hey guys welcome to another episode of break it down with Braden super excited I got Alex holen with me today Alex thanks for joining me thank you for having me it's been a pleasure absolutely Alex is one of my new sales reps and joined the team about a year ago actually and uh so just want to have Alex on and kind of talk about his first year experience in the business so Alex talk to everybody a little bit about kind of how you ended up a Great American Title and what the experience has been like
honestly this last year it's been pretty gamechanging um went from a regular 21y old to now it feels like a different completely different 22y old uh honestly grew up knowing about tidal my family's been in it for a while my escar officer or my my mom's my escar officer my grandma so it's been kind of in a generational thing in the blood didn't think it was until I actually joined though uh knew I couldn't sit behind a desk so then one day my mom presented me with you as the opportunity saying hey it's not sitting
behind the desk it's more of that sales role and just sat down to talk about life and see if there's an opportunity and we kind of got it settled down after that first day and I got started the next month so join in it was a wakeup call um definitely mixing my personal life work life it's a career not a job yep U I think that was the biggest uh eye opener which was awesome because it really makes work easier even though it's different if that makes sense what's been some of your experiences what's what's
some of the things you've enjoyed what's some of the things that have been a struggle what's what's some of the highlights uh the Highlight SL biggest fear is the just having to talk to people all day every day I mean I feel like throughout my childhood I thought communication was probably my biggest weakness you know I give my best effort every day that's usually not my weak point um but it was realizing I'm not introverted I actually just like I just talk to people I'm just shy and nervous just get over yourself yep so that
was awesome um put yourself out there love it yeah so training under you we figured out ways to kind of get in front of agents and I definitely got attracted to just walking into open houses not knowing people and just saying hi and trying to make friends yep which is also kind of how I started build my business is making friends and like you told me first day shaking hands kissing babies so just be a good person and make a lot of introductions one another yeah it's just all it's about yeah it come uh and
just kind of came naturally I guess yeah yep what's some of the other things that you've learned everything I remember our first day I couldn't even name one brokerage I didn't know what that was now I can pretty much name any brokerage I'm like we all are just stock and Realtors every day and uh just the whole process of title real estate how loan officers get involved just the whole thing I've learned talk about that process well it's been incredible I mean knowing that the there's all different jobs to just makeing that contract go through
the process and knowing that we're kind of the backbone to it even though there's other people that are more probably more important to make it happen in the initially I like how important we are during the process to show like why we put so much effort towards you know why we're so passionate about why we want to use Great American because we trust that we have the best sources not when it's good but when it gets bad bad Y and that's something I've been trying to just let people know and kind of bring awareness too
yep um what's been your experience with great American it's been incredible I mean you know going from a job where you're clocking in clocking out people are always managing you to having trust and saying hey this is what you're doing kind of having that shattering time period but then just being like you're going off on your own doing this knowing you know keeping track of what I'm doing and knowing I'm going to do it get it done and just being able to work my day how I wanted to work it you know every day is
different which I like but also keeping that schedule KN I'm going to grow event and it's growing growing day after day yeah you get the opportunity to kind of run your own business it's kind of it's been fun to kind of watch and see kind of okay like like I said you said in the beginning I kind of gave you a lot of avenues but then it's up to you to kind of decide which Avenue works best for you and it's been fun to see you kind of run with different things like the home tours
and um just the the the hot sheets and working the new listings and things of that nature and seeing what's kind of been successful for you and then just running with it yeah um so talk a little bit about that how they just kind of doubling down with what's working for you and how you've kind of implemented different sales strategies so yeah within our first week you you gave me the whole rundown of how to meet realtors that was pretty much day one and the the ones I got attracted to like I said open house
home tours those are nice because there's always an agent in an open house the listing agents have to be at the home tours for me it was a way to put in a lot of work impress these people and see if they I could get anything out of it yep uh it just worked from the beginning and I just kind of kept going on and grow growing and I do think I made a pretty big difference from day one to day 365 so so how many open houses do you think you've walked into now probably
over 200 I would say I will say after a few months I definitely slowed down just because I would get a little business and try and make sure I'm keeping up with my people but uh it it was probably 10 12 a day especially from Thursday to Saturday yep and what do you think that did for your your experience level and for your confidence level and uh just kind of having industry saving complet completely different person from day one um and going also to networking with BNI how you kind of threw me in there yep
