Real Estate Sessions Rewind - DANI VANDERBOEGH, SENIOR EDITOR – INMAN NEWS

00:00:00 - Bill Risser

Welcome to another real estate sessions rewind session. This week we're going back to September of 2023, and we're going to be talking to Danny Vanderbuh. This was a really fun episode. Danny does some great stuff in the news. So let's get this thing started.

00:00:14 - Dani Vanderboegh

I recently actually just had a title change. I'm now the service editor, and that means that I handle our service journalism. And if you're unfamiliar with what that is, is back in the newspaper days, it would be the things that you would kind of cut and clip and maybe put on your refrigerator that really good. I know I'm gonna use this later kind of stuff. So my job is to figure out how we can take what's going on in the industry, what's going on in the news, and make it serviceable for the reader to use that information in their business.

00:00:49 - Bill Risser

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 9th year and nearly 400 episodes of the podcast. And now, I hope you enjoy the next journey. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 363 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. Yes, we're in year nine. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend. I have a fantastic guest lined up today. We are going to be talking to the contributor Wrangler, the columnist that handles the real t column and part of the Inman team. I'm going to be talking to Danny Vanderbuh. And for those of you who have been in the Inman world, maybe as an ambassador like I am, you've met Danny. She's an amazing woman, and we're going to have a lot of fun with this. Let's get it started. Danny, welcome to the podcast.

00:01:51 - Dani Vanderboegh

Thank you so much for having me.

00:01:53 - Bill Risser

We go way back. You've been with Inman for eight, going on nine years. Is that sound about right?

00:01:58 - Dani Vanderboegh

That's exactly right.

00:01:59 - Bill Risser

Yeah. And I've. I've been an ambassador to that time. I was one of the gang. That was the kind of that core group that got through the teens, I guess we'll say, because there's definitely a different shift in the plan, which there should be. There always should be some shifting in that group of people. So I would run into you at events and things, and so that, that's very cool. But this is going to be a lot of fun because I've never really, you know, I've interviewed some people at Inman. I've interviewed Brad. I've interviewed Craig, which was super fun. I had no idea his background. And I love getting the background of people. Right. So that's what we're here for. First of all, I think you live in the St. Louis area now, and I think you're a native Missourian. Am I on track there?

00:02:41 - Dani Vanderboegh

You're close. I moved here when I was three.

00:02:43 - Bill Risser

Okay. That's close enough. I think that's.

00:02:46 - Dani Vanderboegh

Yeah. I don't remember much else, let's say.

00:02:49 - Bill Risser

Yeah, that's true. And so my first question is this, what do we need to know about Missouri that we don't? And what should we forget about Missouri that we believe?

00:03:03 - Dani Vanderboegh

That's a tricky one.

00:03:04 - Bill Risser

You can go anywhere.

00:03:06 - Dani Vanderboegh

I would say that our super loud politicians don't necessarily echo the sentiments of the entire state.

00:03:15 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:03:16 - Dani Vanderboegh

And I would say there are a lot of gems past the arch and Busch stadium, though. Those are amazing in St. Louis that are worth seeing. And there's like, kind of a push for urban revitalization where they're using a lot of buildings that were raised at the beginning of the century and of last century, and they're having a good time kind of coming up with these great urban revitalization projects, such as the armory, where they've put in this great, like, food court. And all these food trucks now have like, sorry, that's the foundry. But they have a home now. So they're. And they use the original, like, machinery and different pieces throughout to kind of harken back to the previous. That's the kind of stuff I love about St. Louis.

00:04:03 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:04:03 - Dani Vanderboegh

The city museum is my favorite place in the city.

00:04:06 - Bill Risser

That's great. Yeah. And I. Tell me, you know, so St. Louis, I'm in a really. I'm going to butcher this probably pretty badly. St. Louis is on the eastern side of the state. Correct. And Kansas City is close by. It's up the 80 or up some freeway. It's not far away.

00:04:24 - Dani Vanderboegh

It's about 4 hours west.

