Luck, is when opportunity meets preparation.
*music*
Talk to us,
one of your biggest deal.
And one maybe not big
but the most meaningful.
- It's different in New York
than anywhere else because
our biggest deals
are building based.
So like...
- I took over an entire building
full of apartments.
Which I do a lot.
That's the majority of our business,
last year,
and by the end of the year,
we had closed on a 101 million dollars
worth of apartments.
I guess that's not as much fun
to talk about.
No one seems to care.
I guess individually,
there is a deal that I talk about in the book,
that means a lot to me,
that kinda answers both of your questions.
It was a client I met in 2012.
And he...right when the show came out,
it was somebody I had met,
a few months after that.
It was a couple from New Jersey,
and they really wanted a small apartment
on the Upper East Side.
Their budget was 800 thousand to
a million.
Maybe a million-five.
For a place they could have in the city
when the kids get older.
And I showed them apartments
on the Upper East Side
for six months and then they were like,
maybe you know what,
maybe we should see the Upper West Side.
And I wasn't that knowledgable
on how to be a real estate agent,
I was just figuring it out.
I showed them stuff on the Upper West Side,
and then they wanted Downtown,
and then they wanted Brooklyn,
and then they disappeared.
They stopped answering my phone calls.
Stopped answering my emails.
I didn't know what to do,
but I knew the best thing I could do
and what I can control in any relationship
is my ability to follow-up with people.
So I followed up once a week.
Fast forward,
five years later,
to the beginning of 2017.
The husband writes back
to one of my emails finally,
that I've been sending once a week
since 2012.
- Wow.
- He writes back to me and says
"Hey Ryan,
sorry it's been taking me a while
to get back to you,
I just been really busy."
For five years!
(laughing)
I'm like,
oh you're alive!
I immediately write to this whole email,
and then I calmed down.
And I take a moment.
I delete my whole email that was insane,
and I say,
"sounds good to hear from you.
Yeah let's talk."
Get him on the phone
and he says,
" hey, yeah,
I've been getting your emails.
So anyway,
so yeah I got divorced."
So I'm like "oh, okay crazy."
"And I want to find a new place.
Maybe Soho.
My budget's like 15,
20 million dollars.
I take him out the next week
and show him five apartments.
He picks one.
Closes on it three weeks later
for 16 million dollars.
So if I told you that story
from the beginning of 2017,
you'd say "Ryan, your on a TV show.
You do this.
Of course, people are going to email you
and call you to buy
16 million dollar apartments."
But they way the deal happened
was before Million Dollar Listing.
Was before anybody knew me,
they way they know me now.
I've met a couple that wanted
a small apartment on the Upper East Side
and I worked with them for nine months
and they didn't buy anything.
And then I closed those people
five years later.
And that guy now,
I'm working on a deal with right now.
For a house in the Hampton's
for 32 million dollars.
- So his business has grew?
- His business has grown.
And so has mine.
One of the reasons he stuck with me,
he knows a lot of real estate agents,
they are all over New York City,
but he has told me like listen,
I really appreciate
because that's how he grew his business.
I appreciate how you follow up--
- The hustle.
- The persistence.
The hustle.
Instead of just giving my business,
cause he knows how commissions are,
he's not stupid.
- Yeah, he could give that to anybody.
- Yeah, I could give it to
any real estate agent
but man oh man,
you are gonna work hard for me.
To this day, I do.
He calls me at two in the morning,
I pick up the phone.
Because I think I still have post traumatic stress disorder
from him not picking up the phone for five years.
(laughing)
So it's not my,
those are big deals,
but it means the most to me,
because it's defined my business.
That is my business.
I'm in this for the long haul.
- I'm glad you brought it up
because I train a lot of closers,
and they might think
oh Ryan this is easy for you to say,
you're a reality TV star--
- Yeah.
- People just come to you
and say hey here's the listing--
- That would be awesome.
It doesn't happen but that would be grreat.
- No, it doesn't happen.
You hustle.
Even on the phone,
I remember one of the episode,
there was a property,
I don't remember the storyline
but you were just
pounding the phone.
You were in the office,
give me the phone number,
I'm going to call,
I'm going to make sure this sells.
I remember,
your assistant,
the super assistant,
and you were just like,
I don't care.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to email.
- That's literally every property.
- But that's I think,
if that's just the beginning
of your career,
that's one thing,
but you still do it today.
- You have to.
- You still have that hustle.
What drives you now?
What's your goal?
- Fear of failure.
Once you climb up the mountain,
when you fall off,
it hurts that much more.
What we were just talking about.
I've fine with it being out there.
You asked me before we hit record.
What were your numbers last year?
Well there were 721 million.
Which sounds like a lot,
but its lower than my year before.
The year before was 838.
So I'm like okay,
start my bio,
say that I did 1.5 billion the last two years.
That sounds better.
I do own it--
- It still 700 and something million.
- I get it 100 percent.
But for me,
I took steps back last year.
The market was tough.
We had crazy political climate.
Especially in New York City.
There is a lot of stuff going on in the economy.
