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After COVID hit, the demand for second homes dramatically increased. Those living in big cities flocked to drivable second home communities like near lakes, The Hamptons, and around Florida – including communities like Destin, FL and the surrounding 30A region.
As the Director of Marketing & PR of Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty, Adam Pfaff has seen firsthand the explosion in demand for second homes in and around the Destin area.
TRANSCRIPTION
Eric Stegemann (00:00):
Thanks for listening to Brokerage Insider. This week’s episode was recorded live during the explore virtual conference on Thursday, September 24th. We look forward to returning to our regular scheduled program soon, but until then, enjoy this session
Starting things off here, let me first introduce you, Adam Pfaff is the director of marketing and public relations at Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty in beautiful, gorgeous Destin, Florida, the Destin, Florida area. I should say most people will know it there, but I think, you know, you have, you have offices along 30A, which technically aren’t in Dustin and along 98, which Santa Rosa beach, I think is where your other offices, right?
Adam Pfaff
Correct. Yeah. So we have we have an office in each of the major markets that we serve. So we have one essentially located here on the Eastern side of Dustin right on 98. We then have one in the heart of 30A and blue mountain beach. And then we have a, another office on the Eastern side of Santa Rosa beach, which is technically an inlet beach. So that office definitely is able to serve our micro markets over in Rosemary beach, Panama city, beach spaces like that.
Eric Stegemann (01:14):
So that’s great. So I guess w where I should have kicked off and kind of mentioned is one of the things that I wanted to have Adam on today particularly about is is about marketing, but, but also specifically on second home marketing and again, the rental market marketing, because in the area that is the big pole. It is a second home community, a rental community. And so I think, you know, even if you’re not, if you’re a broker that’s listening into this right now, even if you’re not in one of those markets, I think it’s important to know what’s going on in these types of markets, because you can know how to leverage it or leverage relationships as people change their environments because of COVID. And we’re going to get into a little bit of that. So first of all, let’s kick off the softball question here. How’s the market been?
Adam Pfaff
Man, the market’s been, it’s been crazy. And I know that’s kind of like the standard real estate answer. Everyone just says, it’s crazy, but there’s really not a better adjective to use because you know, our agents are they’re out there hustling, they’re working as hard as they possibly can. I know my staff and all of our operations teams are busier than we’ve been, you know, even on the uptick in the market that we’ve seen for the last few years, just the amount of volume of transactions that we’re doing is so great. The you know, we’re definitely feeling an inventory pinch right now. Our inventory is down to under two months. So just under 1.8 months of inventory currently on the market, whereas pre pandemic, we were, you know, in a most of our markets were an upper end luxury market. So eight months of inventory in certain wasn’t
Uncommon, but we’re not seeing any of that now. It’s it’s definitely a fight to get people really what they want but we’re doing it. So yeah, it’s a, it’s definitely a hustling market and we’re not only are we seeing inventory down values, just keep rising and rising. That demand is not slowing. So
Eric Stegemann (03:21):
So Talk about that, you know, as I understand it in the market and I should mention in full disclosure I purchased a home from Adam’s brokerage in the not distant past here. So I somewhat know some of the questions that I’m asking, but, you know, talk to me about multiple offers because everything I’ve heard with the area is every home that goes in the market is pretty much getting, not, not just scooped up in the first week, but multiple offers over asking price in the first few weeks.
Adam Pfaff (03:53):
Yep. Yeah. So, you know, number one thing, if, if you’re a broker or an agent listening in and you know, the most important marketing strategy is a pricing strategy, number one. And so in order to create that frenzy, your property has to be priced correctly. Luckily we’re having so many transactions right now that it’s hard not to price correctly. We’d still do have aspirational owners that want to see what they can get. But even in those cases, we’re still finding backup offers being placed sometimes three or four. We’re having gold front listings that are going under contract which really are the cream of the crop of our higher end market. And even they’re getting three or four backup offers, and it’s exceptionally important that agents are familiarized with the process of a backup offer because in a lot of cases, you might have buyers representation that is familiar with how they work in a listing agent that might be a little bit newer, that doesn’t necessarily know how to navigate those waters. And, and that can ruin a deal and really put a bad taste in people’s mouth. So, you know, our brokers we’re lucky that we have a strong leadership team. We’re doing constant training on how to manage both sides of that multiple offers scenario. And it’s deemed really helpful. We’ve, we’ve had properties that, you know, people put stuff on our contract site on scene with viewing contingencies. And so, you know, and that might be a week out. Yeah,
We did that. That’s why I’m laughing at it.
