Nathan Daniel: 0:00
Hey! Welcome back to the Broker-to-Broker Real Estate podcast. I'm your host, Nathan Daniel. And today we're talking about how to keep culture alive during COVID. And this is a very momentous episode because as of today, the news is reporting that there is a vaccine that is out there, it is being shipped and it is being delivered. So I thought this was a very unique topic for today. So we're gonna jump right in. Let me cue up the music and get this going. Welcome to the Broker-to-Broker Real Estate podcast where we have real raw conversations with industry leaders, finding out how to connect, support, lead, and ultimately make an impact and drive results in the lives of your agents. I'm your host, Nathan Daniel, and welcome to the show. Alright, so today on the show, we have Rico Rivera. So Rico, welcome to the show.

Rico Rivera: 0:54
Thank you very much. I appreciate being here.

Nathan Daniel: 0:56
Yeah, absolutely. Well, so for those that are listening in right now Rico is with Silicon Real estate, or Silicon East Real estate. And tell us a little about yourself.

Rico Rivera: 1:07
Been in the industry for 19 years, almost 20 years started in 2001 as attempt to hire at Old Republic and then work for Old Republic 15 years, I got hired with Keller Williams to be their team leader manager in 2015. Did that for three years and then started my own team, Silicon East real estate under now. Guide Real estate, the broker.

Nathan Daniel: 1:30
Okay. All right. So you started that organization and now you are with Keller Williams for several years, y'all recently started guide which I actually saw that announcement. So congratulations on that.

Rico Rivera: 1:42
Thank you.

Nathan Daniel: 1:43
That's a big move. So congrats on that. We're gonna get into some topics here, in just a little bit. We're gonna have some fun. Are you ready?

Rico Rivera: 1:50
I'm ready. Let's go.

Nathan Daniel: 1:51
Alright, so I ask you a couple questions. I don't know what they are before they come up, so here we go. So when was the last time you felt lit up about something?

Rico Rivera: 2:00
Lit up about something? When I made the announcement like several weeks ago that we were no longer Keller Williams franchise and we were going to go independent and be Guide Real estate.

Nathan Daniel: 2:13
Okay. Alright. That's a pretty big, pretty big jump, I imagine.

Rico Rivera: 2:17
Yes, yes.

Nathan Daniel: 2:19
So all right. Second question, given the choice of anyone in the world whom you would want as a dinner guest?

Rico Rivera: 2:26
A dinner guest? Bill Gates

Nathan Daniel: 2:29
Bill Gates, why Bill Gates?

Rico Rivera: 2:30
You know, I actually, just recently, last year saw his documentary. And I was fascinated by the fact that he's never late. He's never late to any of his appointments. And you know, he did. He said something in that documentary that really, just exploded my mind, right. It was the easiest thing ever. He said, "The one thing that keeps me the same to everyone else in this world is time." I don't have more time than anyone else. I can have more money than anyone else, right? But I don't have more time, and so time to me is precious. But the difference between me and you is how I use my time.

Nathan Daniel: 3:12
Oh, that's good. That's good. If you're noting write that one down, like bookmark this moment right now. That's good. I like that. Well, that would be an interesting dinner. So now I'm going to ask you a sub-question. Would this be at your house? Or would you go somewhere? Or would this be like, "Hey, Bill?"

Rico Rivera: 3:28
I mean, if I can have the ability to have dinner with him anywhere, I really wouldn't care if he said, "Yeah." But you know, his house, my house, a nice restaurant. I don't care, man. As long as It's quiet and we can talk.

Nathan Daniel: 3:43
Yeah, right. Okay, cool. All right. So well, final question here. What's your theme song? And why?

Rico Rivera: 3:50
My theme song? I love rocky man. Just the rocky theme song. Just see me out man. Just that, and then this is gonna sound weird. My second favorite is the first of the month. Bone Thugs and Harmony.

Nathan Daniel: 4:05
Okay, yes. That's old school right there. Going back a little bit.

Rico Rivera: 4:10
Yeah, yep. Two great songs in my opinion. One of them's like this, but they both take me up. But one of them, it makes me feel like "Man, I'm broke." It's the first of the month and I go out there and work, or I'm not gonna get paid.