00:04:26 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:04:26 - Dani Vanderboegh

Oh, I see the full other side of the state.

00:04:28 - Bill Risser

Okay. So, and there's like, you know, there's, there should be this little rivalry between the. I'm just going to throw this out there. The Cardinals and the royals, but some, something tells me it's more the cardinals and the Cubs and you, as you.

00:04:40 - Dani Vanderboegh

Shake your head, it's very much the Cardinals and the Cubs. The Cubs are like, it's, it's funny. They're like the all time enemy. But, like, at the end of the day, I think most Cardinals fans would rather see the Cubs go all the way than, like, the Yankees go all the way.

00:04:54 - Bill Risser

Yeah. As I sit here with the Tampa Bay Rays hat on and just came out of a Yankee series where the last place lowly Yankees tried to draw the Rays into a little bean brawl incident, but the race said, it's not worth it. Not worth it for us. They're there in last place. We don't care. And that's a great feeling. Right. For all fans, except. Yeah, except you're a Yankee fan.

00:05:16 - Dani Vanderboegh

Yeah. So we take sportsmanship seriously here at Busch Stadium.

00:05:19 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Tell them. Tell me about, even as a child growing up, you were a Cards fan. I mean, there were some really good years going through Joaquin, and I'm throwing some names out there that I know from a while ago that hopefully you're old enough to remember. I don't know.

00:05:30 - Dani Vanderboegh

So as a kid, it was like a huge ordeal to go down and see Ozzy Smith. And, like, even before I was aware of, like, what baseball really is, you'd go down and watch just to see if you do backflips, you know, like, that was. That was the good old days.

00:05:43 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Ozzy. I watched Ozzy in San Diego, where I grew up. So we lost Ozzy to the Cardinals, and we got Gary Templeton, who was nice. He just liked to flip people off a little too much. And I don't think. I don't think Ozzy ever did that.

00:05:54 - Dani Vanderboegh

So Ozzy would never do that.

00:05:56 - Bill Risser

All right, so we'll move off of that. I like to find out from people, especially because I generally talk to realtors, right. People in the business who almost all of them had a first career, and real estate is a second, sometimes third. Right. But I'm hoping, or I'm just going to guess for you, say, you in your high school, were you thinking journalism? Was that on your radar right at that time, or what were you thinking about?

00:06:22 - Dani Vanderboegh

So it's funny because it should have been, because, like, okay, so as a kid, I would, like, write book reports on the encyclopedia. And, like, I grew up very much reading a lot. And, like, in middle school, I did the paper, and then in high school, I had this teacher. I really, he'd make me read out loud, and I was not confident in reading out loud, and he would make me read shakespeare out loud. And this guy was the head of the newspaper, and, like, the entire journalism section at our school newspaper, yearbook, all of it. So I did not go into that. But at the time I thought that I wanted to be like an Indiana Jones, like the female Indiana Jones. I wanted to go into archaeology and anthropology. Then after I had my accident, I. It just wasn't, it wasn't going to be the way I wanted it to be. So I wanted to find something else. And then that's when I turned to writing and figured journalism would be the next path.

00:07:13 - Bill Risser

I'd like to talk about the accident if you're okay with that.

00:07:16 - Dani Vanderboegh

Yeah.

00:07:16 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:07:16 - Dani Vanderboegh

No, I'm so open about it. Don't worry.

00:07:18 - Bill Risser

I think there's an opportunity here for, for me and for a lot of people listening to understand how to approach people, how to talk about things. Right? So, yeah, for those who don't know, you're a paraplegic, you're in a wheelchair and I think you were a teenager when this happened. So let's talk about that process a little bit. Where you want to go with that? I'm open for it.

