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Matt Simonds: I think one thing that's become popular the last few years is just broker previews, sneak peeks, broker opens, price evaluations. And I just was really intentional for a year or two about going to as many as I could possibly go to, meeting as many agents as I could meet, especially in my target areas. In doing that, you develop relationships with them and then you get invited and you get sneak peeks, you get the early look, you get access to inventory that other people don't know about.
Justin Landis: Welcome to The Justin Landis Show, your real estate podcast about having conversations, building relationships, and creating freedom. And today, I'm here with my good friend and one of our top Bolst agents, Matt Simonds. Matt, thanks for being here today.
Matt Simonds: Yeah, honored to be here. Thanks for having me.
Justin Landis: So Matt, on this podcast, we talk about a wide range. We've been talking about AI, we're talking about social media, we're talking about marketing. And today we're going to talk a little bit about relationships, which has been one of your calling cards. So tell us a little bit before we get into that, we always do a little origin story. How'd you get into real estate and get to where you are today?
Matt Simonds: Yeah, I started about eight years ago, and it's always hard to get that first client. First client is not an easy one to get.
Justin Landis: How'd you do that?
Matt Simonds: Well, it was one of my college best friends. So he had to hire me, had no choice. Friendship is over. But I worked really hard for him because he was my only client. But no, it was good. And then you always have ways to try and build and scale. And I just really took the approach that I was going to be very relational in my business. I was in a transactional sales job before and just didn't have time for the relationships, neither side did. So this is totally different. I always tell people it's impossible to shop for a house with someone without getting into what matters to them, their values, their dreams, their goals for the family.
Justin Landis: So how did you do that? We talk a lot about relational businesses, but people do things a little bit different. What did you do practically to build it relationally at the beginning?
Matt Simonds: Yeah, I mean, I just went to lunch with everybody. And I had kind of missed out on catching up with a lot of people in my life. And as much as I wanted it to lead to a client at some point, it was not about that. It was more about just genuinely catching up on their life, what they're up to, what's new with them. I think people like that more than being sold to.
Justin Landis: Then how long did it take to really get some traction and actually start to work?
Matt Simonds: It probably took a year and a half. I had five sales my first year. Not that much, you know. But it was building for the future, really.
Justin Landis: Yeah, we have such similar paths at the beginning. My first year, my goal was one face-to-face every day. I'm like, buy me 250 people, different people this year, face to face. I am nice, bring up real estate, try to be helpful, surely some of them are going to need to buy and sell houses. But honestly, that first year, not that many did. It was really the second year of doing that and following up and being helpful that it really did start to take off. And so we had those similar starts, but we didn't know each other then. You want to share how we met?
Matt Simonds: Yeah, we met through our kid's school. My oldest goes to school with your youngest. That might say something about our age gap.
Justin Landis: Yeah, I look older than I am.
Matt Simonds: But yeah, they had a really sweet school, really sweet class and they're good friends. So we got to know each other through that. And then Bolst just made a lot of sense. I love the business model and the B Corp and everything. So I made the decision to come on over from a previous brokerage.
Justin Landis: Tell a little bit about your business before we met and before you were at Bolst. When we met and you are not at Bolst, what would you say about your business?
Matt Simonds: I would say, honestly, it's largely similar. I was with a luxury brokerage here in Atlanta, and my business model has not changed. I work with largely first-time homebuyers and second-time homebuyers, move-up buyers. Sell and buy their second house, usually. That's probably 90% of my business. So none of them necessarily really cared about the brokerage switch. They were hiring me for me. Some of them actually appreciated the fact that I'm donating a decent percent of my commission to the fund for homelessness in Atlanta. So that has actually helped a little bit. But I don't think necessarily anybody would have not hired me because I left the other shop.
Justin Landis: Let's walk through that a little bit, because I think that's probably a thing that people are worried about. If you're at a name brand or a big brokerage, you're like, hey, if I go to something local or smaller, will people still work with me? How much do you think that made a difference?
Matt Simonds: I don't think it makes too much of a difference, to be honest, unless you're in a very luxury price point. In my business model, I think people care about a few things. They care about knowing me or knowing someone who does know me or trust me, or has worked with me in the past. And they also just want to know that they're going to be serviced really well throughout the process, and that I know what I'm doing, and that I know my price points. I think those things are kind of the deciding factor for most people. I lost a listing appointment in Summerhill not too long ago, but I've only sold one house down there, and the other guy was able to say he'd sold 30. So I was like, okay, I don't feel too terribly bad losing that one.
Justin Landis: What was it as we started to talk about Bolst that led you to pick Bolst when there are other options available?