Adam Pfaff (05:23):
And so, you know, it’s important that the agents are handling those backup offers correctly and really keeping them in the running cause we have plenty of people that come down and think they love something. And then by the time they get down a week later, something might be better, better available to fit their needs and being able to handle those second and third place contracts with ease is good. And, you know, the most important, especially here in Florida is really how to handle that earnest money deposit, that EMD money that’s being traded and really training your buyers who might be in a second, third, or even fourth position seat with the contract to be ready, to be able to make those deposits down and be willing to make larger deposits than they would a few years ago in order to stay competitive.
Yeah. I mean, I know when we bought our house the earnest money deposit that was requested in st. Louis where I was a broker the earnest money deposit was almost considered a joke. It was more nominal than anything else. I mean, it was a hundred dollars, $500, maybe a thousand dollars at most that I ever saw was probably $2,500 for anything that wasn’t a commercial building and down here, you know, it, it was much more than that. Let’s put it that way was the expectation to show that you were serious and you had the money to be able to put down, to buy a house. Right. So you know, is there, is there a big tip for those that are listening, if you’re a broker listening in, is there one particular big tip you could give to a broker owner or a staff person that’s listening right now on something that they should either look into from a multiple offer situation or any, any training that you’ve seen online, that’s good on providing for multiple offer situations?
Adam Pfaff (07:10):
Yeah, I think the number one thing that we’ve seen success with is role playing with with other agents in the office. And really it’s just figuring out from both sides, both the listing and the buy side, figuring out what questions are gonna come up during that whole process. And really being able to kind of put your emotions aside, not rush any deals, which means when we rush, we miss the details which make or break those deals for their clients. So really getting comfortable with that whole process, asking those hard questions, being persistent without, you know, maybe ruining our reputation, our reputation in the market. But then number one thing is familiarize yourself with the form. So there are, you know, acknowledgement of backup contracts that, you know, the seller selling a client needs to see, you know, they need to acknowledge those.
Adam Pfaff (08:01):
And so the listing agents especially need to know how to handle those documents, know how to really read them, know the fine print, see how second, third, and fourth position seats will work and understand escalation clauses or best and final offers. So there’s differences in the two and you really have to understand, you know, Hey, this client, when you’re weighing those additional offers, Hey, this client has the best and final that looks great, but this one started lower, but has an escalation clause, you know, really understanding how to read those and feel comfortable explaining them to your client in a way they’re gonna understand. We’re lucky that most of the homeowners down here, these are not their first properties and a lot of times use their, their 20th property that they purchased. And so they’re used to some of this stuff, they’re there, they’re savvy with the market. But a lot of times, especially if we’re a listing agent that hasn’t done a ton of had to do a ton of backup contracts really being able to explain the details of those things like escalation clauses is really important in being able to, to, to make it understandable to those people that might not work in finance.
Yeah. so for those that aren’t, or that are listening, that maybe haven’t heard of an escalation clause before, because I actually mentioned this to some brokers in the not distant past, and they didn’t know what this was. Why don’t you explain how an escalation clause works?
Adam Pfaff (09:29):
Yeah. So I’m full disclosure. I’m not a practicing realtor here in this market. So, you know,
Do you want a license though, right? You are.
Adam Pfaff (09:37):
I am licensed. Yeah. I’m not an, I’m not an active realtor. So so my explanation is not going to be as deep as, you know, a super experienced broker, but essentially an escalation clause allows you, as, you know, as you represent, as you are representing a client, it gives you the ability to negotiate up to a certain amount over an asking price or over where a current contract is. So essentially your client will allow you to go up to a certain point based on a best and final that another client might’ve given or a list price, depending on how that clause is written. So it’s not a carp lodge to make as many offers as you want on your client’s behalf. But what it can mean is it can mean that there’s not a hesitation between the selling and the buying agent when you’re negotiating price. Because if there’s an escalation clause present, you can pretty much say, Hey, these people are going to go, you know, 1% over the highest, best and final on this property, 5% over list and know what that deal is going to be. So you can really expedite things without having to go back and forth and back and forth. And, you know, it eliminates emotions which, and this market is exceptionally important.
