Episode 203: Dawne Cohoon
On this episode of The Brad and Taylor Show, we sat down with Dawne Cohoon from RE/MAX!
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 Dawne Cohoon…
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Taylor: Welcome to The Brad and Taylor Show. Today, we have Dawne Cohoon.
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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.
00:00:15:26 –> 00:00:19:21
Dawne: Hey, good morning. How are you doing this morning?
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Brad: Awesome. I like it. Well, let’s get this show started. Tell us a little bit about you. What do you do?
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Dawne: What do I do? I am a real estate agent on the Flanders and Garret’s team at Remax. From the buyers, sellers, either side of the transaction.
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Brad: Awesome. I like it. Where are you located?
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Dawne: We are currently on the west side of Lansing, so real estate, Remax professionals on the west side, but we are making a move out to our East Lansing location, probably just after the first quarter of next year.
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Brad: That’s. Awesome. I like it. So back before you got into real estate, what’d you do before real estate?
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Dawne: That’s kind of a long story, home digest version. I worked on a state contract for many years. I worked for a technology company out of California and loved what I did, but had been doing it long enough that I could do it with my eyes closed and felt like I’m no longer getting a challenge. So the real estate opportunity came up and I took it. I’ve never looked back.
00:01:43:13 –> 00:01:49:29
Brad: That’s awesome. So what was the first thing you’re like, Hey, uh, maybe I’ll go into real estate? What was the first thing you saw or did?
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Dawne: I have a very good friend who runs a successful team, Robin Flanders. She and I were having a conversation. You know, one of those, what I want to be when I grow up, and she had said, well, you need to sell real estate. I’m like, I don’t have any sales experience. I’d never be good at real estate. And she saw something in me that I, at the time, didn’t see in myself, but I’m happy to say today, this is probably the best job that I’ve ever had.
00:02:20:28 –> 00:02:32:12
Taylor: That’s awesome. Yeah. Making that transition from your previous career into real estate, how did that go for you? Were you full-time? Like you just jumped right into it or did you part-time both. How did you do that?
00:02:32:29 –> 00:03:31:27
Dawne: You know, Taylor, I was doing it part-time because obviously, a commission job is scary. Oh yeah. But when I was looking for something that I fought for, I could create my passion around. I was selling furniture at a re um, at an art van and I was having a ball, but it was a really hard way to make a living. You know, we had salespeople in there that had 25 and 30 years plus, and I struggled through that process. And then I tried to sell furniture and real estate, which was a perfect scenario. Sell a house, fill it full of furniture. I just couldn’t. Once my real estate took off, I couldn’t keep up. I had to let the furniture sales go and probably, you know, right in the nick of time. Cause it was just before that whole transition happened with the Art Van in their corporation.
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Brad: When did you work there?
00:03:36:11 –> 00:03:48:11
Dawne: At Art Van? Yeah. I came in about 2017, nice 17 into early 18. I got my license in May of 2018.
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Brad: Nice.
00:03:50:06 –> 00:03:51:17
Taylor: Art Van for a little bit too were you, Brad?
00:03:52:15 –> 00:03:58:22
Brad: For five years too, except for 2006. I think it was somewhere in that range.
00:03:59:29 –> 00:04:12:19
Dawne: It was fun. I worked with some really awesome people. We had fun while we were trying to work. We did a lot of hide and seek in the store and did some shenanigans, you know, it was fun.
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Brad: That’s awesome. I like it.
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Taylor: Did you get any advice when you started in real estate? I know you said you had a good friend who was in real estate and still is, but did you get any advice from that specific person or anybody around you that helped you out that first one?
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Dawne: Okay. When I think about it, I think what helped me in the process of being successful was that I was able to connect to an amazing team. So I had some really good mentors and their advice was kind of more silent. I just watched what they did and did what I could do to replicate that.
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Taylor: Yeah. And I think that sometimes that’s the best way to go about it too. Cause you can see it firsthand rather than someone kind of telling you what to do in a year. Then you get to the process and you’re like, wait, what was I supposed to do?
