- Forget about the money.
When you see the smile on a person's face,
it's the greatest job in the world.
I'm the first one in the office every day.
I'm the last one in the office every day.
It's a passion of mine, real estate.
It's not just opening up a door
and letting somebody walk around and look at a house.
That's not what I do.
Some realtors do that,
I just feel like that's wrong.
- He's an American real estate agent,
real estate investor, and reality TV personality.
He appears on the television show Million Dollar Listing
on the Bravo network.
In 2013, he was ranked as the number 30
real estate agent in the country by the Wall Street Journal
with sales of over $200 million.
He's Josh Altman, and here's my take
on his top 10 rules for success.
Rule number one is my personal favorite.
And as always, if Josh something that really, really
resonates with you, please leave it in the comments below
and put quotes around it so other people
can be inspired as well, enjoy.
(whooshing)
(upbeat music)
- Number one, you all can tell,
you got to love what you do,
and I love what I do, I love real estate.
My favorite part about what I do that I'm so excited
every morning to wake up to is that time
when you get to pass the keys over
to a new buyer of a home, and they actually bought
the home, and you see the smile on those people's faces,
okay, that's priceless.
You can forget about all the other stuff,
forget about the money.
When you see the smile on a person's face,
it's the greatest job in the world.
Think about it, we help people achieve
the American dream, which is owning a home.
And we get to be part of that.
And if you're part of that, those people
love you forever.
- You know, you give this great example of how
you were on the treadmill next to Tyler Perry,
and you were bold, you kind of talked him up,
you ended up selling his house.
But you approached him, and you said, "Are you ready
"to sell one of your houses?"
You already knew that he owned two houses,
you knew were they were, you know, so isn't that
also a big part of this, you have to really
do the hard work?
- Yeah, and really preparing yourself to be lucky,
putting yourself in situations where you can get lucky,
where it's not so much luck, it's preparation.
I tell a story about how I'm standing inside
a line in Starbucks, and I'm not at that Starbucks
'cause I like coffee, I'm at that Starbucks
'cause that's where all the wealthy people and all
the celebrities in Beverly Hills go every morning.
I meet a guy in line in front of me, I end up
showing him a house later that afternoon,
and he buys a $12 million house.
Some people would say that's luck.
For me, it's all about being in the right place,
and there was a reason why I'm there,
because I'm an expert in my community
and I put myself in that situation.
I always say in order to be a successful salesperson,
you got to know your product.
Okay, that's the single-most important thing,
you got to know it like the back of your hand.
Otherwise you can't truly sell it,
and you got to believe in it as well.
- 'Cause you don't believe in it if you don't know it.
- Right, exactly, so I am very, very good,
and I can look anybody in this business in the world
in the eyes and say I am an expert at Los Angeles
real estate, I study it, I know more than 99.9999%
of the people out there, okay?
I've flipped houses, I've financed houses,
I sell houses, buy 'em, all that stuff.
So I'm very confident because I'm very good
at what I do because I'm an expert,
and I work very hard at it.
- You do the work to become the expert.
- It's not just falling on the lap.
It's I'm the first one in the office every day,
I'm the last one in the office every day.
It's a passion of mine, real estate,
so I don't consider it work, but I literally study it.
They call me the Rain Man of real estate.
- There you go, I like it.
- It's like how much is a house on the 900 block
in the flats of Beverly Hills?
- And you can be within like
a hundred thousand dollar range.
- I could easily all day long.
I feel it's super important these days
to be 24/7, okay?
Alex had said it before, buying a house
is the biggest investment of somebody's life,
99% of the time.
Okay, that's a big deal.
We do it every day.
We forget how, you know, nerveracking it is
and how important it is to these people.
So you have to make yourself available.
You have to be 24/7.
If I'm making a big investment,
that person better be available to me.
And there's a funny joke because in Beverly Hills,
in a high-end market, you typically know
who you're going against in a listing appointment.
In fact, I think the last 10 listing appointments,
the person has seen the other five agents,
the same exact five agents every time.
And you know, every once in a while you get that
awkward moment where you're walking out of
a listing meeting, and the new agent is walking in.
And you give 'em this look.
So it's very important to be available, and what I do,
a secret with that, when all these people are meeting
with these clients, and this will be our little secret
at ERA, you tell the client, listen,
I want you to call me and the other people,
and I want you to see who's available, okay?
At random times throughout the day,
because I know that these other high-end guys
or girls, they're so, you know, above everything,
that they have secretaries and assistants
and buyer's agents and this and that,
and they don't give their direct number out.
And I pride myself in being available.
Everybody has my cell phone, I always pick up the call,
and I think that's important to people.
So that's a little trick that I use.
I've always been, and to this day,
the first person in the office
and the last person to leave.
I started out like everybody else,
I walked up and down the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles
till there were literally no soles left on my shoes.
I mean, that's how much I door-knocked.
And I door-knocked every door, and I really kept it basic,
I cold-called nonstop for hours a day,
and I lived by a schedule, and I did that every day
till slowly I'd pick up one listing, then another,
and then another, and you know,
next thing you know, it starts to get more fun
when you start making money, of course.
But I started the same way as everybody else,
and I have people underneath me that I mentor
that I tell the same thing to, you just got to start
just to basics, you can't watch Million Dollar Listing
and think that all the sudden you're going to make
millions of dollars in real estate.
you know, I've been in some aspect of real estate
for over a decade now, so this didn't happen over night.
