Experience the Journey of How Sonny R. Moyers Found His Calling in Real Estate and Transformed Lives

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Mattias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back, you wonderful people to the world of REI Agent. So glad you could be here. I am gonna intro, I’m gonna keep this intro short.

We have a bit of a longer episode today, but it’s really worth it. So I’m excited to introduce our guests here shortly. One of the things that I thought of during the podcast, but I didn’t talk about, was the whole idea about brokerage selection and how when you’re getting into real estate, you might think that it’s a great honor to be offered a position.

Like in most cases, in most jobs, you’re gonna be hired, you have to go through an interview process. And when you’re going to find a brokerage, you’re probably actually interviewing the brokerage to see where you wanna go. And let me explain that a little bit further because if you are looking for a broker, they often, not everybody, but some brokers don’t really see it as a big deal, whether you join them or not.

It’s gonna be, they want you to join, they want you to be successful, but they’re also not, they don’t care as much. Some people are gonna make it, some people are not. And the statistic I’ve heard is that 87% of real estate agents fail within the first five years, right?

So for them, it’s a bit of a numbers game. Please join our firm. And if you’re successful, then great.

If you’re not, then we’ll just get another one and you’ll be one of the people that fail. But with that line of thought, that’s why it’s really important to interview your brokerage. And if you think about, commission splits are one of the things that you might talk about in a meeting with a broker.

And there’s a lot of companies out there that are offering different incentives and packages for people to join. And commission splits are part of the thought process for sure. But if you’re a new agent, don’t get hung up on that.

Now, it might seem counterintuitive, but if you think about it this way, do you think that 87% of agents fail because they got 10% less commission of the split? Then if they went with one broker versus the other, that’s not the reason why they failed. The reason they failed is that they didn’t earn enough money, they didn’t build a business, it wasn’t a good fit for them.

So if you’re really serious about getting into this business, what you really need to focus on is finding a broker that’s gonna invest in you, that’s gonna teach you the business. Now, Sonny is a great example of how knowledge is amazing. And he’s got, I haven’t even introduced him yet, Sonny Moyers is our guest today, but he is a well-learned man.

He has got a master’s and he has been in the business for very many years and he has written a textbook about how to do the business. And it seems like his mindset is exactly the way I think about sales or real estate sales and that it’s not really sales, it’s really about helping people, solving people’s problems, getting them what they want. And you’re not really slapping the hood of a car and telling them how this is the perfect vehicle and that you’re not pushing, you’re not pressure, none of that, you are simply helping them make the best decision, having the best experience they possibly can working with you.

So Sonny has a wealth of knowledge, I’m sure we could talk for many hours, maybe many days about various topics and I think that you all are gonna really enjoy Sonny. So without further ado, Sonny Moyers. Welcome back to the REI Agent.

We are fortunate enough to be sitting here with Sonny Moyers. Sonny, thank you so much for joining us.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, thank you very much, Matthias. I’m pleased to be here and look forward to having a very good discussion so that your viewers can understand and help them be more successful.

[Mattias]
Well, thank you. And you have a lot of experience to guide us. Tell us how long you’ve been in the business.

You said you got your license early on.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Yeah, I was in school and quite frankly was broke. I was a scholarship athlete at Abilene Christian University playing football. And I also was married with a baby.

And so that’s kind of unusual. Yeah. First year of player I was, those are life circumstances that we can always talk about at a different time.

Sure. But to make a long story short, I needed money badly. And so I was probably a second year student.

Maybe still in the first year. I’m not sure exactly. But my need for money caused me to look for a position in something.

And I interviewed for an assistant manager position at an apartment complex. And I won’t belabor you with too much of the detail except that to my surprise, they hired me because I hadn’t even ever balanced a checkbook. And they hired me to be an assistant manager.

And of course that was when I wasn’t in school or playing football, which wasn’t much of the time. So it was a pretty good gig because I got good housing and all that. And of course my school was paid for through the scholarship and football.

But that man who hired me was a commercial real estate developer. He owned shopping centers, apartments, and a number of homes. Was a very wealthy man.

And he, for some reason, when the manager quit, shortly after I went to work as assistant manager, he had never met me. When I met with him, he, after about 45 minutes to an hour, offered me the position as manager. So I suddenly woke up as a barely 19 year old managing a 26 unit apartment complex.

Handling lots of money and having to learn how to balance a checkbook. And I got thrown into real estate and it’s been with me ever since. I’d say that I found a calling in real estate.

But in that regard, more or less, more toward human behavioral theory. I love to study people, I love to watch people. I love to understand people.

And so my master’s degree, graduated from Avalon Christian. I got my management undergraduate with a minor in communications. And then I later went back and got my master’s degree in psychology, which was organizational design.

It was a mixed discipline of organizational design, communications, and organizational theory. So I learned a lot and I went to work for a large corporation all the time. I was doing real estate at the same time.

[Mattias]
And then I- Still in the property management role or did you get into sales then?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I actually went into sales because the man, Mr. Kendrick, Dick Kendrick in Abilene, Texas is the gentleman who I’m talking about who hired me. He asked me if I would consider being a real estate agent with him in the summer. And so I got my license at about 20 years old.