Matt Simonds: I think financials had a big part to do with it. It was a big delta swing for me. And then I really loved the business model of being able to give back, and I also love the ability to build a sense of community within a brokerage.
Justin Landis: Which you've definitely done. On the financial side, I was looking, you've got a lot under contract, it looked like four and a half million or so, which I think you're going to pay Bolst a total of 00 or 00 a piece because we have a capped model, where once you pay in a certain amount each year, you keep the rest. If you were not at Bolst and at your previous brokerage, on that four and a half million dollars, what do you think you would have paid?
Matt Simonds: I mean, a lot more. Probably 15, maybe 20.
Justin Landis: Yeah, and so you're going to do five times that this year, you take the 20 times five, that's sending the kids to school and going on vacation and lots of stuff, right?
Matt Simonds: Yeah, it's a big swing.
Justin Landis: It is a big swing. Even with that swing of spending less, you have done amazing here. I do think the community you've built has been really helpful for your business and other people in the brokerage. Talk a little bit about the community that you've built over the last couple of years.
Matt Simonds: Yeah, we push each other. I think there's a sense of cheerleading, at least a little bit. I'm truly happy for my quote-unquote competitors that are going after the same buyers and sellers that I am. I think that's unique. Real estate can be a lonely place. We deal with people's problems all day long, and just to have somebody to call and vent to is huge. I think we have that here in different groups. Our little group is tight-knit and I love it. We have a pretty active text thread, that's probably daily. And then we have a mastermind group that meets once a month, talking through different strategies, what somebody's doing over here that maybe I need to think about doing, in different target markets. So we can be collaborative. Really unique in this industry, I believe.
Justin Landis: To set it up for the listeners, there's a group Matt's with, maybe six other folks, and they get together once a month, and usually I join them. As I was looking at everybody's numbers last year, the growth that people have had is so awesome. And as I kind of reflected on it, it's like, what is it? Of course I wish it was like me giving some secret sauce or something, but it's not. It's that community, like that text thread, the stuff y'all are helping each other with. The value of this is really high. If you don't have a community, you need to find one or create your own, wouldn't you say?
Matt Simonds: Yeah, go build it. We even did a lake retreat to start off the year with setting goals. Justin came, didn't have to, but speaks to you for that. Did it overnight at the lake, built more community, set strategies for how we're going to conquer this year. Because at the end of the day, we all run small businesses, and if you're not growing, you're dying. So it was really fun to spend that time together and develop those strategies.
Justin Landis: So good. On the relationship side, I've also been really impressed, not just internally here at Bolst, but you have great relationships across brokerages, across the city. Talk a little bit about how you decided to do that, and the actual technique of how you've done that.
Matt Simonds: Yeah, I think one thing that's become popular the last few years is broker previews, sneak peeks, broker opens, price evaluations. And I just was really intentional for a year or two about going to as many as I could possibly go to, meeting as many agents as I could meet, especially in my target areas. In doing that, you develop relationships with them, and then you get invited and you get sneak peeks, you get the early look, you get access to inventory that other people don't know about. If you do it organically, and then if you have great transactions with people where you negotiate in a way that is not rude, fair to both sides, I like to negotiate from a place out of respect, always. Respect for the other agent, respect for the seller. But I think doing that has gotten me access to stuff that I would not have.
Justin Landis: When you say stuff, that means?
Matt Simonds: Houses. That are not on the market. I drove here from a house that was pre-market that I'm under contract on that I would not have known about if I didn't have a great relationship with that agent.
Justin Landis: So if somebody is listening to this and they're like, oh man, Matt's way ahead of me, I don't have any of these relationships. What are the first steps for someone to be able to build those relationships?
Matt Simonds: I mean, don't just go to the broker open or the price evaluation. Add value. Spend the time there. Have the lengthy conversation. Don't just go and take pictures and put it on your Instagram story. But go and actually have the conversation with someone and learn about their life. It's the same thing with clients or your sphere to get a client. Learn about their kids. Just be you and go meet people and get in their phone book.
Justin Landis: Because a lot of caravans and broker opens are publicly invited to everyone, right? And so you just see what they are and you start to go and you build the relationships. And then as you start to have those relationships and actually know each other, then some of the ones that are more select and invite only, you start to be on that invite list.
Matt Simonds: That's right. And then you can return the favor on yours as well. And it helps on your listings too, because now I have these people that if I'm loyal going to all of theirs, then they show up to buy. It's a major value add for your seller, especially if it's a tough property at price. So you get kind of a quorum on price from the industry without having gone to market yet. What a value to the seller compared to blasting something out and having three people who don't really know the market come because they wanted a free bottle of wine, versus having 20 people that do actually know the market coming to get that feedback.
Justin Landis: That's right. And it can be very helpful especially in a low-inventory market. Low-inventory markets can be tough to comp.