00:07:41 - Dani Vanderboegh

Sure. So my big goal when I was a kid growing up was to go away to school. And I got into a school that had archaeology as a minor and anthropology as a major. And like I said, that was kind of a driving factor of what I was. You know, it was like affordability and like, where can I study what I actually want to study? And so I went to this school in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, called southeast Missouri State. And there's this hill, it's called cardiac Hill. And years later I worked with a lady at Macy's. That was, that was my first career. I worked with her and she was in her sixties and she had gone to school there. And she told me that when she went to school there, everybody went sledding down cardiac hill. So it's like this long standing tradition. So we had had this really great snow. It was like twelve inches of snow, then some melting and then more snow on top of it. It was like irresistible. If you're a snow person, right? It's almost the end of first semester and we've been gathering friends for like hours to go sledding. And we finally get out there and there's like a baby pool, you know, like you put your two year old in this little plastic baby pool, right?

00:08:49 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Right.

00:08:51 - Dani Vanderboegh

So being the smart, you know, 1920 somethings that we were, we thought it would be a great idea for us all to go down together. And the hill is so steep and the snow is so deep that the boys had to, like, pull. Pull it up, you know, like, it took several boys to pull this pole up to the top of the hill. And by the top, I mean, like, maybe halfway, because they pulled it to the closest tree, braced it up against the tree, let some boys get in, let the girls get in, and then the rest of boys got in. All in all, there was maybe ten of us.

00:09:23 - Bill Risser

Wow.

00:09:24 - Dani Vanderboegh

And on our way down, so either we hit a bump or somebody bailed, and we turned. Somehow we turned trajectory, and so now we were facing backward, and when we got to the bottom, we hit, like, a light post, and so everybody just kind of dog piled, like, right on top of me, and fortunately, nobody else was hurt. And I kind of knew immediately, like, I knew something wasn't right. I said, just leave me here and call, you know, call 911. And that's what we did. And I went to the hospital there. Unfortunately, they didn't have, you know, the right facilities for spinal cord injury, which is what I had. For those of you who know what that is, it's at the t twelve l one level, so it's pretty low, and it's incomplete, which means I do have some movement, some feeling below the waist. And so they couldn't air vac me up to St. Louis, so we ended up, like, taking an ambulance up, and then I had, like, a long surgery, and then they switched me over to rehab facility, and then I went back and had another surgery and then rehab facility until that was December 5. February 13 is when I got out of the hospital.

00:10:33 - Bill Risser

And at that point, you're at a place where there's not going to be any improvement, or is there always a chance? How does that. How were you feeling at that point?

00:10:42 - Dani Vanderboegh

It's, oh, at that point, I was fully hopeful that I would be, you know, up and walking immediately.

00:10:47 - Bill Risser

And then, you know, my question to you is this. You. You probably have people come up to you and ask you, you know, why are you in a wheelchair? Is what. What is the proper way to. To ask that question? Or is there. Is there no proper way?

00:11:02 - Dani Vanderboegh

So I think, like, okay, so I think, like, it depends on kind of your rapport with that person, right? Like, I think if you just walk up to a stranger, that's kind of uncomfortable. You wouldn't just walk up to a stranger and ask him about a deformity or a birthmark or whatever. Use your judgment. However, there are many in my belief system who we believe in talking about it, because that's what creates awareness. And if we have awareness, that's how we move forward. For me, I'm happy to talk about it. And a stranger could walk up and ask me, and I would give them the full story. But other people maybe are more sensitive, and there's a grieving process that goes along with the whole thing. Like, you're grieving who you were, and it takes, I don't even think I realized it as I was going through it, but, like, it takes time. And if you catch somebody who's maybe a little in their grieving, they may not respond in the same way.

00:11:58 - Bill Risser

Right. What would you wish people knew about your life in a wheelchair? What should we understand? Does that make sense?

00:12:09 - Dani Vanderboegh

Yeah. I think that there's this concept, this misconception that, like, oh, you know, you're in a wheelchair now. You can't do any of the things that you did before, and, like, your life is virtually over. And, like, that happened when I was 19. And since then, you know, I've had a career, stopped that career, got my master's degree, started a new career. I'm scuba dive certified. I've done a half marathon. I've had a baby like that. There's very little that I feel like I haven't accomplished. It just doesn't look the same way as it did when I was 19.

