Episode 4: Turning Challenges into Strengths: A Journey through ADHD and Success

Welcome back to another episode of The Breakthrough Podcast with Stephen Husted. Our guest today, Heather Cook, CEO of the Curated Group at Real Broker, LLC, is taking us on a journey through the world of real estate in Charlotte. Heather shares the power of authenticity in marketing and her transformative journey through vulnerability and team building. This episode is very special to me because we get to talk about ADHD, and how that influenced not only Heather's life but mine as well. In this episode, you will learn:
Takeaway 1: The Magic of Authenticity in Business and Marketing By sharing not only polished successes but also genuine struggles, businesses can create a deeper connection that resonates with people on a personal level.
Takeaway 02: Uplifting Through Vulnerability: Transformative Team Building Heather's journey in establishing a successful real estate team is a testament to the power of vulnerability. Opening up about her initial failures and the emotional and financial setbacks she faced, Heather discovered that true success in team building comes from a genuine desire to uplift others.
Takeaway 03: Navigating Career and Life with ADHD Heather Cook and I offered a window into the world of ADHD. The unique challenges and strengths that come with ADHD, and how ADHD can unexpectedly fuel careers and offer a different perspective on life's journey.

TRANSCRIPT

∎ Teaser / Highlighted Clip

[Heather Cook] (0:00 - 0:27)

The ultimate goal is to try to make human connections and the rest will come. I think if you put the money as like your, this is what the goal is, kind of like with the team thing, it's like, I think you're going to fail or you're not going to be satisfied at the end. You know, even if like the money piece is there, I think it's going to be less fulfilling than if you actually like made like a meaningful connection with someone and feel like instead of you sold something, you made a difference in their life.

And I think that's the right angle to have.

∎ Podcast Intro:

[Stephen Husted] (0:27 - 1:49)

Welcome to The Breakthrough with Stephen Husted, the show that takes you behind the scenes with successful entrepreneurs, real estate investors, and other movers and shakers in the business world. In each episode, we'll sit down with our guests to explore their personal and professional journeys, including the challenges they faced, the breakthrough moments that propelled them to success, and the strategies and the tactics they used to get there. Get inspired by new ideas and strategies and get to know our guests on a deeper level.

Join us for candid conversations, powerful insights, and plenty of breakthrough moments. Please help us grow by subscribing and sharing the podcast. And welcome to the show.

∎ Guest Introduction:

So without further ado, let's get in today's guest. Joining us is Heather Cook, the CEO of the Curated Group of Real Broker LLC, which is part of the top 1% real estate team in the greater Charlotte area. She is based in North Carolina and now is becoming a marketing expert mentoring the next top agents.

No wonder why she is that real brokerage growth ambassador, which is some wealth of experience, insights to share. We're excited to dive into her story and learn from her wisdom. Let's get started with today's breakthrough.

∎ Podcast Proper:

Let's go.

[Heather Cook] (1:50 - 1:51)

Here we are.

[Stephen Husted] (1:51 - 2:03)

You're saying too much good stuff. So we got to just jump on this podcast. We're doing this.

We're just going at it raw. Yeah. So thank you for joining.

I appreciate it.

[Heather Cook] (2:03 - 2:04)

Thanks for asking. Yeah.

[Stephen Husted] (2:05 - 2:33)

So I know we were trying to talk before we started this, before we had all our technical difficulties. But somehow we met on Instagram, probably on a post. I don't know what happened, but we ended up talking.

We either agreed or disagreed for sure, right? Yeah. And then I think I DMed you and just said, Hey, I'd like you to join on my podcast.

And I think you said yes. And then a couple of months later, here we are.

[Heather Cook] (2:34 - 2:36)

Here we are. Got the tech worked out and everything.

[Stephen Husted] (2:36 - 2:39)

Hopefully we got the tech worked out. So we'll see.

[Heather Cook] (2:40 - 2:43)

That's right. I'm super excited to connect with you though.

[Stephen Husted] (2:43 - 3:50)

You know, it was funny yesterday. I jumped back onto your profile. I think things are changing a little bit when it comes to what I get to see now from people.

I don't get to see everything anymore. So I had to go back in there and I go, Oh, I didn't see this post from Heather. Okay.

So it got me more familiarized with what you had going on right now. And so I'm kind of excited to get into what you've been up to in your business life. And I think we actually had one other thing to talk about too.

I think it was about dogs. Like, am I in trouble? Pets.

Yeah. Pets. We have a few of those.

You do, right? You know, it's funny. The other ones that I've done, there hasn't been an intro and I hired this lady that deals with getting the podcast edited and on the platforms.

And she's like, Hey, you might want to introduce your guests. I mean, I go, well, I introduce them by their name. She's like, yeah, but you got to give some kind of information in the beginning.

I'm like, okay. All right. We'll try it this time.

So here we are.

[Heather Cook] (3:52 - 4:03)

I understand. I understand. We did our first two events and I didn't realize that we were supposed to publicly thank our sponsors because I had never done an event before.

And at the end of it, I was like, man, I feel like kind of a douche. So I get it. We aren't.

[Stephen Husted] (4:03 - 4:21)

Yeah. And I think that's, you know, I think that's what it's all about. You know, you're going to be uncomfortable.

And the way you get your growth is you go through some hard things and you get to the other side and you make those mistakes. But then when you make the mistakes, you learn from them and it pushes you forward.

[Heather Cook] (4:23 - 4:43)

If you think about it too, it's actually like so tangible. I feel like when we talk to our team, they're like, oh, here goes Heather again, being a cheese bag. But it's like if you look at it, failure is truly a growth opportunity.

Absolutely. Like there is no way to grow without doing that. Otherwise, it's like you're like a piece of cardboard.

You know, you're just complacent. You're doing the same thing. That's not okay.

[Stephen Husted] (4:43 - 4:49)

Yeah, absolutely. So what have been some tough challenges you've been going through lately?

[Heather Cook] (4:51 - 7:27)

Lately. So we have failed at starting a team four times. Wow.

Okay. And yeah, we're really bad at it. Super bad.

Because we were doing it like the old way, right? It's like, who's the rainmaker of this? And who's this?

You know, all these layers and these like going by a book and like, I just don't fit in a box like that. And I'm like, I've got to do something different that makes sense to me. And so I started like really what it was is like, we failed and failed and failed.

And by failure, I mean, like wasted like a lot of money and like time and you don't get time back. That's like major valuable, most valuable. And talk to a guy named Eric Hatch.

He's one of the great ambassadors actually with us. And he's like, really great at teams. And I'm like, what are you?

How are you so good at this? And he's like, let me ask you a question. Why are you starting a team?

And my honest answer was because that's what the next thing is. You know, that's what's next. That's where we are.

And he said, you will fail. And I was like, oh, okay, thank you. Why?

And he said, until you are starting a team, because you have a like genuine desire to help other people be better, you will fail. And that hit me hard in a good way, though. You know, it was like, you don't know what you don't know.

And the only world with teams I've been exposed to is where I came from, which was a team down in Rock Hill, South Carolina. And my caveat with the team was not having anywhere to grow. You know, it was like, this is what your cap is.

This is what your split is. Don't you ask me for any more? You know, and I was good for a while until I wasn't.

And so I realized like with our team, okay, this is why you're failing. You thought it sucked too. Why would you think it's any different for your people?

You know, like, it's not any different. So I completely like tore the paper up and restarted with the thought process and everything that everybody's always got advancement opportunities. And it's it became what is what I would want.

You know, it's like I was going to somebody for support and help and collaboration. And what would I want to be investing in? Because it's not cheap to be on a team.

So anyway, our challenges that have been working through that process because failure sucks so bad. It always sounds like, oh, you're going to fail. And you're like, I've got it.

I'm ready. You know, I've got my raincoat. We're ready for this failure.

And then, you know, it's the ceiling collapses on your head. And you're like, well, this sucks worse than I thought it was going to suck. And you get through it.

So we went through a lot of that stuff for a while.

[Stephen Husted] (7:27 - 7:34)

What are the issues when creating the team? Like, what are the sticking points that make it be not successful?

[Heather Cook] (7:36 - 8:16)

So for us, it was we realized that you can't make people it's like you can't you can take a hearse to water, but you can't make it drink that kind of concept. It's so true that you cannot make somebody not everybody's born with the same skill set. It's sometimes it's not even their ability.

It's not like an issue of effort or desire. It's like you can't expect a greyhound to do the same thing as you know, like it's just not the same thing. And so that was our challenge.

