Real Estate Sessions Rewind - Richard McDonough - Sothebys International Realty - Feb 20, 2024

You just can't stop learning, in my opinion, and you have to take it all in.

And I went to NINJA training last year with, you know, Larry Kendall in that program because I'm starting to feel that you almost got to go full circle and really focus on the, the relationships that we have.

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 of 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 379 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 going to head up north. Yep. We're going to Minnesota, actually, the Minnesota Wisconsin border.

A little area called Stillwater. Right. A part of the St. Croix Valley. I'm sure you all know about it.

You're going to know a lot more about it after this episode with Richard McDonough. Richard's with Sotheby's International Realty. I was introduced to Richard through a mutual friend, Anthony Malafronte.

A lot of you know him as well, and we're going to have a lot of fun with Richard. He has a fascinating backstory. I think you're going to enjoy this.

Some things are going to be covered here that have never been covered in this podcast before. So let's get this thing started. Richard, welcome to the podcast.

Well, hello, Bill. I'm happy to be on.

It's going to be a lot of fun. You know, I, I, I know, I know you through Anthony Malafrante. We'll chat about that a little bit later.

And as I'm sitting here, we can see each other. And I'm in Florida and you're in Minnesota and you have a toque on or a beanie, whatever you want to call it.

I have a beanie today. The beanie is very typical for me in, in the winter. Although this year we've had an unseasonably warm winter and I haven't been wearing it much.

As I was telling you earlier, I've only had to shovel snow once this year.

Wow. Now, when you say unseasonably warm, what is the temperature right now?

Well, today it kind of cooled off. So today the temperature, and even for today, even though it's cooled off, it's warm.

We're in the mid to high 30s which normally this time of year would be more like in the 20s. And yesterday the high was 53 and the day before it was 57.

I know you're, we're going to talk about where you're located, but it's, it's, you're right there in the Minneapolis area, just east of it over towards the Wisconsin border. That's you're way up there. You're supposed to be. Don't you get the wind chill factors in the minus 30s and 40s sometimes?

Oh, easily that. Yes, easily. And the actual temperature in the winter time can be, you know, 20 below or a daytime high can be 11 below zero.

And that's before the wind chill. So this year it's, it's been so weird. It, January was super long with no snow and cloudy skies and fog. It was, it's really, really strange.

So it's really messed up a lot of local businesses and it's, it's, it's weird. I don't know if it's global warming or what it is, but it unseasonable.

Although on the plus side we're lucky because other coasts, Florida, the East coast, California, they're just getting slammed. And so Madison, Wisconsin is 200 miles from here about. And they actually had a tornado there last night.

Wow. Okay. So there's. Things are going nuts right now up in the, in the northern plains. Yeah, we'll have to. That's, that's amazing.

Well, Richard, I love to find out, you know, from my guests where they grew up. And I think you, you know, you're in Stillwater, Minnesota. Correct. Which is right on the border with Wisconsin. Is that where you were born?

Were you born and raised there?

Yes, I was born and raised here in Stillwater. We're on the beautiful St. Croix river about 30 minutes outside of Minneapolis St. Paul. And actually I'm a fourth generation. Stillwater. Right.

So our family has a long history here in the what we call the St. Croix Valley.

And I heard, I think, I do a little bit of research. The St. Croix drops into the Mississippi somewhere in kind of on the border there, am I right? Pretty close, yes.

It's about 20 miles south of here and it's an interesting transition. You can literally see the sparkling blue waters of the St. Croix river flow into the muddy Mississippi.

There's actually demarcation line that says clear as day.

Wow, that's cool. I think for, look a lot of us there might be some people Listening and go, really? The Mississippi's in Minnesota.

I'm like, yeah, I think that's the headwaters. That's where it starts. And obviously ends up in New Orleans. Yeah. Good. It sounds to me like where you live could be people commute into the city or.

Or is it more of a place that people have second homes? How would you describe the Stillwater area, the St. Croix Valley?

