How to Recession Proof Your Business with Relationships with Nick Krautter

Justin Stoddart  
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, very excited to be back with a very good friend of mine, somebody who has proven to be not only a very productive high producing real estate agent for years and years, but also somebody who's now become an influencer on a topic around database. And that's gonna be our topic today is how to when a recession, or a downturn or even an adjustment is on the horizon? How you recession proof your business. So before we get into that, and be fully introduce today's guest, let me remind you the purpose of this show, and really, my mission is to wake you up to the potential that's inside of you and help you then live and help you to live in pursuit of that potential. That's what the mission of the bigger real estate show is all about. And Nick Krautter, very good friend of mine, Nick, thanks for coming on the show today. excited to have you here. 

Nick Krautter  
Thanks, man. Always great talking with you. 

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, likewise. So for those that don't know, Nick, Nick, you started your real estate career when? 

Nick Krautter  
I started in 2006. Right before the big crash. I started actually April 2006. I was 27 years old, and, you know, just kind of jumped in and learned  to work with buyers when it was multiple offers on everything. And as soon as I started getting listings, that's when the market started going down. So in a way, I feel grateful that I kind of cut my teeth in hard times, and, and at a time to when I had the bandwidth to work 14 hour days and didn't have a ton of overhead. That definitely set me up for the success I've had since then. 

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, love it, man. And then fast forward from that point, built a team built a brokerage and wrote a best selling book, The Golden Handoff, which for those that don't know, it teaches real estate agents, how to buy and sell another real estate agents, business or their own business. So that's been quite the journey as well. I know you're getting ready to release a workbook that not only teaches agents, what to do, but very specifically how to do it a hands on manual. I've been through it. I love it. I think that's what agents need. I think there is a whole group of agents that probably would have retired sometime after 2008 that have not yet because they experienced a significant downturn in their net worth. And now they're looking at potentially some sort of even pause in the market, you know, even some some hesitation, they're gonna be like, Mamba out, right. I'm out. Like, I don't want to go through this again. And they're going to essentially, kind of just walk away from their database, correct? 

Nick Krautter  
Yeah, I mean, 99% of realtors when they retire, they just ride off into the sunset. And what we're going to talk about today is just when you are in real estate, you build relationships and you build trust with just a ton of people and the best realtors with the biggest businesses typically, if you're repeating referral base, is because you know, a lot of people you stay engaged and they when they have a question or need that they trust you to help them more than anyone else. I mean, in Portland, Oregon, where we are, there's 8500 realtors, in any market, a small portion of those do most of the business. And what we're going to talk about today is how to be one of those people and how to build a database so that you can get through that recession. And the book, The Golden handoff never would have been written if there wasn't the Great Recession, because that happened because people were getting out of the real estate business when it crashed last time, so a lot of realtors decided to exit the business because it got so much harder to do the work. And it wasn't like, it wasn't fun conversations, you had to have hard conversations every single day. And for a lot of people, it was just the emotional toll of that was too much. And the book, The Golden handoff happened because of people that were exiting the business. And I approached them and said, Hey, you have you have a database, you have all these people that know and trust you. And basically I would love to help them since you're not going to anymore. And I would love for you to endorse them to work with me. And that's the basically that's the seat of that book. The book goes into a lot more depth and then the workbook you mentioned I'm really excited to be doing this now. A couple years after the books come out. It's really meant to like step by step with checklist worksheets, interview questions help the retirement agent and the adopted native through the whole process. 

Justin Stoddart  
Powerful man, I think that's really where people are needing to have leadership, it's not just the information anymore, it's really a how to here, let me take you by the hand and walk you through how to do this, I love the fact that you've taken a concept that is so highly relevant that's so highly needed in the real estate space. And now you're adding additional layers of help to offer to people to again, help those that want to exit the business and get something for other years of work actually be able to do that. And then have these these agents that are maybe newer in the business that would be the like, not even new or just maybe experienced in the business to be able to say, I'm going to adopt that book of business, I'm going to take on that database and treat them like you have treated them and, you know, therefore projecting, you know, putting their career on a on a path that they never would have been able to recreate in such a short period of time. You know, it's it's, it's a powerful concept. So thank you for spending the time to do that. I know that's kind of a labor of love. If you will, for the industry and the agents that you see wanting to retire, and those that want to grow quickly, so kudos to you for doing that. It's awesome stuff. And obviously, in that process you became proficient at or highly proficient at helping, like really identifying what matters in a database, right? Like what matters in relationships, because, again, you've purchased a number of books of business yourself, you've helped other people purchase books of business and you know, like, what matters when it comes down, when you sit down at the table to evaluate somebody's business, you know, what information matters and, and, and the stuff that when it's not there, it's really detrimental to being able to not only have a relationship with that direct agent, but especially with when you're passing that when you're handing off that book of business, somebody else. What are a few of those things, Nick, that you would say, absolutely need to be in somebody's, not just their database, but in a relationship for a client to be able to really have a strong business. 

Nick Krautter  
I think the core most important thing is how many people know you and trust you and and so there's two components to that. The first one is, you know, what is your competence? And what is your character? And I would say your character just is what it is. Do you do the right thing do you do what you say you're going to do? A competence is understanding the market, understanding the process and being able to help advise clients in a good market, you know, and obviously, good or bad, I'd say like a market is going up a market that's going down or a market that's flat, how to succeed in that market, whether you're buying or selling. And that's our job. I think a lot of realtors internalize. They take credit when the market goes up, and they take responsibility when it goes do wn. And both of those are wrong. We don't affect the market. In a macro sense. We certainly can affect the transaction, we can affect each...