Take a Month Off Without Losing Momentum

Speaker A: This is on my absolute do not do this list is number one, lying to your clients, saying that you're in town when you're not. Just there's no need to do that if they're prepared from the front end. You've done your best to try to manage that. You can let them know where you're at or that you're not available at that moment in time. There's a way to manage those expectations for most people that are reasonable to figure that out.

Speaker B: Subtle skills. Big results.

Speaker A: Welcome M to the Ninja Selling Podcast.

Speaker B: Hey everyone, it's your good friend Eric Thompson. Welcome to the Ninja Selling Podcast. I'm so looking forward to having everyone meet Sumina Bhati. Welcome to the Ninja Selling Podcast.

Speaker A: Thank you, Eric. I am so excited to be here today.

Speaker B: Everyone should know right up front what we're going to talk about is how to vacation like a ninja. And specifically we're going to talk about how to take an intentional, relaxing, recharging vacation while your business is still thriving. And there's a lot of do's and don'ts around this. And Samina, you have mastered this. You've turned it into a process. You have practiced this yourself. This is working for you. And you are gracious enough today to share your formula on what works. This is, this is a relevant topic, especially this time of year. So, Samina, thank you again. Why don't we start with just letting everyone know a little bit more about you, just to get to know you a little bit.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: So why don't you share where you live and also the company that you're with?

Speaker A: Yeah, I would say I'm a longtime listener, first time caller with ninja. I am, um, based out of Austin, Texas. I've been a agent out here for almost 20 years. This is year 19 for me. Lived out here for about 26 years. I am currently with Compassion Realty. Austin Compass is who I'm officially with, with my brokerage, who I've been with for about 13 years or so. And I got tuned into Ninja, probably coming right up on 10 years ago. I think it was 2016 when I attended my first installation with Terry Johnson here in Austin.

Speaker B: Fantastic. And you recently completed yet another installation. And so that was how many installations for you?

Speaker A: I believe that was seven. I was counting back and looking. I think it's seven. And I jokingly say I'm, I'm a slow learner. It just takes me time to incorporate the things I'm learning into my business. But it's how I've done It. And I always return back to NINJA whenever I'm feeling a little untethered. It's like the thing that anchors me right back into my business and right back into my purpose. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. And you figured out how to apply this to. To vacationing and taking some long vacations, and that's what you're going to share today?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Also worth noting that you're part of NINJA coaching.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You work with coach Steve, Steve Mangelson. So shout out to Coach Steve.

Speaker A: Yes. He's fantastic.

Speaker B: Yeah, he is fantastic. Okay, so let's just to warm up this conversation about how to vacation like a ninja, share. How many trips, how many vacations, how much travel have you applied this formul formula to that we're about to hear?

Speaker A: So I've always enjoyed travel. Most of my travel was what I consider a normal length of time. If you're going to Europe or something, you know, seven, ten days, something like that. And I started becoming more interested in taking longer trips, being able to be at a place for a month or two or three, which seems kind of impossible with real estate. And I had done smaller trips, smaller length of trips before the pandemic, but it started to feel more possible. Moving through the pandemic, just, I think the introduction of ZOOM meetings and things that infiltrate our business a little bit as well, and really utilizing the NINJA skills to say, what is my enough? I don't need it all. I just need enough. What is that? And then the same NINJA principles. I'm preparing my clients, I'm preparing the people who are helping me when I'm gone, and I'm preparing myself because I need to determine from the front end whether I want this trip to be one that I'm working on a little bit. Not at all. All the time. What is the trip gonna be for me?

Speaker B: You found that there's kind of an ideal length of time that this formula works for. This formula that we're about to hear. And maybe a better way to say that is there's a certain amount of time, like. Like up to. Up to a certain amount of time that this is really going to work effectively.

Speaker A: Yes. For.

Speaker B: And so what for you. What, uh, is that, Samina?

