Tom Ferry’s Secrets: 10 Networking Tips Every Real Estate Agent Needs

John Harcar (00:01.358)
Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host John Harcar and I’m here today with Tom Ferry and what we’re gonna talk about is networking and building relationships. Remember guys, at Investor Fuel we help real estate investors, service providers, I mean all real estate entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X their business by providing tools and resources to help grow the business they want to grow and in turn live the life they want to live. Tom, welcome to our show.

Tom Ferry (00:27.099)
Thanks, John.

John Harcar (00:29.102)
I’m excited to talk a little bit more and dive into this. mean, as we all know, networking and building relationships, especially in the real estate industry is huge. But before we get into all that specifically and get into the weeds, why don’t you tell our audience a little bit about you, kind of what your background is, what maybe got you into real estate or what you’re doing now.

Tom Ferry (00:47.995)
Sure, so I actually came from being a firefighter paramedic for many years. So my life centered around helping people probably in the worst times of their lives and not necessarily the best times of their lives. But it was always fueled by that passion for helping people. then I kind of went back to school during that time while I was doing that and ended up finishing my education actually just recently with a PhD.

in organizational leadership and change management. So that kind of propelled me into the business world side of things and learning about all the different types of businesses out there. then I was struggling with how I could help people with that, because that was my background. That’s what I knew was helping people. And I kind of struggled for a little bit trying to figure that out, but I kind of found networking.

is being my passion and basically I just meet and talk with people and I figure out how I can help them and where they’re at in their business, what they need in their business to make them grow, what connections they need in their business to make them grow. And I found it fulfilling and it’s just like I’m helping people back when I was a firefighter paramedic. So I mean it’s a little bit different. mean they’re not dying or anything anymore but they’re definitely, you know, working on, yeah, not yet anyway.

John Harcar (01:54.958)
Nice.

Maybe. We don’t know. Right.

Tom Ferry (02:03.781)
But they’re definitely working on building something and it’s just impacting those individuals each and every time. And that’s what really keeps me going and doing this type of stuff.

John Harcar (02:14.926)
Well, as a firefighter and medic, thank you for your service. I know we say to military folks, I think you guys deserve it just the same. So as you’re having this firefighter career, what got you into thinking about, maybe I can make networking a career or something like that? Did you go to a lot of meetings and just see a lack of quality networking?

Tom Ferry (02:36.121)
Yeah, so I went to some different meetings and I went to one and I won’t say which meeting it was because I’m not about Bash and other people. But I went to a networking meeting and I just kind of felt like, wow, this is kind of weird. I really didn’t make any connections, any of those types of things. And so I did a Google search and I’m like, there’s got to be more networking opportunities in my area. And somehow I ran into this guy named Scott Talley in Houston, Texas.

So he’s actually the founder of Network in Action.

And I saw all his YouTube videos and I started watching those and I was like, well, this seems like a cool guy to talk to. So I’m a relationship builder, right? So I picked up the phone and called him and he, you know, he willingly answered my phone. He has his cell phone number on the internet and anyone can reach him. And so I picked it up and I had a conversation. And next thing I know I’m in Houston with him having dinner with him to further the conversation. And later on, not even, I’d say it’s a month later, I’m actually purchasing a franchise and which is professionally networking.

And so that’s kind of what got me into…

the networking side of things. And so I noticed a lot of networking was going to meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting and, you know, Scott’s thing was we’re only going to meet once a month and we’re still going to have the same results if not more. And I thought, well, that’s interesting. Tell me more. And so our model is basically you meet once a month, we’re going to give you back about 80 hours worth of time in your life annually instead of going to a meeting every month. So.

John Harcar (03:55.918)
Mm.

Tom Ferry (04:11.151)
Basically we do that through our…

Our once a month meeting, all of our groups are professionally led by someone like myself. You know, we have our state of the art technology, which is where the rest of the connecting goes on. We give everyone extra networking opportunities if something like you want to network across the nation, for example. We have a group that does that too. So there’s opportunities for everyone to be involved. you know, a lot of people do digital marketing and they’re spending like $2,500, maybe $5,000 a month on that type of stuff.

Thank

And that gets pretty expensive is where we’re something that’s, you know, it costs 2500 annually for something around my service. So, I mean, there’s quite a bit of difference and I know that it works because I put a guarantee on everything. And so I sit down with every person that I work with and I say, you’re going to make X amount of money off, this group that you’re involved in. If not, I’m going to give you for free. So I think we’re one of the only organizations that does that. And especially, you know, if you’re looking at radio.

John Harcar (04:48.558)
Yeah.

