The Agent Podcast EP 82 TONYA EBERHART and MICHAEL CARR
[00:00:00] Tonya Eberhart: That means you are just operating like all the rest of the agents. You are just out there. Hey, do you know anybody who wants to buy or sell a home? If so, I'm in real estate. Well, that won't get you anywhere, because guess what? There are 2 million others out there doing that same thing. So you've really gotta set yourself apart and think about it this.
[00:00:18] Tonya Eberhart: when you start to market yourself, how on earth do you even know what to put into your marketing? Unless first of all, you know who it is you're trying to attract with that marketing. And second, you know what it is you need to say or show in order to attract that person. Mm-hmm. If you don't know that, then you have no business marketing because all you're going to do is you're gonna spend the next 10 years outspending your competi.
[00:01:07] Ray Sjolseth: Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Agent podcast. Today I'm here with my friends, Tonya and Michael. Guys, welcome to the show.
[00:01:14] Tonya Eberhart: Thanks, Ray.
[00:01:15] Michael Carr: Thank you, Ray. Thank you for having us home.
[00:01:17] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah, it's a privilege. So guys, why real?
[00:01:21] Michael Carr: We're gonna let her answer first. .
[00:01:23] Ray Sjolseth: Oh, I think Michael should answer first.
[00:01:25] Michael Carr: Yeah. So, so I, I have been a serial entrepreneur all my life when I was an entre school for Yep. And it's true.
[00:01:32] Michael Carr: And my, my dad was an entrepreneur, my grandfather was an entrepreneur. It sort of runs in the family. When I got when I was in high school I worked for an engineering firm fairly close to, to home, and I did the work program and, you know, I could leave, had enough credits in school, I could leave after a second period and go work.
[00:01:46] Michael Carr: And a small engineering firm, we built conveyor belts and I really enjoyed the work I did. And they even offered to send me to school and get an engineering degree. But it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to be an auctioneer. My dad was in the car business, my grandfather's in the finance business, and I didn't wanna be in one of those.
[00:02:01] Michael Carr: But I love the atmosphere of car auctions. So I told my mom I was gonna be a, wasn't gonna be an engineer, I was gonna be an auctioneer. She cried, said I would starve to death. What am I gonna do to eat? I said it'll be okay, I'm sure. And six months after I got outta high school, I got my auctioneer's license and the one of the guys that trained me said, you should get your real estate license cuz you can make a little extra money on like a weekend selling a farm sale or something like that.
[00:02:25] Michael Carr: And so for the next 10 years I was a circuit auctioneer and I went around Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and, and sold different auctions at different place every. Then on the weekends I would sell farm sales in South Georgia or South, South Carolina, places like that.
[00:02:44] Michael Carr: And in time I opened up my own brokerage in 2000 really just to be, I had my own autonomy. I didn't ever plan to be a broker. And but. You know, buy my own investments. I've been a real estate investor since 1994. I'd helped my family buy stuff and that sort of thing. But then when 2006 hit and we started to see the slide of the mortgage debacle, I teamed up with a company out of Irvine, California, and we went after the Bear Stearns residential portfolio and we got it.
[00:03:14] Michael Carr: We sold off about 75% of that portfolio. We thought it would be about three eight years worth of work. It turned out to be seven. I had an office here in the suburbs of North Atlanta, an office in Atlanta, an office in Irvine, California, an office in Seattle, and in a satellite in Chicago, New York, Miami, Dallas, all of the major hubs, Boston, all of the major hubs.
[00:03:36] Michael Carr: And we were just back and forth, back and forth back and. But as good auctioneers do, we work ourselves out of a job. So , when all of that, you know, began to balance, which I was so happy for because I had my own portfolio here in Atlanta and I wanted it to come back to par. Then I came back to my small town.
[00:03:52] Michael Carr: I said, what am I gonna do? I bought a piece of property I liked the agent that I worked with, she was an older lady and she said, and she [00:04:00] was a broker and she said, Hey, let's open up a real estate company. There's no real competition here. And at the time there was very little, I think two other companies, one of 'em was really not active at all.
[00:04:10] Michael Carr: And so we did so, and two weeks after we did that, she said, Hey, your marketing stinks . And I knew it to be the case but I did not want to admit it. I've always been a serial marketer also. We'll get into that. She said, you need to talk to my niece. And Taw was her niece. And so she was playing me against Tawny.
[00:04:28] Michael Carr: Tawny against me. Michael's waiting on your call. Tonya's waiting on your call. Michael's waiting on your call. Finally, Tonya called me. I was in San Bernardino, California when we first spoke, and she said, I don't know if you're supposed to call me or I'm supposed to call you, but here we are. I hear you need help with your marketing.
[00:04:42] Michael Carr: And that's where she picks, picks up the story, .
[00:04:45] Tonya Eberhart: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll give you just a little bit of my backstory and how I got to that point. Ray is I started my career actually selling vacuum cleaners door to door, and I did that for three years to work my way through college. Landed a job in radio that way actually.
[00:05:01] Tonya Eberhart: And personal branding has always been something that's been a thread throughout my career. At first, when you are in college and you're knocking on doors, you've got to have a better story than just let me in and pull out your wallet. Right. Buy this vacuum. So , sorry, buy this vacuum cleaner. So so I kind of got my first taste of personal branding doing that.
[00:05:21] Tonya Eberhart: And then when I graduated, as I call it, to the radio world, I immediately noticed that a lot of the business owners and who were in town were kind of like rock stars. They were like local celebrities. And I thought, wow, this is interesting. How do they do that? Well, I noticed the one thing that many of them had in common was they were the voice in the face of their own business.
[00:05:43] Tonya Eberhart: In other words, they were a brand face, although that word wouldn't come around until 2012. So back then I realized these people, I, I watched what they did and I thought, I'm gonna create more of them. So I started bringing these people into the studio, helping 'em write their own commercials, write their story, so to speak, make it a compelling message and put it out there.
[00:06:03] Tonya Eberhart: And in doing so, That's really where the idea of brand face came along. Now, fast forward, I stayed in the media world for about 18 years. Then I opened up an, a small agency and then one day I'm sitting there and it was after the mortgage debacle and I said to myself, you know what? . Anybody that walks through my office door, I can do business with them.