Speaker A: So the longest amount of time that I did was three months. I went to New Orleans for three months in February, March, and April of 2022, which was a very active market here in Austin. It was one of the most active times that we've had over here. And it was an experiment that first time for three months was an experiment. I didn't know how it was going to work. So I picked a city that was, uh, no time difference, same time zone. And in the back of my mind I thought, well, if this experiment fails, I can take a one hour flight back to Austin and everything's going to be fine. So that was my kind of backup plan if things went sideways with it. I did three months and that to me felt a little bit too long. I started to feel a little bit too disconnected from the city, from my clients, from what was happening here on the ground. I found that about a month is the right amount of time to really stay still engaged with your clients. And this is assuming that you are still maybe doing a little bit of work, you're working remotely while you're there. So I was still doing my outreach to, ah, clients by phone. I was still doing video messages to my clients, things like that while I was gone. But the three month mark started to feel a little bit more like I noticed people asking me more like, where did you go? Or we haven't seen you in a while. But, but with a month, I mean, I don't even think a lot of clients even knew I was gone unless we were actively working in a transaction together.

Speaker B: Got it. So this is going to work really well for up to a month. If you're going to go more than a month, then it's really something else. Maybe that's a different podcast that we'll do. So a, uh, lot of NINJA is listening.

Speaker A: Or two or three weeks is so doable.

Speaker B: Very doable, yeah, two or three weeks. And gosh, we want ninjas to be doing that. NINJA is about increasing your income per hour so that you can have a life. Part of having a life is traveling to wonderful places, maybe far away, maybe just an hour away, like you said. And so we want that for you. And so for that really classic trip of a week, maybe up to two weeks, that this is going to work great.

Speaker A: And I would say that I find that there's more and more reasons that people are needing to travel for longer periods of time. It's vacation is one thing, but maybe you're taking care of an elder parent who's going through surgery or some difficult medical procedure. And being up there for a month would be really, really helpful. And so I find that as all of our parents are aging, I hear this conversation happening a lot more among my peers, which is like, man, you know, my parents live in this other state. How do I manage this? I'm um, like, we can do it let me help you figure out the plan because it's so possible to do it and just normalizing, taking a sabbatical, learning from our, you know, European coworkers over there who take six week trips pretty regularly and say, we can do this.

Speaker B: You said, you know what? If a brain surgeon can take a vacation, we can take a vacation.

Speaker A: So true.

Speaker B: So it's so true. Samina, we know there's some things that even though they don't work, we see them a lot. I know you and I are on the same page about the, like these common habits that are not so effective when it comes to a real estate agent trying to take a vacation.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: So what comes up for you? Some things that don't work.

Speaker A: Yeah. This is on my absolute do not do this list is number one, lying to your clients, saying that you're in town when you're not. Just there's no need to do that if they're prepared from the front end. Uh, you've done your best to try to manage that. You can let them know where you're at or that you're not available at that moment in time. There's a way to manage those expectations for most people that are reasonable to figure that out. So I think that's very critical. The other component is if you have the ability to prepare right. You don't always have the ability to do that. If you're family member takes ill tomorrow and you've got to go, maybe the Runway for preparation isn't there. But if you know you're taking a trip in four months, you have a Runway to be able to prepare properly and that is going to save you, your clients, your agents are helping you out so much headache. So that's another thing to do is to prepare. And it's also balancing out if it's not necessary to overshare. Like for example, if you're working with a seller, you might be gone when the home is listed. If they don't need to know that it's a balance between oversharing and it's not really relevant to what's happening in their transaction. They know their needs will be taken care of and you're sharing that with them. That's what's important.

Speaker B: They want to know a plan.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And they are going to be fine with you being gone. Any professional takes a vacation, but they just want to know a plan.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so you and I see, and I'm sure people listening see the don't do habits of like trying to keep it secret and not telling anyone and trying to hide the fact and try to pretend that you're not gone. And it's hard on you. It's hard on the client. It's hard on your loved ones, too. It's hard on your loved ones that you're traveling with.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because you're just acting kind of weird about it. You're feeling guilty. And, um.

Speaker A: And in this day and age of social media, what are you going to do? Like, tell everybody not to post on social media, put photos up of the trip? It's harder and harder to manage those things. And so don't do that.

