Real Estate Sessions Rewind - Amy Chorew - President, Curated Learning

I think agents need to understand what's going on in their local market. There are data points that you see people post on the on social. That's not where it belongs.It belongs in your articulation to buyers and sellers so they can understand what's going on in the market.

You're listening to the Real Estate Sessions and I'm your host, Bill Risser. With nearly 25 years in the real estate business, I love to interview industry leaders, up and comers and really anyone with a story to tell.It's the stories that led my guests to a career in the real estate world that drives me into my ninth year and nearly 400 episodes of the podcast. And now I hope you enjoy the next journey. Hi everybody. Welcome to episode 345 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. You know what I'm going to say.As always, thank you so much for tuning in and thank you so much for telling a friend today. It's somebody I've known about since the beginning of the podcast, yet failed to have her on until now. Definitely my mistake, my bad.I'm talking about Amy Chorew.Amy is currently with Curated Learning, but Amy has a broad history in the real estate space going back to the late 80s, and I'm very excited to talk to her about what she's doing today, some of the great things she's done in the past, and let's get this thing started. Amy, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me, Bill. So excited.

Yeah, I am so glad to have you on. We run into each other at conferences and events and different things, but I've never really had a sit down conversation with you.And so I'm really excited about this. I'll just find out a little more about you.Maybe some of your friends and some of the people who've worked with you over the years are going to think this is old hat, but there's a lot of us that need to know more. So we'll get this started with my favorite first question.I tend to use this a lot and I know you live in the Greater Hartford area and you've been there for a long time. Are you a native? And I'm going to screw this up and I'm going to give it my best shot. Is it Connecticutian? Is it Connecticutian? Is it connectian?What's the native of Connecticut?

It's actually nutmegger. They call them nutmeggers. They're hard on the outside, hard to crack, but once you do, they're mush.That's what they call Connecticut people nutmeggers.

I love it. I play golf with a nutmegger every Sunday. Anthony Malafronte. I don't know if you know Anthony, but I do.

So you have to tell him now that he's a nutmeg maker.

Yeah, he's New Haven, so that's cool. Good, good. So are you a native?

No.

Nut maker?

No. I am from New York. My parents are from West 187th. It was the Heights. What? You now know the Heights. We lived right near the Cloisters.My grandpa had buildings. Had a building right there, Fort Tryon Park. And then I grew up in Rye, New York. I met my husband, a Jersey boy, in college and he was hired to run.He's a builder, and we moved up here so he could start his building career.

Awesome. Okay.

Long time ago.

Yeah. So you've been there a long time. Obviously you still like Connecticut a lot. Give me your favorite thing about Connecticut, and then.I know it's tough because you've been there a long time, but what. There's gotta be a worst. Everybody has that thing, right? So what's your best and your worst?

There is a worst, actually. So what I love about Connecticut, it's gorgeous, beautiful, and I have access to everything. I can be skiing in two and a half hours.I can be at the beach in 45. I can be in Manhattan in under two hours. And of course, Boston, too. So I love. I love that I can. That's my playground.So I love that about Connecticut. The worst. It's actually when I first got here, being a New Yorker, we have a story for everything. And my husband used to kick me under the table.He goes, shut up. Because they don't care. So it was learning how to be that stoic Connecticutinian, whatever you called it.But now I do have an amazing network of friends here.

That's very interesting because. Yeah, that. That New York kind of thing, you know, I'm in. I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida. We do have a few of the New England people on this side.Generally, we're more Midwest in St. Pete, and everybody else is in Fort Lauderdale, but I absolutely know what you're talking about.So I have to ask you this as well then, because you came up from New York, your husband came up from Jersey. I think you've answered this question. But Hartford's roug roughly halfway between Boston and New York.So it's got to be Yankees or Red Sox, Giants or Patriots. I'm just going to guess you're sticking.

With New York yes, sir and yes, sir.

Yeah. So that. That whole stretch where the Patriots were just unbeatable. Unbelievable. Except in two Super Bowls by the Giants.Had to be rough at times and also kind of fun.

