The Mindset of Success: Discipline, Drive, and Family with Kerry Tanner

[00:00:01] Do you want to succeed in business or real estate? There's not a one-size-fits-all strategy, and the path is never a straight line. Join host Paul Neal, a serial entrepreneur, as he learns from top producing entrepreneurs in business and real estate

[00:00:16] from all backgrounds and experiences about the challenges they are grappling with and solving now. You'll discover that the one thing they all have in common is that they have leveraged their creativity and life skills to build super successful careers in and around business and real estate.

[00:00:32] Here's your chance to get an insider's view on what it really takes to win. Hey, welcome listeners! Today I have the distinct honor and privilege of having and hosting Kerry Tanner on the show.

[00:00:57] She's a real estate agent, seven plus years in the business doing some pretty amazing things in the industry and she's with At Coastal Realty here in Virginia in the Hampton Roads area. Kerry, welcome to the show today. Thank you Paul.

[00:01:12] Yeah, yeah great! So, you know, I like to start off and just kind of find out where someone's coming from. You've made this journey into entrepreneurship and owning your own business as a real estate agent. You certainly are. How did you get into this crazy business?

[00:01:28] So, it's kind of something that was just consistently being put in my ear. Probably for, I don't know, maybe 15 plus years before I actually got into it. I'm originally from California and I was working for a belt manufacturer in Corota, California

[00:01:52] and the warehouse manager had mentioned it to me. She had just got into real estate and she was trying to tell me, you know, you'd make a great real estate agent, you have the great personality, like I'll help you.

[00:02:05] At that point I was in my early 20s and I'm like, I just, I didn't understand it. I had no idea what real estate was, didn't really understand the whole concept behind the structure or anything like that.

[00:02:18] So, I never did anything with that. And then when I moved to Virginia, my mom kept tally-bee like you should be in real estate. You should do real estate. You should do real estate. And I've worked for difference for a lot of smaller companies practically running the companies.

[00:02:36] I have a degree in marketing and so, you know, it was always marketing business manager, president of sales, just always dealing with sales and marketing and just running companies.

[00:02:51] And I had said to myself, well, you know what, if I can work this hard for myself and, you know, be able to control the amount of money that I make then I could be successful and I won't have to live paycheck to paycheck.

[00:03:08] And the other thing that really, I guess, lit my light about real estate was the fact that I'm able to help people.

[00:03:18] Like I absolutely love helping people. One of my dreams when I was younger, I always loved and admired Princess Diana and all the work that she did.

[00:03:30] And so for me, I'm like, I always want to give back no matter how big or how small and I want to help people and I love educating people.

[00:03:40] So being able to, you know, do something that I'm that I enjoy where I can help people and help them, you know, establish the American dream is kind of what, you know, lit the fire for me

[00:03:57] and just being able to control my, my time. Family is a big thing for me so I'm a mom, a single mom of three boys.

[00:04:09] And when I first got into real estate or before I got into real estate, you know, it was really hard with my older son having to ask permission to, you know, go to his games

[00:04:21] and he was sick, you know, feeling bad about missing work or, you know, just sort of getting in trouble for being a mom. Right.

[00:04:31] So all of that kind of was intriguing that I'd be able to get rid of all those objections and still be able to do something that made me happy. And that was kind of like what really made pushed me to get into real estate.

[00:04:49] Wow. Okay, this that's that's very interesting. There's a lot. There's a lot that resonates there. A couple of things. First of all, good old mom, right? You know, they know us, right?

[00:04:59] It's good, good, good that mom was there talking into your ear. But you know, the thing that I hear a lot and the thing that's always driven me, I've had seven businesses in my career.

[00:05:09] And it's this freedom and control thing. It's like, it's not that and I can probably put words in your mouth with your sons and you wanted to be at all these different events and everything.

[00:05:20] And you've got this job, but yet you're a person of excellence, right? So you're trying to do the best job you can do. You're running the sales department or running the company or doing whatever.

[00:05:29] But yet you've got this obligation and you're, it's your blood, it's your children. You want to be there. It's like, I wanted to be at every swim event my daughter did, you know?

[00:05:37] And, you know, because time goes very fast and you only get one shot at it, right? So, but this freedom and control thing is what I found the most successful entrepreneurs is what really drives them.

[00:05:50] But you've been able to, you've been able to channel this into a successful career. So I know a lot of people, everybody wants freedom, right? Right.

