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Ben Riekhof: The market's constantly changing, and the way that we do things are constantly changing. And if we're teaching things that worked five years ago, that's not relevant today. So we've got to stay up on what's happening. And I think the best way to do that is to be in the market.
Justin Landis: Welcome to the Justin Landis Show, your real estate podcast about having conversations, building relationships, and creating freedom. Today, I'm here with the Bolst Director of Training, Ben Riekhof. Ben, thanks for being here today.
Ben Riekhof: Thank you, Justin. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
Justin Landis: Man, I'm excited to dig into real estate education today. But before we do, you had, I call it a kind of an unconventional path to real estate. Tell a little bit about the path that led you to become a real estate agent.
Ben Riekhof: A little unconventional, I think. Real estate is often a second career for people as it was for me. I started out in education. I was a high school teacher for 10 years. I taught French in the Atlanta area public schools. And yeah, after about 10 years of doing that, I was feeling pretty burnt out, was looking for an escape. I didn't want to go back to school. The idea of working for myself was interesting. And I had a connection in the industry. He was my agent and said, you can come and work with me. So I went for it.
Justin Landis: You know, now that you, I hear you tell, I knew the story, but obviously as I hear it again, I'm like, that maybe isn't that unconventional. A lot of people do get into real estate. They're in a career that they realize they don't love. They want to make a switch. They don't want to go back and get a huge degree and stuff. And that does lead them into real estate.
Ben Riekhof: Yes. And it is terrifying. So if there's anyone out there thinking about it and they have a list of all the things that they could do with themselves because they're in a job they don't love. I completely understand that it takes a lot of courage, I think, to jump into.
Justin Landis: Well, and you've dedicated a lot of the time in your career to those new agents. So tell us a little bit about your first experience. When you first started, what was it like for you to start that career in real estate? Did you have a lot of structure? Did you not? Was it easy? Was it hard? Tell everybody about that.
Ben Riekhof: It's funny. I was just chatting with an agent today who's thinking about joining Bolst, and I asked her to tell me her story, and it was so familiar. And it's my story, too. So my first year in the business, I linked up with an experienced agent, fantastic real estate agent, and I was basically just thrown out there. And I love the guy still. We're buddies. And I think he would be the first to admit that he just wasn't set up for formalized training. It was kind of, hey, if you have a question, let me know. And so I said, all right, I'll just jump in and kind of wing it. So my first year in the business, I really struggled. I had no idea what I was doing. And I was fortunate to lock into a handful of transactions. So I was able to survive that first year. But after a year of feeling like I was just guessing, I really needed more structure.
Justin Landis: How did you just know you're like, I don't know what I'm doing? How did you realize, like, I need something else.
Ben Riekhof: Yeah, I thought that I had it, you know, because I had done a couple of sales and they just landed in my lap. And I was like, all right, well, I guess I'm doing real estate now. And at one point there was somebody in the, I was living in a condo complex at the time and I had sold a couple of units there just because I had been involved with the HOA board and everything. And one guy reached out to me that I didn't know. And I just emailed him back and I was like, yep, I'll list your condo. Sounds good. And I never heard from him. And I reached back out maybe a month later and I was like, Hey, I thought we were going to work together. And he was like, dude, all these other agents I reached out to had listing appointments, like had listing presentations where they sat down with me and explained their process. You didn't do any of that. So then I'm Googling, what is a listing appointment? And this is a year into the business. And I'm Googling, what is a listing appointment? I realized at that point, I really needed more structure and more training.
Justin Landis: And how did you decide, well, how am I going to find out? What am I going to do next?
Ben Riekhof: I started asking around. I was fortunate to meet a friend who is a closing attorney, and he was really connected in the industry. And he started introducing me to more folks, and he introduced me to you. And I interviewed with you and several other folks before I decided to jump on your team.
Justin Landis: And so when you started, what was that like? How did it contrast? And how was the beginning of your time at JLG?
