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In this conversation, Debbi DiMaggio shares her journey into real estate, discussing her initial reluctance and how she found her passion in the industry. She emphasizes the importance of persistence, networking, and collaboration in building a successful career in real estate, particularly in the competitive California market. Debbi also introduces her ‘Mindset in Motion Method,’ which outlines steps for achieving personal and professional goals, highlighting the significance of a giving mentality and the power of community support.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Debbi DiMaggio (00:00)
    So when you’re at an open house, people are able to see you, touch you, feel you. They can come in, they can see you’re real. You’re not just a mannequin out on you know a park bench or whatever. It’s like So doing those every Saturday and Sunday, I was interviewing a gentleman and he out of LA. He had a very good job as an agent. He went into real estate and he was doing open houses, I would say, at least five times a week. Now you don’t have to say, oh, it’s only on a Sunday from two to 4.30 or whatever your area is.

    Dylan Silver (02:01)
    Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Debbi DiMaggio is a realtor in the Bay Area of California and the owner of the DiMaggio Beta Group at Corcoran Icon Properties. Debbi, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, excited to be here. I always like to start off at the top of this show by asking guests how they got started in real estate.

    Debbi DiMaggio (02:01)
    Thank you so much. Excited to be here.

    Debbi DiMaggio (02:25)
    All right. I have told the story so many times. The only thing I knew…

    I did not want to do when I was growing up and after I went to college and graduated from Berkeley was I was not going to go into real estate. So 35 years later, here I am. My poor son is now involved in real estate and he’s 29. I work with my husband of 35 years. It’s crazy. So, and when I now go back, when I say that, as I’ve been sharing it over the years,

    I realized what it was is my dad was always tied to a phone, a landline. He always had to be available. So he was more of an investor like yourself and did flips. I’m in residential real estate, but he was always tied to his clients, always tied to his partners. You know, he, couldn’t plan proper trips. He was either in the office or, you know, or at home and he was tied to that landline. So what’s good.

    Dylan Silver (03:15)
    Sure ⁓

    Debbi DiMaggio (03:23)
    I just felt like he, wasn’t, know, and a lot of friends, people had nine to five type of jobs, their

    parents, and they had regular, you know, scheduled times. But for me, later on, I learned that I don’t want to have a boss. I had a few jobs where I had, you know, typical jobs where you have a boss, and I was like, I don’t like a boss. I want to do what I want to do on my own time. I’m a hard worker, and I want to be compensated. So

    Debbi DiMaggio (03:46)
    how I ended up getting into real estate was very interesting. I was 25, so when I speak on podcasts or when I do my own podcasts and when I’m asking questions of other guests, I wanna help my 25 year old self. When I was sitting in LA,

    I was engaged to be married. I decided not to get married to that person. He was very lovely, but I wasn’t ready. And I said, what do I wanna do with my life? My God, I went to Cal Berkeley. had a very wonderful upbringing. There’s gotta be, what is that?

    What is my purpose? What do I want to do? And I could not answer that question to save my life and I was so frustrated. And so, you know, I thought I’d graduate from Cal and then I’ve had some good job which is magically appear that would fit me. So I wrote down my black day timer, my black leather day timer is about this big and I said, I wrote one to 10. I said, I love meeting new people. I love helping others.

    Debbi DiMaggio (04:39)
    I don’t want something that’s a nine to five. I want to come home at the end of the day and have homework. I wanted it to be purposeful and meaningful and part of me, I didn’t want it to be like go to the office, work on one task, come home and then that was it. And that is good for some people. But, I also wanted, I work really hard so I wanted to be compensated for that as well. And I love meeting people from around the world. I love having conversations. And so,

    Debbi DiMaggio (05:07)
    A couple years later, probably two years later, a friend of my husband that became my husband-to-be, his friend said, oh, Debbi would be really great in rentals. So San Francisco was booming. This was before Craigslist, any kind of online assistance. The internet wasn’t even around. So I started doing rentals and we would make phone calls to property managers and owners. then we, oh, and I wanted something that had a beginning, a middle, and an end. So in rentals and in sales,

    Debbi DiMaggio (05:35)
    we have a beginning, a middle, and an end, you close, you know. And so I started doing rentals, San Francisco was booming, everyone was relocating into San Francisco, B of A and DFS and everyone. So I meeting people constantly, I had a beginning, a middle, and an end, I could work as hard as I wanted, I was putting things together and it was so incredible. And then from the rentals ended up going into sales. But.

