Episode 187: Shanna Ax
On this episode of The Brad and Taylor Show, we have Shanna Ax from The Home Source Group!
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 Shanna Ax…
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Taylor: Welcome to The Brad and Taylor Show. Today, we have Shanna Ax.
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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.
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Taylor: Hi, how are you?
Shanna: Doing good.
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Brad: Awesome. Well, let’s get this show started. Tell us a little bit about you. What do you do for work?
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Shanna: I’m a real estate broker in Southwest, Michigan.
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Brad: Awesome. So how’d you got into real estate?
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Shanna: I want him to be flexible and be able to juggle being a stay-at-home mom and real estate.
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Brad: I like it. I like it. So what were you doing before that?
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Shanna: I’ve been in real estate for 24 years. I started it during college. I graduated college with a communications degree and then went right into real estate.
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Brad: Oh. That’s pretty cool.
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Taylor: Did you know from a young age that that’s what you wanted to do or did you have another goal in mind when you were younger?
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Shanna: My initial goal, you’ll think this is funny, is I wanted to be a TV news anchorperson, but my family has always been in real estate. My grandfather owned his own brokerage. My mom was a member of the council board of realtors. My aunt is a broker in Hilton head island, so it’s kind of always been in the family. And it’s something we talk about at every holiday dinner.
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Brad: That’s funny. So tell us about your team now, or is it just you by yourself or you’ve got a team?
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Shanna: I don’t have a team. I have an office. There are currently three agents in my office and another one coming on board soon. And we have a lender that
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Brad: Nice. It’s your office, right? I say, it’s your office, right? Did you start it nice? When did you start that?
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Shanna: Yes. Back in 2020 when COVID started.
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Brad: Nice. Good for you. Hey, gotta start something, right?
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Taylor: That’s awesome. Never a bad time as long as you get started. Right.
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Brad: So is there any advice that you got back when you started that kind of stuck with you along the way?
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Shanna: 20 years ago, there was a gentleman by the name of Paul Stewart, who was the broker of Investor’s Choice Realty in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And I remember riding around with him, looking at income property, downtown grand rapids. And I walked into a house to take a look at it and it was leaning like desperately leaning, nothing was leveled. And I mentioned that and he said, Shannon, nothing. You’d lean to if you were a hundred years old. And then one of his other sayings was, he said, everybody’s rich. And they said, what do you mean? And he said everybody has 24 hours in a day. It’s up to us how we use it. So you choose how you want to spend your 24 hours a day. And that stuck with me.
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Brad: That’s awesome.
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Taylor: I know you mentioned investment properties there. It kind of leads me to the next question I have for you. What is the worst property you’ve been to or more showing over the last 24 years? What one sticks out the most?
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Shanna: A meth house.
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Taylor: Did you know going into the home, what you were walking into? No. No. Okay. Did you sell that home?
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Shanna: I did not. I drove directly to the police department.
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Taylor: Yeah. That one’s pretty memorable. You might not forget that one, especially.
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Shanna: Yeah. I can smell it still to this day.
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Brad: Oh, no scratches. And if houses,
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Taylor: Yeah. That’s what we call those ones. The scratch and sniff. Once we walk out smelling, like what you just walked into.
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Shanna: Need to go home and take a shower. Exactly.
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Brad: So what kind of goals do you have for the rest of the year and going into next year?
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Shanna: The goals are to just reach out and thank my clients for an awesome year this year and have an attitude of gratitude. We have an event coming up in a couple of weeks, where our clients can order pies and they stop in for cider and donuts and pick up the pie. And it’s our way of saying, thank you for your business. We appreciate you. Catch up with them. How’s life going? How’s your new hope house going? That sort of thing.
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Taylor: Yeah. Awesome. Besides getting in touch with clients that way in person, what’s your favorite way to reach out to people, maybe past clients that you haven’t talked to in a while?
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Shanna: I love cards. So I spend a lot of money and a lot of time thinking of cards. And when I think of somebody I’ll either pick up the phone or send them a card. Yeah.
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Taylor: That’s also not very common now, many people send out handwritten cards or letters anymore. So receiving that, that personal touch is huge. Nice. Well, if you could start over today with all the knowledge that you’ve learned over the last 24 years, what’s one thing that you would do differently?
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Shanna: Cool. I would pick one contact manager program and stick with it.
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Brad: Nice. Probably swept switches around between a lot of stuff, huh? Yeah.
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Shanna: And just be diligent about connecting and staying in contact with your clients.
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Brad: Yeah. That’s for sure. That’s awesome. That’s a great one. Um, are there any books that you’ve read that say one of your favorite books?
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Shanna: Hmm. I thought about that one a long time, and my answer is the Bible. So read that every single morning. There’s so much wisdom in there and I pray for my clients. I pray for my contracts and just pray that everything that will be done according to their wishes, then they’ll be protected.
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Taylor: That’s awesome. Yeah. That’s very nice of you to do that for them. Kind of going way back to when you first started, how did you get your first client?
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Shanna: How did I get my first client? Yeah, it was someone I knew in a relationship.
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Taylor: Did the transaction go smoother for you? That first one?
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Shanna: Yeah, it did. I had a good broker at the time who walked me through it.
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Taylor: Awesome. I know sometimes those first ones can be pretty nerve-wracking from what we’ve heard. So I always like to see how that first one went as it should, where there are road bumps in the way.
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Shanna: Each deal’s a little different, but the bones are there. So you learn, you never stop learning.
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Brad: That’s awesome. So if somebody wants to join your guys’ office, how can they get ahold of you guys?
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Shanna: They can reach out to me directly or Google thehomesourcegroup.com. Check us out. We have an office in Buchanan, Georgia in Indiana, and South Haven.
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Brad: Yeah, that’s awesome. I like it. What about if clients wanted to reach out to you?
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Shanna: They can reach out to [email protected].
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Brad: Awesome. Hey, thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us today.
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Yeah. Good. Good to be here. Thanks for asking me.
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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 Shanna Ax:
From The Home Source Group
www.thehomesourcegroupmi.com/agents/shanna-ax/
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