Episode 155 Transcript: Jay LaBoe

Next on the Brad and Taylor Show, we have Jay Laboe from Keller Williams Realty! To watch the full episode, check it out on YouTube below. To listen, head over to Apple Podcasts. In the meantime, here’s a summary of the conversation…

00:00:00:17 –> 00:00:15:02
Brad: Welcome to the Brad and Taylor show. Today, we have Jay Laboe. 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. Hey Jay.

00:00:15:28 –> 00:00:21:19
Jay Laboe: Hi guys. How are you doing today?

Brad: We’re good. How are you?

Jay Laboe: Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on!

00:00:22:27 –> 00:00:24:05
Brad: Well, let’s get this started. What do you do?

00:00:25:06 –> 00:00:36:06
Jay Laboe: So in short terms, I’m a realtor. The way I like to think of it, I assist buyers and sellers in the consultation of their buying and selling needs.

00:00:36:14 –> 00:00:40:00
Brad: Awesome. I like it. I like it. So when you were younger, is this what you had planned for your future?

00:00:43:02 –> 00:01:18:02
Jay Laboe: When I was younger, I actually had aspirations of being an archeologist. I was kind of set on that as a real little kid over time that kind of turned into some other things. Music is a huge passion of mine and that’s actually what I went away to school for, with sound recording and production. So, the backside of the businesses where I wanted to go. As life has, it takes you in different directions and 23 years later, I’m here.

00:01:18:23 –> 00:01:25:02
Brad: That’s awesome. So how’d you get into real estate? Like, how’d you go from that to now selling houses?

00:01:27:05 –> 00:02:31:01
Jay: I started off as a bartender in my early twenties. So I think that’s where I learned a lot of personal communication one-on-one, kind of ebbs and flows of how people act and interact with each other. And I got to a point where I said that around 26, I think I’m getting a little too old. I want to get a little bit more serious about a career. And I started with a company that sold Medicare part D prescription drug plans here locally in the area. And that company was then bought out by a larger company, a fortune five company. And I kind of set my path starting there started off as a customer service representative, and I had aspirations of getting into a management supervisor, director position.

00:02:31:11 –> 00:03:27:07
And I worked on that for about seven years that I was with the company and hit all my goals and very goal-oriented and having a job like that in a large company I definitely focused more on those skills that I was lacking previously and really honed. And then one day, they came to us and said, “Hey, we’re dissolving the department. We’re moving operations out of state. Here’s your severance check and, uh, good luck.” And that was a real eye-opener for me because as I was raised a lot of people were getting in with a big company, their security, and everything else. Well, I learned that the hard way. And at the time we had just bought the house and our third child was on the way, and it was a really scary time. And as is for a lot of people that, you know, lose jobs and, you know, you have a lot of big things happening in your life.

00:03:27:21 –> 00:04:26:20
So my wife, the best person that I know, my best friend, looked at me and said, “look, try to find what you want to do with your life.” I was 34 going on 35 at the time. And kind of was in flux. And after about two years of being a stay-at-home dad and taking care of the kids and everything, we got the fortunate news that we were pregnant again, and this time with twins. And I said to myself, you know, now it’s time to get the periods and kind of do a deep dive on yourself, figure out what you want to do. I had always been interested in real estate. The Sunday showcase the Howard Hannah foundation showcase. I would always watch on Sundays. I was always looking in the papers, you know, poking my nose around developments and things like that.

00:04:26:20 –> 00:05:11:05
And I came downstairs one morning, saw my wife, and I said, “I think I want to get into real estate.” And she looked at me and as God is my witness, said “I was wondering when you were going to come to that conclusion.” She was like, you’ve had an interest. You took a big part of it. And when we sold the first home that we had lived in together, she’s like, you have the personality, you have that drive to get out there. Why not go for it? She’s like I support you. And those were the biggest words that anybody could ever say to me, most meaningful, she had my back and here I am, you know, now going into my fourth year of real estate.

00:05:11:24 –> 00:05:23:17
Taylor: That’s awesome. Yeah. Having that support is huge. How did your first year ago, when you first got into it, did you start on a team or were you kind of solo the first year? How did that go for you?

00:05:24:10 –> 00:06:19:21
Jay Laboe: So, my first year I was absolutely solo. I took the approach, you know, I could jump in, I could start selling and just go at it. And I didn’t have the skillset. I’ve never done this before. So I really took my first year to really immerse myself in my brokerage and say, you know, I’m gonna learn, you’re gonna learn through osmosis. I’m going to read books. You know, I’m going to learn from people that are actually doing the job. And for the first year, I mean, I was taking every possible continuing ed class that I could, every meeting ever, every broker mastermind, anything I could get my hands on. So really the first year, I think I took one listing and it was with somebody I’d gone to high school with. They were having a bad experience selling the home and a couple of other agents

And I went in and guns a blazing, but I was gonna, you know, get this. And it was a huge learning experience. I learned so much from it. And honestly, it was my first failure in real estate. I didn’t sell their home. As we always say, we always have a difficulty, you know, with price points and we’re talking about the market and everything, you know, trying to, I guess I was trying to not offend them at first. And I’ve learned really quickly that that’s a hard thing to do, especially when you’re consulting. You have to tell them, this is what it is. This is what the market’s saying. And I learned a lot from that experience and took that, that this was a good learning opportunity for me. Let’s move forward to the next one.