it's really just up to my professional game make me feel like you know whether I'm 22 or 40 we all put on our pants the same way and how much you prepare is what matters not what you think you bring to the table because of your ego or anything I love that you use that analogy it's my favorite favorite thing to say is we all woke up in the morning and put our pants on the same way it's uh everyone's got to Humble themselves and everyone kind of especially once you see a little bit of
success it starts to get a little bit of an ego and stuff so it's you got to remember that as one everyone there's always someone that's makes more money there's always somebody that's stronger there's always somebody that's faster and so it's just kind of humbling yourself and so I think it's good that you recognize that yeah it's even with myself sometimes you get one deal and you're like oh I'm a million bucks and I'm on fire look out yep you got to keep going but hum yourself at the same time it's all about it um
let's talk a little bit about just kind of the real estate market and kind of what you've learned from from the market itself well well when I got in it was a game changer I didn't realize you know four years ago I could have been making a ton of money cuz Co deals were just flying through the roof so when I got in I liked it being slow in a way where you know your effort was the thing that needed a agents needed to see effort lenders needed to see effort people everyone had to put
in the effort to make these deals go through so getting in at that same time kind of went hand inand just with my personality so for me it's not it's been a it's been a pleasure uh growing slow SL and just making sure I'm you know keeping keeping all my people happy and satisfied not getting too crazy um and what I've learned is you have to flow with the time so there's a lot of new things that come out every day and it's good to get introduced to that love the new things it's all super
shiny but also staying true to what sells real estate which is personality that's how I make my connections that's how the realtors make their connections and I think making sure you keep up with the personal touches but also knowing the new things and that's how you kind of just get ahead in the real estate industry I've noticed yep what do you think helps you kind of stand apart from kind of your peers or from other people in the title industry that are kind of allowing you to Foster those relationships well for one I will say
our team is an open book I've asked every age or every sales rep on our team how do you do your business what are the three things you do best what makes you stand out for your clients and not Reinventing the wheel I like to honestly like learn from the people doing it successfully copy their strategies and and then not having a family I'm being young that has given me an advantage where I can kind of work a little bit on a Saturday you know wake up a little extra early stay out a little late
lets me put in a little bit more time while I'm young to at least get ahead of zero so yeah our agents are working really hard they're working evenings they're working weekends and so when they see that that we're doing that same thing and we they can depend on us to be there for them during those times and we're not just like the typical 9 to-5 Title Company mhm goes a long way cuz like I said they're working and so they're expecting us to be working and so there's just no excuse so yeah the fact
that you're going above and beyond I see that when you're emailing late at night and doing the things that your clients are asking you to do as fast as you possibly can to make sure that they're getting the best possible service so kudos to you for what you've been able to accomplish and kind of the time you've put forth for your clients um what are some of Alex's goals on the horizon well first off before we get into that Thanksgiving season I want to say thank you as being my mentor and shattering you for two
three months just about trying to get away from you doing the open houses but I learned all from you so I got to say thank you to you appreciate it um been fun yeah what was the question uh what are what are the goals what are you what's on the horizon for Alex my goal is just to keep growing without having any dead ends yep that grow with it I don't want to lose any of my people it's the people that help me start um but I also want to grow and keep getting more people
and it's just really for me my goal is to expand my network while keeping it uh solidified relationships with everyone cool why should people work with great American people should work with great American because we honestly feel like like we'll make you feel like you have unlimited resources here whether it's to our print Department like like with our 20 foot printer and our three graphic designers but also we're all designers ourselves that's just with print with eight different data pulling resources but really it comes down to our connections with who we have also in the
business so with being I like I said before I'm not only a title company I also have 40 other Professionals in my tool belt to give to my agents in case they have a a carpet need or an estate planning need it's not only about title and the marketing it's really about everything yep so just solidifying all those relationships and being able to provide as much resources to my agents That's my kind of my goal yeah I think whenever you you joined as well as we talked a lot about just community and getting involved and
just being a part of different networks and different organizations and stuff and so you jumped into BNI I which was awesome I think you went to several different chapters and kind of found the one that best fit you and the people that had the personal similar to you and where you could kind of Blossom yourself so talk a little bit about that how the networking group has really helped you just kind of be a better you well the networking group is gamechanging I mean you show up to this place with 40 other people in the