Very, very sound a thing to do. If you’re in a broker, if you’re in a market where there are multiple offers going on the next thing, you know, in the, in the vein of second home markets that I would ask you about is obviously when the virus did people that had a vacation rental houses, Airbnbs, you know verbose those types of things. I think they were, they got hit pretty hard. Cause the expectation was the summer revenue was probably just getting ready to pick up for you. How has it been or what have you seen are, are they coming around and everything is okay now or are they still being hit pretty hard.
Adam Pfaff (11:31):
Yeah. So when the pandemic hit Florida specifically, we did close short term rentals. So I believe it was, they closed our beaches and then for public beaches and they they pretty much closed down short term rentals. So it was illegal for a rental management company. And BRBO even if you were independently managing your property to do short term rentals to an out of state person and they closed those down for, I believe about six weeks. And then when it happened, when it opened though the companies that had been able to maintain staffs were able to keep their websites as clean and easy to utilize as possible. They saw immediate returns with guests coming in because you know, certain areas did limit how many people could kind of be in certain places at a time. But overall we saw a lot of people coming in, especially large houses.
Adam Pfaff (12:29):
So with us being in a market that is sprinkled with both large homes, as well as condos, we definitely saw the immediate reaction was people gravitating towards those homes people that hadn’t seen their family out of town, they could all get together, gather one location, feel like they were quarantined to the outside world, enjoy the beauty that we had in our national surroundings with the beach and the Bay is, and the state parks and the trails and still feel a sense of safety. And we’ve continued to see that we, my wife and I laughed, we, we ran to the grocery store. One of the things about living on an Island is you kind of have to take a track to, to go towards some, some normal conveniences. So we made the track to go to the grocery and we said, man, this was last weekend.
Adam Pfaff (13:16):
You know, three days after a hurricane and said the traffic is like, it is during the summer. We just, you know, may touch base with the Ronald management companies. And they said, yeah, they’re not slowing down. They’re you know, we normally would see the last weekend in July be the last busy weekend. And then it pick up for labor day, but we’ve seen little depths, but the consistent traffic and that it can consistent bookings they’ve maintained, which has been great for those people buying secondary homes. Usually right now is the time that a owner would take their property, block it out, do repairs, and then ready it for the sales market. But we’re still seeing agents having to juggle turn days, which pretty much means certain people leave. It has a certain amount of time to get cleaned. The next group comes in and the agents have to show all the cleaners are up at the house in most cases. And even here at the end of September, getting into October, we’re still having to juggle those. So the rentals have been
Strong. That’s a, that’s great to hear. Cause I, you know, I think there was a lot of worry if you listen to CNBC business news there was a lot of worry about the real estate market falling apart in, in second home communities, right. When this happened. In fact, I think the CEO redsin came out and said they’re toast. I mean, literally I think that’s the quote that he gave and from our data analysis that we’ve seen Travis, is there anything but toast? And I think Adam’s conversation here is proven not to be the case now, Adam, you know, I want to ask you a little bit about marketing since that’s your specialty. How, how is as somebody who’s been a, an agent before, but has a specialty in the marketing side of the business how has marketing in a second home community different from maybe somebody who’s selling primary homes in a city like Atlanta?
Adam Pfaff (15:09):
Yeah, so, you know, I came from a practicing realtor in a majority primary market. We had a secondary market within 30 miles away from us. So I did transact in both spaces, but you know, the, it’s probably the trends that you see in the types of marketing that are being done in a more traditional primary home market. You know, the HUD regulations that are placed on digital marketing, especially social media marketing, they lead more towards marketing and the space where the people are so a primary home market. So if I’m in Atlanta and I know that people are stepping up or stepping down from properties within that market, you know, digital advertising is definitely much easier in spaces such as that, cause you’re not having to make such a large shotgun blast and hope that it catches people in a lot of different places.