Speaker B: Yeah, don't do that. But instead have intention. It's all about having intention. And so you found that there's a really effective first question to ask yourself when you are preparing for this trip, when you're about to go on a trip of five days or a month. And, uh, what is that important? First question?

Speaker A: What kind of trip are you going on? Are you going on a trip where you are going to be working some of the time, all the time, or not at all? Those are really going to dictate how you're going to form the rest of this experience. For myself, like, I have gone on trips where I have been completely off the grid, whether that's camping in the Sierras for seven days or on a meditation retreat. No technology, no phone. Like, it's not working. My phone simply doesn't work in the Sierras, which was great. That's part of the reason I went there. But what is your backup plan for how you're going to manage emails, phone calls, the active listings you have, the active buyers you have? So that's the first part of the question to answer. What kind of a trip is this for me? Because then I can help manage it for my clients. And what do clients want? Ninja tells us what clients want. What are buyers biggest fears and sellers biggest fears?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: They want to make sure their needs are that we have care and concern for their needs or someone here to be able to negotiate for them, et cetera. And so if I drill back to that, like, if my clients feel taken care of and I can help them manage that, everything's fine.

Speaker B: That first question is about being clear on how connected do I want to be? How connected can I be?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Is it going to be? And it gets some time frames around that. So is it an hour a day? Is it two hours a day? Is it no hours a day? So just get really clear about that first, because the answer to that question really influences A lot of other pieces to this.

Speaker A: Uh, a lot of other pieces to it. If you're, for example, traveling to take care of a loved one with medical needs, you might be working, you might be able to work three or four hours a day on your business in between medical appointments and the other things. So for you, it might be a very much a working trip. And so knowing that, like, I'm completely on email by phone, available for three or four hours every day, I'm basically running my business just in a different location is a very different strategy than I'm off the grid completely for 5 days or 10 days or however long. Yeah.

Speaker B: To end. To end. Putting the, the off the grid scenario aside, we find that most agents are not clear and not intentional about that. So if we were to ask them, so how connected will you be on your trip? They'll say, well, I don't know, I'd probably be on my phone a little bit and check my email here and there. And so this is a matter of getting really clear, really specific on, uh, no, no, how, how many hours? When will that be?

Speaker A: And in my experience, your loved one

Speaker B: is on board with that.

Speaker A: Uh, in my experience teaching this class, when I asked the class this question, some of them said, I'm terrified of even putting my laptop off, like turning it off or putting it away. And I was like, see, that's a different problem. But like, understanding that you're going, that's part of why you're taking this trip, is so that you're not tethered to it can be very helpful from the beginning.

Speaker B: Right. Okay, so takeaway number one. Step one is to be clear about how connected you're going to be during this trip. Make sure that's realistic. Make sure the logistics of that work. And so then what's the next question? And I think you share this with me, and I think this is really interesting way to think about your trip. What's a good next question to ask?

Speaker A: What are you going to be doing when you're gone?

Speaker B: Yeah, in terms of real estate.

Speaker A: Yeah, in terms of real estate. So if it's more of a working trip or you're, you're not, it's not a vacation or it's not a sabbatical and you're kind of okay, working a little bit, maybe getting to know agents in the other city that you're traveling to is a, is a great way to build some referral partners while you're there. Is, if it's an extended trip, like, highly encourage you to meet the Other ninjas in those cities go to the local boards and take classes, because you will very likely be. If I'm in, for example, if I'm going to like the northeast there, I'm probably the only agent from Austin taking a class in Boston, for example. And so building those referral partners is a great way to work some real estate into what you're doing while you're there.

Speaker B: Yeah, perfect. So it's thinking about, okay, how do I want real estate to be a part of this trip, if at all? Yeah, either. On the research side, I want to go visit some real estate offices, I want to go tour some listings, go to open houses, learn about the market. Maybe it's on the relationship side. Maybe I already have referral partners in this market, or maybe I want to have and I'm going to proactively reach out. I mean, you may or may not view this now as a work trip, but, uh, the question is, would you like to incorporate some real estate work, some real estate reconnaissance, research, things like that into the trip?

