Episode 372 – Caroline Hobbs – Broker/Owner – Reward Realty

00:00:00 - Caroline Hobbs

And ideally, my goal is to have agents working out of just one program. I think one of the reasons why team leaders and brokerages have low adoption rates is because agents are having to duplicate efforts, putting information into multiple systems and then things fall through the cracks.

00:00:23 - Bill Risser

You're listening to the real estate session podcast and I'm your host, Bill Risser, Executive Vice President, Strategic Partnerships with RateMyAgent. Ratemyagent, is not just for collecting reviews. It's a suite of powerful tools and features designed to help improve your online reputation and visibility while making it easier for new prospects to find you and reach out for more information, head on over to Ratemyagent.com. Listen in as I interview industry leaders and get their stories and journeys to the world of real estate. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 372 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend today we're back in the Silicon Valley. We're going to be talking to Caroline Hobbes. She is the broker owner for Reward Realty, and I am telling you, she is doing some incredible stuff with technology, taking existing platforms and connecting them in such a way that there's a truly automated, fully updated experience for the consumer. Really cool stuff. You want to listen to this. It's going to be a lot of fun. So let's get it going. Caroline, welcome to the podcast.

00:01:29 - Caroline Hobbs

Hi, thank you for having me.

00:01:31 - Bill Risser

Yeah, I'm really excited someone that you work with reached out and when I saw your story, I said, this is the perfect guest for the Real Estate Sessions and I'm really excited to get started. You may not know this part yet, but I love to start know kind of at the beginning for people. I know you're based in the Silicon Valley. We're going to talk a lot about that. Are you a native of Northern California or someplace else?

00:01:56 - Caroline Hobbs

I absolutely love Northern California. I grew up in Southern California and moved to San Jose probably about 17,18 years ago now. For college, I went to San Jose State and never went home.

00:02:14 - Bill Risser

That's a common story. I think that happens a lot. So Southern California. Is that the LA area? San Diego. What part?

00:02:21 - Caroline Hobbs

Yeah, I grew up in Orange County just inwards from Laguna Beach, like Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita area.

00:02:29 - Bill Risser

Yeah, I grew up in San Diego, so I know the area well. I was okay with Orange County. I just couldn't stand La. For the sports teams, so I hope it doesn't offend you. But you're Orange County. It doesn't matter. It's all good.

00:02:40 - Caroline Hobbs

Well, in my heart, the Angels are still Anaheim Angels.

00:02:46 - Bill Risser

Yeah, that's right. For the longest time. The Anaheim Angels. And now the California Angels. That's just not fair or I'm sorry, Los Angeles Angels, which is even.

00:02:56 - Caroline Hobbs

Give.

00:02:57 - Bill Risser

Me I tell you what, I like asking this question, especially for somebody who you kind of have a great know, you know, Southern California. Northern California is very different. What's the biggest misconception of the Northern California area for you?

00:03:11 - Caroline Hobbs

Coming from Southern California, when you think of Northern California, you think of and you know, you think of a bunch of hippies, but Northern California, it's really kind of got everything, like something for everyone. It is the heart of Silicon Valley. So we do have lots and lots of very smart engineers and engineer type people. But one thing that I really appreciate about the Bay Area is it's very similar to New York in the fact that it is truly a melting pot. Cultures and people, and I think that really just adds to the whole culture of the Bay Area. Making you feel welcome.

00:03:53 - Bill Risser

Yeah, that's absolutely true. My wife and I have been together quite a long time, and our favorite city to visit back in the was always San Francisco. It was close to San Diego, but it really felt like you were on the East Coast, especially some of the things you could do. I mean, the outlying areas, whether you went north into Marin County or you went south down to San Jose or you went east right over to the East Bay, there was some really cool stuff. So probably the biggest misconception is yeah, it's not just a bunch of people that hate ashbury anymore. It's got people from all over the world. Let's talk about 15 year old Caroline. You're in high school. I'm just guessing you can't wait to become a realtor, right?

00:04:37 - Caroline Hobbs

Wrong. Right. I figured I am a third generation real estate professional, and as a teenager, you always want to rebel against what your parents think that you're going to go and do. I don't think that there's anything my mom always supported me going into real estate, but I don't think she ever actually anticipated that I would just because I vehemently was against it back then. I think a big tilting point was in college. I was looking for a part time job that I could do during the weekends to earn a little bit of extra money. And I found a job on Craigslist with a realtor out of Palo Alto, which was about 2025 minutes from where I was living at San Jose State. And it was for an open house host position. And so I took that position and started working in her office as well. And that was really my first steps of getting into real estate.

