114 Mail-Right Show With Special Guest Wellington Pendell Of Career Compass

This is episode 144 of the Mail-Right Real Estate Agent Podcast and this is the one were we STOP ZILLOW and discuss the 7% commission, as well as other topical real estate info! Well, we discus it at any rate with one of the founders of The Career Compass “Beef” Wellington Pendell, Regional Manager.

THE CAREER COMPASS was founded almost a decade ago by a power team of real estate marketing experts with the goal to bring a level of training and value to California real estate professionals never seen before in the Real Estate Industry.

We not only discuss this CA based company but a National Crisis known as Zillow, Redfin, Purple Brick and more; online and discount companies trying to wedge out the Realtor. We discuss a man both Beef and I know: Greg Hague of STOPZILLOW.COM, a movement to take back control of our listings, leads and industry. Greg is a 50 year real estate veteran and attorney. He’s personally financed the launch of this movement that every agent hoping to be in business past 2022 should at least check out. NAR (who sold our Realtor brand!), your state and local Realtor board associations are sitting on the fence…what will you do?
Get involved! Realtors protect equity, negotiate, market and problem solve like no APP can. We need to restore our value and our reputations with the public, it starts here with Career Comapss & STOPZILLOW.com

Here’s Our Full Transcription Of Our Interview with “Beef” Wellington Pendell Of Career Compass

Thomas: Welcome back my friends to The Mail-Right Real Estate Agent Podcast show. We’re on episode 114 and I’m super excited today because we’ve got a fantastic guest. His name is Wellington Pendell from the Career Compass. But you’re never going to hear me call him Wellington because we all know him as Beef. So Beef, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Wellington: Thank you.

Thomas: Why don’t you tell the folks a little bit about yourself? And maybe a line or two about Career Compass and then we’ll dive into some questions.

Wellington: Well, again, it’s Wellington Pendell II, everybody calls me Beef Wellington. For those of you who are young out there in our crowd that don’t know what Beef Wellington is, it’s the only good food to ever come out of England.

Thomas: Or Jonathan.

Wellington: Sorry Jonathan. In addition to where you’re from buddy. Anyways, so everybody calls me that. I work for the Career Compass which is, as of last year. There it is. There’s my English buddy right there. And basically what the Career Compass does is these award-winning awesome 2 and a half day seminars that not only educate Realtors on how to be successful in Real Estate but it also renews your license for life. Because we have a program where if you come to the seminar once, you get to come back for free for the rest of your career. So it’s lifetime continuing education, lifetime renewals of your license and the best training in the state of California when it comes to Marketing and being successful in this business.

Thomas: Awesome. All right. Jonathan, I’m going to let you say hi before we dive into the questions.

Jonathan: Oh, hi there folks. I’m the founder of Mail-Right. We provide a suite of Marketing tools for you Real Estate Agents to help you with social media, open houses and building up your database. We’re comprehensive, aren’t we Thomas?

Thomas: You are. I use your services. So I can vouch for them. My name is Thomas Nelson. I’m your co-host. I’m with Big Block Realty here in San Diego California where I’m never too busy for your referrals. You can find me on my website conveniently called thomasjnelsonrealtor.com. All right Beef, let’s dive into this. First of all, I know you gave kind of a brief overview, but how did Career Compass come to be? And how long’s it been around?

Wellington: It’s been around amazingly, people think that we’re like this overnight success and like the old saying goes, “It only took me 20 years to become an overnight success”. It’s been around for almost 10 years now. In fact, this upcoming year 2018, we’ll be celebrating our 10th year anniversary being in California. And originally, way back when in 2008, we were the seminar and many people may remember this, we were the seminar that took Realtors on a cruise from San Diego to Cabo and back. Taught them some great Real Estate tools and techniques and just did a lot of partying. Well, we ended up getting bigger and bigger and couldn’t do the cruises anymore. And then in 2010, we added the continuing education aspect to the seminar. And it’s just been gangbusters since then.

Thomas: Is there a reason why you’re only in California? We have a national audience. They’d be curious about something like this. Are there plans to expand? Or is this going to always be a California-based company?