Ben Riekhof: I learned more in the first month on JLG than I had in a year of guessing. And I closed about six deals, I think, in that first year. But I definitely learned more in that first month than I ever had. And I was so fired up. I don't know if you remember, but every time I would learn a new way to do something and I was like, oh my gosh, I wish I had known this when I started. This is such a game changer for me. This is making my life easier. So that first year was really good when it came to mastering the process. It was not a good year for me as far as sales go. I struggled because I did not want to sell to my friends. I didn't want to come across as salesy.
Justin Landis: What was it that made you change your lead generation mindset from that?
Ben Riekhof: I realized to the point that you guys made to me when I first joined, I cannot expect to make a full living off of team generated leads. That is not sustainable. And so I was seeing other people doing it. I was seeing it working for them. And I was at a crossroads. It was either go back to teaching high school or go all in and see if this works. And I'll never go back to teaching high school. So I just went all in, started calling up my friends, asking them out to grab a beer or to have a coffee. And referrals started coming in.
Justin Landis: Tell a little bit more specifics. I want you to tell the story of where you're like, all right, I am actually going to do it.
Ben Riekhof: I was so fired up when it started working. So yeah, I just went all in on the relationship portfolio conversation. I learned this from you, and I think you guys had learned it from another coach. And basically, I just reached out to people and was like, I don't want to sell you a house right now. This is not why I'm reaching out. But I know that there aren't a lot of resources out there for people who just have questions. So if you just need anything, if you want to just sit down and talk about your future plans or if you need a recommendation for a vendor to help you with your house or want to know what's going on in the mortgage market, whatever. I just want to be a resource to you. And so more and more people said, yeah, you can be my guy. You're my resource. I appreciate that. And it was a way to reach out to people that felt to me like it was in line with my own values. It was not just, hey, do you know anybody that wants to buy or sell a house. It was more like, hey, I want to make sure that my friends aren't making mistakes. I want to make sure that my friends aren't just picking a random real estate agent and potentially having a bad experience. And they felt that. And they appreciated it. And they started referring people to me. And once I realized that I could be myself and I could have these conversations and have it be interpreted in a way that wasn't sales, you know, was authentic, that's when it took off. And I was probably making 50 or 60 of these calls a week for a while.
Justin Landis: That relationship portfolio that Ben mentioned, I mean, just for anyone listening, if you haven't heard that term before, I think it's a pretty unique JLG, Justin Landis Group thing. But it's people who know you, like you, trust you, and you're their go-to real estate agent. So you know that there's like an opt-in relationship. You know that you're the go-to person.
Ben Riekhof: You're not entitled to anything. And I think I learned that, too. You know, I lucked into my first handful of transactions and I really thought that that was just going to keep happening. It was unpredictable. And so really to increase the predictability and the consistency of it, you have to be proactive. You can't be the secret agent. You can't be just hoping that things come to you.
Justin Landis: So you started into that. And then your business really took off. And you started selling a lot of houses. What was that like being in really high production?
Ben Riekhof: It was amazing. I was running around like every single day, showing houses, talking to people, having appointments. And I really realized that this was all happening as a function of having those conversations with folks. The more of those conversations I had, the more I got to run around and show houses. So I really had a blast that year in particular. And I realized this is a repeatable process. At the end of that year that I was super busy, I approached you and was like, maybe I can bottle up some of your secret sauce and make it into classes.
Justin Landis: Well, I was so excited about that because you're a professional educator and that is a skill that I do not have and nobody else on the team had. And so it was really exciting to me to think, oh, like we have seen this stuff work over and over. We could help a lot more people if we could actually put some real education around this. And so then you and I started evaluating like, hey, what is the real estate agent education like out there? And we weren't that impressed with what we found.
Ben Riekhof: Yeah, I had gone to a lot of classes just independently as an agent. And then I started kind of going to classes and evaluating them also as an educator. And I did find that many of these real estate classes seem to be an afterthought for a lot of brokerages. It seemed like they just were there to help agents get their CE credit. And I wasn't seeing anything in these classes that were leading to a direct application to my business. What I got was recycled presentations and instructors who hadn't sold houses in many years. They became professional real estate trainers, and they weren't in touch with the demands of the current market. I found that problematic.
Justin Landis: As you saw that, what did you think? Hey, like, well, what can we do about it? What are we going to do to solve this problem and make a change?
