Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside personal growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of inside personal growth. And joining us from Los Angeles, is author Steve Shull. You can see from him and behind him all the books that He's authored, but we're going to be talking about and you can hold it up. Steve his book, The full fee agent. Now this book applies not only to people that are in real estate. Most importantly, I think it would be for anyone who wants to increase their confidence and get their full fee and not always discount everything that they're doing. But importantly, this book and all of Steve's other books which are IN HIS Manual, manual, manual behind him. We'll put links to those book as books as well, and I'm going to let our listeners know a little bit about you, because this is there they are. This show is all about personal and professional growth, and that's what you've been about all of your life, Steve, and I think that that's important. And we you know, Steve's kind of got an interesting background. He was a former NFL player turned real estate coach, speaker and author, He's dedicated his career to helping real estate professionals, in particular, achieve unparalleled success through clarity, discipline and accountability. Today, as we said, we're going to be diving into this latest book called The full fee agent. This book. It's a guide that challenges the status quo, right? And it empowers agents to stand firm on their value. And I think that applies to so many people who sell. How do you stand firm on your value, the value that you bring in you offer, it doesn't matter what you sell. Steve's no nonsense approach and proven strategies have transformed the careers of countless real estate professionals by helping them maximize their earnings while maintaining integrity and professionalism. So for all of my listeners out there, get ready. We're going to have a great fun filled show here today, and Steve is going to kick this off. So Steve, if you would tell us, how did you you've had prior books to this one, and you've had this big career, or you had a career in football. How did you get to writing these books, becoming a real estate coach, real estate coach, executive coach, and what kind of drove, what I call the major shifts through your past experience that kind of approached you to becoming a Great coach for real estate people? Well, that's a mouthful.

Steve Shull
There you go. I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and as a kid, you know, played football, baseball, basketball, sports was my life. I was very, very focused. My mom was always trying to get me to do other things and be more diversified in life. And I was kind of on a one one track, and ended up going to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, on a football scholarship. And upon graduation, was invited to the Miami Dolphin training camp as a free agent. I wasn't drafted. I was a walk on and they bring 90 people in the camp every year, and this was way back when, this was 1980 and out of the 90 people they bring in the training camp, they keep 45 and I was lucky enough to make that final cut. I played four years in the NFL before knee injury, and in my career, I got to play in Super Bowl 17 against the Washington Redskins. Unfortunately, we lost that day. However, I was one of the tri captains for the dolphins in that game. And so after my knee injury, went back, got my MBA at the University of Miami. Then I spent five years on Wall Street. And then in 1991 I just changed my entire life. Moved from East Coast to the West Coast. I got introduced to residential real estate, and jumped in in 1991 and in my first year in business with a partner, we closed 53 sales. To put that in perspective, the average agent, uh, closes four deals a year. So we, we had a great first year in real estate.

Greg Voisen
People were buying, people were buying, and you were selling. Hey, that question though, you were running Mike Ferry's operation right for a while. Um,

Steve Shull
yeah. So what happened was, I was going to Mike ferry seminars. What actually got me into real estate is I listened to an interview that Mike did with two agents in Long Beach, California, Kim and Darryl Rouse, and in listening that interview, I got what real estate was. It's a progression. Contacts, equal leads, leads equal appointments, appointments equal listings, listings equal sales. And that made perfect sense to me, and so jumped in again, closed 53 deals in the first year, was on track to do 100 deals in the second year. And I went to Mike, and I said, Mike, what I what I did with my partner who had been in real estate, I think I can do with other agents and and Mike liked the idea, and that was really the birth of real estate coaching. So I joined the mike ferry organization in 1993 before then, trainers like Mike were doing programs. However, coaching did not exist, and so we introduced coaching in the real estate world in 1993 I stayed with Mike till 96 I went out on my own, open my own company, performance coaching, and so I've been now coaching 32 years. In 2007 myself and two other partners opened up a brokerage here in Southern California called TELUS properties, which ultimately sold to Douglas element. So I've been involved one way or another in real estate as an agent, as a coach, as a consultant, as a broker. You know a brokerage owner, I've worn many hats in this industry for

