Episode 168: Ashley Smith
On this episode of The Brad and Taylor Show, we sat down with Ashley Smith from Community Realty, LLC!
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 Ashley Smith…
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Taylor: Welcome to the Brad and Taylor Show. Today we have Ashley Smith.
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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.
Taylor: Hey Ashley.
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Ashley: Hi. How are you?
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Taylor: Good. How are you doing?
Ashley: Good. Thanks!
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Brad: Oh yeah, well, let’s get this started. Um, tell us a little bit about you. What do you do?
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Ashley: I recently started doing real estate full-time. Prior to that, I was working part-time as a realtor, along with my husband, who is my partner. We worked together as a team. Prior to that, I worked in lending and purchasing land contracts, but I loved real estate, being a realtor, and getting a chance to work with customers so much that I decided to make it my full-time endeavor back in June. It’s been a great time so far.
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Brad: Nice. I like it. I like it. So when you were younger, is this what you had planned?
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Ashley: I think when I was a kid, baby, I wanted to be like a fashion designer or work with dinosaurs. About a decade ago, I started working in property management as a leasing specialist and really loved helping people find the right place for them to spend their lives. It’s such a unique opportunity to be helping people find the places they’re going to spend the majority of their time and where they’re going to have their life and their home, where their family revolves around. I really loved property management and I got my real estate license when I became a property manager, went from leasing to property manager, and have just been in the real estate industry in some aspect since then.
00:01:54:06 –> 00:02:05:21
Taylor: Yeah. I’m sure that background with the property management helped you when you started, when you got your real estate license too, that way you already know what was going on up just a little bit, at least.
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Ashley: Yeah. A lot of it overlaps, you see, helping people find the right place for them. You look at comparative market analysis quite a lot. Staging homes is something and marketing homes is a lot. So there were a lot of things that just helped me move right into my career as a realtor.
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Brad: That’s awesome. So when was the turning point when you’re like, I’m just going to go be an agent?
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Ashley: Actually I decided to when I had my real estate license already, but in January of 2020, I decided to do this part-time to see how it goes. My husband had been a real chore in the 2000s, but he had taken a break and he told me a little bit about his experience. I’m like, yeah, I can do that. And then COVID hit, right. When I got my license, I was like, wow, this is tough. Thankfully I had the ability to jump in a little bit more hands-on once the COVID restrictions lifted back up and I was like, wow, I love this. This is so much fun.
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Taylor: How did your first transaction go? I know you had a background with the market, so how did that first one go? Was it easy?
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Ashley: It was actually a co-op and is incredibly difficult. I had no idea. I had one of the toughest transactions as my first closing. I think it went pretty smoothly considering. I learned a lot.
00:03:35:12 –> 00:03:48:29
Taylor: Yeah. If anything, just take what you learned from it. Is there any advice that you got when you first started out in real estate, even when you were back in property management that stuck with you throughout the years?
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Ashley: Just really building relationships. To not be so much into the sales aspect and being pushy to people, but to listening to what people need, respecting their timelines, respecting their space, and building that relationship with them is going to make you so much more successful and better able to serve your clients in the long run.
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Brad: That’s awesome. So over the years, what is the worst property you’ve been to or showing?
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Ashley: Wow, so actually it’s probably the first property I got under contract, but not the first property that I sold was a trailer on Degas that had just been abandoned and foreclosed on and it was falling apart and it was going for like $10,000. I had to show it through the phone cause the investor was in Florida and I’m like, I have no idea how I make this look presentable over the phone. I had to crawl through, I wore a suit thinking I’m going to look real professional. I had to crawl through like three-foot-high grass. And I was like, this was a terrible idea. But he actually ended up buying it. It worked out pretty well, it looks amazing now I drove by it and I’m sure the neighbors are very grateful that he purchased it.
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Taylor: Completely different now. Right?
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Ashley: Yeah. It looks great.
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Taylor: Do you have any goals that you want to finish up for this year, going into the next one?
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Ashley: This year has just been kind of a crazy whirlwind. My husband and I have just decided for me to go full-time in real estate in June. Our goal was just to have that transition go very smoothly and then start January just us doing it full-time. We’re just trying to survive this year, which is working out really well. It is better than we had hoped when we were taking the leap to both be realtors instead of me working at the bank. I’m just trying to get through this year and that’s going really well.
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Taylor: I know earlier you mentioned building relationships is so important. What do you think is the best way for you to build relationships with your clients?
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Ashley: I think the biggest thing is listening to them. Listening to what they’re looking for, what their needs are. Sometimes that can feel like it’s counterproductive to your goals if they’re like, I’m not looking to buy it until next year, but you’re like, it’s really great interest rates and you really should just buy right now. I think giving them all the information and then respecting what they’re saying and then keeping in touch. I think these are the biggest things that you can do to build those relationships, let them know that you haven’t forgotten about them, but you understand it’s still not the right time for them. Making sure that you’re listening to what they need.