Well, the Stillwater area in St. Croix Valley is. I wouldn't necessarily call it a bedroom community.

We're home to Anderson Windows, which is one of the foremost window manufacturers in the world. We can be a bedroom community to 3M is 20 minutes from Stillwater, Target corporations, 30 Medtronic.

So we have a lot of great corporations nearby, and then we have a lot of other very successful businesses in the Stillwater area as well. So it's truly not just what I would call a suburb, but it's a beautiful small town and we still have that essence of being a good, great small town.

Yeah. And I'm sure that the. The people that live there and like you who grew up there would love to keep that. That small town feel, right.

Yes.

Although I will say it was interesting, you know, on a real estate side, when I got into selling real estate here, I thought I'd be selling to my friends and family. Well, a lot of my friends don't move. I have friends who have general. Relationally, that's a tongue twister. Lived in the same house.

It's been handed down to different kids within the family. So a big source of my business is people moving out and moving into the area because they love what we.

What is offered here from a sense of community, the schools, things to do. I mean, the St. Croix river, which I mentioned, it's one of the narrowest national parks in the country. It was the.

One of the first two rivers that was designated as National Scenic Waterway. So there's a lot of protections on that river. And we're consistently part of best small towns in America. Good Morning America was here last summer.

We are home to the World Snow Sculpture Competition. It's just a great place to call home.

Yeah, that's really cool. Growing up in San Diego and then living in Phoenix for 17 years and now being in St. Petersburg, Florida for the last seven years.

We have a lot of snowbirds. Right. It's been a part of my life pretty much growing up. And Minnesota, that whole Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan area, they could go either way.

They could go. They could. Sometimes they go to Arizona, sometimes they go down to Florida. And I Know that we have that term called snowbirds.

And look, I don't think it's a bad term. I just think it just means these are people that have two homes. Is there a reverse for that? Are there people who actually.

Where they grew up and where they live is where it's hot or steamy and they're escaping up to your way? Yeah. First of all, is there a name for them? And you must work with those sorts of clients.

You know, I'm starting to work more and more with them, but we really don't. Yeah, most people are known as snowbirds for leaving, but not so much for coming here. And that might be because a lot of the.

The folks that you're talking about are going to some of the lakes farther north from here. However, we are starting to see more and more people, and I'm actually selling homes to those people that are calling Stillwater and the St.

Croix Valley their summer home.

Yeah, that's great.

But we don't have a name for him yet.

We got to come up with that, Richard. I think that'll be great. I think that would be awesome. We have to come up. We'll talk about that later after the show.

So born and raised 30 minutes from Minneapolis. I'm just going to hope and assume that you're a fan of the Vikings and the Twins and the T Wolves and the North Stars when they used to be there.

Am I right? Or did you get. Did you get pulled over to that Wisconsin side of things at all?

Oh, no. True blue Minnesotan. Supporting the sport teams, which sometimes can be very, very frustrating.

I've been fortunate to have attended a lot of the great competitions, or I should say, games. I was at the World Series when Kirby Puckett hit the grand slam home run. I was also there then the following night when we won the World Series.

I think I was at both World Series championships. I was at the last game at the old Met center for the Minnesota Vikings when we played outside under. Under Bud Grant and Fran Tarkington.

And basically people came there with wrenches and took the place apart.

And then people were dragging seats out behind them, right?

Oh, yeah. We were in the process of hooking up a telephone booth to. To a pickup truck, and the police came by and said, you probably don't want to take that.

So you just quietly unhooked it and moved on. Right.

We just backed away and walked away. Yes. Yes, very much so. Again, there are times when it's been very frustrating to be a Minnesota sports fan.

We've been so Close so many times, especially with the Vikings and, you know, even with the Timberwolves. But our time will come.

I'm sure the Detroit Lions are feeling that a little bit this year, but I think our time will come and it's great to see all the people get behind our sports teams and so on. And I mean, we've never won the Stanley cup. And here we are, the state of hockey, you know, we've won the.

It's just amazing, right?