Greg Voisen
at least 25 years. It sounds like so your your website is performance coaching, com, and I want to encourage all of our listeners to go there. Actually, on December 3, he is going to be doing a live event called the game plan 2025 vision strategy and focus for a winning year. You can learn more about that by clicking on his link. I would assume you still have tickets available to for people that are in the LA Orange County San Diego. We have tickets

Steve Shull
for people who want to attend live and then anyone. We also make it available via live stream. So if you can't be here in person, you don't have to miss out on the event.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's a great opportunity for people. Now, let me ask you, this the genesis of kind of coaching you credited with, the kind of being pioneer in this thing, which you were in the 90s, when you look at it, what really inspired you to create your own entity, entirety, and kind of this this category. How did you and Mike, or you by yourself, kind of determine that this was a missing factor for people? There's all kinds of sales training. People could have gone to Dale Carnegie, they can go to Sandler, they can go wherever they want to go, but you actually carved out a niche with Mike in the real estate industry, and then on your own, subsequently, what is it that's different, Steve, that you see about potentially selling real estate versus selling other products or going to one of the other name brand companies that does sales training

Steve Shull
in my whole life, I've always been fascinated by, you know, what makes people successful. And I've, you know, I push myself as a young kid, I was captain of almost every team, almost every team I was on, and, you know, always wanting to be a leader, and, you know, and always challenging myself to get better. And then when I got into real estate, you know, given my experience with the dolphins playing for Don Shula, who's still the winningest coach in NFL history, I saw an opportunity in real estate, because in real estate, nobody has a coach, or, you know, back then, nobody had a coach. There were sales managers. However, it's an industry where everyone's an independent contractor and everyone's doing their own thing, and that's just not a formula for success. And you know, everything that I learned on the football field in terms of the right type of habits, you know, whether it's getting in shape, whether it's, you know, being in the weight room, whether it's being in the film room, you know, it's always about being, you know, doing everything you can to get better so that when you're on the field, you don't have to think, and you can perform at your highest level. So what inspired me to think about real estate coaching was what I went through as an athlete,

Greg Voisen
as a football whereas an athlete the training, subsequent training, and

Steve Shull
I'd also add, I'd also add, not sorry to cut you off, you know, as a player, I always had coaches. I had coaches, you know, starting at, you know, probably five or six years old in in Little League, when I whenever, whenever I started that, and I was always very coachable. I I can't ever look back at a time where I didn't do what my coach told me to do. And I benefited greatly from coaching. I had coaches who took a great interest in me, my high school coach, he enabled me to get a college scholarship because he put my film out, you know, into that universe so I could do something. I had great college coaches. I played for Don Shula, Bill orange Barger. So coaching was something that was, you know, had been very a big part of my life and a very valued part of my life.

Greg Voisen
Well, one of the things that goes along with that is, you know, look, when you're coaching, you call this performance coaching. It is the performance, but it's also, and I've had authors on here, and I'm trying to remember the gentleman's name, but it's about the management of our energy, right? Whether you're playing you're playing in on the field as a football player or basketball or baseball, but the same thing for a real estate agent. It's about really, how we manage our energy during the day. Now, in your book the full fee agent philosophy, you emphasize the importance of being a full fee agent. And we know lately with technology, there's been some interference here with all kinds of digital technology to interfere with the agents actual full commission, discounted commissions are all over the place. Can you explain what this mean and why it's critical for still real estate professionals to kind of stand strong because of the value they bring. And I know in our pre interview, we discussed it. You know, when you go out to get a listing, or you go out to work with a client, they have to understand the value of what you bring. Speak with us about the value and the full fee. Agent,