Well, you know, I was actually thinking during the Super Bowl, I was thinking about Tom Brady. It's like we needed a Tom Brady at the last min for the Eagles and we didn't get it.

So the. The jersey side of your husband being so close to Philly, he probably had a little bit of a love for. To help, you know, see them.When he had no tie to Kansas City, no one really did. If you're in the. Up in the.

No, my son's in Philly, by the way. He lives in Fishtown.

Ah.

Yeah. So we go to Philly quite a bit.

It's gonna be a long. It's gonna be a long off season for the Eagles. That was their game. Good.

So let's.

Let's go back. Young Amy. You know, you just get out of high school, college is staring at you. Are you. Is real estate anywhere on your radar?Are you even thinking about it?

Nary a thought. I went to school in Rhode island, and my degree was art therapy, and I took courses at risd, which is.I didn't go to risd, Rhode Island School of Design, but I loved art, so I took courses there and I went to my college in art therapy.But since I married my husband while he was in college, much to my family's chagrin, because they thought I was going to marry a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, as many people from New York do, ended up marrying a builder. So when we moved to Connecticut, I hated real estate.And as he was interviewing the real estate companies to manage the subdivisions, because the contractor, that was one of the things the developer wanted my husband to find a good real estate company. And one of the companies was a century 21. I was nasty Bill. I was mean because I thought they were worse than scum of the earth.And I told him what I thought, and he goes, I challenge you. He goes, you would be great in real estate. I'm going to pay for you to get your real estate license. I'm like, I'm on.I'm like, what the heck did I just agree to? So I have never used my degree once. I have been in real estate my whole career. 1987 on.

So that was the thing. That was what? It's always an interesting story as to how someone gets into real estate. Yours is awesome. Who was your first broker?Where'd you hang that license? When you first got your license.

Still really good friends. It's century 21. It's all points realty. They're the biggest century 21 in Connecticut. My husband still has his license with them.I am with Better Homes and Gardens for right now because I used to be working for them at corporate. Sure. But, yeah, century 21.

So you've always been. You've always been part of the. We'll call it Realogy now. It's anywhere.

Yep.

Yeah. You've always been a part of that family. That's cool. I like that. Yeah, that's great. You know, you.You've really created a career out of education, training people, really helping, consulting, all these things. Where did that come from? Right. Because it wasn't like you had a career in that before. It wasn't.It wasn't something you studied in college, to be honest. So where did that come from?

Sunday school. My kids were in Sunday school. And the rabbi came up to me. He goes, you are an amazing teacher. And I loved it. And I hated this in real estate.I hated all the CE classes where people would literally make your eyes burn out of your head because it was so boring.I went back to school Bill at a local community college in Connecticut, and I went back for Instructional design and Adult learning theory because I wanted to make sure. Because I wanted to write content, but I wanted to make sure I was doing it the right way. And my eyes were opened and I have a secret sauce.And I'll tell you why my content was always so effective. It was from those classes. And I started writing courses and work. Started working with Matthew Ferrara back in 2004 and just hit the ground running.And then in 2009, NAR asked me with Bill Lublin and Ginger Wilcox to rewrite EPro. I had no idea what a big deal that was.

Yeah.

And that. That's what really got me on the map going forward. But that's how I got in.

Wow.I'm gonna just guess that because, look, you know, a lot of real estate educators, I dabbled in it when I was with Fidelity, you know, was nowhere near the level a lot of you are. But for. To have that background, to have that actually to go back and pick up some courses on those kinds of things.That's generally not the path for most educators in real estate. Right.

No. And that's. It's interesting. I am working with a company now putting educators course online. And only a couple of them who really understand this.It's easier for them to put their courses online. Everyone else Has a really hard time because they're really. They have an amazing idea. They've had great success. So they can talk.They can talk and do it and everyone loves their classes. But to create a course where the people actually are able to implement is a whole nother level. So it's been very interesting coaching them.

Yeah. Let's talk about Matthew. He's an amazing guy. Right? I mean, I've talked to him on the show before.Just an incredible speaker trainer, whatever you want to call Matthew. How fun was it? And I'm sure you picked up a lot of great stuff through those years with him.