Speaker A: I mean, we all like to look at houses in different places when we're visiting cities. And so I think it's a great way to meet the local agents and just kind of get a vibe for what's happening in their market, what's going on, where they are, and touring some open houses and stuff also.

Speaker B: Yeah, perfect. Okay. So, Samina, when it comes to telling your clients and also your peers, telling people who are going to help you out, telling you're a broker, what have you found to really work? Like, what do you say to those people? Your trip?

Speaker A: Yep. So here's the portion that's building. You're building your Runway for when you're going. Right. You know, your trip, let's say, is in October. We're sitting here in June. If the Runway's long, I don't know what business is going to be happening at that point in time. Right. But what I'll do for Austin, it's a mid sized city. So for my size of city, what I try to do is identify an agent who's going to be servicing the north part of the city, an agent in the south part, in the the east part, and then one for central. Because it's just a long distance for someone way in the north suburbs to be going all the way south. I try to find agents who have a similar work style to me because that's what my clients are familiar with. I make sure that those agents have availability. Like, hey, I'm traveling from October 1st through 20th, are you actually available in here to help me and be my backup? So identifying those agents, this is also such a great time to utilize newer, uh, agents or junior agents who are just getting their business up, getting their traction going. Have them shadow you, have them go with you to showings, teach them some of the ninja ways about the questions you ask to buyers and say, when you are showing my buyers, when I'm gone, here's the expectation I have of you, of what you report back to me after those showings. That's how I'm building the Runway, to make sure that the experience for my client is going to stay as consistent as possible when they're working with the backup agent.

Speaker B: So this starts with. Even before we're talking to our clients, you are building your team.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And strategically.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And another thing you shared as we were preparing Karen for the podcast that I love, you said that a lot of people believe they can only execute something like this if they have a team, and they believe that if they're a solo agent, they just can't pull this off. But your response to that is, you know what? All you're doing is you're building a team that you're building a temporary team while you're, uh, gone.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So you can do it solo, but you're going to build a temporary team while you're gone.

Speaker A: And really, we all do have those temporary teams. Right. If you're using transaction coordination, if you're using some of these auxiliary services as a solo agent, that is your team. Right. Your transaction coordinator that you might be using a virtual assistant, are those team members for you that are there in this case, you're just being more intentional about those things. And that's where also experimenting. If you're not using transaction coordination, depending how, this goes back to the very first question. How much do you want to be working or not working? If you're actually trying to take some time off, then maybe having transaction coordination is something you are willing to pay for in this time period that you're gone. Right. And running a couple transactions through that transaction coordinator before you go to make sure it's correct expectations. There's a right kind of communication between you and this transaction coordinator is going to save you a lot of grief down the road when things don't go the way that you expect.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so now, now that you. Now let's pretend you have the people in place, the team in place. How do you now talk to your clients about this?

Speaker A: Great question. So let's fast forward Right. It's here in mid June. I know that I'm booking a trip in October. It's going to be a long trip. I've identified the agents. They say they're available. Great. As now I'm getting into, let's say, September. Now, I know that I have active clients who are coming in who probably are going to be actively buyers that are going to be looking in the time that I'm gone. I might even choose to do my buyer consult with them with my backup agent and say, hey, I know you're going to be looking in South Austin. Why don't I invite Ryan, my colleague who's going to be helping out while I'm gone, because I'll be traveling a little bit while you're probably going to be doing your search. Ryan lives in South Austin. She loves South Austin. She knows more about South Austin than I probably do. I think you're going to love working with her. And Ryan will be looped into this from the beginning, too, like, hey, why don't you come sit in on this buyer console so that you understand where these clients are at. And if that doesn't happen, that's okay. As a ninja, I'm very systematic and process oriented. So I usually have a note about those clients who I've met, what their search criteria and things are, and if they come into the fold after the buyer consult's already happened, the phone call I have with them is just really similar. Like, hey, I'm so excited for your search. I'm going to be gone in the time that you're actively searching. Ryan's going to be a great backup here for you. I'm going to create an email introduction and she is filled in on your entire search and where everything is at. So I'm going to talk to Ryan, the backup agent. She's going to get probably a spreadsheet from me that says buyer A. This is their budget. This is their time frame. This is also their disc personality test. If I know it, they are party people. Or she's quieter and he's more involved or whatever it is I know about them. Their dog names are this. Their pet names are their kids names are this. They enjoy communicating by text over phone calls so that that agent feels well equipped to communicate with my clients.