Wellington: We are only in California at this point. We do have plans to expand. In fact, we are looking at a franchise model going forward into the future. And it’s a great business. It’s fantastic. Everybody loves you because you do nothing but have a good time, train them to be successful and renew their license. What could be better, right?

Thomas: Yeah.

Wellington: So, we are in California only right now. And one of the reasons we started in California is not only because the founders and myself live here, but 423,000 licensees in the state of California, that’s 30 percent of the entire nation when it comes to.

Thomas: Wow.

Wellington: So this is the place to be. But we’re always open to coming to new locations. And we probably will be doing that, not only as the parent company but also as a franchisee model. But the thing about it is, it’s not just like jumping the border over to Nevada or Arizona or Washington or something like that. Because each state has its own Bureau of Real Estate or Department of Real Estate that you have to deal with. So it’s a little more involved.

Thomas: Got you. Now, were you one of the founders of Career Compass? Or did they come find you after they got established?

Wellington: I was one of the founders. We developed this together. The other founders and myself developed it as a new model for Realtors to, not only get training that they can’t get anywhere else. And that’s the thing about our seminar is, we have who’ve been in Real Estate for 20, 30, sometimes 40 years who come up to us after the seminar and say, “Where’d you get this stuff? I’ve never heard any of this”.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: And that’s what we’re famous for, is things that you can’t get somewhere else. And the founders and myself kind of put that together and created a new format.
Thomas: I can vouch for that because I found you about 5 years ago, I believe. And I found you through our mutual friend Jason Gordon of AmeriFirst. Yeah. We actually interviewed him earlier this year. Jason turned me on to you guys. And I hadn’t heard of you. And then, in the same year he told me about you, you guys sponsored our Charity Golf Tournament. So I got to talk to one of your reps and found myself in one of your seminars later that year, renewed my license and got a heck of a lot of great information about Marketing and Sales in a very fun delivery. That’s what I want to ask you. What’s your background? Because I mean, you’re like a stand-up comedian when you’re on stage, but you’re delivering good content at the same time.

Wellington: You know it’s funny. I have no background when it comes to either public speaking or stand-up comedy. I have no formal training in either of those two things. But people say, “How did you ever end up in this job?”. And I just tell them, “Well, I was terrible at everything else”.

Thomas: You found a great career for a class clown.

Wellington: That’s pretty much what I was all the way through High School. I kind of wondered what I was going to do with my life. Well, here I am and here you go.

Thomas: And I don’t want to give away the candy store here, but let’s kind of let people in on some of the techniques that you teach. Maybe just give the names of some of the things that we learn there. Like using both sides of the business card and things like that. And give them a little teaser.

Wellington: Well, of course, there’s the back of the business card. And that’s always everybody’s favorite because it’s so much fun. But we have other great techniques like your Extended Lion’s Team, getting all your vendors to refer you and not another Agent. And we have all those fun techniques. And the seminar is full of great fun, exercisable techniques that you can use tomorrow to get more leads, get more business, increase your business. There’s over 112 techniques in our portfolio that we present at the seminar. But this most important thing that I want to stress is these days the most important and the most popular techniques has been the 7 percent technique. Now, Thomas, if you didn’t see that one last time, it’s fairly new. And at this point, with what’s going on in Zillow, I can promise everybody here, please do yourself a favor, learn that 7 percent technique. Come to the Career Compass, learn the 7 percent technique, learn the Listing per Week technique, learn the Investor technique, learn all these techniques that are just so so razor sharp important and brand new to the industry. Just to kind of give you a little teaser. The 7 percent technique is the one thing that Zillow, Trulia and Redfin and all the rest of them are never going to be able to do and you can do it if you know how to do it. Not only does it push commissions up, it pushes equity up, it reduces sales prices and it shows you something that less than 1 percent of all the Realtors in the state of California know, which is how to put a commission override in the notes or additional comments sections of your contracts. And that’s an override on top of your commission that the seller wants you to have. It’s unbelievable. It’s the best way to list a house. And if you don’t know it folks, please, do yourself a favor, get to the Career Compass and learn that one. That alone will help you be a successful Realtor.