00:07:06:15 –> 00:07:12:10
Taylor: How long after that first one, was that when you got your second one, and things kind of started to pick up for you after that?

00:07:13:04 –> 00:08:09:02
Jay Laboe: So that’s a funny story. So actually, I was sitting in a tattoo parlor in the chair getting, getting a tattoo. And my tattoo artist, Chubs Morrison, I’ll do a shout out to him at Monumental Tattoos, was talking about his sister and she was getting to the point where she was getting ready to purchase her first home and move out of the nest and the whole thing. And I gave him my card. And, and then all of a sudden, I hear from over on this side of the parlor, another artist came over to me and he was like, “Hey, I’m currently looking and I’m trying to get in these places, but I keep calling these agents and nobody’s getting back.” I said, “well, if you’re not working with somebody, usually that person is the one that makes the appointments, gets you in to look at the places.”

00:08:09:19 –> 00:09:21:14
And he was a young kid. Didn’t really know, you know, how the process works. So I took him on as a client and got him his place. And then it just kind of started snowballing from there. So, you know, a referral business, that’s the business that I wanted to create, you know, those person-to-person relationships. And so if you have a good experience with me, you’re gonna want to tell somebody about it. And that’s kind of when it started taking off and, you know, little bits and pieces here and there. Then it just kind of started snowballing to the point where I’m at this year. Or the referrals started coming in from other lender partners. So it’s been great. I mean, that’s all I can say. Incredible as my broker Noreen Marla would say, “when anybody asks you about how the market is, it’s incredible, good, or bad, it’s always been.”

00:09:22:24 –> 00:09:31:29
Taylor: Yeah, that’s awesome. It always works out that way. It always works out.

00:09:32:21 –> 00:10:48:21
Jay Laboe: You got to get to work, you got to get to work. And that’s really opened my eyes now with the business. It’s a business and now I have to start planning appropriately, you know, that’s everything from marketing and going out there trying to ascertain other referrals, taking advantage of those lender partners, the title companies that you’ve worked with, you know, over the last year or two, and, you know, having those partnerships and being able to work with that. And again, living in sort of a post COVID world at this point in time with people kind of being able to get back out. That was one of the really hard parts for me during this time was the person-to-person interaction and everything being done through zoom and, you know, kind of like, I guess, getting over a fear of being on cameras. I mean, as odd as it sounds, especially coming from like a performance background with my music and everything, and, you know, you put something in front of you that has a light on it and it’s just, you know. So it’s been crazy.

00:10:49:11 –> 00:11:00:01
Taylor: That’s funny that you mentioned the camera shyness. We are a photography company and I wouldn’t have done this on camera a year ago. There’s no way, no way. And now we’re doing this, so it all works out.

00:11:00:29 –> 00:11:04:08
Jay Laboe: It’s amazing. It’s absolutely amazing how these things come together.

00:11:04:19 –> 00:11:09:01
Taylor: Yeah. Over the last four years, what do you think the worst property is that you’ve been to?

00:11:11:17 –> 00:12:13:09
Jay Laboe: Well, okay. So, a funny story. So, I live in the Bainbridge Township, Chagrin Falls City Area, and it’s kind of rural. It’s in Geogra County. So my service area is basically Lake Jog, Cuyahoga parts of Portage county. And I mean, honestly, I’ve been out further up north sometimes, just depends on the person and everything. And I was taking a client through a home, he was looking for a fixer-upper and, you know, we get there and we’re looking at the outside of the house. And we noticed that there are some holes possibly where either vents were at, or AC ducting or, gas pipes or propane pipes, um, as it is sometimes out there.

00:12:13:23 –> 00:13:07:00
And I said, okay, well, we may be dealing with a situation where we have an animal or something like that in the house. So I’m telling myself, just, just be prepared when you unlock the door. If there is something get ready to bail. So we go inside and we stopped in and closed the door behind me. And he started to make his way through the kitchen. And when I closed the door, I noticed something on the ground and it was probably about six feet in length. I mean, it was huge. It was a snakeskin. And I asked my client, I said, you don’t, by any chance, have a fear of snakes. And he asked me why, and I showed him the shed, its skin. And I have never seen anybody exit the home as quickly as he did.

00:13:10:09 –> 00:13:49:23
I couldn’t believe it, but he was getting ready to go downstairs to the basement. And yeah, he was like out the door in his car and he’s like, I just had a bad experience as a child with it. He’s like, I didn’t want to mess with it. So, I mean, that’s one, some other homes that I’ve been in have had raccoons. So I think I have something with the animals in homes that are attracted to me, on these showings. So I’m just, I’m waiting on the next one. And that’ll add to my animal stories and real estate.

00:13:49:26 –> 00:13:54:19
Taylor: That’s funny. So that home with the snakeskin you didn’t sell it?