Nathan Daniel: 4:23
Yep. And then you just tie it on the backside with the rocky theme song and you're like, "I got this, let's go." Cool. Well, alright, so today we're jumping in and we're talking about a topic that's very relevant, like I mentioned in the intro. You know, today's a momentous day for our country, right? I mean, we have the the COVID vaccine that's been approved by the FDA. It's being shipped out to being delivered all over the country right now. So, I don't know if this thing's like ending. If it's in sight like what that looks like, but I know one thing that I hear quite often in our industry, especially talking to real estate brokers is how do I engage my people? How do I, whether it's through zoom, whether, whatever it is, how do I keep this culture up? How do I keep them motivated? How do I support them as a broker? And so that's what I want to talk about today, if you're cool with it.

Rico Rivera: 5:15
Absolutely, man, let's go.

Nathan Daniel: 5:16
Alright, so recently you jumped in you started guide. And now tell me a little bit about guide. Now you open the doors with, how many agents?

Rico Rivera: 5:25
97. So we had about 130, real estate agents at KW, two different offices, three different office, and then when we decided to go with Guide, which is an independent, it's just a small boutique, hyper local independent, doesn't have any affiliation with any other big brand, is you know, it's just a group of people that decided, "Hey, let's just do this on our own and see what we can do" create some momentum and, build some wealth for our elves and just be super hyp r local, and boutique in the are and, be super involved wi h the community. So, that's real y what we wanted to do.

Nathan Daniel: 6:11
Okay, so making that job, and now you've been in leadership for a little while, and making that transition now, to now owning an independent franchise, which is very, it's a big trend right now. Like, how are you engaging your agents? How are you making sure that you're there to support them, encourage them and develop them during this time?

Rico Rivera: 6:32
You know, I really honestly think that you have to have conversations with each and every single one of your agents. You know, if you're not having a conversation with them, and it doesn't really matter what type of conversation it is, right? It just matters that you're in communication with them. In my opinion, if you're picking up the phone and making a phone call, if you're doing zoom one on one meeting, if you're doing a text, if you're sending a message on Facebook, because they're always on Facebook, and they respond back on Facebook messenger, before they respond to your emails. I mean, it's really just going above and beyond as a leadership team, and making sure that everybody in your organization is being talked to, and it really is just being talked to right? It doesn't even matter what I mean, How's the kids? How's the family? Maybe you don't have kids or family, How are you doing? How's your mental health? What are you doing to stay healthy in this situation? Have you heard of this challenge? Stuff like that. I think that goes a long way. And then of course, we've had the virtual happy hours. We're playing bingo, virtually, if we are getting together, dancing virtually, having a DJ in the background or whatever, and we're having a dance party. Whatever that might be, right. So, we, the office is great, the staff is great. They get involved in calling the agents, pop ice, if we can't get in contact with them, we'll go to their house and drop-off a little gift. You know, thanksgiving pop ice arer great, holiday pop lights are great. Everybody loves it, I mean. You know, bought a plant for everybody and dropped it off at the front of the house, obviously, sanitized and all that. But small things like that just make a huge difference with people, when they realize how much you care about them.

Nathan Daniel: 8:25
Okay, so let's go back, because you mentioned a couple things, and I want to talk about your team. What's your team look like to make sure that you can have these one on one conversations?

Rico Rivera: 8:35
So what do you, like staff? So yeah, we have four staff members, and so the staff members essentially divvy up the amount of real estate agents, and then everybody has a certain amount of agents that they need to contact, and in any of those ways, right? So you figure out which way they like to communicate, and we contact them in that way.

Nathan Daniel: 9:00
Okay. So you divide and contact, not divide and conquer, you divide and contact.

Rico Rivera: 9:04
That's right.

Nathan Daniel: 9:05
All right. So and then, now, how are you keeping track of this? If you know, say, I'm one of your agents, and you know I like connecting on Facebook? Like, is there a way that you're keeping track of this behind the scenes?