[00:06:00] But not everybody realizes there's responsibility on the other side of taking action and discipline and focus. And talk a little about that, I mean, because, you know, going from that position of running companies and being successful in sales and marketing all that and then making the leap over to real estate,

[00:06:20] nobody's given you a paycheck, right? I mean, you're, you've got responsibility, you know, you got to pay the lights and, you know, and feed the kids and all this. What was that like?

[00:06:30] So in the beginning, it was difficult. It was tough, but I've always been a very driven person and very disciplined. And I think no matter what business you have, if you're an entrepreneur, like those are the two main keys that you have to have.

[00:06:48] Like you have to be disciplined. You have to be driven. And you have to have like the desire to just keep going. So for me, my why is my kids?

[00:07:00] Like I want to be able to not only provide for them, but be there for them. And so I know that I had to do all the legwork, everything that it that I needed to do to make sure that I am able to be there for them.

[00:07:15] That I do have the finances so that we could enjoy life because that's a big thing for me. Like I, you know, I have this, this board in my office that says, don't dream your life, live your dreams.

[00:07:29] And so it's, it's like, that's one of the things that I look at every single day. And so I know that I have to treat this even though I am an entrepreneur.

[00:07:39] I still treat this like a regular job. I'm in the office working, you know, more than Monday through Friday, but typically, you know, Monday through Friday answering emails prospecting, you know, doing marketing, making sure I'm following up with clients.

[00:07:55] I'm really big on education. So, you know, education and communication are my key things. So I make sure I educate and communicate so that they know what's happening.

[00:08:05] What's going on in the market. So I think just treating it like a real job, you know, I don't have someone looking over my shoulder telling me to clock in at 9 o'clock and clock out at 5, but I know that if I don't put those hours in, then I'm not going to have food to put on the money to put food on.

[00:08:25] I'm going to be on the table, you know, next month. Wow. Yeah. No, that's, that's amazing. It's funny. You're talking in alliterations, right? Driven discipline and desire. I mean, these things that, that you have and you're exercising is all driven by this why.

[00:08:41] Did you ever read the book? I think it was Simon Sinek wrote the book. Start with why. Have you read that? No.

[00:08:49] That's actually a really, really fabulous book and he talks about, you know, basically what you're living. If you know the why, then the how will work out. You'll figure everything else that along the way, right?

[00:09:03] Something has to drive you and that's what I find with a lot of people if you don't, if you're not clear. And that's been one of my focuses lately too to kind of redouble my own why. It's like, what is the next step?

[00:09:13] You know, what's driving me on to do those things and but you're treating it. You're like, okay, this might be an opportunity now where I'm flexible. I've got, you know, control of my schedule for good or for bad, but you're treating it like a real business.

[00:09:30] You're treating it like a job. You're showing up every day. You're doing what it takes. What are some of those? What are two or three key things that you're doing right now that help you stay productive?

[00:09:41] So we've been through a kind of a crazy market. We've transitioned out of, you know, this COVID sort of free for all into more of a normal market, right? What are you doing now?

[00:09:52] So one thing that I consistently do is I keep in contact with all of my clients from my very first transaction up to my very last transaction. Like I make it a point to constantly stay in front of my client, sending out cards, you know, I'm friends with all of my clients on Facebook so I can see their

[00:10:16] accomplishments and what's going on in their lives and just truly caring for people is one of the things that, you know, that I do. My broker, when I first started in real estate, I was with a different brokerage.

[00:10:30] I've been with At Coastal now for a little over six years and when I first started, my broker told me if you put people first, the money will come. And I think that was like the greatest advice I've ever received because that's how I run my business and it has proven to work.

[00:10:52] You know, I truly care about people. I care about, you know, their goals, their dreams and what it will take for them to accomplish that and I try to help them put a plan into place.

[00:11:04] I run my business like I'm very laid back and my broker always tells me that like I'm the best listener that he's ever met because I truly listen to people and I hear what they're saying and I understand what they need.

[00:11:22] And I try to, you know, help them accomplish that. So staying in contact with my clients and building not just making it a transactual relationship like I truly become friends with my clients. You know, they're, they know at any given time they could call me and ask me a question,

[00:11:42] not even about real estate, about whatever it is. You know, I have a client that I sold a house to five years ago that till this day she'll still call me and ask me, hey, do you know a good vet in the area or, you know, where can I get this? Do you know something that's going on or, you know, different things like my daughter's coming to town.

[00:12:03] We're good places that we can go to eat. You know, so things like that. Like it makes me happy because I know that I've accomplished my goal of creating that friendship and not making this a transactional relationship.

[00:12:17] So that's one of the things that I do. And the other thing that I do is I do a lot of videos, educational videos. So just getting myself out there.

