Real Estate Networking That Actually Works | Relationships Over Transactions

Valerie Jefferson (00:00)

Relationships are everything in this business, and not transactional relationships. Let me just, like, make this clear, because I think that everybody’s throwing around this, like, relationship and networking term, and they’re making it like a task. Yeah. So while, yes, we can make a plan and a task for a lot of things, relationships are not one of them. Relationships are something that is curated. Usually, you’re planting a seed well before you have a need. Like how—

How I like to say it. So you gotta plant that seed, and you have to be doing it genuinely for nothing.

Q Edmonds (02:07)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And today I am excited to be here. You know I always say that, and you always know I say I’m excited about my guests. But today is special because this is family here. So I am so excited about our guest. Listen, she’s an agent.

And a Realtor, she works with SB Realty Group, and she goes by the name VJ the Connector. And so, y’all, I’m excited. We’re about to learn from her, learn from her experience, so we can take it and apply to our experience. And so, I’m so happy to introduce you all to Miss Valerie Jefferson. Valerie, how you doing today, ma’am?

Valerie Jefferson (02:53)

There you go.

Q Edmonds (02:58)

That’s good. That’s good. Listen, I’ll—there you go. I—listen, and I’m excited to have you. I thank you for your time. I always say I think time is our most precious commodity. So, yeah, it’s not lost on me, the value of you giving us your time. So I thank you for being here. And listen, Val, I am the type. And can I call Val? Go ahead to be professional. Can I have to say Valerie? Are you the Val? Okay.

Valerie Jefferson (02:59)

I’m so great.

Q Edmonds (03:25)

Respect on your name. I gotta be professional, but you say I can be valuable.

Valerie Jefferson (03:29)

That was good. That was good.

Q Edmonds (03:31)

So listen, I’m the type. I—I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in, and then tell us what markets you’re operating in. And so, ma’am, you have the floor.

Valerie Jefferson (03:49)

Thank you. Thank you. So again, Q, thank you for having me. Excited to be here and on with you and share a little of my story. I am a real estate agent in Connecticut. I am with SB Realty Group. I go by VJ the Connector, and super excited to enter this phase of my journey. This is the newer piece of my journey, but not necessarily new to me, new from a licensing perspective, but I have been involved in consulting in real estate and helping landlords and helping family and friends and extended people kind of think about how they invest in real estate for a long time, just was not able to actually, like, really help them like—like an agent can. But now I can, and I’m, like, super excited about that.

And, you know, my journey has been, as a child, my family has always been involved in real estate since I was—since I could remember. From my grandparents, you know, owning their land and their farms, and my grandpa Silas just always saying that, like, owning your land was power. And so both sides, my mom’s and my dad’s sides, both had a lot of land and owned their—their property. And so you kind of just knew the value there of, like, ownership and land and how you could carve off pieces to your—your children, your siblings. You could farm, you could live off of it, whatever it was. My parents migrated to Connecticut, and that was, like, I want to say, like, the ’60s. There were some floods, and he came up for—for work, my—my uncle, and then he brought his siblings up. And from then they bought their properties, their homes in Connecticut. And then they also bought multifamily homes and had room for their siblings to come as they came of age.

And that is what I remember, that—that property was able to be leveraged to change the trajectory of your entire family’s life and to house others in your home, multigenerational living and things like that. And so my parents went on to marry, and they had multifamily homes of their own, and I watched them take care of them and have tenants. And I was a little girl, but one thing I recall is around the first of the month, depending, a little after, they went and picked up some money.

Q Edmonds (06:51)

Come on.

Valerie Jefferson (06:52)

That was the thing as a child. You know, you—you say, what are the things I honed in on? I didn’t remember it all, but I remember that. Yeah. And I remember my parents driving us around town, pointing to the homes that they owned, so that we would know should something happen to them. And so I think that’s, like, where my love of just real estate came from in—in Connecticut, and just familiarizing myself with the different types of—of properties. And from that point on, I went to purchase my first home in my twenties and sharing the good news, so to speak, to everyone about—about real estate and the power and how you can leverage it and how it could, you know, create generational wealth for your family, and it can create stability and a home for your children. And I think from that point on, I was sharing with everyone how I had done it and how to do it. And now that I’m an agent, I am ready to not just share it in words, but to take people out in Connecticut, primarily Fairfield County.