00:05:43 - Bill Risser

All right, so maybe there was some destiny there that the job you found on Craigslist just happened to be in real estate. I'm sure your mom and dad were probably happy, so there's nothing wrong with that. So you're in Southern California. Growing up in Orange County. Tell me what it was like as you probably live in a dorm on campus your freshman year at San Jose State. What was that experience like? What was the area like? What were the people like? What do you remember from that?

00:06:10 - Caroline Hobbs

I will say moving anywhere in the country from Orange County is going to be a major culture. Know, growing up in Rancho Santa Margarita, we moved there when the city was still being developed and built and there's mainly just a whole lot of empty land. So I really grew up with the city itself. Down there, there's very little diversity. We did have great schools. But visiting San Jose State and my decision to come to San Jose State, it was a very eye opening experience. I went from a very privileged upbringing where everything is shiny and new. And I'll tell you, I still remember in high school or in college, starting college and walking into the sorority house and the dorms and stuff like that and being like, I didn't even know that they made homes without air conditioning. And I guess it's just a very sheltered and privileged upbringing, but it was a huge shock to me. And suddenly I was moving in and lived with 40 other women from different backgrounds, economically, culturally, everything. And so college was the first time I ever shared a room in my entire life. So I think there was a lot of big surprises for me. But I started college at 17. I've always been a very hard worker with my eye on the prize. And so I think that I was able to adapt quickly and I was excited to be out on my own for the first time.

00:07:45 - Bill Risser

You probably also understood that this is a great learning experience overall, just understanding that there are lots of different ways to do things and lots of different people doing them and probably had to be a great experience for you as opposed to just ending up at SC or UCLA. Just still kind of in that bubble maybe, right?

00:08:02 - Caroline Hobbs

Absolutely. It really forced me outside of my comfort. You know, to this day I have past clients asking me, I'll talk to their high school students all the time and I think that college is, yes, an opportunity to extend your studies. But to me, I feel like the most important thing about college is getting to become independent and experience that independence a lot of times for the first time in your life to start making your own adult decisions and taking on those responsibilities and actually owning up to them. But then in addition to that, also kind of having the security of your parents, of being able to go home, of still having their support. So I think that college is fabulous for the academics, but most importantly, it's really a time to develop your own self and determine what it is that you want to do with your life and how you're going to dedicate yourself to get there. So I appreciate my time at San Jose State for those reasons. I grew as a person tremendously and I have made relationships with people that have lasted I've been out of college 15 years now, and I'm still very good friends with a good number of people.

00:09:36 - Bill Risser

That's the experience you're looking for. So good on you. That's amazing. So, Juliana Lee, you're working with her, and maybe I'm sure there was probably a team of people, maybe kind of before there were teams, but you end up sticking around after school, after you graduate. You're still working for her. You get your license. You had to probably to sit the open houses and answer questions and so talk about that. Here you are now in the business, but it doesn't take you long to kind of realize that you're going to want to do something on your own, right?

00:10:11 - Caroline Hobbs

Absolutely. So I got started with Juliana, I want to say the beginning of my junior year of college. I started working for her as an open house host and working as her assistant. At the time, she was actually recognized internationally as Keller Williams'number one agent. So when I look back now, I am so appreciative that experience and the mentorship that I gained at that time, I feel like it was invaluable. I worked with her for six years total. And when I worked in her office this is back in 2009, and she had a database of over 10,000 people, and 95% of agents didn't even have databases back then. This is when, like, top producer seven, I was really your only option. And so she had her own proprietary system. My job was kind of to course, through these people, she would send out monthly market reports every single month, and people would actually love to get on our mailing list, which is so the opposite nowadays, right? Everyone's trying to avoid the monthly email, but I like to say that I capitalized on that time. I learned a lot, ultimately. I worked with her for almost six years and then continued with Keller Williams for a little while. I consulted with them on the edge when they were first getting started and building that. And then not long after that, in 2013, is when I decided to go out on my own and start my real estate brokerage reward Realty.