Rico Rivera: 9:17
So it's just the Excel spreadsheet, you know, Hey, this person has been contacted this way and we talked to them about this, whatever that might be.

Nathan Daniel: 9:25
Okay, so just a simple Excel spreadsheet. Now, what questions or concerns or challenges do you find you're having most often with agents right now, with everything that's going on?

Rico Rivera: 9:37
I think it's just mental, like the mental aspect of what's going to happen to our business, what's going to happen to us in the Sacramento area, our business is booming. And there was an article that just came out that said, we're going to be #1, 2021 for the hottest market, the hottest Metro in the US. So it's huge, right? We're having a ton of success, but we are seeing that there's some agents that mentally haven't been ready for it. And so there's, you have to make a decision, right? You either think this is all bad and the sky is falling and then it's all bad and the sky is falling, or this is horrible but, and we can be better. And we could do this and then succeed. And so at the end of the day, man, it starts with your head and setting your mind right. So if we can get somebody had set mind, right? Then you know, that's the first hurdle we have to overcome.

Nathan Daniel: 10:33
Yeah. So how often do you have in these conversations?

Rico Rivera: 10:37
That's a great question. So we just started. So we're just starting to have these conversations, I want to say we've probably talked to almost everybody, maybe 90% of people, but they're still the people that, they're not full time agents, have a regular job, have their own thing, and they're just doing this part time. So there's still people that haven't been contacted, that we're still working on.

Nathan Daniel: 11:01
Okay, so what's your plan moving forward? Is it like once a quarter is it once a month?

Rico Rivera: 11:06
Once a quarter. It has to be once a quarter, obviously, there's, you know, you're 80-20 roll. I feel like it's a 90-10 rolling now, where 10% of the people in your in your office, the people in your brokerage are doing 90% of the business. So those 10% are being touched all the time, in a sense of, they're always in the office, they're constantly coming in. And we have the ability to be in the office, because we're essential workers. We'll have lunch, we'll provide lunch for people, you know, we'll order some pizza, or whatever that might be. Obviously, it's not like it used to be but but we're still there and there's still camaraderie between the agents in the office.

Nathan Daniel: 11:43
Okay, so agents still are coming in because in your area, they are essential, and so congratulations on that. That's awesome. And as far as the engagement plan, you're basically at least going to reach out to people once a quarter intentionally. Now, obviously, there's going to be some other things along the way. So let's talk about some events that you're having, like you mentioned, these DJ nights, and all that kind of stuff, how often you're planning on having stuff like that.

Rico Rivera: 12:10
So we were doing it once a month, or doing something once a month, the last Friday of the month, right? So we're still trying to do the same thing. Before this whole thing happened, we used to just meet up last Friday of the month for happy hour, different locations, stuff like that. We had the culture committee that would do that and so we're not we're not stopping that, it's changed because of COVID but you know, we still want to be like, "Hey, once once a month, we want to do something with our agents." You know, for Thanksgiving we had a pumpkin contest, decorating contest, had the agents come in and decorate, or drop off their decorated pumpkin and we had some vendors that were giving out prizes. So like, this is cool stuff, right? Like, come in here, have some fun. Get some gifts.

Nathan Daniel: 12:59
That's cool. Tell me a little bit about like the the winning pumpkin. Because I was actually watching the show and I can't remember what was on Hulu, and it was like the ultimate pumpkin challenge or something. And these get like these people would go in and car and stuff. So tell me about the winning pumpkin.

Rico Rivera: 13:14
So it's funny, mine was the winning pumpkin one of three actually. But to be honest, like I just actually got like a mohawk from the from the store and put a mohawk and tattoos on my pumpkin and it was like a punk rocker Pumpkin. I wish I had a picture to show you but, for that. And then there's a ton of other pumpkins and drawings and paintings and stuff like that. So that's cool.

Nathan Daniel: 13:36
That's cool. A Pump-rocker. Cool. That's cool. Alright. So the topic is engaging agents during COVID. So what else can you tell us about this? And how to do this.

