- Who is Vikram Deol?
- Considering inflation for standards
- Aspirational buyers
- Setting expectations
- Finding the correct type of help
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikramdeol/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachvikramdeol/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Coachvikramdeol/
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
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- FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/exitstrategiessc/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxoSuynJd5c4qQ_eDXLJaZA
- Website: https://www.exitstrategiesradioshow.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmelette/
- Email @: corwyn@corwynmelette.com
Corwyn:
So good morning, good morning and good morning guys. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Guys, I am your host. That is me, Corwyn J. Melette, broker on of Exit Realty Low Country Group in beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina. So, guys, y’all hear the phones going off the hook around here cuz we got some amazing things going on and we wanna make sure that we share them with you.
All right, so please, please, please make sure that you tune in, make sure you are focused, make sure you get some notes, pads and some pens or some pencils, cuz we’re gonna be putting some things down for you here around here on today. All right. So guys, look, we have been going out amongst. We’ve been going out across the land.
All right, look and look. I think this one, we crossed the ocean. We’ll talk about that one a little bit later. But we have been going out across the land guys to bring you the best guests, and today is no different. We have with us none other than a coach. He’s a coach, Vikram Deol. Yes. With the real estate sales academy. Vikram, how are you doing?
Vikram:
I’m blessed. Never, never less. How are you, my friend?
Corwyn:
I am incredible. I am incredible. So, Vikram, thank you so much for taking time outta your schedule to be with us around here today and sharing with us cause I know you got some jewels and nuggets for us. So I’m gonna first start by asking you to tell our listeners a little bit more about you.
Vikram:
Well, I like long walks on the beach. Romantic candles at dinners. I’m single, ladies. Do you wanna know, man? I’ve been a serial entrepreneur before. Being an entrepreneur was cool. I just thought I was unemployable as my, friends and family would say, why can’t you just be more chill and get a job, Vik?
I’m like, because, I don’t know. Just working for myself seems a lot more fun. We were 17 I was selling Cutco knives and by the time my friends would wake up in the morning, I’d already made like 500 bucks so back in California, I’d be, let’s go to the east side, get some carne, get some carne asada, some chicken barbecue, smoke a couple J’s, drink some beers, ghost it by the pool.
And I’m like, you guys are unavailable. I’m like, y’all ain’t around because you guys work this nine-to-five nonsense. And so, I’m like, they’re like, well Vic, if you confront us 20 bucks, then we could come, hang out with you. And I’m like, yeah, let’s go. Dude, I made 500 bucks today.
Like, come on man, what’s up? Let’s go, let’s go. And I’ve always just had that like I probably get it from my family, but just that drive to, go out and do something on my own and I’ve always said it and I’ve done it. I’ve lived it. I said I’d rather be broke on my own than Rich working for somebody else.
And unfortunately have had to live that a few times, but now I’m just gonna be loaded and work for myself. That’s a way better philosophy. Be rich and that’s what we do.
Corwyn:
So I had to laugh, when you told me where you are, because it immediately took me back, to a previous show some time ago. But we had a guest that essentially you guys are hacking life. That’s what you’re doing. You’ve figured out that balance. Between, I’m gonna live the life that I want, but I’m gonna make the means or have the means necessary in order to do that. So I don’t want to get too far off into the web and the tangents.
Vikram:
Sure, sure.
Corwyn:
Cause I wanna make sure that we really focus and talk about at least initially what it is that you do, how it is that you serve people. And, let’s get in the trenches on that.
Vikram:
Okay.
Corwyn:
So, What do you do?
Vikram:
Yeah, man. I help real estate agents use modern-day sales tactics and actually connect with prospects on an emotional level so that the prospect it’s causing the prospect to want to work with you. And it’s causing you to basically insert yourself in between where they’re at now and where they wanna be and by asking better questions, by using better tonality, by having a better cadence using body language and learning how to read the room, you are able to have way better conversations with people.
And you know what, what’s really cool about when you learn how to have a conversation with somebody, is that. You are no longer attached to the outcome. Obviously, we wanna help everybody, but you’re no longer attached to the outcome because you’re like, all right, Corwyn’s, not Corwyn’s, not my guy right Now, I’m gonna pick up the phone.