Thomas: And I have actually had the benefit of taking that class once. I’ll tell you folks. If you’re one of those Agents out there taking 4 and 5 percent just to snag a listing and a thought of getting 7 percent just eludes you, the Career Compass, for that alone, is worth going. But it’s more than just going and learning techniques and being entertained. You actually get to accomplish renewing your license there. Can we talk a little bit about that Beef?

Wellington: Yeah. And talk about easy. As of last year, you have two options in the state of California if you want to renew your license, which you have to if you want to become or stay as Real Estate professional. The first option would be what you would never want to do which is sit in front of a computer for about a week because last year they added the new Management and Supervision course. And that means basically if you’ve had your license more than 4 years, you’ve got to spend 7 days sitting in front of a computer screen, most Agents take a lot longer, 3 and a half days of mandatory studying, then 3 and a half days of mandatory testing that’s designed to fail you and this other kind of stuff. So that’s your first option. You’d never want to do that. And on top of that, you’ve got to pay for it every time you do it. If you come to the Career Compass, our testing process when you get to the seminar is just simply 2 and a half days. You test on day 1 at the end of the day. You test on day 2 at the end of the day. And then you test on day 3 and you’re done. And ours is a 3-day testing process that covers all your license renewal needs for the entire 4-year period. So you leave the seminar with the ability to renew your license. And then, now that you’ve come to the seminar, you have the ability to come back for free for life. You never have to pay for it again. So you have two options. You can either go and spend 7 days every single 4 years that’s excruciating and pay for it or you can come to the Career Compass for our quick easy seminar and never pay for it again and get your license renewed forever. So there’s your two options in the state of California. So it’s pretty much a no-brainer unless you’re planning on not staying in Real Estate.

Thomas: What I like about what Career Compass does is, you don’t have to only come to renew your license. If you want to come and learn some of these great sales techniques. I see a lot of people come and sit in the audience and when the test come around they leave because they’re actually not there to take the test.

Wellington: That’s exactly right. You do not have to test. As a member, you can come to the seminar anytime you want. And we do 12 seminars a year. One every single month at a new 5-star location, like Gaslamp area, Pechanga Resort and Casino, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Anaheim Convention Center, Sacremento, Napa Valley at a Winery.

Thomas: Nice.

Wellington: San Francisco, Monterey and a bunch of other ones. So it’s vacation locations, 5-star places. It’s just a big party where you learn a lot of stuff and renew your license. And you can come anytime you want.

Thomas: Are you aware of any other companies doing something like this in California or in other states?

Wellington: Well. It’s funny. People say, “Well, who are your competition?”. Well, on the training side, our competition, I guess, empirically would be Brian Buffini, Tom Ferry and Mike. We love those companies, great guys all, wonderful men who have done tremendous things this for the industry. So I really can’t count them as competition because we admire those companies and they are great companies. On the license renewal side, of course, there’s a couple hundred different license renewal companies and you can sit in front of a computer and do your license renewal. But I don’t know of any other companies doing both of them in the same way we do.

Thomas: Okay.

Wellington: So our seminar is unique and we hope it will stay that way.

Thomas: Well, and I can tell you as someone that’s been with the Buffini company for 18 plus years that it’s not an either-or, it’s a both and.

Wellington: That’s right.

Thomas: You’ve guys are a supplement to the training and necessary because you’re not going to renew your license through a trainer. So why not go get trained, be entertained, network, and then at the same time, renew your license and do it in 3 days in a fun way rather than, like you said. Because these tests are also timed. You can only go so fast on them. And I’ve been that way and it’s miserable.

Wellington: Yeah. It is. And that’s the other thing. You’re absolutely right. Brian Buffini is a great company with great training and folks, you should get some of that. Tom Ferry’s a cool guy with some cool stuff. And Mike Ferry, well, he’s been an institution in this industry. So they’re all great guys. We actually support those companies and we hope they support us. Because when it comes right down to it, they’re coaching companies.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: So they do coaching. We do not do coaching. We’re a training and license renewal only company. So we endorse those companies. We hope they endorse us. All Real Estate training is good training. You can never be too smart in this business.