This is something that has been, you know,
worked at nonstop, I've studied the art of negotiation,
I've studied how to read people, I've really mastered
my craft, and I take it very seriously.
It's not just opening up a door and letting somebody
walk around and look at a house.
That's not what I do.
Some realtors do that, I just feel like that's wrong.
You got to sell the house.
You got to, what I like to say, sell the dream, right?
You got to sell the dream.
Most important is what I like to call
surround yourself with your dream team.
I call it Josh Altman's Dream Team,
and it consists of a good amount of support
from people that I trust, value their opinion,
and who I surround myself with.
I always say that you are the average of five people
that you surround yourselves with, right?
Did you ever hear that before?
- Yeah. - Yeah, I totally do.
- (mumbles) to that? - I totally did make that up.
I just made that up right now.
So I think it's super important to do that,
so in real estate, for example, I have the best
mortgage broker who's available 24/7 for me,
and we've worked our way up in the business together.
I have, you know, everybody from the best title guy
and escrow guy and all that, so I surround myself
with this team of people who I can trust
and they can guide me in the right directions
of whatever I do.
So that's one way, obviously, in any business,
it's just surround yourself with people
who support you.
- What would you say to somebody who hasn't found
their work drug yet, who hasn't found that thing
that really inspires them?
- Right, so the ultimate goal is obviously
to find something that you love to do,
because it's not considered work anymore
and it's not about money anymore 'cause it's all about
happiness and waking up excited to do what you do.
All these jobs that led up to that, I always try
to find the thing that I loved most about each job
and really concentrate on that and be the best at that.
You got to go through a lot of stepping stones
in order to find the place.
I worked at a funeral home.
I was an assistant in the mail room for a very long time.
I had about a dozen jobs which are not so much fun
in order to find the right job.
And that's going to be everybody's going to go through that,
so give it time, concentrate on what you love
about your job, and be the best at that.
I don' care what you do for a living, I don't care
if you're the biggest celebrity in the world.
I treat you the same as somebody, you know,
a newlywed couple who's buying their first condo
for $500,000.
I talk about it in my book, you know, I used to be
a field goal kicker, so I always say
kick every football the same.
You treat every deal the same, you treat everybody
with the same respect, and I think that's why
people come back to us, because we don't care
if you're famous or not.
They know that we're the expert at what we do,
and that we're the best at what we do.
The most important thing, and I tell it over and over
and over and over again, get a mentor, okay?
When I first got into the business,
the first few deals that I ended up picking up
were sitting open houses of more successful agents
that didn't have time to be everywhere.
I said, listen, I'll do anything
to help you out on your properties, and you know,
they'd say, okay, why don't you sit at this house
that weekend.
And I'd end up picking up buyers through them.
It's very important to have somebody guide you
to be successful.
Again, it's having someone next to you
who's done it, has the advice that you need,
can kind of tell you the pros and the cons
and what they should be concentrating on.
Get a mentor, it's the most important thing.
All this coaching stuff that we do,
there are reasons why we do this, and it's very,
very successful, it's been successful for years and years.
That would be the one thing, if you can't make it,
make sure you call somebody who, or link up with someone
who can teach you the ropes.
I thought that right now would be the perfect time
to share a customer service story with you.
True story.
Couple years ago, I got a call from a young lady,
and was all excited, she tells me she's looking
for a property, and then she says the word lease.
Our favorite words as realtors.
I'm looking for a lease.
Oh, you know, unless it's an $85,000 a month lease,
I don't know.
But I was in a good mood, so I took that call,
and I said, "Sure, I'll help you find a lease."
And turns out it was a $5,000 a month lease.
And I took her around for six months.
(audience laughing)
The term was only a year.
Anyways, I like to finish what I start.
So I went through with it, found her an amazing place,
she couldn't be happier.
In fact, she was so happy that she called her father
that night, and she said, "Dad, I got the greatest place.
"My realtor's amazing, he doesn't care about money at all."
(audience laughing)
And it happened to be that her father
was sitting next to the CEO of his company.
And he heard the story, and that CEO said,
"Actually, I'm thinking of selling my penthouse.
"Maybe I should use that guy."
Sure enough, I went in, I met the CEO,
and I got the listing of his
$4 million penthouse.
(audience applauding)
While I was sitting that open house on that
$4 million penthouse, 'cause that's my favorite
thing to do, a celebrity walked in.
And that celebrity walked around, and he checked out
that incredible penthouse, and he looked at me and he said,
"Yeah, this is cool, do you have anything cooler?"
I said, "Sure."
So I went back to the office and I put together
the list of the coolest penthouses you could find.
And I showed that celebrity around,
and that celebrity ended up buying
an $11 million penthouse,
which broke the record for Santa Monica.
So from that lease, that $5,000 a month lease,
which led to that $4 million penthouse sale,
which led to that $11 million penthouse sale,
and it is the gift that keeps on giving
on and on and on.
That is why
customer service
is so important to everybody's business.
- Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because Trevin or Trevon Clack
asked me to.
So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you
want me to profile next, leave it down
in the comments below, and I'll see what I can do.
I'd also love to know what did Josh say
that really resonated with you the most,
what rule was most impactful to you,
what are you going to apply to your life or your business?
Please leave it down in the comments below.
I'm going to join in the discussion.
I also want to give a quick shout out to Krypton Kho,
thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book.
It really, really, really, really means a lot to me.
So thank you guys again for watching.
I believe in you, I hope you continue
to believe in yourselves
and whatever your one word is.
Much love, I'll see you soon.
(whooshing)