Steve Shull
I've always been a big believer in agents getting paid a full fee. In fact, I take a very hard line around it, and in about nine years ago, I read a book called never split the difference. And the author is Chris Voss, and Chris was the lead FBI international hostage negotiator for seven years, and he was in the hostage negotiation business a lot longer. And in this book, he talked about, you know, what he learned as a hostage negotiator and how those principles apply to business when I read the book, you know, I saw Wow, everything that he talked about applied to real estate. And so I reached out to Chris, and we've been working together ever since. And two years ago, we we, we put out the book, the full fee agent, and as a hostage negotiator, Chris created a methodology that he calls tactical empathy, and this is something they found very effective in the hostage taking world or the hostage negotiation world. And think about, think about the job of a hostage negotiator. What are you selling? What you're selling is jail time. You know, someone goes out and robs a bank and holds someone hostage, and what you've got to sell them on is going to jail. That's what I would call a tough sale and and in the hostage negotiation world, they are successful 93% of the time. 7% of the time, all that hostage taker wants to do is die by police, suicide by police. You know, he's not there to negotiate anything. And as a hostage negotiator, they had to learn to identify who were those people, because it was going to be a very different course of action versus the ones that they could communicate with. And so, from Chris and tactical empathy is the art of influencing others by articulating what they're thinking and feeling without necessarily agreeing, disagreeing or sympathizing. Bottom Line tactical empathy is the ability to make people feel understood, and this is the missing piece in all of sales. If you take any sales training, they will talk to you about understanding what's going on in anyone's situation, whatever the industry is. However, once you understand what's going on, then you're trying to sell right into that need, whatever, whatever the problem is, there's a big step missing. And, you know, Stephen Covey said it in seven, seven habits, you know, seek, first to understand before being understood. And again, there's a step missing, understand and then make someone feel understood. Because as human beings, it's universal. A, we all want to be accepted, and B, we all want to feel understood. So so in never split the difference. Chris laid out this methodology for helping people feel understood. And it's a, you know, it's, it's a process that's based on science of mind, how the mind actually operates. And so, you

Greg Voisen
know, do you know? Steve, there's an old saying people don't care how much you know until they know how much you can't. You care Exactly, right? So that, I don't know if that was Zig Ziglar. I don't remember exactly. It could have been Zig Ziglar, but my point was, is that what you're saying is you're talking about the caring part of it. You anybody can articulate their message, meaning, these are the reasons why you should list with XYZ real estate firm that what they can't articulate and understand is how to have this sense of compassion and caring for this understand person and articulate it so that they feel comforted by it, right? So that's the key, right?

Steve Shull
Someone cannot hear what you're saying until they feel understood. Until that point, all they want to do is get their point across, right? And so again, this this step, and I call it the missing piece in sales is this ability to make people feel understood. And the other big idea that Chris introduced, that we've really run with since then, is the idea of the favorite or the fool. And again, for any sales person listening your whole career, you've been trained to believe that the way you get business is by your value proposition A and then B, your ability to present that value proposition to someone else. So basically, what you're doing is convincing, and no one wants to be convinced. No one wants to have their arm twisted. Yet this is what you've been taught, and you've been taught many ways, in many different formats. And the fact is, and I'll use real estate as an example, however, it would apply to any other industry. When a real estate agent gets the phone call they all want, which is high we're thinking about selling our home, and we'd like you to come out to the house and talk to us about what that would look like. Every real estate agent gets excited, because now they think there's an opportunity to do business with someone what they don't realize. And again, this would apply to any industry. When you get that phone call, the person on the other end of the line already knows who they're going to work with, or they're leaning strongly in a direction. So it's not about your presentation. It's not about convincing someone, yes, you have a 20% chance or less when you're the Fool in the game, to get someone to do business with you. However, when you're the favorite, your chances of getting business are 80% or higher. And so what we've done in real estate is, instead of going on a listing appointment, you know, the agent gets that phone call, then they're going to spend two or three hours preparing for the appointment. They're going to drive out to the house, they're going to take a tour of the home, then they're going to sit down in the living room and either give a formal presentation or an informal presentation. All of this is going to take about two hours or so. At the end of it, the seller is going to go, thank you. You've given us so much to think about. Let us get back to you. And the agent leaves the living room, and they don't know whether they got the listing or didn't get the listing, and they're replaying the presentation in their mind. I should have said this. I didn't say that. Why did I do this? Then they're on pins and needles for 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, then they see the phone ring and it's that seller, and their heart starts beating. Hello, Hi, Steve. It's you know, Mr. And Mrs. So and So, you really made you made it really hard on us. It was a really difficult decision. However we're gonna, we're going to work with another agent, and your heart just drops to the floor. You can barely say thank you and hang up the phone. Well, we've changed that whole paradigm when we get that phone call, either then or we're going to set up another 15 minute phone call or Zoom call, and in 15 minutes, we're going to find out whether we are the favorite or we're the Fool in the game.