Rico Rivera: 13:49
You know, I am a hard believer of people don't care until they know how much you care. And so, it really does make a big difference when you engage in the sense of "What's going on with you?" Like, here's the biggest thing in my opinion, when you call someone you ask them questions, and it has nothing to do with business. It's got zero to do with the transaction. Well, what about this, when it has nothing to do with business? And they hang up the phone, and they're like, "Wow, he really didn't ask any business questions. He never asked me about that deal, or what's gonna happen with my dues?" or none of that it was completely an honest conversation of like, Hey, man, what's what's going on? Talk to me a lot about yourself and what are you doing? How are you staying healthy, you know, what's going on with the kids. And so I think that if you're being genuine, people can see that and if you're not being genuine, people can see that. So you have to be very careful about, Are you being genuine or not? because if you're not, and don't do it, like that's the last thing you want to do is like call someone and be like, Hey man, how's it kids and you don't even care about the kids. Like, I don't even care about your kids, bro. Like, that's the last thing 'cuz they're gonna be like, you don't even care about, you never. So I mean, I feel like number one, be genuine.

Nathan Daniel: 15:09
Yeah, well, you'll lose credibility that way, right?

Rico Rivera: 15:11
Yeah. And then it's like, well, you really don't care so why are you asking me? You know?

Nathan Daniel: 15:15
Yeah. Well, and you mentioned something and then. A little flashback, Imma share a story real quick, because it just reminded me like if you're not genuine and you're not caring and you're not stopping, you're driving that speedboat in the wake is so big that you're just impacting people, and you're not even listening. You know, if you're doing that you're only calling about business, or you're only calling about problems and challenges ran into this. They feel like they're being called into the principal's office or something, right? They're all if they're always in trouble, or you're always calling about a situation or that's it, that's not what people want today, right? Like, they want to know

Rico Rivera: 15:53
I have a friend, that's a mechanic, he's a mobile that you care. mechanic. And the other day I call him just out of the blue, you know, say hi, whatever, right? And the guy was like, "Sir, nothing wrong with your car." I was like, no, but I'm guilty, right? Like, I call this guy every time there's certain problems. I have like four cars, so anytime there's something wrong with my car, I call him. So I feel like, "Man, I only call this guy when there's something wrong with my car." So I gotta call him just to call.

Nathan Daniel: 16:22
Yeah. Well, that's good. I mean, it just, you surround your yourself with the people that you want to elevate yourself to. And sometimes it's just a picking up the phone, I did the same thing yesterday with somebody I hadn't talked to him probably nine years random out of the blue. Just like, "Hey, I'm not even sure you remember me?", "Oh, yeah, I remember you, man. What do you been up to", and then all of a sudden, this dialog opened up. And it was like, okay, now there's a relationship happening again. So don't be afraid, even if it's been nine years, pick up the phone and contact, you know, an agent or whatever. Anyone, especially if your agent has been nine years and you haven't talked to them. That's a problem. You may want to talk to him. So okay, anything else? Like what else? Is there anything else you can recommend for this topic.

Rico Rivera: 17:08
Handwritten notes, man, handwritten notes go a long way right now. I feel like, you don't have to buy somebody anything, but even a Thank you. I guarantee you, there's a reason to say thank you to someone in your office. Whether it's the front desk, your manager, you as a manager with your agents, just because they're there with you. Essentially they're in the trenches with you, right? Even though it might not feel like it right now because you're separated, and you don't see each other all the time. At the end of the day, they're part of your brokerage there. They're part of your they're part of your tribe. So a nice little thank you note, if you don't celebrate the holidays, if that's not your thing, a thank you note will go a long way. We celebrate the holidays, happy holidays card, something small. And I say handwritten, because trust me people can tell when you're using the stamp, or when it's someone else's signature?

Nathan Daniel: 18:07
Yeah, well, it's when it's somebody else's signature, or even, you know, going as far as I totally, like, was on board with this in the beginning with those, the fonts, right, you can actually write your font out and then submit it to a company, and then they hand write your note, you can still tell that those aren't handwritten, right?

Rico Rivera: 18:25
You can take it. And I mean, at the end of the day, if you have a ton of real estate agents, it's gonna be hard. And I get it, you want leverage, but I'm telling you, if you want to make a difference, man handwrite those notes and send them out, do five a day and you do two a day, do 10 a day, whatever that might be. You know?