Tom Ferry (05:15.869)
That’s $5,000 per month. I mean, I how sustainable it is for people. Digital marketing, like I mentioned, those types of things, it’s all, I mean, do basically a year investment is one month in every other type of marketing.

John Harcar (05:20.632)
All right.

John Harcar (05:29.464)
Hmm. Now you were firefighter, you were in school. Is there any specific schooling that you went to for this or did you kind of learn it through the Network in Action group or how did you kind of build your skills up?

Tom Ferry (05:43.462)
So there is a, this is a franchise model, so there is a lot of training that goes along with running networking groups, and that was how I built up most of my skills. So I learned from people that have five, six, seven, eight groups that are 35, 40 people in each group, and they’re all powerhouses and turning business. So that’s kind of where I learned how to do this stuff, and a lot of it’s just building relationships and.

you know, trying to go from being transactional. What I mean by transactional is, talk to this guy, he’s going to buy your services. To being transformational. How do we, how do we come together as a group to help solidify our relationship between each other so that the transactional stuff is just something that happens and we’re together, you know, lifelong because we’ve built the relationships. So we always say we’re building relationships that last a lifetime rather than just, hey, I’m going to give you a couple of referrals and go from there. So.

John Harcar (06:41.966)
Yeah, and as investors feel, with our mastermind, it’s kind of the same premise, right? It’s building those relationships to build opportunities. So tell me about your transition from firefighter to running this business. What kind of challenges, different things that in the beginning you maybe struggled with starting this off?

Tom Ferry (06:42.004)
Yeah.

Tom Ferry (07:03.291)
So I think in the very beginning a lot of…

the struggle was just planting those seeds. So getting those ideas put out there, and it takes time. And so I actually just resigned completely from my job in January to start doing this. And I actually just looked at this this morning. I started from zero where I was, had no one in my groups, no one interested in my groups. So now I’m at the point where people are calling me and I’m saying, hey, you can’t really come to that group. doesn’t really fit. That slot is already taken. So let’s talk about another group and kind of go from there.

John Harcar (07:30.798)
Hmm.

Tom Ferry (07:36.51)
with it but I mean it’s it’s amazing.

you know, getting through all those hurdles, having to go from, I was always afraid of talking to people on the phone, I think, or, you know, calling them out of the blue and talking to them on the phone. And it’s amazing how easy it is when you’re talking about networking to people on the phone. It’s just, that was a struggle that I had to overcome. was, you know, getting past that fear, I guess, and getting into that uncomfortable zone and getting past those things. definitely, I think that’s been the biggest jump for me is where, you know, as a firefighter paramedic, you were

just kind of, yeah, there were a lot of things that were fearful, but you were just kind of sitting around waiting for them to happen and you, you know, you were trained in dealing with that type of stuff. So I was trained in networking, but not necessarily getting over those fields of calling people and all that weird stuff that we didn’t do, you know, as a firefighter. Yep. Yep.

John Harcar (08:25.804)
the whole cold calling kind of type of thing. Yeah. And I know we talked prior to you. You’ve done some wholesaling in the past. I mean, did you do cold calling back then as well as did you build some skills through that?

Tom Ferry (08:36.623)
Yeah, I did build some skills doing that and I did a lot of yellow letter stuff too with that. So I had people calling me on those types of things. So, but definitely people I didn’t know. So it was still the, you know, I don’t know who John Gonzalez is that’s calling me on the phone right now. And he ends up being the county judge and all this stuff, you know. Yep.

John Harcar (08:40.366)
Okay.

John Harcar (08:46.414)
You

John Harcar (08:53.006)
Well, you mentioned you started in January. So you just bought the franchise this last January and now with zero people and now you’re like kind of turning people away in a sense for some meetings. What do you attribute that? I mean, that’s pretty explosive growth. I mean, we’re four months into the year here.

Tom Ferry (09:11.482)
Right.

Yeah, so a lot of that’s just, I say consistency. So being very consistent in what I’m doing and not letting the nose or the negativity get in your mindset and, you know, staying positive with those things. I think the other thing that I really need to improve upon in my business, which I’m sure is apical to anybody in the real estate side of things, making sure I know my numbers. So how many people I’m talking to, how many people I’m closing, those types of things. And I’m not doing a good job of that right now, which I had a realization over the weekend of doing.

John Harcar (09:33.283)
Yeah.

Tom Ferry (09:42.141)
But I’m still seeing progress, But I need to start measuring that so I can take it to the next level. And so I think that’s where I’m at with things.