Adam Pfaff (16:00):
You kinda know this neighborhood feeds this neighborhood. And so I can really trigger my marketing to that space. And then from agents that are marketing in order to generate more listings, you know, in a primary market, it’s exceptionally easy. Cause you just send either direct mail or you can do, you know geo-fencing with your digital campaigns surrounding a different area, but in a secondary home market, you might have 50 properties. And those 50 owners live in 50 different cities. And so your marketing has to be a lot more refined and it has to be a lot more direct. You know, and so in a primary market, we never did direct mail. We did maybe a little bit and really if we did, it was, you know, ultra personal, it was handwritten letters. It was things like that. Whereas in our secondary market, we have to rely on direct mail in order to stay top of mind a lot more. So in some cases we have to do more marketing in a secondary home market to stay top of mind because our clients are not, they’re not driving by our offices every day. They’re not driving by those properties every day. They’re not coming down here every weekend and dreaming of owning a home in this neighborhood. They’re here once a year, twice a year, maybe. And so email marketing has been a huge,
Huge piece for us as well. That’s a, that’s great. So, and I know another thing that you guys do very, very well and I’d love for you to talk about for just a minute is video. And, you know, I think most brokers that are out there are probably not engaged with video currently for at least from what I’ve seen, unless you’re in kind of a second home market or in Hyatt home markets. So why don’t you talk about what you guys do with video? How do you get your videos done? Is it an in house? Is it somebody you hire and then how do you blast those things?
Adam Pfaff (17:54):
Yeah, so our video approach is multilayered and it’s something we’ve been building for the last seven to eight years. So you know, w we leverage our video not only on YouTube, but then across really anywhere we can put it. So I’m kind of starting from the front. So we don’t say every property needs a video, but every proper at least I think specifically a professionally produced video, but I think in this day and age, any property that can have video content with it to some degree, whether that’s a cell phone walkthrough that, that you love load into your MLS listing. So someone that might be moving to the area can really get a feel for the property. It might even be a matter port and the videos and the digital floorplans available there. But at a certain price point we definitely encourage a professionally produced video.
Adam Pfaff (18:47):
So you know, it feels editorial, it feels sleek. It gives an emotional response to the property. And when you’re asking someone to purchase something, that’s not shelter that secondary market that we’re in creating an emotional connection with the property. Being able to do that in video is second to none. So we’ve teamed up with probably five to seven videographers that currently work with our agents. They have all our brand standards. So they know all of that. And then essentially they deliver us a multiple versions of videos, everything from 15 seconds snippets that we can leverage on Instagram and social media advertising to longer versions that the agents can use on single property websites, MLS we then take the unbranded version. We put it on YouTube, we put it on our company’s Facebook account. We put it on IGTV. You know, and so it’s really going out to a lot of places. We then take the hosted video, we loaded on the agent’s behalf to their MLS listings. So that shows on nearly all IDX feeds. And then anybody that’s leveraging single property websites, which are another very important tool that we’ve had great success with now. You know, we’re embedding those for what feels like native video content. And I think that’s, what’s important is really having that kind of native feel like I’m getting something special.
That’s yeah. I mean, the thing you said there that I think strikes me, so, so so hard is, is the emotional response, right? Is photos go a long way. In fact, in our studies on consumer usage of our broker client websites photos are the number one thing that get looked at on a, on a page, but that’s, I think only because video isn’t isn’t as widely adopted, I think if more videos would be there because you do a, and I think the emotional response side of it factors in whether it’s a primary home or not, if it’s, if it’s a primary home, there’s an emotional response. I think you’re right though. And very, to consider
Adam Pfaff (20:48):
It has to be an emotional response. If it’s a second home, we’re in a primary home, you know, it’s more utilitarian than it is. I want a place to hang out with my family for a week or two weeks out of the year. So video, I, you know, if you’re in a, if you’re a bird from Westerners and you’re in a primary home market video just takes it to that next level and helping you sell the home, make it, you know, unless you do a bad video, it really can’t hurt you. To do that, obviously you need some budget to be able to go do this. Adam, what’s the average video pricing wise, and I know you probably have special deals with some of your videographers. There’s just for the brokers that are on here, listening and considering, Hey, maybe I want to try this.