Greg Voisen
And and at what stage in the process does that occur? Steve,

Steve Shull
right, right at the beginning, right? If they call me up, right? And they say, you know, we'd like you to come out. I'm going to say, great, I'd love to do that. However, before we do that, if it's not impossible, and we could do it now, if you have time, or we can set an appointment, can we do a 15 minute call, or Zoom call, so I can find out a little bit more about what's going on, and that's your first filter right there. If you're the favorite, they're going to readily agree to do that phone call or Zoom call. If you're the Fool in the game, there's a high chance they're going to push back because they don't want to inconvenience themselves in any way. And so then there's a specific framework that we follow in that 15 minute call. And there's nothing magical about 15 minutes can be 10 minutes, 20 minutes. Point being, it's a short call. Bottom line we're going to get to the truth. Am I the person they want to work with or not? And it's not, and I am not giving away anything that I do. I'm not giving any of my value away. I'm finding out what they're thinking and feeling. And we've been doing this now for close to nine years, and it is just, you know, an absolute game changer. One of the things Chris says, it's not a sin to lose business. It's a sin to take a long time losing business. Agreed,

Greg Voisen
agreed. And I think that's, that's the role Steve, that fear plays. You know, when people whether they're a new agent or even an existing and a seasoned agent, they have a tendency to be afraid of making that call, all right, and that's just human nature. What is it that you can assure somebody that when they make that call and they ask those right questions that they have an 80% likelihood of listing the property or getting being the selling agent, versus them being blown away or blown out from some other agent.

Steve Shull
This was another big shift in in my coaching practice and my own personal develop, development reading a book by Michael singer called the Untethered Soul. And Michael singer has also written living untethered and the surrender experiment. And if you go on YouTube, he's got a, you know, loads of podcasts,

Greg Voisen
oh yeah, he's great. He's a big author, right?

Steve Shull
And what I got from Michael singer is, you know, and we're programmed to believe this our whole life. I was programmed, I grew up in this paradigm. Most everyone grows up in the paradigm of believing that if we want something bad enough, and we work something and we work hard enough, then we're focused enough and disciplined enough, we can make that thing happen. And Michael singer just blows that whole concept out of the water. That's not the way the universe operates. What's happening in front of you right now has nothing to do with you. It's the result of billions of years of evolution. And if you don't believe that, just think about this. If I leave planet earth today, right now, in this moment, what changes? Nothing. Okay, the universe existed for billions of years before me, and it's going to keep going after me. We, we have no ability to manifest things now. We're we're taught. We're programmed. The complete opposite. You know, set your goals, make your plans, work hard, be disciplined, and you can, you know, you can achieve anything you want now. Doesn't work that way. Doesn't work that way. Whatever is happening is happening. It's not personal. Mean, it has nothing to do with you, and all of it is temporary. And so how does this fit into well,