John Harcar (09:50.594)
Yeah, and KPI is a huge thing in every business, right? If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know the health, you don’t know, you can’t forecast, you can’t really predict things. Why did you choose a franchise versus maybe just going out and trying to build something on your own?

Tom Ferry (10:06.86)
I chose the franchise because it’s a proven model.

If you’ve ever seen the bank acronym, it’s about people’s personalities, which may be something for investors to work on too. But I’m an action-oriented person. So I don’t want to fill in all the details of, I don’t want to try to figure out all the details. I just want to take action and move forward. So if you’re messaging me or you’re talking to me, you need to talk to me in an action mindset, because that’s how my personality is. So it’s just that. mean, the franchise model worked for that reason for me.

just hey there you go go and I’m like okay well that’s simple go so I went and here I am

John Harcar (10:47.534)
So you have more of a visionary type of mind you think you’d say versus the integrator type of mind, right? Where you’re not in the minutia of all the daily stuff. Okay. All right. So you’re in it four months. What do you see are a lot of the mistakes people make in networking, right? Because they might think, well, hey, I network, I go to RIAs or I go to investor meetings and I’ve talked to a couple of people. I mean, what kind of things are they not doing that they should be?

Tom Ferry (10:52.155)
Correct. Right.

Tom Ferry (11:17.051)
So I would say the biggest thing they do is they go to a networking event or a networking mixer or whatever you want to call it. And I call it the business card exchange and that’s it. And so they’ll go and they’ll collect a bunch of business cards and they throw them on the desk and yeah, you know was successful. I went to this event and people know of me now but they really have no clue about me or what I do. So I always encourage people when they go to any type of event, I will actually come up and meet to someone. just went to one and say,

San Antonio here recently. I went 200 plus entrepreneurs in this event and they were all there to mingle and talk to each other.

John Harcar (11:48.803)
over.

Tom Ferry (11:55.716)
I collected some cards, I ended up leaving that event and I only talked to roughly 15 people because there were some people I was specifically interested in for one of my groups down there. I left with five appointments that were already, you know, one to ones that were already on my schedule. I didn’t have to do any follow up to call them 15 times to see if we could schedule something. But that’s the big mistake I think people make is they just collect business cards and they don’t necessarily set appointments to get to know the people. So I think that’s

John Harcar (12:24.258)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Ferry (12:25.639)
the big thing and a lot of times they go into events and they want to hard sell. Well, this is my service. Well, let’s build a relationship first before we start hard selling people. Or they’ll go in and they’ll start criticizing competitors, making themselves appear that they’re out just bashing other people. That doesn’t look good for anyone, I mean, across the board.

John Harcar (12:36.066)
Mmm. Yeah.

John Harcar (12:49.859)
Right.

Tom Ferry (12:49.987)
They monopolize conversations so they don’t find out about the other person. All they do is just talk about themselves the entire time. As I go into networking events and I’m talking about their entire event or their entire business more than I am anything about me. So I don’t really say anything about me until they ask. So I know everything about their business. I know I can help them, how I can help them before they even ask me what I do. I think that’s.

John Harcar (13:06.498)
Night.

John Harcar (13:12.686)
I think it’s that old saying, right? Be more interested than interesting. know, really, you know, put people’s businesses and talk with them and find out more about them. Do you think folks are going into a lot of these meetings just looking, you know, being very superficial in their questions?

Tom Ferry (13:30.918)
Definitely, yep, they’re definitely not going in there and having the conversation that they need to have. And so just coming in, hey, my name’s Tom, I run a network in action business owner group and that’s, well, that really doesn’t say anything about what I do. And so one of the things that I ask people all the time is, what are three things that if someone said these to me would trigger that I need to send business to John?

And so the other day I was talking to a home organizer. Didn’t even know there was such a thing as a home organizer. And I’m like, well, what do you do? I don’t get it. And she explained it to me. And I said, OK, talk to me in a networking language. What are the three things that if someone said to me, I would trigger you to call this home organizer? And she said, well, if they say their mail’s piling up on the counter,

thought, well, that’s kind of interesting. Who’s mail piles up on the counter without opening it? And she said, someone that needs my services because their home is not organized. I said, interesting. I didn’t know what that was. And then the other thing she told me was if they’re going to do some remodeling. And I thought, well, why do you need a home organizer to do remodeling? She goes, but they have to reorganize their entire life.

John Harcar (14:29.774)
Mm.

Tom Ferry (14:45.839)
to not use the bathroom or whatever their room they’re remodeling. And so I need to help them figure out how to do that type of stuff. And I thought, that’s interesting. I had no idea that someone even did this type of stuff. And so it turned out, after having this conversation and asking those, what are those things, the best type of referral that I can give her is a remodeler or a general contractor that’s doing that type of stuff. And so I would have never got that out of home organizer if I just had that superficial conversation with her about it.