Ben Riekhof: I didn't know. I just went to you and said, maybe we can make some classes and sell them. And next thing I knew there was a position open at JLG to hop on as Director of Training. So that was where I had put all my energy. Once I moved into that position, I started thinking about my first year and what I would have wanted as a first year agent, really practically. It's not just from a lead generation standpoint. I think that's where brokerages, when it comes to new agents, a lot of them kind of fall short. What the experience I've seen from a lot of agents, including myself, is they really hit hard when it comes to the lead generation, but without an understanding of the process, how to really do this job and how to really take care of clients. Without that, you're going to lack the confidence to go and have the conversations. So it's almost a chicken and egg thing.
Justin Landis: That is such a challenge, especially for the new agent. You've got to learn how to do this job and you have to get business. And to your point, if you're only trying to get business, then it's chaos or you don't have the confidence to see it through. Or if you're only doing education on the process, you risk being in a place where you know what you're doing but you don't have enough clients. You've got to marry them together.
Ben Riekhof: Yeah. And there's no one else out there that's really doing what we're doing. So to give you guys a little bit of context in the program, what it is, it's a curriculum that steps agents through every piece of the buying and the selling process with tips and tricks on how to be as efficient as possible. So that way you're better able to scale. You're getting good habits in place for tracking right away. And you're learning how to do what agents do: listing appointments, buyer consultations, setting up searches, showing houses, running comps, pricing. And in tandem with that, every single week that we meet, we're checking in on, hey, have you hit the goals that you set for yourself as far as the conversations you want to have, the appointments you want to have?
Justin Landis: This is Justin with the market update. It's harder than it's been in a long time to get homes sold that have been on the market for a while. At Bolst, we place a premium on training to help you get those homes sold. And it's no coincidence that last year of the top 20 brokerages in Atlanta, Bolst had the lowest days on market. If you'd like to learn how we're helping sellers do that, book a mentor call and we'll get a time scheduled to talk through your specific situation. Back to the podcast.
Ben Riekhof: The community aspect has been huge. So the way that we have it structured is we start a group of trainees every couple of months, and they all start at the same time, and they work through the curriculum together. So you're with the same group of learners from week to week, and that becomes a support structure. They start a group chat with one another, and they can vent, or they can brag, or they can strategize together. And then we also have two certified instructors. One for North Atlanta and one for the Atlanta office. They are absolutely phenomenal. They're experienced agents, they're still in production. I'm still in production. So we're all in this market together.
Justin Landis: Ben, why do you think it matters that you're still in production? They're still in production. Our managing broker, Catherine Childs, still sells houses. Julie Carracotta, managing broker in Alpharetta, still sells some houses. Why do you think that matters?
Ben Riekhof: Because I think that people don't want to learn from somebody that hasn't sold a house in five years. So we want to have an environment where students know that we're going through the same stuff they are. I've had listings that take longer to sell than I want them to. I've had buyers that are going through the same kind of struggles that their buyers are going through with interest rates and affordability. I'm having the same conversations every day that the people in the program are also having. I think that's just so vital that you have somebody that you can relate to. And the market's constantly changing. And the way that we do things are constantly changing. And if we're teaching things that worked five years ago, that's not relevant today. So we've got to stay up on what's happening. And I think the best way to do that is to be in the market.
Justin Landis: You talk to so many agents who are coming into the business. What do you think is holding back most people as you talk to people that haven't gone through your program yet?
Ben Riekhof: I think the biggest thing is they just don't know about this program. No, in all seriousness, I think what holds a lot of people back is just lacking the confidence to get out there and talk to people. And there is a lot of misinformation out there on social media, and it can give people a false impression of what this is, and it can make this job look a lot easier than it really is. People will get into it and be like, hey, I'm a real estate agent, I can go show pretty houses and look cute, and that's not the job. The job is you're in the trenches. The whole reason we exist is because it's hard to buy and sell a house. And if there weren't problems, we wouldn't exist. So you have to deal with problems. You have to face challenging scenarios.
Justin Landis: Share a couple examples of some students that you have helped transform their real estate career.