[00:06:24] Tonya Eberhart: That's awesome. But you know what's terrible? Anybody that walks through my business, my door, I can do business with them. So that meant that I was no longer special. I no longer was different from everybody else. I was doing what many entrepreneurs did back then. I was offering everything you had to offer to survive.
[00:06:41] Tonya Eberhart: And so I realized then the economy was getting better. I had to focus once again. And that's when the w the word brand face came into my mind. And that's actually when I started making, thinking about writing a book. And then I. Determined the book would be called Brand Faced. And then of course, the business came along.
[00:07:00] Tonya Eberhart: And that's exactly the same time that I met Michael. I was about halfway writing, halfway finished with the first book in the brand faced series. And then he came along and that's when I realized, back to your original question of why real estate, that's when I realized real estate truly, truly needs this because they're naturally a face of their business.
[00:07:21] Tonya Eberhart: They're forward facing, they're customer facing, and people don't do business with a logo. They do business with a person. Mm-hmm. , that became the brand and face mantra and that pretty much set the tone for where we are right now.
[00:07:32] Ray Sjolseth: I love it, you guys, both your stories individually and collectively are super powerful.
[00:07:38] Ray Sjolseth: I love it. Let's, let's unpack some stuff and I want, I wanna ask both of you the same question. Obviously we can't answer at the same time, but
[00:07:49] Ray Sjolseth: you both are highly individualistic. and driven, and that has enabled you to build the businesses that you've had and that you have today. One of my always curious questions is, what do you do when you don't know what to do? Because how you got to where you are is a whole lot of not knowing Hmm. what to do at the end of the day.
[00:08:15] Ray Sjolseth: So whoever wants to go first, I would love to talk about that a little bit, and then talk about some examples from your past of when you didn't know what to do, but you were able to put that next step forward. Mm-hmm. , and keep moving the needle in the right direction. Okay. Yeah.
[00:08:32] Michael Carr: Luckily it's always been somewhat easy for me because it started when I was in high school and when I said that I was a serial entrepreneur, I, I really meant that I'm I'm also a optimist.
[00:08:44] Michael Carr: I try not to be the optimist. It's just like, oh, Rosie's glasses, everything's fine. And I try to definit. Surveyed the landscape, but I can find the gaps that are positive in any situation. I, I've always been able to do that. So you know, when my mom is very stressed because I've got an engineering degree that's possible and a steady job and a good pay and growth and maybe even ownership of a company at some point, I didn't want that.
[00:09:09] Michael Carr: And I had determined in my mind, first takeaway that if I only made $10,000 a year, I was gonna live on 10,000 a year and I was gonna do what I wanted to do. And I think that driving force of owning, trying your best to own your space and time is, and being master of that has been a driving force for me when I could not see another step in front of.
[00:09:32] Michael Carr: And, and you push through. You have to push through. You know, there's that saying, when you are too far in to turn back, what do you do? You have to go in further and you continue to do that. I also learned a very valuable lesson from my grandfather. He said, when you start to do something, you don't ever stop till it's done, and it didn't matter what that was.
[00:09:52] Michael Carr: And so it enabled me at times, like when I get a phone, and somebody says, I need a broker in the state of Georgia and we're gonna auction off, you know, 50 houses. And I'm like, I can do you one better. I've been selling farms for 12 years as a real estate auctioneer and I'm already licensed in the whole southeast.
[00:10:12] Michael Carr: And they're like, oh my gosh. And then that 50 turned into 300 and that 300 turned into 68,000. So it was, it's, I've always been able to, to find the gap, stick to the positive and move forward. Even if, you know, later on I didn't come up with this and Jeff Bezos was the one that came up with, he said, the 70% rule, if you were 70% sure that it's going, that you can determine the outcome you should move forward with.
[00:10:37] Michael Carr: The worst case is you're gonna learn something for the next, you know, go. And and I think that those are the main principles for me of how I push through every one of those. And some of them have been harder than others. Some of them have literally taken. The mental capacity to say one more step.
[00:10:55] Michael Carr: One more step, but they always work out, so every time. Yep.
[00:10:59] Tonya Eberhart: For me, I think it was more about you know, in life we're always either moving away from something or moving to something, right? My early journey, I think I was moving away from something, so that really catapulted me because I grew up in a family where I had alcohol, alcoholism, and addiction on both sides of the fence.
[00:11:19] Tonya Eberhart: And it was just surrounding me. And and I didn't realize this actually until a few years ago, what an impact that had on why brand Face exists today Actually, and, and I'll say this and then we'll, we'll jump back to answering the question, but, but Brian Face exists because I realized. Sometimes the only difference in a young person waiting on the next drug deal and one going off to college with a bright future is self-worth.
[00:11:45] Tonya Eberhart: And and a lot of times our self-worth, well, every time it begins with us, it begins with how we see ourselves, and it begins with realizing that there's something unique and special about each one of us. And that to me is the driving factor behind what brand face truly is and what it's known for.
[00:12:03] Tonya Eberhart: It's not just helping you sell more homes. It's helping you figure out where you position yourself in the market to become very recognizable, very knowledgeable, known for something and sought after, right? And very confident in that and, and very confident in in all of that. So, to go back to your original question, what do you do when you, you know, pretty much don't know what to do, right?
[00:12:25] Tonya Eberhart: You. Mine was running away from something. I know. I don't want that. So I'm gonna keep going in this direction. I'm gonna try to say positive, like, Michael, you know, we get along so well because we're both optimists, , but I, I wanted to run away from something. And then over time, as you get older and you get more wise, you realize what you're running too.
[00:12:45] Tonya Eberhart: And that only becomes shaped in front of you as you're running away from something. Right? I know this is probably crazy visual for a lot of people, but for me, I see it in my head. Right? So I, I think too, when you don't know what to do, you rely on sometimes looking back at what you don't want in your life.
[00:13:05] Tonya Eberhart: It's like, okay, I don't want that. And I know I'm good at this and I see there's a hole here. There's there's a need here in this area. And that was a driver for me.