room we I mean we all say it once in a while we're all there for money y but at 700 in the morning you think people have had three espressos and they all know each other and when you go in there for the first time it's it's hard but the best part is it's super warm everyone wants to shake your hand everyone wants to know what you do your name not even just your business but who you are as a person so kind of getting to my group especially I really felt that there and as
a person it helped me kind of grow to exact like saying same thing I said with my agents just become more personable be there for them make it a family um and that's where I go to Every SE every Tuesday at 7:00 is I just go to my other family and it's really been nice and they took me up on some leadership roles right away so I already started kind of showing my face more and more around there and now part of the events coordinator so Works hand inand with kind of my career already so
it's been feeling good the last few months yeah I love it I it's just ever since you've joined and you've you've just grown in terms of your skill set in terms of your confidence and just in terms of a lot of different things and so it's been awesome to see that and that's the same thing that I experienced from those groups as well is just you know you're there every single week so there's a level of commitment uh people have to show up and if they don't show up they're probably not going to be successful
in the group they have to step up and be serve some sort of leadership capacity City otherwise people are just going oh he's just here to like you said collect money and hope that somebody sends him business he's not here to help one another and then you got to refer to other people's business because then the people that help you or you help they typically end up helping you so it's pretty easy they've got the givers gain mentality which is the cliche thing but it's a real thing it's the more people that you help the
more people will end up helping you um so it's just it's kind of amazing when people are always knocking on these networking groups like they don't work they don't work well that's just cuz you didn't commit to it and you didn't put your effort forth and you didn't help enough people and that's why it didn't work for you um so it's been fun to see that it has worked for you and you've developed some amazing relationships from that I know you do like your gym workout before with a couple of the guys from the group
every week and so that's just another thing just another way to kind of bond with people and have that relationship and then also you've got like you mentioned 42 people in your group there 42 salespeople for Alex right so when they're out and about and they're meeting somebody that might be a good connection for you first thing they probably think of is oh I got that guy Alex in my group I got to make sure I'm getting him connected with whoever I need to be connecting him with I think that's just powerful and it's been
awesome to kind of watch you grow within yeah it's actually been incredible in terms of how I've grown as a Salesman or whatever you to call it um where the givers gain mentality there's like seven principles accountability responsibility leadership givers gain Etc and it also goes with the book seven levels of communication and it is that givers gain mindset cuz no one wants to be with a Negative Nancy no one wants to be with someone who feels like emptying their cup into that person no we want to be with someone who's filling my cup someone
who's always giving cuz then it's they're uncontrollably have to give back it's human nature and it just really turned that kind of salesy vibe into a a real personal relationship and that's actually why I like my job where it's it doesn't feel salesy at all I feel like I'm just being myself y um what's kind of been your biggest struggle biggest strouble struggle um I'd say it's time management you know with all that freedom also comes with a lot of you know in mixing the personal and professional life you have to be able to manage
and tell maybe people you could say yes to after 5:00 can't do those stuff anymore and you have commitments earlier than 8 9 o' when people usually start their day and it kind of creates that Dynamic where you're always working but that's also a good thing too cuz if you're always ahead of the game well then you're never working so it's it's it's a give and take it's kind of hard to explain yeah well and you and I talk about it a lot is it's uh people talk about oh that's not part of my job
title that's not part of my description but the fact that you're willing to go above and beyond and help people with things that aren't necessarily part of your job title or why you're going to continue to Blossom and continue to grow because people recognize those things and people see that you're going above and beyond and even if it's just you know providing Waters at the home tour or driving people around in your truck or whatnot like that stuff matters and as much as people you know for instance your first client uh Lisha or Lucia um
she was from riding around in our car on the home tour right and so just like and then we got to spend some time with her and then you got to obviously develop a relationship with her so just from that I mean that just kind of goes to show just like the little things of just going above and beyond or what's going to help you stand up that was the one thing I didn't realize how big Personal Touch was so we did that home tour maybe thing was three weeks later we did that first broker
open and truth be told like I was super new she invited everyone like I didn't do much work except for provide amazing food and try to do my best is what I could do y and it was probably an rookie mistake you know got out of contact and it was probably 3 four months later she's like are you still there I still remember like the arbata sauce you brought I my me and my real estate buddies at the office we can't stop talking about it and it was bringing that back where I was like wow