China locked up all of their capital to come over.
Putin told anyone,
if you bring money out of Russia,
I will kill you.
Brazil, Venezuela, are falling apart.
We have a lot of this international
currency that used to provide
all the liquidity to New York City.
- Correct.
- Disappear, so now I have to deal with
just New Yorkers buying and selling
to each other and other domestics
but New Yorkers will
negotiate the price of a bagel.
Trying to do a New York guy
against another New York guy
is really hard to put together.
It affects deal flow.
There is a lot of inventory.
But we've worked around it.
We've tried our best
to diversify as much as possible.
- What about in terms of
building a team?
Before you were working on your own,
and now you have how many people on your team?
- 62 I think.
- What's it like,
in terms of leadership?
What are the things you learned in leadership?
- I like it.
I like managing.
I like leading.
I like staying on top of people.
I like helping agents grow.
I still see myself in them.
The more I help them grow,
the more they help me.
I like being about to do
whatever I want to do everyday.
That's why I got into real estate
instead of becoming a bartender
or a waiter
or getting a temp secretary job.
I did want to have to punch in and punch out.
I wanted the ability
to wake up and say what am I going to do today.
Granted, my life now,
I don't get to do whatever I want.
But it bounces around.
I'm in Vancouver with Dan Lok.
In a 35 million dollar,
Canadian dollar mansion,
hanging out.
Has it own bowling alley.
Now that's,
I couldn't do that in an alternate version of my life.
Building the team,
has enabled me to be able to do
a lot of these things
and bring business back to them.
Anyone I meet today in Vancouver,
real estate brokers,
I'm giving a speech later,
you,
anyone in this room--
- Connections!
- Between now and 50 years,
maybe somebody I meet today
will refer me business.
In some way,
shape or form.
That will pass down to my team.
They are very grateful for it.
I really like building the team.
It's my main focus, honestly.
- What's your relationship with the team?
You go out there and meet with people,
you bring in the relationships
and then your team will do the showings,
the listing,
like what do they do?
- I just wrote an article
about it for Forbes.
You could do a lot with Forbes.
I structure my team,
like a football team.
Like an American football team.
I quarterback.
For the most part,
a lot of the listings and deals we have.
The majority of them I touch first.
I kinda decide what we're going to do
and then I probably have to close it,
but probably not depending on how we price it.
And everyone else on the team
has defined roles.
They're all real estate agents.
The can do whatever they want.
I know if I'm doing a play
to the Upper West Side,
I've got these three wide receivers,
Amy, Roya and Bianca.
I can go to them.
They can close it and run it in
for the touchdown.
That way, everyone on my team,
all 62 of them can be individual rock stars.
Just like on an American football team,
they can all make a lot of money.
They can all be famous.
They can all be amazing.
They can all do great.
So no one on my team
is an assistant or a junior
other than my assistant
and even he is more than an assistant.
He reminds me of it everyday.
That way the team can grow
with me and feel like
they're not just on Ryan Serhant's team,
they have ownership with me.
Without them,
I can't do anything.
I can't close these deals.
I'm not in Brooklyn right now
showing all these apartments.
They are and they know that.
- So you're encouraging them,
they're supporting you
but you're developing leaders as well.
- At the end of the day,
providing business.
Just like on a football team,
the team ship only works
if I'm helping them get their own business.
And providing them business as well.
Putting them on listings
that they otherwise wouldn't have been on.
Introducing them on relationships
they otherwise wouldn't have.
Helping them learn that way
so they can meet the biggest brokers
and the biggest types of buyers and clients.
And then forcing them to use that
and milk that
and grow their own business.
- During this period of time,
you're building your empire,
what's the one big mistake
that you wish you would have avoided?
Like the big one!
- What's a big mistake I wish I would have avoided?
I don't know,
that's a good question.
I think two years ago,
I grew real fast.
We went from
it been around 60 for like two years.
Two years ago we went from like 30 to 60.
Doubled the team size in a year.
And two years ago,
was when I filmed Sale like Serhant
for Bravo, the other show we do on Bravo.
And I started writing the book.
All this stuff happened in 2017.
Had all these new people looking up to me.
I started losing team members.
- How come?
- Not new ones.
People that were really good
that I've worked with for years
to build up on my team,
because all of a sudden,
without including them,
they felt like I had just
made decisions for the team,
for my own benefit.
I'm going to bring on more people,
screw you guys.
I'm going to write a book.
I'm going to take time.
I'm going to do this other TV show,
I've got to be out of the office now
every other week for an entire week
for four months to make that show,
and we do this and this.
I've got good agents on my team
that said,
you know what this isn't the same team,
Ryan's not including us anymore,
so they left.
- The culture.
- I think we lost like six solid agents.
I went too fast at that point
and I let it get a little bit ahead of me.
It forced me at the beginning of last year
to really slow down and understand
that every person is incredibly important
and treat them all very very important.
And also like, put priorities first.
All this stuff, all the shows, the books
it's all fun, but my real estate business
is number one
and my team is number one
and I gotta put them first.