Adam Pfaff (21:29):
What does an average videographer charge to, to get these videos done on a, on a house for you guys? Yeah, so there’s definitely some additional things that we encourage our agents to take advantage of our communities here, especially along 30A. We kind of consider ourselves to have micro and macro communities. And a lot of the micro communities are branded communities along 30A, such as watercolor seaside, Rosemary beach. These are amenity filled. So imagine your large master plan communities. So we really encourage our videos to not only showcase what the property is, but the lifestyle that can be experienced while living in that home. We understand that most people purchase properties down here and in masterplan community. So anyone that’s in a primary market where masterplan communities are really starting to take off and really get popular. People are designing a lifestyle that that master plan community provides into home is simply a vessel to get them there.
Adam Pfaff (22:27):
So our videos include, you know, aerials of the, the natural surroundings, the amenities. And so they definitely include more than you would have to do, especially in a traditional neighborhood that, you know, you might have a gated community that might have a pool or volleyball or tennis courts, but we have, you know, dozens and dozens of amenity areas. So our videos are going to cost anywhere from six to $1,200, 1200, really being those like we’re getting seven to eight different cuts. The photography, the videographers are doing a ton of editing. They’re having to do multiple different branded versions, unbranded versions. Sometimes we add narration. If it’s a property that we feel is going to cater to a specific demographic that would appreciate narration. You know, so, so that’s kind of the higher end, right? 1200 thousand bucks. That’s the higher end. You know, I’ve seen videos that don’t include aerial or drone and don’t include additional amenities. It might be a home outside of an HOA that you can get done for 400, 500 bucks. See that, I mean, to me, if you’re selling a $500,000 house, it almost becomes a no brainer to do these videos. And by the way, if you want to go check out the video that their company has had put together, or whether it was things have a,
This amazing listing called Montblanc, that if you Google it, you can find some of the absolute gorgeous imagery in the video that their team put together on this house. And I forget, is it, was it, is it 15 million, 18 million, something like that.
Adam Pfaff (24:04):
And it’s a 14.9, 9 million. So it is a, it is currently contract pending. (UPDATE: it’s been sold since this episode was recorded)
Oh, look at that,
Adam Pfaff (24:12):
Hoping to welcome a new homeowner to that beautiful property. And also we, we did just release the digital version of our fall magazine today. So I think Eric, you probably should have gotten the email while you were on this.
I did.
Adam Pfaff (24:29):
Oh, he’s also featured in that. So so yeah, if you have any interest in looking at it, it’s visit our website and look at Niche Magazine, you can see some photos of that really, really fantastic property.
Yeah. Take, take a peak on their website for that. I wanna we only have a few minutes left here, but I want to dig into a little bit of how Scenic approaches recruiting. So when you guys are recruiting, cause that’s, you know, the kind of the theme for today is obviously brokerages and, and what brokers need to be doing. And, and, and for, you know, most brokerages obviously recruiting as a top of mind item for them. So how does Scenic Sotheby’s approach recruiting? What do you look for in an agent? You hire new agents. I want you to talk about that a little bit.
Adam Pfaff (25:12):
Yeah. So, you know, we, we consider ourselves and we really strive to we don’t want to be the largest. We just want to be the best and we have that approach with recruiting as well. And so obviously, you know, I I’d be wrong to say we don’t consider production because usually production is what, what we look at when we’re looking for seasoned agents. We want the agents that are going to provide the least amount of friction for our operations team, which means we want people that have, you know, they’ve written contracts before they’ve dealt with multiple offers scenarios. They know how to use the buyer, buyer, brokerage agreement, you know it’s important to have people that are able to really take those mentor roles in your brokerage. And it’s good to really have other agents looking towards your brokerage as you know, the leader in the market, not only in sales or productivity, but also in the, in the caliber and the ethics of your agents.