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Taylor: If there’s a timeframe, I know you mentioned a client, maybe who isn’t ready this year, who wants to purchase next year, but you see the perfect house that they’re describing that they want. Do you send that anyway? So like, Hey, just want to remind you, just stay in touch. I found this one or what do you do with that? Because you don’t want to pass it up if that’s their perfect home.
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Ashley: Yeah, I still send it. Actually, this happened with a condo on Friday. We have a client that’s kind of looking, but thinking they might move to Flint and they’re having a baby and they don’t want to make any exchanges, but this is literally everything that he’s describing.
00:07:09:22 –> 00:07:43:05
Ashley: Yeah. Because he doesn’t want to mow the lawn. So he really wants a condo. I was like, this is so perfect. I sent it anyway. I was like, Hey, I know you’re not looking right now. This just seems perfect. So I thought I’d just send it just in case. He was receptive to it. He’s like, thanks. I’ll take a look at it. He wasn’t like, stop bothering me. I think it’s all in the approach. Instead of going, you need to move on to this right now. You’re never going to find a better home. It’s just really letting them know you’ve heard them, but just in case you’re sending this.
00:07:43:19 –> 00:07:48:13
Taylor: Okay. Awesome. If you could start over today, what is one thing that you’d do differently?
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Ashley: In real estate or in life?
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Taylor: In real estate. I guess you can go both ways, whatever way you want to go with that.
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Ashley: I think that I would take it very seriously. You get a lot of advice when you first start to reach out to your sphere of influence and to reach out to everybody that you feel like you’re being pushy by doing that. You don’t always, but I’m amazed at how many people I found later on. It was like, oh, I wish I would’ve known that you were selling real estate because I just went with somebody random. I felt like it would be pushy, so I didn’t do it. I actually feel like it would have been beneficial to me and to the people that knew my work ethic and have worked with me before and would have been more comfortable working with somebody they know and trust already through other relationships. I think that’s what I would have done differently is reached out a little bit more when I started, because I was part-time too. I wasn’t sure how much time I would have and things like that. I didn’t really tell everyone. Now I’m like, oh, I wish I had done that.
00:08:53:13 –> 00:09:14:19
Taylor: I know I’ve heard a lot of people say that. Brad and I have talked to quite a few agents over this last year and a handful of people have said the same thing. I wish I would have reached out more to people that I already know. At that same time, there’s that fear, like you mentioned that you’re being too pushy and that you might push somebody away because of that, but you’re not alone in that. I’ve heard a lot.
00:09:15:14 –> 00:09:58:11
Ashley: Yeah. And now that I’ve started doing it, when I went full time, I was like, okay, I really need to do this. If I’m going to be successful, the response that I got, none of them were negative. Some people were like, thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. I had one friend that was like, you do remember that my sister is a realtor? I’m like, oh wait, I forgot. She thought it was hilarious, you know? She wasn’t offended by it. It’s just people, as long as you’re approaching it in a respectful way and not again, that pushy salesperson way and just saying, Hey, I’m just letting you know. I’d appreciate it if you consider me in the future, if you need somebody, I don’t feel like you ever get any real negativity from doing that.
00:09:59:01 –> 00:10:11:04
Taylor: Speaking of reaching out to your sphere of people around you, what’s the best way for you to reach out? Do you like social media to let people know that you’re in the business or do you pick up the phone and you make those calls? How do you let people know?
00:10:11:22 –> 00:11:08:03
Ashley: That’s a great question. I have always been of philosophy in customer service and in sales that no client or customer is the same and I feel that way with reaching out to the people that you already know, it depends on the relationship I have. We do use social media a lot, but if they are a person that I’ve been contacting through that I know from social media, then I would maybe reach out to them through Facebook messenger but if it’s somebody where I have their phone number in my phone and we’ve texted on a regular basis then to me texting or calling, or if I know they’re a person that just hates it when people call them, there are introverts that are like, I don’t answer the phone and don’t bother leaving a message, just text me. Those are the people that I’m going to text. So I try to remember these things about the people that I know and reach them the way that I feel is gonna make the biggest impact or get the information to them.
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Taylor: Awesome. Before we go today, how can people get a hold of you?
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Ashley: They can give me a call at (517) 574-9902. We are on Facebook, Ashley and Ryan Smith at Community Realty. We have our email address, which is [email protected].
00:11:27:13 –> 00:11:30:15
Brad: Awesome. Hey, thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us today.
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Ashley: Yeah. Thanks for inviting me. It was great.
Hello. Hello. Are you 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 Ashley Smith:
Community Realty, LLC
Facebook: @SmithRealtorLansing
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