    Everything I wrote in my little manifestation all came together into what I do today is sell real estate and help people and meet people constantly.

    Dylan Silver (06:47)
    Now I want to talk about those first couple years getting into the business. You mentioned starting out in rentals, but then also California real estate is competitive basically all the time.

    Did you feel that level of competition and did you feel like, okay, this is going to be more challenging than maybe some other areas or did you feel like, hey, I’m the person for the job. Let me just dive in and get out.

    Debbi DiMaggio (07:22)
    It’s so funny you say that now I think that way now like when you said earlier today, you’re like, wow, you have so many sales on your website and I’m like, my god, that is nothing compared to what I see other people doing. I’m like,

    I do nothing compared to those top, top, top. I might be in the top one and one and a half percent, then there’s the top half percent. And I’m like, my God. But when I was starting out in rentals and I was just busy all the time and putting deals together and making really fun to be able to, because we’ve always had competition in our area. So it wasn’t always just easy putting a deal together. Throughout my 35 years, whether it’s rentals or sales, there’s competition.

    A client of mine reminded me that back 35 years ago when I helped him get a place, this was before, I don’t know if you know about letter writing, when you write a letter to the seller saying why you want the house because you’re trying to beat out the competition. That’s been a thing. So I did not remember this at all. He said, when you helped me get my apartment, you called me at work and you told me to get over here. You needed to meet the owner.

    Dylan Silver (08:15)
    Right.

    Debbi DiMaggio (08:31)
    he will probably go with you because you are a single guy and you’re constantly on the road and you’re going to have less wear and tear on this property. He ended up getting the rental. So I’m really good about bringing people together and figuring out and I always say putting circles into squares. But at the time I was young. I didn’t really think about the competition. I was just doing and when and this is I think has been a really big strength of mine. So many people I notice now because I’m coaching people. I’m like

    They overthink it or they try to reinvent the wheel. It’s the same thing. So it’s, I just didn’t question. I’ve never questioned it. When I got into selling real estate, you just tell me what I do, what I need to do and I will do it. And when I was my first year in real estate, I was in the top 10 in this really high powered office. I didn’t think about it, but the staff actually, these two guys told me I was our boss kind of tried our broker, tried to keep us down to work harder, but they said, Debbi, I want to let you know you’re in the.

    Dylan Silver (09:03)
    Yep. ⁓

    Debbi DiMaggio (09:28)
    10 and I was like wow. I was just head down, tell me what to do, I’ll do it and I’ve always been that way. Don’t reinvent, just do what you’re supposed to do.

    Dylan Silver (09:37)
    Now you mentioned starting and getting into the top 10 quickly Do you have any advice for agents whether in California or another state about you know? Those first even couple of months a year or two there are so many different ways people can go But I also think as being a newer agent myself It’s also really important that you have a solid team around you that you can you know follow so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel

    Debbi DiMaggio (09:53)
    Absolutely. So a little different. So I was fortunate that when I started doing rentals, I fell into work with a relocation company. Now they don’t have those so much anymore. They have HR companies within companies. Everyone’s remote. It’s very different. I was hooked up with a company called Reloaction.

    And I gave them a big referral fee, which was fine, but I was a new agent, right? So they were giving me rentals. And then when I transferred into sales, they were giving me sale clients. So I was helping people buy and then later they sold. So I really developed my business on that. Plus doing a good job and promoting myself and marketing and advertising, but that’s how I got started. So today, if you want, I’ll give you some, what I coach.