Ben Riekhof: Yeah, you've got April Williams coming on the podcast. She reached out to me through a mutual connection before she had her license. And so I helped her through getting her license. And then once she got it, she got on the team with us. And so she went through the Elevate and Advance program in its early stages. She's done a bunch of the other training offerings that we have. She's on this podcast. She's selling a lot of houses. She's doing well. She's a wonderful source of knowledge for agents who are now new to her. It's been amazing to see somebody that I helped train become a mentor and a source of inspiration for other agents. That gives me great joy. There's another agent that had been licensed for eight years or so, had been with another brokerage, was doing a moderate business and wanted to step it up. And this agent, despite many years of experience in transactions, decided to do the Elevate and Advance program. I want to be clear: this program is not just for new agents. It's how to be a great real estate agent, no matter how many years you've been in the business. This agent is now, I believe, in the top 10 of individual agents at the brokerage.
Justin Landis: That's a great transition. We've talked a lot about newer agents, but you've developed dozens of classes, multiple programs. Talk a little bit about the other offerings that you've developed.
Ben Riekhof: Anything that I've learned, the way that I've been able to process it best is by making a lesson plan for it. So you name something that a real estate agent does, and I've probably got a class for it. About 10 or 12 of them. How to work with investors, how to be an investor, how to do a buyer consult, FMLS hacks. You name it. I really enjoy giving classes for CE credit, but then I also have a ton of workshops. And then we've got a couple of other flagship operations here. One of them being Propel, which is a larger group productivity coaching type environment where we have usually like 25 to 30 agents. We put them in groups and each week we meet for five weeks and each week we have a different set of speakers that come in. We take a look at what's happening in the market right now and figure out who are the best speakers to come and really speak to what the current needs of the market are. We generally have a speaker discuss mindset, help agents look at their business a little bit differently. And then we have some type of training to help them get out there and have conversations. If they hit 80% of their goal that they set for conversations, we give them their money back. It's a free program. It ends up being a free program that honestly pays them because they're getting more business.
Justin Landis: You also do individual coaching for real estate agents. You spent a year learning to be a coach.
Ben Riekhof: Yeah. It's really important to understand that there is a difference between training and coaching. Training is just kind of like, how do you do a process? Coaching is where are you now? Where do you want to be? And how are you going to get there? And how can I help you hold yourself accountable? I like to say that I help agents hold themselves accountable because really this is your own business. You're a business owner. So yeah, we meet on a weekly basis one-on-one and we discuss what they did last week, what worked, what didn't work, what we need to change, and then set plans for the following week. It's that consistency week after week. Some weeks we end up talking about their mindset, whatever mental blocks they might be having. Other weeks we talk about events they want to plan, social media plans. Whatever they need, I kind of help them break down the little baby steps in order to actually get to that goal.
Justin Landis: All right, Ben, you mentioned April Williams earlier and we're going to have April on the podcast and she was telling a story about when she first started. She's like, I need to get these headshots and new clothes and all this marketing material. And you were like, hey, let's stick with the basics.
Ben Riekhof: She's not the only one. So most of my training program is video format. And then we meet and discuss the concepts as a group. And one of the videos that I made was called Tough Love. In the Tough Love video, I talk about, yeah, you do not need a fancy headshot. You don't even need a fancy bio written or anything like that. You don't even need business cards. What you need is to just get out there and, what you say all the time, have conversations and build relationships. But I think agents that are nervous about doing those activities find other things to make it maybe feel like it's work, but do those activities actually lead to referrals? I mean, you don't need all that stuff. I know it looks like it from what you see on social media, but really you just need to get out there and talk to people. People are not choosing their real estate agent based on their headshot.
Justin Landis: Ben, thanks for the insight. Thanks for the real estate agents, businesses and careers you have impacted over the years through your training, through your coaching, through all the things that you've put together. I really appreciate it. And it has made a humongous impact.
Ben Riekhof: Thank you. You gave me the opportunity to do it. And I'm in my dream job right now.
Justin Landis: I think I'll wrap up with this. It's been a great partnership when people are good at different things, but working towards the same goal. Man, that's when the magic can really happen. All right. Well, I appreciate you for being here, everybody. Thanks for listening to the Justin Landis Show this week. We will see you next week. Make sure you like and subscribe.