Yeah. It was because of Minnesotans that we won the gold medal in the Olympics, beating the Russians. We can't seem to win the Stanley Cup.

So there are a lot of people that are going to be rooting for Minnesota when they do get there. There's not. They're not like the Cowboys or the Yankees or these other teams where everybody just hates them.

Yeah, there's going to be a ton of support nationwide. Right. So you'll have a lot of love. I think that's going to be. That's going to be a big piece of it. So.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you what, I can't imagine what it's been like growing up with the division you're in in football where it's packers, okay, Lions, okay, whatever, but Bears as well. I mean, that, that, that black and blue, right, that had to be a brutal, a brutal division to be a part of over the years.

And it still is. I mean, those are hard, hardcore rivalries in all of sports. I mean, it's just amazing.

And then, of course, I was fortunate enough to be, I can remember the, you know, the purple people leaders. And I mean, those guys didn't have bench heaters. They didn't have Bud Grant made those guys stand out there in the freezing cold.

I mean, it was hardcore football back then and. But yes, those rivalries are still today, as, I'll say, as fresh as ever.

All right, that's cool.

All right, well, we gotta talk about real estate a little bit, so I'm gonna move off of this because I could sit here for the next two hours and we're talk sports, but so you head off to college. I think if I look remember right from my research, you actually crossed over the state line. You went to school over in Wisconsin.

Do I have that right?

Yes. Oh, I had a little bit more of an unusual trajectory through college. I did the eight year plan and that was due to.

I was a competitive freestyle skier in high school and then I went left school to ski a couple winters and then I left school and I started working on which also began my first career after college, and that was working in the luxury yacht industry.

Wait a minute, Richard. I can't believe I've had lunch with you. I've had a couple of meetings. We sat down and chatted. Freestyle. Competitive freestyle skier.

First of all, I'm going to try to do my best to define what freestyle skiing is. It's crazy. People doing flips and stuff off of moguls and just going nuts off ramps and stuff. Is that what I'm thinking about? For freestyle?

Yes.

How many surgeries have you had, Richard?

None.

Wow. Okay. Awesome.

I dislocated a shoulder and I bruised a sternum. That's the extent of my injuries.

How was that shoulder going back in? That feel good?

Yeah, it still, I, I after that. And it was at a national competition in Copper Mountain after that fall.

And I made the highlight reel though, by the way, after that fall, I've never been able to throw a baseball the same.

Do you still ski recreationally today?

Oh, yeah, I do, I do. You know, it was actually interesting. When I was working on the luxury yachts, there was like a 10 year period where I didn't ski at all.

And then a friend of mine got me back into it and so I do go. I haven't gone in a year or so, but it's kind of like riding a bike.

And the funny thing is, is it's one of those things where I never tell anybody I'm a good skier. I had this one friend, asked me to go meet him out west and I think after he asked me, he didn't think I'd go.

And then he's going, God, can this person even ski? And then I get out there, I go, okay, where are we going to go? And then the next thing you know, you know, we're out there shredding.

And I know you golf a lot. It's like all of a sudden having this guy come golfing with you and you have no idea he's a scratch golfer. So.

But I guess even though I won a lot of trophies and a lot of competitions, one of my best highlights in my skiing was we were doing some, what is called cat skiing, where a snow cat takes you up in your powder skiing. And when a snowcat. Because everyone's always trying to, you know, impress the snowcat guides, the people that are guiding you.

And when a snow, when a guide tells you you're a good skier, I think that's a nice feather in your cap. Wow.

So, just a couple questions. Yes. I got to the Low intermediate level of a skier, maybe in my career before my wife blew her knee out in Brian Head, Utah.

And that just ended it for all of us. This is going back to the 80s where.

Where I could look, I could get down anything, but I was going to go side to side, you know, all the way to one end, to the other if it was really steep. But then when it got a little less steep, like, I could function and do. All right. You're telling me, like, if I put.