    So when we have new agents come into our office, my husband and myself and our son and two other people are on my team and we sell and that’s where we make money. But we’re also partners in our firm. So I’m always coaching the new agents as they come in. And I’m always happy to continue coaching them, but I find a lot of people lose interest and they’re not serious. And that’s very frustrating to me because if you just do what I say, you will be successful. So I am working with one gal right now and I think she’s going to be great because we do meet every week and she

    Debbi DiMaggio (11:53)
    Holds me accountable to our appointment. I’m always happy to show up, but I’m not gonna track you down if you want me to help you So the first so it’s a little different without the relocation companies So the first thing is open house people have to see you touch you feel you you are like a celebrity You might have ads out there. You’re online. You’re promoting yourself You’re trying to get to know people so they can get to know you so they can you know if they Like you and they want to work with you at least they know you exist right we need to we need to exist

    Debbi DiMaggio (12:21)
    So when you’re at an open house, people are able to see you, touch you, feel you. They can come in, they can see you’re real. You’re not just a mannequin out on you know a park bench or whatever. It’s like So doing those every Saturday and Sunday, I was interviewing a gentleman and he out of LA. He had a very good job as an agent. He went into real estate and he was doing open houses, I would say, at least five times a week. Now you don’t have to say, oh, it’s only on a Sunday from two to 4.30 or whatever your area is.

    You can grab that sign. It’s free. can market it on social media. It’s free. know, because people, agents always think like, ⁓ it’s so expensive, blah, blah, blah. No, there are so many things you can do that are free. So you pop up a sign from 5 to 7 p.m. You do your, you know, you have phones, you go on Wi-Fi, you know, connect. You’re sitting there from 5 to 7 with, you know, people are coming home from work maybe or people are out on walks. People are always out walking. People love houses. They always want to come in.

    Dylan Silver (13:01)
    Right.

    Debbi DiMaggio (13:20)
    Are you going to meet a buyer? Potentially. Are you going to potentially get to know a potential seller? Yes. Are people going to see your name? Yes. So there is just so many benefits to getting yourself out there. I find a lot of people are sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring or they’ll say, I did an open house on Sunday. And what have you done every single day?

    You know, if you had a nine to five job, you would be there every day or an eight to seven job or whatever regular jobs are. You would be in the office doing your work. Treat real estate the same way. So that’s number one.

    Dylan Silver (13:40)
    Yeah ⁓

    Dylan Silver (13:54)
    Now, when we talk about staying active and being able to generate momentum, I mean, one open house a week or that gentleman who is doing multiple can definitely generate that momentum, but

    it then ultimately spills into other areas of the business as well. And whether it’s you’re finding a buyer directly there, or it’s kind of the spark, it’s a tangible thing, you can feel it.Even if it’s not something that you can maybe check to the bank account, you can feel the progress that you’re making.

    Debbi DiMaggio (14:08)
    Absolutely, which I have to give a plug for my new book coming out in 2026. It’s called The Mindset in Motion Method, and it talks about momentum and mindset.

    Debbi DiMaggio (14:36)
    And sometimes you’re going this way. then, so let’s say you’re going to an open house, you’re doing your open house, you’re doing your social media, you’re in momentum, in motion. And then all of a sudden, you connect with something else and you start going this way and that results in a sale or that results in something, a listing appointment, whatever it is. So whatever your goal is. So my book is about no matter what goal you want to achieve, if you follow my method, it’ll help you to conquer your goals.

    Let’s go back to some things that agents should do in helping them build their business. second, well, one of the first things they need to do is they need to simply sit down. And I tell this, before an agent gets their license, I say, this, get a basic Google spreadsheet, type in first name, last name, street address, city, state, and zip code, email and phone number. People have excuses for everything. I don’t have their mailing address. ⁓ why don’t you text them?

    Debbi DiMaggio (15:34)
    Why don’t you call them? Why don’t you Google them? that’s the people make excuses for everything. So I don’t have everyone’s, I send an email and say, Hey, I give cards. And that’s another thing I do. I send cards. What’s your address? I mean, if you’re going to be in real estate, it’s the people business and you have to build relationships, help others. And how are you going to do that if you can’t communicate with them? So start with that Excel spreadsheet.

    Dylan Silver (15:36)
    Right.