So I’ve been in real estate 54 years.

[Mattias]
Wow. There’s been a few changes over those years, haven’t there?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Yeah, a one page contract, sure, yeah. And quite frankly, though, he was a genius. He was a brilliant man, very wealthy.

And he became my mentor. And I got an education in real estate, not going to classes like we go to now, but by listening to him and the way he worked with people.

[Mattias]
That’s- He was from Georgia.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
He was from Atlanta.

[Mattias]
Okay, that’s probably the best type of education you can get. I mean, hands-on direct mentorship. I mean, that’s, if you can find a good mentor, that’s, I mean, that’s key.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, he was brilliant and he could charm anybody. And I used to marvel that people would come into the office and try to sell him something. And before they left, he was selling them something or renting them something.

And so I learned from him, he was a master of communications. He had worked for Coca-Cola bottling in Atlanta. Atlanta.

And he was brilliant and he took me under his wing. And it’s a good thing because I needed money, but I also needed someone to help me manage what I was doing, which was playing football, running his apartment complex, and in the summertime, selling real estate. So that’s how I got into real estate.

[Mattias]
Wow. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s one of the lucky things.

I mean, so I think the ideal thing for somebody to do if they’re getting into real estate is to be somebody’s assistant, somebody’s find something that they can help, some agent that’s out there crushing it and they need extra help, and be able to have that mentorship, but also maybe some sort of compensation, maybe a few referrals along the way. But I think that’s one of the most ideal ways of getting started.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
So you’re very fortunate to have somebody- Yeah, I think if somebody has got the money and the staying power, going straight into their agency and building a real estate practice is a good way to go, but you can’t, it’s really can’t do that if you’re strapped for cash. Wow. And if you’re trying to provide a living for your family or yourself.

So I think I agree with you there where someone doesn’t have the resources, but if someone has the ability to go into real estate as a full-time basis and really apply themselves and do a great job of education for themselves, then I think either way. And I also think another great way to get into real estate is to work in commercial real estate and be an assistant to someone who’s managing and leasing buildings, because you can learn a great deal there. I did about a 12-year stint as a consultant to companies about real estate, companies that were in the real estate sector.

And that consulting practice took me to 20 different countries all over the world. And a lot of Europe and Argentina, China, a lot of different places.

[Mattias]
Wow.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
So I got a great education working with people in many different cultures. Even when it wasn’t talking about an actual lease or a building, I was hired by a gentleman in Argentina in Buenos Aires to look at his building that he owned, which is very rare. There’s very few people on buildings in Buenos Aires.

The government controls pretty much everything. Oh, wow. But he owned a building and he hired me to come sit down with him and give him some ideas about what to do with the building.

It was a fun project. I was there in Buenos Aires for about 10 days. And it was a great consulting gig.

He treated me great too. So.

[Mattias]
Oh, that’s fantastic. Back to getting started, you kind of alluded to different ways of getting into it and needing to have capital. I know that a lot of people preach, like you need to burn the fleet when you get into real estate and jump all in.

Do you think that’s true? Or how would you suggest?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I didn’t do that. I didn’t have any money. Back to where I got into real estate is, as I said, running an apartment complex.

[Mattias]
Right.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
But I had no training, none, in running an apartment complex. And so, and I didn’t even have the time or the money to go to school for that. I was going to school to get my degree and play football.

So I had to really struggle and work many, many, many hours. But I was able to do it part-time in the summers and on holidays. And I found it to be an okay business.

It wasn’t my first love at that point. I actually enjoyed commercial real estate more than I did residential. But I think many people go in without a business model, without an understanding of what they’re gonna try to do.

And so they go into real estate with this idea that they’re gonna go in and be instantly successful. And they haven’t the slightest idea of how to write a business plan, how to develop a business model, how to differentiate themselves from other people. They go into it and quite frankly, and lost.

And I was too. And that’s why I’m saying now, it took me a number of years because of the way I entered. But I would say that many people go into real estate because on a lark, all that looks like fun.

They drive around in a nice car, they dress up and they take people to lunch and it’s easy. No, it’s not. And they go into real estate with the idea that it’s a sales business and it’s not.

It’s a people business. It’s about relationships, not selling somebody something.

[Mattias]
100%, I can’t agree with that anymore. I think one of my first few years, I said, I don’t see this as sales at all. I see this as systemizing, being a really good friend to a lot of people and then providing them with as much value as I possibly can.

I want them to trust me. I want to point out any kind of potential flaws in the house before they go under contract with it if I’m representing a buyer. So that we don’t face, we don’t go under some sort of surprise at the home inspection when they’ve lost 50 or $500.

So yeah, no, I agree with that completely.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
That’s- Can I introduce a concept to you? Sure. I’m gonna make a statement and I’m sure with your background, you’ll connect with it.

The client relationship must survive closing. Now, what that, people go into it and they think that I’m gonna find a client, they’re gonna retain me or hire me to help them find a home, a building, land, something. And then we’re gonna get to a closing and I’m gonna bring them a nice gift and say, thank you.

And they’re gonna love me. And then they go away. And that’s not how real estate works.

