Episode 82 - Why Successful Real Estate Agents Stop Chasing Trends | Tanner Helm

I sit down with Tanner Helm to talk about what actually drives growth in real estate, and why so many agents may be spending too much time chasing the latest trend instead of focusing on the fundamentals. Tanner shares how his career in title insurance and real estate marketing gave him a unique view into hundreds of agents' businesses. He saw agents doing more than 100 deals a year with surprisingly few systems, while the most successful agents consistently focused on the one, two, or three things that worked for them. That experience ultimately shaped one of his biggest business principles: more conversations with more people equals more business. We also get into the current world of real estate content, why Tanner refuses to simply copy trends, how AI is changing the pressure agents feel to create, and why authentic human connection may become even more valuable as automated content and outreach become more common. Tanner also opens up about a much more personal part of his journey. After leaving real estate, starting a business that failed, gaining significant weight, and finding himself in six figures of debt, he began documenting what was and wasn't working as he rebuilt his life. That experience eventually became part of the foundation for the business and coaching work he's doing today. If you're a real estate agent, entrepreneur, or business owner trying to figure out where to put your energy, this conversation is a reminder that you don't necessarily need another strategy. You may need to get better at the things that already work.

Stephen and Tanner talked about:

00:00 Tanner's content is being copied
06:05 Why Tanner refuses to follow content trends
08:10 From business failure to rebuilding his life
15:38 Does every real estate agent actually need social media?
20:22 Why authentic content is harder to copy
25:52 Is short-form content losing its impact?
35:10 How Tanner got into real estate
40:07 What top-producing agents do differently
41:19 More conversations with more people equals more business
01:08:47 Tanner's three pillars for growing a real estate business

TRANSCRIPT

∎ Teaser / Highlighted Clip

00:00 Tanner Helm: I think people are so sick of this automated, you get pushed into a funnel and then you get automated outreach and then it's AI driven and all. I think people want this. They want to sit down and talk or they want to hear from something that they know is clearly a human giving their thoughts, not just like regurgitated AI stuff. And that's why even I love the voice memo thing with Claude to do the Substack articles, because that's how I do a lot of stuff. Like all, I mean, half the time I'm driving my car, I'm having conversations with Claude. And then I'll be like, hey, ask me a bunch of questions about this. And then we'll go back and forth. And it basically interviews me like a podcast. And then I'll be like, cool, pull out five content ideas from that conversation. And then I go and make that. Yeah, I don't. I don't have AI make. the content

00:42 Stephen Husted: I think that's what's amazing about it because it's not a lot about the content it's about what it does to the person because it opens you up in a million different things you just brought up you got out of real estate you started you were you started a business it failed that's your story now you got to lean you get to lead back onto that to help another business owner sometime down the road so that failure turns into something tangible

∎ Podcast Intro:

I'm Stephen Husted, and you're listening to The Breakthrough Podcast, a space designed for clarity, curiosity, and the stories that move us. Here, we step away from the noise and into the moments that define us. the early influences, the hidden struggles, and the breakthroughs that reshape our lives. From personal reinvention to building a life through real estate and entrepreneurship, these conversations remind us that success isn't a straight line. It's a series of honest decisions, brave actions, and small shifts that change everything. This is where those stories live. Let's begin.

01:48 Stephen Husted: Today's guest is Tanner Helm, a real estate agent and growth coach based in Boise, Idaho. Tanner got his start in title insurance back in 2012, working with hundreds of top producing agents before stepping into real estate himself. After a rough stretch that included a failed business and six figures in debt, he rebuilt from the ground up and that journey now shapes everything he teaches. Today, he runs a group coaching program for agents built around sales, social media, and systems. And he's known for content that's unapologetically his own. No trends, no copycats, just authenticity. Tune in for Real Talk on building a business people actually trust and the mindset shifts that got him there. All right on, Tanner. Thanks for joining today.

02:35 Tanner Helm: Yeah, thanks for having me on, man. I really appreciate it.

02:38 Stephen Husted: Yeah, but that earlier little discussion about how we were going to... things about being agents i'm like wait a minute should i be telling tanner this beforehand or like how deep are we going to go on this one like where are we taking this are we pissing off agents today are we that's

02:56 Tanner Helm: usually it's been a couple days since i've pissed off a few agents so i'm probably overdue

03:00 Stephen Husted: yeah you got something going on is it agents so i saw recently that you've been posting about people are copying your content like yeah word what's been going on with that yeah so

03:17 Tanner Helm: it's been like obviously most of my content's talking head right it's just me in the car me in the office talking and i've

03:27 Tanner Helm: done a very intentional job i'm not i'm not gonna say 100 original thoughts because obviously there's no no new concept or no new thought under the sun but everything that i talk about or that I say is my own ideas, basically. And so I just scrolling the other day and came across another real estate coach that has gained quite a bit of popularity recently. And I started listening to his video and I'm like, oh, that's word for word, my video. It's not even like he took a concept or like, which whatever, I get it. It's content, I understand. But it's like word for word, my exact video. And so I click over to his page and I'm like,

04:04 Tanner Helm: Well, one, I saw he followed me.

04:06 Tanner Helm: So I'm like, okay, cool. And then two, I'm like, dude, this guy has ripped off everything he used. I use the same yellow font, which again, it's just in the tab. It's not like it's my personal design or anything, but you don't see a lot of people using it. So I'm like, that's weird. And I look and he's been using it for a couple of weeks. And then, so I started kind of keeping an eye on him a little bit. And then there was like another video that was the exact same thing. And another one, there's like three or four videos. And then, so I clicked over to his stories one day. and i've been posting probably two or three times a week i post book a free a free strategy call or whatever with a link to my calendar and he has not he's not done this he's had a different lead capture system for his coaching program for a long time and i know who helped him build it out and all of a sudden i click over to his stories and his thing is my exact verbiage it's like If you're looking to add six plus deals to your book of business in the next 12 months, book a strategy call. And then I always put, I'm not selling you anything. It's just a free strategy call. On the call, I always go over the coaching program, but it's never. It's not a sales call. I know you're not opting into a sales call.

05:10 Tanner Helm: So I like literally, I treat it like a one-on-one coaching session where it's like, give me all your problems. I'll try to bring as much value as possible. And if you give me three minutes at the end, I'll summarize my program. And if it's not for you, cool. And so anyways, I saw that and I'm like, dang, dude, it's not, he's really just taking my whole playbook. And then, yeah, there were some other things, which this one's a little touchy, but you know, obviously a lot of my content's faith driven. And I started a men's prayer group where we meet. two or three times a month and it's just virtual over zoom and it was for men's entrepreneurs basically meet virtually and pray for 30 minutes whatever and then i go over to his thing and he's who would be interested if i started a men's entrepreneur bible study oh and i'm like dang dude like one respect i appreciate it like good for you man like another guy out there kind of trying to connect dudes but i'm just like he's like taking my whole thing so i ended

05:59 Stephen Husted: up i still am like i feel a little

06:01 Tanner Helm: junior high girl about it but i ended up blocking him the other day because i'm like dude he's ripping off everything it's crazy and then yeah i had another coach recently or agent or whatever that was he made a reel that was very much so

06:14 Stephen Husted: directed towards me about how there's

06:17 Tanner Helm: coaches in the industry that that don't sell any houses basically and

06:21 Stephen Husted: i'm just like oh i saw that whatever man yeah so but it was like it was clearly

06:26 Tanner Helm: directed at me so we had a good talk about it last night not my wife and i and i'm just like i go both ways on it i'm like on one hand i'm like cool i'm kind of getting under skin a little bit like obviously shaking things up enough that people are taking notice and then on the other hand i'm like is that really what we're doing we're really just gonna worry about everybody else's business and not just like focus on there's enough people to go around whether it's clients for coaching whether it's buyers and sellers dude just kind of stay in your lane and i think on a more serious note like i've built my whole platform on authenticity and being very transparent about who i am and so when it gets ripped off it's not like it's like some viral trend that's getting ripped off it's like my own original

07:08 Stephen Husted: thoughts which is hard to do in this day and age honestly you know i mean like you have to separate yourself from the norm because people typically will follow the leaders it could be just being afraid to go their own direction especially when you're going online especially online and because you've done that that's going to bring a lot of criticism to to it

07:32 Tanner Helm: yeah which is fine like i mostly have fun with it but it's and i've seen agents do similar where like there was one where i was telling a story about a

07:43 Stephen Husted: seller

07:44 Tanner Helm: client that i had like this is my story like it was my client And then the agent and it started to gain a lot of traction in that video. And then the agent posted a video basically using my video as a script like it was his own client. And I'm like, it's one thing if it's like a concept. It's like, oh, this is my belief in business or this is how I feel about open houses. But I'm like, this was like literally my story. It wasn't even like it was like an idea. It was like this happened to me. And then he took it and made it like it was his. And I'm just like, dude, that's another level.