Speaker B: Perfect. And ideally, they're sitting in on the consultation, whether it be a buyer or seller. And the other thing coming up for me as you describe that is you're making this come across to the client as very matter of fact, as nothing to be Concerned about. This is how you do business. This is now a partnership. And never fear, no worries, this other person is going to be able to step right in and take care of you. So I always believe that the client picks up on how we feel about something. And so when you feel clear and confident, they will feel clear and confident.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's clear and confident. It's. What's the ninja saying? We are not Drama amplifiers where the

Speaker B: down regulator stepped down transformers.

Speaker A: What is it? Down transformers? There's nothing. These are skilled agents I'm leaving you with. I would trust them with my mom if she's buying a house. Like, I trust them wholeheartedly, which is why I'm vetting them and I'm giving them your. There's a file, that file is being shared with them. Like it's the same thing with a doctor who you might be working with, who ends up not being able to work with you at some point. Like there's a system for how that gets handed off. It's the exact same thing for us. Right. If a doctor can do it, a surgeon can do it, we can do it.

Speaker B: Right, Right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. One other thing I'll share coming up for me is that, uh, this is another example of the value of a relationship based business. And because we have a relationship with these people, because they're not a stranger, they trust us so that they're going to trust the fact that we found someone to step in while we're on vacation. Whereas if we're accustomed in trying to work with strangers, it's going to be a lot harder to get a stranger on board with that plan, with that program that a stranger would be apt to say, well, you know what, I think we're just going to go find someone else.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Another reason why you want to have a relationship business is so you can travel and do things like this.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's some of the things that one should know when they're trying to do this was that you might lose business. There might be clients who just don't like that idea. And they are. If they can't work with you, they're upset about it or whatever. The very high touch clients, you're going to have some of that. It's being aware that there is a cost to doing this. We're trying to manage that cost as much as possible. Some of the cost is time, it's your preparation. It's also money because you'll be splitting or sharing more of those costs than you would be if you're working everything yourself. But whenever you're doing your assessment of how long you're going for and what you're doing, hopefully the trade off of that is worth what you're doing on this end.

Speaker B: Okay, let's talk about how to have technology help you with this. Walk us through what you found to be helpful when it comes to technology.

Speaker A: This is my jam. So I've even just started playing around with new tools like the AI tools that I've in the past week been fooling around with. But until then using things like a shared Google Doc to keep track of the updates with the clients that shared with the backup agents. And if you have two different agents or three different agents helping you out, sometimes I have a different document for each of those people that's also shared with my manager or broker. I make sure that my manager knows here are my auto office dates, here are all the agents who are helping me and backing me up while I'm gone. Because what the broker doesn't want is they get a sign call from a buyer, that buyer tried to call the agent, then phone numbers is not working, the broker doesn't know where you are. That looks horrible for the brokerage. Right? They don't like that either. So looping your manager in, making sure all those documents and everyone knows where you're at and who your backup is is important. Sharing Google Drive folders and files for listing agreements, all those things. Just share those as you're going along. Hopefully everyone has a system for that. So just make sure those are being shared using your out of office responder. So the technology side is getting a little bit trickier because someone used to be able to just be in my inbox and check my emails and things for me while I'm gone. If I was completely doing an off the grid thing, my voicemail would be set up to say off the grid completely. From this date to this date my backup is so and so please reach out to them and that person would know where to direct them. But making sure you have all these tools set up before you go. So if someone is going to be in your emails nowadays with two factor authentication and everything, make sure they can actually get into your email before you go or that your emails are being forwarded for the time that you're gone and that your autoresponders there are being set up. So these are things that are easy to overlook, I feel like. And then somebody might be contacting you on email and no one's checking the inbox for days and all that stuff can fall through the cracks. Now I think with AI it is really easy to set up a way to auto respond to emails that come in and also have templates created that just say thanks for reaching out to me. I'm out of office from this day to this day. My backups are here. I see that you're searching for these things based on the criteria you sent me. I can set you up on a search based on that. Depending on whether your MLS and things allow that or not. Can be ways to engage with people and help them feel like there's some piece that's still working for them even if you yourself are not the one doing it. And these tools are only going to get better as time goes on.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, we are. Just as a very key is use them, make it easy for the person who's backing you up.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Put yourself in their shoes. Think about all the information they would want access to. And even if you will be on grid, you you want to reduce the amount of interruptions you're having on your vacation. So just be thorough in the front end to help you out to have a better time.