Adam Pfaff (26:11):
With that being said, you know, we do re we do have a new agents that have never sold, do they do join us. We do partner them with, you know, a team or a mentorship program. Someone that could really help them. And, you know, we think one of the most important things, even above production is a cultural fit. We place a huge amount of emphasis on someone being a cultural fit for our brokerage. So even if you’re a top producer in the market, if you’re not a cultural fit, you, we probably won’t have more than one or two conversations with you. You know, and there’s nothing wrong with the way that people do business, you know, us in a secondary market, we literally live on an Island. And so it’s a really big fish bowl. And we want to play nice with everyone, but we really want people that, that match the ethos of our company.
Adam Pfaff (27:04):
And so that cultural fit has to be there. Production then, you know, becomes very important and not only production, but transaction history, you know, someone that does $20 million off five sales, you laugh, but it happens in our market. They don’t have that transaction experience to really be able to provide top level service that someone that might do 12 million within 26 or 30 deals can you know, those are the people that are going to really raise the reputation of your brokerage. So top producers are fantastic and they’re really what provide excitement help pay the bills. But also culture has to be number one. What kind of brokerage do you want to lead and who do you want to be the leaders from internally in that brokerage? Cause you just can’t have your owners and your operations teams trying to drive culture. It starts from within, it starts with your agents.
Well, I didn’t plan what Adam said. I’d actually didn’t know the answer that he was going to give me here, but I think you’re going to hear over this entire day, as we talk about recruiting and for brokerages I happen to know what some of our folks later on this afternoon are gonna say, and I think you’re going to hear this concept over and over again. You heard me say it right before the break at how important culture and trust and, and everything like that is. And here you have Adam saying that it’s so important that having these, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an a player, but it has to be somebody who wants to be an, a player at the top of their game. Somebody that a consumer can trust and somebody who’s going to make a great reputation for the company as a whole.
Right. So you know, we talked about that a little bit. Let’s talk about top producers. You know, there’s always the game in the real estate industry, particularly in a, a hyper competitive real estate market, like the 30A area of Florida where everybody’s always willing to pay another dollar to get somebody to come over to them. How do you look at that from a brokerage perspective in terms of commissions, not necessarily going into specifics, but maybe from a very high level and how do you make sure you’re retaining those top producers that you do want to keep?
Adam Pfaff (29:13):
Yeah, no, that’s a, that’s a really great question. And obviously our, our our friends that are watching that are in larger, more primary markets have some of these brokerages where compensation comes into play when recruiting we don’t necessarily see that here. However for us it’s, it’s about two things and really it’s the exact same way an agent would be trying to lock in that listing. It’s about success propositions. What have we been able to do for agents like yourself and then value propositions, what do you get from us that you won’t get from someone else? So for us, our value propositions are what lead into our success propositions. So the fact that we really maintain a strong staff we don’t, we don’t hire just any agent. It allows us to keep our numbers relatively high, which is a success.
Adam Pfaff (30:10):
And it allows us to have the support really any agent needs. So whether you’re new and really don’t really know how to go about maybe farming or what should I do for marketing, or maybe you were with another company and you had a lot of buyer representation and you’re transitioning over and you really want to try to achieve more listings. You know, we have the staff, we have the experience, we have the personnel to be able to assist with you along that road. And then we take those value propositions in recruiting and apply them with retention. So, you know, we remind people when we, when it’s up for their contract renewal, we say, Hey, we want to go over your production with you. Here’s where you’re at. Here’s where you’re in this year. You know, what, what worked, what didn’t, you know, and sometimes we have to be reactive to the things that some people didn’t necessarily find value in.
Adam Pfaff (31:01):
And then we figured out how to fix those things. So it’s constantly being nimble, not taking offense to anything anyone says, because you know, an agent that feels valued is going to stay with you, you know, a brokerage that feels like a family, their voices valued. They see us being reacted to their feedback. That’s really important. You know, they’re going to feel valued and stay-put, you know, commission is only a factor of of having a top producer at your brokerage. If they’re only, only worry is commission and they’re not cultural enhancers or they don’t value the services that your brokerage provides, you know, it’s almost like that client that you say is the best client. I never had type thing, you know, there’s, there’s that to be set as well. So it’s definitely a balance, but taking feedback, asking for feedback, that’s how you retain those top producers because they feel valued.
