Episode 173 Transcript: Carin Whybrew
On this episode of The Brad and Taylor Show, we sat down with Carin Whybrew from Coldwell Banker Hubbell BriarWood!
To watch the full episode, check it out on YouTube below. In the meantime, here’s a transcript of the conversation…
Here’s what you missed from Carin Whybrew…
00:00:00:17 –> 00:00:03:17
Taylor: Welcome to The Brad Taylor Show. Today we have Carin Whybrew.
00:00:04:08 –> 00:00:14:12
Brad: You’re listening to The Brad and Taylor Show, a podcast that inspires entrepreneurs to pursue their passions. We’re sitting down with some of the best to learn how they got started and some lessons they learned along the way.
Taylor: Hey Carin, How are you doing?
00:00:18:01 –> 00:00:20:25
Carin: I’m great. Good. Thanks for having me on.
00:00:21:05 –> 00:00:24:19
Brad: Oh yeah. Awesome. Well, let’s get this show started. Tell us a little bit about you. What do you do?
00:00:25:16 –> 00:00:49:17
Carin: Alrighty. Well, I’m a licensed broker with Coldwell Banker, Briarwood. I do have a team, the Carin Whybrew Project. We run a fun little operation over here, our office is in Oklahoma, but we do real estate all over the greater Lansing area, and we can make a referral anywhere in the world.
00:00:50:02 –> 00:00:53:14
Brad: Awesome. I like it. I like it. When you were younger, is this what you had planned for your future?
00:00:54:21 –> 00:01:21:05
Carin: No. When I was younger, I had a lot of interests and a lot of things that I wanted to do and be. My mom sold real estate. My dad owned a plumbing and heating business. So we moved a lot. One of my passions, I used to draw houses and so that kind of just, my aunt was into developing real estate so that got me to where I am today.
00:01:21:21 –> 00:01:23:09
Brad: Awesome. I like it.
00:01:23:09 –> 00:01:30:26
Carin: I wanted to work for the FBI though. That’s my side job. I work for the FBI.
00:01:31:01 –> 00:01:33:13
Brad: I see. I see, gotta keep that on the down-low.
00:01:35:19 –> 00:01:36:25
Taylor: We’ll have to keep that out of this recording, right?
00:01:39:06 –> 00:01:40:16
Carin: You are my first pupils.
00:01:43:04 –> 00:01:48:28
Taylor: That’s awesome. When you first got started in real estate, did you get any advice that stuck with you throughout the years?
00:01:50:06 –> 00:03:02:19
Carin: I think my best advice was to where you are, be, and it’s simple. It has helped me in many, many situations. The compliment that played into that was people said, you know, you’re a professional and you’re busy and you have lots to do, but you always feel like when we’re together, we’re your only clients. And I try to do that. I call it the zone, I’ll be out on a listing or I’ll be doing a walkthrough. All of a sudden it just comes to me that, wow this is what I can do. This is what I’m very good at, but it’s kind of a feeling and I’ve talked to one person I’ll talk about later about this. It is something that happens when you’re having so much fun at what you do. I’ve been fortunate. So my advice is always to try to be right at the moment the best you can. It’s hard when you have so many people coming for services and stuff, but that’s been my best advice, my best word to send out to the universe.
00:03:04:06 –> 00:03:29:26
Taylor: Yes, I know that will help build the relationships too. If they feel like they’re even a client, then they’re not going to feel rushed or inconvenienced at all when they have to reach out to you for anything.
Carin: Yeah, for sure.
Taylor: I know over the years, you’ve probably seen quite a few properties that maybe you didn’t want to be back in, or maybe you just didn’t want to show. Anyways, with that, are there any of them that stick out to you as the worst property or showing that you’ve been to?
00:03:31:02 –> 00:04:50:12
Carin: Well, my dad always said any house can be a home. One of our team mottos is everyone deserves a loving home. I do not put a price on the listing I take. It’s so much fun to work with someone that needs help or their property needs to be fixed up or staged. On the opposite end, we’ll do million-dollar properties. I will say that the worst showing I ever had was in the dead of winter and I pulled up the driveway and it was not plowed. That’s one of my pet peeves. I got stuck in the driveway then I trudged up to the house and fell off the porch and literally then fell all the way down a flight of stairs. So that’s been my worst experience and I didn’t even get hurt either. I called a friend of mine and he pulled me out. But there’ve been a lot of fall downs properties, that’s been my worst showing experience of all the houses. I try to find something nice at every house because that also plays into our marketing. I think you guys do a good job of showing that in the pictures you take too, to find the right fit for every property.