08:16 Stephen Husted: that's crazy yeah yeah and that's once again well it's not like you're out here doing the content that trends right because you haven't i haven't seen you do any of that none none of it honestly i mean you do the formats that most people are using but it's your own it's your own content it's your own ideas yeah

08:37 Tanner Helm: i've been very intentional about not doing trends and not doing like i would say the closest thing i get to trends or anything like that is all occasionally if i'm like just scrolling on my personal time and i see something in other niches that are working like the one i can think of recently was like i've seen a lot of people doing the like list of 10 thing and they hold their hands up and they're like 10 things to blah blah and then they go through them i saw like a fitness coach do it i saw somebody in like the marketing space do it and i'm like okay cool could make that for real estate you know what i mean but even then it's like i'm still taking my ideas and just using the format but i don't do any of those like i mean you see them all the time it's like you scroll through and you see seven of the same exact reels or somebody else posting it with their video i don't do any of that stuff and i think it's kind of corny because i'm just like the whole point of this originally was to showcase your thoughts your ideas and your authenticity and And now it's just turned into like who can jump on the trend quicker and then be a first mover there or hope that your audience hasn't seen the trend already.

09:45 Stephen Husted: Yeah, I understand this.

09:48 Tanner Helm: I hear you. Plus real estate content just sucks anyways. All real estate content sucks. So it's like, just do something better. Come up with your own ideas.

09:56 Stephen Husted: So how long have you been actually making content?

10:00Tanner Helm: So I started, I mean, I've been making content forever. I mean, off and on, like when I was 13 years ago, when I got into title insurance, my whole shtick was helping agents with their Facebooks, like doing Facebook videos and advertising at the time. So I've been in the social media game for a little bit, but then I basically went completely off the grid as far as social media for business type stuff, probably like 2022, 2023.

10:24 Tanner Helm: And then I jumped back in December of last year. So about six months ago and just made a thing where I was going to post every day. So I always tell everybody I've been doing it for a long time, but I really started trying to grow this current audience six months ago.

10:39 Stephen Husted: What made you take time off and then get back into it?

10:42 Tanner Helm: I was, I mean, there was a lot going on personally in my life. I'd gotten out of real estate. started another business that failed miserably and put a lot of pressure on the family personally. And it was a really kind of just ugly time in general. And so part of it was like, I didn't have anything to post about.

10:59 Tanner Helm: It was like in some of my darkest days. And then I got back into real estate and I'm starting to watch what's happening again. Cause I stepped out in 2022, I believe. And then I started selling again at the end of 2024 and moved markets. And so when I got back into it in 2024, late 2024, I was like, Oh, this is going to be important, which obviously it had already kind of, I guess it depends on how you look at it. Like the waves had already gone through, but I was like, I'm going to need to do this. And so it took almost a full year to be like, okay, how am I going to approach my social media? And I spent a lot of time just looking at what other agents were doing. And I'm like, I hate all of this. And so, yeah. So December was when I kind of got back into it.

11:44 Stephen Husted: Yeah, that's something I've struggled with over the years too. I just remember, I think it got in the content in 2022, but I'd been posting on Instagram. I think I posted my first open house on Instagram was 2012. And I came from a creative background and I'm like, oh, you know what? I'm going to put this listing on Instagram in black and white. And I was telling an agent in my office, I told a lot of agents actually, and they're like, that's a stupid idea

12:13 Stephen Husted: and and i posted it and you know what yes i posted it there and people did comment and i was like oh it looks cool you know i mean i made the house black and white and it wasn't black and white and then i was like oh i'm gonna put some information in like this and it was like a creative thing and all of a sudden it was like the wave of agents posting their flyers for the listing and then it just turned into a bunch of crap on there And coming from a creative background, they screwed it up. I'm done with this.

12:49 Stephen Husted: It just fully just dropped off. I'm like, I'm not dealing with this. And then it was like, fast forward, started watching short form. And I was like, oh, this would be a good way to kind of talk about transactions. give stories about the, just the behind the scenes, mostly behind the scenes. What can I tell about this instead of, Hey, I just sold this house. No, there was a whole story behind selling that house. It could have been good, bad. I mean, just tell it all. And then I would like to get my clients afterwards. Hey, would you be cool with getting on and just recording a zoom, just talking about the transaction? I want to hear what you didn't tell me. Yeah.

13:24 Stephen Husted: that's awesome i like that what was going on and your guys had that and i loved it because some of them would say stuff like shit we're stressed out on this we're stressed on that and it was good but a lot like you you always want to kind of do the opposite of what's going on and heck i remember putting out content of local stuff and then i saw a million people doing local i'm like i'm done with that too it's all you evolve

13:48 Stephen Husted: yeah period if you keep doing content on whatever you're in you're not going to be the same content creator you are year one compared to year five yeah and i think that's what's amazing about it because it's not a lot about the content it's about what it does to the person because it opens you up in a million different things you just brought up you got out of real estate you started you were you started a business it failed that's your story Now you got to lead, you get to lead back onto that to help another business owner sometime down the road. So that failure turns into something tangible.

14:28 Tanner Helm: A hundred percent. Yeah. And that's what it really has become is it like laid the foundation for what my business is now really. Cause the one thing that I'm so glad I did was when I was kind of at my lowest and. had a mountain to climb of things to get through both personally and professionally. I was very intentional about documenting, not in terms of like video, but documenting in journals and in my notes app and stuff of the things I was doing that were working or not working or the things that I felt moved the needle. And so I really like unintentionally at the time, but now looking back on it, it's like I laid the foundation of like this blueprint of. dragging yourself out of hell basically and I mean it was everything I was 135 pounds heavier than I am now six figures in bed I was had a failed business with and that all that comes with that with financial issues and things like that obviously because of all those things put strain on the marriage the family and so it was like I was able to kind of slow and still am in a lot of ways right we're all in process but really start to recover a lot of those things that have been broken and yeah it was cool I was able to document it now it's a really cool part of my story that I love sharing and like I said it's laid the foundation in a way of most people I talk to now I'm like oh yeah it might not be everything or exactly the same but I'm like cool I walked through that like pretty recently and I love kind of talking to people and hearing their stories and knowing that we can relate I think anybody that's

15:55 Stephen Husted: worth

15:56 Tanner Helm: connecting with has some type of story like that you know what i mean where they had to rebuild or dig out of rock bottom and yeah it's interesting i'm curious to see how the content continues to evolve i like feel like i found a little bit of a sweet spot but i also know i was telling a client yesterday i'm like it could all change next week like instagram could be like oh we hate 60 second talking head videos and then i'm gonna have to figure something else out so yeah yeah

16:20 Stephen Husted: It's an interesting game to play too. And it's either you're going to get on board and people do like everybody guys, because right now it's, oh, we're going into next Netflix style, little cinematic movies. Please stop that. I hate it. I get it.

16:35 Tanner Helm: I just hate. I mean, it's just one of those things, right? There's the, whatever you want to call it, like the curve or the graph of, okay, the early movers. I mean, I'm sure you've seen it. There's an agent out of Texas, like brilliant listing videos, like they look great. They're they were super high end, high quality, fast paced edits, whatever. And it's like she starts going viral. And now every listing video I see looks exactly like that. And I'm like, well, cool, you missed the boat. Because if everything looks that way, then it's not going to have the impact as it did when she started doing it at first. And I think what people don't realize is like, you kind of have to be the first one to do it or not the first but in social media but you know i mean you have to be in that first group of people to do it for

17:16 Tanner Helm: have the traction and then everything else is sort of like picking up the scraps that's how i feel about this i still see agents doing it every day this like text over b-roll videos of them like fluffing pillows in the house and it's like five reasons i moved to boise idaho and i'm like dude i could go through every major market in the country and find 10 agents posting my exact same video for their market i'm like it's lost it's It worked at one point. I know for sure it worked really well because I know people that personally did it. But I'm also like it just lost its oomph. Like you need something else now. You need to figure out a different move. Like you're doing the same thing. And it's been three years. Yeah.

17:50 Stephen Husted: Yeah. And it's also one of the it's one of those things is people get time constraint or they just they're burning out. Maybe they're not seeing any growth from it. And so it's like, OK, now I got to switch it up. Is this switch up going to be especially like an interest media? You get pegged on one thing. that transition is going to be tough. Tough. Because you have to break out of it.

18:13 Stephen Husted: It might not go over well. But at the end of the day, you really have to have anchored a business. Do you have a business? Content's secondary. That's a good place to start. If you've got a business, if you have multiple businesses, and you've got other things that you've got going on, you could be okay, I think. I think it's the ones who... don't and they rely exactly on that it's that's a tough road especially these days i

18:40 Tanner Helm: would say yeah well that's what i used to say i think i probably even have content about it but i'm like

18:44 Stephen Husted: because people

18:46 Tanner Helm: you started seeing so much traction through social media and content it's like now we have this weird group of people that are They're not real estate agents that are posting content. They're aspiring influencers that want to sell real estate. You know what I mean? It's backwards. It started really well because it was real estate agents that were actually doing a lot of business, posting content, and then generating more business. And now we have people doing the opposite where they're like, I'm going to gain a following first by posting all these memes and viral trends. And then hopefully I'll be able to sell real estate down the road.

19:19 Stephen Husted: Yeah. And it's worked for some, for sure. Sure. It definitely has. But then I think that probably stresses out the newer agents because this is what people are telling them to do. It's content and you better learn AI. You better understand Claude backwards and forwards.

19:37 Tanner Helm: You better make sure all of your content looks exactly like every other piece of content created on AI. Yeah.