Took you to a place where you had to drop in 10ft before you really even hit snow, you're like, yeah, no problem. I'm just gonna drop in. I'm gonna go do this thing. No big deal.

No big deal. Even. Even at my older age, no big deal. Yeah.

That's awesome. Okay, well, that's very cool. And so now. Now yachts.

So I worked on privately owned luxury yachts in the, you know, basically we. We.

I was on the east coast and Bahamas and I worked for one family that we'd actually would bring the boat up the Mississippi river back here to Stillwater.

Wow. And then that. You did that for 10 years?

I did that for 10 years, yes.

There are yachts here. I walk by them every morning. And there's one called the Debbie Loo. That's massive.

It must be four floors, I'm guessing, because one's below water and then you can see the other three up above. And so you had your own quarters. You lived on the boat? Yes, yacht. I shouldn't say boat. And you helped. Was there a chef on the boat as well?

And is it really. How big was the crew?

So the largest yacht I worked on was 125ft. We had a crew of six. So we had a chef, a captain. I was the first mate, so I was right below.

And then we had an engineer, and then we would have a stewardess. So. And the engineer took care of all the mechanical, of course, the chef, captain, myself and the stewardess.

And we would help out each other, especially we had guests on board. You know, I would help out with the stewardess and even the engineer, you know, making sure the guests, everything is. They're attended to and so on.

We. I did not work on many charter boats. I only worked on one boat that was in charter, and we did not charter that much.

That's a whole different ball game. I preferred to work for, you know, families, old money per se, because they would treat us a lot better.

Is that family still around in Stillwater, the family that you worked for? I imagine someone's still there.

Yes, they are. It's kind of an interesting story. My, I didn't get the job because of my father, but my father was also general counsel for this family.

And it's, it was the Hubbard family and they developed satellite television. And there's. They're celebrating, they're celebrating 100 years in broadcasting this year. So it's quite interesting. Family.

And then I'm kind of holding out, but I worked for two years for someone that was in the construction business in New York City. And you can take that for what it's worth.

Oh, Nelly. We, we will leave that for another show. Okay, well, we'll talk later. All right.

So somehow the world of luxury and yachting and all this great stuff is going to transition into real estate.

Yes.

How's that happen?

So I was getting to the point where even though I had my captain's license and I've been working on these boats, I didn't see that as being a long term career path for me because it's a great occupation, but your life is definitely not your own in that situation. It's changed a lot now where there's a lot more. You'd be three months on about and three months off. There we were full time, we were year round.

We, you know, we would get time off. But really you're at the beck and call of what the owner is, wants to do with the boat. So I'm back in Minnesota.

I'm starting to look at homes and I know what I want. I want to, you know, know one level home and in still water. And I'm, I'm, you know, called off a sign of one property.

Then I'm working with this agent and it was kind of interesting. The only thing that was consistent was we kept seeing her listings.

We didn't see the houses that I want, but we kept seeing her listings so she could get both sides of it at the same time. I was getting interviews for jobs and it was interesting. I, I'd get interview introductions from the chairman of the board of the company. Right.

With HR and some of these jobs I was very capable of doing, but I'm sure the people hiring thought, well, this is coming down from the top. He's probably going to take my job. So I would not get a call back or I wouldn't get the job.

So all of a sudden the light bulb kind of goes off and I kind of said, you know, I think if this person can sell real estate and make a living at it, I think I Can. And so I go and interview. At the time, there was not the big teams.

In the teams like we have now, we had the major brokers and in Minnesota, the major players at that time back in the mid-90s was Edina Realty, which is, was now the first company that Berkshire Hathaway purchased. Coldwell Banker, and Then of course ReMax, Keller Williams, exp Real. None of that was on the horizon at that point.

And it was interesting with my first interview, the manager goes, are you okay with unusual hours? I'm kind of going, what? What's unusual? And, and so I go, yeah, that won't be a problem. At least here I know I'll be home every night.

And at some point, so I get my license, I go to. I chose Edana Realty because of its, its history as being a family owned company.