I’m gonna call five more people. I’m gonna have two more conversations. I’m gonna book an appointment with somebody who I can help, so we’re not out there trying to force people. To work with us. We’re out there attracting the right people by allowing them to get out of their own way because in this market, we have interest rates, we have the economy, we have wars happening, and we have so much uncertainty that people are stuck in their own trap and they can’t get out of their own way. And if you ask the standard questions out there, which trigger? Sales resistance or it puts the wall up like it’s really hard to scale a wall,
That’s why they’re trying to put a wall at the border, cuz it’s hard to scale it like it’s easier to walk across an open river. And so if we can keep the walls of resistance down from our prospects, then it allows us to have a better conversation. It allows us to actually focus on the person we wanna focus on, which is the prospect.
And so that’s what we do. And, a little bit more about me I had a real estate team before. I retired back in 2018. And we had accomplished, I guess it was a lot compared to other people, but we’d done about a quarter billion dollars in sales in about six or seven years and built a team and had all the infrastructure and, it was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun to build that and do that and help people and teach people that were servers or teach people that were, coming from other countries how to communicate and how to actually take the I don’t like to say the word sell because really selling is just helping people get out of their own way. But we were able to see some people that. Probably didn’t have a lot of opportunity in their eyes to see things a lot differently because they were able to go out and make six figures and, get out of like servers or get out of construction and things of that nature. I got a little rant.
Corwyn:
Okay.
Vikram:
Why do we still claim that a hundred K? Inflation went up 22% in the last 20 months. Or something insane like that,? Gas is seven bucks a gallon now, in a lot of places. Why is a hundred thousand dollars still the mark that everybody is shooting for? Instead of like, I remember two a hundred grand, like in 1980, my dad was making a lot of money, And if my dad would’ve kept making the same amount of money as he was in the eighties as he is today, It is because the cost of inflation, the cost goes up. The cost of business is harder. He’d be poor. But it’s still the same thing. Like when I talk to people like, man, I really wanna make a hundred grand.
Why has everything gone up and priced? But we haven’t shifted our mindset around what a hundred grand is. A hundred grand. Today is like 50k, 20 years ago.
Corwyn:
So look, I don’t know your preference in music, but you strike me as someone who gets down with all genres. So, you know, years and years ago, Jay-Z said this thing that 40 was a new 20.
Vikram:
Right?
Corwyn:
Right. So a hundred grand, a hundred thousand dollars is the new 25, 30,000, I mean
Vikram:
Yeah. Entry level.
Corwyn:
Exactly. If you need to be at a certain level or what have you, as far as affordability, cuz you’re right, inflation is off the charge. It’s ridiculous. And we’re paying. I remember I used to work in a grocery store. I remember when eggs would be 50 cents a dozen. And now, we paying, dollars for ’em, six, $7, in some instances or whatever. But dollars for ’em, and milk used to be a dollar and change. Now it’s 5, $6 a gallon. It’s asinine to me. I just, so you need more money to live with the same standard that people did back then with 25 and $30,000?
Vikram:
Absolutely. When I got outta real estate a couple of years ago, I was thinking about, okay, what do I want to do? And I knew that I had to help people. I knew that the component had to be helping people with things that are more than just buying a home, more than just buying a set of knives, more than buying a cell phone. It’s gotta be something where it changes somebody’s life for good. And don’t get me wrong, buying a home changes lives.
It’s just, it’s a different level of change. Now, helping my people change their lives was really rewarding because those were people that might not have had the opportunity prior to us conversating, and so that’s really cool, but I wanted to do it on a bigger scale. If we can, when I was talking to my coach a couple of years ago and he is like, what do you want to do?
And I’m like, it is between life coaching, helping people with their life, or making money. I was kind of torn because I think that if we can help people make more money, it doesn’t solve unhappiness. It doesn’t solve childhood trauma. It doesn’t solve a lot of the things that humanity is facing.
But it does get you the resources to go out and find somebody that can help you with that. That’s fair, because if you gotta find somebody that’s three grand for their program to help you go through all your childhood traumas and it’s, 3000, 4,000, $5,000, ayahuasca slash integration slash nine-month ceremony.