Nathan Daniel: 18:44
Yeah, I mean, even if, you know, in your in your case, right, 97 agents, right? I mean, one a day, like if you honestly did one handwritten note today, like you touch all your agents three times a year with a handwritten note.

Rico Rivera: 18:57
Yep.

Nathan Daniel: 18:59
That's it. So get personal with it, and just engage in love on people and show that you care. Absolutely. That's the message. I love it. All right, well, any words of wisdom to a broker? Anybody starting up or making that leap or thinking about making that leap? Like you just did?

Rico Rivera: 19:18
Oh, that's a good one. So I would say, write it, write everything down. Make sure you have a plan of action. So I would say write all your goals down, write a plan of action, you've heard of the 30-60-90. Focus on your goals and make sure you review your goals. At the beginning probably on a weekly basis. You just want to make sure you're on track. A lot of people have a yearly goal and they never look at their yearly goal into the end of the year. And then they say, "I think I didn't get that goal." So you got to look at it, man. You got to look at it like You look at your bank account, if you're looking at a bank account every day or every week, you know exactly what's happening in your in your with your money. So, same thing with your business, and then take a leap of faith, man, "No pressure, no diamonds." I love that saying, I definitely would say that and nothing ever easy... (What was? nothing ever easy was it worth? I think it's hard like something like that right? Nothing ever easy.)

Nathan Daniel: 20:25
Yeah, I know what you're saying nothing isn't worth having or something like that.

Rico Rivera: 20:32
it's not. At the end of the day it's just, it's not gonna be easy, man. It's, there's no pill, there's no secret pill. You know, the secret is hard work, dedication, faith, and faith in yourself.

Nathan Daniel: 20:45
You know, we started talking about music. And you know, for some reason, this, I don't know why this song popped into my head. But you know, it's worth the climb. I'm not sure you can tell me who that is. I think it's Miley Cyrus. You know, but it's about the climb, It's about the journey that you take along the way. And ultimately, you're going to become somebody that you're going to look up one day and never realized that you could have become if it wasn't for the journey that you experienced along the way. So, I

Rico Rivera: 21:11
True that. The other thing I will tell you as love that. brand new broker or anyone hat starting a new business, ou have to have a team, a tr be of people that are going to b supporting you. And you have t have a conversation with them bout how at the beginning, everyone pushes. And what I mea by this is, you're climbin up a hill, and you can't have a ybody that's climbing up t e hill or climbing with you on your back. You can't have anybo y that's, if we're if we're p cturing this giant car or s mething. And we're all pushin it up the hill, because it oesn't work. The car is the business. So this car is not w rking, you can't have anybody in the car. You have to everybod has to push from behind. And t en when you get to the top, e all ride the car down. So tha 's a conversation you have to h ve man, and you have to have it ith everybody that's going to be joining you and everybody has to be gone home. And that's he number one reason why you h ve startups that actually do gr at, because everyone's working hard. Everyone has the same goal of making sure we succeed becaus at the end of the day, man, e're gonna ride that roller co ster down.

Nathan Daniel: 22:22
And it's gonna be easier to get up the next hill.

Rico Rivera: 22:24
Yeah, that's right.

Nathan Daniel: 22:26
Awesome. Well, Rico, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. It's been a great having a conversation with you. So thank you for coming on.

Rico Rivera: 22:35
Yeah, for sure man. Thanks for having me. I look forward to having you on my show.

Nathan Daniel: 22:38
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well. It's gonna be a lot of fun. For those of you that are that are listening right now, we've been talking to Rico Rivera with Silicon East Real estate with Guide Real estate services in the Sacramento area. So any referrals y'all know where to send them.

Rico Rivera: 22:56
Alright, man, thank you guys so much.

Nathan Daniel: 22:57
Catch you later. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the broker to broker real estate podcast. If you like what you heard, make sure you subscribe to the channel. For more information, tools and resources, go to www.brokertobrokerpodcast.com and always remember, be you and be real. We'll see you on the next episode.