Thomas: That’s right. One of my clients just asked me the other day because I was at a training yesterday. And they said, “Wow. You sure do go to a lot of training”. And I said, “Well, I’m either better armed than the average Realtor or I’m just a slow learner. But either way, at least you know I’m out there getting education because this industry changes quarterly”.

Wellington: Daily.

Thomas: What was working in January of this year is ancient history.

Wellington: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I can’t stress that enough. Like I always say in the seminar, the smart Agent almost always beats the dumb Agent unless the dumb Agent is related to the seller.

Thomas: True words. Well, before I hog all the air time because I’ve got a ton of questions for you, I want to see, Jonathan, do you want to jump in? Do you have any questions so far for Beef?

Jonathan: Yes. It sounds fantastic. So the thing I was a little bit puzzled about. There must be a California state Government entity that you’re supposed to take the test. So have you got the authority to test the Agent on the behalf of that organization or after they take your course then they have to go to this organization and show them some documentation and then they’re given their license?

Wellington: The way it works is our independent testing process incorporates a fully certified, fully endorsed legal entity within the state of California that’s certified with the Bureau of Real Estate to do continuing education. So that is our subsidiary/partner company that actually provides the courses at the seminar. So right at the seminar, it’s a one-stop shop. You come to the seminar. You get the great training. You do the networking. You have fun. And then you actually get to go through that testing process at the seminar that has been endorsed and certified through the state of California. When people leave the seminar, they’ll actually have what’s called renewal codes. Renewal codes are what you basically go the BRE website, put the codes in, the BRE goes, “Those are valid codes. Congratulations. Your license is renewed”. So it’s really easy. It’s really quick. With our program, there isn’t any filling forms out, sending anything in by snail mail or anything else like that. It’s all one-stop shop. You come. You get great training. We have Tax training. We have Mortgage training. We have Marketing training. And you get your continued education all in one spot. And when you leave, you’re ready to go.

Jonathan: Oh, sounds great. If only we had that in Nevada because actually I’ve been told by a lot of people that the Nevada test is even worse than the California one.

Wellington: Yeah. I heard it was.

Thomas: Jonathan, I can share with you having done this. And I’m going to be doing it again soon because my license is up for renewal next year. You go for 3 days. You get entertained. You get a lot of great tools and techniques to leave with. You get these codes. And then, within the time frame where the BRE, the Bureau of Real Estate in California, allows you to enter those codes, you just pop them in on the website and then boom, you’ve got your license renewal.

Wellington: That’s right.

Thomas: It’s all online. It’s simple. I did mine so far in advance last time, the hardest thing was remembering to go on and put in the codes in when the time frame was there.

Wellington: You know what? It’s funny you mentioned that Thomas. We’re actually working on a system that reminds you to go in and do that. So that’s a new adventure for us.

Thomas: See, that’s the beauty of the Career Compass too. I could go right now and do my renewal testing and then just save it for when it’s time. I don’t have to wait until the last minute. I just have to wait until the Bureau of Real Estate allows me to enter those codes and make them valid.

Wellington: That’s a good point Thomas. We should probably touch on that.

Thomas: Yeah.

Wellington: Because one of the main questions that people say is, “Well. It sounds great. I want to go to the seminar, but I’m not renewing for 3 years”. The rules of the BRE is anytime in your 4-year period, your 1, 2, 3, 4, it doesn’t matter, anytime in the 4-year period you can come to the Career Compass and earn your 45 credit hours. The confusion comes from is that the Bureau of Real Estate will not allow you to input those renewal codes into their website until a 90-day window prior to your expiration. But you can get them, which is the long process of 2 and a half days at our seminar of the testing at any time. You just have to wait for that little 5-minute process of putting them into the website until 90 days after. So folks, if you’re listening right now, you do not have to wait to come to the Career Compass. Come right now. You can do it anytime. I was in a Brokerage office the other day and a lady handed me her registration for the seminar and she goes, “Well. My license isn’t due for about 3 years. So I’ll come then”. And I said, “Maam, with all due respect, when is your success due?”. She kind of laughed a little bit and then she goes, “You know what? That a little overdue”. And I said, “Well, you don’t have to wait to come because of your license. Come anytime. This isn’t about license renewal. This is about being successful in the Real Estate. So come anytime. You don’t have to wait”.