00:12:42 - Bill Risser

Right. Yeah. That's great. That's great to hear. I love that mentioned the second career. Let's start there, because this is really exciting. You got your masters at the Missouri School of journalism, which, doing a little research. I knew it's important because I always think of northwestern for, like, certain things, and I think of Syracuse for other things, and Missouri's the other one. Right? Like, there's these three schools that feel like they're, whether it's on air or writing and that sort of thing. But I, I found a couple places that said it's arguable that the Missouri School of journalism is the best school of journalism, not only in the country, but in the world. That's pretty cool. Is that so? So let's, let's talk about, first of all, you know, that experience. And I'm, obviously, it's, to me, it's obvious why you chose it. It's, it's the best.

00:13:28 - Dani Vanderboegh

Well, the location didn't hurt as, as it's about 90 minutes from where I currently live. But fortunately, maybe part of the career path was determined by the fact that one of the best journalism schools in the country, arguably in the world, is in my backyard. So. Backing up. So when I had my accident, I was, like, working weekends at Olive Garden. And long story short, I got fired for opening the door after close, even though I had asked for managerial permission to open the door. It pretty much felt like they didn't want me there and I was okay not being there if I was not wanted.

00:14:04 - Bill Risser

Sure.

00:14:05 - Dani Vanderboegh

So I went across the street and applied over at Macy's and got hired almost immediately. And I sold housewares, and I was working through, you know, my undergrad degree. I had a slew of health problems throughout my undergrad degree that were just, you know, like, random and made it harder. I graduated in four years, which at the time, that was a big goal for me because, like I said, college was my first goal. But then when I graduated, I graduated in 2006. And as you know, like, housing hit bottom in 2008. So, like, there weren't a ton of job. I knew I wasn't getting a job in communications, right. So I went to Macy's and I got a job there, and it was good enough money that I could, you know, like, use my disability money at the time to pay for my education, live on my own, because I went back to my parents house for about six months, and they live in a two story, and we just realized it wasn't going to work long term pretty quick. So I had to get an apartment. I got an apartment with a couple girlfriends and kind of like, learned to live on my own in that way with a safety net, right?

00:15:06 - Bill Risser

Yep.

00:15:07 - Dani Vanderboegh

And then I lived with a boyfriend for a couple months, and then I realized I didn't enjoy living on someone else's lease, and I went and got my own lease. So now I'm living by myself, but I'm still, like 15 minutes away from my parents. And I have a fabulous support system, but they're like, maybe a little too supportive sometimes.

00:15:27 - Bill Risser

Sure.

00:15:27 - Dani Vanderboegh

So they would just take care of things. And it's like I knew I wasn't really fully taking care of everything that I would need to if I was going to move away. Right. So I started this mentally, I called it project cut the cord, and I just decided I was going to start working further. Like, I switched my job down to the galleria. So it was like 30 minutes into the city. Then I moved 30 minutes away from my parents, and then I started, you know, like, studying and applying. Like, I had to take the Gre, so I took a two week vacation. At this point, I was managing the Lancome counter. I had worked in prescriptives, which is no longer in existence as the counter manager. It went under, and then I went to law. Estee Lauder. And I was not the counter manager there. I was just a sales associate. Estee Lauder I love, but it wasn't really like my makeup vibe. So when Lancome came along and said, do you want a counter manager position? I was like, yes. So I moved over there. And makeup was really fun because there's a lot of equivalents that are like, similar experiences in selling in the department store that kind of work, in my understanding of what real estate? How real is it? Like, for instance, when you have to cold call to get business for, like, your gift with purchase? So it's a lot of cold calling. You have to walk up to people in the store that you don't know. This is sort of like door knocking and get them to come back to the counter with you. You know, it's those kind of things which were helpful, but. So I took two weeks vacation. I studied on Khan Academy math because I hadn't taken math since high school for those two weeks. And then I took the GRE and wrote an essay about essentially everything that had happened to me from when I had my accident and to why I wanted to go into journalism. And a big part of that was there was no upward mobility in the job I was in. There was nowhere to go. And it wasn't what I wanted to be doing when I was, you know, 45 or 50. I wanted to do something that to me, would be fulfilling, would change day to day, that would have travel opportunities, and I wanted to get my master's in journalism. So I applied. By the grace of God, they took me. And I mean, at this point, I had no, no practical. Like, I never worked in an office. I didn't even really have a professional email. I didn't have any kind of technical skill whatsoever. Like, iPhones were just, I don't think I even had one yet. They were just becoming affordable, you know? So in 2012 is when I went to J school. And the reason that I personally would argue that it's the best school in the world is I had, you know, your master's program is two years, and I knew nothing going in. And by the end, I wouldn't say I was like a great journalist or anything, but I had the foundation to build on the skills that I needed to become, you know, someone who could do this as a profession. And luckily, I landed at Inman, and they've been so nurturing.

