Why Real Estate Agents Must Stop Avoiding the Phone to Grow Their Business

Jon Dwoskin (00:00)
You know, if you, if you’re, the phone can be your best friend in business and calling people. I think people hide behind emails and texts and they don’t pick up the phone to call five new people a day, 10 new people a day and really utilize their CRM to kind of stay in front of people or they start to believe that they’re bothering somebody or that they, you know, they stop following up after the second or third call. But the phone and being consistent with no fear to the phone

It’s a big differentiator and most people won’t do it, right?

Scott Bursey (02:06)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host Scott Bursey and today we are absolutely firing on out cylinders. We’ve got a master of strategic clarity joining us. A man who helps business owners, including those in real estate, not just talk about their vision, but actually execute on it. He is here to deliver some serious high octane fuel for your business journey.

Get ready because Jon Dwosksin of the Jon Dwosksin Experience is in the house. Jon, welcome to the show.

Jon Dwoskin (02:41)
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Scott Bursey (02:43)
It’s just a pleasure having you here on the Real Estate Pro’s podcast. And we love to see where the drive comes from. For our listeners getting to know you, walk us through your origin story. How did you get your start and where are you putting your fuel right now?

Jon Dwoskin (02:58)
Well, thanks. Thanks for asking. So, you know, I’m a business coach. I’ve been, I’ve had my business coaching business for 11 years. I’m 54. And when I was 18 years old, my dad gave me a set of tapes that’s by Brian Tracy called The Psychology of Success.

And he said to me, Jonathan, think you’ll learn more from these people ⁓ like this than you will college. And I started listening, Scott, and from the moment I put it on my ear, my Walkman on my ears, I thought, this is exactly what I want to do. I want to write books. I want to speak. want to be a coach that grows businesses. ⁓ That was it. And so,

Well, I graduated college. I started an internet company in 1995. I a business partner, two business partners, my brother and a buddy. We sold it two years later at the time to the largest internet professional service room in the world. I was a partner in that company for two years ⁓ and then got into commercial real estate. I was a broker for six years, then got into management for six years. ⁓ And then I really wanted to start my own coaching company. So I ended up

leaving ⁓ that and starting my coaching company. Right before that I went in-house for a year to help a buddy of mine ⁓ kind of…

just restructure his business a little bit. ⁓ It was about 50 years old, so helped him do that and then started by coaching. it’s great. I work with salespeople, managers, executives, owners of, know, solopreneurs to Fortune 100 companies, everything in between all over the globe. So I love it and I work with people who are stuck and help them get unstuck.

Scott Bursey (04:48)
Jon, what really caught my attention about you was the way that you’ve been able to simplify high level strategy and execution for real estate professionals, making the experience of doing business with them truly unforgettable.

Jon Dwoskin (05:02)
Yeah, well, I’m not smart enough to make it complicated, Scott. So, ⁓ you know, my brain kind of reverse engineers things to simple.

And I think especially in today’s world where people have very low attention spans, it’s really important to kind of keep reverse engineering and breaking things down for people so they know, you know, what to do right now, what they need to do next, and really just kind of, you know, get that path. I think the obstacle that I see people fall into is they get stuck and frozen because they’re starting on step six or step eight, and they just got to back up

just a smidge, but sometimes that’s hidden in plain sight for them.

Scott Bursey (06:35)
Being able to comprehend, speaking in terms that people can understand, implement, and then execute. That is really good words of wisdom. Let’s talk about what’s working right now. What is the biggest strength real estate pros should learn from today?

Jon Dwoskin (06:52)
Well, ⁓ I think if you’re in real estate, I think one of the key things right now is building relationship capital and getting out and meeting as many people as you can ⁓ every single day. The real estate business, and I was in it for 12, 13 years.

It’s all about face to face. during COVID, people kind of got away from that. if you’re in real estate today and you’re not face to face with two to five people every single week, your business is probably going backwards. And you may not realize that, but it probably is going backwards. People are doing business in the commercial space with people that they’re meeting with.

Scott Bursey (07:36)
want to pull back the curtain on that just a little bit. How does that specifically impact your day-to-day operations, Jon?