Real estate, well, you can do that, but it doesn’t mean that you create a client for a long period of time that way. So when I say that the client relationship must survive closing, you have to get to the end of this circular process of finding and contracting for and negotiating and doing your due diligence and closing. You have to get to that end point and cross over to the next step, which is a reason that you should stay in touch with them over time.

And so what happens is people go into real estate thinking it’s a number of transactions on the way to making money, but they don’t realize the real secret of success in real estate is having a client who you have a reason and they have a benefit for staying with you over a 20 year period. So in my book, I could talk about, we’ll get to that later. And in my book, I talk about relationships with a client for 20 years and multiple transactions and their willingness to open up and share with you their client, their friends and their associates, their sphere of influence.

And so when you can do that, when you can build a relationship that survives closing, you have a chance for multiple transactions over time and referrals over time. And so the secret to success, in my opinion, is when you get to the point of closing, they want to continue to have a relationship with you. They seek that because there’s a benefit and a value to knowing you.

[Mattias]
Absolutely.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
That’s just one of the things I write about in my book.

[Mattias]
I love it. And yeah, we’ll definitely talk more about the book. I think one of the ways that I do this is, so I also renovate houses and I have a market preparation program for sellers, that kind of stuff.

But anyway, with that comes a lot of knowledge of contractors. And so I try to make sure people would know that throughout the process. And I get a lot of texts and calls about, hey, my HVAC went out.

Hey, my water heater went out. And being able to give that, some people may find that annoying. I don’t know, maybe.

But for me, I know that’s perfect. They’re seeing me as this resource and they’re thinking about me for more than just their house sale that may not happen for another 10 years or whatever. And yeah, that’s one way that you can do that.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
In doing that, you’re making what I call a perception sale. Now, you may not have heard that term before and used in real estate, but a perception sale is a sale that doesn’t necessarily make you as an agent any money. It changes the perception of the client about you so that they see you as someone that they want to have a relationship with over time.

They see benefit and value in the relationship, not just the transaction. So what you’re doing there is you’re making a series of perception sales, always being helpful, always being knowledgeable, always having answers to problems. And at the bottom line is real estate is about being a problem solver.

Somebody needs a home, somebody needs to sell a home. Somebody needs a piece of property to develop. Somebody has a building they need to lease.

And how do you help people solve their problems? And when you do, you make yourself indispensable to them. And they see a reason to come back to you because you’re so good at helping them solve problems.

So that’s the relationship side of real estate that is so essential in being successful. In real estate, my wife and I were a team together. We were 20 years together.

That was toward the end of our 54-year period that I’m talking about. But we were very successful in Dallas. Dallas is a big real estate market.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I’m sure.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Dallas is 7.3 or 4 million people. Wow. And it’s a great real estate market.

And it’s a hot real estate market. So the relationships with people is what causes you to have a book of business over a 20-year period. And real people go into real estate thinking I’m gonna sell a few houses, I’m gonna make some really good money.

And at the end of the year, it starts all over again. They’ve got to find three or four more people to sell houses to. And so they don’t understand that when you finish a transaction, that buyer or seller simply goes on vacation.

And while they’re on vacation, you have to stay with them and stay in touch with them and be available to them to solve problems so that when they come back from vacation and they’re ready to buy or invest, as we talked about earlier in our prior discussion, when they’re ready to invest in real estate, they think, who do I call? Well, there’s only one person I should call, and that’s Sonny.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Or Matias. So I’m a big believer in the investment side of real estate. I think you mentioned that’s an interest that you have also.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I’ll just give you a quick example. A gentleman, I was working with a gentleman’s sister, and he joined us for lunch as we were touring homes and things like that. And he indicated at lunch that he wanted to get into buying rental properties, single-family homes, not apartment complexes or rental.

Right. And so I suggested that we have a separate meeting, and I spent two or two and a half hours with him talking about how to build a company that owned real estate. I spent talking about organizing, about financing, about property selection.

I spent a lot of time with him in that meeting, educating and grooming him to be successful in what he was gonna do. And I ended up selling him eight or nine or 10 properties. He also bought properties in Oklahoma and other states where I wasn’t licensed, so I referred him to people in those places.

And we had a relationship for many, many years and did a lot of business together. Most importantly, he was successful. Look, everybody wants to come back to you.

When you do a great job and make them money or make them successful or fulfill their needs, they wanna be around you and be with you. Now, there’s a social conditioning, you may have heard that term, social conditioning in the world that a buyer, a seller, an investment-targeted person who wants to go into investing in real estate, which, by the way, is a financial play, not a property play. Investing in real estate is a financial play, not a property play.

The properties are secondary to the benefit and the value of the ownership of a piece of property. Okay, and so investment starts with, yeah, investment starts with how you make money. Right.

And the property simply is a vehicle to deliver the money you wanna make, whether it’s appreciation or cashflow or both. So when we talk about building relationships with people, you have to find a way. Now, social conditioning, the buyer, the seller is conditioned to this idea that they need a house, so they find an agent.

Excuse me. They need a house, so they find an agent. They go look at houses.

They do the contract. They close. Goodbye.

They don’t think that they need you for more than just the transaction. Right. They think you’re gonna help them do a deal.