John Harcar (14:54.071)
Hmm.

John Harcar (15:07.458)
Yeah.

John Harcar (15:14.254)
I have never heard of that. A home organizer. know, if my mail is piling up, I kind of… I mean, I guess that would be a first world problem to have. You know what I mean? If you’re really that backed up. So let’s say I, you know, I listen to you, you know, or I maybe listen to this podcast, hypothetically. Someone wants to call up and say, hey, man.

Tom Ferry (15:18.575)
Yeah.

Tom Ferry (15:22.725)
Yep.

John Harcar (15:35.311)
How do I get better at networking? What does your company specifically do? So kind of walk me through that process of, you know, when I call you up and how I kind of progress along.

Tom Ferry (15:45.52)
So when you call me up, the first thing I’m gonna do is understand you and your business and where you’re coming from with everything. If I don’t understand that, then I don’t know how I can help you. And so we’ll have a conversation.

I’ll tell you a little bit about our groups and what we do in one of our groups, where it would best fit you, and we’ll talk about, I think, the three biggest things, or understand what’s the best referral for you, who’s already in the group that I can partner you with, and so you immediately have those type of relationships that already exist, and then three, the third thing that we need to figure out is how can I get the group to trust you.

And so a big part of our relationship is building trust amongst each other. So those are the top three things I think we would talk about first, or I know that we would talk about first, and kind of go from there. And then if it’s a fit for you, that’s definitely something we can talk about. If it’s not, then it’s completely fine to say, no, I don’t want to do that. So I’m in the business of helping people.

John Harcar (16:42.222)
So do you have like a curriculum kind of type of thing laid out? you have like a, mean, how do people with the exception of talking to you, like what kind of secondary education or secondary learning is there available to say, hey, this is how I get better at networking?

Tom Ferry (16:59.289)
And so in all of our agendas or our meeting agenda, so once a month we meet. And part of it’s networking, part of it’s eating if you’re in one of my groups, because I provide food in one of my groups. And then the other part of it is.

depending on which group you are, I’ll give you some education on networking just like I did now in the group meeting and then you’ll actually get handouts, those types of things where everything we went over to leave with for the day from that particular meeting. So it’s not just networking, going and talking to each other. It’s more about learning how to build your business, how to network more efficiently and build those relationships that you need to continue to build your business with it. In my higher level group, which is my trade

together group. That one actually has a little bit of networking. has a little bit of a lot of eating because I provide a lot of food. And then the other piece is a coaching session. so last month for our trades group, we actually had a sales coach that all he does is help the trades. And so he came in and he helped us with people that are shopping around quotes. So I want a new roof. I’m going to call 15 different roofers to get a quote and how do you close those people.

he was focusing on. And then this month actually we’re focusing more on

how to get out of the business. So this gentleman by the name of Dave Peppleman, he has an HVAC company that’s been in existence for 25 years. He’s been able to get out of it so much that he’s coaching other people how to do it too. So that’s what he’s focusing on. So it really depends on which group you’re in. That higher level group I’m talking about is more of a networking slash I would say mastermind type thing for people in the trades. So the other groups are more of

John Harcar (18:33.838)
you

John Harcar (18:45.077)
Okay.

Tom Ferry (18:49.533)
general business networking owner group. We’re aligned together. There is a lot of knowledge I pass in those, a lot of different topics we go over, but I guarantee that you’ll never see the same topic at every meeting, because all of my agendas are written that way.

John Harcar (19:04.43)
And they include food. Oh, I just forgot the question I was going to ask you. Oh, yeah. Are you do you have kind of a wide array of of industries and businesses and already kind of is it maybe maybe a little bit more focused on on speed? I don’t know. Is there a certain avatar that you got that you target or maybe have in your group?

Tom Ferry (19:06.595)
Well, the higher level group does. The lower level one does not.

Tom Ferry (19:33.34)
So I think the.