like he still remembers that and that's another thing with this job what you do today you don't get rewarded at the end of the day it comes later in life and it's kind of getting that delayed gratification and it it really made a big difference getting that phone call and made me just focus on that Personal Touch personal side a lot more yeah there's no instant reward in this in this company or in this industry you know anything regardless if you open a deal today it's not closing for you know maybe it's a fast closing
it might close in a week but typically it's 30 to 45 days if not longer so you even open that up and it's like Oh yay woohoo I got a deal and also that could cancel there could be so many other factors it could get delayed closing there's all these different things and then we then get paid 30 days later than that after the closing is closed and then the next pay period yeah so that one deal you might open and you might not get paid on that for another 60 90 120 days so yeah
there's a lot in the beginning that you were doing where it's like okay like I'm doing a lot of this work but I'm not really seeing any reward I'm like stick with it you got this you're going to do great uh and it's been fun to watch because you've you've definitely grown your numbers every month and you're getting just a a different level of confidence to you which is fun to see um while staying humble of course course uh and yeah it's just uh I wanted to have you on just because it's just been exciting
to have you on the team and just excited to watch just everything that you've been doing and so uh talk a little bit about your Corridor home tour and just kind of how that's grown well so the corridor home tour we started with uh Brogan and I he's with bison Ventures we we started and we were trying to find an area that wasn't too populated a lot of my people have home tours kind of all around Scottdale a lot of his people in the 85259 Shay Corridor vinda a area we just saw was not getting
a lot of love so we kind of just chose an area where every month I about have 70 listings where I can call through and try and get a bunch of people together where we can kind of highlight that area kind of show why it's important it has one of the best schools in that in that section basis I mean people come from all over the country there yep so I think it's just it's really undervalued um and I think we kind of made a good Mark getting in there and it's been awesome like Brogan's
also transformed his career into a videography career so now we're able to provide our agents on the tour with video I I bring in brochures before I even know you so I I pretty much try and give you my what I'm going to offer before you even work with me um it's got me a lot of deals and it's showed me a lot of other people's true colors too so it's been good overall yep yeah I love it I think you've done a great job with that you've created a consistency about it um everyone loves
going on them you're doing amazing job putting together the marketing material for them so it actually just looks like a professionally Run Tour uh and now you're organizing the 85254 tour as well so you've just got a lot going on with tours and just different functions and events you've got regularly scheduled and so it's been been great to see and I'm just I'm proud of you Alex it's uh it's fun to have you on my team and uh just excited to see where things are going to go so kudos to you uh for everybody that
wants to get a hold of you how can they reach out to you uh call me text me email me 48204 2983 or aallen at aat.com uh real one thing I wanted to say was one of my funniest experiences in this industry was so I was D I went to an open house met an agent I think I've met her before so I was like yeah what do we want to do like have you even door knocked the neighborhood and she's like no and in my BNI the agent told me like his go-to is the
five houses to the left five hous to the right 10 and four at least get those 20 houses Y and at least you did some of your job and she's like oh I never door knocked before I'm like let's do it so I print door hangers over there the next day and the first five houses I door knocked and I was like saying I was an agent and we actually got like two leads kind of I mean obviously I don't know if they came to fruition but it was really fun kind of being in their
shoes and just you know just having a different job for the hour and was that's something where I'm like you can't do that with any other job yep yeah it's fun every day we get to kind of reinvent ourselves decide what our marketing program is that day and obviously we want to make sure that there's some some consistency to it of course but um the real estate industry is always changing and so we've got to make sure that we're staying Cutting Edge and and staying on top of the ball so it's uh yeah it's funny
you kind of told that little story yeah um so obviously gave everyone your contact information uh for everyone that wants to just kind of reach reach out to you though what's kind of the uh things you want to help them with I mean really we're going we're almost done with Q4 of this year yep I feel like from what I've been doing the last month is starting my Q my 2025 already so if you haven't started that I mean that's the first game plan is yep where are we going who do you know how are
we going to expand your network same way I expanded mine there's really one way to do it you just got to talk to people get get out there so it's kind of what are you doing and if you don't know the answer I'd love to meet with you and kind of put you on the right track of kind of building personal relationships and kind of getting a referral based business versus just leads which are also amazing but I just know I've seen in my experience I've seen referrals kind of go a lot further I love
it uh thank you all for sticking around for another episode to break it down with Braden uh thank you Alex so much for joining me uh for all your real estate agents out there please reach out to Alex he's absolutely corre question it out there and it'll just be an amazing resource for you uh thanks again for sticking around another episode to break it down with Bren and more to come thanks guys