They’re not thinking, I’m gonna know this guy for 20 years. Right. He’s gonna help me and my family and my friends become wealthy.

Okay? Yeah. That’s what it’s about.

So when you make a client successful, they love you, they’re loyal to you, and they come back to you, and that’s the secret of developing a business in real estate that produces significant income beyond the normal.

[Mattias]
Okay? Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Beyond the normal. So for one client, one client sent us 20-something referrals.

[Mattias]
Wow.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Which was over a half million dollars worth of commissions.

[Mattias]
Wow.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
So when you have that relationship, people want you to be successful. They want you to get paid, and they want you to be on their team.

[Mattias]
That’s fantastic, and I think one of the clear things that you’re talking about is you are providing value. I see a lot of times people wanting to stay top of mind, wanting to put out things that are marketing materials, social media, whatever, and they’re trying to make sure people know that they’re in the business and they’re doing sales or whatever, but to me it’s always like, nobody cares that you just sold that house.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I would much rather have a client say to someone publicly or put in writing, Sonny helped me make a lot of money, than I would want to send a card that said, I sold another home.

[Mattias]
Right.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Or, I just had a closing.

[Mattias]
Right.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Quite frankly, the public doesn’t really care.

[Mattias]
No.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
That you just sold another house. It doesn’t affect them in any way whatsoever. Right.

That you not think that it’s building an image of you. It’s a whole lot better to make a perception sale. For example, if I called you up and said, Matthias, I’m worried about you.

Sonny, why are you worried about me? Well, we helped you find your home four years ago, and in the DFW area in certain markets, we’ve experienced 20 plus percent appreciation rate over the past four years. Your home is probably worth twice as much as it was when you bought the home, and I’m worried that you’re keeping your insurance up to date to protect you against a loss of that home through fire, casualty, or some other way.

Well, how would you, well, I would like to do is send you a CMA that tells you the current value of your home compared to the current market, and then I’d like for you to meet with your insurance agent and talk to them about what your maximum amount you’re covered for in the event of a total loss, compare that to what the value of the home is, and make sure you’re properly insured.

[Mattias]
That’s brilliant.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I don’t want you to lose $200,000 because you weren’t keeping up with your insurance.

[Mattias]
That’s really good.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
That’s a perception sale.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
A perception sale changes the perception of the client in some manner. That may or may not make you any money, but your goal isn’t to make money when you’re doing a perception sale. Your goal is to make a perception that you are valuable, and of course, you know, with recent changes in real estate, the big thing for most real estate agents is what?

How do I justify getting somebody to sign an agreement to let me represent them? Show them the money. Show them how you can provide value and benefit and demonstrate it to them.

That’s how you sign them up, and there’s a whole lot of people running around scared to death nowadays. Scared to death. Oh, gosh, I’m gonna have to explain to somebody why I’m worth getting paid $35,000 or $40,000 on a real estate transaction, and I’ve never had to do that before, and now I have to.

How do I do it, you know? Well, those agents are on the way out the door. Right.

You’ve gotta be able to justify your fee. You gotta be able to value, cost justify what you do for the client so that they see the dollars. So when we talk about showing me the money, it’s really how did what you do make them money, help them be more successful, or realize certain other things like self-actualization or achievement of goals or something of that nature?

So it’s not just money. It’s how did you help them be successful, have a great life with their family, buy a home that they can add a swimming pool to or they can put their golf putting green in their backyard. Whatever would make them feel great.

[Mattias]
Yeah, well, do you mind breaking that down a little bit for me? Like, I mean, if I’m a buyer, and Sonny, I wanna buy a house, and I have no idea, first of all. I haven’t really been paying attention to anything in the news, and I just wanna go see this house.

Sonny, can you show this house for me?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Yeah, I’d be glad to show it to you, Matthias. Of course, if I showed you the home, I’d a lot more be your agent. Okay.

And of course, so, and the way I work with clients is I look to the seller to pay my fee in some fashion first. But if the seller is not paying my fee to help you, then I would expect you to pay me a reasonable fee for the work that I do. Does that sound reasonable to you?

[Mattias]
Yeah, I mean, you can’t work for free.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Yeah, so what I’d like to do is let’s get together. I’ll spend maybe 30, 45 minutes with you. Let’s talk about what you’re interested in doing.

Let me understand your goals and your objectives. Let me really spend some time with you. Can you come in next week on Monday or Wednesday?

What would be better for you?

[Mattias]
Wednesday sounds great.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
That’s the old A, B choice, isn’t it?

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
A or B, okay? Monday or Wednesday, 10 in the morning or two in the afternoon? What’s better for you?

[Mattias]
Let’s do 11.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Yeah, let’s do 11 o’clock. It’s all about you. It’s not about me.

I’m not gonna give you a big pitch about how many homes I sold last year, how big my team is, and how much money I made. It’s all about you. And I’m gonna prove to you in that interview that my primary concern is representing you, helping you to achieve your goals and objectives, and putting you first in all matters.

Putting you first in all matters. Now, that means, yes, I like to get paid, but my first choice is to demonstrate to you that I am putting you first, not the money.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
If I can’t convince you of that, if I can’t have you leave that meeting saying, man, that guy, he really is focused on taking care of me. I trust him. Right.