For you to go do all the things and travel to Costa Rica or wherever you need to go. Well, you can’t do that. Or if you got a kid that’s got some crazy disease and it requires a lot of alternative healthcare, that’s thousands of dollars in the US, which is insane. You can’t afford that. But if you have the money, It just solves those money problems and you get to live, I mean, you just get to live a healthier lifestyle if you choose to.
Now money, if you’re a jerk, is gonna make you a bigger jerk, but again, you can go get a therapist and work on that. But if you don’t have the money, you’re just a jerk with no money and you’re unhappy and you’re poor, like, at least be rich and unhappy.
Corwyn:
Well, that’s fair. Look, I say this thing all the time. I say it to friends, I say it to family. I say it to our agents here cuz Vikram, I’m a broker, so, you know, we have agents and regardless, you’re gonna struggle. So either you can struggle without, or you can struggle with. This is fundamental. You’re gonna have challenges in your life, period.
So what does that look like? So you talked about and kind of touched on getting people to gonna use the word interject. That might not be, the right word to use in the scenario. But essentially, that’s what we do. We find ourselves with oftentimes opportunity to assist people, but you can only assist people.
Going from, as you mentioned, where they are to where they want to be. Right? And we want to get right here in that path to say, okay, well hey, let me help you leverage to that next level. So what is one of the fundamental things that you see as a challenge for many agents as they endeavor to interject themselves?
Vikram:
I guess like if we’re talking about. Are we talking about buyers, sellers? What do you
Corwyn:
Let’s, pick aside, if I had a coin handy, I’d flip it. Let’s start with buyers.
Vikram:
So with the buyer, buyers are aspirational. As my mentor, Sharon will say, buyers are aspirational, which means they want to get into a home. You have aspirational people that want something like you already know they have a want, but they haven’t necessarily created the need because they have a roof over their heads. They have comfort, they have a place to stay. They have beds. Now, if you talk to somebody, And, through the conversation right now, if you follow the standard script, you might never get to this. But if you follow what we do, which is how we get to the emotions behind why they reached out if you can ask the question.
So it’s like, yeah, Corwyn ,why are we looking at, why did you reach out in the first place? Because they’re gonna go to the market. They’re gonna go to the news, they’re gonna start regurgitating a bunch of crap that a bunch of people told ’em, and you’re like, how do I get through them?
Well, you’re not gonna argue with argue. Fire. And fire just makes irritation and they’re gonna hang up the phone on you. So what we gotta do is we gotta bring them back to the fundamentals of why did you reach out in the first place? Like why did you show up to the open house? Why did you dial us on that ad?
Why did you put your information on that listing? We are advertising like something triggered you. So if we can, well, you know, we’re looking for a bigger house. Okay. And why are we looking for a bigger house? Well, we have a bunch of kids. Okay, that makes sense. Now, a lot of agents are gonna stop right there.
Like you barely just got the lid of the jar open and you stop. You’re like, okay, they need a bigger house. They have a lot of kids. How many kids do you have? We have three kids. Okay. What kinda house are you looking for? We’re looking for a five-bedroom. Great. Oh, cha-ching. cha-ching cha-ching! Five bedroom. That’s 500 thou.
Oh, that’s 25. Right. They start going into the math and they forget about the prospect. They’ve already gone to the store and bought the $7 gallon of milk and filled up their Escalade three times that they couldn’t afford. And so we’re like, wait a minute. Slow it down, slow it down, slow it down.
What’s the effect that they’re having? Okay, so tell me, so we know what you want. Do you guys want a five-bedroom house? You got a bunch of kids? How many? Three? Okay. Why else do we need the house? What else is affecting you? Oh, well, I work from home part-time and my wife’s going back to work.
And she’s gonna be working from home as well because she’s got a completely remote job. Right? Okay. So why does that, like, what’s the problem? And now agents start assuming throughout like, okay, they got work from home, they need an office. We don’t know what they need. We just assume based on a conversation that we had with Johnny, that this is what they’re gonna need.
