Real Estate Sessions Rewind – Jason Pantana, Business Coach and National Speaker for Tom Ferry International

Real estate professionals who put themselves in coaching compared to those who don’t, do better. When it comes to real estate coaching, look no further than Tom Ferry. Jason Pantana, business coach and National Speaker for Tom Ferry, is here with your host Bill Risser. Join Jason as he talks about his journey into real estate and coaching. Find out how the Tom Ferry International has been so successful for all these years. Learn how to market through social media and how to find your niche in all this. Discover all this and more in today’s episode with Jason Pantana.—Jason Pantana, Business Coach and National Speaker for Tom Ferry InternationalI’m excited. Sean Carpenter, who’s probably my number one guest-getter on the show, has connected me with somebody I’ve known for a long time because of what he does in the industry. We’re going to be talking to Jason Pantana. He is a business coach and the national trainer for Tom Ferry. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to share a little bit about where he grew up and how he ended up in Nashville. What I want to get to with Jason is talking about how important coaching is in the real estate space, and why not talk with the number one coaching operation in the country? It makes sense. Jason, welcome to the show.Thanks so much for having me. I’m pumped. I owe credit to Sean Carpenter. He’s been a long-time friend and an awesome guy.I’m sure you guys have run into each other many times in different cities around the country.We have spoken to different events. We’ve got a long history. I’ve known him for most of my real estate career.We’ll talk about getting to Nashville and what took you there. First, let’s talk about Lynchburg, Virginia. As we are doing this episode, where you live in Lynchburg are buried in a bunch of snow. As a kid who grew up in San Diego, I have no idea what it’s like. Share a little bit about growing up in Lynchburg?I grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia. I moved to Nashville when I was 21. That’s where I am now. Lynchburg is a small college town. There are several colleges. There is Liberty University, Lynchburg University in the area and Radford. Tech down the road and UVA up the road. It’s definitely a college town. Everybody calls it a cul de sac town and I love Lynchburg. My family is still there. It’s home. It’s a cul de sac town because it’s one of those places that people come and they don’t leave.They don’t leave because it’s a nice, not too little, not too big, right size town. It was peaceful. I had a great suburban life, family, friends and school. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I don’t know what else there is to say about it, other than it was what a lot of people would hope for as far as a place to grow up.There’s a huge benefit to small-town living. What family feels like, neighbors are neighbors. It’s not like growing up in a city where everybody pulls into a garage and it goes into their home.I was there over the holidays visiting family and I was like, “There’s where I ride my bike.” I was showing them stuff because we were driving down the area. I was like, “It was such a different way of living too because I’d be on my bike and gone literally all day with all the neighborhood kids.” We had a blast. It was a good grip in the ‘90s. It was a good life. It was fun.You ended up going to school in your hometown, which is awesome. I always liked to find out what was the field of study? What were you focusing on? What was this big plan as you’re eighteen years old, which turned out always a little bit different?I went to Liberty University. My dad is a retired professor from Liberty. He taught Statistics and various other things in that department. I was always destined to go there. When I went to Liberty, my motivation and intention were to leave and become a rockstar. I have a twin brother. We are musicians. We grew up and our dream was to be successful musicians. College was the waypoint on the path to where we were. I had no focus or interest in doing college when I went to college. I had bigger and different plans. Those plans didn’t pan out the way I expected, but life’s beautiful in the way that it works out for your best interest over time.I went there. I studied. I initially started studying Computer Management Information Systems. Mostly because I was afraid of Computer Science and I was like, “That’s going to put a damper on my ability to be a musician and a rock star. It’s going to be time-consuming, so I’ll take the lesser of the two.” I have an older brother. He’s a software engineer and an entrepreneur. I wanted to be like my big brother. I was going after technology. I got into classes and I was like, “This is not where I belong. This was not the right place at all.” I changed majors and went into Business Marketing. I did that for three years. My brother and I had a producer who caught ahold of one of our EPs, invited us to move to Nashville and record.We were like, “We made it,” which couldn’t have been more untrue. We moved to Nashville. I dropped out of college and did what all aspiring musicians do. We waited tables at the Macaroni Grill at the Opry Mills Mall to make ends meet. We played gigs. We did whatever we could. Honestly, that went on for a few years of trying to make it and not knowing what we were doing. It was the 2000s. The economy was crummy, not to blame it on the economy. You always look back and say, “You could have done things differently,” but it worked out the way it was supposed to work out.After 2 to 3 years, I was like, “This is going nowhere.” I decided to reinstate myself in my college program and finish. I finished the last remaining credits remotely, which I enjoyed doing that way. When I went into college, I was lucky enough to have had several full rides. My dad worked there and I had a full ride. I went to a high school that gave me a full ride because it was associated with the university. I played in a band there that gave me a full ride. I used one I hadn’t already started to finish up. I got my degree in Marketing a couple of years late.Business Coaching: Social media platforms these days are becoming much more unique with greater optimization. It’s Nashville, so does that mean it’s country music? Was that your thing or is it going to be anything going to that?It could be anything. Nashville is super eclectic. We were directed into the pop-country scene a little bit. As to how far we got into that scene, I will leave that undisclosed, but it wasn’t far enough to wait tables at the Macaroni Grill.If someone does a deep enough dive online, we can find something, but it’s pre-YouTube, which is good for you.We were MySpace users back in the day. It’s the 2000s.Let’s talk about real estate. How does that come to the picture?Real estate was completely random, unplanned and never part of anything I was ever thinking about doing ever. A lot of people say, “I’ve always loved houses. I used to go to our open houses for fun.” That was not me at all. That is not why I got it. The way I got into real estate was while I was waiting tables, I got married. My wife and I purchased a condo. Our realtor was pretty lousy. It was a pretty lousy experience, but we got the condo. I was intrigued by the process and was aware of a lot of gaps like, “You could have done this.” I was thinking about it, but then I never thought more about it.I went back to trying to be a rock star, waiting tables, all that kind of stuff and finishing up school. Anyways, when I would wait tables, it was a super busy turn and burn restaurant. For one reason or another, I was pretty good at selling people stuff. I could sell them all. I could upgrade things. I knew not to sell dessert because I wanted the table to leave, so I could get the next table seated and then make more money that way. I was pretty strategic about it.I had several tables that, for some reason or another, they would take an interest in me. They’d ask me questions about my life and what I was doing. I don’t know why exactly they did, but it would happen routinely. They would say, “What are you doing here in Nashville?” I’d say, “I’m a musician.” It’s like dad’s advice. They’re like, “What are you going to do if that doesn’t work out for you?” I was like, “You didn’t want marinara on the side or you did?” I got to segue because I’m like, “Where are we going with this?”They’d be like, “What are you going to do if the music thing doesn’t work out?” I was like, “I’m going to be an actor because I was a smart alec. I’m going to be an astronaut,” just to say, “Screw off. Don’t invade my life.” I remember there was this one guy. I don’t remember what he looked like, but he was a table I waited at. He was instrumental in getting me to go back and finish my degree. I basically said, “I don’t need that degree.” I have my reasons.He was like, “I don’t think you know when you may or may not need that degree. The way I would look at it as you’re endeavoring in life. You’ve got this quiver on your back and it’s one more arrow in the quiver. You may or may not need it.” I thought about that for a long time. It was a long time ago. I decided, “Let’s see if I can...