I thought I could make people want this like I want this. And you know, like me and Brad sell between the two of us a little over 100 houses a year. And we're like, why aren't you guys?

You know, like, come on, let's go. I'm ready to go at 2am.

[Stephen Husted] (8:16 - 8:17)

Let's go.

[Heather Cook] (8:18 - 9:34)

Everybody else doesn't have that. And that's okay. That's why they need to be on a team and need to be around that energy and that motivation.

And, you know, they get they don't know what to do. So they don't which I'm writing a book right now called The Damn Thing. The premise of it is you got to do the damn thing, you know, so it's don't tell me Monday through Friday, you don't know what to do.

I gave you I wrote you a book, right? Here it is, you know, and it's just tactical, like, but you know, it's got to be like, kind of like in sales, you don't put all your eggs in one basket, you know, or in anything in life, really, you know, whether you're talking about finances or anything, this is the same thing. You can't just do social media and not do networking and not love on your people and not, you know, you've got to like have your, your branches spread out a little bit if you really want to be effective and do this, right.

So we give them that thing. And some of them are doing the thing now and it's working and it's all like organic. We're all organic.

We don't buy leads. So really, we've got a guy that Yeah, we are completely organic. We've sold about $200 million total without a dime in ad spend.

And so now when people are like, you got to do this, I'm like, no, you don't have to, like you can, people are tripping out because Zillowflex like did, you know, it was like, is the only thing that's left for that. And I'm like, we are so good. We're okay.

[Stephen Husted] (9:34 - 9:39)

So how do you do it? So what is your, what is your, how do you pull it all off? What's your lead generation look like?

[Heather Cook] (9:41 - 13:56)

It is very in body. It's, it's very organic. If you follow me on social, if you found me on Instagram, I'm really not very funny on Instagram.

I'm kind of funny on Facebook. And a lot of it is, so see, there's all like bore out of necessity. So what happens when I left that team, I told you earlier, I was on originally, I was broke.

I had $14 in my bank account. I was a single mom. I had a can of tuna fish and I had a banana and I had like $14 in my name.

So I didn't have money to buy leads and my kids needed to eat. And there was like, you look back, you never see it when it's like present tense. It's like the irony of timing sometimes.

And I had done a post. So I was working with a lady. Her name was Sandra.

This is when I was in Rock Hill. And I worked with her. She came to me with a credit score, like two years earlier of like, I don't know, like four 15 or something like something that you're like next, you know, but, but like, I liked her and like, I really wanted to work through this with her and she cared.

And to me, if like, if you care and you're willing to put in your effort and your work, I've got you, you know, like, I'm going to be here for that. So she did, we put her through, like, she went through all the things, went through like a program through the state to get like her down payment, all the things. And so like, when we closed on her house, it felt like as big of a victory to me as it did to her.

And we were both crying and we were both like, it was such a win feeling. So when I did her post on Facebook, all the other ones are, you know, it was like, congratulations to my clients, you know, blah, blah, blah. And this one, I was like, now I got to tell your story.

Like, I've got to tell people who you are and how hard you worked for that. And I noticed when I did that, because nobody was doing it like that. And it wasn't like I did it for a marketing reason like that.

Like, I love her. And like, I cared about her and I respected what she did. It was a lot of work.

So anyway, when I did that post my back when this was five or six years ago, my average likes on my posts, including the ones that I used to like on my own posts, I'm like, who were you Heather? But like, so including like 12 likes, 13 likes in this one post got like 150 likes, which like five years ago was basically viral. So it was like an aha moment.

Like, wait a minute, people like to connect with people. And they like to hear stories that have not just happy glitter, you know, sunshine, all over it. They want to see that people struggled so that they see the win at the end.

Because sometimes other people might be in that same boat. And anyway, so I started doing this and I started telling their stories at closing. That little piece alone started the thing.

It's like we say there were like two breakthrough moments for us in our careers, and this was one of them. And it was as simple as that. Then COVID happened.

And, you know, everybody's in their houses. Like, at first, it was so great. It was like snow day.

And then it was like, oh, my God, we're on like day 5000 of snow days. It's not fun anymore. And we miss like humans.

So Brad and I started going meeting people in town with our darn COVID masks on, you know, awkward meeting people. I needed to get out of the house. I've got ADHD.

I have to be around energy. So went and met with people and told their stories online, you know, and a lot of people do things. Talking to my husband, Brad, about this this morning, a lot of people do things, right?

They doorknock me. Yeah, you know, that's just a no for me. But some people make their whole careers out of it.

And it's great. That doesn't mean doorknocking is wrong. It's not right for me.

That's okay. So the way that we talk about this is it's like, this is just a way. It may not be your way.

But it is definitely works if this is your way. But you've got to do it though. Like you've got to you can't go out and meet with somebody one time or do one good post and expect for that to just launch your career.

You're going to be coasting from now on. You got to wake up and do it again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow until you die. So like that it's but it's like, okay, if my options for me, if I'm going to put my 60 hours a week into this, do I want to be used that time doorknocking or cold calling or calling expires or whatever, you know, lots of things are calling leads talking to strangers that don't want to talk to me.

No, I don't want to do those. So I just found a way that works for me that makes me comfortable and it feels organic. And that's kind of what taught us people like organic, you know, people like you do it.

Absolutely. It's funny you bring that up question.

[Stephen Husted] (13:57 - 14:18)

We're on the same absolute same page, Heather. This is, you know, you're talking and I'm going, I'm thinking as you're talking going, this is the most the day it's Monday and in the week is already starting off wild in a lot of ways. I have ADHD.

I just made a post about that and put it on Instagram.

[Heather Cook] (14:19 - 14:19)

Oh, yeah.

[Stephen Husted] (14:19 - 14:30)

And it was about starting a podcast and being super excited. Well, I'll back up. So I've been a hairdresser for 35 years.

[Heather Cook] (14:31 - 14:32)

I didn't know that.

[Stephen Husted] (14:32 - 15:41)

I'm still a hairdresser. You just don't know because I don't talk about it online because it's the secret career. You only you're the only person that knows and my assistant that's on this on this call.

And I built my whole real estate career behind the chair. I mean, and so but I have ADHD, had it since a kid. And I've learned to ninja it and enough to channel it the best way I possibly can.

And in February, I decided I was going to get on medication again. And I tried it and it worked. It was amazing.

I had one week of going, this is the way that my brain should work. Oh, my gosh, I was really screwed up. And then it stopped.

Tried another medication, got off it again, and got really nervous about being on a podcast and listening to the guests speak that I'm going to stay focused. And listen to every word that my guest says, because let's face it. We both know if you have ADHD, I can start talking right now and you're gonna probably have a hard time listening to me because you're probably thinking about 100 things and so am I.

[Heather Cook] (15:42 - 16:01)

I've got an idea I'm trying not to forget to tell you about at the end of this right now. Exactly. For you.

I've got a book. I'm like looking around. I'm like, where's my damn pen so I can take a note on this shit.

And then at 2am I'm gonna remember and I'm gonna be like, I remember now.

[Stephen Husted] (16:01 - 16:02)

The DM will come.

[Heather Cook] (16:03 - 16:05)

Yeah, it will for sure.

[Stephen Husted] (16:05 - 16:06)

It's so crazy.

[Heather Cook] (16:07 - 16:11)

So you're behind the chair. What idea? I said it.

I'm done. I'm better. I can focus behind the chair.

[Stephen Husted] (16:11 - 16:50)

Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I can't believe I actually just put this out this in the podcast, but whatever, like, let's just get it out when it comes out. There's a lot of things I have not talked about yet that will come.

I think that a reason I kept the salon out of the mix right now is I wanted my Instagram page to be more. Look, I work in real estate. I'm a real estate investor.

I run Airbnbs. I'm a endurance athlete and I have a family. You know, those are some of the layers that are starting.

But yeah, how does your ADHD? How does it benefit you? And what are the issues you have with it?

[Heather Cook] (16:52 - 17:28)

Fair question. Good question. I love talking about this stuff because I think it's healthy because I didn't know until I was in my, sounds like you too, like mid thirties.

I just knew like I was really bad at school and I talked too much in school and I could never, ever finish a task. You know, I had like all these great, like huge things. I would start when you started them or when I started them, it was like, oh, I can do all these things.

And then you get halfway through it and it gets, I get overwhelmed and then I just shut down. And then it's like, I can do zero and that's even less effective. So but, so when I was with the original team, we had an investor and it was like back, think back in like 2000, how long have you been doing this?

[Stephen Husted] (17:29 - 17:29)

2008.