00:11:55 - Bill Risser

Let's talk about that process. First of all, you're still a young woman at this time, and the leadership in the US. Real estate market tends to be male. But I think there's obviously the majority of Realtors in this country are female. Was it already shifting to where there were a lot more women opening up boutique brokerages and doing these great things? When you started doing it, I mean, you had, like said, a great mentor and the best agent for Keller Williams internationally. Talk about that process. How tough was it to kind of get this thing?

00:12:26 - Caroline Hobbs

Know, I'll be honest with you. I was raised by a single So, and she's very successful. Know, was the top producer on the lending side of things. And she, since the time I was a child, always told me that I was strong and that I could do anything if I my mind to it. And I know everybody's parents kind of say that, but my mom insists that she knew that I was going to be on this golden road. If you talk to her, it's a bit embarrassing, to be honest, but she is convinced that I was destined to do something. So I never really had that same insecurity. I always had the confidence to go out and work towards whatever I needed to, whatever I wanted to do. And I'll touch on this later. But even in starting our new tech company, I have no fears. I initially was hesitant investing financially into something like this with young kids and a family and all of that, but I think that if you believe in yourself, you can do anything. Now, that being said, you made some really great points. 95% of realtors in America are female, and 90%, like, office managers and team leaders and things like that are actually men. I'm proud of the fact that as a young female, I've kind of been able to tear down that glass wall and that glass ceiling and move up myself.

00:14:03 - Bill Risser

I've had the chance to interview a few people, a few women doing the same thing, and it's just kind of gratifying. It's great to hear that. Well, first of all, really, your mom's support has just got to be super important. There's nothing more important, in my opinion, nothing more important that a parent can do but tell their children they can be successful, get them on that right path. It's not just saying, Here, you get a trophy for everything, but it's saying, it's hard work. I know you can do it. Let's go get it done. Fantastic. Yeah. I might have to have your mom on the show now. We'll talk about that later. Your brokerage is quite different. I mean, you're flat out telling everybody right away, this is who we are. We embrace and integrate technology, and this is really tough to do. Right. The tech enabled agent is something that's been kicked around for a while. You talked about Eedge, and that was part of what kind of Gary Keller was trying to do. But with your small brokerages, you're just getting started. How do you implement that strategy? How do you get the buy in? Right? Because adoption is kind of a scary word, right? When it comes to technology and agents.

00:15:11 - Caroline Hobbs

Yeah. Adoption is traditionally the number one struggle that most team leaders have with their agents and most brokerages have with their agents. We see so often a lot of these big name brokerages offering kind of all in one solutions. And most of the top producers, if you ask them if they use their brokerage technologies, they'll say, no, I have this that I pay for on my own and it's really unfortunate. So with what we're doing and with the way that I've built our systems out, first of all, until I got into business coaching, I really didn't understand how different my mind worked compared to the traditional agent. As far as these systems go. It was really my business coach that helped me identify this as being a strength of mine and really bringing it to my attention. So for the past couple of years, I've been helping colleagues of mine from across the country just kind of reviewing their systems, letting them know additional tools and things like that, that they could utilize in their business to help automate or make something a little bit easier. But after building and building on our own backend and having success with getting our agents using our systems, that's when we partnered up with Bara Agency who is our development team and started really kind of adding on to these already excellent systems to build out more of like a tech stack that automates the workflow from behind. So there's a lot of really exciting technology pieces coming together in the back end for us right now. And ideally, my goal is to have agents working out of just one program. I think one of the reasons why team leaders and brokerages have low adoption rates is because agents are having to duplicate efforts, putting information into multiple systems and then things fall through the cracks, they'll forget to put it in one area and then part of the experience has gone downhill because of. And so what we really focus on is using our CRM as a central hub for not only client retention and marketing, but also for managing their transactions, their past transactions, keeping in touch with them after the transaction, everything to do with that person straight from the CRM. So I like to say that our systems are a beefed up version of just regular follow up boss and this client portal that we're creating is going to be a forward facing version running some pretty powerful transaction management software in the background.

00:18:03 - Bill Risser

Well, you touched on it there that ultimately it comes back to no matter how tech enabled or tech savvy you and your agents are, it comes back to what's that experience like for the consumer, right? I mean, that's really the power of what you do. And so I'd love for you to kind of talk about that piece of it. I'll make an assumption that a lot of times an agent who comes to you, especially if they have some experience, they've got that part nailed, but it's maybe picking up the tech. But then if you got somebody who's super tech enabled, they need some help with the other side. Like how are you going to really provide an experience that makes them want to come back and makes them shout out your name to everyone they know?