    Dylan Silver (16:01)
    Do you think there’s an on ramp for some people? Like they may not see immediate success. So when I say immediate, it might not be in the first six months, but that doesn’t mean they should give up. They might be in the wrong circle. For instance, have you known people that maybe it took a little bit longer, maybe even two years for them to have a pivotal moment that changed the direction of their business?

    Debbi DiMaggio (16:22)
    Absolutely. And the common denominator is persistence and not giving up.

    Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, you’ll see other people finding success before you. You know, there’s always someone going to be better, faster, stronger, right? But you just stick with it. So let’s say you’re, you know, I’ve had a lot of people have other jobs before they come into real estate. Well, don’t get rid of that extra income, you know, but be structured. I’m going to give you an example of someone who is one of my best. So Chris Nava came to work with us. He’s a full time flight attendant.

    He literally, I don’t know when he slept. First of all, his partner gave him one of my first books, The Art of Real Estate. He read it cover to cover before he came in. I hadn’t even met him yet. He read The Art of Real Estate. He came in, he sat in front of my husband who was the broker, because these are things what I said. Sit in front of Adam, he’s always front and center. I’m all over the place, but Adam is the broker. He’s constantly fielding questions. So in your own office,

    Dylan Silver (17:40)
    Wow.

    Debbi DiMaggio (18:02)
    sit in front of your broker, your manager, another agent, be in the office. So he was learning so much. I mean, that’s how I learned so much from growing up with my father, because he was always by osmosis. I just learned so much. And now my son Chase, he has learned so much just by being around us. So when you’re in the office, you’re learning. he would fly, he’d get home, he would do a Saturday and a Sunday open house every time. Before his Saturday open house, he would show property.

    if he had property to show, would show it Sunday before his open house. Did he complain? When we have a lot of listings, so when we have listings, we send it out to our agents and we said, would anyone like to hold open one of our listings? I think we opened it up to Saturday, Sunday because of him and another agent. And so we said, fine, we love our listings to be open. Of course, you never know who’s in the market. So he always said yes. And also he always said yes when someone asked for a favor.

    Do you mind showing my client? So when someone says yes all the time, guaranteed, there’s one person right now that I call all the time. If I have an open house, I offer it to Don first because he always says yes. And I coached another agent who was halfway in and halfway out of real estate. She had a part-time job and she was trying to do real estate. We sat together, we worked together. I said, get yourself in the office, say yes to everyone. She is now on a team.

    Dylan Silver (19:17)
    Right.

    Debbi DiMaggio (19:26)
    of successful agents and one will be retiring. And it was because she listened to me and it was right at the end of COVID. I said, I don’t care if no one’s there, just always say yes and be in the office. That’s another

    Dylan Silver (19:41)
    There’s a ton of opportunities for newer agents to have open houses and almost to the point where you’re like, well, what’s the, you can start to think like, well, if I’m getting so many of these opportunities, what’s this really going to do?

    Dylan Silver (19:53)
    But to your point, Debbi, you know, these are the way to generate some momentum. Like if you want not, not free cause you’re there, but if you’re exchanging your, your time for potential leads, this is a way for you to get your foot in the door. And more so than that,

    Dylan Silver (20:10)
    This is your brand that you’re developing. So whether you sell these people a property, whether

    Dylan Silver (20:15)
    you find them a property, you are going to be getting your name out there. They’ll then see you online and it’s just, okay, well when I’m thinking of a realtor, I’m thinking of Debbi and her team.

    Debbi DiMaggio (20:26)
    Can you imagine if someone’s in real estate yet no one sees, what do they call it? A secret agent? Don’t be a secret agent. I never really, it’s like, so if you’re not out there, if you’re not working in the business, how do people even know you exist?

    Dylan Silver (20:33)
    Yeah.

    Dylan Silver (20:43)
    Yeah, they don’t. They don’t. And there’s too many people, think, that are, I would say, optimistic about real estate. They may like the idea of, you know, selling Sunset, but then actually having to go out and grind and always pick up the phone. There’s an investor who’s a good buddy of mine who I work with who told me as soon as people get a real estate license, they stop picking up their phone. And I just think there’s some truth to that because there’s a lot of people who they kind of, to your point, they’re like a secret agent.