That’s about real estate, trust.

[Mattias]
Absolutely.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I’ll give you another quick example, and I’m going a little fast and hard here, so if you need me to slow down or if we’re taking too much time, you just tell me.

[Mattias]
I’ll keep going.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Let’s say somebody, and they wanna sell their $500,000 home. Now, the total commission, let’s just say the total commission is 6%. That’s not always the number, but let’s just say it is, okay?

[Mattias]
Sure.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
So 6% of 500,000 is how much?

[Mattias]
Oh, is that 30,000?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
30 grand, okay? Now, they only have $100,000 in equity in their home.

[Mattias]
Okay.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
You’re gonna get 30% of their equity to help them sell that home. 30% of their equity, it’s not 6% to them. Right.

It’s 30% of their equity. The decision to choose an agent is extremely important, and you have to treat it that way. You have to be able to demonstrate to someone that by having me representing you, I’m gonna get you more money for your home than you would have otherwise.

If I can sell your home for 525,000 instead of 500,000 because of my marketing, my skill sets, my experience, my negotiation skills, and my education and knowledge, you win big. And then it’s not 30% of your equity, is it?

[Mattias]
Right. Yeah. That’s great.

And I think the one thing that I’ve seen this as an opportunity to really move up the professionalism in our business, I think that when you’re talking to a buyer about signing a buyer brokerage agreement, if you think about going into an attorney’s office and expecting them to… Can you just review, write me a lease first, and if I like it, then maybe I’ll pay you for it.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, that’s a great point. And let me tell you something. Being in the consulting business, I had to convince people to give me a $50,000 retainer.

I had to convince… If you go to a great attorney, they’re charging 750 to 2,000 bucks an hour now. And you go to a great attorney and you say to him, I want you to help me with this problem, this need.

And the attorney says, fine, here’s my agreement. And here’s, I need a retainer from you of $20,000. And you’ve got to convince them that they need to put down that retainer.

That gentleman who brought me to… I went to Argentina to Buenos Aires for a 10-day assignment one time. And I had to ask them for money up front because I wouldn’t go into a Buenos Aires, Argentina without money up front.

And they had to pay my airfare, business class, not coach. They had to put me up in a Class A hotel, which at that time was kind of hard to find in Buenos Aires. They had to pay all my expenses.

And I had to have a substantial retainer up front. Well, I had to convince them, just like that attorney has to convince you to put up a retainer. Real estate is a lot easier, quite frankly, because you’re not asking them to give you a retainer.

Right, true. They pay you out of the closing proceeds at the time of closing. They get money or they have financing or they have something so that you get paid out of the deal, okay?

When you’re a consultant or an attorney, you got to get some money up front, some serious money. Otherwise, you may not ever get paid the balance. So real estate to me, people are always worried about how do I ask the client to pay me money, guarantee me a commission or whatever you might want to call it, or compensation, okay?

Well, if you can’t prove that, you don’t deserve the deal. If you can’t convince them that you’re worth that investment, I have a lot of credentials, have a lot of experience, have a lot of knowledge that I can share with them and I can demonstrate to them proficiency. And that’s another key term for you, demonstrating proficiency.

If you can’t demonstrate proficiency, why would they give you a $20,000 retainer? Or why would they sign on an agreement? I’m only gonna work with you and any house I buy will be through you.

They’re putting a great deal of faith and confidence and commitment to you. How are you gonna convince them to do that if you can’t, if you don’t have the skillsets to demonstrate proficiency and convince them that they need to sign with you? That’s what it’s all about.

[Mattias]
Yeah, and I think another big key element of this, and it’s a lot easier if you’re coming from a warmer referral or you’re coming from a past client. They already are coming in with an expectation of your abilities because of what you’ve laid the groundwork for, what you’ve just talked about. So if you’re buying leads and showing up to somebody cold and having to establish that trust and rapport without that warm contact or a previous sale, it’s a lot harder.

So building your business the way you’re talking about is just makes this job so much easier.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, it’s a lot easier to work with somebody you’ve worked with before and get paid than it is to work with somebody you haven’t met and haven’t demonstrated proficiency to. So the client that sent me all the referrals, why did they send me all the referrals? Well, one, they knew I would do a fantastic job for their friend.

Two, they knew that I would put the client, the client, their friend first. Right. And then they also knew that I would be happy with them because they wanted to be important and they wanted to feel good.

And this goes back to psychology, doesn’t it? You wanna have the client like you so much. There’s a book from Ken Blanchard called Raving Fan.

Raving Fans, I think it is. And he wrote this book and it’s a silly little book. It’s very small, very easy to read, short read, but it basically is how do you create raving fans?

Well, that’s what you have to do. You have to create fans that walk around telling people when they bring it up. It won’t carry a sign saying hire Sonny, okay?

But when someone says, I’m thinking about buying a house and I’m thinking about investing in some real estate, they go, oh, you gotta talk to Sonny. That’s what you want. Well, how do you create raving fans to have them do that?

You create such an overwhelming, powerful relationship that they feel they wanna help you be involved. They want you to take care of their class. They wanna share what you did for them with their friends and associates.