Speaker A: A lot of this is just preparation and this is, some of this also ties into where you're going. So if you're going somewhere like Asia, where the time difference for us is vast, 12 hours, it's uh, quite a big time difference. You might be fine working a couple hours a day while you're there, but perhaps you don't want your clients to get emails from you at uh, 3:00am utilizing tools like the schedule send in Gmail, utilizing some of these like send later text options and things that are out there are great resources to use. If you're just traveling domestically in the U.S. maybe it's less of a concern. But when you're traveling far away, those could be helpful.

Speaker B: Let's talk about money.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And compensating the people that will be backing you up.

Speaker A: Great.

Speaker B: What have you found to be effective and what works when it comes to that?

Speaker A: Yeah. So I'll start off by saying no two transactions are alike. Right. Even if you leave and you're like, oh, the seller's already under contract, you just gotta go to closing and take the closing basket. I can tell you so many times things have happened even in what is supposed to be a simple thing. Right. But I think it's helpful to have some guidelines. So for agents who are going to be showing for me or doing more of the buyer agent side in Austin right now, what feels like a fair fee for opening doors is 40 to 50 per door. So I established at the beginning, here's what I usually pay. If there are three doors on the same street or same neighborhood, maybe we bunch that together, it's a little bit less. For referrals, I Normally pay out 25 or 30%. If you end up taking a client from the very beginning to the end, this is the fee structure that we would work out. Does that work for you? I will often end up paying the agents who are helping me more than what we agreed to because I never want someone to leave working with me and feel like that wasn't fair and they wouldn't want to work with me again. So I always try to think about, if I came to them a year later and said, hey, I'm going on another trip, can you be my backup? Are they going to be like, no? Or they can be like, yeah, great, because I feel like I was fairly compensated. And sometimes, like we've agreed to, maybe, hey, if all you did was show them a couple houses they decided not to buy, I paid you the per door rate. Maybe I pay you a bonus when they close out because you showed them one of the houses they eventually bought. Maybe there's a $500 bonus in there at the end for that agent who did the work at the beginning to help that transaction move forward, Although they were not part of the actual transaction time itself. So every situation to me, like that is different, but having some guidelines and some parameters around it so the expectation is set at the front end can help eliminate a lot of hurt feelings. And I thought I was going to get this. And you're like, well, we should have talked about this at the front end.

Speaker B: Right? What, and what about sellers?

Speaker A: So it depends, right? So if I have a seller give me a situation, give me a scenario,

Speaker B: a seller that's not under contract yet, and there's been a lot of showing activity, and you think it's likely that you'll get offers while you're gone.

Speaker A: Great. And this goes back to the very first question. Are you working a little bit? Not at all.

Speaker B: Uh, I'm working two hours a day, early in the morning. I'm going to be on my email before the rest of the family is awake.

Speaker A: Great. So then you would tell your backup agent, hey, my expectations for you with this listing are that you are following up with the showings and giving that feedback and putting it in the spreadsheet. And then I will follow up with the sellers by phone and fill them in on what's been Happening now. Let's say we get an offer in. Are you going to be looking at that offer part of the time? So let's say you're looking at the offer. Your backup agent is maybe doing a little bit of stuff down there at the back end of it. I don't know, maybe pay them 30%. Feels fair at that point. Yeah, right. Let's say the seller's home is vacant and this backup agent is going to the house every week because you had a storm and there's a leak in the house now and all these things happen. Well, maybe that's more than warranted. More than 30% at that point. Maybe it's 40%. And they did all kinds of things to keep the deal together because a buyer's agent was, you know, had gone awry or whatever happened and they kept that deal. The wheels on the bus on that deal. That to me is going to be worth a lot more and I'm going to be willing to pay that compared to an easier or a smoother transaction. I try to have very open dialogue with the people who are backing me up and sometimes they've given me pushback and said, actually, I think I should get paid more on that because here are all the things that happened that you didn't see. M like, oh, that is a lot. You are right. That amount that we first agreed to doesn't feel fair. This does. How does that feel?

