that end, Brendan Bartic, another HomeLight Elite Agent, really made a great case for scripts and role-play to your systems. Brendan runs a brokerage in Denver with more than 200 agents, but he says only about 5 to 7 of them will show up every week to do role-play. One of the most common complaints from agents who don’t use scripts and don’t do role-play is that it’s too formulaic. But in episode 37, Brendan told me that’s not what scripts are about. They’re about helping your clients through difficult and emotional sessions.

Brendan: I get paid a lot of money to diffuse bombs, right? I always think about it it’s like, it’s ticking, it’s ticking. And I could come in and I’d be like, “Oh yeah, you know what? The offer? Yeah. Your house is listed at 500, hey, they came in at 450. That sucks. Right? Yeah. I can’t believe they gave you a low ball offer. So, Matt, what do you wanna do?” You know, that’s…and I know I’m being exaggerated, but a lot of times people will call you up and be like, “Hey, yeah, they came in at 450. Ouch!” That’s not a script. There’s a script that says, “Hey, you know, here’s how the offer came in,” you know, so on and so forth. So, yeah, it’s just…it’s a way to make people…it’s helping you get from a start to a finish with the least amount of punches in the face as possible.

Matt: In that same episode, Brendan shared a bunch of scripts, as well as his exact system for doing role-play. It’s really clever and it’s probably not how you’ve seen or done role-play before, but it works.

A couple months earlier, we spent almost an entire episode on scripts with a Florida agent named Aaron Novello. Aaron and I tossed around a few different topic ideas for his appearance and then I asked our Facebook listener community to choose one. They voted to have Aaron talk about winning the listing appointment. And why not? If you wanna grow your business, getting more listings is about the surest way to do it. This ended up being a two-part series. It was episodes 28 and 30. It was full of scripts and how to handle objections. In this clip, listen to how Aaron answers a homeowner who asks him to lower his commission.

Aaron: You recognize that the professional fee is a tool to make sure that you get the most, because if we’re trying to maximize value, do you think we’re gonna do that by limiting the exposure or broadening the exposure? It’d be like, well, broadening it. Yeah. So, here are the options that you have at your disposal. The first option is, is we can offer out the full 3%, which is what agents are accustomed to. And that’ll increase the probability that we can get whole bunch of people interested and you end up with top dollar quickly and efficiently. The second option is we offer out some sort of discount, you know, maybe like 2.5% or 2%. And in doing so that could end up affecting showings, which ultimately can end up affecting how much we end up getting. So, my question to you is based on what you’re looking to accomplish and why in the timeframe you’d like to make all this happen in, which one of those two options do you think would serve you and your family best?

Matt: Growing your business in 2020 probably involved winning some bidding wars. That’s why I wanted to get Sarita Dua to join me on “The Walkthrough.” She’s an agent and a team leader in Portland, Oregon, where bidding wars have been raging most of the year. At one point this summer Sarita had seven buyers involved in bidding wars in one weekend. And get this, she won all seven.

Sarita and I spoke for well over an hour and that also became a two-part series. It was episodes 33 and 35. She explained how to write better offers, offers that are more likely to win a bidding war. She also talked about the three Cs of winning bidding wars: confidence, communication, and creativity. I loved what she said about the communication piece. Specifically that she doesn’t hesitate to show her cards to the listing agent.

Sarita: But the other side is I’m actually not embarrassed to show that we’re interested in the house. I don’t go all the way to play poker and just act like I’m cool because I want…like, to me, the deal for my buyer is getting the house. It’s not necessarily getting the house at the lowest price. Obviously we wanna get it at the best terms possible for the buyer, just like the seller wants to get it at the best terms possible for the seller. But my point is, I’m not afraid to call you, Matt, and say, “Hey, Matt, you know your listing, my people love it. I just wanna let you know we’re gonna put together a fantastic offer. Help me by letting me know what matters to your client. Whether I can do it or not, tell me what makes this like a home run, grand slam, out of the park.” And then I just stop and listen.

Matt: Bidding wars weren’t the only big theme of the year. You probably struggled with low inventory, too. You heard a clip earlier from Anthony Marguleas that talked about dealing with low inventory. It’s a subject that we also addressed just last week in episode 40.

When inventory is low, a great way to grow your business is to reach out to expired listings and see if they wanna try the market one more time. Jennifer Hastings is an agent and team leader in Traverse City, Michigan. She built her business on expireds when she got her license five years ago. Jennifer has sold homes that five and even eight other agents couldn’t sell. Her approach to expireds is a bit different than many agents. For starters, she doesn’t contact them as soon as the listing expires and she doesn’t cold call, either. She waits at least a week and then she sends them a handwritten letter. Here’s her advice for growing your business through expired listings.