And that’s how you get referral. Now back to the client relationship management. Most people, if I said what is a client management program in a real estate firm, they wouldn’t know what I was talking about.

What is my contact plan with this buyer, seller that I helped with over for the next five years? How am I gonna stay in touch with them? How am I gonna make myself not be forgotten?

And it’s not by sending them a card saying, I sold another home, I made the honors club, I’m a star. They don’t care. They wanna know what you’re gonna do for them.

Not what you did for the guy over in another town nearby who you helped him sell his home. Maybe it means something. But I never wanted to send a constant reminder, I sell homes.

That’s a horrible brand, I sell homes. That’s not putting people first. That’s not building the relationships first.

So I’m not a big fan of marketing that says, look at me, I’d rather have it be, let me talk to you. Let me understand you and your needs.

[Mattias]
Wow, yeah, absolutely. So let’s get into your book a little bit. Can you tell us, it’s the architecture of the real estate?

You do tell me, go ahead.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, let me show it to you. Basically, it’s a hardback 300 page textbook.

[Mattias]
Wow.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Believe me, my credentials provided me with the ability to write this book. This book has 40 chapters.

[Mattias]
Wow.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
The chapters are significant. Each chapter will help you develop, the subtitle is The Psychology and Art of the Real Estate Profession. The book is in color.

The book has scripts for people to use when they’re talking to a prospect or a client. The book guides you through how to build a real estate practice, including a sample business model. Okay?

So this book is a two year project. And why did I write it? A lot of people are like, well, you wrote a book because you want to make money.

No, it’s nice if you sell something and make money. I didn’t do very well at trying to do things for free. You know?

Hang on one second. Clicked something there. So the book was written to help people.

You know, about 80% of people who go into real estate fail in the first 24 months. I don’t want people to fail. I want people to be successful.

I want people to not go into real estate on a lark. I just will jump into real estate, it’s gonna be easy, and I’m gonna make a whole lot of money. I want them to go into real estate and provide benefit and value.

The reputation of the real estate industry needs to be improved.

[Mattias]
I agree.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
So the book is, it’s not really important that people think about, I wanna buy this book. It’s really important that they understand perception sale, proficiency, demonstrating proficiency, the magic minute, self-disclosure reciprocity are all chapters in this book. It’s about how to build relationships and create a following of raving fans.

That’s what the book’s about. It’s not how to write a contract. It’s not about how to make a sales pitch, although you learn a lot about selling in here, but it’s not about the typical real estate book about how you make money as much as it is, is how you create raving fans who wanna do business with you and want to share their sphere of influence with you.

And that’s a different approach to the book. By the way, it does take several months to read it.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that looks like a, I think you described it as a textbook. I mean, that is a definitive guide, wow.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, if you read Malcolm Gladwell, who’s one of my favorite authors, his books are hard to read. They require deep concentration. They require reading a chapter, putting it down and reflecting on it a little bit and then going back and reading it again.

Okay, and that’s the thing that this book is about. This book is not for the, I wanna learn how to be successful in real estate in 24 hours. Not gonna happen.

[Mattias]
Right. Well, with that book, would you have any key takeaways or something that advice you’d want every reader to remember if there was one thing you could choose out of there?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I think that this is not a sales business in the sense of we don’t sell property, we don’t sell stuff. We sell solutions. We solve problems.

We understand, you seek to understand where a client is and their road to self-actualization. Maslow’s theory of need. Mark wants and motivation.

Understanding where someone is and their pathway towards self-actualization gives you the insight into seeing what’s next for them. Quick example. I’m big into the arts and music and visual arts and things like that too.

Someone makes a comment to you when you’re showing them property. Well, someday I’d like to have a studio in my home, an art studio. One of my favorite things is painting.

Well, when they’ve been in the home three or four years, that’s something you should remember. The current home doesn’t necessarily provide them enough room and space for that studio and that’s a need that needs to be fulfilled for them to realize self-actualization. So, the way you help them is, Matthias, I wanted to give you a call because, man, I looked at a home the other day that was just, it was a really great home, but most importantly, it had a area that was being used as a studio for art and music.

And you had said to me back, oh, some time ago, that one of your goals was to have a studio someday. So, when I saw it, I thought of you. And I thought, yeah, I know you’re not ready to move yet, but maybe you should go see it.

That’s great. See, understanding the client, having knowledge. If I told you I was gonna, and I may be taking you too long here and you tell me if I am because I’ll talk as long as you.

If I said to you that I’m gonna write an account plan about Matthias, my client.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
And that account plan would write down it in very concise material, what he wants in life and what he wants for his family. And I can find a way to work that into our conversation and dialogue. And I can demonstrate to you that I listened to what you said and that I took to heart what you said and that I’m out to help you achieve what your goals were.

Then you’re gonna wanna do business with me and work with me. So an account plan, how many people write an account plan? If I ask a hundred agents, how many of you have an account plan detailing what you’re gonna work with this client, how you’re gonna help them achieve their goals and objectives over time?

If I asked them how many of you have a written plan for your top 20 clients, what would you guess would be the answer?

[Mattias]
1%?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
1% or maybe not even that. People don’t, they think it’s a transaction business. They close a deal, they’re on to the next deal.