A little New Haven County as well. But take them out, and I—my sweet spot is first-time homebuyers. Just because there’s just something about helping someone make that move for their family and to, you know, set up that—that structure and—and to—and that stability and to have something of their own that just warms my heart, and that just feels good to me. Especially the—you know, a lot of the first-time buyers are not as familiar and maybe a little—a little nervous, but definitely eager and, like, wanna do it. And I have been there, and I was lucky enough to have my family and, you know, wanna be that for others who may not have had that. So that’s where I am today. Long-winded way getting there, but that’s where we are today.

Q Edmonds (08:37)

That was absolutely excellent. Thank you. Thank you for letting us know where you are, kind of walking us up into what you’re doing, and just the passion, where it comes from. And so, Val, I—I have a statement I often say where I say, destiny has no wasted moments. Destiny has no wasted moments. We are learning from every leg of our journey. We’re learning from the failures, we’re learning from the success. And so I would love to know, throughout your journey within this real estate space, what has it revealed to you about yourself? Has it made you humble? Has it made you more patient? Has it increased your tenacity? Like, what does these moments reveal to you about you?

Valerie Jefferson (09:16)

Yeah. I think definitely tenacity. I am a planner. I know when I wanna buy a home, and I put a plan together, and that actually has become, like, a sweet spot for me with my clients as an agent, to say, let’s talk, let’s put a plan together. It may not be this year, maybe next year. It could be, honestly, you might not realize it could be in six months, but, like, having a plan and using Excel and vision boards and just, like, envisioning myself where I want to be, I manifest pretty much everything that I’ve done and have wanted to have, right? So it’s, for me, a combination of, like, the hard work, prayer, manifestation, and a plan, right? Put that all together, and I think, like, that is the thing that I have perfected on how to do.

I always say, sometimes I call things back. I’ll say, I want to own a—a 15-story building. And I’m like, well, wait. I actually have to pull it back. I know how powerful my words are and how the plan will start. My mind will start developing a plan. So really, just organization, putting plans together, tenacity, resilience. And listen, it is not always pretty. It is tough. There are tough days. We—I think a lot of people don’t keep it real in regards to that, that it’s not always good. Like, you get a system together, and then that makes things better, and you’re prepared for any of the unknown. The majority is great. But when things hit, I think I’ve learned to—to go with it and to not get so down on myself about a problem, a financial strain, a situation, a tenant that did—took care of—didn’t take care of the apartment, you know, whatever that may be. So again, resilience, I think, is just something that comes with the territory.

Q Edmonds (11:42)

Yes, ma’am. No, thank you. I appreciate that reflective answer. And you hit on something that’s key for me. You talked about planning, you talked about systems, right? There’s one thing of having a plan, but then there’s the execution of the plan. Like, you got to put the plan into motion, right? And so what’s—what would you say is one operational thing that you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years, that has really changed the way, you know, you do business or even has really led to some success?

Valerie Jefferson (12:10)

Yeah. I really practice having a routine for my day, a routine for almost everything, right? Routine, repetition is the key. And so—and it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t change. It may change based on where I am in life. Something has changed, and so I sit down and I say, hold on, let me regroup.

That worked for that phase of life. Now here, where do I need to go? And so for me, I have, like, a detailed Excel spreadsheet of what I do every day of the week. Yeah. Now, do I sometimes not do the particular thing or deviate? Yes, but it’s your—it’s like your home base. It brings you back to center every single time, to know that Monday I get up 6:30. Yeah. I work out at seven pretty much every morning with a trainer, or I’m gonna walk. I’m going to listen to a podcast by nine.

Nine a.m., listen to podcasts, listen to—I also like to have a devotional time. So I kind of swap between the two. Have a little bit of, you know, clarity for myself before I start the day, right? So just, like, really being intentional, down to what content am I gonna post for each day? Is it Motivational Monday? Is it gonna be Tuesday Tap-In with VJ? It’s gonna be—sorry, it’s Tip Tuesday, Thursday Tap-In with Val, Financial Friday, Wellness Wednesday. Like, trying to just say, like, these are the topics I want to talk about on those particular days. And then down to, like, blending personal and business is what I have found has been the key for me. Oftentimes you have a schedule for the business, but we don’t have a schedule for the personal. And for it to work for me, I have to—I have to have that built-in time for the workout, for the me piece.

Yeah. And the—the—the, whether it’s devotion or whether it’s meditation, whatever I’m gonna do in the morning, and then I need to—I build in when I wanna go see my parents and visit and—and spend time with them, right? What day a week I wanna do that. Because then I can kind of schedule my appointments around it as much as I can. And sometimes I miss, but at least I know that that’s, like, the time slot. And so I think having a time slot for everything and a real regimented schedule helps keep you on track.