Jennifer: Study the property, understand it, figure out why you think it didn’t sell, craft a letter that is sincere, that is honest and that is unique to that person. Don’t send out bulk mails where it’s the same letter, because it’s not the same house. Let them see that you’ve some time looking at it. Don’t reach out and just start telling them everything that was done wrong. Talk to them about, you know, how cool their house is and find the positive things in the house and then be ready to offer solutions. Real solutions.

Matt: One sure way to grow your real estate business is through testimonials and reviews. Doesn’t matter if inventory is low, doesn’t matter if bidding wars are a constant. If you have a system for collecting and using client reviews in your marketing, you are bound to earn new clients.

One of the most popular episodes we ran this year was all about reviews. Back in July, I had a longtime friend on the show named Mike Blumenthal. I don’t know anybody who is more passionate or knowledgeable about online reviews. Mike co-founded a company called GatherUp. It’s a review management platform. In episode 23, Mike shared basically a masterclass in how to get more reviews, how to use them to find new clients, and how to do it all without violating any FCC or Google or other guidelines. One of his big takeaways was to make sure you respond to the online reviews that your clients write. Here’s why.

Mike: If somebody gave you a compliment directly to your face, you’d say thank you. If somebody wrote you a little note and next time you saw him, you’d say thank you. And so, I don’t see reviews as anything different than a classic human communication where they’re complimenting you and your business, and I think that the social standard is that you should respond. Now, from a technical point of view we see there’s some research that indicates that businesses get about a quarter-point higher star rating when they respond to reviews because consumers realize that the business owner is watching it.

Matt: Before I wrap up the grow your business segment of today’s show, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about growing your business through HomeLight. I know a lot of you, hopefully all of you are active on our platform, getting buyer and seller leads. And hopefully all of you want to get and convert more HomeLight leads. That’s why I invited my coworker, Steve Mason, to come on the show earlier this month. Steve is our Director of Agent Success. He shared how HomeLight’s algorithm works. What do we look at when a lead comes in and we need to send it out to two or three agents? Understanding that can help you get more leads.

To help you convert more HomeLight leads, we listened in on a call between an agent and her HomeLight seller lead. In this next highlight, Steve is talking about that call that we listened to. He explains that successful agents are really, really good at asking questions to understand what the client is looking for.

Steve: And she doesn’t just stop at the one. You’ll hear the client give an answer, and then she’ll say fantastic. And why is important to you? It’s like peeling an onion. Katie continues to peel this onion and by the end of it, she’s uncovered what this referral actually wants. And because Katie’s team is a really great team, she says, “We can do all those things for you. All those things that you wanted to accomplish by doing it one way, you’re actually talking to the person that can do that.”

Matt: So, we’ve covered grow your business and stand out from the crowd. What about being irreplaceable? How did that show up in “The Walkthrough” this year?

For me, the first thing that comes to my mind is episode number two. Raylene Lewis, a HomeLight Elite Agent in Texas was my guest. And she told a story that you have to hear to believe. A widow came to Raylene for help after several other agents said “no thanks.” Raylene basically had two weeks to keep this client out of foreclosure. She ran into numerous walls along the way. She even had people telling her “the deal is dead” just three days before closing. But the deal wasn’t dead. Raylene rescued it and it closed on time. Here’s how she described it.

Raylene: You kind of have to think of it from a true salesperson standpoint on how can I get from point A to point B? And maybe that’s why the other agents couldn’t. I mean, I’m sure she told them, you know, well, there’s no will, right? And we’ve only got 14 days. And, you know, as soon as you say the address of the property you know about how much the property is gonna be. And so, you know, it’s just, it’s easier for some people, I guess, not to try, especially when there’s not that much money involved. I mean, this was a cheap deal and it took a lot of time. But for me, a large part of the fun is solving the problem, reaching the goal, and helping the client. So, you know, some agents go the extra mile and others don’t.

Matt: Incredible story. And as I said in that episode, next time you hear someone say agents aren’t necessary, tell them about Raylene’s story.

Or tell them what Abby Walters is doing in Virginia. Abby has built an unbeatable referral business. She goes out of her way to stay top of mind with her clients, other agents, lenders, and other business partners too. Abby is also a fixture in the community. She sponsors local teams and events. She supports community projects and organizations, not just with her money but with her time as well. The community relies on Abby so much that locals are afraid that they’re asking her to do too much too often. They’re not. As she explained in episode 18, back in June, Abby considers it her duty to give back to the community.

Abby: So, I mean, my husband does our financials and he’s like, “You’re already at your donations limit halfway in the year.” And I’m like, “Bump it up then.” So, large advertising budget and donations budget. But I just feel like, you know, that’s what I’m here for. I’m blessed to do what I do and get paid handsomely for it and I should give some of that back to the community.

Matt: Abby has the mindset to be irreplaceable to her community. And I really do think it is a mindset thing. Both Raylene and Abby and, you know, a lot of the other guests that I’ve been lucky enough to talk to this year have a mindset to serve, to help, to solve problems. And that’s why they do the great things they do.

