Alright ladies and gentlemen welcome back to another SLG meetup. Just came all the way to Kenya to get you another interesting life. I mean I know that you guys will expect some giraffes in the background, not yet. But I'm super excited to have our guest today, his name is Andy Grissinger.
And he is actually one of the top real estate agents in Charlotte in North Carolina. Now before we get going and tell a little bit more about him, I would like to emphasize that a lot of you have been asking, how can I get to know more about all these guests? How can I get more knowledge? And that's why we've been launching the Mastermind program where we get all these guests and also part of our experts in the SLG network to comment this class in these Zoom sessions.
And in a one-on-one on different ways to really leverage your business. So today we're going to talk about Andy Grissinger's story, which by the way he's also a member in our SLG network. And we are super delighted to have him here with us today because his story is amazing. And also what he's doing with social media, it's fantastic.
What's up man? What's happening Andy? Oh how are you? You're always looking fresh, here, the head, the background, I love it.
I made sure to turn the beer just for you today. Wow, there we go, thank you. Come on, right, come on. Now look it's a pleasure to have you here with us today.
And obviously from the first time we spoke, which we had you also, one of our idealized, to now a lot of things have changed, not just for you, but also the marketing show a lot that what you've been doing, transitioning to a different brokerage, leveling up really your social media and doing all kinds of amazing things that we're going to discuss today. So thank you for being here. Thanks for having me, Andy. It's been a couple years I feel like you've been on here.
I wish there were some drafts in the background, but this will be fine. No, I love it. How's the golf? How's the golf going?
It's good man. It's good. Next time I'm down to my Andy, we're going to have to go play together. Tell me the impact on that social media effort that you've been putting in your business.
It's changed my business and changed my life significantly in the last three years since I started doing this. So I literally started at the beginning of COVID and putting out YouTube videos and putting out Instagram videos every single day, every week has been huge. I mean, the idea with YouTube is it's Google level. And so it's evergreen content that's always there.
And it's for us in a city like Charlotte, there's a lot of people that are moving here every day. And they want to learn about the city and that's a good way to learn about that. But I mean, some of the other pieces with the social media that's been great is you make a lot of friendships and relationships and you can network through social. Like I see Matt's on here and he's a buddy of mine from Atlanta.
We met on Clubhouse a year or two ago and when he was in Charlotte last year, we got lunch together and we were able to talk about business, right? I mean, we met on social media and we've done this at times. And we almost got together in my own life. You jumped out of a plane instead, which is way cooler.
Well, listen, you'll tell me next time. Tell us a little bit about how, for example, transitioning out to this new brokerage, EXP and the whole network and referral concept, how is this helping you in your business? Yeah, I mean, that was the big decision right now. I was at KW for five years before I moved over and I really wanted to be able to be a small fish again.
And I wanted to be able to enter into a new club or like a different rooms that I'd never been in before. And I wanted to have new goals to strive for based on some of the new peers that I'm surrounding myself with. So instead of being one of the top agents in the office, I wanted to be one of the middle of the road guys that people didn't really know much about because it gives me something to strive for. Yes, yes, not yet.
Not yet. But it gives me something to strive for and as I'm growing and trying to catch up to some of these guys that are doing hundreds and hundreds of sales or hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sales every year. You know, along the way, Instagram is going to get better. YouTube is going to get better.
I'm going to do more speaking gigs and there's more opportunities for that. There's more opportunities to network and travel and meet more agents who are referral partners around the country. So there were a lot of reasons that I decided to make that switch and I truly wanted to be able to open or have more doors that I could be opening and that was the best way to do it. I went to touch base on education, right?
Because one of the things that I see about you is that you're always investing in your education. You're always investing into okay, right? Answer. You're investing into a team.
You're investing into all these other things to elevate your knowledge, elevate your network. So how important has it been for you to be doing all these things? It's huge because I know that I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I know that I'm not the smartest real estate agent in Charlotte in my office in the US and that stuff.
So there's people that are way smarter than me that know what's going on and there are people who are doing way more deals than me that know what's going on too. And so investing in all of these different opportunities is ways to stay in front of people who truly know what's going on in our market and in the social media world and all of that. And you can start. You can start to get all of their opinions and I feel like as you're getting everyone's opinions, you need to understand where everyone's coming from.
But as you're getting all of their different opinions, you can then start to form your own opinion and educate people in what you believe in based off of everything that you're hearing from all these other people. I unfortunately is personal brandy. Mr. Just your business brand.
I think it's really important just because to me in the real estate space, people are hiring me, right? And if they like what they if they like me and they can see what I'm bringing to the table, then they're going to want to work with me and the more people that can see that the more people that we can work with. And so I think building out the personal brand is huge because then what happens is you want to be known that every single time real estate comes up. You want people to be able to think about me.
Think about this, right? I've been at bachelor parties where a lot of guys were in half with this logo and some guy comes up to me like, why is everybody have that? Like, what is that? And I'm like, it's me.
Hello. And so it's huge because there it's such real estate is such a crowded space, especially now with all the content creators that are out there. And so this is a good way to stand out and it's a good way to stay in front of people. And if you not just with a personal brand with a logo or posting on Instagram or posting on YouTube, it goes deeper than that and making sure your events make sense that you're doing that you're a person.
Or client appreciation events are good and making sure that your client appreciation gifts are really good, right? That way you can become a household mate. So how important it is for you to also showcase and connect on a lifestyle level? I mean, I think the lifestyle also plays into the branding, right?