[Heather Cook] (17:30 - 19:32)

Okay. So, you know, so back in number 12, 13 ish, the market was like not awake yet, but it was waking back up. And I have one of these hedge fund investors with the guy who's with on the team, a big one, one of the big four in the country.

And I sold him a thousand houses in just over two years. So like I didn't sleep, but what I didn't know, this was how I found out I had ADHD. I would sit in front of my computer.

I was doing this from home. And the way this worked is like a property would come on MLS, right? A brand new listing.

I would take that by the time I got through this, like years into it, I could like look at a zip code, a neighborhood, a square footage in a bedroom count. I could tell you what it'll sell for, what it'll rent for, how long, you know, I just need a zip code. It like, you do enough of this and you just know this, but anyway, it would come on, you'd run this stuff.

I have like a pass fail system, like, and it worked or it didn't. And then you'd tweak the rent and you'd tweak the price and see, okay, is this something we can even make happen? And this is that, God, I look at the houses that we're selling nothing.

And I'm like, oh my God, we literally killed this deal because of the countertops were ugly. And that house would sell for like $700,000 that we could have gotten for 229 back then. Just freaking crazy.

But what would happen is I would get so like engrossed in this that I would get almost like tunnel vision into the computer. There was a lot of days. Most days I went to bed around two or three in the morning and I wake up around five.

And this was my life for like two years. I lost like 70 pounds, but I was like obsessed with it because I could just keep trucking through. I had a staff of eight underneath me eventually that were helping me run these things.

Like I had this thing going like a machine, but it was taking my whole life away, like all my life away. I would forget to eat for a day or two at a time, not even medicated or anything because I was like, almost like sucked in or something. And I couldn't get out.

I went to the doctor and was explaining this. She said that's called hyperfocus. It's hard for other people who don't have this to understand why you just can't stop looking at that.

It's like your death to everything else that's going on around you.

[Stephen Husted] (19:33 - 20:03)

Yeah. And the people around you too, you're so elevated. Then they freak out like, whoa, Heather's on a, she's on a roll.

Yeah. And almost when you get done, heck, my broker right now, when I started shooting video, I had this conversation with him. He's like, dude, you're fired up.

You're fired up. And I'm like, yeah, man, this is how I get. Watch.

[Heather Cook] (20:04 - 20:08)

Out of curiosity, are you an empath too? Are you like an overfeeler of other people's emotions?

[Stephen Husted] (20:08 - 20:09)

Yes.

[Heather Cook] (20:10 - 20:27)

I've often wondered if these two go hand in hand because of what you just, because when you feel, you feel big when you built, you know what I mean? It's like you get excited. You're like so excited, you know?

And it's, it's hard to even like keep it in because you can feel it so big. And I can channel it with different people.

[Stephen Husted] (20:28 - 20:38)

Like I know, interesting right now, I know how to, how to be with you. You know what I mean? Like, I know like we're on the same level, you know, energy wise.

[Heather Cook] (20:38 - 20:58)

Well, there's magical energy. It's cool. Totally.

You can like feel that it is. It's cool when it happens. Yeah.

It's a trip. So you, you've done hair now, so you're, I want to go back to that for just a second. Is that like a full time career?

Okay. So are you at a fancy salon? Do you know celebrities?

There's a lot of questions.

[Stephen Husted] (20:58 - 21:24)

Um, so I got, I became a hairdresser in 1991. Um, so been a hairdresser. Then I became a DJ and I was DJing all over, all over the world.

Uh, like I guess you would call it EDM, like house music, like raves and things like that. So I did that. I did that for a big period of time.

[Heather Cook] (21:25 - 21:29)

How'd you get your, your name out there? Just was like, you did something that was cool and somebody else wanted you.

[Stephen Husted] (21:29 - 23:00)

I just went, started going to nightclubs and, you know, the early, late eighties and, you know, was really into the DJ culture. Um, you know, my parents got me a DJ when I think it was eighth grade and, you know, he went to the bathroom and I just jumped on the decks and started DJing. So it was something that was going to start, you know, and I just, once the whole scene started, I, you know, became a DJ.

And so I was doing those two careers. So I've always been like this, like always have a couple of different careers going at one time, very used to that. Um, then, you know, I got clean and stopped DJing and I was helping engineers in Silicon Valley, very geeky, techie dudes, uh, that wanted to buy houses and they places, but they had, you know, looking at these original homes and they're like, I don't know, I don't, I gotta remodel the kitchen.

I gotta do this. Can you come with me and give me your opinion? And I was sure.

So I'd go and they go, you know, I said, Oh, you're going to knock the wall out. You're going to do this. And they're like, Oh, wow.

Okay, cool. Do you know an agent? Yeah, I do have a couple.

So I'd refer to one of my clients, you know, that comes to the salon and, uh, I would get a referral check for $700 thousand dollars. I thought it was like, Oh my God, this is the best. This is amazing.

And then I'm so smart for coming up.

[Heather Cook] (23:00 - 23:01)

This is so cool.

[Stephen Husted] (23:02 - 24:14)

And then I, I helped this client buy a $3 million home in Los Altos and this is 2008. So imagine where that, what would that be now? Just for fun.

And he's like, who is this girl? You're connecting me with. He's like, dude, you need to go get your license.

He's like, you sold me and you'd even know it. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah.

He's like, you walked at this house. You gave me the vision. We looked at the neighborhood.

He's like, you were an agent. You don't even know it. And I, I was like, I don't want to be an agent.

That sounds very cheesy and sounds like a car salesman. I don't want to do that. But, um, my brother was a general contractor and he said, Hey, I dare you to get your license.

So I got my license and the market crashed. And then there you went. We started off, you know, doing short sales and foreclosures and yeah.

And I just kept the career because it was such a database of connections and I know everything about my clients. I know, you know, they're having the kids where their kids go to school, what they do on the weekends. And so when it came to real estate, they're asking me questions.

So when the time was right, they, it was the very, it was an easy transition and I know him and the trust was already built.

[Heather Cook] (24:15 - 25:27)

That's the key. That's the key. And that's what social media is like when you do this organically and effectively like this, that is the number one piece.

What you just said, it's like when you are able to establish like a relationship and show that you're not just fun to work with, you're also smart and you also know what you're talking about in the market, um, that you've already got their trust. You know, like we had last summer, last May, it's like, that was my aha. I think we were onto something with the social media thing we're doing.

Um, cause it's just me being me on my personal page, just being a dumb ass. Like this isn't like something fancy. Um, and like, so anyway, I got two messages in Facebook messenger from people I had never met in my life.

Like I don't, but they know me a lot about me, like my dog's names and like, you know what I like to eat and my great or green couch anyway. But that's what you do, right? You're exposing them to your life.

So this isn't creepy. It's kind of cool that they notice these things. Uh, but both of them wanted us to list their house.

They weren't interviewing any other agents and they were both over a million dollars. And I was like, that's pretty cool. And you know, where we are, that's a little above the average price point, but that's not a bad deal to get two messages like that one week because you did your thing right on Facebook, you know, right.

[Stephen Husted] (25:28 - 25:54)

And you, and you, you never know what you post that gravitates with somebody else. You know, like they, they see it, it could be what you ate, where you were, something you did. And it's like, you get a DM and they're asking questions or they're connecting with that.

And, and you're like, wow, I, it's almost like you sometimes take it for granted that you're putting it out there, but it resonates with people and you just never know.

[Heather Cook] (25:54 - 26:28)

It does. For me, it's been a lot of getting over, um, like imposter syndrome, you know, when I'm, when somebody comes to me and it's like, or they know us in public or, you know, it's, it's like this, like, please don't act like I'm a big deal because like, I'm just Heather from Rock Hill. You know what I mean?

It's, it's a weird head space to be, have somebody recognize you or like think that something you did is a big deal. And it's like, don't make a big deal out of it. Like that wasn't a big deal.

You know, it's, it's been a lot of getting over that for me. Um, because a lot of what I post, I'm not posting for the accolades, you know, I'm not posting for attention. Mine is kind of like, I'm just like sharing and I hope it, it hits home with somebody, you know?

[Stephen Husted] (26:28 - 27:27)

Gosh, man. What a way to, what a way to start my Monday. This is just the most strangest part of shooting content and, and putting it out there is it's, it's, it's so many highs and lows.

There's so many peaks to it. And you, you brought up, you touched on so many different things, I think over time. And there's been points, uh, that, you know, I get down on myself.

I'm kind of burned out. I'm shooting content. And then I get somebody that messaged me going, Oh my God, I really love your content right now.