We still talk almost weekly. I actually spoke to him yesterday.Whenever I'm working with a new client, we just touch base on what we're doing and we just brainstorm with each other on better ways to support our clients. I've known him forever and he comes from a really humble background and he really, because he was so brilliant, got some great opportunities.But he had that single working mom. One of my. I'm going to just tell him one of my favorite stories is he went to a prep school.He got in like, because he was so super smart and he was the local kid with his mom's old clunker. But he was popular because he had this car that probably had no muffler. Brilliant. And one of the nicest, nicest guys.I mean, we've been friends since 2000.

Yeah. That's great. I didn't know that about you. That was one thing in the research I do. I was. Wow.I didn't know Amy and Matthew were connected at some point in time. That's really cool. You are not afraid of technology, race technology.And I'm going to guess, you know, because you Talked about the EPro with, with ginger and Bill, which is fantastic. That's. That's great. That I'm going to guess you were an early adopter of lots of things, including social.Were you right there just trying to figure out how this was going to work in the real estate space?

Absolutely. I remember being laughed off stage. I think it was triple play.Matthew was there actually in the back of the room and people thought I was crazy 2004 and basically said, I hope you enjoyed the donuts and coffee then today. And I literally had to walk off stage and now what were you talking.

About that made that happen?

Social media, how you're going to have to bring that into your business.

Yeah, LinkedIn around at that time and there's, I mean, even a goofy little MySpace was floating around, but still, people were using stuff.

Yeah, people were using stuff. So yeah. Pretty early adopter.

Yeah. That's, that's great. Let's, let's talk about when you are working with a customer. Maybe it's a client. It could be consulting with the brokerage.What's the most common mistake that you see agents or brokers make in their. When they're trying to figure out what they're going to do with their technology? I mean, or when they're using their technology.Is there something that's maybe a common thread?

I'm going to approach it from the broker side and the agent side.

Okay.

From a broker side, I find that working with the agents where they are in their career and I quartile agents into four groups that top echelon, who, that top 10, 15% who are going to use their own software anyway. How do you support them? Then that next group, which is I call your solid citizens. How are you supporting them?Then you're up and coming and then the people are struggling. I think you have to look at each person where they are in their career and find out which pieces of software they need to grow.So from a broker, that's where I go from, from an agent. I think we all have shiny object syndrome. I think right now with the business plan, here's the interesting thing, Bill.I have had a business plan from the first year I was in real estate.

Wow.

And I can't, maybe it was my background, but I see people not knowing what their goals are. And part of your goals are what systems and tools are you going to use to get to your financial goal.

Right.

And that automatically helps. I find agents figure out where they're going to be. So is it your CRM, your marketing platform? So I approach it from there.But again, you don't need a lot of tools. And I see people, I get really off into craziness.Like the whole thing now with the AI, you know, it's brilliant, it's fun and I've seen products already putting it into their products like a trust scout. And I believe wise agent, which are CRMs, have already put the AI in there. So I think it's better to. It's fun to play.But whatever you're using, I always say don't, don't invent, implement. What do you have? Just max it out and then go on to the next thing.

Yeah. Trying to create a whole Strategy with like ChatGPT to like create your. Some, some marketing content for you. Why do that?It's, it's going to Be other places. Just. Let's let the. Maybe the experts pull that stuff into their systems. Yeah, that makes sense.

I mean, are you good at articulating who you are? What's your value proposal? And does your sphere know what you do?So as soon as someone talks about real estate, are they on the phone with you, like, number one, Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't. I don't see AI helping with that piece.

Not yet.

No, that's. That's. Unless they can pick up the phone and imitate you and do a perfect impersonation of your voice, it's not going to work.

Your phone just heard you say that. It's going to happen.

It's true. It's sitting right here. Okay. I mentioned earlier, you know, your time, you know, century 21, better homes and Gardens, working for.For real in that realogy space because you were working for them and development. And development and helping with platform and things. Talk about, you know, the value that comes from, you know, having to work at that level.I mean, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of agents in that. In that. In that company. What was that like?