Because I want people to know that I'm in the know with what's going on in Charlotte. And so if they're if they're coming here for the first time and they don't want to just see homes, they also want to have a good experience. And so the lifestyle piece of it is knowing where if someone's moving here from New York City and they've been to Charlotte once or twice and then they come into town. And they want to see a bunch of homes and then they want to know, hey, where should we go for dinner?
And if you give them a bad recommendation, you start losing that. I think it's Daniel Daggers talks about this. He's out in your book. Yeah, he talks about having trust equity with people.
And as soon as you start losing that trust equity, it's like harder to build it back up. So to me, something as simple as saying, hey, this coffee shop is super cool. Or hey, if you like a good cocktails, go to this place. I've got a reservation already made for you.
So you can go ahead and go or go to this restaurant because it's walkable to where you're saying and then they have a good experience. It helps build the trust equity versus losing it. And so that's where I think having that plays into the lifestyle piece as well of being a real estate agent because it's more than just selling homes and also selling lifestyle of where those homes are. Right.
No, no, I think that's fantastic. You explained it very well and we'll put the quarter of Daniel right there. But I think it's fantastic to trust equity. Now, tell me a bit about favorite thing from Charlotte for somebody that has never been there.
What's your favorite thing to do? My favorite thing to do? Yeah. I love the cocktail.
I'm just that we have here in town. There are some really cool ones and it's just like the vibe in there is really cool and it's just relaxing. You feel good when you're in there. I also just love the fact that we're two hours from mountains and two, three, four hours from the beach depending where which beach you're going to.
So, you know, we've got the high rises in uptown and then you're 30 minutes from the lake, right? So it's like there's a lot that you can do here and I'd say ultimately my favorite part of the city though is the fact that someone just mentioned that's a melting pot and that's exactly it. It's a melting pot because no one. There's a very small amount of people who are actually from Charlotte that live in Charlotte and because of that, it drives a culture that has people actually excited to live here because it's not like they were born here raised here.
They were in school. They came back and they don't really want to be here. It's more people are here because they grew up in New York or they grew up in Chicago and they want to be here because they have a good job that's here and now they like lifestyle because there's a lot of good things going on here. So I always tell people like if you're if you're bored here in Charlotte, like that's your own.
I love that. I love that. Well, listen, your trust equity remains high. So that's good.
I have to go check it out for sure. But I always ask you, right? This is a bit more personal, but all these years that you've been in the industry, if you will have to tell little Andy, the real estate career again will all be a big advice that you will. Oh, man, I would almost say to start.
I started growing it like two months in. So I didn't necessarily have it like when I first started and I could send you my first headshot. It doesn't look like one without. Yeah, but I would say that the biggest advice would be start focusing on personal branding and not waiting.
I waited about a year before I started really focusing on social media and everything. I think a lot of the new agents who are focused on social media. It's a very good thing. But I also think that if you're if you don't like it, if you don't enjoy it, then don't focus on it.
And so that's the one thing. Like I started off doing open houses. I did every single weekend for a year, a little bit over a year and I just I hated doing them and I wasn't very good at it. And then finally I stopped doing them and then the business started to grow.
So I would say that's a real good story earlier. Right, but also what you said in between, which is do what you love. Right. And grab somebody else, do what you don't like doing.
The delegation is key because people get attracted to what you're passionate about. You need to focus your energy. I think that come not naturally, but at least you show that passion or that energy doing into it. Otherwise it's killing the momentum.
That's exactly it though is people are attracted to people who are passionate. And if you're not passionate about something, they can tell. Yeah. There you go.
Well, that's right. Let's go. I want to take people skydiving. That's what I do.
The next step is to landing the houses. So hey, what's up? That'd be pretty cool. Yeah, but that's you know, it's a bit of a combination of everything that we talked about today, which I love the conversation because it's really combining the social media with the lifestyle, with the knowledge and then with what you're passionate about.
And when you combine all this mix together, it creates your own DNA that people can attract it to. And that's how you really build those relationships. So, no, great stuff. I just want to wrap it up by asking our million dollar question that we always put into everybody that does the asset to me.
Which is why is luxury to you? Oh man, to me luxury is a lifestyle. It's being able to be confident in what you're doing every single day and knowing that you're doing something that's beneficial every day as well. I think that being able to wake up and actually help people and live a lifestyle that you've always wanted to live.
That's the true luxury and not just a big house or having a nice car or having a walk or whatever. I think it's the combination of working hard and being able to actually achieve things that you want to achieve and being excited about that. I love it. I love it.
Thank you. Thank you for all the great advice, key points knowledge everything that you've been sharing today is amazing. I can't wait to see you. If you're coming to Miami or listen to me one of these trips.
But, you know, I'm really grateful for you. And I wanted to just make a quick announcement for everybody that is watching or listening either now or later that you are one of the nicest guys I've met in the industry. You are also a member of SLG and we are putting together more of these mastermind programs where we bring together experts like yourself to talk about specific topics. So, we're going to be launching and rolling more of these sessions where I will love you to be one of the panelists.
And it's going to be exciting so for those that are interested also check out what we've got going on. But definitely make sure to follow Andy. He's the man who's been amazing. Love your content brother.
So keep on thriving and we'll speak very soon. Thanks dude. Great to see you again. Thanks for having me on here.
It's always a treat. Absolutely. Take care and take everybody. Bye.
And thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it. And remember, embrace it's beautiful success in life. My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.