[00:13:15] Ray Sjolseth: Michael, to touch on what you said, a lot of mindset work. Regardless of whether it was intrinsic or it was self-built or created.
[00:13:26] Ray Sjolseth: There's a lot of mindset work behind how you got to where you are today, Tanya. Like you hit something close to my heart, which is addiction and being surrounded by alcoholism and substance abuse. Like I did not have a normal childhood by any means, whatever normal means these days. Mm-hmm. And I think that when you are in that environment and eventually whether it's through friends, therapists yourself, God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, and you realize that your self-worth [00:14:00] is not determined by whatever factor or environment you came from, that it is self created and built.
[00:14:08] Ray Sjolseth: And it's a choice. Ultimately, it's a decision that you have to make mm-hmm. in order to enable yourself to be propelled to whatever that next level or wherever that next place is. But I think you hit something that are serious keys, right? Because if you're running away from something, there's always resistance because you're not really sure where you're running to versus if you're running towards something, you have a much better idea of where you're going because you're being pulled.
[00:14:36] Ray Sjolseth: And that pole does not have the same resistance as something that's push.
[00:14:41] Tonya Eberhart: Absolutely.
[00:14:42] Michael Carr: I agree. Absolutely, a hundred percent.
[00:14:43] Tonya Eberhart: And that's just life experience for me. You know, I knew what I didn't want and I knew I had the, the confidence in the in the guts to just like move away from that. But I didn't really know what I was moving toward.
[00:14:56] Tonya Eberhart: But you know what? I just, I, I, I believed in [00:15:00] God. I believed in, you know, my destiny. And I thought, you know what? I'm gonna head in a good direction and just let it unfold before me. And, and it did it, it truly did. Now, I can't say it was always easy, you know? I mean, yeah, of course I'd be lying, but it was not always easy and it was not always apparent, and I did not always know.
[00:15:18] Tonya Eberhart: And it wasn't fast either. It took years to figure that out for me. Mm-hmm. But I think that's because the long, sometimes the longer it takes, the more strong it is in your heart, you know? Because I agree with that. Cause you've been working toward it knowingly or unknowingly for a long time.
[00:15:33] Michael Carr: You know, I, I believe Raymond, that I we're believers, of course, and I, and I believe that, that, that God, the universe it will, it wants you to get what you want.
[00:15:43] Michael Carr: Mm-hmm. , like, I, I don't think that there's this dark power that's holding you down, stopping you from getting what you want to achieve. I think that there, the bigger you want to achieve and the more you want to achieve, the more pieces have to be moved in the universe to get you there. And sometimes you gotta keep going when, keep going.
[00:16:03] Michael Carr: You know, I say that the success that we success I have to find success is, you know, when we hold to the confidence, when we can't see the benefit of the results. And real estate is a. that, that's a big common denominator with that. Right? We don't get paychecks a lot of times for 90 days, sometimes a year if it's a big commercial or development deal, right?
[00:16:22] Michael Carr: Sometimes we'll get 30 days. That's about the earliest you're gonna get a paycheck. It's different than if you go out here and you build a deck and when you're done building that deck, after two or three days you get paid for that deck and you can see the deck that you built. And so real estate agents especially have to hold to that confidence that the work that they're doing every day is going to lead to that paycheck 90 days.
[00:16:42] Michael Carr: And they don't need to have any interruptions to that, or they're not gonna have a paycheck in 90 days. And that is a mindset, definitely a mindset people have to adopt to be successful at it.
[00:16:54] Ray Sjolseth: I think that, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head cuz there's a lot of distraction with that bunch, you know, there is so much distraction of, hey, whatever I'm doing today, well that can wait a day.
[00:17:09] Ray Sjolseth: Mm-hmm. and it waits to, then it waits a week. , then it waits four weeks. Mm-hmm. and then there's no paycheck. And you could have had that listing two weeks ago. Mm-hmm. , you could have closed that for sale by owner before the other dude got it. Mm-hmm. , right? All these different things. But you're right, because you have to be focused and you have to be committed to whatever that task is that you're doing at that time.
[00:17:31] Ray Sjolseth: I mean, we can get into time blocking and energy and all that kind of different stuff, but with, with everything you guys are saying, like I think it's super interesting and Tanya, going back to where Brand Face came from and your why, essentially that this exists and how it's been able to come to market.
[00:17:50] Ray Sjolseth: I think that depth of commitment from you to create this tool and now you guys together to create this platform that enable people to understand who they are, why they are what they do, and position themself. as an authority within their community, their market, their network, their hub, whatever they're trying to do is such a strong drive.
[00:18:17] Ray Sjolseth: And it is such a differentiator, right? Because today you listen to any Gary V stuff, right? All he talks about is we're just media companies, right? We're all walking around with our phones, we're walking media companies, walking publicists, walking copywriters. And if you look at that, and if you start treating your business and yourself as a brand and promoting yourself as something special, as something different, not a commodity, you will get different results.
[00:18:46] Tonya Eberhart: Absolutely.
[00:18:47] Michael Carr: Absolutely you will.
[00:18:49] Tonya Eberhart: One of our favorite quotes that we have came out of, you know, that sort of thought process is great. Branding doesn't just change the way others see you. It changes the way you see yourself.
[00:19:00] Ray Sjolseth: Oh, I love that quote. So powerful. .
[00:19:02] Tonya Eberhart: And that's really where it all starts. You know, we have to believe in ourselves first.
[00:19:06] Tonya Eberhart: And and that's the beauty that we get to see every day. We're so blessed to be able to work with people every single day that that show their appreciation for just going through this journey. You know, because there are people that have been in real estate 30 plus years that have never gone through a journey of really personal branding and discovery.
[00:19:30] Tonya Eberhart: Mm-hmm. that define, develop and display that, that we're known for, you know, those three pretty easy steps, but they haven't done that before and therefore they have not seen the full worth. And when they see that, It's a game changer.
[00:19:45] Michael Carr: And you know, really that's where, and I was, I was guilty of every one of your listeners.
[00:19:49] Michael Carr: If any of your listeners are saying marketing doesn't work or if any time in their past , they have said that. I have said that millions of times I was a promoter, but I was of the thought that you spent all you could and, you know, and hope the phone ring and then made more money than we were spending in marketing.