I had no idea what I was getting into, Sherry. Chris asked me to come on board, and once I did, I realized I had no idea what it was like to work in that environment.I want to say that Sherry was the person who helped me figure that all out. She helped me work the building, know who to talk to, who to not. She helped me understand how to work the building.The things that I learned there, I think, was how to be a leader, emotional intelligence, how to actually act with certain levels of people, whether they're above you or below you. So learning how to communicate up and what they need to hear and learning how to communicate down.One thing that separated me, which I was, Which I was surprised to learn, but I did later on, is that having that entrepreneur mindset that I had, I pushed like many people would not push in that building. And I actually had an HR person attached to me the first couple of years because they had to talk to me.But I think the one thing about Sherry, she loved that.And that's why I think we were able to get so much done, because I didn't realize some of the politics that I should have been following when I was there.But really, emotional intelligence and learning how to communicate in a Fortune 500 company environment, which those skills I'm forever thankful for, and I'm using them now as I'm working as a consultant.

Right. Yeah. I moved from the Fidelity family another Fortune 500 working for basically a startup out of Australia. Right. My agent with 100 employees.And when you want to do something, it happens very fast. And when Fidelity wanted to do something, it took years. Sometimes it felt like.

You know what's interesting though, with the prop tech companies that many of them coming out of startup are finally getting funding now, there is a niche that helping those companies quickly get to being a company operating like a real company, not the bootstrapping if there. That is a. A need that many of those companies need and they know they need it, but they're still like juggling so many plates in the air.

Yeah, they are, absolutely. And it's been for me, I wish I was younger when I made the change, but it's still been a blast.I mean, it's coming up on two and a half years and super exciting. I love it. Well, let's talk about what you're doing now. Let's talk about curated learning.Tell me what that is, where that idea came from, what people need to know about it.

Curated learning came out of wanting to go back to be an entrepreneur. I had given the time at anywhere and I was very thankful for that. But in my gut, I'm an entrepreneur and I saw a couple of holes.One was onboarding is not done well at brokerage level.So I've been working, we've worked with about five companies and we're putting together a platform where there's tools for very small companies all the way up to enterprise. I think agents need a better experience when coming onto a company, understanding that it's seamless, frictionless and having a great experience.So they'll automatically buy into the company and then actually knowing everything that the company offers. So we've created some great tools for compliance and the culture of the company.And it ranges from a PDF with clickable links jotforms, all the way to a learning management system with everything with videos and all of that. So that's been fun. In the interim, I'm also putting some of my courses that I've loved and written over the years online.They're almost ready, so they'll be on demand. Written a value prop class, a class on crypto and tokenization, and writing a new agent training.Those are the three that are out there and that's really what curated learning is doing. But what's kind of crazy is when I left, I got asked by prop tech companies to help bring their product to market. And right now I have two companies.I've worked with about five companies I have two contracts right now and what I do is I analyze how they reach the customer, how they onboard them and then how they continue engagement. And for some reason I have a knack and I work with operations, I work with learning, I work with marketing and I work with sales with those teams.So that I did get that from my experience at Realogy because I was that VP of platform. So I helped launch most of the tech out.You know, being an agent helps because many of these tech Companies don't understand the 8 mindset of a realtor.

Right, you're absolutely right. Yeah, that's. We, we, we might reach out and give you a call.I mean onboarding a client, onboarding a realtor, a specific, that specific mindset of onboarding a realtor is very, it's not just a really easy hey, here's how you do it and away you go. You've got to understand the relationship between what is that tech doing?What is, where's that, as you mentioned before, where's that agent in their, in their career or their place inside your quartiles? I mean, what are you doing there? That's pretty, that's impressive. I probably will talk to you after the show. What right now?What has your attention right now? And then what do you think agents should be thinking about as we move forward? Because I think that things are always changing in our world.I mean we know there are the big cycles and we've come into a cycle that I have a feeling that wasn't as traumatic as we thought it was going to be. It's still, it's still a downturn, but it's. I don't think we're going to see this giant recession and all kinds of things, hopefully.What's your take on all of that, Bill?