19:44 Stephen Husted: And that's usually how it all starts too. It's almost, it's LinkedIn. And when this content started coming out. You knew it. You knew a few days before Thanksgiving, you were going to have happy Thanksgiving posts from 30,000 agents in your feed. It was coming. It's coming. Because I think the one thing about being an agent too, there's a lot of moving parts. You're doing a lot of different things. lead generation, you're transactional, you're doing this, you're self-employed. You're the business throughout everything. You're the marketing department at some points, right? You maybe have a VA, you maybe have a transaction coordinator, but you're running the show. And I think content now with AI has definitely added more stress to some agents that I think some agents, they were doing good without any of it. And they're going to continue to, especially the older ones. It's like I've had older agents ask me like, dude, I got to shoot. Do I got to do all this? I'm like, are you is your business good?

20:43 Stephen Husted: Yeah. Then why do you need to? If you want to do it for fun and it's not going to stress you out, go for it. Do whatever you want to do. I go, you're probably in a better position than most. If you got a book of business, then you're good. But you don't need to jump on every bandwagon and you'll have to do everything that. the newer generation or what they're telling you to do online yeah

21:05 Tanner Helm: well i think that's what it is too right it's like that's where the tipping point is where the bulk of the industry now and i go back and forth on this but i feel like it hits a point where it's like okay if everybody's now just doing it because everybody has agreed that you need to do it it's lost its impact and i do think i talk with agents every day and i'm like if you're trying to grow i think social media is kind of mandatory right now i think that there's a good and bad way to do it but i do think it's somewhat mandatory but if you've got a sustained business and practices that keep business coming in consistently then i'm like don't do it just because somebody's telling you oh you got to be on social media you got to start using ai it's like it's not going to have any that's why i think the best people

21:51 Stephen Husted: that

21:52 Tanner Helm: perform well on social media and it translates to business is people that are actually doing business and then on top of that they're like you were saying they're creative at heart because it's like for me i'm gonna keep creating content one i just have kind of started to enjoy it and two i'm not really attached to the outcome in terms of views followers new clients like any of that i'm gonna go out and do my business regardless and if you took away social media tomorrow i'd still generate business

22:21 Stephen Husted: but

22:22 Tanner Helm: I'm a creative person at heart. And so, like I said, if talking head videos stop working and then it does go to these cinematic productions and instead of posting five times a day, you only have to post once a month. Let's do it. I'd love that. I'd love to put together a whole production and whatever. And so I'm like. I think it's people like that where it's like, okay, cool. You have a business anyways, so you're okay, but you're also creative and you have an outlet to be authentic and genuine, but it's just turned into chase the trend because somebody somewhere said it was working and there's no creativity behind it or authenticity. So I'm like, who are you reaching? Yeah. The whole

22:55 Stephen Husted: authenticity part of it too. I think there was a point, maybe it was last year that I was seeing a lot of people bringing that up this year. I'm going to be, I really want to work on being more authentic. I'm like. If you have to work on it, man, you've already lost. I hate to say it. I was so upset. I was talking to my assistants. I'm like, if I see another video, somebody's saying they're going to work on being authentic this year. I'm going to freak out. What? Yeah.

23:23 Tanner Helm: That's a funny thing to say you have to work on. Yeah. Yeah. What has the rest of your stuff been then?

23:29 Stephen Husted: Yeah, I just... I mean, I understand what, I know what they're getting at when they say that, but it's still, in those moments, it's almost, in some of those moments would go, ah, I just got to stop doing this shit. This is driving me crazy. Is this really worth it? But then you know what it is? coming from a creative background it's creative my one of my favorite classes in middle school was tv journalism and we had this we had to do this final report and you would have to get these boards and do a whole script and put together this whole thing you're going to do this session and it was like a news report and mine was on heavy metal groupies And so I got some girls in my class to dress up like they were groupies and it was like Motley Crue and stuff. I loved that class. It was that class and drafting were like my two of my favorite classes. So you fast forward to this day and you're creative. The whole process, I don't care what it really does. I mean, I wanted to hit an audience.

24:22 Stephen Husted: I wanted to serve somebody. I want somebody to get either move them in a direction and it might not have anything to do with real estate. Yeah, it could be something just something completely else. Maybe my backstory hits them in a way that's like, hey, you know what? I heard that. I know where you've come from. And that helped me push to kind of start my small business or to work on my health. There you go. That's all I have to hear. And that keeps me going.

24:46 Stephen Husted: Yeah, it's those little things.

24:48 Tanner Helm: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like I said, it's like I enjoy creating the content regardless of the outcome. Don't get me wrong. It's been instrumental in growing my business. Absolutely. And so I hope that I can continue to do that. But at the end of the day, I'm doing other things to generate business as well. And so it's not like I said, Instagram shuts off tomorrow or my content style stops working. I'm not going to be like, oh, shoot, how do I go get coaching clients? How do I go get real estate clients? just go go do it still but the creative side i think that's also why people get super burnt out on content is because they're not creating from their own space i almost look at it as if you go to an office and they're like oh at this office we cold call three hours every morning and you just don't have that in you that takes a special kind of person i think you can develop it

25:35 Stephen Husted: but

25:36 Tanner Helm: Eventually, you're just going to get burnt out from that because it's not you. And I think that's the same way content is like, oh, you got to post every day. And so then they're just posting a bunch of stuff that they don't feel any creativity or excitement around. And then three weeks in, they're like, one, I haven't gotten any deals or seen any notable increase. And two, I don't even enjoy doing this. And so I'm like, what do you do? Either do something you enjoy as far as content goes and then don't be attached to the results or. take it out of your business plan. And like I said, find a way to kind of streamline it so you can still be present without having to be completely drained on it.

26:10 Stephen Husted: Yeah, definitely. Have you been on Substack?

26:14 Tanner Helm: I have a Substack account. I can't say I've been on there, but it's on my running list of things to dive into.

26:23 Stephen Husted: Dude, I love that platform. Yeah. Yeah. Is it good? Yeah. You know what it is? So I guess it came the right time. I'll just tell you. So I don't know. I saw somebody post and I jumped on Substack and I'm like, okay, this, I can get in certain topics that I'm interested in. I feel like it's not as toxic as some of the other platforms and just how people comment. It's like going to Reddit. You go to Reddit, they got real questions and people give real answers. It's not all this like crap in between. And I think we're getting to that point where we're getting burned out on this. short form nonsense and comment sections and all that stuff but anyways so i got in there a sub stack and started diving into it and i'm like oh so you can write long form articles in here too okay this is kind of cool so i created in claude i set up in projects sub stack articles and i got in there and i just pressed whisper flow and i just ripped for 30 minutes on What 2008 taught me about the housing market and something to that effect. But it was a big backstory of getting clean and losing everything at that point and building up my life. But I voice memoed the whole damn thing. And then I told Claude, hey, now ask me some more questions. And then we kept going. And I just felt, once again, the creative aspect. There would be no way I could pull that off, Tanner. Right. instagram video like a short form but here i got it when i was able to get it all down and i loved how you could connect to stories sub stack like your article and connect it there and i think it just gave another layer of okay and then i hyper focused on it now i've got 15 articles written you know i mean just backstories and things that people can kind of go okay i saw some of his videos but now i can go deeper on some of these articles that that are creative and i think they they help people and they help tell that, that story. So I think it's pretty awesome.

28:24 Tanner Helm: That's interesting. Yeah. I'll have to dive into a little bit. I'm super like right now, I'm super intrigued by like stuff like sub stack. I'm honestly getting really bullish on YouTube long form again, because I think we're going like a different direction. And this is like, I'm not an expert at any of this stuff, but I just think like, I see this trend of, I do think we're kind of burnt out on short form. a little bit because it's just I think everybody's sort of aware of like I said even now you scroll through you see five of the same videos and I'm like cool I don't need that video from 10 other creators or people that I follow or whatever and so there's a part of me that I almost feel like we're leaning a little bit back more towards like long form both written and video

29:06 Stephen Husted: or

29:07 Tanner Helm: even audio for that matter but I'm really part of my like projects for next month is to get a youtube strategy rolling where i'm putting out long form youtube and then having it turn into all the other forms of content and sub stacks on that list for sure to take all my long form video stuff and honestly i really think like my long form video stuff is gonna be this like camera setup me talking in the office is gonna be this like overly produced thing where i'm like running all over town and doing these quick jump cuts and everything else it's like I'm going to sit down and talk for 11 minutes, and it'll be topic-driven, obviously, but I'm just going to put it out there and see what happens. I'm going to try to do that a couple times a week, and I think there's a sweet spot there, and I could be way off, and it might just end up being a ton of waste of time.

29:57 Stephen Husted: No, I think you're right. Literally, when I found Substack, I went all in and was talking to my team, and I go, look, I think this is going to be a platform that more people are going to migrate to. throughout their day to kind of just break up people won't let stop looking at short form but i think that people are really looking for deeper conversations and communities i think that's a big part of it i

30:21 Tanner Helm: think people want real connection real humans i mean i'm experiencing that now i've got dms going out to all my new followers or people that engage with my content whatever because i'm actively building a new business but the amount of people that are like is this a bot or they'll answer the question they're like I'm open to talking but is this a bot and I'm like no I mean it's not me it's a human but it's somebody else working my dms but I'm just like it's honestly it's gotten I'd say probably 30 percent one in three people is always oh I'd be open to a conversation but I'm not going to talk to a bot and I'm just like I think people are so sick of this automated You get pushed into a funnel and then you get automated outreach and then it's AI driven. And I think people want this. They want to sit down and talk or they want to hear from something that they know is. clearly a human giving their thoughts, not just like regurgitated AI stuff. And that's why even I love the voice memo thing with Claude to do the Substack articles, because that's how I do a lot of stuff. Like all, I mean, half the time I'm driving my car, I'm having conversations with Claude. And then I'll be like, hey, ask me a bunch of questions about this. And then we'll go back and forth. And it basically interviews me like a podcast. And then I'll be like, cool, pull out five content ideas from that conversation. And then I go and make them. Yeah, I don't. I don't have AI make. the content. But I think that's a great way to use it, honestly, because that's where some of my best videos have come from. Literally doing a podcast with Claude, basically, and then having it be like, here are your five topics that we could elaborate on.