Jon Dwoskin (07:45)
your day-to-day operations, mine, or people in the real estate space?

Scott Bursey (07:50)
So your day to day operations implementing the strategy, the strength, the words of wisdom that you just provided.

Jon Dwoskin (07:59)
Yeah. For other, you’re saying if I’m in real estate right now, if I’m listening as a real estate agent.

Scott Bursey (08:06)
Or yes, ⁓ words of wisdom for the people that are listening, our real estate agents and people that may want to ⁓ be coached by you, things of that variety.

Jon Dwoskin (08:17)
Yeah.

So I think one of the things that’s really important is, you know, people’s, if I’m in, if I’m in real estate, if I’m in sales, I’m, I’m leading my day with the leading activities that are driving my business forward.

making phone calls, making contacts, setting up meetings, going on coffees, going to people’s offices, having people come to my office, you know, and making sure that that plan, it’s, I think prospecting for some reason, ⁓ salespeople, you know, forget to do the one thing that got them to grow their business in the first place, which is prospecting. And so a lot of times, you know, salespeople, sometimes their shelf life is a little bit short because they wear a lot of hats and they’re facilitating a lot

of things at the same time, they start to lose sight of how to structure their day, how to time block their day, what a true leading activity is, what prime business hours need to be to really kind of like focus their days in tranches, meaning the leading activities, and they can get them done by 11 a.m. and then they’re working on deals and you know at meetings for the rest of the day.

Scott Bursey (09:31)
Jon, let’s rev up the engines here a little bit and see if we can’t get them steaming on the flip side. What is the most common weakness you see holding real estate teams back right now?

Jon Dwoskin (09:36)
Yeah.

They’re unorganized and their follow-up isn’t impeccable and ⁓ they’re not kind of working off of a living business plan and a living pipeline. Really just kind of diving into and looking at their business like a… ⁓

getting really granular on the things of understanding what each specific client and or relationship, person or business, what they really need in today’s market to really hone in to understand what they’re thinking in today’s market.

Scott Bursey (10:57)
So the building systems is so important.

Jon Dwoskin (11:01)
Yeah, yeah, systems, having processes and systems and, and, you know, routines and habits that they follow. you know, it’s, can, it does, it’s not always, it’s something, you know, it’s about living on the plateau of the business and doing some of the monotonous same things to make sure that everybody’s kind of rowing in the same direction. I find Scott.

Scott Bursey (11:23)
Where’s the biggest untapped opportunity, Jon, in the current market for those ready to execute?

Jon Dwoskin (11:30)
Well, I think the phone. know, people, less people make phone calls today. People seem to be scared of the phone today.

You know, if you, if you’re, the phone can be your best friend in business and calling people. I think people hide behind emails and texts and they don’t pick up the phone to call five new people a day, 10 new people a day and really utilize their CRM to kind of stay in front of people or they start to believe that they’re bothering somebody or that they, you know, they stop following up after the second or third call. But the phone and being consistent with no fear to the phone

It’s a big differentiator and most people won’t do it, right?

So if there’s a thousand people listening, maybe five people will do it. And those five people who do it consistently, they’ll end up at the end of the year, probably with better results than the people that did it.

Scott Bursey (12:27)
hearing you correctly playing a sound offense.

Jon Dwoskin (12:31)
Correct. Correct. Consistently. Correct. Yeah. Absolutely, Scott. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Bursey (12:33)
proactive. Sure.

What one external threat, be it technology, economy, or regulation, are you keeping the closest eye on Jon?

Jon Dwoskin (12:46)
you know, I, I don’t necessarily like to use those words, not that I’m Pollyanna-ish, but, I don’t know if a threat is a threat when it’s right in front of our eyes. And so, you know, some may say, well, AI is a threat. Well, I don’t, I don’t know if it’s a threat. It’s a headwind that’s in front of us because, it’s in front of us and we know it’s coming.