[00:20:06] Michael Carr: Not a plan. Not a plan. right. Not a good one. and it, but it took Tanya teaching me to define who my target audience was, who I was trying to talk to, so I knew how to talk to them. And it was at that point that it began, it began to change me. And I realized that I wasn't just a contract auctioneer anymore.
[00:20:26] Michael Carr: And I wasn't just America's top selling real estate auctioneer because I was in a position to be able to do that. I wasn't I, that I had worth in my, in my brokerage to teach other agents how to do what she taught me. And then that grew into the program, grew into four other countries, 45 states, some, you know, all the great things that we get to do.
[00:20:47] Michael Carr: I didn't realize on the journey that I love being a broker. I absolutely love helping people be successful. And so then Tanya realized that and coined me the Abundant Life Broker and I guess what, three years ago? Mm-hmm. . And it's all I live for now. I just live to be, to help every agent in our program on these podcasts and in in my office to be as successful as they can possibly be with the principles that she taught me through Brand Face.
[00:21:15] Ray Sjolseth: So let's talk about what that transformation looks like, right? What does somebody look like coming in and what do they feel like going out?
[00:21:23] Tonya Eberhart: Never been asked that question. Right? That's a great question. Fantastic question. Yeah. So what they look like coming in is extremely frustrated.
[00:21:32] Tonya Eberhart: Their competition's kicking their butt. They have spent so much money on marketing that they, and they get little to no results on a consistent basis. And they're being hit every single day. They're being hit up by everybody trying to sell any kind of program system widget, you name it, to real estate agents and you money without doing nothing.
[00:21:54] Tonya Eberhart: And yes, and any agents and brokers that are listening to me, you know, that is 100%. You see it on, you can't every day. You can't scroll through Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, nothing without somebody pitching you something in real estate. But you know, we say there's a huge difference between marketing and branding.
[00:22:13] Tonya Eberhart: You know, marketing is simply just using these various vehicles to get a message. An image out to the world. Your brand is that message and image. So you can spend so much money on marketing, but in order to stand out and get noticed with really no differentiation, right, you're just gonna have to spend more than your competition.
[00:22:31] Tonya Eberhart: Mm-hmm. . And that leaves everybody so frustrated. So that's how they feel coming in. And they're also very cynical, by the way. Very cynical. . Very cynical. Mm-hmm. . But it doesn't last long. They realize, you know, hey, we get this, you know, we're that, that's why we exist, you know? So coming out, I think that I have seen, and Michael's seen it too, so many transformations of confidence.
[00:22:54] Tonya Eberhart: Mm-hmm. . It's and and confidence is just when they come in, they're gruff a little bit. They smile once in a while. When they get their brand all dialed in, it's like they're happy to be on the webinars with us. They're happy to get on a meeting with us because it's like we've helped them, you know, figure out this like decoder ring or something there, , you know?
[00:23:16] Tonya Eberhart: So it's like, it's really cool to see that. But there's also this level of really trust and relationship that grows throughout all of. Between us and the agents for one thing, but also between them and the people that surround them. Because when you finally realize your worth in the world and that you fit somewhere and you're unique, there's nobody else like you.
[00:23:38] Tonya Eberhart: When you get all that dialed in and you can display that, then there's just a, a place you feel like you finally fit in somewhere you, you fit in because you don't fit, right, because you're unique, but you are unique in a way that you can express it now. Mm-hmm. . And there's just a lot to be said for that.
[00:23:58] Tonya Eberhart: So I could go on for days with that question, but I appreciate the question very much.
[00:24:04] Michael Carr: Yeah. There's a compass in. Ability to know, right? There's a compass once you know who you are and what, and, and, and what makes you what you are, your past experiences, your things that we develop in inside of our program.
[00:24:18] Michael Carr: We look at 77 different criteria when we brand somebody because we really want to know who they are and why they do the things they do, why they react the way they do. Once you define that though, that there's the compass, and so when people get up every day and they're like, I don't know what to do today.
[00:24:33] Michael Carr: I'm a real estate agent, but what does that mean? You know, I know with, in my office, somebody comes in and say, what's my hours? That they're probably not gonna make it as a real estate agent , cuz it's 24 7 and I thought you knew that coming in, you know what I mean? Answer the phone at midnight, it might be a sales call, but they, you know, it's it's, it's, you get that direct once you define who you are and you know where to go, then there's your natural compass.
[00:24:55] Michael Carr: You get up tomorrow and you do that and you get up the next day and you do that and you get up the next day. You do that and then you [00:25:00] see the benefits of that all along the way. And It. It really removes a lot of confusion.
[00:25:04] Ray Sjolseth: In a lot of my companies that I've had, there's always been this trifecta of hatred, marketing, engineering, and sales, right?
[00:25:13] Ray Sjolseth: Yes. Everybody fighting against each other, never going in a fluid direction. Nope. Engineering hates everybody because everybody sells a bunch of shit before it's actually ready to sell. Marketing doesn't like anybody cuz they're like sophisticated and nobody understands what they're trying to do. Sales hates everybody because people believe sales cures all famous Mark Cuban quote.
[00:25:36] Ray Sjolseth: Mm-hmm. sales can fix a lot of challenges, but I do not believe it ever fixes a core problem. Mm. I don't either, but I do believe marketing can make sales a hell of a lot easier if you do it right. Absolutely. And that's the way. . I think agents need to embrace marketing versus seeing it as an expense. See it as an investment versus seeing it as, oh, I have to spend all this money for lead generation.
[00:26:05] Ray Sjolseth: Look at it as investing in people for the long term. Regardless. I don't care if you call a thousand people and only get one phone call back, the percentage, scrap it, it doesn't matter. What's the value of that one relationship? Agreed. And when you take a look at things from those perspective and you start putting things in place and you look at creating your brand and you go to market strategy and doing this journey of self-discovery and this self assessment and being transparent and being authentic and you know, if you guys have 70 things that you're looking at when you're branding somebody, that is work. And often it's not easy work because people have not thought about these specific things.