It's just amazing. And you're, and it's like, okay, keep going or keep going in another, keep putting more out. Like you just never know.

And I don't know if you're going through this. I don't know if you go, so you say you post a lot of just your, your daily life, right? What you do, what you eat happens basically, you know, are you big, bigger on Facebook?

Is that more where you're posting everything? Or are you putting everything on Instagram too?

[Heather Cook] (27:28 - 27:55)

Almost when I do it on Instagram, I'm trying to do better. Kind of like you with your podcast, which, you know, we're, I think right now because of the direction that real estate companies are going, especially, you know, like this is all kind of heading tech and heading different than it used to be. We're not all putting, you know, our names and faces on the pharmacy bags and grocery carts.

Like it's different now to get our name out there to do things, you know, as people do still call every week. But I was going somewhere with this too. And I just like squirreled out.

[Stephen Husted] (27:56 - 27:59)

Is that where you're posting most of your videos there?

[Heather Cook] (28:01 - 30:14)

It's in, it mostly isn't videos. It's mostly me typing. So with Facebook at one point, there was an algorithm.

If you could keep somebody on your page for more than six minutes, it changed your stuff. And during COVID, I was long style posting. I was just posting, like telling, I'm like a storyteller.

And so I like if you go to my Facebook page, that's what I have a problem with, with Instagram, it limits your characters. And I'm like, I had way too much to say for you to limit my character. So go to my Facebook.

It's like, so there I can write long style. And it's so funny because so many people are like, I don't even read like when somebody puts two sentences on there, you know, I don't even read their stuff. But when I see one of your posts, I will bookmark it so I can go back later and read every single word.

Like, you know, so I was able to create an audience by doing it. But the funny thing is, I didn't do it on purpose. Like I was just writing because it was COVID and I was bored.

And it was like, it was my way of like, it was my outlet. And I didn't know what I was doing as people read, you know, I mean, I'm talking pages, I write something else on there, but it kept people on my page for more than six minutes. And my followers went from like 2000 to 5000 in like eight weeks.

And now I'm at almost eight. And it's like every now and then I'll get a weird post. Like I posted a quote the other day, I'm not really a big quote poster.

I like to come up with my own content. Like I don't like chat GPT. But it has its place.

But I, I posted it. And I was looking yesterday, because it's got like, all these people are commenting. And I'm like, who are they?

And there's somebody in like, Scotland, and there's somebody in Australia, it's had almost 15,000 people when you go to your insights, and you look at the reach. And I'm like, I don't know why you guys are looking at this thing. But you know, you never know, like you said, what it's going to be, that's going to resonate with people, or that's going to hit home with them.

No, really, the ultimate goal is to try to make human connections and the rest will come. I think if you put the money as like your, this is what the goal is, kind of like the team thing. It's like, I think you're going to fail, or you're not going to be satisfied at the end.

You know, even if like the money piece is there, I think it's going to be less fulfilling, than if you actually like made like a meaningful connection with someone and feel like instead of you sold something, you made a difference in their life. Yes. And I think that's the right angle to have.

[Stephen Husted] (30:15 - 30:36)

100%. I mean, I can tell you, I've been shooting content for about a little over a year. And, you know, I've been using Instagram since 2012.

And I remember back then, the only people that were using Instagram were hairdressers, and tattoo artists, and photographers, people like that.

[Heather Cook] (30:36 - 30:37)

I was thinking the photographers.

[Stephen Husted] (30:38 - 31:18)

Yes, it was a very, because it was all photos. And I remember I had this listing in this really cute neighborhood. And I'm like, I'm going to take a this house, and I'm going to make it black and white, black and white.

And I put it out there. And I remember showing some people in my office, they're like, this is stupid. This is dumb.

But coming from a creative background, I go, Hmm, I don't think it's stupid. I think it's cool. And you know, and it's funny.

And then all of a sudden, agents started putting on the flyers on Instagram, like the whole flyer was like that every page was that and I just, I got burned out, you know, they're just ruining it.

[Heather Cook] (31:18 - 31:40)

Something different was your baby, you know, like I got a like, like squirrel, like I got obsessed with golden gooses for a while. And as soon as I because everybody's like, what are those torn up shoes? And I was like, I liked it because one, they were comfortable.

But two, it was like, nobody knows what these are. So I thought it's so cool. And then you start seeing like everybody wearing them.

I'm like, I am so over these, like I never want to see it again. So yeah, it's the same thing, but completely different.

[Stephen Husted] (31:40 - 32:15)

Yeah. And I really had a, and I've struggled with this my whole career in real estate is, you know, you brought up the, the shopping cart or the bag, not me, never will do it. And you know what, interesting enough, some of the top agents in my market right now, they're bread and butter, and they're crushing it.

They are doing the shopping cart, and, you know, mailers to your, to your house. And they do it every month. And they just, that is their, and, and they are the ones.

And you know how I know they're doing.

[Heather Cook] (32:16 - 32:19)

You know, it's like the, what you just said that they do it every month.

[Stephen Husted] (32:19 - 32:20)

You know what I mean?

[Heather Cook] (32:20 - 32:56)

It's, it's the consistency, you know, absolutely. And the amount of it, you know, it's like what the marketing thing is at eight points of, you know, they'll have to see you eight different places to recognize you once kind of thing. And that same thing applies to social media.

You know, like if you post once, it's not going to have the same effect as if they keep seeing you. But like those people doing that, if they're doing the billboards, and the mailers, and the, you know, the bags at the grocery store, and the cards, and all the things, if they're doing all of that, it probably works amazingly. I would rather generate money where I'm not outputting $800,000 a year in every marketing source alive.

Yeah. And I'm still generating.

[Stephen Husted] (32:56 - 33:23)

Yeah. And, you know, it's hard because, you know, you can listen to Tom Ferry or everybody's got the thing you can get online and they're like, you got better make your calls, you better be doing that. Like, almost everybody wants to talk that you should be doing everything.

I don't know if that's, you know, I don't think every, the average agent can pull that off, honestly, because it's a very expensive endeavor to do. I think you got to find where.

[Heather Cook] (33:25 - 33:35)

It's soul crushing. I think for new agents, if they find out like I'm gonna have to sit there on the phone for two hours, at least for me, yeah, I would be like, that's good. I'm gonna go work at Target.

I'm good. You know? Yeah.

[Stephen Husted] (33:36 - 35:51)

I think that I was following a bunch of people on Instagram that got me inspired to start shooting content. And I remember the first couple videos I did, I brought my lender in and I put him in the video. I took him to lunch and brought him in the video.

I go, we're gonna shoot a video. He's like, well, what are we shooting? And I, you know, asked one question and then he answered it and I posted it.

And all of a sudden I got all these like, thanks, thanks for posting this. And I was like, okay, it's on. The next was a client that they're school teachers and they wanted to buy a home.

They could only afford 550 and 550 in Silicon Valley, East Bay is really tough. And so they were looking in East Oakland. Okay.

So East Oakland FHA. So took him out, found him a house. They bought the first house they looked at.

We wrote an, I had the offer prepped. We went and looked at the house. The house was cute.

They got into contract and I shot videos talking about what they have learned during the process. And all the way to the end, like I go, I don't want to, I don't want to do the pending just sold with you holding the sign and you know, me taking this credit. There was a lot that went on during that transaction.

And so I documented it. Then I had a phone call from a who already had an agent and I know them and they say, Hey, we want to get coffee with you. We want to talk about selling our house.

Like, okay. So we sat down and she's like, Hey, I saw this videos of you helping this couple buy a house in Oakland. She's like, I know you don't work in Oakland.

And she's like, I know you don't work in East Oakland either. And she's like, and I was trying to reach out to my agent who we needed some help getting a handyman and he blew us off. And I said, I'm calling Steven.

And they called me and I sold that house for 3.2 million. And that was the springboard into shooting content. I took that whole a hundred thousand dollars and built out the podcast room.

I hired two assistants. I hired three editors and I said, I'm going to put all the money into this. And I don't care if I fail, I'm going for it.

[Heather Cook] (35:51 - 35:58)

I don't even invest it in yourself though. You see it's an opportunity to invest in you. That is so brilliant.

[Stephen Husted] (35:59 - 36:25)

And here we are. And I have 20 grand left of that hundred. I didn't buy it, but guess what?

I'm so happy. And I'm excited to be able to do this and like jump on and talk to people and get it. This has been the best podcast ever already.

It's 36 minutes in. My week is good having you on.

[Heather Cook] (36:26 - 38:04)

I love when life gives you or anybody, right? They give people opportunities to do something. And instead of like, you could have gone and pissed out.