00:18:27 - Bill Risser

That's awesome. As you come out, a proud tiger, I'm hoping. Yeah. Okay, good, good. Was Imon the first thing you did or, you know, was real estate on your radar? I guess, is the question.

00:18:40 - Dani Vanderboegh

So. No, actually. So you're supposed to, like I said, you're supposed to have two years for your master's. But I wanted to stay a little bit longer because I knew I really didn't know everything and I had more to learn. So I stayed over the summer after I was supposed to graduate. And then I took the next semester to defend my professional project, which is like a mini thesis with professional component. And so to fill that time between when I was supposed to graduate and when I my next job, I made sure to get an internship. So I worked at this alt weekly in Greensboro, North Carolina. And it was fun. It was like, you know, editing, like, basic editing and, like, writing about food and theater and stuff. It was fun, but it was mostly to fill the resume because I didn't have a whole lot. And so I had been interviewing for jobs there. I don't have any family there. I was just wanting to live somewhere else and see how it went. And this gentleman, Brit Chester, had taken over as editor in chief shortly after I arrived. And he had worked with Amber Taufin, who you'll probably remember from way back. And she was the editor in chief at Inman at the time. And I swear, we were walking out of work one night, and he looked like a bolt of lightning hit him in the head. And he was like, I know someone who's looking for a journalist. You could be that journalist. And, yeah, she hired me. I talked to Brad a couple days later, and that's when I started with 50 contributors. And the rest is history.

00:20:08 - Bill Risser

And I know Britt as well, because he helped out with some. Some really cool software to make the admin connect experience, like, real time right now. Super cool. We were all like. We felt like we were all photo journalists if you did it right. And he would be. He'd be super happy if you sent him some good b roll. So shout out to Brittany.

00:20:27 - Dani Vanderboegh

That's great for all you do.

00:20:29 - Bill Risser

Yeah. So, first of all, just a quick question. Brad's an interesting guy. Do you have a story you want to share about Brad that you can share?

00:20:39 - Dani Vanderboegh

Yeah, actually. And I'm going to try really hard not to cry. So when I had my daughter, she was premature. She came at 26 weeks and four days. So it was just over six months. And I did not have a ton of vacation time saved up. And they allowed my coworkers to donate time so that I wouldn't be working a whole lot of time. And he donated something like 180 hours so that I would get paid while I was taking care of my daughter in the NICU.

00:21:08 - Bill Risser

That sounds like Brad. That's awesome. You mentioned contributor Wrangler.

00:21:14 - Dani Vanderboegh

I did.

00:21:14 - Bill Risser

Contributor Wrangler. I love that phrase. And I know that I was part of that for a while, but for the life of me, I can't remember what I wrote about. But I'm sure you had to do some heavy editing on it. So I apologize right now for that. But talk about that role. And I've got to assume that hurting cats is definitely something you've said before.

00:21:35 - Dani Vanderboegh

I'm just guessing yes, but usually not in relation to this.