It was started by Emma Rovic back in the 1950s and here was a mom who wanted to make some extra money and get a piano for her family and wow. Edana Realty is, you know, at the time I started, there was already at, you know, 2500 agents and growing in 40 offices.

And Ron Peltier was the president at the time who went on to be the, the chairman and president of Home Services of America. And it was, it, it was a great company and it's still a great company today. And, and so that was my start. And it was also interesting.

We had a downtown Stillwater office and, you know, bricks and mortar. And I still feel very strongly about that whole concept.

Tell me, how are the first couple years? I mean, it's, it's, it's, you know, at least you knew the area. You knew you had a sphere, right? That helped, I'm sure.

I, I had a sphere, yes. Had a very. I had a sphere. Probably the biggest thing for me was in, in our friend Anthony talks about this all the time. You got to do the work.

What most agents I see don't do is they don't look at this from day one as the business. They get their real estate license, I'm a realtor. And they're all transactional in their processes. They're waiting for the phone to ring.

They're waiting to see what happens next. They're not really planning so much for their future.

I was fortunate in that when I dropped into the office and we call it Cubeville or whatever you want to call it, my space was right outside. The top agent within that office, she always kept the door open. I kept my door open. I listened to what she was doing.

I watched what other people were doing and I just, you know, did the work. Even if I had nothing going on, I would show up to the office. For example, I got my Wisconsin license as well, because we're right on the border.

Just by happening to be in the office, this guy calls up and says, I have two properties I want to look at in Wisconsin. Is there anyone that can show me these properties? Because the agents won't call me back and I'm going to buy one of them.

I got in my car and I went, sold the guy the house. He bought one of the houses. And again, just, yeah, you know, to this day, I still do open houses.

I still feel it's so critical to be at the office and I feel it's very critical to keep learning every single day.

I see that in you. I see that, you know, in the conversations we've had, the times I've had a chance to sit down and have a chat. But I also know that there's.

You've definitely embraced what's new.

You, you're not, you know, you're talking about these older, I'm gonna say old school things but, you know, face to face kind of contact that a Realtor has to have. But you're in heavily involved.

When websites and social media and that sort of stuff came around, my guess is you were right there going, this is going to be important. I need to figure this out.

Yes. And it was interesting. I kind of fell into it, Bill. And how I fell into it.

I'd gone through a divorce and the divorce I went through, we were a husband and wife team. And, you know, I was freaking out at first of what's that going to do to our image that I'm getting a divorce?

And it's no longer Richard and Kelly McDonough, but now it's Richard McDonough again as a real estate agent.

And there was a time at that first year that I kind of checked out, but then everyone was at the Rah Rah meeting and it was the first time in whatever years that I hadn't been to the, you know, top Producing Agent Award that as you know, most of us agents are very competitive as well. And my background is being competitive. Edana Realty is known for having great speakers. And they had this guy by the name of Chris Smith there.

And at the time, this is when Chris Smith and curator had just had started. And I called them up and I was talking to their salesperson and he was interviewing me as much as I was interviewing him.

And it was one of those situations where I couldn't afford not to do it. And I, and I, you know, dove right in.

And I would say Curator was one of the first true innovators in that whole idea of having a stunning website combined with an awesome social media presence. And my business went from $79,000 that year.

And I think this is 2009 and I'm not a big one for bragging with numbers, but I just want to illustrate the power of social media and technology went from 79,000 to the following year of 485,000 in GCI as a solo agent.

Wow.

And that doesn't include.

Wow.

The extra stuff I had to give away because I couldn't handle it all because.

Right.

That's when, you know, we were that, that we were like shooting fish in a barrel because we had landing pages. We had a, you know, see, I was with Follow Up Boss, who that was.

You know, I think I've been with follow up boss 10 years and they've been around for maybe 11 or 12, but it was just a great platform and, and that's where I met Anthony.

And because of that growth, the next year I spoke at their can, you know, their excellence event and then meeting other people like Judy Weiniger, Katie Lance, now moving forward, Phil M. Jones and even to Ryan Sirhant, John Sheplak. You know, you just, you just can't stop learning, in my opinion.