31:48 Stephen Husted: Yeah. That's how I have it set up in the Substack article. So once we're done with the article, I get it to about 95%. And then I have my team look it over. And I usually go back to the article a couple of times just to make sure. Because the really once again the key the article i want it to sound authentic to me i don't want it to sound like goddamn robot yeah like talk talk and sometimes it will do things and i go use the words that i had in that voice memo even if it's kind of off that's how i talk stop trying you don't need to polish me okay right i don't need that but at the end it also then creates a few short form, a carousel.

32:36 Stephen Husted: Then it breaks it all down because it pulls all the cool little bits and pieces from that article that now can go into short form. So then you can tell that you can do that as a short form on Instagram, right? And here's something that people aren't doing. Back to the trends. Man, we're going 30 minutes on Instagram, but that's whatever. We're going to shift gears here real quick.

33:00 Stephen Husted: But you think about that. Those short forms are coming from a deeper point. Do you know what I mean? That's what's cool. No one's replicating my addiction story. Right. Nobody. Try as hard as you want. You can tell your own addiction story, but you're not going to tell mine. And that's what's rad. I've been bringing this up to people to see what they say. And everybody's in that same point. Yeah, I think it's on the list. I actually hired a company. They're in Vienna. That's going to help me with my sub stack because I found that badass.

33:36 Tanner Helm: I think it's good. I think early movers on that stuff. And then at the end of the day, it's OK, cool. If it doesn't pop off the way you think it does, then what did you lose? You had some good articles that you can reference for other content, whatever. I think stuff like that I'm super big on. I know way back when I went really deep on Medium. when it was like maybe 2012 2013 ish and

33:58 Tanner Helm: medium articles every single day and i was like this is it and then it wasn't it and i'm like well that's all right well you

34:05 Stephen Husted: end up with a bunch of ip a bunch of content that you made that's there that people can reference forever which is i think kind of a cool thing especially if you're coaching you got a circle group or you know you got places where people can look at different things i think that's kind of cool i don't i don't People have a hard time looking 10 years into the future. But I think that if you stay with things and you look back, you got this whole thing of content that you've built with life experiences and business. And I think it's pretty cool.

34:35 Tanner Helm: Yeah, I think that's what I really like about YouTube is or like the concept of YouTube is if I put out a couple of videos a week and like I said, it's just me talking like one, it lives there forever. It's searchable. I think on YouTube, people are more likely to see a video they like and then click over to the channel and watch three, four, seven, 10 videos. So I think you kind of get that like that depth in your funnel versus like Instagram. I mean, you scroll through, it's like, I think it's rare. Somebody's going to click over to your page and watch several more of your videos. They might get more in their feed, but I don't think anybody's going to watch like my next six 60 second rant about something else.

35:13 Stephen Husted: True. And I don't know, when's the last time you watched a video on Instagram from beginning to the end? Have you gotten really from beginning to end?

35:23 Tanner Helm: I mean, even a lot of the stuff that I'm super interested in, like 20 seconds in, I'm like, all right, I get the point.

35:29 Stephen Husted: Cool. Next one. I mean, I'll go through yours real quick. I'll look at it. I'm like, I hear what he's doing. Okay. It's going on. That guy's copying him. I'm out. Yeah. Oh shit. Another Claude video. Oh damn. Another one. Okay. I got a money with this. Okay. Claude again. Okay. Yeah,

35:45 Tanner Helm: no, I agree. And that's what I like about the YouTube stuff. Like I said, I'm going to go pretty hard on it next month. Cause I like the idea of somebody seeing something they like that they found through search or whatever. And then they're like, Oh, I'm going to see what else this guy's about. And it's can be different topics and everything else, but it's like. You capture somebody for an hour plus of five, 10 minute videos and really get some depth there in your audience versus just, oh, cool.

36:08 Tanner Helm: I saw a 30 second video and I happened to see two more because I liked it.

36:11 Stephen Husted: Yeah. And I think that YouTube in itself, I don't know how I watch more YouTube and listen to podcasts more than anything. But I think with YouTube, I know when I click into the YouTube. And I do the same, the same habits every day. It seems like I'll go have lunch. I'm on YouTube and I'll watch, I'll start a video. Maybe it's 15, 20 minutes. Maybe I 10 minutes I watch and I, then I click out and then, but I come back to it. And so I rarely don't go from beginning to end. That's another thing about YouTube. That's a little bit more interesting is that I think people tend to go through, unless the video is not that great, maybe they don't, but I usually watch the video from beginning to end.

36:51 Tanner Helm: Well, I think consumer behavior is different on there. Like when you, I almost look at it as watching a movie, right? Like when you go sit down and watch a movie, you're consciously making a decision to like, okay, I'm putting this movie on. So I'm going to sit and watch it. Or if something comes up, like you said, you pause it and you come back to it the next day, whatever. The short form content has just become like. I'm going to kill time because I'm sitting here.

37:13 Tanner Helm: So I open up Instagram, scroll five, 10 minutes, an hour, whatever. Whereas YouTube, I feel like if people find you on YouTube, I rarely get on YouTube. If I'm not going to be like, okay, I'm consuming content right now. I'll throw on a podcast in the background while I'm working on my office or whatever. But if I'm watching YouTube videos, I'm there to watch videos. And so like you said, you kind of finish them, you watch longer or you watch one and then you end up in this like tunnel of every other one of their videos type of thing. And it's a different consumer behavior for sure.

37:43 Stephen Husted: Definitely. Let's get to your first real estate scenario here. You were working in title. Yeah. What year was that?

37:50 Tanner Helm: It was 2012. I started in Tidal.

37:55 Stephen Husted: Is that what kind of got you into the whole real estate ecosystem?

38:00 Tanner Helm: 100%. Yeah. Prior to that, I was selling copiers with Xerox, which was super glamorous, obviously. But I had a good family friend of ours that previously worked at the same Xerox agency as I did. And he had transitioned over and was working with Fidelity Tidal. I knew, I mean, I was 20. I knew nothing about real estate, title insurance, whatever. But I just knew that he had gone from selling copiers to title insurance and he was doing really well. And so he's like, hey, Fidelity's hiring sales reps. And they were in the process of kind of, it was a weird time in title in Southern California because they were transitioning their sales team from like. the quote unquote old school of like, we're doing golf and steak dinners and vacations to Cabo for all our clients to we want salespeople. So coming from Xerox, which at the time had like world renowned sales training, they were like, you're great, let's do it. So I got an entitlement insurance, like I said, at 20. And I knew nothing about what title insurance even was how a real estate transaction worked they were just like hey you got to go call on real estate agents and i'm like cool i found out really quickly that especially in southern california at the time everything was so regulated and fees were all the same and everything else so it's like you can't really sell the insurance policy you

39:22 Stephen Husted: have to

39:23 Tanner Helm: build relationships and sell something else so I leaned into being the young guy at the time and was, oh, I'll be the social media, like kind of tech marketing type And that's what I really sold was helping agents with their marketing. I've always been really big in like branding and not necessarily like graphic design, but like I've got, I've built out several brands for agents and my own businesses and everything else.

39:49 Tanner Helm: So I was like, I'll help you with your whole like digital presence, basically. And then that bled into tech, like real estate tech, CRM systems, productivity systems, whatever. And so I kind of got this tech marketing niche that I started working in as I was selling title insurance. And that led to... more or less running a or standing up a marketing agency for real estate agents and had a few hundred clients across the country this was probably 2014 2015 i was basically just running facebook ads for them like helping them with their facebook ads more or less and their branding i was doing brand packages as well like logo design and whatever and i did that for about a year and started seeing a bunch of success with the clients I was working with and was

40:42 Tanner Helm: all right, I'm just going to do this for myself. So that's when I broke off and started selling.

40:47 Stephen Husted: That was a perfect on-ramp. Great. I mean, it was perfect. Yeah. Yeah. You learned escrow. Well, wait, down south, is it title and escrow together?

41:00 Tanner Helm: No, they're separate, but I definitely learned. the back end of the transaction and then learn the very front end of getting clients before ever learning the meat of real estate, which was kind of cool.

41:15 Stephen Husted: Yeah. And you were working with agents, so you were learning all their pain points. You're learning CRMs and content and Facebook. That's brilliant.

41:26 Tanner Helm: I was working with like some really high level agents that were doing over 100 deals a year running their advertising forum. And then, like I said, because I was kind of in the tech space as well, it was like I'd lead with Facebook advertising. But then we get in and I'd be like, what does your CRM look like? What does this look like? And how are you? Do you have any lead capture on your website? And like I said, at the time, it was like all kind of elementary type stuff. But I really got a deep dive into. a wide range of real estate agents, businesses across the country and at various levels of production and markets and really

42:01 Stephen Husted: got a good idea of what people were doing

42:04 Tanner Helm: that was working, not working. And that's ultimately what drove the motivation to get into real estate was I was working with so many agents that were making so much money. And I was very shocked at how many agents were doing really well and they weren't running a business.