[00:26:51] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah. Right. True. So
[00:26:53] Tonya Eberhart: true. That's true. It's not easy work. However, you know, I like to say the, what we've created is you've seen the duck just, just kind of glide effortlessly over the top of the water, and then underneath their feet are paddling like hill, right?
[00:27:08] Tonya Eberhart: That's us powering. We're the feet like hell, we're the feet right? And you're the duck on the top of the water. Because what we've created over nine and a half years that we started the real estate program, that personal branding step-by-step program is a way that people can come in and we say, look, I, we only need you to do three things.
[00:27:25] Tonya Eberhart: Number one, show up and answer questions. Number two, tell us what you don't like. Number three, tell us what you love and we're gonna help pull that information out of you in a very easy way. And we have the steps all laid out and it's like, watch this so you know what we're about to do, why we're gonna do it, how we're gonna do it, and then click here so you can trigger us to do it.
[00:27:47] Tonya Eberhart: Right? And so it's, we've made it very, very easy to go through that process. Having said, , I'm not gonna lie. A lot of people come through this program and they say, wow, the first step was pretty hard. Answering some of those questions you guys ask me, they're really, really hard, but every single time they're so grateful that they went through the process.
[00:28:07] Tonya Eberhart: Mm-hmm. . So there is a lot of fear. It's kind of like Ray going into like I'd love to have a brand new car, like that new car smell, but I do not wanna go to that dealership and deal with that negotiation crap. Right. That's what they feel like sometimes when they feel like the discovery process, it's like, oh, I don't wanna go through all that stuff.
[00:28:25] Tonya Eberhart: Right. But once they do it, they drive off the lot in that brand new car, . That's the way it works. That's life.
[00:28:32] Ray Sjolseth: So what do people fight you on? Where is the re. .
[00:28:36] Tonya Eberhart: Mm-hmm. , that's a great question. Mm-hmm. , that's a good one. So the resistance is in number one, choosing their ideal customer. They'll fight you to the mm-hmm.
[00:28:45] Tonya Eberhart: tooth and nail about that one because it's like, you know, well, I just wanna do business with everybody. I don't wanna box, I, I don't wanna box myself in. I don't wanna shut everybody else out. But the minute you make the choice that you quote, don't wanna box yourself in, don't wanna shut anybody else out/
[00:29:00] Tonya Eberhart: That means you are just operating like all the rest of the agents. You are just out there. Hey, do you know anybody who wants to buy or sell a home? If so, I'm in real estate. Well, that won't get you anywhere , because guess what? There are 2 million others out there doing that same thing. So you've really gotta set yourself apart and think about it this.
[00:29:18] Tonya Eberhart: when you start to market yourself, how on earth do you even know what to put into your marketing? Unless, first of all, you know who it is you're trying to attract with that marketing. And second of all, you know what it is you need to say or show in order to attract that person. Mm-hmm. . If you don't know that, then you have no business marketing because all you're going to do is you're gonna spend the next 10 years outspending your competi.
[00:29:42] Ray Sjolseth: Or frustrating. You're just shredding water like YouTube with the ducks. Definitely. Just shredding water. Exactly.
[00:29:47] Michael Carr: Yeah. I did it for years. I did it for years until she dialed it in for me and then we've never looked back. I mean, we have, we can track and we do every other week. where the leads come from, what's the verbiage on the those leads?
[00:30:00] Michael Carr: Which ones work? Which ones work better than the other ones? We, you know, my staff meets and we make our marketing plan, big marketing plan for the year. We adjusted on the quarter. We try something new sometimes, but the message is always the same. We always keep a consistent message talking to our ideal customer.
[00:30:16] Michael Carr: And that's how we've gone from one agent to 27 in a boutique brokerage where I don't hire everybody that knocks on the door. You know, I, I probably told no to three times that cuz I just don't think that they fit the program. They don't understand. And I'm not a place where you just hang your license.
[00:30:30] Michael Carr: Right. I want to have a brokerage where I have the highest percentage of agents that make six figures or better. That's my goal. Not having the most agents. That's not my goal. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:30:43] Ray Sjolseth: quality. .
[00:30:44] Ray Sjolseth: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. .
[00:30:46] Tonya Eberhart: The Abundant Life Broker. Yeah. Right. . Yeah. That's how, you know, that's one of the reasons we came up with that name.
[00:30:52] Tonya Eberhart: There's a purpose behind what we call, that's what we call his brand identifier. And your brand identifier is like a tagline or slogan that kind of sets the tone. In this 75 mile an hour world that we live in, we can't be bothered to read a whole biography a lot of times. Right. We just are hit with, you know, something on a Facebook cover photo or on a post or something, on a website.
[00:31:13] Tonya Eberhart: So if that's the thing we see first Abundant Life Broker, that sets the tone for me. It's like, Hey, that's interesting. Let me learn more. So there's one of three effects or, or responses that are gonna come out of that. Number one, it's like, that's interesting. That's exactly what I'm looking for in abundant life.
[00:31:29] Tonya Eberhart: Okay. Number two, well, that looked interesting. Let me learn more. Or number three, that's not me at all, and that's perfectly okay. Mm-hmm. because you are never going to attract everyone.
[00:31:39] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah, I love it. I love it. And agree 100%. You're never ever going to attract anyone.
[00:31:46] Tonya Eberhart: Never. So stop trying.
[00:31:47] Michael Carr: You don't get all the sales calls, right,
[00:31:49] Michael Carr: I wish we did. Right?
[00:31:51] Ray Sjolseth: Honestly, I could talk to you guys for hours and dissect a whole bunch of different things, but let me ask you kind of a loaded question. What am I not asking you about your business that you wish more people would understand about your. Mm. I I,
[00:32:07] Tonya Eberhart: I'll take that one.
[00:32:08] Michael Carr: Yeah, please.
[00:32:09] Michael Carr: For sure. Okay. Yep. , I get that. So I think what it, it's not fluff. Okay. It's a formula. Mm. And there are so many branding gurus and experts out there saying, oh, just be yourself. Be authentic, post personal things. Don't forget to mix in the personal, you know, those kind of things. And that's, while that's all true, it's not, it's not, you know, they're not leading people in the wrong direction.