And you have to take it all in and, and do what works even to the point of in some respects going full circle now. And I went to NINJA training last year with, you know, Larry Kendall in that program because.

Yep.

I'm, I'm starting to feel that you almost got to go full circle and really focus on the, the relationships that we have because there's a lot of noise out there with, with all the social media aspect of it and you forget to make those calls and those connections.

Yeah, I like, you know, these communities you talk about, they're really, I don't think they're understood enough or used enough by a lot of agents. Right.

Like the information that you get from that curator group and sometimes curator group is slightly different than some of the people in the Follow Up Boss or slightly different than the film, whatever it is. I think those are. You're like that and it really like a shining example of why being connected there is going to help your business. Absolutely.

So much.

I mean, because I oftentimes and I think it's getting better, but because of the competitive nature which in my opinion I've always felt that there's enough business for everyone in any and all markets. But because of that competitive nature, oftentimes we don't share enough within our own sphere with.

And when I say sphere, I'm talking about my peers as agents and companies within the, the marketplace that we work in. If we just shared more and helped each other more, it would make it that much easier.

I mean, part of our inventory problem is our own fault because agents who are transactional are saying, yeah, we have nothing to sell. And so they don't, they don't, you know, have the proper speech. And not that it's a sales speech, but really talking about how the market is.

Because right now we have an inventory problem not because of interest rates, it's because we don't have enough properties to sell.

It seems to me, especially in your world, and that's what you do, is you educate and you help and you commiserate and you do all kinds of different things with your customers. Having those. The right thing to say at the right time is invaluable.

And then the other thing I've noticed, and I'm very guilty of this, the follow up after the sale, there's a big lack of follow up after the sale. And again, I said I'm guilty of this. So I think I'd be retired now if I would have just done a little bit better job of it, of following up with all.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love, I love selling real estate and I love working. So I don't know if I would retire and I think my wife would be crazy if I was home every day, all day.

But anyway, it's interesting how after the sale we do not follow up like we should and stay in touch with our clients like we should and we feel that they're just going to use us again because we did such a phenomenal job the last time.

Well, that, that leads to a question, Richard. What, what, what percentage of your business today is referral?

Repeat, right versus, you know, lead generation that's going on with the sources you use?

I've been looking that at that a lot lately and it's a lot more than I realized. And that's where I need to focus more. I'd say it's probably a good 60% of my business, maybe even 70 is referral or repeat business.

And then the other 30 is lead generation.

And in some respects it's due to having a quality website and spending the time and energy, you know, with having a Google presence I've been really thinking a lot about this lately and I'd love to hear your opinion on this too.

And although we're going to see a big shift with homes.com I hear they've, they've spent ungodly amount of money coming up for the super bowl and all these events and they've, they've really turned into a big player in the search aspect of it. But at this point, my two cents is people search for homes on Zillow and they search for agents on Google.

I would completely agree with you. Right.

I think the lack of energy that agents are putting into that Google business profile, which is like the holy grail of everything you're doing for search, it's got to start there. And, and that leads to a lot of other places, right?

Because now, especially in a smaller market like you're in, I would call it smaller, I think that's fair. You know, those local service ads, if they're there and when they get there, that kind of stuff is going to matter.

And I know that that's all being, you know, you have tools that are helping you get to those places, but there's, I just don't understand why on a Google post feed that's not flowing with content about the business. Right.

Like everything you put online anywhere about the business, it better be in that Google business profile, because that's what Google's going to use.

It's part of that algorithm to make sure, wow, all these people are living these reviews about real estate and he's posting about real estate and it's all about still water and here comes all that love, right? It's, it's, it's the answer.

It's so, so true. You, if you're posting something to, and you have to be careful, it's not the same as, you know, that's where you have to be so careful today.

And I think, really think about what you're posting from a content standpoint because it's interesting. With our business, our industry, we've really created a lot of noise for ourselves with the, with the selling of being on social media.