Thomas: Yeah. And again, as a reminder, you don’t have to only attend. Once you’ve attended and become a member, you’re a lifetime member. So you could go annually if want just for the sake of the training.

Wellington: You can go monthly if you want, just for the sake of the training.

Thomas: Yeah.

Wellington: We have people that almost do that.

Thomas: Wow.

Wellington: Yeah. We have a lady from Keller Williams. We call her the dog lady. And she comes to 4 or 5 seminars a year and just holds her little chihuahua like this and hands a card to everybody there and she does great when it comes to referrals.

Thomas: Nice. Yeah. Well, it makes her memorable.

Wellington: Yeah.

Thomas: All right. Jonathan, is it that time?
Jonathan: It is. It is. It’s time for us to go for our break. I think we’ve covered some really interesting things with Beef Wellington Pendell. It’s making me hungry folks. The only good dish in England. I think we’ve got more than that. But no, we’ll be coming back and we’ll be discussing some other topics with Wellington. And we’ll see you in a minute folks.

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Jonathan: We’re coming back. We’ve had a great discussion about overcoming, getting registered for the California state Government and the pain and how you can overcome it and we’ll be discussing some other topics. Over to you Thomas.

Thomas: Thank you Jonathan. I’m going to dive into the Z word here in a minute. But I wanted to ask you one thing for the California Realtors that are listening. The BRE has done well a number of Career Compass that I want to address. I, as a member of Career Compass, have received in the past emails that were kind of vaguely eluding to the fact that I may or may not have valid codes or valid training. Why is the BRE and CAR, the California Association of Realtors, to some extent, such an entity that or I should say an opposing force to the Career Compass when you’re out there really trying to get people renewed in, I think, a more productive way?

Wellington: Well, that’s a good question. And of course, the BRE and in turn CAR are certainly not going to come out and tell us exactly what the plan is. But from what we can tell and I can’t say anything that might be conjecture, I have my own opinions. But empirically, the Career Compass, at least from the license renewal aspect of our program, empirically competes with CAR, even though we are the most pro Realtor organization ever. We are the biggest advocate ever for Realtors and what Realtors do. From a competition standpoint, CAR has its own license renewal program. Now it’s a very long program and it certainly isn’t the easiest program by far, but it’s at least in my opinion and I want to make that disclaimer, that’s it’s at least in my opinion that a couple years ago when Career Compass started becoming really really big and we’re the biggest company of our type in this state. I think CAR may have seen their attendance at their license renewal program drop a little bit. And I’m not sure if they really liked that. So I can’t really make any conjectures, but we have been come down on very hard by BRE and we’ve weathered the storm entirely and we’ve come out smelling like a rose and we’re still the number one seminar. I can’t imagine where we’d be if we hadn’t, if this hadn’t happened. Everybody would be a Career Compass member and everybody should. We are definitely out there in the mainstream. We’re very very vocal. We’re very loud when it comes to promoting ourselves. Like one guy at the BRE said, he goes, “Wellington, no one has ever done what you guys are doing”. And I think that rattled a lot of cages. So I don’t know what the reason is. We certainly have had our fair share of, should we say, over-regulation, massive over-regulation. At this point, I’m hoping and at least I’d like to hope that they will leave us alone and let us do our jobs. But you never know. It’s the state of California.

But the important part is this. There’s a lot of rumors out there and a lot of them started by our competition. No person has ever come to the Career Compass and gotten their codes that have ever been denied by the BRE. Not one single person ever in tens of thousands of people who’ve come to the BRE. Every single person who’s ever come to our seminar and gotten the renewal code has had a valid renewal. No codes have ever been denied ever in the history of our course. And that’s the thing. I think a lot of people out there read stuff on the Internet. Some of it fake. Some of it not fake. I mean they say 70 percent of everything on the Internet is either not true or partial true.

Thomas: What?

Wellington: I know. Shocking. It’s on the Internet. It should be true, right? Anyway, what you read out there folks is not true. Career Compass has never been shut down by the BRE. We’ve been operating for 10 years. No person has ever come to our course and not gotten a legal valid renewal. And we actually have a guarantee against that. So, not to worry. What you read out there in the Internet, it’s not true. Career Compass is the number one company. It’s as great as everybody says it is. And we promise and guarantee that you will get your renewal and you will be a lifetime member.