00:18:42 - Caroline Hobbs

Absolutely. So I believe that every agent strives to give each and every one of their clients the highest and best customer service out there. Now, do I think everybody accomplishes that goal? No. But I think a lot of that is because of a lack of supporting systems in place. I've worked with a lot of agents over time and had a lot of agents, different agents within my brokerage with different ways of doing business. And I kind of see the same recurring themes as like rushing around for gifts at the end or not knowing what to do with the paperwork, scrambling at the end for an agent visual inspection, just different little pieces of the transaction that are causing kind of pain points without really moving forward. And so what we're doing is agents are really great at keeping in touch with their clients while they're showing their homes and things like that. And then sometimes you get into the transaction and it's like you feel like the lender is doing their job and you're taking care of these things in the background but the clients don't really know what's going on. And maybe you have some drip emails set up kind of coaching them through the experience, but a lot of times it's very impersonal. And one way that a lot of agents make up for this gap is with gifts. They'll start dropping gifts off as a way of just keeping in touch with their client and making them feel warm inside. What we're doing with our client portal is we are empowering our clients to feel more a part of the transaction and we're doing that in a few different ways. So number one, there are status updates, videos that agents with a paid subscription will be able to record and have pop up at different points during the transaction. You can also leave little notes for your clients underneath these status updates, letting them know of any extra things that might not be included in that email to make it more personalized. There will also be an area for all the property details, all of the transactional documents, and another area where you can actually schedule appointments with our vendors. So let's say that your clients, they're closing escrow and maybe there's some plumbing repairs that need to take place. They can actually in the portal go to our vendors page, go to the plumber and have access to the plumber's calendar and book an appointment for that plumber to come and take care of the issue at their home. So there's a lot of different capabilities that we're putting in there. And we do have a team, we have a few different development teamwork teams that we're working with right now. But one of our teams specializes in OCR and AI technology and so we're building AI that's actually going to sort and read transactional documents to completion. So it'll tell you if you're missing like buyer two signature or seller one signature. If there's a document missing from the transaction. Without a transaction coordinator constantly having to send back and forth lists, you'll be able to from one area, send them out to both sides of the transaction, invite the other side and create a completed file together. So I think that there's a lot of ways utilizing technology that we can work smarter and not harder.

00:22:26 - Bill Risser

First of all, AI is the buzword the thing going around today. And generally speaking, AI for most people means OOH, chat, GPT. I can write a listing presentation or a listing description or whatever, but taking that stuff with your dev team and turning it inside, looking at your processes and your procedures and having it take care of it there, I think that is to really maximizing what you can do and having that what you're doing an incredible customer experience. That's awesome. You're way ahead of the curve on a lot of these things as we're talking. But I'd love it if you had like an example where you added something to the tech stack or you saw some shiny object, right? You know, the shiny object syndrome that agents have issues with. I think it's different for you. You might have figured out a way to use something that really worked. Is there like a pivot you did or something you changed where you could even share with us and go, I was able to take this and we're now accomplishing this. On the other side of it, I.

00:23:27 - Caroline Hobbs

Can give you two examples, gifting and Postcards. So just using simple Zapier integrations and this is something that we'll be setting up for tech stack clients as well, is helping them with stronger integrations and how to use them and providing suggestions around those. But Gifting, for example, we use a company called Gifting Goose and they inventory all of the gifts that we have and we have them identified for different points in the transaction. And we have it set up so that as soon as a client's status changes in follow up boss from looking for a home to under contract, they're going to get mailed a gift in the mail to their current address with some moving supplies, a little note and a link to a QR code that goes to our moving concierge service so that they can then help get help with booking their movers and things like that. So that is one example of how we've kind of helped improve the client experience using Gifting and Automating Gifting. And then another would be similar kind of circumstance. We're working with a couple of different printers to create marketing postcards that go out prior to the homecoming on the market. Once it's listed, once it's pending, another time when it's sold. There's a company called thanks IO that I really like, has a lot of customization options, has an open API that makes it very developer friendly. And the only thing I struggle myself with is I really like to customize things for each property. And with automations, you don't get that same opportunity. You really have to make templates for a lot of these things to be able to build with.