00:21:40 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:21:43 - Dani Vanderboegh

But it does somewhat feel like that. It has felt like that in the past. So like I said, when Amber handed over the program to me, I had about 50 contributors. And at the time, the goal, and I will say, I'll preface this by saying it's evolved in a big way, but the goal was to have five contributed posts a day. And I knew nothing about real estate, really. I mean, like, I had a general idea, but I didn't really know anything because you don't know what you don't know. Right, right. So I was just going and doing my best to get these posts up. And then over time, I recently actually just had a title change. I'm now the service editor and that means that I handle our service journalism. And if you're unfamiliar with what that is is back in the newspaper days, it would be the things that you would kind of cut and clip and maybe put on your refrigerator that really good. I know I'm going to use this later kind of stuff.

00:22:35 - Bill Risser

Right.

00:22:36 - Dani Vanderboegh

So my job is to figure out how we can take what's going on in the industry, what's going on in the news, and make it serviceable for the reader to use that information in their business. And part of that is tapping into our boots on the ground contributor network, which has grown to something like 1500 contributors in my tenure.

00:22:57 - Bill Risser

Wow.

00:22:59 - Dani Vanderboegh

Wow. It's a big number. They're not all 100% active, but we have, that's what we've had over the years. And there's about 50 to 60 who write at least on a monthly basis.

00:23:13 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Like Rachel Height is one. I know. Right. Is she a contributor or. She's moved up the ladder a little bit, it looks like. Is that true?

00:23:20 - Dani Vanderboegh

She's kind of a contributing editor at this point.

00:23:22 - Bill Risser

That's awesome. And then I see Sue Benson doing some stuff that's pretty cool. Focusing hard on. Yeah. Yeah. So there's all these people that I have relationships with, and I've had them both on the podcast, so it's super cool to see their name, you know, on my Inman news emails, which is cool. Twice a year, Inman connect rolls around. I'm sure there's some joy involved with that, and there's also some. Here we go again. I mean, got to be honest, it's got to be a ton of work. I would love to hear what. What that typical day at an admin connect event looks like with. There's got to be deadlines looming because there's content going out the next day.

00:24:00 - Dani Vanderboegh

So I will start by saying that, you know, like, eight years ago or even five years ago, it looked very different than how it looks now. A big part of my job is, you know, recruiting new contributors. So I spent a lot of my time now trying to have FaceTime with people, meet new people, have FaceTime with the people that I already work with, see as much onstage content as I can so that we can translate, you know, what the conversation is to our pages. I actually spoke at this last connect both on the woman upstage, and I hosted the great door knocking debate with Rachel Haidt and Ernesto Vargas.

00:24:35 - Bill Risser

Yeah, that was great.

00:24:37 - Dani Vanderboegh

It was really. Yeah, they were both really great. Both contributed, like, both are contributors. So they had both contributed a bunch of pieces on the topic prior, and that's how that panel came to be.

00:24:47 - Bill Risser

Nice. That's nice. So what's that timing look like, though, as far as, you know, someone like Craig, who's a writing madly. Right.

00:24:55 - Dani Vanderboegh

Reporter.

00:24:56 - Bill Risser

How's that go? Is it. Yours is a little easier than his, it sounds like, if you had.

00:24:59 - Dani Vanderboegh

So, yeah, I may cover one or two sessions, but our reporters, with the guidance of our editor in chief, Jotham Sutterstrom, he makes up this massive document that has all of the things you would ever want to know and, like, really tries to make it easy on the journalists who are running around frantically. And basically, the expectation is, you know, you watch your panel, and as soon as you can file, you file. And then at home, like, we'll use Vegas as this example. I was the only editor who went, and the rest of the editors were at home, so they stayed home, making sure that everything got edited and put up and that our newsletters were being written and everything that was timely was getting out. Because another part of what the service, the service team part of what I wrangle is, is that we run the agent Edge newsletter, the brokerage newsletter, the teams newsletter, the basics, which is our new agent newsletter. And then we also staff, AM, PM and the weekenders.

00:25:54 - Bill Risser

Wow.

00:25:56 - Dani Vanderboegh

There are still newsletters outside of that that I don't wrangle.