Speaker B: Yeah. So it seems like the. The rules of thumb are think it through as much as you can up front all the different scenarios and talk about what's fair and then agree to communicate around what actually happens. So it's like, it's like you're agreeing that it's probably not going to go exactly like we just scripted out every scenario.

Speaker A: You can think of a lot of scenarios. Right. Here's the more normal scenario. Here's a little more problematic one. But wild stuff happens in our business

Speaker B: only all the time.

Speaker A: Does that happen.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, let's talk about how to reintegrate from a longer trip. Let's say it is three or four weeks. You can have an interesting take on how to do this the right way when you come back.

Speaker A: It's also out of respect for your backup agent and your clients. Your backup agent to some degree has been the trusted source for your. Your clients while you've been out of pocket, to some degree, at least the on the ground person here. So expecting you're going to come back and take all the clients back and kick the other person off the email Text thread or whatever can be kind of rough way to do it. The first thing I'd like to do is get on the phone with the backup agents and say, hey, I'm back. What's your availability? To chat and catch up about where everybody's at in these transactions and again, see what makes sense. If these clients already have this back, the transaction has been rough. They've really developed a lot of trust and rapport with your backup agent. Maybe both of you see that through to the end of closing and you adjust the split accordingly. But for some of them, it's like, hey, I showed your buyer. You know, some houses, nothing really landed. They're still actively looking. You pay them your per door fee and you close that loop and then you move on. But I've made the mistake of being like, hey, I'm back. Great, I'll remove you off all the email threads. And then I'm kind of, you know, the agents have sometimes said, oh man, we had such a great thing going with those clients. And I'm just sort of chatting with them. I'm like, oh, they helped. That agent built me up, helped keep that relationship alive with me and the client and with them and the client. I've learned the hard way sometimes, like, it's important to come back and have those conversations to make sure those loops are being closed in the appropriate way.

Speaker B: And you've also found that hosting an event.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Can be helpful after a longer trip as a way to get some facetime.

Speaker A: So I did that after my three month trip. I did a spring event. When I got back, because I'd been gone, I was feeling more disconnected. I was gone for a while, hadn't been on the ground here doing things. And so we had planned, the week after I came back, I planned to do a client event well in advance of that so that my clients are getting touches about the event, the invitation, the follow up, and things before it happened. And then for those that knew that I was gone, it was a great opportunity to say, oh my God, you were, you know, how was your trip and what did you learn and what happened there? And to talk about that. And there were plenty of people who didn't know anything at all. Right. That were like, oh, where'd you go? What happened?

Speaker B: Yeah, we said at the very beginning that you recently went to your seventh installation. I did. And it was different for you. Kind of a, uh, different and elevated experience. You've had elevated outcomes afterwards. So tell us about that. Because there are lots of people who go to multiple Installations. And sometimes, for whatever reason, that one installation just hits different. Yeah, right. And you're having that experience right now. Tell us about that.

