Real Estate Sessions Rewind - Jay O’Brien, Co-Founder and Chief Day Maker – Client Giant

If you are obsessed with cold marketing and promotion because you believe it’s the only feasible way to help your business grow in today’s times, think again. The guest for this episode, Jay O’Brien, built an undefeatable real estate empire without any of that, thus breaking age-old myths with the principles of hard work and sincerity. Investing generously and gratefully in his existing customers from the beginning of his real estate career, Jay realized the massive growth he could achieve just through referrals and word-of-mouth marketing – and all he had to do was to respect and reward loyalty. As Client Giant’s Founder and Chief Day Maker, Jay helps “business professionals deepen relationships with their existing clients and partners to drive unparalleled repeat and referral business.”(00:00:18) Investing in Clients for Long-Term Success(00:01:01) Investing in Personalities for Sales Success(00:06:26) The All-In Drive: Addiction to Work(00:09:44) Finding Success in Real Estate(00:15:08) Creating a Personalized and Memorable Real Estate Experience(00:23:30) Personalized Automation for Client Care(00:31:40) Embracing Uncomfortable Conversations for Real Estate SuccessTranscript - 00:00:00 - Bill RisserHi, everybody. Welcome to another Real Estate Sessions rewind episode. This week, we're going back to November of 2022 with Jay O'Brien, the Client Giant founder and chief daymaker. If you're looking for a way to deepen relationships with your clients and drive, unparalleled, repeat, and referral business, you've come to the right place. Enjoy.00:00:18 - Jay O'BrienAnd I'd say when things are going really well, very important to not just ride that wave, but double down and invest in your people. And on the other side of things, when things aren't going so well, it's natural to claw back on expenses, right? I encourage everyone, whether it's Client Giant or anything you're doing, taking care of people or like charities you're donating to, whatever it is, I really encourage people not to claw back there because it's not an expense. It is an investment in so many different ways. And the solution to saving your business during a downtime is not abandoning your customers.00:01:01 - Bill RisserYou're listening to the Real Estate Sessions podcast. And I'm your host, Bill Risser, executive Vice President, Strategic Partnerships with RateMyAgent, a digital marketing platform designed to help great agents harness the power of verified reviews. For more information, head on over to Ratemyagent.com. Listen in as I interview industry leaders and get their stories and journeys to the world of real estate. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 335 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. As I always say, thank you so much for tuning in, and thank you so much for telling a friend today I'm going to be talking to Jay O'Brien. Jay is the co founder of Client Giant. I saw Jay speak at an imminent event back in 2018, and he talked about how he's providing seven star service in a three star world. And a big piece of that was really taking care of the customer in a very consistent way by delivering value added items to the transaction. I'm telling you, you've got to hear what this is all about. I'm not going to spill the beans here. I'll let you listen in and hear Jay's take on how to take care of clients, how to provide exceptional service, and how to get them talking about you without you even really trying. So let's get this thing started. Jay, welcome to the podcast.00:02:17 - Jay O'BrienThanks for having me, Bill. I appreciate it.00:02:19 - Bill RisserYeah, I met you well, I take that back. I learned of you in August of 2018 when you were doing a presentation for Inman, and it was a really cool presentation. I was an ambassador at the time. I know. I tweeted out a bunch of stuff about it. I thought it was very cool, and we'll get back to that. We will talk about that. I'd love to start, though, at the beginning with my guests. And for you, it's going to be I know you're based in Southern California, more specifically Orange County. Are you a native of SoCal?00:02:52 - Jay O'BrienI am. I've never left. If I ever leave it'll be to Hawaii, but I was born here in Orange County, and, yeah, I've never lived anywhere else.00:03:01 - Bill RisserWow. I got to ask you this question, then. Dodgers or Angels? Because you're really close to the Angels, but the Dodgers have a thing.00:03:08 - Jay O'BrienBill, you're not going to like my answer. Oh, no, but the answer is neither because neither of those teams play golf. I'm not a sports guy. I'm not a big fan of either. If