00:26:01 - Bill Risser

But there's no excuse for missing an article at Inman. There's none because it's going to show up on the weekend or it's going to show up on one of the other, you know, kind of, we try.

00:26:10 - Dani Vanderboegh

To get it out there.

00:26:11 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Summary Newsletter. So that's great. There's some news happening right now in the world of real estate. We just happen to be recording this. I'll say the date on August 28, 9th, 8th, 9th, August 29. And yesterday, Kenny Parcell resigned from NAR, and the New York Times released an article last Saturday that was damning of NAR leadership. And it's really created a lot of commentary, a lot of action. Sue Yanakan comes right to mind with what she did over the weekend with Bob and leadership. Anything. I know you're a journalist, so I think we'll stick there. But your thoughts on this and where we're, you know, is there, is there what's next? That's really tough.

00:27:00 - Dani Vanderboegh

Well, so I'll kind of talk through kind of how we've been covering it, if that works for you. So as we've kind of, we had discussed this previously, but I've been on the circuit of going to women's conferences the past few years. So I've been attending and speaking at women up and awesome females and just kind of really focusing on listening to the voices within that group. They've been speaking about the different systemic issues that have been happening. And within that network of women. We had heard that this story was coming before it came. Right. So on June 27, Brevard filed a suit against NAR for racial and sexual discrimination, and she withdrew the suit nine days later. So that happened right before, you know, the awesome females conference happen. And so we spent a lot, you know, in those conferences. We were spending a lot of time discussing, you know, what the state of the industry looks like. And we had gotten word that the New York Times was going to be doing an expose. We had some idea what was going to be in it. And on our end, we were ready to, you know, put forth what our reporting has been. Now, yesterday I was covering the entire, because our EIC was out for appointments, and it was interesting because Saturday we all came, you know, our group came in. We thought that the New York Times article was going to drop on Saturday, but we weren't 100% sure. So we had went ahead with, you know, plan a of newslettering. And then we came in on Saturday, published the store our story, and then made that our a on Monday. And then on Monday, we were expecting, you know, outcry and reaction. And so we had reporters covering all of it, from the reaction to, you know, what the system that puts these leaders into process, into office, what those processes look like. There will be a lot more coming, but so far, we have reaction and a lot of op eds.

00:29:05 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:29:06 - Dani Vanderboegh

And. And what happens next is unsure. But Kenny Parcell did resign yesterday about 311, I believe it was central time, actually. The Times ended up quoting our reporter. So that was pretty exciting. And it was after outcry from leaders like Sue Yanikom, who publicly, and she was one of the few who publicly said, this is not okay, and I'm calling Bob Goldberg, blah, blah, blah.

00:29:36 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Look, I think real estate's local. Always has been, always will be. It's local. Right. And I think that what, the thing that I've seen over the last few days is just how important the local associations are to an agent. It really matters about the MLS that they belong to, and the association more than likely owns the MLS or their state level association. And NAR seems to be this thing just sitting out there with a lot of money from a lot because it's the largest trade association right in the country. So they have lots. They have lots of revenue and lots of opportunities to do great things, and maybe those opportunities aren't being met. So it's going to be interesting to see where. Where this all plays out. But it was, for me, shocking. Yet at the same time, you're like, oh, man, maybe we should have seen something along these lines coming that makes sense.

00:30:32 - Dani Vanderboegh

Yeah. What's interesting, though, is so since the first lawsuit had dropped in June, I did some reaction after that story. I helped with the reaction on that story because I'm plugged into that women's network. And unfortunately, most people I called weren't surprised by it. It was mostly women. And the flip side of that is that there's so many people who just can't. They feel they can't talk about it. There's contracts with Nar. There's contracts with other associations. There's, you know, when you look at cases like this, outside of real estate, there's often a hefty sum paid out, and there's usually non disclosures involved. And, you know, there's a bajillion reasons that women aren't able to speak about these abuses. And I will say that it's nice to see that the New York Times was able to get, I think it was 29 women on the record. It's not an easy feat in itself, but a paper like the times that has that legal arm and is credible in that way nationwide to the consumer and everyone, this isn't a story that's going away anytime soon.