And so the way I look at it is, you can look at it in a couple different ways. It’s here, it’s not going anywhere. It’s here to stay and it’s happening fast and it’s happening faster every day. So there’s one school of, I’m not gonna use AI and I think it’s the root of all evil. That’s probably the wrong way to think about it because it’s not going anywhere. So I think the best way to look at any headwind that you can see coming is,

spending five or 10 minutes every single day studying AI, understanding how you as an individual can implement it into your business, understanding the bigger picture, what it’s doing for all of the elements that AI can touch in your business and where everybody can be more effective. And really, taking somebody who’s doing, let’s say, 10, 20 dollar hour an hour work.

where if AI can replace that and you can elevate that person to be doing $50 an hour work, like any business person, you want to cut expenses and raise revenues. And so if I can get somebody into a better seat, well, then that’s great. I think the threat is, not that I want to kind of put this out there, but COVID was a threat. Nobody really saw it coming. That was a threat where everybody had to pivot and make changes. These are right in front of us every single day, all day on our feeds.

in the news right in front of us. So I think everybody has to take ownership and responsibility of that.

Scott Bursey (14:31)
So when you’re coaching, how are you coaching your personnel in AI?

Jon Dwoskin (15:19)
Well, everybody’s different. you know, so if it’s, if it’s a company and we’re talking big picture, we’re looking at different tools or custom tools that that company is using to elevate their game. If it’s an individual, you know, how they’re utilizing it to, you know, streamline their systems and their processes and how they can use it to just allow them to think also differently. think sometimes people, you know, don’t think of AI, whether it’s

or chat as kind of an executive assistant to help prompt them and along and access elements of their thinking that maybe they couldn’t access on their own. And again, AI is a compliment. It’s not a replacement. It’s a tool. It’s not the ultimate solution. But it’s about looking at all the different tentacles that it touches within your business, looking at the big picture on where we want it to be, and then reverse engineering.

you know, kind of how you can implement it, you know, in your marketing and in how you write things and how you brainstorm and ideas. I mean, it’s really everything I do in my coaching, Scott, is very curated to the individual. Everything is very custom and curated. So it’s really different across the board.

Scott Bursey (16:36)
That’s fantastic. That personal touch, that zeroing in on each individual is really remarkable. Do you have other people that assist you with this?

Jon Dwoskin (16:46)
I have a team of people that I work with, but I’m the only one that coaches. It’s hard to teach somebody what I do. It’s a lot of listening, a lot of intuition, a lot of personal curated custom guidance. So yeah, so right now it’s, I’m the coach and then I have a team of people that help me with all the kind of other stuff around it. I don’t like to do.

Scott Bursey (17:09)
big is your team, Jon?

Jon Dwoskin (17:11)
I’ve got about seven people on my team and they’re all virtual and they’re all independent contractors who help me. I really only want to be talking to clients, working with clients, doing keynotes, doing trainings, doing workshops on Zoom, on Teams, in person. And then I have a team that kind of manages everything else.

Scott Bursey (17:34)
I understand you’re global. Tell us a little bit about that.

Jon Dwoskin (17:37)
Well, COVID really changed the game as far as.

where business coaches can be. And so, since then, I’ve been able to, I’m very grateful for clients that I have all around the country and internationally as well. With WhatsApp and Teams and Zoom, I can extend my reach and help people grow their business and get unstuck. It’s great, it’s great. So word of mouth and marketing.

and a lot of work to kind of build my brand.

Scott Bursey (18:13)
Having that global presence is just extraordinary. Now Jon, if someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, hey, this is someone I’d really like to partner with, you know, learn from, what do you want them to know first about your business?

Jon Dwoskin (18:28)
work with ⁓ typically people who are successful but stuck and looking to get unstuck, whether it’s in sales or leadership or management, running a company, ⁓ owning a company, growing a company, ⁓ people who have a business and business partners, but maybe they can’t talk to their business partners or they have a company themselves and they don’t have anybody else to talk to or a company that they’re an executive in and they’re looking for growth and they’re a manager and they manage

other people and you know if you’re a manager if you’re a salesperson want to grow your sales I work because of my experience I really work with all of those levels of people help the sales people sell help the managers kind of manage and lead effectively and owners and leaders help them with their with their leadership and their their vision and integration of what they’re doing

Scott Bursey (19:21)
And on the flip side, no business is perfect. What’s one thing that you’re figuring out or still trying to work around recently?