I am a data geek. I run about 74 data points from my MLS just because. For fun. Because that's fun for me, which is weird.So I have a good pulse on what's going on in my local market. I watch what I call price banding and then I look at things like list dependings.I watch how many actives and I track that and I've been doing that for years. I watch Lawrence Yoon every month because he's got great information. So he's got the macro and then I have the micro, the local.And what I'm seeing is we're getting back to your point where we are. That was a big intro to what you asked my question, but I had to throw that in.

No, that's good.

So like for example nationally we usually have five to seven months of inventory. Some areas they're still at one month, we're at three now. For me I think agents need to understand what's going on in their local market.There are data points that you see people post on the, on social. That's not where it belongs.It belongs in your articulation to buyers and sellers so they can understand what's going on in the market, what they should be doing for pricing, how people should be offering. If they understand what's going on there, that is the kind of information you can then share to your sphere.For me right now it's staying in touch with your sphere with non threatening information because they're the ones who are going to know about the people who are going to be selling. You want them calling you. So right now really doubling down with the sphere.I do think there's some great ways to generate leads online but for me if you haven't mastered your sphere, that is a pot of gold that will give and give every year. So for me having some kind of data, for me it's, it could be staging, it could be anything. But what are you giving back to your local market?Staying in touch with them so they know for me it's the data.

Yeah. Is that, is that part of your value prop class that you have up? So that just. That's good to know. If anyone listening.

It's called the Zen of Numbers. We, we teach a companies how to do that and a friend of mine actually wrote that. Her name and a shout out to Robin Erlenbush.Robin owns a, an ERA in Bozeman, Montana.

Wow.

We almost bought property there and we didn't. But she and I have been friends for 17 years and we wrote that whole course, it's called the Zen of Numbers.And she, she does her data out there, I do my data and it's really fun to see the different markets.

Yeah, it seems like a broker should embrace that and like why can't a broker roll that out to their, their agents every month? Right.

It's funny, I see in social like someone saying days on market list to sale to the consumer. I'm like that does nothing like. But if you run into someone in the grocery store and that's why I also like Steve Harney stuff.Keeping current matters.

Yes.

Because he sends stuff. It's like you know that they say, you know, why are you so smart? Well I read Steve Harney stuff. So someone says what's going on in the market?I don't See? Brutal. I'll say something that I heard Lawrence say on a thing, something on Steve Harney said or my own data. I'll go, you know, it's interesting.Normally we have five months of inventory. We were at 1.4, six months ago, but we're back at three. And the person goes, wow.Well, then they'll say, are you think, well, what do you think about me putting my home on the market? I go, you know what? I. And then I get an appointment. But it's giving something back like that.

Yeah, yeah. It's not. We're not asking someone to memorize a whole bunch of data. Just know a couple of bullet points that you can bring out and explain.And, and for a consumer, they're going to have no idea that that's the way things are. They just don't. It's tough to get it. It's tough to get the local stuff from, even from the local media, right?

Yep. It's very hard. And remember, it's three months old. What I'll do is I'll give you a list so you can put it on your, at the.For your podcast of the data points people should be looking at.

Awesome. Yeah, we'll put it in the, we'll put it in the show notes. That'd be awesome.So we're getting close to that half hour mark, Amy, so I'm going to ask you the same final question we've asked everybody since day one. Jay Thompson got this, the first, first guy to get this question. What one piece of advice would you give a new agent just getting started.We might have touched on it, but what, what would you tell them to focus on?

What I would tell a brand new agent is find, first of all, find the right company that resonates with you. Visit them twice. Don't just go in that first interview, go back and make sure that they're the same company.And then when you're there, make sure that you understand your value prop who you are, how to articulate it and get connected with your sphere because it will take you five years to really get that going. But if you're in for the long haul, that will pay dividends over and over.

Yeah, Amy, if somebody wants to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to do that?

I amysharu on all social and my email is amymysharu.com Very simple.

Good. Amy, this was so much fun. Thank you for your time.I'm sorry this took so long and, and I'll be looking for you at a conference somewhere near us soon.

Yes, we definitely need a conference. Fist bump or hug if we're doing that by then.

Sounds good. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for having me.

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