And so instead of assuming, let the person tell you the story because when they tell you the story, They tell themself how much pain they’re in. So they have to say it. Selling isn’t telling. Selling is asking questions and then biting your lip and tongue. And, maybe like, the only time that I think jewelry in your mouth is appropriate is if you put that shoehorn that the kids put through their lips. If you put it in through your lip and you shut the hell up and you stop talking, then it’s appropriate. Otherwise, like, I don’t know if you should have jewelry and metal in your mouth. I don’t know. Maybe you like to set off the things at the airport, but you gotta figure out, okay, so we got three bedrooms.
You work from home, your wife works from home, and you got three kids. Why is that a problem? I know some people who would be rich to have a three-bedroom house. So why is that a problem? Oh, well, let me tell you, sounds like you guys are pretty comfortable. Oh, no, no, no. Let me tell you, Vik, there are kid toys everywhere.
I’m sitting in the living room, the kids are running with their bottles and cars all over my stuff. We got a dog that’s slobbering all over my stuff. My wife is gonna be in the living room like, have you ever worked with the wife before? I have. It’s called an x and bam, bam, bam. And they start telling you how much they hate their current situation.
Well, wow, that sounds horrible. How long has this been going on? A year? Oh my gosh! Has that been affecting your family? Yeah. How? Oh my God. My kids are arguing. My kids always say Daddy doesn’t love us, cuz he’s always on the computer. I don’t have a place to lock myself into. I can’t take a Zoom call in my bedroom.
Like, my wife gets out of the shower one time and I’m on Zoom, and she’s like, honey. And I’m like, yeah, right. Like, oh my God. , and so is that affecting your relationships? Yeah, totally. Oh, well, how, and you just get them talking and talking and talking and Corwyn all of a sudden, well, rates are 7% in your market.
But dude, I’m gonna lose my wife. Yeah, I’ve already lost my oldest son thinks the computer is more important than me because I’m always staring at the computer instead of talking to him. Oh, well is this something that we wanna change? Mm, yeah. Okay.
Well, I guess rates don’t matter as much. Maybe we live 20 minutes away from where we wanted to live, cuz that’s where homes are more affordable. Oh yeah, that makes sense. Okay, great. Well, and then like, I don’t know if anybody’s like taken the time out of their day to educate you on like what it takes to. Buy a home in today’s market, or even if you should be buying a home in today’s market. But I guess like, if you would find this helpful, what we could do is we could set some time on the calendar where we can meet, maybe grab a cup of coffee, and before the coffee gets cold, I can educate you on the three most important things that it takes to buy a home in today’s market.
Would you be opposed to that?
And most people would say no.
Right? Because they don’t want to tell you that they’re not educated. The realtors are not educating people because unfortunately, a lot of them weren’t trained because 2020, 2021, 2022 for a lot of people were still on the up and up.
So they never had to do a buyer’s appointment. They never had to educate them on the market. They just had to know how to write a basic contract and send an email. And pray to God that that was good. Like, you know I don’t know about you, but when I sold real estate before I retired, we would get offers.
Corwyn we get offers for 800,000, 1.2 million, and 1.6 million homes just emailed to us. And they would go to the spam and then the agent would be like, Hey, we never heard back from you. I’m like, who are you? Like, well, we sent an offer on your listing. I’m like, we had 36 offers. Did you call my team? No. Did you text us?
No, what’d you do? We sent an email. Did you follow up on that email? No. So you didn’t do your job? Why are you mad at me that it went to my spam. Like I’m not Gmail, I’m not Google, I’m not Microsoft. I don’t control the system. Like your job is to do that. Like people don’t even know those basic things.
And it’s not their fault, but it is their responsibility to figure it out.
Corwyn:
And, you know, you touched on something. I mean, that stuff makes me fight the air around in my office. Like, I literally just swing out because of that whole thing of, well, I sent an email. Well, you didn’t get a response back, if nobody acknowledged it?
Why didn’t you follow up and call the person or what have you? You know, I tell, I’m still old school, with, and I say old school Vikram, but really and truly it’s professional. I do my best with professional courtesy. There are times when I get busy, I can’t pick up the phone and call somebody.
I may send ’em a text, but I call an agent, Hey, look, we’re accepting your offer, I’ll call an agent, and hey, looking forward to working with you or what have you. And that’s a tone. We forget the importance of setting the expectation.