00:04:51:06 –> 00:04:56:11
Taylor: I know you mentioned your team a little bit ago. Can we talk about that? How many people do you have on your team right now?
00:04:57:08 –> 00:06:22:07
Carin: All right. So the Carin Whyber Project and the reason I chose that name was we wanted to do something a little different. We also wanted to give the idea that there are other things within the team that we like to do. One of them is the fundraising part of it. The project part is what are we all doing to come together? What are we doing to grow that and be better in the community? Right now, I have three licensed agents on the team, TJ, Wesley, and Joe. Joe’s our new person. We have an executive manager, Berkley, and we have an errand person, Cindy. We have a part-timer starting on Thursday Jarrett, and he will be the runner for us to put all the pieces of little things together to make it up. One thing I do though with the team is if I take a listing, it’s my listing, the licensed agents do a lot of the buyer work. Even though we do a good amount of volume, I do like my clients to feel like I am their person and I’m not just the name. That keeps me busy, but the fun part for me is getting out with the people and being able to stay relevant as opposed to just sitting behind my desk where I am now.
00:06:23:06 –> 00:06:27:24
Brad: Yeah. That’s awesome. So tell us about when you first decided to add on a team member.
00:06:28:23 –> 00:07:19:24
Carin: Yeah. For so long, it was just me. I’m married. I have two boys and it all worked because my husband managed a golf course. He was home early in the day. And then it got to the point where there’s only so many hours in a day and I want to be with the people. I wanted to stay with the people I was getting business from, but I wasn’t going to be fully accountable to them. So I started with the team and now we’re all able to make the showings and handle the buyers and take the listings. I started with one and then two and then three. We have another one that we’ll start and we don’t want to, I don’t want to be so big because I do like to mentor them as well.
00:07:19:28 –> 00:07:58:10
Within the team, we each have other jobs that we do. One of our team members manages the website and one of them manages our fundraising events. That allows us also to stay relevant in other areas of real estate without just sitting there, waiting for the next client. I don’t know, it’s been fun. In fact, one of our brokers said the other day, you seem like you’re happier and you know, I’m generally a happy person. I like to wake up happy, but they keep me energized as well.
00:07:58:24 –> 00:08:14:29
Taylor: Yeah. That’s the fun part too. If you have team members who are energetic and fun around you, then that’s going to reciprocate around the whole team itself. That’s awesome. Are you, I know you said you are adding on another team member on Thursday, right? So that’s exciting!
00:08:15:11 –> 00:08:58:13
Carin: Thursday, yeah. This is just going to be a part-time person. Joe is our most recent licensed agent. Jarett is going to be kind of behind the desk. Then, we have another person that’s connected with us that I’m not saying their name yet because they have not made it public. They will be licensed as well. So it’ll be fun. We were lucky our broker gave us our own little suite here now. So we do have a space to work efficiently and have a private office, especially during COVID, people weren’t coming into the office, but we’re able to come in and get a nice little workspace here where our office is in Ocrevus.
00:08:59:02 –> 00:09:04:23
Brad: That’s awesome. So tell me, what kind of advice would you give someone joining your team? Like just starting out in real estate.
00:09:06:08 –> 00:10:06:20
Carin: Just to have fun. I always say this to them, if you’re honest, things are gonna happen. I mean, every person is different and every experience is different. We also are venturing out into some new avenues here on the Carin Whybrew project that we’re working on behind the scenes. I just tell them to have fun, to take the time though, this is not a part-time job. Everyone thinks I’m going to get into real estate and I’m going to have so much free time and I can travel and do all these things. You have to be accountable. I do have set times to meet with each of the team members of Berkeley in the office every day. But with texts and social media and such, we’re able to stay connected, but the advice would be that you really do need to do it full-time; it is not a part-time job.