Absolutely. Okay. So one or two glass to remaining questions here for you, Adams and that is you, you have listed, and I had to ask you a question about this, the Patrick Swayze approach to how you can handle things and, and who you are as a, as a as a marketer and a person in this industry,
Adam Pfaff (32:23):
You dug deep onto the personal websites there. Huh?
Any good interviewer. That’s what they do. Right. So first of all, why don’t you explain what you mean by that? And then I’ve got a question or two about how you can use that mentality to help her broker on here, that’s listening and it’s either starting up or struggling right now, especially after Philbin.
Adam Pfaff (32:43):
Yeah. So one of my favorite movies of my teenage years was Roadhouse where Patrick Swayze was just this, like, you know, he was quiet. He was calculated. He walked in, he looked at everything. What was happening, the employees of the business didn’t really know what was going on or why he was there. But he knew that the one guy was always pocketing one or $2, you know, per drink and put into his pockets of the cash register. And then at once he just drops the hammer and like, it’s like, this is everything that’s wrong. You know? That’s definitely a similar approach that I’ve always taken when I was running a freelance brokerage or not advertising agency, I should say we would come in and we would just, we would watch, I would literally watch what clients were doing, whether you were a salsa company or or a real estate agent.
Adam Pfaff (33:36):
And we would figure out what you’re doing. Right. And then what we would do is we wouldn’t say you’re doing this wrong. We would provide a solution to those problems. Cause one thing, most clients and most brokerages or agents think they know what the problem is, but having a third party be able to come in and kind of see the whole picture and say, you think that this is the problem, but really the triage happens three or four steps prior. I think that’s exceptionally important and it’s exceptionally important in marketing and operations. Being able to identify where the triage is happening and then kind of fix that. So, yeah, that’s funny.
So any last tidbit of like a bullet point or two, if you’re struggling, what’s the very first thing you should look at at your brokerage. If you’re, if your brokerage is having a hard time, either you’re starting up or your current brokerage and had had some tough time, what’s the, what’s the very first thing you should be go dig into and maybe put that high yacht down. I figuring out what to do next. Yeah.
Adam Pfaff (34:37):
Yeah. So I, I always say that, you know, everything when, if, when you own a brokerage, the number one thing you have to have is you have to have people that are working alongside you that are excited to be there. You know, and one of the things that I really love hearing is I love hearing how other marketers within the space and different markets, you know, how they’re being utilized and how they’re being leveraged by their brokers, their owners, their sales managers. And so the first thing that I would do is go to your personnel and say, Hey, what do you think we’re doing well? And where do you think we could do better? Cause chances are, they’re hearing murmurings from the agents. They’re seeing things from a neutral standpoint, meaning, you know, they’re not relying on, on this sale to close, to put their kid in, you know, ballet classes.
Adam Pfaff (35:24):
They have a neutral kind of view of it and they hear everything. People always talk to the, to the office admins and, and the, the front office manager. So start with your employees, figure out what’s happening. Culturally and internally, and then, you know, come up with solutions as a group, a group mentality for problem solving is always great. If you’re running a team and you’re looking to grow, same thing, figure out where maybe your problems are, but also your opportunities exist and then reverse engineer some stuff, some strategies in order to achieve those things.
So I think that is excellent Sage advice. Hopefully everybody got something out of Adam’s session here, Adam, thank you very much for joining us today. Really appreciate the insights. And Adam, why don’t you tell everybody where they can find you online or find your brokerage online?
Adam Pfaff (36:17):
Yeah, for sure. So obviously we love everyone to visit our website, ScenicSIR.com. That is our local website for Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty. You can also find our listings on Sothebysrealty.com if you Google, or if you search for destined Santa Rosa beach, Rosemary beach, any of the communities that we service you can find me online. There’s not a lot of Adam Pfaffs around, so feel free to find me on Facebook or LinkedIn or even. So my Instagram accounts, I mainly just post things of my a four year old twins. But other than that, if you have interests in outdoors and things like that, you know, try to keep that stuff engaged as well.
Eric Stegemann (37:00):
So that’s great. Well, thanks so much for joining us really appreciate the time today and keep on keeping on with the market of, of, of kicking butt down here. Okay.
Adam Pfaff (37:11):
That we will. I appreciate it. I hope everyone has a great day.