Speaker A: The way that I've described my experience over the years has been like, the very first installation, I went to a Terry Johnson. I saw my business like a fabric. And all I saw now were all the holes where all the business was just falling out of this fabric. Right. Business was being poured in. I had no annual reviews, no birthday card, nothing. And I just thought, oh, my God, it's like drinking water out of a fire hose. And then I thought to myself, like, if I could implement one thing in the next year, that that's all I'm going to focus on. And it was filling, stitching up and filling, patching up a hole in my business, which was simply getting people's birthdays and sending out birthday cards, like one little thing at a time. And then there was a gap to the pandemic. I don't think I came to an installation through there, maybe 20, 21 or so, but I had the slowest year in business I've had last year in 2025 here in Austin, uh, which is a hard place to be after 15, 16, 18 years in this business. And when I looked at all the different ways one can spend their money in real estate, whether that's hiring a social media manager or delving in on AI, I kept coming back to ninja and I'm like, you know what? NINJA for me has always been the anchor, the thing that tethers me back to my business and more. So that really tethers me to my purpose. And so that was the key for me. And it's the first time I came to Fort Collins, which is such a treat to be up there and finally see the facilities and things I'd heard about for so long. And I decided to pick up coaching from there just because I knew after the installation, I think you all just released an update to how you're running now, which I saw on Monday come out with the 12 week ninja 90 attached to it. So I basically did that. I did the installation. I immediately signed up for Ninja 90 because I was just so worried about losing momentum. And I thought, you know what? I am going to sign up for the Ninja 90. So every Monday I can see Steve's face and we can talk about, you know, see all the other ninjas out there, several of whom are coming out of that same installation and kind of keep the momentum going. And then I signed up for coaching with Steve.

Speaker B: Amazing. And you, you Just hit, uh, a really great milestone this year. You just achieved in terms of number of transactions halfway through 2026, what you did in all of 2025. So congratulations. You are clearly working the system. Right. We say the system works when you work the system, and you are working the system.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's been really helpful, even after all these years in the business, to have someone else's eyes on it, to see the gaps that you're not seeing and really saying like, okay, well, I see that you're busy, but then where's all the time that's building that business for the next couple months? And you're like, oh, you're right. That is a big gap I have.

Speaker B: If you were to sum up what we talked about in terms of taking a vacation, vacationing like a ninja, into just a few sentences of recommendation advice to the ninjas who are listening, how would you summarize that?

Speaker A: Number one, it's setting the right pre. Doing the right preparation and setting the right expectations and being comfortable with paying the money that you're going to be doing to pay your backup agents who are going to do an excellent job while you're gone, and being okay with the uncertainty of. You don't know how it's all going to turn out. You don't know what bumps are going to be on the road for these transactions or these clients. And that's okay because they're in the hands of a very skilled agent. It's going to be okay. There's so many agents out there who are really skilled and know what they're doing. And you are pro. You've probably befriended many of them in your career. Rely on them. This can be done. I think this can be done now more than ever before in our time with zoom calls, managing time zones and all those things. Let those tools help you and let the people help you.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Thank you again. Coming up for me is the system works when you work the system. So you need a system if you want to have a relaxing, recharging, wonderful vacation, whether on your own or with loved ones. Do it with intention. And when you put in that work ahead of time, you're going to create a much better experience.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Not only during the vacation, but also after.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: When you get back.

Speaker A: And a lot of this just gets back to the boundaries that we set as agents in our day to day business. Right. So I think it, uh, the going on vacation is an extension of the lack of boundaries that a lot of us have in our day to day business, which is. It's. It's hard in real estate to have bright lines between my work hours. I don't just work in an office from 9 to 5 and come home. And there's this very clear demarcation between that is work life and this is home life for us. A lot of us are at home working off our laptops and things. And so the vacation or the trip that you're going on forces you to set those boundaries. And I am. I am going to be working or I'm not going to be working. I'm going to be working this many hours a day in this time zone, and I want to engage. This much will give you so much clarity.

Speaker B: You said that so well, Samina. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Uh, so for everything that you shared. It was so, so helpful.

Speaker A: Good.

Speaker B: Everyone, it's Sumina Bhati. She is in Austin, Texas. Look her up to say thank you. Thank you again, Sumina. We appreciate it.

Speaker A: You're very welcome.

Speaker B: And thank you everyone for listening. We enjoy the fact that you are here, committed to our podcast and engaging with our guests means the world to us. And as always, we look forward to seeing you on the next podcast. Take care.

Speaker A: If you enjoyed this episode, visit us at the Ninja Selling Podcast to learn more about NINJA Selling classes and coaching to get you started or further your journey on the Ninja path.

Speaker B: Thank you for joining us. Now go have an incredible day.