When you’re professional and courteous on the front end. your transaction usually works a whole lot smoother because they already have an inkling and feeling, and they’re not defensive on the other side of the table. And we miss that.
Vikram:
As a real estate agent, you have multiple clients. You have your actual, let’s say you’re the buyer, you actually have to represent the buyer. But you also have the client of the other real estate agent that you’re gonna be dealing with cuz if they don’t like you, let me tell you, they will do everything in God’s green earth to find another agent to work with cuz they don’t like you.
You also have to appease the seller. So, the sellers technically app client of yours cuz you gotta figure out how to get into, their shoes. You have the lender. Who may or may not be your preferred person, so you have to now work with them in a loving, professional way. To get them to do what you need to get the deal done. You have an appraiser who’s also your client because if the appraiser doesn’t do their job, you can’t go do your job. You have an inspector. That you better be able to have a conversation with them because when they come back and tell you that there’s rodents and bees and spiders, and the crawlspace is full of water, or your attic is full of rats and the buyer flips out and you’re like, dude, every place is like this.
If that person isn’t versed in talking to the client, they’re gonna kill the deal. But I love it when agent, I hate it, but I love it. I love it when an agent be like, the bottom just fell out of the deal. I’m like, what happened before but there are a lot of things that had to have happened between writing a contract, getting it accepted, and the bottom just falling out mysteriously.
Like there’s a lot of communication, there’s a lot of tone and cadence and Right. Like if you pick up the phone and you’re stressed out, you’re like, Corwyn, and you’re like, what’s Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Yeah, you knew something.
Yeah. Like you pissed that other agent off and then the seller’s like, screw these people.
We’re not giving them anything on the inspection. Forget ’em. We’ll just go back to the market. And that other agent’s like, yeah, we’ll get another buyer. Probably. I mean, in this market you’re gonna have 30 to 60% of listings not sell because you’re overpricing it because you don’t know how to talk to a seller.
Because you’re just like, oh my God, I need this deal. I need this deal. I gotta pay my car payment. I gotta pay my rent. And so instead of talking to the seller and figuring out what their emotional reason for listing the house is. There’s always a logic, we need to move. Why do we need to move?
We need a bigger house. Why do we need a bigger house? Why do we need this? Why? Right. A lot of people don’t have to sell in this market to move to a new house because they have so much equity.
Corwyn:
That’s a question that agents should ask. To make sure that you’re serving the individual. Make sure that you’re asking them, cuz maybe, maybe whatever the situation is, we can turn that property into a rental or maybe do something else with it and you don’t have to sell it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Right?
Vikram:
As long as you’re able to keep that client, your client, that’s the thing. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I talked to a lot of people that are like, well, we just need now buyers and sellers. I was like, okay, tell me what that even looks like. I don’t know. Like, cuz it doesn’t exist. The laydowns are gone. The 2020 laydown buyers and sellers, those days are gone. Joe, where’d they go?
Well, they’re scared. They need to be educated on why they should be buying or not buying and again, are you attached or detached from the outcome? If you’re attached to the outcome, they need to be. Now buyers, if you’re detached and you’re always thinking about my pipeline, my pipeline, my pipeline, right?
Like, if agents get on the phone and they can start thinking about, okay, some of these people are gonna probably transact now, maybe 20%, 80% of those people, you need to have a campaign. You need to have something to say. You need to be able to call and chat with them about their specific needs at that point in time without the standard, Hey, I’m just calling cuz my c r M popped up a reminder and all blah.
Oh, I’m just calling to say hello. How are you doing Corwyn? I’m just checking in. I’m great, man. I’ll be back in six months, check in next year. And then Corwyn goes out and meets a stud, and Corwyn buys a house and you check in six months later, like, oh, dude, we’re moving into our new home.
Well, I thought you were moving for six months, man, what the hell happened? Why didn’t you call me? You know, like my wife found this other agent at that open house that we were just driving home from Costco. and the agent that was just at the open house asked a couple of great questions, Hey, you know, like, Corwyn, has anybody actually sat down with you and chatted about the market?
No. Oh. would you find that beneficial? Yeah, probably. I mean, we’re thinking about buying, would you be opposed to sitting down after my open house for a few minutes and grabbing a cup of coffee? No, we wouldn’t be opposed to it. Okay, great. Ding, and all of a sudden you’re, I’ve been following up with you for five months.