[00:32:33] Michael Carr: It's just like they're still left standing there saying, okay, but I still know. Build my personal brand, what does that mean? Right? So that's why, you know, we were looking, I was looking at it a decade ago and saying, okay, well there's a step, there's steps to doing this. And and that's where the 77 criteria came in, and that's where our 3D process came in, defined, developed display, and.
[00:32:57] Michael Carr: That's where we are very unique, is we are the most comprehensive personal brand building system out there. Meaning we look at those 77 criteria, right? But that's us looking at it, not you having to do 77 hours of work. Mm-hmm. . So when, but we simplify it with that 3D process because it truly is a formula.
[00:33:19] Michael Carr: It really doesn't matter what industry you're in. You could be an engineer, you could be an insurance, you could be a dentist, doesn't really matter. The personal branding principles are exactly the same. You figure out who your ideal customers are. You figure out your points of differentiation, what you wanna lead with that marketing hook, if you will, or brand identifier, tagline, slogan, whatever we wanna call it kind of sets the tone and direction for things.
[00:33:44] Michael Carr: Then you develop all the parts and pieces that go with that. What does that photo shoot look like to. portray the best image for what you wanna be known for. What does your brand messaging sound like? How do you do an elevator pitch? What's the formula for that? What's a formula? You know, the basic layout for a really great compelling biography, right?
[00:34:06] Tonya Eberhart: So all the principles are the same, but the outcome is very different for every single person, and that's because it's personal branding. Mm-hmm. there's no way to be cookie cutter and personal branding. You can't do it. The other thing I'd like to say, and I'm just gonna like run with, run with this because I'm very passionate about this.
[00:34:25] Tonya Eberhart: Yeah. You wrote the book on it. Is that, is that people will all a lot of times say, well, I looked at so-and-so's brand, right? Or I, I just like a brand like that one. And I'm going, no, that's not, that's, that's that person's brand. That's not your brand. I understand if you like a particular font in a logo, but you've gotta understand a logo and a photo, a photo and a tagline.
[00:34:46] Tonya Eberhart: Do not make a brand. Those are three branding elements that make up a small part of the ecosystem of a brand. And so those are the things I could literally go on forever, Ray. So thank you for setting that ball on the t.
[00:35:01] Tonya Eberhart: I appreciate that. Because there are some really important things for people to know. Branding is not just fluff, it is a formula. Mm-hmm. . And we wrote it.
[00:35:10] Ray Sjolseth: Well, I think it's all amazing points, right? Because so many people think marketing itself is a transaction and it's not. It's a process. Mm-hmm. . Exactly.
[00:35:20] Ray Sjolseth: Sales. Yeah. It's a transaction. You go to Starbucks, you order a coffee, you pay for your coffee, you get your coffee and you leave. But the whole goal is for it to be an experience, right? Because they want that relationship. So you'll come back tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and if people would stop putting stuff in buckets and just realize that it's all for the greater good and it's meant to be leveraged and used together
[00:35:48] Tonya Eberhart: Exactly.
[00:35:48] Ray Sjolseth: To create a result, whatever that result is, I want. 50 listings. I want a hundred transactions this year. I wanna own a thousand apartment units over the next 12 months. Whatever it is, like stop segregating everything, for lack of a better term. And just realize that if you take a systemic approach and a holistic approach, your result's gonna be way bigger than you could ever imagine.
[00:36:14] Ray Sjolseth: For sure
[00:36:16] Michael Carr: it's building a culture. That's exactly what it is. And there's a, there is a energizing spirit to that culture. Even if you're a one man person, a one person team, like we have plenty of people in our program that, that they say, look, I don't want any more. I just want it easier. I want it, I want it to define it.
[00:36:32] Michael Carr: I want it, I wanna work, I want to enjoy what I'm doing. You know when, when you go after your ideal customer, part of what you look at is who do you enjoy working with? Because, and you go through those ones you don't wanna work with. Cuz all real estate agents have worked with somebody they didn't wanna work with ever again.
[00:36:48] Michael Carr: Right. And mean, we all have, and but we've worked with thousands that we do wanna work with again. And those are the people you need to find and go after and build that culture like you're talking about. And look at it from a bird's eye holistic view and, and you know, and chase the conver, you know, our friend Mike Clevis, he said Chase the conversations, not the commissions.
[00:37:08] Michael Carr: So, and I love that. Yeah. Yep.
[00:37:11] Ray Sjolseth: What is the best advice you've ever received? You wanna take that first?
[00:37:17] Michael Carr: Well, I've already said it. You know, it was whatever she
[00:37:21] Ray Sjolseth: said to do. Good answer. 50 points for Michael. Yeah, that's right.
[00:37:27] Michael Carr: Now it's, there's so much truth to that. I, I, you know, I was taught. That you and I was hard on her when she first approached me.
[00:37:35] Michael Carr: I was, because I had had marketing gurus, I'd had people in the office was gonna build social media followings. I'd had all this plan, I'd had a thousand arguments over quantity versus quality. I've had all, like, this just beat my head against the wall to the point I didn't want nothing else to do with it.
[00:37:51] Michael Carr: And then, because I was busy, I was shutting down offices in Seattle and Irvine and trying to come back, you know, to my hometown and, and busy. And, and so she calls me and I'm like, look, I've had five others just like you, and I don't need you. And I was wrong. And I, that's,
[00:38:06] Ray Sjolseth: we were record, that's recording.
[00:38:06] Ray Sjolseth: Recording here. So, yeah, that's recorded. I'll make you a clip of that.
[00:38:09] Michael Carr: Clear. Thank you. She'll love it. Like she was putting it on a loop. I was wrong because she wasn't. But then here's where my education came in. My, my advice, best advice I've been given as soon as I knew she was the right person. I quit fighting her and I went and did what I needed to do.
[00:38:25] Michael Carr: And when she told me I needed to make a video and she was gonna be there and we needed to reshoot it and we needed to do this and we needed to do that and we needed to write this, and she needed these answers because we needed to write this bio, I did it. I did. I quit fighting her. There was no reason to fight her once I knew she was the right person for the job.