Obviously my trades together group is exactly what the name says with it. So all your HVAC guys, your roofing guys and plumbers, those types of things. And I have some support services in there too, because all those guys have, well, they all have vehicles, right? So they all need their car repaired, those types of things. So I’ll put some symbiotic relationships in there that makes sense. you know, the trades guys, they’re all in that group because they’re all going into homeowners houses. They’re all doing some type of repair and then they go in that house. And for example, the, let’s say a handyman.

goes into a house and he sees the mold on the wall. Well, I got a restoration guy in my group that’s for that and so that’s a referral, those types of things. So they’re all building their businesses together, aligned on that, and they’re also learning some things along the way with the coaches and those types of things that we’re bringing in for it. The more generalized groups are my network-y groups, I call them. So each of those folks, the financial professional, real estate agent, real estate investor, loan agent or mortgage loan agent, private money agent, all those types of people.

are in the more, I call it the networking group, because they need to build relationships and become aligned together to pass referrals to each other. Just like a lot of times you’ll have some wholesalers out there that just email lists of people, or lists of people that are doing fix and flips, those types of things. It’s weird if they took the time to build that relationship, they’d always have somewhere to put that deal.

John Harcar (20:34.638)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (20:52.929)
Right.

John Harcar (20:57.09)
Yeah, now I’m 100 % on that, you know, because like, you know, to use your example right there of wholesalers and yeah, we can email blast out deals to buyers, right? But if we have relationships and we’ve took the time to really understand what they’re looking for, ask those seven layer questions, right? It’s going to get us to a better relationship. What challenges are you seeing in your business right now? As far as maybe recruit or getting people in marketing? I mean, what kind of challenges are you coming across?

Tom Ferry (21:02.501)
the uncle right there, home sailor.

Tom Ferry (21:26.875)
So I think the biggest challenge for me right now is I do a lot of work with the chambers, the local chambers, and so I’m at a lot of those things. And the chamber does networking events.

And so those networking events, but that’s that high level, we’re just passing out cards and talking to each other type stuff. And so I think getting people to understand the difference between a business owner group and what a chamber is or a generalized, you know, networking thing is the challenge I’m having with it. So I’m finding myself, I’m having to re-educate people on the two differences. So, you know, the chamber is like a generalized thing that’s working for the entire town or the entire city to build up the economy as we, my groups are groups of

business owners that are working together to build their businesses in specific and not necessarily making an open referral but a closed referral group. So we’re building our businesses together and that’s what we do. And so the way I kind of imagine that in the investing space would be your private money broker, your private money lender, maybe a real estate agent in there to help with those types of deals that come up. Your wholesaler, your fix and flip guy and all those are in one group and they have that relationship together.

John Harcar (22:16.685)
Right.

John Harcar (22:35.373)
Mmm.

Tom Ferry (22:38.007)
and they’re building up their businesses together. And so that’s kind of the same thing I do on my side, but I do with the general industry also.

John Harcar (22:46.04)
Got it, okay. And are you based, I know you said you’re in Houston, or Austin, are you based in Texas? Do you have clients that are all over the country, or is it location-centric?

Tom Ferry (22:55.611)
So it’s very location centric for me. So right now I have a group in Kyle and I have a group in San Antonio. And so eventually I’m gonna open up one in Austin. I’m just not quite sure where yet in Austin, but that’s kind of, I’m in person. So everything for me, it’s face to face, those types of relationships. Yeah, I do talk to a lot of people on Zoom or on the phone, but our meetings are in person and I guess I’m a little old school in that manner. I’d rather see people face to face, break bread together than on a Zoom.

John Harcar (23:22.606)
then on a zoom.

Got it. Very interesting, mean, I honestly didn’t know that. I mean, I know there’s networking groups and I know there’s some, but I’ve never really heard of maybe like franchise that does that, which is really, really cool. If anybody’s listening to this podcast and they’re like, man, I need to improve my skills. How do they reach out to you? Kind of give them a little plug for your business.

Tom Ferry (23:45.743)
Yeah, so I mean if they definitely wanted to reach out to me, they can always email me, tom at networkinaction.com. And also my cell phone number, can give that out to you, 737-976-84. Text me or call me. I’m always available to people. I’m definitely all about building relationships. I don’t know of many other people out there that will actually give their cell phone number on a podcast, but I will give mine because that’s what I do, is I build relationships.

John Harcar (24:12.042)
Awesome. And we’ll put all that information in the show notes. And just as a last leave, what advice would you give to folks about networking?

Tom Ferry (24:22.895)
I think the biggest advice I would give is just remember that going to events and or networking real estate events is visibility. That’s not building relationships. So make sure you’re taking the time to build the relationships after schedule those one-to-ones.

John Harcar (24:38.257)
Guys, I hope you enjoyed the show. Tom, thank you again for coming on. I mean, you shared a lot of great information. And networking is really about not just passing the card. It’s about getting and building those relationships. And to do that, you got to ask more questions. Guys, I hope you enjoyed the show. Man, I sure did. And we’ll look forward to seeing you on the next one. Tom, thanks again. Thank you.

Tom Ferry (24:57.467)
All right, thanks, John.