42:21 Stephen Husted: Well, we just talked about that earlier. Some of them get really busy. And once again, unless you have a full team, you're the everything. And so they focus on the thing that's working and then the rest of it kind of falls to the wayside, which totally makes sense. So what were you seeing on the top agents?

42:39 Tanner Helm: The top agents were ridiculously consistent in whatever they did. Right. And they found one, two, three things that worked really well for them and they didn't mess around with anything else. And I think that was like kind of eye opening in a lot of ways. I was also very shocked at how many top agents had really poor systems. Like I joke around one of my top clients at the time, he was probably doing 100, 120 deals a year, had a showing agent and a TC, no CRM. No marketing as far as a consistent marketing system.

43:12 Tanner Helm: I mean, he'd occasionally send out some postcard or some whatever, but he was just a dog on the phones and he would, I mean, he basically. I don't know. I'd have to go back and ask him, but I'm like, I don't think he had a lot of client retention. He was just really good at getting new business all the time. And so he would just turn and burn deals. And he was phones mostly, but he did a lot of, he was a big networking guy as well. So he would get in on certain networks, but

43:38 Stephen Husted: strategically with referral partners and he

43:41 Tanner Helm: was crushing it. And I was just shocked at. how little he had in place of systems and i mean i used to argue with him once a week i'm like dude let's get a crm in place you will triple your business if you just actually follow up with every person you talk to you know i'm like you're having so many conversations and honestly he was the one that gave me what ultimately has become my foundational

44:06 Tanner Helm: business principle for anybody, but especially in real estate. And it's just more conversations with more people equals more business. And no

44:15 Stephen Husted: matter what

44:16 Tanner Helm: you do in terms of marketing, whether it's social media, cold calling, door knocking, open houses, networking events, whatever, all you're trying to do is have more

44:26 Stephen Husted: conversations with more people.

44:28 Tanner Helm: And that was really, like I said, what kind of laid the foundation for me. And the reality is most agents, at least that I've experienced, they found one or two things that they're really good at to have a lot of conversations.

44:42 Stephen Husted: Yeah. I get in front of a lot of people. Yeah. And they don't deviate because if they deviate, they feel like that's going to take, they're going to lose that momentum on what's working. Why do I got to do that? It goes right back to the same conversation I've had. I know some old timers and they'll come to me and ask me about content. I'm like, your business is running.

45:04 Stephen Husted: Just keep doing what you're doing. There's no reason. Why? What are you doing this for?

45:10 Tanner Helm: 100%. Yeah. I mean, that was one of the things, like I said, I was shocked at how many agents were running a really good business. And it was pretty simple. Like I said, they were like, I'm good at this. It could have been anything. It could have been, like I said, door knocking, cold calling, open houses. Some of them were doing lead conversion type stuff at the time.

45:27 Stephen Husted: But like you said, they just don't deviate.

45:29 Tanner Helm: They know what they're good at. And they're like, I'm just going to keep doing this. I don't see any need to go chase the next shiny thing or go look at a new leads. I mean, I used to do it all the time because I was getting pitched as I was in the tech space. I was getting pitched like, oh, this new lead program or this new whatever. And I'd go, some of them were good. And I'd go talk to them about them. And they're like, I'm good. I'm like, you want to keep dialing SISBOs and expires? You're doing $200 million a year. And they're like, yeah, exactly. I'm doing $200 million a year. Why would I want

45:56 Stephen Husted: to change anything? Yeah, I get it too. Heck, in my beginning of my career in real estate, I was a hairdresser as well at the same time. And my book of business came from behind the chair. It was all my clients. And it wasn't just my clients. It was 12 other stylists who had. 10 clients a day that was amazing i never and so i would never do any type of marketing because i feel like i'm like that's so cheesy i'm not doing that yeah no i'm not going on that grocery bag or that grocery cart i'm not doing a billboard i don't need to i just don't and this business was it was in my chair and the crm was you get your haircut six weeks later you're coming back You're my CRM. I'm going to talk to you again and we're going to have another conversation. I think it's great.

46:49 Stephen Husted: I couldn't do it and I just really couldn't do anything else because I just felt like the rest of it was trying too hard. Yeah. And then sales, you got to really put yourself out there. And at the end of the day, I think that being a creative person, I don't know if sales is like, we can do sales very indirectly if that makes any sense because we're creative. We can. think out of the box differently and will position something different that doesn't feel like it's straight, like sell good example.

47:18 Stephen Husted: You don't call yourself an agent. You're a strategic advisor. Why'd you do that?

47:24 Tanner Helm: I just like doing things that everybody's not doing mostly, but I also, I think in a lot of ways, it's, I mean, that. I tell everybody I'm not a very organized person. I'm not a very organized, probably the best word for it. But I am very strategic in everything I do, even if it looks like it's kind of shoot from the hip. And I don't necessarily I don't plan out the whole path before I start type of thing. But it is usually there's some strategy behind it. And I'm very big on. looking back at what has worked and what hasn't worked and assessing it, figuring out where we can do things differently. I'll replay this conversation in my head 10 times after we get off this call and for the next podcast type of thing. But yeah, I think I wanted to

48:08 Stephen Husted: appeal to

48:10 Tanner Helm: My ideal client and my ideal client is a more educated or experienced homeowner. They've bought and sold several times. Maybe they're an investor. They're moving up, moving down. I'm not, I love working with first time buyers, but I know I'm not the best fit for them. I move really fast. I don't do a lot of handholding. I'm not very good at the, like making every milestone throughout the process feel like a big deal. And part of that's just me as a human for me. And I think a lot of high performers are this way where it's like closing the deal to me was the expected outcome. That's what's expected of me. And so when we get there, it doesn't feel like something to celebrate. It feels like I did my job. Right. And I know it's obviously different for the client. They're excited, whatever. But I just know I'm not the agent that's going to have balloons and fireworks at every closing. And so.

49:01 Stephen Husted: So

49:02 Tanner Helm: working with more experienced clients, they tend to appreciate that because they care more about are we going to get screwed on this contract or did I maximize my profits on my investment deal or advice on when and where to move things around so that you can maximize tax benefits like things like that. And I genuinely have spent a lot of time researching and a lot of experience dealing with clients and figuring out. truly how to advise experienced homeowners on buying and selling so that they're maximized whatever it is. Some of them, it's just maximizing their time. They want the process to be seamless. Others, like I said, I work with a lot of investors. So it's both strategic in timing, as well as the deals we're finding them, as well as the exit strategy on the flip, that type of thing. And so, yeah, I positioned it that way because I wanted to appeal to the right people.

49:54 Tanner Helm: I'm not a big fan of the like,

49:57 Stephen Husted: you're

49:58 Tanner Helm: Tennessee realtor, buy, sell, and invest. I'm like, cool. So who do you actually work with? Well, you can't just do everything. I mean, you can, but you work really well with somebody who is that person.

50:10 Stephen Husted: Yeah. Yeah. I think when you can home in on that avatar, it really meshes well because you kind of both understand one another on a level. And as that, you bring up some things from the past. I think that was another thing about doing marketing outside of like where I was getting my business from is because I really understood my client deeply. You know, I mean, we could have conversations that were sometimes not easy to have, but at the end of the day, we both trusted each other in a lot of things because I would know him for a very long time. Sure. We repeat clients.

50:48 Tanner Helm: Yeah. Well, I think for me, even now, I don't like getting into starting the process with a client without clear expectations set so that we know what we're getting into we know what the common goal is like i said regardless of that whether it's a sale or a purchase and how much they want to maximize their profits whatever but i like the expectation set at the beginning because Lord knows something's going to go haywire somewhere in between the beginning and end. And so I like to have that anchor point of when we first met, we said this, we agreed on this. And so I think, like I said, I think the experienced homeowner is really. I like my clients to know what they're getting into with me. I don't ever like to set this expectation that I'm going to handhold through the whole deal and I'm going to be present at every last little meeting and interaction. And not to say I won't do that by any means because there's plenty of clients I do that for and I'm very present throughout the transaction. But I'm like, I want to know that what I do best is what's important to you and that I'm not going and doing something that I don't do best just because it's important to you. You know what I mean? Yeah. So yeah, I think like I said, I think that's kind of why I positioned it that way. And what it's resulted in is a lot more clients that I enjoy working with, which is awesome, because they know what they're getting. It's funny, I always laugh because whenever I post something that's kind of poking at the industry a little bit or real estate agents in general,

52:12 Stephen Husted: I'll get

52:14 Tanner Helm: hundreds of comments of hate from real estate agents. And my clients are in my DMs and they're like, this is why we work with you. I'm like, see, so at least the people that matter get it. And I'm also 100% okay with people being like, hey, we're probably not a good fit.

52:29 Stephen Husted: I'm like, cool. That's I respect it.

52:32 Tanner Helm: We're probably not.

52:33 Stephen Husted: Yeah. Well, and that being the wrong fit could be perceived by a lot of different things too. Yeah, absolutely. I've seen the comment section. Sometimes I wouldn't work with you because you have tattoos. It's like. all right, you wouldn't work with me if I was fat or if I was this or I did that. The list can go on and on.