That’s not what the business is about and that’s not how you make a lot of money and that’s not how you become successful. I was voted by the Dallas Builders Association as the best realtor in Dallas in 2015. It was a competition.

You didn’t, you submitted an outline, you went into a panel of judges and they interviewed you.

[Mattias]
Wow.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
And then they selected the best realtor in Dallas and only one person in the Dallas market could win that award that year. And that’s what I won that year. Why?

Because I never mentioned selling a house. I never mentioned doing a lease deal, okay? I talked about making clients successful, helping them achieve their goals and dreams, understanding clients and managing client relationships to maximize revenue potential.

That’s what real estate’s about. So all you people out there who are listening to the podcast today, the podcast, and you wonder how am I gonna be successful if I go into this business, don’t go into it to sell houses or to lease buildings or to sell land. Go into it to solve problems.

So that’s what I would leave with you.

[Mattias]
That’s beautiful. Thank you so much. You’ve mentioned a couple books along the way.

Would you, do you have any other books that you wanna share? Or is, yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Oh, I think Intrinsic Thought, Daniel Wegner. Now remember, these are heady books. They’re psychology-oriented books.

Daniel Wegner, who wrote about intuitive thinking, basically. Okay. And Malcolm Gladwell, absolutely.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Tipping Point.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
And that book talks about when you reach a tipping point. And I’ll just explain what I mean by that. When I make a presentation to a prospect, and I make such an overwhelming, powerful presentation, that the prospect feels compelled to choose me.

Not just thinking that, they psychologically feel they should choose me. And they reach that tipping point, and I can see that in their eyes. And when they reach that tipping point, and I find the thing to cause them to tip over and choose me, then I’ve won the competitive case.

So, Tipping Point is a great book. The whole book about, I should say, Sidney Girard, it’s an old book, by the way. It’s called Self-Disclosure and Reciprocity.

And Sidney Girard wrote about that concept. And he’s a psychologist that you have to read if you really want to understand human relationships and behavioral theory. And then, of course, there’s a lot of others.

There’s the genetic code. There’s all kinds of books about how people think. Ego versus, is ego, are you born with ego, or did you acquire ego, okay?

And then you see, you wonder why one child in the same family, growing up in the same conditions and situation, the same environment, going to the similar schools, living in the same way, one child becomes a superstar, and the other child becomes no achievement of any kind. So how did that happen? So I like that part of it, too, understanding human nature and people, and understanding genetics.

Are people born with ego? That’s a really good question.

[Mattias]
It’s a question I haven’t thought of before.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, do you know somebody who, at the age of three or four, thinks they own the world?

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I mean, they walk into a room and they think, like, I’m the star here. I mean, they had ego at three.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
And you look at their parents and they’re quiet as mice. And they have no ego that they demonstrate. They have ego, but it’s not just as visible on their sleeve, okay?

Right. So, you know, you look at people who have every reason in the world to be down and out and loser, and they’re hugely successful.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
How does that happen? It was an environment, all environment. By the way, I believe the answer is both.

[Mattias]
Sure, yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
But, but, we don’t give enough credit to the fact that people are born with certain genetic traits. And when you have two children, and one of the children is totally different personality than the other, it’s not just because of environment, for sure.

[Mattias]
Right. I think a key thing to understand in that process, at some point, learning that you have total ownership of your outcomes, certainly things come, you know, you can be dealt an unfortunate hand, for sure. But at the end of the day, that if you take ownership for your outcomes, you will seek to better yourself and take responsibility for doing better the next time, et cetera, to really see success.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I had to get my book open, because I wanted to give you a couple of authors that I think you should consider. James Arden, Rewire Your Brain.

[Mattias]
Okay.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Think Your Way to a Better Life, okay? One of my favorite books, everyone would laugh at me if I told them that the author wrote this book in 1978 or something. Okay, actually, when did he write it?

Yeah, it was, well, actually, this book he wrote in 2011. Okay, but there are books in here that were written in the early 70s, and in the 80s, okay, in the 70s. And Wegner’s book goes way back before that.

But knowledge is knowledge.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Great knowledge doesn’t change simply because the years roll by.

[Mattias]
Well, to that point, Sonny, the book that I think is fundamental that I think most people should read, and not even just in sales, and in fact, my wife and I joke all the time about me wanting to just drop this book off at certain points to people’s, put it in their mailbox, you know, and don’t have a name attached to it. You should probably read this, it’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. I mean, that’s.

Oh, I agree. Talk about an old book that just is still true.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, there’s another, I think it was maybe, maybe the author of that book is the one I’m thinking about.

[Mattias]
Is that one Dale Carnegie?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Yeah, Dale Carnegie. I think it was he or one of the other great people that we’ve read about through the years. I’m a whole lot older than you, so I’ve read about books you’ve probably never even looked at, but where he said to a client, he said, you know, I don’t think you’re gonna be satisfied until you have a million dollars of life insurance.

Guess what he eventually sold him? A million dollars of life insurance. Guys, look, I mean, it’s psychology is ingrained in almost every human behavioral relationship that exists, and I don’t mean manipulation.

Right. I mean, understanding people’s hot buttons. I love watching people.