Jon Dwoskin (19:27)
you know, now that my, kids are older, they’re 23 and 20 and kind of launching and things of that nature. I’m growing my keynote business, which I do a lot of, but I’m really kind of focusing on growing that. And it’s like a, you know, it’s another, it’s another business model. It’s like a little, it’s a little different business model. so yeah, so just kind of growing that and, you know, enjoying the process of, of that.

Scott Bursey (19:51)
That’s awesome. Jon, if you had to boil down all your experience from the Jon Dwoskin experience philosophy, what is the one strategy that guarantees client loyalty?

Jon Dwoskin (20:03)
Well, you know.

I work with people who, you have to be, they have to be coachable and want it. You know, nobody kind of, you know, grows up thinking they need a business coach. They, they grow up knowing they probably need an attorney and an accountant. but the, the one thing that keeps on working is for people is if they’re open to coaching, if they always want to get to their next 0.01 % level of potential, and if they are in the game to be consistent and really do the work.

And so, you I can give somebody all the great ideas in the world, but they then have to execute. And so the execution is really, really important.

Scott Bursey (20:39)
They have to be coachable and from there they can be coached.

Jon Dwoskin (20:43)
Right, correct, correct.

Scott Bursey (20:44)
Jon,

you’re known for helping people with massive execution. If a pro listening right now has a vision that requires high octane fuel, meaning a serious calculated risk, what is the first piece of money advice you’d give them to unlock that next level of success?

Jon Dwoskin (21:03)
You know, there’s, don’t think there’s any bad decisions, but there are bad assumptions.

And so if somebody has a big vision, I’m working with clients on understanding what the assumption sets that they’re making are. And then from those assumptions sets, really kind of, you know, putting those in order of where we think, you know, the obstacles, the challenges and the headwinds may come from. And then understanding what those assumptions, you know, how probable are they and making the

best decision based on those assumptions, then making those decisions and reverse engineering what the business is and where the profitability and money comes from, and then how to execute and build a marketing plan.

Scott Bursey (21:52)
Jon you’ve dropped so many different wisdom bombs for our listeners here today but we need a little bit more. What words of advice, what words of wisdom, what golden nuggets could you leave with our listeners today?

Jon Dwoskin (22:01)
Okay.

You know, I would say, get out of your own way and don’t make things too difficult. think sometimes we overthink and we get in our own way. and we strive for perfection versus progress. get out there and just start. And, you know, it’s not, it’s not like we’re trying, it’s not like we’re not going to make mistakes, but just kind of like fail fast and, then course correct. And so.

You know, it’s all about just kind of getting out there and momentum and moving forward. So just don’t be scared to just, you know, jump in and don’t be scared to, you know, like you’re doing, have a podcast and do some videos and be vulnerable and put yourself out there.

Scott Bursey (22:51)
And where do you see your coaching business five maybe even 10 years down the road?

Jon Dwoskin (22:56)
I see me being a global business sales and leadership coach and a go-to for anybody who’s stuck ⁓ with a global presence and somebody who people come to because they know I can help them, be of service to them, and ⁓ help them make more money and have more fun doing it.

Scott Bursey (23:20)
Jon, this has been pure fuel. For those of our listeners that want to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what is the best way for them to reach you?

Jon Dwoskin (23:31)
Sure. They can call my cell, which is 248-535-7796. I return every call, text, email same day unless I’m sleeping. Or they can go to my website, jondwoskin.com. From there, they can get to my podcast, Coffee with Jon, my videos, all my information, and all that other good stuff. Follow me on LinkedIn, but everything can be found at jondwoskin.com.

Scott Bursey (23:55)
Thank you so much for being here today, Jon.

Jon Dwoskin (23:58)
Scott, thank you so much. really appreciate it. Thank you.

Scott Bursey (24:00)
And for our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ve got a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Jon D’Woxen, who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.