You hear of these people who win the lottery, right? And they go out and they win $20 million and then they're literally bankrupt two years later. You could have done that.

Similar, but not the same kind of thing. I love similar, but not the same. So we go through this all the time.

But we, so like two and a half years ago, we joined the firm that we're with now. And when you hear about these places that do like the rev share and things like this, well, in our world, we had never had like just a check show up. And so I was thinking like, if at some point we got it to be enough to like cover our house payment, I was going to be like super happy, like, you know, hashtag goals.

But it was always been like an icing on the cake, you know? And we got to the point quicker than I thought that we actually bought a 5,000 square foot house on main street downtown. And instead of taking the money that's coming in, cause we're building what we're doing, we're pouring it back into the business and we're pouring it back into like what we're able to do with the community.

And it was, somebody told me early on though, that's what they do with their money that comes in. That's, you know, they got from the business. They wouldn't have found otherwise.

Why not use that as just an investment back in your business? And I was like, so smart. So that's what we've done.

Now we're buying investment properties and things like that. Could I be in Tahiti? Maybe I should be in Tahiti, honestly, you know, but no, it's like, why not pour back into you?

Cause you got a chance that you're lucky, you know, like when little things like that happen, that's very lucky, fortunate, blessed, whatever your happy word is, you know, but like that didn't have to happen to you, but it did, you know? And it's like, so good for you for pouring that right back into you.

[Stephen Husted] (38:04 - 38:47)

Yeah. And I think that it, and it just, I've had, I've had these very interesting thoughts lately, just being in real estate, you know, I think we could, we could touch on investment properties and short-term rentals, all that good stuff and your brokerage. I definitely want to hear about that.

It, I think that down the road, I feel like my vision, like I think realist being a, being an agent is going to be just a little bit part of it. I think there's going to be some bigger things coming out of this and I'm okay with that. Like I'm just, I love the journey of it.

And I love to hear other people's journey on it too, because I think that the whole media is like the glue to other things as well. Like it's just one part of the, does that make sense?

[Heather Cook] (38:48 - 38:53)

It totally does. I think it's magic in a way that it's almost like a butterfly effect kind of thing, but different, you know?

[Stephen Husted] (38:53 - 39:13)

Yeah. I mean, it just really is. I mean, I just don't, I don't know how to explain it and only time will tell, but your brokerage, how did you choose?

What made you choose real? Because I know a lot of people that I follow on Instagram that are with the same brokerage and they're all super cool. They're cool.

[Heather Cook] (39:14 - 45:10)

Cooler than most. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with other rates, but like there's people who do a lot of content stuff here. And like when it started, we got here by accident.

Our tax guy, it's been two and a half years ago that January, whatever year that was, COVID year. Tax guy called us one day. It was like on like a Thursday.

And he said, what are you guys doing? Like he was doing our numbers and we had spent like 68 something thousand dollars at our last brokerage the year before. We had a great year, but he's like, I could put my kids through college for this.

And I was like, we're just working. So we weren't really paying attention to that. We're just like, it's fine.

We're good. We're good. I don't want to have to go through that chain.

It seemed like an inconvenience. I don't know. I was good.

I was complacent. We were number one at our brokerage. Number one, it mattered.

And we're like, oh, we're so great. Like so much we've learned since then. But when he said that, I was like, oh, screw this.

We're starting our own brokerage. And then I'm like, but I hate school. So Brad, you're going to brokerage school.

Bye. So he went through North Carolina. We're dual licensed in North and South and getting to South Carolina.

Well, he'd only been licensed there for like two years and five months or something. You had to be three years. And he's like, ha ha, your turn.

You have to go to school. So it's COVID. It's a Zoom class, which is like, you know, that's like the worst way to get us to learn.

I'm like, there's so many other shiny things in this room. So I'm in class, but I'm listening to this and I'll tell you, you know, I always try to have like one positive to take out of everything, even if it's like a complete turd of a situation. And I hated, so I was 10 minutes into this, right?

And I'm like, listening to it. I'm like, I'm going to go to jail, literally. Like we're rule followers to like a painful point, but I don't want to just like my whole job to be like compliance officer, which is what I learned that like being broker in charge is so much more than just like wearing that hat.

Like, and that's my positive takeaway is I have a different respect and appreciation for what those people do and have to deal with. And no, thank you. We are big eligible.

We did go ahead and get through that whole thing. But anyway, I texted Brad under the desk and I was like, F this, not happening. And he's like, what are we going to do?

And I was like, not this, like, no. So we interviewed 26 brokerages. We're not brokerage hoppers kind of people.

You know, we had been at, I had been at one, it was a team because that's all I knew when I knew when I started, you know, 12 or 13 years ago and then went to one other firm and that's all we had ever been at. So anyway, we wanted to do like really heavy due diligence and I didn't even like, all I cared about was the numbers. It was black and white.

Like I didn't want to be paying 68 grand a year. So like anything based on our volume that was better than that was going to be a win. And that's like, I look back, I was talking earlier about, there was two breakthroughs, you know, in my life.

And one of them was that Sandra and her situation. And it like, there was a glass ceiling kind of effect that it broke through. And this was the other one is like, we came here with the goal.

Like if you say, okay, what, you know, what does success look like to you or what are your goals? Success looked like a number then. And really it did.

It was like, oh, I just want to be able to make the most money I possibly can. And I still want to be number one, you know, that's in Charlotte, you know, all of huge Charlotte, so big, 25,000 realtors, you know, so got here. So we interviewed all these places.

And the last lady I spoke with, somebody I didn't know, she lives in, lived at the time in Washington and I met her online. And at one point months ago, she had mentioned she was like working at a brokerage that was kind of just getting started. And, you know, my thought is like, this is a little mom and pop thing, whatever, you know, but while I'm going through this due diligence process, I remember she had a hat on that said real, I kind of looked it up.

It sounded like whatever to me, it sounded like EXP. And there was no hate on that whatsoever in our area. That's kind of a real pushy recruiting thing, not something I really cared to be part of that vibe.

So my first reaction to when I saw it was kind of like a, I'll listen to you because I'm doing due diligence, but it's still going to be, you know, like that's how I walked into it. The kind of people that when they walk up to me and you were like, oh no, oh no, you're going to be mine at the end of this one. You know, like clients and everything.

I'm like, don't tell me it's a hard one. So anyway, she asked me or she said something like, okay, well, our splits are 85, 15 or caps 12,000. I was like, I'm in, I'm good.

I'm in. And she's like real eloquent. And she's like, can I finish?

I'm like, oh, of course. Sure. No.

And she said, what's your exit plan? And I'm like, oh, well, Brad has like $50,000 in a 401k from his other corporate job. And we have a rental property and it's like silence.

And I'm like, that was the wrong answer. And she started explaining one, that this was a new company, kind of like how they formed and started and some of the opportunities. And it just like in the conversation with her, I was like, wow.

Okay. Cause it's attraction versus recruiting. And you know, if you think about it, everything's mindset for me, sales and helping you're doing the same thing.

You've got a client, right. A buyer, a seller, whoever you can hear your voice. So you know what it sounds like when you're in a house and you're, you've got desperate breath and you need this money.

The way you sound, the way you're thinking, the way you're talking, the way you're coming across is very, I'm trying to sell you this house. Otherwise you're walking through it when you're helping. And you're like, I know, but you said you hated this in the last house.

Like gross, look at it. It's, you know, you're being honest. And it's the same thing.

Like at the end of the day, you're selling a house, but are you helping or are you selling? And the same type of situation to me is with attraction and recruiting. Attraction, you're creating something that people want to be a part of.

You're doing something cool. And people are like, Hey, I came to you.

[Stephen Husted] (45:10 - 45:11)

I want to be a part of it.

[Heather Cook] (45:11 - 47:28)

What are you doing? I want to do what you're doing. Cause you look like you're having fun.

You're never, Brad and I, we went from 26 million to 41 million the year we came here. I can only equate it to like how much bigger my brain got when my world changed because it wasn't just Charlotte. I will tell you people, you, you California people, you're smarter than us out here.

At least like you're, you're like techie and you're cool. And in North Carolina, we're like, Hey y'all, do you want to come to an open house? I'm bringing barbecue, you know, like it's, it's getting around this stuff.

And like, I hadn't done a video in my life before I came over to real develop with the ones that I started doing the first video in my life that ever did. I was like Tamir, our CEO, I was like, I had this great idea. It's early COVID.

He had done like a, he gets on our workplace and like, just Tamir being Tamir. He'll, he'll be straight with us. Like during COVID, he's like, I don't know what's going to happen right now.