Thomas: All right. Well, I wanted to address that. You do get some bad press once in a while and I don’t think it’s founded in truth. As someone that is a member and renewed his license through you, I can tell you it was painless, fun and easy. I just wanted to make sure we established that because I know the Internet has its way of getting the rumor mill going.

Wellington: And that’s the thing about it Thomas. Most people that say the Career Compass isn’t a legitimate company are those who haven’t been to the Career Compass.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: Because there’s nobody who’s been to our program that thinks that we’re illegitimate because we are the most legitimate, the most walk the line, most legal company in the state of California, right here.

Thomas: All right. Well, I want to dive into something. I got an email from the Career Compass last week and it was called Zillow, Redfin and the future of Realtors. And that got me to doing a little research to see what you guys were talking about which brought me to discover or rediscover I should say Greg Hague who is famous for the stopzillow.com website that’s out there.

Wellington: Right.

 

 

Thomas: I’ll be honest with you. It wasn’t until Career Compass linked up with Greg that I took Greg seriously. Because I, like a lot of my associates, just thought, “Oh. This guy Greg’s just sour grapes against Zillow. Yeah. Zillow’s becoming this force to reckon with, but there’s enough room for everyone”. Then I got to sit down with Greg yesterday for 3 hours and listen to him and first all, find out that he’s not only a 50 year Real Estate veteran, but he’s also an Attorney, so he knows what he’s talking about. He’s doing this out of the passion of his heart. He’s not doing it to fund himself. He’s not doing it to sell anything. He is trying to fund the movement which in fact we’ll talk about. But he’s basically trying to create a website where all Realtors go, and it’s protected information, with their listings which may not make some of the local boards happy because it may make the fact that we have an MLS obsolete. But I think right now, more importantly, the goal is that we need something to take back what Zillow has taken from us. They’ve put a wedge between us and our clients. Now, it’s not Zillow’s fault. We handed it to them. We said, “Sure. Here you go. Take it”.

Wellington: Yes we did.

Thomas: And now NAR and CAR and all the other state boards are kind of a step back in a neutral Switzerland position because and I get it. I mean, they’ve got some top producers paying into them that are doing quite well through Zillow. But when you’re talking about 80,000 top premier Zillow Agents versus the 3 million licensees that are out there, that’s a small piece of the pie. Now, I’m going off too much on a tangent. I want to stop myself. Beef, let’s get into this. First of all, you are independently taking this topic on. But the fact that Greg reached out to you and now you’re partnering with him too on some of your presentations, it’s interesting, to say the least. But let’s talk about that. First of all, Career Compass started out on this on their own. What prompted you guys to take this on?

Wellington: Well, let’s start at the beginning.

Thomas: Yeah.

Wellington: On May 1st of 2017, Zillow said they will no longer be taking manual uploads of information from Agents into their system. So what that makes you do, is if you want it on Zillow, if your client wants it on Zillow, you have to put yes on what’s called the IDX Feed system, right?

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: Which means that everybody out there can take every bit of information that you have on your listing, create an Ad, put it up on the Internet as if it was their own.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: That’s what the IDX does. So you have to know whether you should put yes or no on the IDX and that’s a Broker’s decision, but you’ve got to know what you’re doing. So that’s number one. Then, about 12 or 13 weeks ago, I’ll have to check my calendar, but Zillow came out in Orlando and Vegas with Instant Offers. Now, it’s funny. Right after this, I’m actually going to be joining a webinar as just the listener on the benefits of Instant Offers put on by Zillow. Is this a new tool for your toolbox Agents? And put on by Zillow. I can’t imagine what they’re going to say.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: Point being is, in a nutshell, whether you call them investors, whether you call them buyers or anything else like that, the Zillow Instant Offer program is a way for people to sell their house without a Realtor, to avoid the MLS, to avoid a Buyer’s Agent, to avoid a Listing Agent, that’s it right there. This is the same process that happened back in 1991 when Expedia started the wave of travel websites that basically effectively and by this point put Travel Agents completely out of business. It’s the same exact process. Now, this is not a $300 plane ticket. This is a house. So there’s some differences. But basically, the similarities are shocking. In fact, one of the founders of Zillow is also one of the founders of Expedia. Gee, what amazing.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: So, my point is this, when they came out with Instant Offers, that is the first step, in my opinion, and in Career Compass’ opinion, the first step to creating a non-Realtor world, in the same way that we took the first step back in 1991 in creating a non-Travel Agent world. That’s just what’s going on. They can call it anything they want.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: Anytime you have a platform, especially from the 41st biggest website in the world which is Zillow and by the way that’s the biggest website in all of Real Estate and Realtor.com doesn’t even come close.