52:52 Tanner Helm: Yeah, that's what I was laughing the other day. I think it was on Facebook. Somebody reached out and they're like, well, knowing this, I would never hire you as my listing agent. And I said, I would never take you as a seller client. What are you talking about? I wasn't asking you to hire me as your listing agent. I tell my clients that a lot of times too, if it's not a super close relationship. I'll tell them before I come out there. I want you to interview me as your agent, but I'm also interviewing you. I have to protect my time as well and know if this is going to be a good fit. And I've turned down listings. I've turned down clients. I've turned down deals because I'm like, I just know this is going to be a headache for both of us and it's not worth it.

53:32 Stephen Husted: It's good to know that too and not have to be tied to. okay, I need to make money here. And so I'm going to take on this and have a headache for two to four months, depending on how long it goes to get the transaction done. Yeah. I think you have to have a couple of bad ones like that to understand it.

53:48 Tanner Helm: Yeah, well, and I think it's a big problem. I talked about this with a lender the other day. As I get deeper and deeper into the business, I really feel it's super important to work with agents that are busy because one, I think they're more productive and obviously more experienced. But also, there's several times even in the last 12 months where I've advised my clients to walk away from deals or we've just we've pulled the house off the market because it's not the right time. But I'm like, If an agent doesn't have either other sources of income or enough business closing where your commission check means they're going to pay their bills or not next month, how can they possibly advise you honestly and in your best interest?

54:27 Stephen Husted: Yeah, it's true. Did you say you worked at Fidelity? I did.

54:33 Tanner Helm: I worked at Fidelity, I worked at First American, and I worked at WFG when I was in the title space.

54:38 Stephen Husted: I just heard the wildest story from one of my friends slash business partners. This is insane. So she owns a house in Sunnyvale and owns another house out in Tahoe and was selling the house in Tahoe.

54:58 Stephen Husted: Sold, got in contract, got an escrow, sold it. And she accidentally. put the loan number for the house in Sunnyvale and the title company didn't catch that. And they paid off the wrong house. Both houses had a very similar loan amount.

55:22 Stephen Husted: So they paid off the Sunnyvale house. She has a loan on the house in Tahoe and the new homeowner has a loan on that house as well. Why? And she finds out a month later because she starts getting paperwork and everything that goes along with it. So she calls in and they're kind of blaming her. You gave us the wrong account numbers. She's like, yeah, but that's your job to verify. Maybe I gave you the wrong account number, but did you match the addresses?

55:59 Stephen Husted: That's wild. Now she's got a loan on a house in Tahoe. And a free and clear home here in Sunnyvale. And so she's talking to her husband about this. I'm like, wait a minute. And so I'm trying to unravel this whole thing going, wait, how does she own her payoff demands? And like, how did this happen?

56:16 Tanner Helm: Yeah, there's so much that needs to go wrong for that to happen.

56:19 Stephen Husted: You've already got all your money because it's all in equity and paid off on another house. Couldn't you just default because you're not losing the house? It's not your house. There's already another loan on it.

56:34 Tanner Helm: yeah and there's nothing they can do to they

56:37 Stephen Husted: got attorneys involved that's just all she just told me this yesterday what

56:41 Tanner Helm: a mess i feel like there's so many things that have to like there's so many checkpoints that have to be missed for that to happen i mean

56:48 Stephen Husted: just the address right would be a yeah aren't you matching addresses unless i mean plus you're ordering payoff demands that's

56:56 Tanner Helm: what i'm saying like you how

56:58 Stephen Husted: did you You have to get the payoff demand information. I mean, you wouldn't go, oh, yeah, I got the payoff demand. The house is in Sunnyvale, but you know the transactions in Tahoe. Two different counties, everything. Yeah. Wow.

57:14 Tanner Helm: Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I'm just like,

57:16 Stephen Husted: I don't even know how to sort that out.

57:19 Tanner Helm: Yeah. Yeah, tha

57:21 Stephen Husted: Oh, and another thing. Both houses were. refied around the same time, I think right around COVID. So it's like three and a half percent for the rates on both of them. And interesting enough, they both had around the same payoff amounts too. So that's the one other thing that never got flagged. I don't know. It was just so when she's like, well, what's going to happen now? How do I get my loan back on my Sunnyvale house? And am I going to get that same rate?

57:54 Tanner Helm: Yeah, no kidding. I wonder, yeah, I wonder what they can do. Yeah. I mean, because that's a whole mess now. Crazy. Because they've got to get funds back and then release on another. How did they even clear title for the new buyer on the Tahoe House?

58:12 Stephen Husted: That's another thing I brought up. Like, I don't know. How did that all happen? That title insurance.

58:19 Tanner Helm: That's a good thing. I mean, yeah, but I'm just like, they have to clear title to... Transfer it.

58:26 Stephen Husted: Two loans on one health. Interesting. Two loans on one house. I don't even know how it's possible. Not like that. You told me that. I'm like, okay, I guess what I was calling you about is not that important. I think we can.

58:41 Tanner Helm: That's one of those ones where you're just like, you know what? It doesn't matter how long you do it or how many deals you do. You will just never see everything in this industry.

58:49 Stephen Husted: Yeah. And I think that's what's really cool about it. Keeps you on your toes. Yeah. I like having things like different things coming up and shifts. Oh, yeah. I like the market. I like these market shifts. Yeah, me too. I especially like it on social media when you see a lot of the investor entrepreneurs that are, oh, single family heads are dead, can't cash flow anymore. You got this. I'm like, dude, do you think this is the first time in history of investment properties that there's been a market correction, high interest rates or whatever? These old timers that have had investment properties for decades, they get to that point and they've already weathered all these different storms, 2008, everything else that's gone on. And they make it happen. You just have to build better systems, work on your business a little bit, work a little harder. It's crazy how it's like, oh, this is over. And it's funny because I have a lot of investors throughout the United States on my podcast and they're buying deals. and they're cash flowing they're just finding better deals yeah

59:59 Tanner Helm: i mean i think it's just one it's one of those things i mean and i always tell people this but on the real estate side too like in any market deals are moving like people are buying and selling it might be a market might be a little tougher might be less people might be more might be different structured deals whatever but i'm like i like it for me personally because i'm like anytime something starts to shift and things change, then my strategy brain kicks in and I'm like, okay, where's the opportunity here with the new shift? Because everybody's saying this, but I know that there's probably opportunity here somewhere. And so I was like, just kind of trying to figure that out. But I also think there's a weird thing right now where it's like, how many agents are got in the business during COVID? And so they haven't seen anything but a flaming hot market.

01:00:49 Stephen Husted: Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one because when it's easy, when the shift comes, haven't saved any money, didn't put systems in place and just didn't build it because they were busy. You know, a lot of times because of that. And when things slow down or things get tougher is the time when you kind of have to reassess the business, build even harder. And you already got to know that it's going to be tougher. But what you're doing is you're future proofing yourself.

01:01:19 Stephen Husted: for what's to come because at some point it shifts and now you're a little bit further ahead you got a little bit more knowledge and then you're ready for that part yeah that's what good really good operators do

01:01:31 Tanner Helm: when you just you lay the foundation right i mean i think there's some things where like you said if the market shifts and it's a little bit harder it's okay that's when you double down and then when things do shift back the other way because they will eventually if you weather the storm they always do then you've got all these systems in place and you can kind of let your foot off the gas a little bit, but your return is doubling or tripling or whatever, because you already did all the, you laid the groundwork on all that stuff. And then I think, like I said too, it's part of why I really try to keep track on the market and national trends and local trends and everything else. Cause I'm like, there's also just opportunity. I mean, that's part of it is if you know where the opportunity is going to be, or at least. think you have a hunch of where the opportunity is going to be then get there before everybody else does when

01:02:18 Stephen Husted: did you move to idaho

01:02:20 Tanner Helm: we moved to boise coming up on three years next month so three years ago

01:02:25 Stephen Husted: and how long did it take you to make that decision what other states were on the radar at that point pretty much was it always idaho

01:02:34 Tanner Helm: yeah so we were in oregon for six years and I think March was when we kind of were like, Hey, let's check out Idaho. And we, I have had family here my whole life. So we had been over here before, but never really looked at it seriously in terms of moving. And when our clock had kind of run out on Oregon, we just felt like it was like not really where we wanted to keep raising the kids. It was also just one of those times where it's like, okay, the older kids were getting into middle school age. And so if we were going to move, we wanted to do it sooner than later. So I think from the time we were like, hey, Boise, we moved. That was March. We moved in July. So it was pretty quick.

01:03:13 Stephen Husted: What have you thought of it so far? You like it? Love it

01:03:16 Tanner Helm: so much. Best move we've made. And there's been a few. It's been great. It's been an adjustment for sure. And obviously, like I mentioned, the first year and a half were. really rough but that was mostly personal stuff but i feel like we're like i said i feel like we're hitting our stride a little bit we've settled in it's taken a couple years to do that and as far as the area and everything else we love it it's great yeah

01:03:40 Stephen Husted: i don't know i

01:03:41 Tanner Helm: mean who knows anything could always change but i don't really see us leaving here anytime soon at least not in the next 10-15 years till our kids are out of the house and maybe at that time we go somewhere else but i think we're pretty much locked in here which is weird for us because we've never really been that way.

01:03:57 Stephen Husted: What part of Oregon were you in?