I would advise everybody to save your money as best as you, you know, don't overspend right now. This is like, there's peacetime and there's wartime. Like right now, like we're kind of in wartime.

We don't know what's going on. Everything doesn't feel right and good. So treat your business like a wartime CEO.

And, you know, so I was like, I love that. He's so smart. Cause he is.

And I was like, do you want to do like a, like this with me? Right. And he's like, yeah, when?

And I was like this weekend, you know, it's like Friday and he's like, how about Sunday? And I'm like, perfect. Good.

And I'm like, get off the phone. And I'm like, shit, I don't even know how to do a podcast. I don't have a video camera.

I better buy a ring light on Amazon, you know, like all these things. Like I had no idea what I was doing. I spent like, I don't know, 80 days picking out my outfit and the 12 hours I had to find it was like overly overthought every and you can look at it and I'm like nervous and you can hear the whole thing.

But anyway, my point is even that train wreck wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have gotten around people, whoever those people were that made me feel like growing was a safe place. And it like, you don't have to like stick on that train that you're at where you are, where you're doing the same thing you've always been doing. And the, we got invited the December that we came here at that year.

So like eight, 10 months in, whatever. Tamir, our CEO had emailed 10 of us. It was me and Brad and 10 other people that once we tracked them down, just people would have your social presences.

And you know, we were the first people at real can. No, he wasn't. He wasn't one of them.

He wouldn't with us.

[Stephen Husted] (47:28 - 47:29)

Oh, really?

[Heather Cook] (47:29 - 49:48)

Was Katie Herrera. Katie wasn't one of them yet. She came on though.

She's one of them now. One of the great ambassadors. Bob Tompkins was one of the originals.

I'm trying to remember if Brad McCallum was with us yet. We were just opening Canada at the time. So I can't remember.

He is one now. Taylor Prince and Joe Herrera who are out in Vegas. They run a mega team out there.

Great guys. Spring Benson. She's out in Utah.

Eric Hatch, if you know him, he's up in Fargo. What is that in North Dakota? I mean, I don't know, like 11 people or something there.

He sells all the house. He's like, I sell all the houses. And I was like, cause there's literally like 12 houses.

So Jordan Terrell, he's in Denver, Colorado. But anyway, there's all these guys. And me and Brad got invited to do this thing with all these people.

We're like, Oh, they're number one. And we're number one. Obviously, I said, you know, at the time, this is where we still were because we hadn't gotten out of our we didn't get really like it was too new.

We didn't even have a culture yet. We just we were trying. Everybody's trying.

We didn't know who the hell we were. So but I, Tamir reached out to me and this was on the 18th of December and he wanted on the 22nd of December. Mind you, this is the week of Christmas, right?

On the 22nd, he wanted all of us to be in Nashville. And the only way we were going to be able to get there was to fly. And at the time, I was going through a phobia thing and I couldn't fly.

I mean, I've gotten to a hip. I took it was a no. Like you could have been like, here's a billion actual dollars.

And I would have been like, I physically can't do this right now. And it was embarrassing. When I was 15, I think it was I have been like a dozen times there hadn't been like a catastrophe or any, you know, nothing.

I was always fine. I like enjoyed flying when I was younger. And then one time we got in the plane and as soon as like, no, you're on the runway and it starts accelerating real fast.

Out of nowhere, I wasn't even nervous. I had like a full blown burst of ever. I'd never had one before my bike, an actual panic attack.

And because of that, I was so scared for so many years that any other time I got on the plane that I was going to have a panic attack that I made myself panic about it. You know, because like an actual panic attack, they're terrifying. You know, it's like you're you're not saying it.

You're not talking normal to people.

[Stephen Husted] (49:48 - 49:48)

Right.

[Heather Cook] (49:48 - 50:10)

So I had emailed Tamir and I was like, here's what's up. I can't come. Like whatever this is must be a big deal.

You're flying in from Israel to be here. And there's this tiny group of people. I can't do it.

And he said, I understand. Thank you for being honest with me. It's like, where do you live anyway?

And I was like, Charlotte. And he's like, OK. So 20 minutes later, we all got another email and it was from Tamir and he rerouted the whole trip to Charlotte.

[Stephen Husted] (50:10 - 50:11)

Oh, wow.

[Heather Cook] (50:11 - 51:10)

And he's never he's never said anything about it. And that's that was like, you know, you look for like a moment of confidence or assurance that like you're doing something right and you're in the right place. And like knowing that the person that's kind of like at the helm of our ship is that good of a human.

And it's not just in that. That was just like my first time experiencing the first of like a million things like that with him. But anyway, when we got to that place, so in Charlotte, all of these people are here.

Brad and I walk in and, you know, we hadn't like looked at their stats. We just saw like the whole like they seem like big deals. And we walked in and it was like, God, this guy's got a team of 200.

And this guy or this this girl's doing like 500 million a year. Like that kind of poo-poos are a little like 25 and 30 at the time. You know, then we were the smallest ones in the room.

And it was the first time ever in real estate since we got to be number one, that we were not number one by a landslide. We were number whatever the last number was. And it was intimidating.

But probably a good thing.

[Stephen Husted] (51:10 - 51:11)

But probably a good thing.

[Heather Cook] (51:12 - 51:32)

Oh, my God. It was it was the best. And so that's what that taught me is like, henceforth, like for the rest of my life, I always want to be in a room surrounded by nothing but people that are like smarter than me and better than me.

And like I am. There is zero ego in this. There can't be.

You know, like if you want to grow, you guys got to get out of out of your way. It's not OK.

[Stephen Husted] (51:33 - 51:34)

One hundred percent.

[Heather Cook] (51:34 - 52:10)

It's the only way you can do it. And we say, you know, you hear people saying, like, I broke through my glass ceiling, you know, like the last thing that happened with Sandra. That was like a glass ceiling.

And I knew at that moment felt like when we left this room with these people, it was like somebody took the whole roof off the building. And instead of saying, like, here's the next floor. Good job.

You graduated. It was like, here is the whole sky. Go get it.

And it changed our whole life because everything felt possible. And it felt like it's not scary to dream crazy big, like crazy bigger. I get goosebumps every time I talk about this, like crazy bigger than you could ever dream of.

Tried that.

[Stephen Husted] (52:11 - 52:28)

And it is that what made when she was asking about the exit strategy, that that was just very small, small thinking. And then she wanted you to kind of get a look. What was that part?

What are they trying to achieve with you at Real?

[Heather Cook] (52:29 - 53:35)

With that, they have no agenda with us. I'm just loud. And, you know, so they use us to like share and they, you know what I mean?

And honestly, what it's because we are the first few here in North Carolina. What's been cool is because, you know, a lot of people who come in anywhere, you know, you come to Kellogg's, you know, at this point, the people who are with Kellogg's when Clark Kellogg was live running his little factory and there was one building and he'd walk into his office to talk to him. That's not the same now.

There's a point that it's not because he's a jerk and didn't want to talk to people or didn't want to make the time has nothing to do with that. There's a point of impossible. You know, when there's a thousand people and, you know, you look at any brokerage, probably like the top five to 10 percent of the agents are really, really, really busting it.

And we were the top percentage of those. There was much less of the people doing the numbers that we were doing there at a thousand agents that now there's eleven thousand. Like if we would come on now.

Of course, the company's there and supportive and present, but we are fortunate to get in. We've got the ability to have relationships, you know, and even now people coming in when there's a hundred thousand agents, it's like any time you get into anything, it's different than if you were there at the very beginning.

[Stephen Husted] (53:35 - 53:36)

Right. You know, yes. Yeah.

[Heather Cook] (53:37 - 53:58)

And so we recognized the fact that we thought this looked like it seemed like a good opportunity. I've left every other brokerage I was with with zero dollars, you know, like zero. And so if this didn't work and I left with exactly zero dollars, I still came out paying a fourth of the fees that I would have paid otherwise.

So that seems like a win. Right.

[Stephen Husted] (53:58 - 54:30)

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And you got some you got some big play.

It's funny. I follow Katie Day on Instagram. Yeah.

Move me to Texas. Yeah. And I just referred her one of my clients.

I'm he's moving to Houston. So I reached right out to Katie, got, you know, got connected with her team. And she said she mailed me a little like, thank you package.

And it was the best package I've ever got. So I took videos of it and put it on Instagram stories.

[Heather Cook] (54:30 - 54:33)

I love it. So first, oh, my God, what did she say?