00:05:02:15 –> 00:05:28:13
Dawne: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I do remember somebody telling me that real estate was messy and I’m like, well, how messy can it be? I learned quickly when you’ve got a lot of balls in the air and trying to juggle different personalities with clients and lenders and title companies, sometimes things get messy.
00:05:28:24 –> 00:05:29:27
Taylor: Yeah. It’s a lot to keep up with.
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Dawne: It is.
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Taylor: Speaking of, kind of messy situations, what is the worst property or showing that you have been to since you’ve been in real estate?
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Dawne: You know, I watched Chris Braun a couple of weeks ago when you guys had him on and he was describing exactly the same property. I was thinking about that. And I think his explanation was one that had just, there was a lower level bathroom that had exploded, or looked like it exploded. But when I was thinking about what my answer would be to your question, I was going to flip it around. I see potential in every property. So I couldn’t tell you that there was one property that was worse. Every single property just needs the right buyer.
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Taylor: Yep. That’s so true. Yep. If you could start over today with all the knowledge that you have, what’s one thing you do differently?
00:06:27:27 –> 00:07:03:29
Dawne: I probably would have spent more time focusing on balance. I know a lot of real estate professionals have been in the same boat, but when the train leaves the station, you tend to sacrifice family and your own well-being in order to meet the requirements and the needs of your clients. I think if there was one thing I wished I would have done differently would have been to get a handle on that balance earlier on.
00:07:04:21 –> 00:07:09:05
Taylor: Yeah. How long has it been since you’ve been in real estate? How long have you been in?
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Dawne: I got my license in May of 2018. So I’m going into year number four.
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Taylor: Awesome. Do you have any goals or plans in place for finishing up this year and kind of going into 2022?
00:07:23:13 –> 00:07:55:14
Dawne: Well, we’re all working on our business plans for next year. I’m going to hopefully hit a major award this year. It’s been a very consistent busy year. If I can maintain the same level of production and what I call customer service excellence for the customers that I work with, then I think next year is going to be a good year.
00:07:56:25 –> 00:08:03:27
Taylor: That’s awesome. Do you have any business books that you’ve read that you could recommend to anybody, maybe starting out in real estate?
00:08:04:17 –> 00:08:52:06
Dawne: I do. We’ve got a lot of them. So one of the things that we do with our team is we have this little book nook and we share books that each of us have read or that we’ve gotten some value out of. But one of the books that I go back to repeatedly is The Slight Edge. It’s a Jeff Alson book and it just talks about every aspect of how you manage success and it kind of puts you in a better mind frame of if something feels like a failure, how to turn that into a success. So I’ve got lots of dog-eared pages and highlighters, and I’ve gone back to that book several times over the course of the last several years.
00:08:53:07 –> 00:08:59:15
Taylor: That’s a neat idea. You guys have all the books that you’ve read and keep it in one area and then you guys just switch out as needed.
00:09:00:11 –> 00:09:24:08
Dawne: We do. And you know, we’ve got an amazing team leader, Maggie Garrett. So Maggie is kind of a bookworm, but Maggie will find a book. And if she’s gotten something valuable out of it, she’ll order all of us the same book. So she was very generous with sharing things that she’s gotten a hold of, that she thought was valuable, and sharing that with all of us.
00:09:24:15 –> 00:09:27:19
Taylor: Yeah. So before we go today, how can people get a hold of you?
00:09:29:05 –> 00:09:42:05
Dawne: So, it’s easy on my email. It’s [email protected]. And then of course my cell phone is (517) 290-8411.
00:09:42:26 –> 00:09:45:19
Brad: Sweet. Awesome. Hey, thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us today.
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Dawne: I appreciate the opportunity. You guys have a nice holiday. Stay warm, stay safe.
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Brad: Thanks.
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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 Dawne Cohoon:
dawnecohoon.remax-michigan.com
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