00:31:50 - Bill Risser

Yeah, we'll have to pay attention and see where it goes. Well, let's have, let's talk about something more fun. How about that? How about, how about, how about this? I'm going to assume that you really, really like the project called Real Tea. By the way, name is fantastic. Name is fantastic. Real tea. Let's. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to spoil the surprise for those that don't know, explain what real tea is.

00:32:15 - Dani Vanderboegh

It's where real estate and reality tv intersect. On, in mind you, in Vegas, we were just sitting around the table, and our Lockhart Steele, our content director, was like, who likes reality tv? And I was like, this guy, I like reality. And he was like, you should be writing a column. And the first column I wrote was about Jason Oppenheim, and he was discussing compass, and he was being critical of compass. We'll say, okay. And, yeah, it's been a really fun column. In fact, today we were on a virtual press junket for the next season of selling the OC, which will drop here soon. There will be a new realty column coming in the next week or so.

00:32:59 - Bill Risser

Is it relatively easy to get access because of the. I mean, you got a ton of readers, so I'm sure that for the pr people for these shows, they're like, yeah, absolutely. Let's get an interview or something.

00:33:11 - Dani Vanderboegh

I think there's a little bit of pull there because real estate doesn't typically love reality tv. Like, there's kind of a true, like, no, I'm not unaware of the fact that reality tv does not necessarily portray real estate in the most accurate way. But what excites me about it is you do see people using this, this tv mechanism to build their business. And for some, like you'll see on real housewives, for instance, you'll see women come in with absolutely no brand, no business, and then they build up these, like, massive businesses just using their tv personalities.

00:33:49 - Bill Risser

Right.

00:33:49 - Dani Vanderboegh

So the intersection of that into real estate just felt like a really fun thing to be able to, you know, to talk about and also to have a little fun with outside of the tougher stories that we cover.

00:34:01 - Bill Risser

Yeah, I was gonna say it probably seems like I don't want to say it's less work, but it feels not at all.

00:34:08 - Dani Vanderboegh

Yeah. It's actually, in some ways, it's more work because. Because everything is so public. You really have to be kind of on it.

00:34:15 - Bill Risser

Yeah, you got it.

00:34:16 - Dani Vanderboegh

But I like that assignment, so it's okay.

00:34:19 - Bill Risser

Yeah. You got to know your stuff. I love that. Danny, this has been awesome. Let me finish with the same question I've asked every guest. Now, you're not a realtor, but I know you have an answer for this question because all of us do. What one piece of advice would you give a new agent just starting in the business?

00:34:37 - Dani Vanderboegh

Create content. And by content, I don't mean vanity content. I mean content that will help your clients through the process, that will help them know who you are and what you do to help them. And. And then the second part of that is push it out to the world. Like, make sure you're on the socials, pushing out your content, showing the value you offer, and really just double down on doing those things. Make video, make articles, push it out there. Get your face out there. Be the realtor they know.

00:35:08 - Bill Risser

Yeah. That's awesome. Danny, if someone wants to reach out to you, maybe they want to apply to be a contributor. What's the best way for them to do that?

00:35:16 - Dani Vanderboegh

If you want to be a contributor, please reach out to me@dannyman.com. and I can send you all the information you'll need.

00:35:24 - Bill Risser

Awesome. That's great. Danny. This has been great. Thank you so much for your time today. And I'll have. I will. I'm going to pay a lot of attention to real tea, I promise you. I can't wait. All right, deal.

00:35:36 - Dani Vanderboegh

I'm so excited. Thank you so much for having me. It's been an honor to be included on this long running podcast that I've listened to so many times.

00:35:44 - Bill Risser

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the real estate sessions. Please head over to ratethispodcast.com resessions to leave a review or a rating and subscribe to the Real estate Sessions podcast at your favorite podcast listening app.