I love how Tom Tezak explained this mindset back in episode number nine. Tom is a successful agent on Maui. So, you can understand why he uses oceanic terms to describe this mindset of being irreplaceable.

Tom: Now, are you the lighthouse? Are you the wave? Are you the beacon? Are you the person that stands tall and leads the way to protect the boats that are out at sea? And those boats are our clients, those boats are our teammates. Are you the wave that just recklessly blows in and around the lighthouse and throws rocks and coral and shells and fish all over the place? And, you know, I see that, I made that connection between Realtors that I know, and some of them come just barreling in without a clue what they’re doing and just scatter things everywhere. And some of them are sort of at beacon that you look up to, and I wanna be that beacon for my agents. I wanna be that beacon for my clients. And so my goal is to be the lighthouse, not the wave.

(Music Transition)

Matt: That’s one of my favorite clips from the whole season and a perfect way to sum things up.

I hope all of that explains why I talk in every episode about growing your business, standing out from the crowd, and becoming irreplaceable. And I hope “The Walkthrough” helped you do all that in 2020.

Don’t go away yet. There’s one more highlight I wanna share from this year that I think will get you fired up for 2021. But first, a couple programming notes.

As I mentioned, this is our last episode of 2020. We’re gonna use the holidays to sort of take a step back, start putting together plans for 2021, freshen up some elements of the show. And then we will return in January, ready and rearing to go.

Very soon, probably in the next week or two, we’re going to send out a listener survey that’ll help us learn what you like or don’t like about “The Walkthrough” and how we can help you better in 2021. If you are hearing my voice right now, you should get that survey invite via email. Now, if we get to say like early December and you haven’t been invited to do the survey, please email me to let me know and I will send you the link. You can use walkthrough [at] homelight.com.

Our Facebook listener community will remain active and open over the holidays. If time allows, I’m kind of hoping to test maybe some video and webinar type content in there for listeners over the next month. Please, if you’re a listener do join us. Just search HomeLight Walkthrough on Facebook, it’ll come right up.

Okay. One last highlight from this year, and then I’ll come back to wrap things up.

Before we launched “The Walkthrough,” I made a list of guests that I wanted to have on the show. It turns out that even though we were a new show, you know, totally unproven, nobody had a clue who I was, we somehow managed to convince a few of those guests to come on and talk to you.

Probably none of those guests was bigger than Tom Ferry. You all know his name, the number one ranked real estate coach, clients all over the world. I did a two-part series with Tom. It was episodes 15 and 16, back in late May and early June. Part one was a masterclass in how to get more listings. You should listen to that soon if you missed it before, or even if you heard it then, listen to it again. In part two, we talked about the future and all of the changes happening in the industry. And of all the things he said during that hour-long conversation, I thought this clip was the best way to wrap up 2020 and get you fired up for 2021.

Tom: That’s how bullish I am on the industry. You with me? Like, there is gonna be so many great agents that are birthed from this, right? I’m excited just thinking about it because all the great companies of our time that we admire today all started in financial crisis times. Facebook, Amazon, right? Instagram no, but, you know, Disney, IBM, Apple, all these iconic brands all started during recessions. Congratulations, everybody. It’s your time.

Matt: It’s your time, amen to that.

Instead of our takeaways segment, let me do a quick thank you segment.

Number one, thanks to Chris Enns, a dear friend of mine and the guy who handles audio production on this show every week. If you know anyone who needs a great podcast editor, please let me put you in touch with Chris.

Number two, thanks to my boss at HomeLight, Matt Proctor, for giving me the creative freedom to serve you in the best way I can. Thanks to the content team, the design team, and everybody at HomeLight who helped bring this show to life.

Number three, thanks to all the guests who’ve been on the show this year. You know, there was no way to include highlights from all 40 episodes in this recap today, but please know your involvement in the show mattered and will always be appreciated.

And then number four, the biggest thanks of all goes to you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for telling your friends and fellow agents about this show. Thank you for the five-star ratings and reviews on Apple and elsewhere. Thank you for the incredibly kind emails and voicemails that you’ve left about “The Walkthrough.” Putting together a weekly podcast is not easy. And when there were struggles, no lie, a kind word from a listener really helped us keep pushing forward. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. If you wanna reach me between now and when we restart in January, you can leave a voicemail or text, it’s 415-322-3328. You can send an email to walkthrough [at] homelight.com or find me in our Facebook listener community. Again, just search HomeLight Walkthrough and it will come right up.

That is all for this week. That’s all for this year. Thanks again for listening.

My name’s Matt McGee, and you’ve been listening to “The Walkthrough.” At HomeLight we believe in real estate agents. You’ve heard me say it before, I’ll say it again: We’re on a journey to find out how great agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable.

Go out and sell some homes. Have the most wonderful of holidays. Please, please do all of that safely. I’ll talk to you again in the new year, everyone. Bye-bye.