No. You’ve been having really crappy conversations for five months.
Corwyn:
That’s very fair. Because we don’t pay attention. I shared this with my group. I’m a member of a top producers club, so in that club, I made the statement, but I also came back and shared it with my group about oftentimes we’re in attendance, but we’re not present.
We’re not present for people. You know, when you’re present, then your focus is there, and that’s when you have the opportunity to connect. When you’re just in attendance, you miss the opportunity to connect with people when you just show up because eh, you know, but you’re not really interested and you’re not focused on it.
You don’t really have any concern, investment or otherwise, legitimate care about. The consumer about the situation. That’s when you run that risk and have those issues. So that’s very, very, very interesting to see. So, Vikram, we’ve gotten to the end of the show, but I always ask.
Vikram:
Thank God that was super fun. That was, man, anytime you gimme a microphone and let me talk, I always have a good time.
Corwyn:
Well, look, I think with Kendrick spirits in that, so I’m gonna ask you, I call it my mic drop question.
Vikram:
Okay.
Corwyn:
And I call it the mic drop question because I want you to share something with our listeners, our audience, that if you had known this years ago, you can go back as far as you want.
Vikram:
Sure.
Corwyn:
Whenever you started your career, started coaching, whatever that looks like. But if you had known that, then what is it that would’ve changed your trajectory completely and accelerated your growth and your development?
Vikram:
I would’ve. When I retired from real estate in 2018, I was going through a lot of personal things, trials, and tribulations.
I had a divorce. I had spent a little bit of time in jail and got in some trouble. I was having some, just a lot like making a ton of money. We were doing well financially, but just emotionally I was wrecked and I wish back then that I would’ve known that there are coaches to help you with your trauma.
They are just not business coaches, they are just not therapists. They’re a hypnotherapist and I wish I would’ve known that prior so that I could have kept that business alive and implemented a CEO or somebody to run the business and keep it because I mean, we were doing, we were on track to do a hundred mil the next year.
And, we shut down at like, I think in 2017, 2018, what year? 2017. I think we did like 65 million or something I don’t know the exact numbers. 50, 60 million and we were on track the following year to double. One was the market was going up, so that made it really easy. And two, our team was just super structured at that point.
I wish I would’ve known, I wish I would’ve hired the person who I hired after I shut down the business. A year later. I wish I would’ve taken the plunge, hired him, made him a partner, installed a CEO, and had him be a partner in the installation of that. So give him a portion of the profits. And kept that business versus shutting it down, and moving on and doing something different.
And I guess like, when you pick a coach out of a big box that’s only coach, the only thing they’re really doing is accountability. They only know how to hit the nail with the hammer. But sometimes you’re not hitting a nail. Sometimes you’re hitting a screw and you’re trying to drive that screw with the hammer and it and it’s just, it’s resisting.
And I wish I would’ve known that. Like, I wish I would’ve known. There are different people that have different skill sets that, 5, 7, 8 years ago I knew and I could have kept that business alive because that was a badass business. So just make sure you’re finding the right help and just, don’t go after anybody because of price. Go after the person that it’s the right investment for you.
Corwyn:
That is profound. That’s profound, man. I really appreciate that. So Vikram, Thank you, thank you so much for being on the show with us today. For our listeners, guys, you got some real nuggets there.
If you are exploring a career in real estate, if you’re thinking about it, this is a show for you to go back and listen to over and over again. So you kind of pick out those pieces, those nuggets that are right for you. For our listeners, again, you know what we do, you know that we are bringing you engaging content.
And Vikram thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a part of the Exit Strategies Radio Show family, for being our guest today. And one final time for our listeners. Y’all keep tuning in cuz we’re gonna keep bringing it to you. You know, I’m aiming for your throat. Try to try to get you right in your throat.
I’m trying to 📍 get you caught up cuz I want you to understand. Opportunities that have been availed. And I want you to capitalize on those opportunities and make a real difference in your life. Y’all know what I say, y’all know how I feel. I’m gonna put the two of them together and say it to you this way, which is, I love you.
I love you, I love you, and we gonna see you guys out there in those streets.