I mean, you have to do this, you have to do that, the omnipresence, all that. And then it's like, okay, sign up for our free template and we'll give you all these templates for what you should post and, and so on.

But at the end of the day, it needs to be real and it needs to be informative. And so because it's amazing, you know, we talk in our jargon And a lot of times people don't know what the hell we're talking about.

Don't know what you know, because one of the biggest things right now in our market, you know, it's that coming soon listing. It'll show up on mls. But what does it mean and why can't I go see it right now? So a little education with that aspect of it.

But yeah, it's, it's interesting to see what is going on in the marketplace right now and especially with some of the big teams and some of that aspect as well.

You know, you've never had a team. It's never been a part of what you wanted to do. You. It seems like you're very comfortable being Richard.

Well, no, actually I've gone full circle, Bill. I, I left Edina Realty in 2018 and I started my own brokerage.

That's right.

And that's right. And I started my own brokerage.

It was called RM Realty and it was more from a standpoint of, yes, that's my initials, but it was, we kind of used the tagline room. RM is the abbreviation for room. So room to buy, room to sell, room for information.

And I had a Main street bricks and mortar business in downtown Stillwater. Love being downtown. Still love being part of the community. That's very, very important to me.

It was amazing, the walk ins that we would get and we still do. I mean I did, I think we did like $2 million worth of walk ins. Just people walk in and we want to buy a house in Stillwater. And.

And then I had a cross transaction with an agent with our local Lake Sotheby's affiliate and, and he mentioned to the, you know, the powers of B about me.

And then they started talking to me and the next thing you know, they made me an offer for my brokerage and, and I, it was kind of, you know, it was one of those things where I, I hadn't really thought about selling it. But the recruitment thing is a, that's a hard, hard, never ending process.

And when I talk to them more and more and I love being an agent and learning about that. Sotheby's brand was amazing. And so we came to terms. They, they wanted to move. They were on the western suburbs of the Twin Cities.

They wanted to move to the east side where there is a lot of luxury properties. But you know, again, luxury is not a price point. It's, it's kind of an experience, as we know.

And so we came to terms and I went from being a Broker, owner, back to an agent again. And I'm, I'm loving it. And, and I really underestimated the, the power of that brand, Sotheby's International Realty.

And then the addition to that is Sotheby's the broke the auction house. I get a much different vibe when I had some of my card and it says Sotheby's on it than I ever did with the Diner Realty or RM Realty.

I mean, people kind of go, oh, it's a little bit of an aha moment. And I was really surprised about that. I was not prepared for it, quite frankly.

So, Richard, I know you're a techie guy, and so I have to ask the question, are you exploring that brave new world of AI? Are you using some of those tools out there?

Most definitely. I'm loving AI again. I've actually been using it for, I'll say the last four years because I also now one of my tech partners is Y Lopo.

And as you probably know, Y Lopo for the last four years has Raya, which has been an AI text, text communication assistant for us as agents with new leads coming in and so forth. It just went live literally a week ago.

I now am part of their AI voice and their AI voice is amazing as far as following up with leads, because I'm guilty of it too. We do not follow up with our leads enough via phone and just staying in touch with our folks.

So the AI voice I just is going to see as being a game changer. That could be a podcast in itself. Just. It's amazing. You cannot tell that this is a digital person on the other end of the phone. You cannot tell.

Not at all. And then one step further, AI with ChatGPT. I've been using that for. For months. I've been a ChatGPT plus subscriber from day one.

And, you know, that's made my life so much easier for a standpoint of, you know, writer's block, copyright and all that thing. I will share this though, you know, because I'll just put in there, this is what I want to say. Put it out there. Then.

Then it, you know, gives it back to you. And then I'll give it to.

I'll have my wife and or office manager look it over and they go, this is great, but you need to dumb it down, Richard, because that's really. Doesn't sound like you.

Said in a loving way. It's said in a loving way, I'm sure.