I had to choose one, I'd say Angels because I grew up going to Angels games and stuff. So I enjoy going to a hockey game, a baseball game and what have you, but I couldn't tell you what's going on unless it's like the World Series or something got you. And even then it could be dicey.00:03:40 - Bill RisserOkay, well, let's switch then. Golf. So you played, like, in school, that kind of golf?00:03:47 - Jay O'BrienNo, in fact, I used to play once or twice a year, like, on vacation, and it was fun enough, you have some beers with your friends out on a golf course, but in 2020, it was one of the few things you could go do. So I got very addicted to it, and now I play like, three times a week.00:04:03 - Bill RisserNice.00:04:04 - Jay O'BrienSo I'm addicted to the sport now.00:04:07 - Bill RisserAnd there's some great courses up your way, so I'm sure you've had some fun.00:04:11 - Jay O'BrienYes, absolutely. Beautiful courses.00:04:14 - Bill RisserYeah. Let's talk about a little bit just a little bit more about me because it is its own unique place. It's not La. It's not San Diego. It's Orange County. Besides, well, the amazing weather that Southern California enjoys. Tell me, what do you like best about where you grew up?00:04:33 - Jay O'BrienYeah, one of the reasons it's hard to leave I mean, obviously the weather is the easiest one, but the convenience, I mean, I could go to an Angels game and then be home in 15 minutes. I could go to Disneyland, be home in 20 minutes, san Clemente, La, Long Beach, really all over the place. And in Orange County, it's kind of got the best of everything, especially in the last, I'd say, ten years. There's a big food scene that's popped up, so you don't need to go to La. To get the best restaurants or anything like that. You got great cocktail bars. Everything is really here, great beaches, but it's also very close to Big Bear if you wanted a mountain kind of vibe as well as the desert, like, it's it's so optimized that it's hard to leave it.00:05:27 - Bill RisserWell, you got to talk about Balboa Island then. If you're talking about a place that's kind of cool and got some great stuff and really just blown up over the years. Right? Yeah, that's a cool place.00:05:36 - Jay O'BrienYeah, Balboa Island. And also, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Lido Marina in Newport Beach, but that area, it's one of the few harbors I've seen that is just, like, really beautiful. And they did a great job with this one stretch that used to be kind of desolate and blown out. And they did a whole development there. And they've got great restaurants, great shopping. All the stuff right there on the marina. So, yeah, I mean, if you're in Newport Beach, you grab a Duffy, you out with your friends. It's good living.00:06:04 - Bill RisserYeah, I like that. Well, let's talk about business a little bit. You become a realtor around 2010, I think, looking at your history, but you had to be doing something before that. It seems like real estate is always a second gig, or sometimes third gig for some people. What were you doing before?00:06:21 - Jay O'BrienYeah. How much time do you have?00:06:23 - Bill RisserAs much as you need.00:06:26 - Jay O'BrienYeah. I mean, I've kind of always been addicted to work. I'm a type A personality through and through, so anything I do, like golf, I just go nuts for. So my first job ever, you're going to laugh. I was nine years old, no bullshit. So I went to my local video store, the video rental place, and I begged the owner, Kevin, to give me a job. And he told me a million times, you're too young to work. You can't work here. I was like, I'll work for free. I just want to work here. And eventually I brought my mom in, and she's like, Look, I don't know what to tell you. He wants to work here, he'll work here. He'll do everything he's got to do, and he'll do it for free. And so that entire summer of my fourth grade summer, my mom dropped me off at 09:00 A.m. With a sack lunch. I did everything. I took money in the cashier. I built these cardboard cutouts. I was a full time employee. I worked till 05:00 p.m.. My mom would pick me up, and I did it five days a week, all summer for nothing. He would buy me lunch sometimes or let me take Nintendo games home, but I was just addicted to the work. And so when I was actually able to work when I was 14, that was the first job I could get with a worker's permit. I got a job as a caterer. So those jobs were brutal because there's a lot of manual labor, loading, like, semi trucks, going to company picnics, unloading, doing the whole setup, doing the lunch gig, packing up. So my mom would drop me off at 06:00 A.m. Placentia, and then she'd pick me up at 09:00 P.m. On the