[00:38:41] Michael Carr: And I think that that is very big. We have to find the people we trust that know what they're. Pay 'em good to do it and go listen to what they say.
[00:38:50] Tonya Eberhart: Yeah. Yeah. My mine would be when somebody says, get a coach for something. Right. Find some expert to shortcut your path to success. I will never forget years ago, I hired this coach to help me in a certain area of marketing, and the coach was $10,000.
[00:39:10] Tonya Eberhart: I didn't have that money ready at hand. I just didn't. I had to put it on two different credit cards and pay for it over time. But it was the best decision I ever made because it catapulted my business. And that was over a decade ago. Mm-hmm. . But I'll never, I'll never again will I try to do something myself that I'm not equipped to do.
[00:39:31] Ray Sjolseth: I love it. I love it. You guys, both of those are beautiful and I'll definitely pull out that clip for you. Tonya . Thank you. . This is a question I love. What's something you think, what's something you think most people value but you don't value at all? Hmm.
[00:39:51] Tonya Eberhart: Oh my goodness. What a great question.
[00:39:53] Michael Carr: I got, I got the answer for.
[00:39:55] Tonya Eberhart: Okay. All right. I'm, I'm gonna say this and I'm gonna get railroaded for this, I'm sure. College education. Oh, yes.
[00:40:02] Ray Sjolseth: Okay. And,
[00:40:02] Tonya Eberhart: and do you . Thank you. Well, the reason I say that is I did get a bachelor's degree. I got it in communications, which what I always said is that's the degree you get when you don't know what degree you want.
[00:40:14] Tonya Eberhart: And I always made fun of myself that way. I got an education in life by going to college, though I have yet to this day to use anything I learned in a college classroom to further my business. Now I understand that happens, and I don't degrade college education. I just. , I don't, I don't find it as valuable for what I do as many people do.
[00:40:37] Tonya Eberhart: I think if you are in the sales world in any capacity, or if you're an entrepreneur, unless you're in a profession that requires a college education, I don't necessarily believe that people should just do it because I think you should do it if your heart's in it. My heart was not in it. I was more of a, a salesperson.
[00:40:56] Tonya Eberhart: So so that's mine.
[00:40:57] Michael Carr: Yeah, mine's a little more benign, but it's so true cuz it's at the core of how I operate and it's money. Like money doesn't mean anything to me. You know, quality of life and the life that I wanna live and how I can achieve that and and grow. Cuz the growth is a very huge part of what I want to do.
[00:41:14] Michael Carr: I don't wanna stop at 27 agents. I want 2,700 agents, 27,000 agents, 270,000 agents. You know, there's no reason for me to stop what I'm doing, but I would never sacrifice how I feel in those relationships just to make more money and the process of it, because I feel like I've been blessed have every, I get up every day with everything that I've ever desired, more than I ever thought that I would desire or even accomplish.
[00:41:39] Michael Carr: And I'm happy. I'm very content with that. Now I can just help people. So I know it's benign, but it's true. It's just, you know, life is no different. It's just d. Zeroes in commas on a spreadsheet. Every, the problems are the same. And it don't matter if you're, you know, Elon Musk or us, or, you know, it doesn't matter.
[00:41:59] Michael Carr: He, he deals with the same problems we deal with. He just has more zeroes in commas behind it, you know?
[00:42:04] Ray Sjolseth: Well, Michael, let's talk about that for a minute. Since you touched on it. Where did you get that mindset?
[00:42:11] Ray Sjolseth: Did you develop it? Were you born with it? Did you get it from your family of entrepreneurs? Did you have to work for it? Did you have to lose time and time again to figure it out? , all of the above. Where did it come
[00:42:24] Michael Carr: from? Definitely all of the above. Mm-hmm. , definitely all of the above. You know, I was raised I was raised in a good Christian family, but it was torn apart when I was about 12 and went through a very hard adolescence.
[00:42:34] Michael Carr: You know, like very lonely for sometimes in those really tough teenage years. But I, you know, I just never really let go of the, let go of the anchor, you know? And then I, you know, built a family and then I went through this nasty, terrible divorce and, you know, I just, but I stayed strong to the path that I was on, knowing that every time you face a mountain or an obstacle, the blessing is always 3, 4, 10 times greater than what you've gone through.
[00:43:04] Michael Carr: And, and really, and I wish I could call her name right now and y'all might remember it, but when nine 11. You remember the, the guy, Todd, I think was his name, be, I wanna say Beecher, and he's the guy that called and said, Hey, we're being hijacked. And then they rushed the dude and stopped it from hitting one of the buildings.
[00:43:21] Michael Carr: His wife wrote a letter, a book, and I read that book and she talked about how the death of her stepfather prepared her for the death of her husband. And something clicked in me and I was like, you know what? That's exactly what it is. Like every time you can't see a step in front of you, you got this massive amount of a problem.
[00:43:39] Michael Carr: Like you, you really can't, you can't see two feet in front of you, not two inches in front of you. I promise you, if you stay to the course, you're gonna come out on the other side. You'll come out on the other side of the Kidron Valley, the sun's gonna shine, and then you're gonna realize what you can survive, and then that just prepares you for the next.
[00:43:57] Michael Carr: Hurdle and that teaches you to survive and the [00:44:00] next greatest hurdle. And that teaches you to survive. And I think that leads you to be the abundant life broker.
[00:44:04] Tonya Eberhart: It did in my life. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what? You can take away money, but you can't take away our ability to make more. Yeah, sure.
[00:44:12] Tonya Eberhart: And I think that too, is if, if we had money, but we only had one way of getting it and you know, the and we exhausted our efforts and so forth, it might be a different thing. But when you know how to build a business that gives true value and you get paid for it, you can do it again and again. Again and again.
[00:44:33] Michael Carr: Again, and over and over and over. Because you never lose the knowledge. You know, you, you've had 45, 40 some. Yeah,
[00:44:41] Michael Carr: exactly. No, you know, and you've learned valuable lessons at every one of 'em. So I think that that's the key. I think it is all of the, all of the above. And you just have to keep looking for the sunshine, cuz it's there.