And I'm not. I. I took the I took the critique and they were correct. It. It didn't sound like me and.

But it does really, really help as far as making things flow a lot better and hit the, the top points that you want to and also include things like SEO or you take one. Okay. I want this post to be for Instagram, I want this Facebook and I want this post to be for LinkedIn.

And those are all three different platforms, but it's basically the same message just tailored for those three platforms. And it just helps immensely from that standpoint. I wrote one the other day where they even added emojis and all that for you.

So I can't say enough about, you know, how it has helped me from being a, now a solo agent to be that much more productive and getting through things quicker and making it, you know, my business that much better.

I've heard lately some people talk about using AI on your mls, like Imagine, because you're allowed to pull some data from the mls, right?

You can pull data and you can take that data and you could create a prompt that says, look at this data and give me a report or give me a graph or give me a chart. And it's. You're reaching those levels now when you're. Because now it's only looking at data that's true and accurate.

Well, it's true and accurate as everyone's input the data. Right. But it was very interesting, I thought, oh my.

Because I use AI on my podcast, but it's just listening to the episode, doing a transcript and pulling out quotes and doing all this stuff.

Because when you use ChatGPT in the real world and you know this, you've got to double check it a little bit, make sure it's not saying something weird.

Right.

But imagine, yes, the MLS data and you using it as a tool.

I haven't gone down that road yet because basically with chat, GBT plus, you know, it's, it's dated back to what, 2022, 2023. So I don't know. And so it's current in that regard.

I'm not sure how current it is from a standpoint of up to the minute data, but I'm thinking if you do put that data in there, yes, you should be able to do that. Canva is one of the graphic software companies. I think you can take AI, Canva and AI with this data and put it together.

I personally, I love data and I think that's again, where we can help our clients. I use Altos Research and you know, I use their reports and they have the graphs and everything right there.

So yeah, that's what I've been using from, from that standpoint to be much more accurate. Aside from what are the MLS's give you for, especially in our area, it encompasses a 13 county metropolitan area, which is western Wisconsin.

You know, it's like it's a big area when you think of 13 counties here in the Midwest. But then we have micro markets within that, as you can imagine.

Right.

The price point on the western suburbs is a lot different than the price point here in the St. Croix Valley.

Well, look, Richard, this has been fun. This has been great. I'm going to ask you the same final question I've asked everyone. I think you know the question.

It's what one piece of advice would you give a new agent just getting.

Started to really treat this as your own business. Think of it from a standpoint that you just bought a Subway franchise and you need to keep the doors open.

Very rarely assumed or followed that it's a business. I think, you know, that that's, that's so critical in thinking about even long term.

You know, you have built this database of people who like and know and trust and love you.

And somewhere down the road you said you didn't want to, you know, give up working, but maybe you just work with these 10, but maybe you find somebody to help you with the rest and it turns into annuity, right? Exactly, exactly. You just have this passive income just flowing to you.

And that's the great thing about this business. It can be that so easily. The entry to real estate is way too easy.

And that's why I didn't tell you this, but when I was in high school, I was a garbage man for five years. You know, I collected garbage. I worked on the back of the truck before school. This is basically, no, this is high school into college.

You know, in the summertime. And to this day I tell people I got more respect being the garbage man than I do today being a real estate agent.

On that note, Richard, true, I'm gonna ask you how, if someone wants to reach out to you and compare garbage men and realtors, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

The best way to get in touch with me is either through any of the social media platforms, which maybe Facebook or Instagram.

My email is richard.mcdonough@lakesmn.com or my website, richard mcdonough.com and I'm, you know, if you're an agent, you're out there working, happy to help. And I think, you know, it does take a village and it takes all of us to make our business and our industry that much better.

Richard, this has been a blast. I really, I really thank you for your time today.

You're welcome.

We are going to talk a whole lot more about skiing. I just. That is unbelievable. And I can't wait to sit in a room with you again and have another conversation. Thanks so much.

You're welcome, Bill. I really enjoyed this, too. And you have a great day.

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