[00:12:28] I have a coach and her philosophy is serve, don't sell. So that's kind of what I'm doing. I'm serving. I'm providing information, helping people understand the whole real estate process, understand marketing.

[00:12:42] Every month I do a video with a market update talking about what's going on in the market, you know, what's really happening in the market, not what the media is saying and providing numbers and just giving my professional opinion on how I think things are going in the market.

[00:13:00] Do you find that from the videos that you're doing, which I think that's fabulous, the way you're using the modern technology and whatnot. Do you get a lot of clients from out of the area that are sort of engaging with that and moving in?

[00:13:12] Are they locally based typically or where do they come from?

[00:13:15] So it's a mixture of both. I've really been focusing on video probably for about three or four months now. And over that timeframe, I've had two clients that specifically told me they decided to give me a call because they're doing research on different, you know, agents in the area on Google and then they start doing their own research trying to look at, you know, Facebook and they've seen my YouTube page.

[00:13:45] And they really liked the videos and the information that I was putting out. So they decided to call me from that. I run ads behind some of my educational videos just to get it out there in front of a lot of people.

[00:13:57] And I'm hearing positive feedback, you know, from that like, oh great video. Thank you for the information. And, you know, people telling me I'm seeing you everywhere. Like you're doing a great job, you know, so that's some really good feedback because before

[00:14:15] probably about a year ago, I was like literally deathly afraid to do videos. So afraid of getting in front of the camera and not knowing what to say, being afraid of being judged, you know, all those different things but

[00:14:27] I've learned that, you know, I have to be that I am perfectly imperfect and somebody out there needs to hear the message that I have to give. So get over myself, you know, it's not that serious and just get out there and serve.

[00:14:45] Oh, that's awesome. You know, you took this, you know, gosh, what a mark of an entrepreneur. It's right. It's not that you everyone has the fears, right? Everyone has the resistance. Everyone has the little, the little devil on their shoulder telling them you can't do it or whatever.

[00:15:00] But but the entrepreneur, the successful entrepreneur just steps into it anyway, right. And now three, four months downstream, I'll tell you have a very good presence on video. You're very calm, relaxed, got a great smile.

[00:15:12] So there's no reason why you should have ever thought that, you know. But I know how we work right because I've dealt with the same same things myself as an encouragement. I have I have a friend who's in real estate and he drives all of his business in new

[00:15:32] business and from video and that any I think last year he had 60 plus transactions. They were all people coming in from out of the area. They they they resonated with this content, they resonate with his personality and he's kind of an edgy personality.

[00:15:47] So everyone's different, right? Right. That you know, his his clients probably won't resonate with you but your clients probably won't resonate with him and it works out for you know at the end of the day.

[00:15:58] There's plenty of business out there, plenty of people to serve. So that's that's fantastic. Okay, so serve don't sell. You mentioned that you have a coach. Tell me about that experience. What is your coach? What is the biggest thing your coach has helped you to do differently or to realize differently than sort of you were doing before that experience with the coach?

[00:16:22] So I think the biggest thing that learned from my coach and that she focuses a lot on is mindset. Like if you don't have the correct mindset, then you're not good for anyone, you know, for your business for your family for yourself.

[00:16:37] So just really focusing on mindset and just being positive. She gives us these bracelets and here's one and I wear it every single day. I just took it off because I was getting nervous.

[00:16:50] I'm not going to lose my hand a lot. But it's called stop, snatch and switch. So the philosophy behind it is whenever you have a negative thought in your mind, you're supposed to stop, snatch the bracelet, switch the bracelet and in that you're also switching your mindset.

[00:17:08] So switching your output on whatever that situation is, you know, for example, if you are, you know, having this like, like I was having a really difficult time with video and saying, oh, you know, my hair is not right today or I don't like the way I sound or the way I look or, you know, it's like, you know, stop, stop that mindset and just think about what what it is that you're trying to accomplish.

[00:17:35] You're trying to provide information. So get out of your head and just do what you need to do. Done is better than perfect. So that, you know, that's the other philosophy that she strives by is done is better than perfect.

[00:17:49] So just go ahead and do it. And the more and more you do it, the more comfortable you'll get and the better you'll get. And that's like with everything. Look at athletes, right?

[00:17:59] The Tom Brady wasn't Tom Brady before he started practicing and, you know, throwing the ball and doing different things. So, you know, it's like with everything, the more and more you do it, the more comfortable you'll get, the better you'll get at it.