[00:44:53] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah, there's a couple quotes that come to mind. One is by Steve Jobs that says you can never connect the dots looking forward, but you can always connect them looking back. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yep. And the second thing is, I think it's by Les Brown that you know, well, Jim Roan has a quote that says something like, you can lose the money, but you'll never lose the skill.
[00:45:12] Ray Sjolseth: But being poor is a choice. Being broke is a temporary, like setback. Mm-hmm. , right? Mm-hmm. , because you can choose whether you have a poor or rich mindset. Right. But being broke as temporary, right. You could lose everything today and make 50 bucks tomorrow or a hundred million dollars tomorrow. Mm-hmm. , you just don't know.
[00:45:36] Ray Sjolseth: You know, it depends what your skillset, all, all these variable factors. Mm-hmm. . The point is like, if you can look up, you can get up.
[00:45:42] Tonya Eberhart: The opportunity is there. Amen. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Love that. You can look up, you can get up.
[00:45:46] Tonya Eberhart: That's another less brown quote. Like literally, if you can look up, you can get up, be grateful, God woke you up and you know, keep marching forward.
[00:45:54] Tonya Eberhart: Yep. Whatever lies, excuses BS you're feeding yourself, just stop it. Yeah.
[00:45:59] Michael Carr: Stop listening to that for sure. Yeah. You know, mindset is big. Like you, you know, I don't allow negativity in my life. I have negativity in my life, so everybody has negativity in my life, in their life, but I, I purposefully stop it before it ever gets close to me.
[00:46:13] Michael Carr: And that's an exercise that you get better and better and better and better and better at over time. Yeah.
[00:46:18] Ray Sjolseth: Boundaries. Mm-hmm. . Exactly. People don't like boundaries.
[00:46:22] Tonya Eberhart: Exactly. You don't allow that negativity to penetrate your soul.
[00:46:25] Michael Carr: Yeah. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you a very practical way that I do that. I honor the sabba.
[00:46:31] Michael Carr: All right. And the reason why, and I tell every one of my agents, if I have an agent come to me and say, Hey, I've been working for 14 days straight and I made all this money. I'm like, sit down , because you got a family. You, you've gotta take a day in a week to not do nothing. You gotta go to the beach or you gotta sit by the pool, or you gotta read a book, or you gotta smoke a cigar, you gotta have a bourbon.
[00:46:50] Michael Carr: You gotta have like, you have to be for you with quiet and contemplative to what's going on. Cause if you don't give your body the rest and your mind the rest, then your body and mind will give you the rest. But it's always a lot longer recovery period. So I teach every day, like you have to take a day that you won't do nothing but throw the football with your kids in the front yard, grill a hamburger, and you don't think about whether or not your deal's gonna close or whether or not you're gonna make another one.
[00:47:19] Michael Carr: Now you can get up the next day and go wide. and you can work 16 hours a day for the next six days, but on that next seventh day, you need to stop. I'm not thinking about business. I'm thinking about the beautiful things in the world, and I, I, that is a practical that I do every week. Period. Period, period.
[00:47:36] Michael Carr: I don't care what it is. I won't answer my phone. My staff knows I won't answer my phone. They, you know, I've got key staff that can get to me if it is emergency and something that's very important that I would need to, you know, address or at least say, I don't think I need to address this till tomorrow, but it's, but I still stick to those rules and I think I'd encourage everybody to do that.
[00:47:56] Ray Sjolseth: I think that's beautiful. All right, moving on. If you could only put one law in place, what would it be? Self-respect. Oh, love it. Mm-hmm. ,
[00:48:08] Michael Carr: be kind to everyone. Yeah.
[00:48:10] Michael Carr: Yeah. Mm-hmm. . Love it. Be kind to everyone.
[00:48:12] Ray Sjolseth: All right. One more question. I'll wrap it up. What superpower are each of you working on right now?
[00:48:19] Tonya Eberhart: Oh goodness. Working on, I know when I have, I don't know
[00:48:24] Ray Sjolseth: that we can talk about that. I work
[00:48:26] Tonya Eberhart: on it every day. I'll take day. I work on it every day. I think my superpower is helping people unveil their inner star. I mean, I really do because I can see the potential in somebody even I think, when they can't see it.
[00:48:41] Tonya Eberhart: And that's always been very important to me to p lift people up like that. So I'd say that's, that's mine.
[00:48:49] Michael Carr: Michael, I'm working on the ability to move tangible objects with my mind, .
[00:48:54] Ray Sjolseth: Seriously, I love it. No, I'm not . No. I will say I need [00:49:00] this farm over here, . Exactly.
[00:49:03] Michael Carr: I will say though, I do believe, I do believe that the mind is that powerful if we could find a way to get to it.
[00:49:08] Michael Carr: But no, I, I definitely my superpowers encouragement to people. I, I teach everybody to be bolder cuz it's the one thing I would change in my life. I wouldn't change anything I've been through ever, ever, ever. I just would've been bolder about my moves earlier on. That's the one thing I would change.
[00:49:24] Michael Carr: And so when agents come to me and they say, I don't know if I can do this, I'm like, yeah, you can. Have you tried it? You know, have you, have you tried it? You tried. Have you tried it this way? How do you know you can't do it? You
[00:49:34] Ray Sjolseth: know? Now go do it. Have you guys read your next Five Moves by Patrick, be David.
[00:49:39] Ray Sjolseth: No, I have not. Unbelievable book. I'll text you. I'll put it on my list. Okay. Please do. Awesome. Yeah, it's unbelievable. So good. Where can people find you guys? How do they get in touch? Mm-hmm. . Okay.
[00:49:51] Tonya Eberhart: Brand face star, s t a r.com is our main website. So go there. You can learn a whole lot about us there and even take advantages of some free training for personal branding.
[00:50:02] Tonya Eberhart: And then if you are somebody who's listening right now thinking this is exactly what I need, we, we'll, we'll shoot you right to the front of the line. If you just go to discuss your brand.com, you can fill out a short form and get on our calendar asap.
[00:50:17] Ray Sjolseth: I love it. You guys, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for your time, your knowledge and opening up.
[00:50:23] Tonya Eberhart: Thank you, Ray. Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. Fantastic questions. Yes, yes. We appreciate you very much.