Matt Simonds: Yep. So sellers are often on the fence, and in a changing market too, they often might be a little bit high, and this can kind of show them where we might want to be if their goal is to move it quickly.
Justin Landis: You joked about posting it on Instagram and you are not a big Instagram poster. However, your houses do get on Instagram a lot. Tell everybody a little bit about how your houses get posted on Instagram but you're not big at posting on Instagram.
Matt Simonds: No, I'm not. I just have never been a social media fan. I didn't even have accounts before I started in this industry. But yeah, I simply leverage the people that like to do that. And if I have a listing that is really well decorated, or I know it's going to be popular, it's in a great neighborhood, I'll do a broker open and I'll just repost all of the pictures that people post. And then it kind of spreads that way. But it also gets to their network, which is almost arguably more important. And last spring, I sold a house that got posted a ton of times. The would-be buyer, they weren't even shopping that area. They were shopping Buckhead. This was in Sandy Springs. But they were like, we got to go see it. And then they ended up being the ones to buy it.
Justin Landis: Wow. And you told me that last week, one of your sellers said something about they noticed how many people were posting it.
Matt Simonds: Yeah. I get that sometimes too. Because they use it more than I use it, and so they see it, or their friends will see it and be like, hey, this is your house. So I've gotten that a few different instances.
Justin Landis: So we've covered a lot of different marketing strategies on here and relationship strategies. And as you move forward, your plan is to continue the relational piece of the business, both internally here at Bolst, externally with the agent community and with your sphere. And you feel confident, even with AI, with whatever Instagram, all this sort of stuff, that that's going to be a successful strategy moving forward?
Matt Simonds: I think so. I think it's the most likely to bring in a client, just because it's so much more personal. There are certainly agents that succeed with cold calling expireds and door knocking and other methods, but I think for me, it's a high intrinsic value as well that I enjoy. So I think that's a piece of it that I want to continue doing.
Justin Landis: Yeah, I so agree on the intrinsic value. There is one place that you have done some stuff online. Last week I talked with Kristen from The Kristen Show, and she has a huge Instagram following. She also said, hey, I know my audience is on Instagram. You've been doing some stuff on LinkedIn, and I think that's because you've thought that your audience might not be on Instagram. Talk a little bit about that.
Matt Simonds: Yeah, reflecting back, I was looking through most of my clients, and I tend to get hired by a data-driven male, and most of them don't even have an Instagram profile. But a lot of them use LinkedIn. And there's not really many residential real estate agents that market on LinkedIn. And so I said, all right, let's take a swing at that and see if that might work and bring in somebody who may not be in my sphere. But yeah, I even got a call from one of my best friends, his brother-in-law, he lives in Nashville, and he was shopping, he was like, I'm shopping for a house right now. And he was like, you're the only real estate agent that is marketing to me. He was like, yeah, I can't work in this market, but why is no one else doing this? And then he was like, he runs a bank, and he was like, I might need to start doing this. So I think there's something to that, to know who your audience is and to target them specifically.
Justin Landis: Yeah, that's interesting because it's such a different platform and different content, but it is so similar to what Kristen was saying about being authentic. The authentic version of yourself is what's going to resonate with people. LinkedIn is my favorite social media platform. Someone suggested to me to do it and they were like, Justin, LinkedIn is almost all business and almost all positive, that's a perfect fit for you. And I was like, wait, that is me. I do love to be super positive and I do love business. So that is a better fit. And so I think if anybody's listening and you're going to pick one thing to go further, you probably do want to pick the one that your audience is on and is most natural to you. And to wrap up with you, you've done it on the relationships. We outlined the three ways, internally at your own brokerage, externally with the agent community, and then in your actual community. It's paying off in absolute spades. I really appreciate you sharing with us today.
Matt Simonds: No, I appreciate you having me. And I would say my only final thing would be something you have said a couple of different times, that you could do 30 additional things to try and grow your business, but pick two and go all in. And I think that is a great message for every agent out there.
Justin Landis: Yeah, and I think that's a hard message in this industry because we see so many things, and a lot of them can work. We could probably list out 30 things that actually could work for someone. They're not going to work all for one person, right? And so that's why you do that one or two. If you did door knocking or expireds, you'd be way better on the 2000th attempt than you would on the second attempt. And if you have coffee with 2000 people, the 2000th coffee is going to be better as well than the second one. I love how you stuck to your lane and not gotten distracted by the shiny outside things. It's really paid off for you. So man, thanks for being here and sharing today.
Matt Simonds: Yeah, thank you.
Justin Landis: All right, everybody. Thanks for listening today. Make sure that you like and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And I will see you again next week.