01:03:59 Tanner Helm: Central Oregon, like Bend

01:04:00 Stephen Husted: area. Okay. So does it have a similar vibe to, well, Malinus, does it give you that kind of same feeling?

01:04:10 Tanner Helm: It's similar in a lot of ways. Like lifestyle is very similar here in terms of like outdoorsy, rivers, mountain biking, mountains aren't far from town. You get all four seasons, like that type of thing. It's similar. It's just a lot bigger. Bend was pretty small. The Boise area, Treasure Valley is a lot bigger just in terms of population and obviously resources and stuff like that. So, which for us, we kind of like we live outside of Boise quite a ways, but it's nice that it's close by and it's good for the kids, sports and whatever activities to do and things like that. So, but lifestyle is very similar to Bend.

01:04:47 Stephen Husted: So what's the housing market like there?

01:04:50 Tanner Helm: a lot of copy and paste new construction in all price points a ton of demand still it's one of the you know i think i saw the other day like top five markets as far as it's still growing lots of demand here we surprisingly have a ton of demand from I mean, obviously, California, Oregon, Washington are always kind of leading the charge in terms of where our feeder states are. But I was reading an interesting study the other day about how the fourth largest feeder state right now is Texas. And they're thinking it's because a lot of people during COVID moved to Texas. And for weather or whatever other reason, they're now moving up to Idaho. They kind of bounce from Texas to Idaho. And so, yeah, still a ton of demand.

01:05:31 Tanner Helm: honestly i mean i guess it depends on what side of the coin you're on i think it's really healthy here right now it's like prices are pretty stable nothing super hot like things aren't flying off the market and multiple offer i mean some are but

01:05:43 Stephen Husted: very few are we

01:05:45 Tanner Helm: have a wide range of price points from you can still get a very reasonable either new construction or relatively new house for 375 and in a decent part of town like single family and then you also have like large acreage luxury properties all within like a 30 minute radius so there's a lot of options in that sense and yeah i think it's i think it's pretty healthy it feels like it it's definitely kind of a a weird market because i think for a lot of people especially here because it saw so much growth through covid i think it feels like it's like we slammed on the brakes and everything's moving super slow and i'm like when you look at the numbers it's not really it's just healthy and stable i think price points didn't keep shooting up they're kind of depending on the market but they're kind of plateaued and slightly increasing and Days on market are really healthy. Inventory is pretty healthy and demand is still there. So I'm like, this is actually good. Yeah.

01:06:48 Stephen Husted: It shifts are part of markets and it's okay. Yeah. It's kind of funny when it does shift and it's a slower market and people are like freaking out. What? You want to go back to having to write an offer in one hour and having 15 offers on a property and paying 200 grand over list and giving a kidney?

01:07:07 Tanner Helm: Yeah, my sellers want to go back to that for sure. They sure do. That's been the biggest, I think, shift is as things have gone from insane COVID growth to just a normal, healthy market, I still feel like we're not quite there in terms of seller perception. And so it feels like we're, and we're getting there. I think people are starting to kind of get with what's going on in the market, but it's always whatever. There's a lag time between when the market actually shifts and when people accept that it shifted. And so we're still kind of in that. Sellers are like, well, I bought two years ago. Hasn't it gone up this much? And I'm like, it's actually been pretty flat,

01:07:42 Stephen Husted: believe it or not. And it's such an interesting point. I just sold this condo and the gentleman bought it in 2019. He took $150,000 loss. And I told him, I go, look, you're not going to get your money out of this. I go, why didn't you make it a rental? And he's like, no. I'm moving to the Philippines, getting married. I'm retiring from Apple. I do not want this. So get it sold. It's like, okay. So he took $150,000 hit. Sold this other house recently in a good neighborhood in San Jose. And I think she probably could have sold it for probably one eight in a hot market. And we just closed at a million six 75. And let me tell you at a million six 75, that was a battle. I mean, we priced it right. We did everything we could to this house to get it ready for the market. The first offer came in at one five. So 100 grand below list. Then we finally got another. We negotiated.

01:08:39 Stephen Husted: We got another one at list, but it was contingent on a sale. And then we kind of drew out the negotiation. We looked at offers on a Tuesday. We got on a contract on Friday, but we drew it out because I'm like, something's going to come along. And sure enough, a buyer came along. Doing a bridge loan, all cash, 15-day close, and was able to get them up to $1,675,000. So we went $1,675,000 over list. But the neighbor crossed the street. She came out. She's like, oh, the house looks great. And, oh, we're going to use your handyman to do some works. We were out front with the seller because they know each other. They're like, what are you going to list at? And she looks at me, and I'm like, $1,598 ,000.

01:09:19 Stephen Husted: And the lady's like, looks at her, and my client's like, What do you think of that? She's like, yeah, that is low. Like low on what? Low because you just feel it's low or low because you know the comps in the neighborhoods. It's so funny. Gotta love that.

01:09:38 Tanner Helm: Yeah. It's like, what are you? It's low. Yeah. I'll take that into consideration. Yeah.

01:09:44 Stephen Husted: Yeah. All right. Well, buyers are going to say what they're going to dictate this scenario. Yep. They kind of did in the beginning too. And the first offer was a buyer that literally lived around the corner. Oh yeah. Knew the neighborhood top to bottom. So it was, yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's how it goes. At least it's not 2008. Let me tell you.

01:10:05 Tanner Helm: I just, I didn't see that market,

01:10:07 Stephen Husted: which

01:10:08 Tanner Helm: probably a good thing, I think, but I don't know. Like I said, I've kind of gotten to the point where I'm like, regardless of what the market is doing, there are people buying and selling.

01:10:17 Stephen Husted: And you

01:10:18 Tanner Helm: either got to find the opportunity or you got to talk to more people to find the right people.

01:10:22 Stephen Husted: But yeah,

01:10:23 Tanner Helm: I think I obviously keep a good pulse on the market just because I enjoy it. One and two, I think it's beneficial when I'm talking to people, but I don't put much weight on the market in terms of how much business I need to do or if I'm going to be able to do business. You know what I mean? It's like I just kind of, yeah, I understand the conditions because that's. the the conditions we're all playing under but i don't know that's what i was telling an agent here luckily the other day i'm like in our market like what we service

01:10:53 Stephen Husted: there's

01:10:55 Tanner Helm: between 750 and 950 sales a month you need two of those and it doesn't really change much i'm like so go figure out how you can get those two so

01:1:06 Stephen Husted: speaking of that you got this growth coach business going is that the business that you just built that What came through the whole Instagram scenario? Like people are reaching out. Was it agents that were reaching out?

01:11:19 Tanner Helm: Yeah, primarily agents. I'm working with a couple of people that aren't agents, just kind of one-on-one. It's business coaching more or less, but we're kind of. carrying through all the other aspects of their life as well. But mostly agents. The formal program is a group coaching program for real estate agents. And I've called it growth coaching because it's not necessarily social media training. It's not sales training. It's really everything. I tell everybody

01:11:45 Stephen Husted: we cover three pillars, sales,

01:11:47 Tanner Helm: social media, and systems. And we kind of cover those three pillars. And it's kind of turned into a cool... hybrid program where it's like we do the group calls but I also work I meet with everybody one-on-one once a month and work with them on their goals basically it's not like hey this is the plan and this is what you get it's we meet at the beginning of the program and you tell me what your goals are and then we level set and set I had a call yesterday with an agent and she's starting next week and I'm like this call is the most important call because we will determine you're going to tell me At the end of this program, what needs to happen in order for it to be a success? And we talk through that. And then, like I said, we do the group coaching calls where we kind of cover everything, the three pillars and whatever else we're covering. But it's very hands on in terms of making sure that at the end of the program, whatever you told me was. equivalent to success for those three months that we hit that and we adjust accordingly if we need to. And it's been really cool because everybody I talk to is I've never done a group coaching program like this. I always either get the recorded courses and you have to watch them on your own time or you get on off the call and then there's no resources to actually implement. And so I kind of wanted to eliminate all that. Again, part of it's just me. I don't like doing things the way everybody else does them. And so I'm like, well, look, you can get group coaching, but it's also an extra. 30 minutes to an hour with each client a month to sit down and be like, hey, here's what we talked about this month. Do you have any questions? Or what else are you struggling with? Or how can we make sure that you're getting the most out of this? Because the last thing I want is people to pay for coaching and then never log into their dashboard or whatever. I want you to see success at the end of it.

01:13:27 Stephen Husted: I think it's a great move to get that visual of the outcome first and foremost from them. You know what I mean? That's it anchors like, okay, hey, you just told me we want to get to here. All right. So now during this period of time, that's what we're working towards. I feel like that's a great way to look at things. I do that a lot too on the way I look at different maneuvers that I do, but I think that's great with your clients. I think that really sets the stage.

01:13:53 Tanner Helm: Yeah, I love it. And like what I told, I did a couple of these intake calls yesterday and I told them, I said, this is really. you giving me permission to hold you accountable to the goals that you're setting because it's not like I'm like I said it's not this program where it's like you plug into it and then this is what you get I literally have one agent that she still works part-time as a nurse and she wants to her goal is by the this time next year to be a full-time agent and I have another agent who does 60, 65 deals a year, and he wants to implement systems in his business. Oh, it's not all on him. And it's like a wide range of agents. And the group coaching obviously is pretty, it applies to everybody, but it's really that kind of one-on-one implementation that we're helping get through, help them reach their goals in those three months, or at least

01:14:43 Stephen Husted: know that.