00:25:22 - Bill Risser

Right.

00:25:23 - Caroline Hobbs

But other than that, it definitely simplifies the process. And I think one thing that my coach has told me before, having it be only 80% of what you want, but having it done is better than having it exactly the way you want it and not done.

00:25:42 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:25:44 - Caroline Hobbs

With only so many hours in the day and priorities, you really have to focus on highest and best use of your time. And so that's where I find that automations can really help people change their careers and give that consistent high level service to all of their clients, regardless if they're a mobile home client or they're buying a $2 million property.

00:26:07 - Bill Risser

Right. And where you live, you have all of that. Where you work, it could be either one. You are an entrepreneur. You're more than just a real estate entrepreneur. You're an entrepreneur. That's just part of your blood. It's who you are. Are you helping your agents try to attain that same level, that same feeling you have?

00:26:32 - Caroline Hobbs

Absolutely. I do run a sales team within our brokerage as well. But unlike a lot of team leaders, my goal is not to have people on my team long term. While I have agents on my team, what I'm showing them is how to market themselves, how to use these tools to increase their business, how to communicate with their clients. We use a lot of scripting today. Earlier this morning, we actually had what I like to call Comp party. And during that, we videotape it and put it up and essentially I send out five properties ahead of our meeting and we all run comps and then I compare theirs to mine and I explain why I've selected certain comparables over others to justify the value of that property. And that really helps as they're talking with clients, as they're running comps for clients, either for listings or for purchases, we really want to make sure that we're giving our agents and our clients all of the tools that they need to be successful.

00:27:39 - Bill Risser

So Caroline, it sounds like you're building a way to connect up, follow up boss and maybe some other tools with the help of your dev team to kind of really create that open to close that contract to close path that so many people claim to do. Am I on the right path there?

00:28:00 - Caroline Hobbs

Yes, absolutely. Reward Realty Solutions is the name of our technology company. We have a tech stack with open to Close and Follow Up boss. And we've actually rebuilt these tools over another development program to enhance the information sharing between programs. And then those will also connect into our client portal. So the three of these will be sold as a package together as really a plug and play option. Our goal with the portal is to be able to sell it as a one off product as well. But it's kind of to be determined as far as whether or not that will be available just because the open to close system and the way we fed it into follow up Boss is really unique and we're really utilizing a lot of features in all of these different programs but kind of bringing them all together. So, for example, the way our AI is going to work when you're starting a transaction is you will upload a copy of the purchase agreement into the system, and the AI will actually scan the document and pull a lot of the informational fields to fill out an open to close intake form, which will then set the timelines for the rest of your transaction. And we'll run in the background, sending prompts to all parties of the transaction with different deadlines and whatnot.

00:29:27 - Bill Risser

Nice. I like that a lot. I'm an old Escrow guy. I like that a lot. Well, Caroline, this has been great. I know you are probably busy, it's the middle of your day, you're in California, I'm in Florida. So let me give you the final question I've asked every guest, and that is, what one piece of advice would you give a new agent just getting started in the business?

00:29:48 - Caroline Hobbs

That's a great question. 100%. Get a real estate coach outside of your brokerage. I've been a part of the Tom Ferry ecosystem for three years now. I'm more than happy to connect you with them, but get a coach, have them guide you and give you that weekly training, prioritizing innovating, getting you new ideas and holding you accountable. I didn't start coaching until I'd already been in the business for twelve years and I kick myself every day not even understanding how much that would accelerate my growth and accelerate my career and accelerate my path forward as an agent.

00:30:33 - Bill Risser

We're big fans of Tom Ferry as well. I think that's a fantastic company to be working with. That's great. Caroline, if somebody wants to reach out to you, what's the best way that they can get in touch with you?

00:30:45 - Caroline Hobbs

You can contact me through our brokerage website@rewardrealty.org and send us a message there. Or you can send me an email directly at caroline. Caroline@rewardrealty.org.

00:31:01 - Bill Risser

Caroline. This has been really fun. Fantastic stuff. I can't wait to see what you do next. I will be following reward realty. I love what you're doing. Keep up the fantastic work. Thank you.

00:31:14 - Caroline Hobbs

Thank you. Have a great day.

00:31:16 - Bill Risser

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