It helps you be successful.

Q Edmonds (14:29)

Yes, listen, I appreciate you saying that. I—I heard a high-operating, functional professional, right? He talked about how he had to put on a schedule to take walks with his wife. And he was like, I know some of y’all think that sounds crazy. He was like, but for me, he was like, you plan for what matters to you. He was like, this way, I have it planned, I have a schedule, I have a structure. And he’s like, I know it sounds crazy. It’s not that I don’t love my wife, but I plan for what matters. And so I absolutely love how you talk about planning and then go see your parents. Like, literally, I am shifting around my schedule because that—that’s the—that has to be more often. Yep. So I hear you. Nope. That’s—that’s—

Valerie Jefferson (15:48)

Put it on your phone, your calendar, right? Like, I—I have it on Excel, but I have it on my calendar, repeat, reoccurring indefinitely. Right. And then if something shifts in life and I need to readjust, you know, I used to work in corporate, I was in operations, so my schedule was one way. Once I left and became a full-time entrepreneur, like, it—it shifted. And I found, like, that’s the really—the only way to stay—stay on track.

Q Edmonds (16:15)

Only way, only way. Listen, yeah. And I—I—and that’s—that’s just a good tip. Listen, I wrote it down. I was holding that, like, Tip Tuesday, Wellness Wednesday. I’m take—like, I’m taking notes. Yet you talk—okay, okay. Some of this in the structure. So, yeah, so no, I hear you. So what’s next for you, Val? Like, what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve at scale next?

Valerie Jefferson (16:36)

So right now I’m looking to bring on some new clients. I have a couple clients that I’m working with now, but I want to continue to bring on some new clients. Definitely, right now I have a lot of first-time homebuyers, but I do also want to get into those people who might be either upsizing or downsizing, right? I—I—I am midlife, and I have a lot of friends where we had those large homes, and now we’re trying to downsize into maybe more condo living, townhouse living, things like that. And then I’d love to also work with those who maybe started out at a condo, and they would like to upsize into a larger single-family home. And so I think just continuing to educate people, provide resources, help others, help clients that know what lending opportunities are out there and available. There is money out there in Connecticut. I can only really speak for Connecticut. There’s down payment assistance. There’s so many programs for first-time homebuyers. There are a lot of options as well for non-first-time homebuyers when it comes to how you think of lending, lending options. And so I’d love to connect with more people to help them understand that, understand what’s right for them, and put a plan in place. Make a plan to put a plan in place.

Q Edmonds (17:59)

Love it. I—I got that. So I love asking my guests this. I’m gonna love asking you this because you said this has been kind of in your blood since you was younger. And then you have the through line, you have said, is helping people. And so you got a relationship with this real estate thing. So I want to talk to you about relationships and building healthy relationships within real estate. How has it served you well? Who are some of the people that you benefit from, that you’re still connected with, that is helping you be successful? Val, talk to me a little bit about relationship within the real estate space.

Valerie Jefferson (18:33)

My gosh.

Relationships are everything in this business, and not transactional relationships. Let me just, like, make this clear, because I think that everybody’s throwing around this, like, relationship and networking term, and they’re making it like a task. Yeah. So while, yes, we can make a plan and a task for a lot of things, relationships are not one of them. Relationships are something that is curated. Usually, you’re planting a seed well before you have a need. Like how—

How I like to say it. So you gotta plant that seed, and you have to be doing it genuinely for nothing.

Yeah. Right? And then when you need to tap in or someone needs to tap in with you, it’s—it’s not an issue to ask because you actually have a relationship. You show up and support their businesses, you show up and support their events, they show up for you, you’re supportive of each other’s children or whatever might—may or may not be going on near or far.

Yeah. That—those relationships are there. So for me, that’s one, is that my relationship building is just whether I get something or nothing out of it or not, I get the support of a person. It just so happens that I have an amazing network that I have developed and continue—continue to develop. So first, I’d say I have—I happen to have some family members, right? So I started with there. I can tap into them. I have an aunt who ran lending for a credit union. I asked her a lot of questions when it comes to estate planning and things like that. Now you fast—fast-forward, I have an amazing group of women in my sister circle that I went to college with, and we are not afraid. We share. We put it on the table. What do you have in your 401(k)? How did you get that? How did you do that? We are not afraid to ask the question and to be transparent about how we did it. We are not gatekeepers. We are really trying to feed and sow into each other. So I can pick up the phone at any moment and say, hey, what’s that? And because we’re all in different circles, different arenas, different levels of our—of our careers, we’re able to pull into our network and say, hey, let me connect you with my—my person. So my Syracuse girls, they know. You know, we all really lean on each other as alumni and—and, like, interweave our networks, right? And so at each phase of life, I have that. I moved on.