    Debbi DiMaggio (21:12)
    Right.

    And the other thing, one of my most important things, I believe, is collaboration is key. So if you want to get, when you’re writing an offer and you’re trying to get your offer accepted in our area, we have multiple offers quite often. So endearing yourself to those agents. So when you start, so one time someone said, I’m getting all these friends from other realtors, should I accept? Absolutely. It’s a team sport. I might have a listing.

    but someone’s gonna have the buyer and we want to be friendly with both. We’re trying to help our client get the deal. Both of us are trying to help our client, whether a seller or a buyer. So we wanna work together. And believe me, another agent wants to work with an agent who is kind and knowledgeable, experienced and follows through and is true to their word because…

    I know the agents in my area who are not true to their word, who will try to renegotiate after like, it’s almost like line. They’ll say, I’m going to give you this. But then later they try to renegotiate something. So you know those people. do you think, do you think I’m going to take an offer if it’s riddled with all this extra stuff that I know what will happen? Or am I going to want to work with someone who is like-minded and we’re here to work together as a team? So collaboration is key. Get out on tour.

    Debbi DiMaggio (22:32)
    get to know the inventory, get to know your fellow agents and work together. You’re not competitors, you are collaborators and you are colleagues.

    Dylan Silver (22:43)
    That’s a good point. I think when people are thinking about ⁓ real estate, they may falsely slip into this dog eat dog mentality because it’s a commission based business. But then imagine you have a listing and a buyer submits an offer, but you know the agent has

    Dylan Silver (23:02)
    done some of these things in the past, changed the offer at the last minute, and now you’re thinking, well, the offer is good, but the agent.
    And so now that can even cloud the whole offer itself.

    Debbi DiMaggio (23:12)
    Right, absolutely, absolutely. One comes to mind, sometimes you have an out of area agent. So each of our areas, even wherever you work, wherever I work, even within Northern California,

    We’re micro markets. We all work a certain way. Like we started years ago doing all pre-inspection. Seller pays all pre-inspection. So when we go into escrow, there’s no contingencies because they’ve already have the home inspection, the pest, the roof, the sewer, they have it all. So, and then 20 minutes away, they don’t do it that way. So they’re up for negotiation because if they now get the buyer gets a home inspection, it’s possible that

    If they do a home inspection during the deal, then you’re going to renegotiate. But what happened this one time, San Francisco, only 20 minutes away, wrote an offer on a house that we had in Piedmont. And it was a non-contingent offer. Yet that agent, they didn’t really care. They tried to renegotiate. now you’re in escrow. And they wanted to renegotiate and get a credit for the Pest Report. We had already given them the information.

    Debbi DiMaggio (24:27)
    But at the same time, we were already in escrow. it was, they had, the agent had to kind of work with them to give a little away. Was it fair? Was it right? Do you think I would ever, anyone who knows that person ever want to work with that agent? No, because he went against his word and he went against the contract and just was not a team player. It was,

    Dylan Silver (24:50)
    You know, this is interesting that we’re talking about, you know, going against contracts.

    Dylan Silver (24:54)
    As someone myself who’s worked with a lot of investors, one of the things that investors have told me is if you really want to be an investor, don’t be a realtor. And I asked him, well, why? And because well, now you’ve got fiduciary responsibility in this type of thing. But then as I’ve, you know, I’m a baby realtor, this is my first year in the business. I’m realizing, like, I don’t necessarily know that all the realtors are that much better because so much of this does happen.

    Debbi DiMaggio (25:19)
    Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. If I was to give one piece of advice now.