01:14:45 Tanner Helm: when we set activities, because that's just how I work backwards on goals. It's like, okay, what's the goal? What activities do we have to do to get there type of thing, which is not like a novel concept. That's every goal setting, anything you read teaches you that. But for me, I'm like, if we don't touch base every month, then how do we know if our activities are going to get us where we need to on the timeline we want? And so we'll need to know if we need to increase or decrease or change activities. And it's been super cool because I really... I'd prefer to do one on one coaching, but just time wise, and then also investment wise, it's a little crazy for a lot of people. So this is a cool way where I feel like they get the group coaching and they get a sort of a hybrid one on one coaching situation. And it's awesome because one of the guys going through our program, we had our implementation call on Monday. And he was like, Hey, I love everything you're teaching. But I feel like I got a good grasp on these two or three things. I really want to implement an open house strategy. And I'm like, cool. So we talked for an hour about a whole open house strategy, I gave them like a open house roadmap on how to make it most effective. And I'm like, I don't cover open houses in my group coaching at all, but that's part of his goals is to have an effective open house strategy. So we built that out and it's been pretty cool. I don't know how sustainable it is because I can't physically push 150 people into group coaching and then also meet with them one-on-one, but I'm enjoying it for right now, for sure.

01:16:03 Stephen Husted: This is kind of like... tanner 2.0 because you're pulling off what you were doing in title and now you have all those backstories of successful agents that were you didn't understand like they were successful but they had shitty systems you know you have all these backstories why don't you run a cohort like a six-week cohort yeah so i

01:16:26 Tanner Helm: mean that's sort of what it is it's three months um and it's kind of i don't know like i said i just I feel like it's, I've done group coaching before and I've done cohorts and I've done different things. And I've done like the six week sprints to get whatever. And I've done all of it. And I really think the answer is one-on-one, honestly. But I also don't want to, I think it really limits how many people

01:16:50 Stephen Husted: I can help if you have to pay

01:16:53 Tanner Helm: three to five grand and however much. I mean, some of these people are charging outrageous rates for one-on-one coaching. And don't get me wrong. I think you get your money's worth sometimes. But this was kind of my way of, hey, let's do a group coaching price point, which is actually cheaper than most thousand bucks for three months right now. I might raise the price. We'll see. And you get the one on one implementation on it,

01:17:14 Stephen Husted: which is super cool. I think to scale,

01:17:17 Tanner Helm: my plan would be to have some people that are successful through the program start running the group calls. And then over time, I'm not talking like I'm going to do this next month, but they get through the program, they're well versed in what's going on. And they can more handle the group stuff and then have some more reporting and accountability on the individual stuff. And then I can still do the one on one calls monthly. Or for some people, like I was talking to a coach yesterday, and he was like, just just make the one on ones optional. Don't force it on the calendar. But if they want to reserve a slot, they can once a month. And then he's like, I bet you 50% of them wouldn't even book the one on one. And I'm like, that's probably true. But I also, I mean, I want people to go through it and be successful. I want their business to get better. I want them to grow. And so part of it's me kind of taking on the responsibility of making sure I have somebody that didn't show up to the group call yesterday. And I'm like, calling him.

01:18:08 Tanner Helm: I'm like, hey. And he's like, well, I was going to watch the recording. I'm like, I know, but you paid me. I want you to get your money's worth. Yeah.

01:18:15 Stephen Husted: Well, that's just a... That's a mechanism of just when you care about that, like you really want that, which then is a double-edged sword because it can burn you out. Because I've done one-on-ones for clients that inherited a million dollars and they wanted to invest. And so I would help them learn how to invest. And we take it on for six months. And it was one-on-one. And some of it was the outcomes were great. And some people just didn't really grasp. how much work it was going to take to buy an investment property at a state and manage a team and all these things. And I would lay it out there. Look, this is not set and forget it. Let me tell you, you want that, go get index funds or get stocks and just put it away. This is not it. And when they would start to have problems and they would reach out and it kind of snowballed and some are like, I don't even want to do this anymore. And it just made me feel bad. Yeah. That's more, I think that's a more of a caring thing. It's kind of like what you're saying. If you care what was going on and what you're putting out there. Yeah. It's going to sometimes keep you up at night.

01:19:22 Tanner Helm: That's for sure. Don't get me wrong. I'm very much so. running it as a business I want it to be profitable I want it to be a source of income for me but it really is and maybe this will be part of the downfall of it but it really is kind of like a passion passion project for me in a sense of I don't I've produced plenty and I still sell I still will continue to sell I'll run a local team here I over oversee agents in other states so it's like I do all this other stuff anyways so for me it was like this is my kind of my attempt to build a business where I can impact other agents and so I think part of that is like the hard part where it's like

01:19:57 Stephen Husted: I

01:19:58 Tanner Helm: As much as I am running a business and want to earn income off of it, like to see somebody pay for group coaching and then not show up to the call. I'm like, dude, that sucks. Because the last thing I want to do is be the guy where they're like, oh, yeah, I paid for his course. But, you know, I didn't really put in. I've paid for courses that way where one weekend I'm like, this is not what I thought it was. And I just never go the rest of the time. But for me, it's not about like I said, I want to really help these people out. And I think it's. it's an opportunity to see like a drastic difference in their business over a short period of time. And obviously the goal would be that they want to keep coming back for more, but yeah, we'll see. I mean, right now it's small enough that I'm able to manage it the way I am. And I think,

01:20:36 Stephen Husted: I hope that as

01:20:38 Tanner Helm: it grows, I can build out systems where it's like, you're still getting kind of best of both worlds,

01:20:43 Stephen Husted: but yeah,

01:20:44 Tanner Helm: it's cool. I really, it's probably the thing over the last. 10 years that I've enjoyed the most. And it's really just getting started. And it's awesome. I love it. I think I've got eight agents right now that are in it and a few more signing up next week. And so, yeah, super cool. I love it.

01:20:59 Stephen Husted: It's great. Yeah. I think I've said this so many times on the podcast, I don't even want to say, but since I got you on there, I think that teaching and coaching and just meant just that whole, all of that is so rewarding. It's like the best, I don't know what, it's just one of the. It's just cool to see somebody like give your good and bad experiences of your life and like systems or whatever the case may be and channel it into them and then watch them grow in whatever direction they go. It's really cool. Yeah. It's really cool.

01:21:31 Tanner Helm: Well, and I really, like I said, I think to me, I almost look at it as when I got into real estate, I found this white space in an investor market. That's kind of what I feel like this with the coaching where it's like. okay a lot of the people in the program couldn't afford the investment of one-on-one coaching but they wouldn't get the benefit of just a standard group coaching program either and obviously that means that i'm probably undercharging for what i'm doing but i'm also like like this this agent that i talked to like i said if She works with me for the next year. And next year, she can tell me that she's not a part time nurse anymore working graveyard shifts like that's worth it all. I really am trying to work with people on their own goals. And I get a little this is one of the few times I get like sappy about real estate because I honestly, for the most part, I think it's kind of corny. But what is true about it is that it's allowed me to. build a life that I'm super proud of and be present with my kids and be able to travel and do all these things and I think regardless of what your goals are whether it's just I mean I coached an agent last year kind of informally and their goal was literally just to make enough to do an extra vacation they had a it was a secondary income it was they just were like I want to we vacation once a year I want a vacation twice a year and I want to be able to cover all the costs of that second vacation. So it's like, for me, I'm like, cool, that's two deals. You

01:22:50 Stephen Husted: got that easy. But it's

01:22:53 Tanner Helm: like that person isn't going to invest five grand a month and one on one coaching, but they still need help getting to their goals. And so yeah, like I said, I really am like very intentional about figuring out what each person in the group coaching programs goals are, and then figuring out how we can get there and they all look different, which is

01:23:13 Stephen Husted: super cool. I literally have brand

01:23:15 Tanner Helm: new agents that have sold two deals and they're taking their second deal and investing in the coaching program all the way up to 20 years in the business doing almost a hundred deals.

01:23:24 Stephen Husted: That's great. That's good. Yeah. I'm excited for you.

01:23:27 Tanner Helm: Glad you're doing it. I'm excited.

01:23:29 Stephen Husted: I appreciate you jumping on today. Thank you for jumping on quick too. Like we got, I was like, get Ted, put Ted to the top of the list. Damn it right now.

01:23:39 Tanner Helm: I love it, man. I love doing this stuff. So I appreciate you getting me on. I appreciate you opening up time quick. That's great.

01:23:45 Stephen Husted: Yeah. All right, on. Well, once again, I enjoyed this conversation with you. I may have you on here again. I want to hear all the whole, your programs going down the road here. We'll do a follow-up. Yeah, for sure. I'd love to. Yeah. All right, man. Well, you have a great day. Thanks again for jumping on.

01:24:02 Tanner Helm: Awesome, man. You have a good one too.

∎ Podcast Outro:

01:24:04 Stephen Husted: All right, buddy. See ya. See ya. Thank you for tuning into our show, where we hope you found inspiration and gained valuable insights. If you enjoyed this conversation and want to stay updated on our latest episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and share it with others who might benefit from it. We appreciate your support and look forward to bringing you more candid conversations and breakthrough moments in the future. Until next time, take care and keep exploring new ideas and strategies.