[Stephen Husted] (54:34 - 55:02)

It was like this black box, really cool branding. And inside it, it had a little thing of coffee. It had this, this treat to thing that all Texas related type things.

Yeah, it was really cool. It was all branded. It was black, white, blue.

I don't know if that's her branding colors, but it just the presentation was great. Had a little card in it.

[Heather Cook] (55:02 - 55:04)

It's so thoughtful, too.

[Stephen Husted] (55:04 - 55:12)

And she's like, yeah, like, she's so yeah, it had a cards, you know, playing cards. Move me to Texas playing cards.

[Heather Cook] (55:13 - 55:15)

That's a fun box. So fun.

[Stephen Husted] (55:15 - 55:27)

Yeah, that's so I just drink her coffee. You know, I had the coffee. It was so brilliant.

I went, I went out and did a mountain bike race and had her coffee in the morning, you know, and I'm having the coffee and I'm thinking of Katie.

[Heather Cook] (55:27 - 55:32)

So it's like, it was this seeing the whole psychology worked on you.

[Stephen Husted] (55:32 - 55:34)

Good for you. It totally did. It totally did.

[Heather Cook] (55:34 - 55:45)

So I'm flying out there. What is today? The 12th?

Yeah, I'm planning. I think it's the 30th. No, it's not.

Anyway, it's in about a week and a half. I'm flying out to Colorado. They're doing a thing out there.

It's called ascend. It's like a women's conference.

[Stephen Husted] (55:45 - 55:45)

Cool.

[Heather Cook] (55:46 - 55:51)

And I'm going to speak at that with them. Katie invited me to do that. So she's awesome.

Yeah, she's a great person.

[Stephen Husted] (55:51 - 55:58)

So what is what is your clientele base? Like, is it buyer sellers? Are you dealing with investors out there in North Carolina?

[Heather Cook] (55:59 - 57:20)

We not as much anymore with the investors we were. I mean, you know, the first couple of years, that was my entire universe was investors. The some of the bigger ones stopped buying.

I think they probably did that in most of the country after last year, the year before. We've got a couple like smaller ones, but it's just Charlotte's probably I mean, you guys probably have it worse than us here. This is really, really unless you just stumble across a unicorn.

It's it's not a where the interest rates are, where the prices are doing like it's it didn't make a lot of number sense right now. Not saying it's impossible. Many people are still investing.

But if we're going to be investing 80 percent of our time into a client type, it's not going to be an investor for us right now because that's not what we're not. Again, we don't have to be good at everything. Right.

I'm not going to be scouring wholesale stuff. Yeah. So we do a lot.

Buyers and sellers have oddly been not 50 50 exactly, but it'll be we sold 48 buyers and 52 listings like it is so close. So it's Brad and I started doing I started doing this, pulled Brad in almost six years ago. And the way our balance ended up working is we both go to the initial appointment.

There's a lot of I think there's a place in the universe for couples in real estate like I swear to Facebook group for it. I just need to get it off the ground because it is it's like you as a hairdresser. Nobody knows what your life looks like in that universe.

Except for you.

[Stephen Husted] (57:20 - 57:20)

Right.

[Heather Cook] (57:20 - 58:25)

You know what I mean? And when you are working full time, running a business with the person that you also live with, like that is nobody quite understands that like people going through that thing, you know. But anyway, Brad and I would go to the initial appointments together.

He's like super chill. Three psychology degrees. He's like calm.

He listens well. He's like totally the opposite of me and you. And then I come in and it's like it's Fourth of July every day.

And so one or the other, though, what we discovered of our personalities almost always work. They either wanted somebody with like tons of energy and like, I'm going to give them all my anything in my brain. You're going to know.

Or they want a good listener and somebody who's super chill. And it worked. So what we learned, though, is Brad is a because he's a more patient and a better listener.

He worked with buyers very, very well because I like the good direction and I'm not scared to share my thoughts. And I'm like, put your thick skin. I'm going to hurt your feelings.

You know, like we're going to we're turning this house into a product. You know, I was better at those conversations. So it worked out that it ended up 50 50, because we almost always got both sides of deals to this just kind of worked out that way.

[Stephen Husted] (58:25 - 58:41)

So that's great, which is good. What what are. So are you tell me about the Charlotte market?

You're in Charlotte, but it's Charlotte. Like explain to me, Charlotte, is it a bunch of different little cities within or tell me a little bit about it. I don't know much about it.

[Heather Cook] (58:42 - 1:01:15)

OK, OK. So if you are coming here from far away, Charlotte's got a kind of an uptown vibe area. It's technically downtown.

I need to Google. Why do people now call downtown's uptown? There's got to be so.

But it's got, you know, where it's still you know how it is when you start seeing like breweries pop up, like, you know, it's like, oh, it's going to get it's going to get cool, you know, and it's transitioning. And it's like, gosh, I should have bought a house there a year ago, you know, like. So it's got a lot of like little pocket areas that you're seeing, like massive appreciation.

And it is. We still see multiple offers, but where we were seeing on like two years ago, like almost every house was selling for like 10 percent more than the last one. And, you know, it was crazy.

It's it's not quite that bad. There's only been one. There was a house listed for one point six for one point nine seven a couple of weeks ago.

But it was like a unicorn. It's not the norm. But then around Charlotte, there's other areas.

It's a it's a border city. So it's right by South Carolina and South Carolina. Taxes are a little more favorable.

So a lot of people that work in Charlotte still want to live in South Carolina. And so that's on the south side. And on the north side, there is a lake area called Lake Norman.

That's where we live. And it's not like up north when people think of like in Minnesota, lakes are like, you know, an ocean with waves and things. This is a man-made lake.

I probably wouldn't eat fish out of it. But it is nice to boat off, you know, swim and go do things if that's your thing. So anyway, that's up here.

And it's kind of awesome. Davidson, where we live, it's like if you think of like quintessential Davis, Steph Curry went to Davidson College. It's like this kind of beautiful little historic college.

And it's got one of those like a true downtown where it's like a main street with like little shops and a coffee shop and a bookstore that smells like books and an ice cream place. And, you know, and then it's got like a grid of houses that are all like older and historic and cost like 90 times more than they should, you know, that whole thing. But anyway, it's Charlotte's got a lot to offer because depending on like what your needs are and do you want something that's, you know, some places like from what I understand about it, like big cities in California, you're not getting like a yard that's all gone, you know, like you're not within an hour there.

It's you're not getting an acre anywhere. And here it's like if you want an acre, no, you're not going to be probably even in Charlotte proper, but we can get you close, you know. So it's nice that there's still some breathability and some you can be realistic with having like what your brain thought life looked like when you were 11, like that can still exist here.

[Stephen Husted] (1:01:15 - 1:01:20)

How far is Charlotte from the Smokies? No idea.

[Heather Cook] (1:01:21 - 1:01:30)

Is that the mountains north of us? No, geography is like I'm not good at that. For real.

Is this are the Smokies? I was thinking the Appalachians were above us. Where are the Smoky Mountains?

[Stephen Husted] (1:01:30 - 1:01:30)

They're Tennessee.

[Heather Cook] (1:01:32 - 1:01:45)

We are from the mountains in Tennessee, at least the ones we used to pass through when I would go. My family's from Indiana and we would drive there and we are probably four or five hours away from at least where the range was that we drove through.

[Stephen Husted] (1:01:45 - 1:01:47)

Okay. Okay.

[Heather Cook] (1:01:47 - 1:01:54)

Better yet, they were three and a half or four hours from the beach. So it's cool. You know, if you want beach, you're as close to that as you are the mountains.

[Stephen Husted] (1:01:54 - 1:02:06)

Yeah, that's perfect. That's well, San Jose, Silicon Valley, you're about 30 minutes from the beach, depending on about four and a half hours from Tahoe, give or take.

[Heather Cook] (1:02:07 - 1:02:14)

So if I was looking at California, like just north to south, where are you like as far as in the length of the state?

[Stephen Husted] (1:02:14 - 1:02:22)

So I'm in San Jose, Los Gatos, right by Palo Alto, you know, Los Altos, Mountain View.

[Heather Cook] (1:02:22 - 1:02:24)

Is that closer to the bottom or the top?

[Stephen Husted] (1:02:24 - 1:02:26)

The middle, right in the middle.

[Heather Cook] (1:02:26 - 1:02:27)

Okay.

[Stephen Husted] (1:02:27 - 1:02:30)

So I know nothing about anything. One hour away from San Francisco.

[Heather Cook] (1:02:31 - 1:02:32)

Okay.

[Stephen Husted] (1:02:32 - 1:02:32)

Yeah.