I love, and studying you, for example, okay? I like to watch people. I like to understand what makes them tick.

I like to see, when I say something that has value, their eyes light up, and the relationship, they go, I can see it, that they go, wow. So when I say, leave this with your audience. You wanna get someone to work with you.

Realize that they’re listening and hearing to everything that you say and do, and that they’re forming an impression of you in the first two to five seconds, and then they’re gonna look for behavior that supports that first impression. Now, if that first impression is bad, they’re gonna look for behavior that supports that negative first impression, and if their first impression is great, they’re gonna look for things that support that great first impression, okay? And they’re gonna believe it because they’re looking for it.

Now, this also applies to what you might call curb appeal, okay? They get out of their car, and they see a door, and they see a landscape, and they see a home, and they have a very positive first impression. When they walk in that home, the front door of that home, they’re already looking for things that support that positive first impression.

That’s curb appeal. Now, when they have a negative first impression, they may not even enter the home. They may say to the agent, I don’t even need to go in, and they make that decision within two to five seconds.

So, if you have anything that causes a negative first impression, get rid of it. Whether it’s landscape, an ugly, need-to-be-painted door, or your personal behavior and appearance.

[Mattias]
Sonny, I can’t change my face, though.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Well, but your smile can sure change opinions. And I think that’s the key to it, is your eye contact and your smile and the way, and your genuine, genuine sincerity and genuine desire to help.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I think you said something a little while ago. You will help me. Have you ever had someone call you up and say, listen, Sonny, I’m out of town, and my sprinkler system is not working, and I need someone to go over there and check it for me?

Now, the egotistical agent says, what? You want me to go over and take the trash out? Right.

You want me to go over and check out your sprinkler system? Now, the really good agent who’s smart says, of course, Victor, I’ll do that for you.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
He goes over and does that, and then sends him a text saying, I took care of it. Now, what I would do if it was broken, and I knew they were traveling, I might even hire a guy to go fix it with their approval, and I might even pay the bill and not worry about it. If it’s a listing, you’d already write up, and I’m sure I might do that.

[Mattias]
Right.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Just think of it. You buy $200 for somebody to come over and fix the sprinkler system problem, because your client’s traveling for 10 days, and you’re going to sell a home for $1.6 million, and you’re going to make $55,000 or something?

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
You’re going to spend $200 to fix the sprinkler? Come on.

[Mattias]
Right. Absolutely.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
By the way, those clients almost always make sure you get reimbursed, because they don’t want to take advantage of you.

[Mattias]
Right.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Because they like you, and they appreciate you.

[Mattias]
That’s a gesture. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation, Sonny, and we probably could do this for two hours plus. You could probably lead a seminar, honestly.

I’m going to talk to my broker and see if we can get you to come over to Virginia sometime and lead one of our meetings.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I’d love to do it, and I promise that it will be a very rewarding and beneficial meeting, but I would like to meet your wife. I understand she’s a psychology person?

[Mattias]
Yeah, she’s a licensed therapist. She practices still.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
She and I would really connect. She probably knows who Wegner is, and she probably definitely knows who Sidney Girard is.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I would imagine.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I don’t know how you can go through being a clinician. Well, actually, Sidney Girard was a clinical psychologist, and that’s why he came up with that concept, self-disclosure reciprocity.

[Mattias]
Okay.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Getting the patient to talk.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
To loosen up and let loose, and getting them to remove their mask and reveal.

[Mattias]
That’s definitely one of the things that she’s good at in the podcasting world as well. It’s interesting how those skills kind of go hand in hand, and she never leaves anybody vulnerable in a point that they regret what they said, but she does do a really good job of making them feel comfortable and getting into things that they maybe weren’t prepared to talk about on the podcast, which is as well.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, but most importantly, I hope that I’ve helped you, and I hope that I’ve helped your audience.

[Mattias]
Yeah, absolutely. This has been fantastic.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
While my book is about real estate, it’s not really real estate. It’s about people and relationships and how to be successful and how to grow a business, a professional services business. That’s the primary thing.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Not product sales.

[Mattias]
Absolutely. And Sonny, where would people reach out or try to find the book to buy or reach out to you if they have interest in?

[Sonny R. Moyers]
It’s on Amazon. It’s also on a number of other book retailers. They can go to my personal website, realestatebook.org.

[Mattias]
Oh, wow.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Realestatebook.org. And if they buy it there, I’ll sign it and send it with them. Send it up.

I’ll sign it before I send it. They also can go to my YouTube channel at A-R-E-P-2023 or the Architecture of the Real Estate Practice. I have about, I’ll have about 20 hours of content on podcast out there, and I have a lot of content on my YouTube channel.

But keep in mind, my goal of everything I’m doing at this point in my life is to help people be more successful. I don’t wanna see people fail. And too many people jump into something without doing enough knowledge gathering and research and developing skills before they do it.

[Mattias]
Well, thank you so much for what you’re doing and thank you so much for being on the show.

[Sonny R. Moyers]
Thank you.

[Erica]
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.

[Mattias]
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[Erica]
Visit REIAgent.com for more content.

[Mattias]
Until next time, keep building the life you want.

[Erica]
All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.