Greg Voisen
that that helps somebody with that philosophy shift the mindset that it isn't that important. And the reality is, I'd rather get on to the next if I'm going to be refused this listing and go to the next one. Because, look, if it's a fear of losing one, then you got to know that the next one's coming, right? So the reality would be, in my estimation, the way I look at what you're saying, and Peter Singer and the and and what has been written is what you say is absolutely true, but it's a spiritual philosophy that people need to understand. Now, you could say it's scientific, but for the most part, having that mindset requires a complete shift to to bring on that mindset as a broker or an agent, versus not bringing it on. And it means when you say, we say personal growth here, we mean that you've got to dedicate time to understand not only what you might say is the scientific or rules, but really, what's the spiritual laws here as well.

Steve Shull
I coach to six core building blocks, and number one on the list, the foundational piece is practicing mindfulness. If you don't get your head on straight, then nothing else matters. And the truth is, as human beings are, we are hardwired for survival. We have our brain, you know, is leads us down this path of fear. And you know, way back when the dinosaurs were real and we could get eaten by the dinosaurs, there are no more dinosaurs. All the dinosaurs are in here, inside our head. And again, the challenge almost every person has in life stems from this core belief that we're not good enough, right? And until you understand who you are and who you are is perfection. Who you are is an expression of infinite possibility. Who you are is one with life. That's who we actually are. That's our true essence. And until you embrace who you actually are, you know fear is going to run your life. And so to your point, you've got to be working on yourself every day. The only thing we control in life, the only thing we control is what goes on inside of us. We have no control over the external world, right? So we have to understand, as human beings, what we control and what we don't control and we don't control the result. We don't control the outcome. We don't control what's happening in life. What we do control is how we experience life and how we respond to life. That's what we absolutely,

Greg Voisen
absolutely. And I think that, you know, look the the reality is, whether you're an Eastern philosophy, Western philosophy, whether you're in in whatever your spiritual path is. Look, there's everybody is going to experience elements of pain, right? Whatever it might be, the loss of something, loss of a job, loss of money, whatever it is, and they've got pain over that. The question is, as you say, how do I relate to the suffering? I choose that suffering, or I don't choose that suffering, right? So if you look at it as the experience that you're saying that we're going through, it gives you the ability to pick up and not be how do I want to call it? If you're advancing, you're always advancing the reality that these are life lessons, and if you look at them as lessons, that's what they can be. And I can learn from them, and I can grow from them. So you talk about building, you know, sustainable business, and that many agents struggle to transition from what you call short term wins to long term sustainability. What are the key elements of building a business that really lasts in your estimation? Okay,

Steve Shull
most agents, all they're doing is what I call chasing a deal. They're their their focus is on where's the next deal coming from? As if you know that's going to change their life. And when you have that short term focus, when all you're thinking about is where's my next paycheck coming from, you know that's a very slippery slope that leads to nowhere. And again, going back to this idea we're not in control of the outcome, what we do control is what we do every day. And there's a process to building a business, and over 32 years, I've reduced it down to six core building blocks, as I mentioned earlier, one being practicing mindfulness. Two, optimizing time. Three, cultivating relationship. Four, implementing standards. Five, mastering communication and six, acting strategically so the coaching we do with agents is on these six core building blocks, because if you do these six things right and you do them consistently, then success will be a byproduct, and we're not in control of that. All we control again, is what we do every day, and so what we're coaching agents on is the process, not the outcome.