[Heather Cook] (1:02:32 - 1:02:33)

Okay. I know where that is on.

[Stephen Husted] (1:02:33 - 1:02:33)

Yeah.

[Heather Cook] (1:02:33 - 1:02:34)

Okay. Cool.

[Stephen Husted] (1:02:34 - 1:02:35)

Have you been to San Francisco before?

[Heather Cook] (1:02:35 - 1:02:57)

So you're not far from some really cool stuff. We flew through there. We went to, was it even there?

I think it was San Diego, even all the sands and the S words out there. You guys have so many things. And I'm like, can we just start with another letter that we flew through there one time when we were going to Hawaii?

And that's the extent of it. We are doing our conference this year. You should join us at it.

Cause you're so close. It's in San Diego.

[Stephen Husted] (1:02:57 - 1:02:57)

Oh, cool.

[Heather Cook] (1:02:57 - 1:02:59)

Maybe you're not close. I don't know.

[Stephen Husted] (1:02:59 - 1:03:00)

Yeah. And four to five minute flight.

[Heather Cook] (1:03:02 - 1:03:09)

Oh, sick. Okay, cool. It's I'm excited about that because it looks, I mean, God, it looks so beautiful out there.

It looks like paradise out where you are.

[Stephen Husted] (1:03:10 - 1:03:45)

It is. Uh, we pay for it dearly for that. Um, yeah, it's, it's really, it's really hard, you know, California, we just, you gotta make a lot of money.

It's expensive to live here. Um, but it has a lot of unique characteristics to it. You know, you can get to the beach, you can go hiking, you can go to Tahoe, you can get on a plane and fly to Vegas.

You can fly to LA, San Diego. There's just a lot to do, but we definitely, you know, I, you know, I buy investment properties in the Midwest and every time you get on the phone with them, like, oh, you guys, you make good money out there. I'm like, you better, you better be making good money because it's expensive.

[Heather Cook] (1:03:46 - 1:03:47)

Yeah. You don't have a choice.

[Stephen Husted] (1:03:47 - 1:03:53)

You have no choice. Absolutely. You have no choice.

What's going on in San Diego? What is this? What convention are you talking about?

[Heather Cook] (1:03:55 - 1:04:58)

So in, um, October it is the second annual, it's called one real rise. And it's like our kind of like Keller Williams says their family reunion kind of thing. Um, I had only been to a Keller one before and it was years and years and years ago.

And what I remember about that one is, you know, it was a lot of talking about numbers and like listening to them talk about, you know, more things that, you know, that was kind of where their focus was. And this one was just so completely different. I left this one with like, I felt like somebody had like lit me with like electricity, um, and not in like a mega church, rah, rah kind of way, just like a very tactical, like I can now go home and try this in my business like tomorrow.

And I never thought of that before. That's how I like, I like coloring book style learning, you know, where it's like, I can now take this and I can go do this thing, you know, just tell me what to do. So there was a whole lot of that.

That was a lot of content type stuff and a lot of like business planning, but not like your traditional it's so out of the box. And it makes it kind of like fun to do business again, because it's like, you just started all over, but with a whole brand new set of markers, you know, like it's just, it's different.

[Stephen Husted] (1:04:59 - 1:05:12)

That's really cool. So I got a question for you and you keep using the same word over and over. Did you catch the name of my podcast?

No. Good.

[Heather Cook] (1:05:12 - 1:05:13)

Is it on this page?

[Stephen Husted] (1:05:14 - 1:05:17)

You're gonna kind of crack up when I tell you it right now. So I got a question for you.

[Heather Cook] (1:05:17 - 1:05:19)

It's not written. Yeah.

[Stephen Husted] (1:05:20 - 1:05:28)

Give me one of your breakthrough moments. Because that's the name of my podcast. The breakthrough podcast.

[Heather Cook] (1:05:28 - 1:07:13)

It's a breakthrough. And they were that was that was our two. The two breakthrough moments were the cyber one, like my breakthrough in that was that like one tell people stories, you know, be organic, be authentic, and be truly yourself.

Like, don't be afraid to like talk about the yuck. When I coach on social media, though, I say don't post negative until it's already been a positive at the end. Like don't talk about a loss until you can show how it was a win.

Because otherwise, it's just complaining. And we can't do that. Yeah, that was the breakthrough with that.

And then getting in the right room, you know, with that thing in December that we, you know, got rescheduled to here we got around these other people. We left there. We left that room and went and wrote a contract the next day on the office that I'm sitting in right now, you know, that here because we realized like that we have to grow and we have to be brave.

Because growing isn't like kind of we're talking about with storms. They sound fun until they hit like growing. They call it growing pains for a reason.

They kind of suck. But there's you have to get through that stuff. And sometimes you got to spend money on your business, right?

Like in some, whether it's you're getting coaching or you're investing in better technology or whatever it is, you know, you're getting podcast equipment. You're you're doing something like if you just like stay this guy behind a desk and you don't do something different ever, you're never going to evolve. And like you've got right now, technology is in our favor.

You know, like we've got all these resources in our our jobs. If we let them be and we utilize some of this stuff, our jobs can be so much more efficient and with so many less errors. And we can actually have more time back.

You know, the A's are lifesavers right now. And so that was the breakthrough there is like we had to grow. But to grow, you have to be surrounded by the right people.

Whoever those people are is like get in the right room. That's my mantra.

[Stephen Husted] (1:07:13 - 1:07:14)

Yes.

[Heather Cook] (1:07:14 - 1:07:26)

It's like make sure that the table that you're at, if you are the smartest one, you need to stand up and excuse yourself from that table because all you're doing is pouring into other people. And that's OK. You got to get something back, though.

[Stephen Husted] (1:07:26 - 1:08:17)

The balance is the key. You know, if you're going to. Yeah.

One hundred percent. You know, even you brought up the word evolving. It's very interesting word, you know, especially when you start to evolve.

Some people around you can get taken back by that, you know, but I don't think we're put out on this on this earth to just do mediocre things. I think that if people got past their fears and just started to, you know, just put some effort in, I think everybody would be really surprised and where they end up. And I think that's where it's at the end of the day.

You know, we're going to get old and I want to sit back and go, yeah, I didn't I didn't just go, oh, I wish I would have done this. I really want to say that. Yes, I achieved everything I wanted to do and I'm so glad.

And, you know, I think that's what's all about. And evolving is a huge part of it. But it's scary.

You know, evolving is scary.

[Heather Cook] (1:08:18 - 1:09:22)

It's like it's lonely at the top kind of mentality, too, because it's interesting. Your friend group will change. You need to be ready for that, you know, in like.

It is that, you know, and I always said this and I don't mean it ever in a any kind of nurse, I'm like the least narcissistic person alive, but I use it in my brain to make myself feel better when I feel lonely, when I'm not surrounded by what I used to be sometimes. And I think of like a king, right? A king isn't standing there in the middle of the mosh pit with everybody like a king has worked his way to the point that he's got such important big things to do that if he spent all this time giving all those people each this tiny individual attention, he couldn't do the big, big, big jobs that he has up there.

He's not ashamed to be up there doing his big job. It's OK. And then the people he has chosen up there that will fit up there with him are the people that are intentional in his life, you know.

And so I have to remind myself that like anybody that's scaling and growing, there is going to be a change of circumstances and what you've got surrounding you and to look at again, look around and make sure if what you're surrounded with is what you should be surrounded with.

[Stephen Husted] (1:09:23 - 1:09:35)

Well said. I think we could definitely end the podcast on that because that was just that's a really amazing. That was just yeah, that was great.

What a perfect Monday. So where can people find you?

[Heather Cook] (1:09:37 - 1:09:57)

So you can find me on Instagram or Facebook. I don't know how you look at people on that. I mean, it's what they do by your name, just Heather Cook.

They would, but you know, there's a lot of the dot Heather or the dot real dot Heather dot Cook. If you look on both of them, it should be the same thing if you put the dots in between the real Heather Cook.

[Stephen Husted] (1:09:57 - 1:10:01)

Well, we'll put we're going to put your information into this podcast as well when it gets published.

[Heather Cook] (1:10:02 - 1:10:02)

Thank you.

[Stephen Husted] (1:10:03 - 1:10:06)

Yeah, I think. I would definitely love to have you on again.

[Heather Cook] (1:10:08 - 1:10:13)

Yeah, I was going to say, can we like hang out for like an hour after this and finish talking? I just want to give you a hug.

[Stephen Husted] (1:10:14 - 1:10:49)

I know. You'll have to come to October so I can scratch your neck. It's so nuts.

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