    Remember, I’ve been doing this 35 years. If I could go back 35 years ago and have done one thing different, and I’m doing it now the last year and a half, join a BNI, Business Networking International. You’d think I own the company the way I preach about them, but BNI is called Business Networking International. It is an international group. I am now the president of our chapter. If you want to be a guest in my chapter meeting, I’d welcome anyone to be a guest. But it talks about…

    what I’ve been preaching and what I’ve always done. I always have the giver mentality. I always give, give, give, refer. You know, I’m always happy to recommend, you know, people would say, why do you do that? You don’t get paid for it. It just makes me feel good. So I’ve always had that DNA, but that’s what BNI is about givers gain and giving and getting to know and building your reputation and your integrity and having people know, like, and trust you. So because we have these meetings every week,

    and everyone gives a 45 second presentation, you get to hear how they transact in their business, how they are personally, how they are business wise, how they help their clients. You might hear a testimonial. So it’s every week, plus we’re always giving referrals and you’re chalking and putting it down in the app. so I’m always at number one. When someone tells me to do something, I do it. Like I think we were talking earlier. Right. When someone tells me to do the secrets.

    Dylan Silver (26:46)
    Right. Right.

    Debbi DiMaggio (26:50)
    The secret sauce to my success was I wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. When someone tells me to do something, especially when I was starting out in real estate, I’m going to do it the way you’re supposed to do it so you can actually continue to sell more houses and get more houses for your clients if you’re representing a buyer. You know, having people like and trust you. And all we have as a realtor is our integrity.

    Dylan Silver (27:14)
    Yeah, I mean, when I think about what newer agents can do to establish that, I think the idea of giving may be challenging because, you know, you’re thinking, well, I need sales. I don’t have time to be doing all this extra and not see some some type of return. I think it’s Russell Brunson who said, you know, if you do one webinar a week, you’ll never have to worry about, you know, money again after that. I don’t necessarily know that.

    Dylan Silver (27:41)
    webinars and real estate are hand in hand, but a similar type of concept. Like if you’re doing open houses, if you’re picking up the phone, if you’re networking with buyers and sellers, you’re networking with the other agents and not forgetting about that, like something’s gonna fall. You do enough of that and you’re like making a compelling case to the universe. It might not be, you know, a gimme. It might be, hey, I had to, you know, edge my way into this deal and.

    Dylan Silver (28:08)
    This was tough, had to scratch cloth for every bit of it, but the next one gets easier.

    Debbi DiMaggio (28:13)
    Right I believe when you put stuff out there, it comes back. I was doing it, not realizing. Now, after 35 years, I know a little bit more, but I was always of that give, give, give, and stuff would come back. I couldn’t identify what I was doing, but now looking back and I’m like, all that giving comes back in some different way.

    Someone wrote an article once about me after they interviewed me and I thought that the heading couldn’t, the title was so perfect, accidentally with purpose. I kind of do stuff and things come back to me. And accidentally with purpose is pretty much everything I’ve done is just kind of come back to me in some way.

    Dylan Silver (28:55)
    Debbi, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if maybe they’re in the Bay Area, they’d like to reach out to you? I know that you’re an author as well. Any new books that you have coming out?

    Debbi DiMaggio (29:07)
    Absolutely, you can pre-order my new book. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in. If it’s a personal goal or a professional goal, it’s called, you can go to…

    the mind, no, mindsetinmotionbook.com, mindsetinmotionbook.com. It’s based on my method, the mindset in motion method, and it’s five steps to conquering your goals. And if you follow it, reverse engineered how I accomplish my goals, and that’s how I came up with this method. Last year, I was turning 60, and I ran a full marathon on mindset alone, no training.

    And I’m not kidding when I say no training, it was on mindset. There’s a whole story why I did that, but I was trying to prove that you could do it on mindset. And I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t, and that’s part of the method, share what supported people. didn’t want to tell anyone because people are like, you don’t train, you don’t do anything, you don’t work out, you you’re going to be 60. I didn’t want to hear all that. So.

    share with supportive people is one of those five steps. And then please call me debbidimaggio.com, D-E-B-B-I-D-I, capital M-A-G-G-I-O, third cousins to Joe DiMaggio. If you’d like to be a guest on my BNI, my meeting, it’s there Wednesdays at 7.50, I’d love to have you, it’s on Zoom. And 510-414-6777, and I work.

    Debbi DiMaggio (30:28)
    the in real estate in the East Bay and Northern California market and LA where I am today. And thank you so much. It was really incredible to chat with you. I look forward to continuing the conversation and watching your success. Thank you for coming on

    Dylan Silver (30:43)
    Debbi, thank you for coming on today.

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