Greg Voisen
And it's a great way for people to be coached is to find a process, because I think everybody looks for a a plan, a standard way of operating that is optimal and produces the results that they're looking for. And the key is, produces the results, but the key is, if it doesn't produce the result that you believe enough in it to continue to use the same plan to move forward, right? So, you know, this world of ours, especially in real estate and any other sales role in this world, has really morphed quite a bit. The old days, as we've known them, are no longer and so I have a question for you, and kind of wrapping up this interview, you know, real estate, whether it's it's residential or commercial, is still being sold by agents for the most part. Yet, we are seeing these hybrid situations that are forming out there. What do you see happening in trends in the future, and that are shaping the real estate. And what do you think agents today, if they come to your workshop and learn from you, should apply and think about because, you know, it's really about Steve putting the dots together. Where is this going? And how am I ahead of the curve? And I think that most agents today probably want to be ahead of the curve, not behind it.

Steve Shull
Yeah, real estate is interesting in many ways. If I look back to when I started in 1991 not a lot has changed. It changed in this business now, technology has changed. How we get information has changed. However, the business hasn't really changed at all. And you know, there's been one company after another trying to get into real estate and provide a different cost structure that you know, the discount model has been around forever, and the only company that has survived this, from a discount point of view, is Redfin, and I don't think Redfin would be considered a major player in the market. And the problem with the discount model is that people underestimate the cost of what it takes to run a real estate business. And you know, the companies have to earn a certain amount of money to be viable, and the agents have to earn a certain amount of money to be viable. And if you're trying to keep reducing the splits down and down and down, you know, when it comes to buying a home, you know you're not going to buy it online. You know, I homes. You know this idea that the home will sell itself. I haven't seen that happen in 32 years and

Greg Voisen
well, and what I mean by this is the amount of investment a real estate broker must make doesn't matter which organization they're with to promote the property, right? Whether it's on social media, whether it's videos, whether it's the the flyers that they put out when people come through the open houses, sitting on the open houses, all of those things add to the cost of doing business and and they can be quite expensive, especially if you're going to hire a professional person to have a drone go over the property. And you know, have it, have put a little cool video together to do that, but that's really kind of the choice of the agent, and they have to choose, Hey, is it worth that investment to sell this property? Am I going to do that right? And those are the changes that I think. Those are just some of the changes that every broker needs to understand and needs to get a board with, because, hey, we are in a era where people are looking at Instagram, they're looking at Facebook, they're looking at places where they want to see possibly the listing for that property or something else they've sold. Yeah, yeah.

Steve Shull
It's, you know, when anyone looks at a real estate agent and it's not their fault, they think every agent is overpaid. You know, everyone thinks they could do the job of their agent. They either just don't have the time or the inclination. There's no way for a buyer or a seller to truly understand what a real estate agent does. It's way more complex than it than it looks from the outside looking in, and because, you know, everyone thinks they could do it and do it better than their agent, they're always reaching in to their agent's pocket like as if they're entitled to part of that fee. And again, there's a cost structure to the business. If I'm not getting paid a certain amount, I'm just working for free, where I'm actually losing money. And this is why, you know, I take such a hard line about agents getting a full fee, because that's what it takes to thrive in this business, you've got to be able to make a profit. And so the job, again, everyone thinks it's a lot more simple than it is. And the business of real estate is not complicated. The deals are, the deals are, and they're only getting more and more complicated with more and more rules and laws and regulations and everything. And, you know, realtors got to be part lawyer, part therapist, part salesperson, landscaper, architect, stager, you know, handyman, you name it. There's there's a lot more to it than people truly understand.

Greg Voisen
Well, the full fee agent is a great book. You want to hold that up again. I think this will give our listeners an opportunity. We'll put a link also to the December 3 event. This particular book would be the one that you'd want to get. And Steve, I want to thank you for being on inside personal growth, sharing some of your insights, your personal history and the philosophy behind performance coaching. Also, for my listeners, just go to performance coaching.com there. You can learn more about Steve his coaching program. You can learn more about this event in LA on December 3. It's been a pleasure having you on Steve and spending a little bit of time with our listeners, speaking about, hey, keep your fees. Keep the full fee. Thanks so much.

Steve Shull
Thank you very much for having me. Greatly appreciate it. Thanks. Bye. Bye.