[00:18:12] So mindset was like the huge, the huge thing. And then I also like her philosophy of serve not sell because that's kind of who I am. I'm not, I'm not the agent. Like I get severe anxiety about having to call vis-vose and expires and, you know, doing this cold calling like that's not me.

[00:18:31] That's not my personality. Like I want to help those people that are raising their hand saying, hey, I need your help, you know, and that's the way I operate in my business. I don't want to be like that salesperson. You know, I'm really here to help people.

[00:18:47] And so that's been another thing that's been really helpful and beneficial for me in my coaching.

[00:18:54] Well, that's yeah. I mean, I think I hear that a lot mindset and I totally agree in this positioning in your in your own head right of I'm here to help these people. I'm not trying to, I'm not going to the end of the day.

[00:19:05] People aren't going to, you're not going to make someone buy something that they don't want or need, right? Right. You're just going to help guide them and you've said it two or three times or maybe more through our conversation already about education.

[00:19:18] And I know you shared offline that a lot of your clients come to you in the beginning as first time home buyers and what a, what a thing but even not the first time home buyers even, you know, I haven't bought a home in 20 years right so some people don't move that frequently.

[00:19:32] Things change market changes. You go to a different area. The area, you know, I may know a lot about real estate but I may know nothing about this area.

[00:19:41] So you are really providing a service and can you recall like carry it maybe an example of one of those aha moments for your clients that, you know, they did their Googling and they thought they had everything figured out and then and then once you had a chance to really start build that

[00:19:59] relationship and expose sort of the truth to them. It kind of changed the trajectory of the transaction.

[00:20:07] Yeah, so I actually do and there's one of my clients she actually mentioned that in one of the reviews that she left me and she started out coming when we initially met she wanted to.

[00:20:22] She was looking for her forever home, you know, she wanted to buy her forever home and after going through the numbers and just talking about what her goal was what her plan was.

[00:20:33] She ended up purchasing a duplex and she was able to live in one side and rent out the other. And this was probably maybe four or five years ago.

[00:20:46] And since then I've done three separate transactions with her where I did help her now buy her forever home. She has, you know, an investment property that she only had to put 3.5% down because that was her primary residence and then she turned her primary

[00:21:04] residence into an investment property and now she has her forever home. And she also had bought another property that she was using as an Airbnb and I helped, you know, helped her sell that.

[00:21:17] So that relationship is one that started where she thought, you know, she knew what she wanted but after talking to me and I really pull out when I sit down and meet with my clients like I really want to know what is your plan.

[00:21:31] Are you looking for a forever home? Are you interested in investing? And I explained that whole process with them about, you know, make your first purchase your investment property. It's a lot easier to turn your primary residence into an investment property than put 25% down on another

[00:21:49] property and make that your investment property. So I really try to understand my clients where they're at now, what their goals are, what they want to do in the future and figure out a way how we can make it work with what their current needs are.

[00:22:05] Oh, that's great. And that's a really good point too that you make that so many people, you know, want to get into building wealth through real estate and particularly if you haven't bought any real estate yet, what a great way to do it if you're early in and you're like, okay, this is my stepping stone, my next property to my next property.

[00:22:26] Like you said, there's a whole lot less cash out of your pocket to make that happen if you're buying it to legitimately live in for at least a year. I mean, it has to be legit but versus buying the investment property and then as things start to steam roll and as your portfolio grows then you have more options.

[00:22:44] And yeah, that's an exciting thing. Tell me this, what do you think the biggest challenge right now is that you see in the market or that you are personally facing in the market?

[00:22:57] So I think the biggest challenge is like a lot of people have a negative view about agents and you know, their biggest concern is especially with sellers. I hear it a lot is I never heard back from my agent after they listed my house right.

[00:23:19] So a lot of people have this misconception that agents are lazy and they don't communicate and they don't work hard. So, you know, trying to get them to understand that not every agent is like that and there's a lot of us out here that truly care about people and are trying to do what's best for them and help them and educate them and communicate with them.

[00:23:49] And I think that's one of the hardest struggles right now is just getting people to understand the worth of a good real estate agent and then building that trust like, you know, reestablishing that trust with them.

[00:24:03] That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I get it. And I think too it seems like a lot of times people think we're in a, we're in this age where you can Google everything right and YouTube everything and you feel like you have all the answers and you know from WebMD to the legal websites to you know God forbid fix your own car kind of stuff right that's out there.

[00:24:26] And some of it is helpful but you know there I've learned and I'm sure you would agree that there's a big difference between this knowledge, you know, or information I guess is probably a better word and and wisdom how to apply it how it applies in a specific situation and and that sort of thing.