You know, I even have a gentleman who him and his father have been in real estate heavy in Stamford, Connecticut, for a long time. My friend P, good friend Peter, Peter Gray, that I went to high school with. I called him out of the blue because I said, I don’t know anyone who is trying to do some of the things that I’m doing in my network, anyone who looks like me, who came from where I came from. And he was so gracious, so gracious. He shared so much with me early on in my career that I am, like, forever indebted to him for his ability to carve out valuable—like you said, time is money. I went down to his firm, and he gave me so much—so much knowledge there. And as you come forward, my broker, Sherina Baker, is phenomenal. Yeah. She owns SB Realty Group. And it was important for me when I became an agent and when I was done with corporate and with, you know, working for these major companies, that I wanted to be able to be my authentic self. And there is something about her that, as I watched her before I ever became an agent, I followed her, I studied her, I—I loved her style, her way of thinking, her way of wanting to help people. That was, like, a passion of hers as well. And she was her authentic self, not what you would have maybe pictured as, like, a tr—traditional—and what is traditional, right? Let’s just, like, throw that out—but as a traditional broker. But she is uber successful, uber knowledgeable, and, like, so she has been, like, tied at the hip with me on this latest journey I’ve been on.

I can call her at any moment. She’s on vacation, she might be on the beach, and she is going to pick up and help me through each piece. She’s in the morning telling me different podcasts, kind of being the podcast, often, like, you gotta think this, shift your mind. Yeah. You know, what’s your why? You know, all the—all the different, different things. And so I think it’s a compilation, and you really have to. And then right now, going to networking events, doing—doing—I get asked to be on a podcast, I’m coming. You know, family or not, I was gonna come with—come with you because it’s an opportunity to connect with you, to connect with others. You never know how my resource can—can help someone else or encourage others. And so, you know, I go. I attend so many networking events and just meet people, right? Just, it’s not even for business necessarily. It’s just to meet you. And then sometimes a business opportunity comes out of it. So I just think natural, genuine, authentic networking, but really relationship building. Yeah. It’s really relationship building and—and meeting people and not being afraid to. I have a circle of people who came from where I came from, look like what I look like, and who don’t. Yeah. Both—you need all. All is needed.

And vice versa, right? Vice versa. So I just feel like, don’t—sometimes we limit ourselves because our mindset is all we know. Yeah. And we get comfortable there. Yeah. And I—I always say, like, if you are in a circle or you’re in your family and you’re kind of doing the—doing the best or doing the most or doing the thing, and there’s no one else, like, yeah, it’s great, you’re helping everyone else, but who’s helping you? You gotta be able to step out of that circle and go, open your mind, think about, see something different. And—and that’s me every day. Every day I wanna try something different. Continuous learner. Yeah. Continuous networking, continuous relationship building. Yeah.

Q Edmonds (24:24)

Well, this has been so good. I so appreciate you coming on. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, ma’am?

Valerie Jefferson (24:37)

Absolutely. So I am VJ the Connector. I am on all social media platforms. On Instagram, I am realestate underscore divaje, D-I-V-A-J-E. I am VJ the Connector on Facebook. You can email me at [email protected] and call, text, 203-858-1580. Again, 203-858-1580. But very active on socials. Would love to connect with anyone in the Connecticut area who’s looking to buy or sell a home at any point. However, outside as well, where we can connect, network, share referrals, things like that. Would love to connect with anyone.

Q Edmonds (25:27)

Well, well, let me say three things to you sincerely. One of them is going to be repetitious. I’m going to say thank you for your time again. Again, like I said, I think time is our most precious commodity. So thank you for your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for what I call the gift of your vulnerability, the gift of your authenticity. I believe our stories, they plant seeds, and we never know when those seeds are going to take root, but the seed is there. So you planted some real seeds today. So thank you for that. And lastly, ma’am, thank you for your mindset.

Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today. Absolutely. So listen, y’all, y’all heard my fam. Y’all heard Miss Valerie, Miss Val. Her information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with her. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring on amazing people just like Miss Valerie. So, ma’am, I say thank you again so much.

Valerie Jefferson (26:01)

Thank you so much.

Q Edmonds (26:22)

You’re welcome. Appreciate you. And everyone else, y’all have an incredible day.