00:10:06:22 –> 00:10:36:20
Taylor: I know you mentioned a lot of people getting into the business maybe who have not had a mentor or anybody else in their life around them. They think that sometimes yes, you can just take vacations. And the funny part with that is we’ve heard over talking to so many different people. You want to take a vacation, then your phone’s going to blow up and you won’t be able to have a vacation. It’s kind of ironic with that one, but I know you mentioned fundraising as well. Can you talk a little bit about that? What do you guys do for fundraising?
00:10:37:13 –> 00:11:15:14
Carin: Well, when my kids were in school, that was so much fun in sports. We did a lot of fundraising there, but most recently we had a golf outing a couple of weeks ago at college fields in Okumas and we raised over a thousand dollars for the Capital Area Humane Society. So we have to get that check delivered. I adopt, we rescue dogs basically. That’s fun for us to give back in that way. Our next adventure this winter, I hope it’s going to be called Stuff The Bus. So I need a bus.
00:11:16:22 –> 00:11:18:24
Brad: Hey, there you go guys, who has one?
00:11:19:20 –> 00:11:59:02
Carin: I can’t take the high school bus. They’re not going to let me have it, but anywho, what I want to do is whether it’s going to be a mobile home or a camper, I’m not sure I’m calling it Stuff The Bus, but there’s an orphanage down in Detroit that I’ve kind of watched. What we’re going to try to do is just collect some things to take to the kids. That’s a plan that’s very fresh. I just announced that yesterday and I told everybody, we need a bus. So far our bus hasn’t shown up and might be Stuck The truck might be one that it ends up being, I’m not sure.
00:11:59:13 –> 00:12:13:15
Taylor: We’re going to share this podcast and we’re going to help you find that bus we’re gonna post it. So someone’s going to reach out with the bus.
Carin: Yes! Deliver me a bus.
Taylor: Yes, if you could start over today with all the knowledge that you have, what’s one thing you would do differently?
00:12:14:29 –> 00:12:55:18
Carin: You know, in the business. I thought about this for a long time. I can’t think of any. I know that sounds cliche, but I don’t know of anything that I would change. I’ve been so lucky to do something that’s fun for me and that I’m passionate about and that I can be good at. I’m here every day, I get up, and sure, I like to have my me-time too but I really struggle to think of an answer to what I would do differently. I stayed with the same company I’ve been in the business for 29 years and they’ve been good to me. So I know I don’t have a very good answer for that.
00:12:57:20 –> 00:13:03:01
Taylor: You learned a lot. That’s why you don’t want to change anything. Everything was a learning experience. So it’s good.
00:13:03:13 –> 00:13:04:07
Carin: That is true.
00:13:05:13 –> 00:13:12:05
Taylor: Before we go today, how can people get a hold of you to join your team and contact you about homes as well?
00:13:12:27 –> 00:13:38:25
Carin: All right. You can reach us directly at our websites. [email protected]. Also follow us and our adventures on Facebook, Instagram, or carinwhybrew.com. We have a business and my personal Instagram account, which we’re trying to grow as well. So you two get me some followers.
00:13:39:21 –> 00:13:42:04
Brad: Followers and a bus. You guys heard it!
00:13:43:22 –> 00:13:45:10
Taylor: Followers and a bus.
00:13:45:10 –> 00:13:48:19
Brad: I like it. I like it. Oh, perfect. Well, Hey, thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us today.
00:13:49:15 –> 00:13:50:15
Carin: Thanks for having me.
00:13:55:26 –> 00:14:11:25
Hello. Hello. Are you there? Are there, are there, Hey guys, we just wanted to thank you for listening on either a podcast or on the YouTube video here. If you guys wanted to subscribe, that would be awesome. That would mean a lot to us. If you guys could give us a five-star review as well, that would be amazing. And we’ll see you on the next one.
Check out Carin Whybrew:
The Carin Whybrew Project- Coldwell Banker Hubbell BriarWood
http://carinwhybrew.com/
Facebook: @CarinWhybrewCBHB
Instagram: @carinwhybrew
If you loved this episode subscribe so you never miss one! Want more Brad and Taylor content? Head over to our blog.