[00:24:44] And I think, I think when you engage, you know, hey, I want to save a few bucks and list my own home. If you really know what's involved in that process.

[00:24:53] Then most people would gladly hire an agent who is educated professional who can negotiate because the things that you do too right you're negotiating with with the other party the other real estate agent there's you're not as emotionally drawn into the transaction.

[00:25:09] So you can be more logical and systematic and deliberate about your negotiation and you can really at the end of the day help create a win-win situation for everyone whereas, you know when people are buying a house or selling house it's it's an emotional period right I mean they got something going on in their life there's a reason for it.

[00:25:28] And it's hard to think clearly in that state. The other thing that I found that's you know that's difficult right now especially with you know interest rates going up is that people people are looking at like the past two years as the norm and I have to try to help to get them to see like you have to completely forget about the last two years like that does that did not exist that was out of the

[00:25:55] the norm out of the record you know and so just getting them to understand that we are still in a great time it's still a great time to buy interest rates are still low and if you take out the last two years.

[00:26:09] You'll still see that we are at that steady incline where we should be with interest rates you know where they were pre COVID and you know if you look at where interest rates were in the 90s or even before then they were significantly significantly higher than what they are now and so it

[00:26:29] still is a good time to buy and then rental rates like you know rental rates are just ridiculous and people don't understand yeah you may be paying $1500 a month but how much money are you throwing away after a year like you know the people that in the summer of last year when interest rates

[00:26:50] started going up to 34% they're like oh no we're gonna wait they're kicking themselves in the butt right now like oh no we shouldn't have waited we should have bought.

[00:26:58] I know it's crazy and you're right when you look over the last 30-40 years even where we are today I mean we're back down in the fives and high fives it's gonna float back down to probably low fives in the next couple of months so but not much lower than that we're not going to 2 and 3% like we were before not 4% so yeah

[00:27:17] yeah but you're right it takes a little while for that mindset to shift have you sensed any of that with your clients are they starting to realize okay maybe you know we're sort of not gonna see that anymore.

[00:27:28] Yeah so we are seeing it especially in our area we are definitely seeing the market take I'm a part of the you know the Hampton Roads mastermind group where it's just all the real estate agents in the Hampton Roads area where we just have a community to express what we're seeing you know express

[00:27:47] our concerns ask questions and it's a great community of agents who I can say I'm truly truly blessed and grateful to be a part of because I mean in that mastermind group there's people that truly help each other you know they're they're giving you opinion and advice and different things like that but we are seeing

[00:28:06] like a lot of agents saying okay it's kind of feeling like spring of 2022 again where it's not crazy like it was in 2021 where there's 100 offers on a house and $300,000 over asking and you know all those craziness but we still are starting to see multiple

[00:28:25] offers we're seeing where sometimes buyers are having to pay their own closing costs and offering a little bit above asking not not crazy crazy prices we're not really seeing the appraisal guarantees or waving home inspections but it is starting to pick up and it is getting a little more competitive so what I'm trying to push my buyers is to buy now because come spring there's

[00:28:51] no telling what's going to happen and if interest rates drop a little then I think that's going to start that craze again and everyone's going to feel that need to go out and buy now so I'm telling people like look if you're if you're in the market to buy now is the time it's not that competitive as it will be in the spring or the summer

[00:29:12] no you're 110% right coupled with that in addition is the low inventory levels that we have there's not a lot out there right so oh my gosh yeah we're setting up for another crazy ride I think

[00:29:28] so wow Kerry it's hard to believe it but we're at the end of the time this went fast huh yeah this has been great I can see why you're so successful at real estate you're very passionate about it and the people and just the way you communicate tell everyone if they're in the Hampton

[00:29:49] roads Virginia area or they're coming into the area and they need a great real estate agent that's going to educate them and lead them and really serve them well how do they get up with you

[00:29:58] well they can find me on social media and Kerry Tanner it's KERRY Tanner or my website is www.kerrytannerva.com or they can always call me my number is 757-831-9266

[00:30:18] I'm a full-time agent and a full-time mom so that's my superpower so you know I'm available all the time I'm truly truly dedicated to helping as many people as I can like you said I have a true passion for this and so because of that I dedicate myself to my clients and educating my clients and myself you know so that I can provide the best service

[00:30:46] awesome and you also mentioned a YouTube channel is there a name or handle for that? Kerry Tanner Holmes

[00:30:53] okay on YouTube awesome yes okay Kerry this has been great thanks for being a part of our show today this is wonderful thanks for having me I was a little nervous but yeah like you said it went by really quickly so it was painless wonderful