00:13:54:19 –> 00:13:58:14
Jay Laboe: He didn’t want that, unfortunately.

00:13:59:26 –> 00:14:07:28
Taylor: I would’ve run too, though. If you imagine seeing that snakeskin, I mean, you were there in person, but if it was six-foot, a skin, that snake is bigger.

00:14:08:02 –> 00:14:47:27
Jay Laboe: That’s intimidating. It’s like, it is for spiders with me. It’s like, I can deal with them up to a certain size, but you know, they get big out here. So when we first moved into our home, the home was vacant for two years. And so it had its fair share of needless to say infestation, both with, the wolf spiders and other little field mice that decided to make their home here. So we had, we have a mouse and a spider home to a point.

00:14:49:04 –> 00:15:05:18
Taylor: Yeah. That’s ideal. That’s funny. I know when you first started talking, you mentioned that you, and that first year you read a lot of books, um, just to kind of get knowledge more of how the business works. What kind of books were you reading when you first started out that maybe you could recommend to somebody else starting?

00:15:06:20 –> 00:16:09:19
Jay Laboe: Yeah, honestly I’d never been a huge reader, you know, small print, easy, not a problem articles and such. So I’m with Keller Williams Greater Cleveland Northeast. That is the brokerage that I’m with. And if you know anything about Keller Williams, they’re a national company actually we’re overseas as well. We have a ton of brokerages all over the world. Our founder, Gary Keller, teamed up with some individuals within the company and they wrote some amazing books. And one of the biggest, I guess, changes of how I looked at myself in my business was one that he co-authored called The One Thing. And it kind of took it out of the context of real estate. And it was more of a guide in life, especially if you are getting into business. The ideals in the thoughts that were portrayed in that book are really universal in the business world.

00:16:09:20 –> 00:17:01:08
And it was an easy read and it basically concentrated on, you know, you have all this stuff around you and you have to figure out what you’re good at. What is the one thing that you’re good at and concentrate on that? So for me, the selling part, the communication with clients, that’s my one thing. But outside of that, for the organizational pieces, like the contracts, the keeping, any organizational task that, you know, when you get to a point, not everybody can get to that point right away, have a transaction coordinator, have an admin that’s able to take care of those items for you so that you can concentrate on what you do best. And in this case, it’s selling real estate.

00:17:02:07 –> 00:17:06:10
Taylor: That’s awesome. Do you have anybody now to help you out with that backend stuff?

00:17:07:08 –> 00:18:35:11
Jay Laboe: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Especially now with the way that my business has been growing, I had to hire a transaction coordinator to kind of keep me in line and it’s weird. And when you have somebody on the backend handling all of that for you, you know, I’m still checking as due diligence, due diligence as you should, to make sure everything’s going off without a hitch, especially when you have other co-brokers calling and your clients saying “has this been done, we’re waiting on that.” And it’s just been nice. It’s taken a lot of the pressure off of me to make sure that everything is done and it’s giving me back time to be able to do the things that I want and namely, and real estate has given me the flexibility to have more time with my family. Yeah. And that’s one of the biggest things that it’s so important to me. I mean, my kids will grow up knowing that both myself and my wife, we were home, always, we were, we were always there and that’s one of the biggest takeaways from all of this that I can get and still be able to provide and do the things that we need to do as a family. It’s an opportunity and I’m forever thankful for.

00:18:36:21 –> 00:18:49:02
Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. That’s awesome that you guys are able to do that. If you could start over your first year with all the knowledge that you have today, what would you do differently? What’s one thing that you would change?

00:18:52:00 –> 00:19:48:20
Jay: Great question. I would say the one thing that I would change, well, actually, you know what, I wouldn’t change anything, honestly, you know, we go through life and we can’t go back. We can look at our mistakes or failures and feel like we should go back and change. What could we change? And I think it’s more or less, the next question is what you did got you to this point you’re at now. So whether you’re failing, succeeding, or succeeding and failing, you’re learning valuable lessons throughout the whole experience to make those future experiences or those future decisions. I want to say you have a better background understanding of how to get to that. Yeah. And what you need to do. So, yeah, I believe in failing, failing forward.

00:19:51:25 –> 00:19:53:02
Brad: I like that. How can people get ahold of you?

00:19:54:13 –> 00:20:17:24
Jay: So, there’s a couple of different ways people can get ahold of me. By phone, but, email ([email protected]). I’m also on Facebook at Jay Laboe Sells. You can also hit me up on Instagram. You’ll see a lot of stuff on there as well.

00:20:20:20 –> 00:20:20:26
Brad: Thanks for coming on today!

00:20:21:22 –> 00:20:24:17
Jay: Hey, thanks so much for having me on today, guys. I really enjoyed that.

00:20:29:05 –> 00:20:47:06
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Check out Jay Laboe:

Keller Williams Realty

https://jaylaboe.kw.com/?fbclid=IwAR0jnvahMA7PGhpjFj4TxiEpSuv-o7ct71lt20AimnztdeKeqRqPh5wOKB8 Facebook: @https://www.facebook.com/jaylaboesells

Twitter: @lihttps://twitter.com/onthegowitjaybo

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