Thomas: Yeah.

Wellington: Anytime you have a program where you can buy and sell without a Realtor, that’s the first step to a Realtor free world. And that’s why we have to kind of fight against because, I’ve got news for you, the value of Realtors folks, if you’re out there and you’re a Realtor, your value is not the fact that you can list in the MLS and somebody else can’t. That’s not your value.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: Your value is the consultation, the expertise and more importantly, you protect seller equity. We all know that anything’s been put online. Everybody here shops on Amazon. Why? Because it’s cheaper. Everything that’s ever been put online had downward pressure on prices. Downward prices means lower equity. Realtors protect seller equity and that’s your value, not the fact that you can list on the MLS. That’s not your value. I always use this example in the seminars. I would say folks, “Would your client still pay you a commission if they had the right or the ability to list in MLS?”. “No”. “Well, you just told me your only value is the fact that you can list in the MLS. That’s not your value. Your value is to protect equity, protect the seller, protect the buyer and your clients. It’s not the MLS. Because I’ve got news for you folks, as of 12, 13, 14 weeks ago, the MLS may not be the only game in town anymore”.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: “So you need to establish your value as a Realtor with your clients. That is where you will survive”.

Thomas: Well and on that and I’m quoting Greg. Greg explained to us yesterday that first of all, Zillow controls the leads because they now have the buyers and they’ve had them for quite a while. But now this Instant Offer, what was interesting about it, he says that, such a minute amount of people have actually closed a deal through it, but that’s not the point. The point has nothing to do with whether or not anyone uses it.

Wellington: Right.

Thomas: Now they’re capturing the listings. Because Zillow realizes that they’re still vulnerable as long as the Realtors control the listings. But once Zillow controls the listings, they’re going to do to us what they did to the hotel industry which is they’re going to start dictating what they charge for rooms. The hotel industry, it should be something that every Realtors studies because unless you look at someone like a Marriott who’ve opted out of Expedia. Most of the hotels got in trouble because they let Expedia more and more take over their Marketing. They’re thinking, “Why are we spending all of this money on Marketing when Expedia is doing it for us?”. But then, as you mentioned, Expedia and Zillow are the same company, the same founders. They now have lost control over their pricing and their booking because of the fact that they’ve given too much control over to Expedia and all these Expedia offshoots, Kayak and so forth. It’s like Realtors are that frog sitting in the pot of water and Zillow’s turning the heat up so slowly and right now we’re comfortable, but pretty soon that water’s going to get pretty darn hot and we’re not going to know what hit us. It’s already started and we’re looking at like maybe a 2 to what, 4-year timeline before we’re dealing with this right in our face.

Wellington: I think 2 to 4 is fair. I always quote 3 to 6. But who knows. I mean, it’s a complicated thing and still, a majority of the population is used to using Realtors. That’s to our benefit.

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: We need to take a proactive stance. And that example you just gave with hotels is exactly what’s going on. That’s right there with the travel industry. That’s what’s going to happen to us folks.

Thomas: Yeah.

Wellington: And we need to make sure our clients, our customers, past clients, potential clients understand our value because if they don’t, we’re Travel Agents. But here’s another example I can give you. Would you go to court, in the state of California, would you go to court if you’d been accused of a crime or being sued by somebody without an Attorney? Not a chance. You’d never do that. Yet, you have the right to do that, don’t you?

Thomas: Right.

Wellington: You can represent yourself, but you never would. Because Attorneys have proven to us that if you go to court without them, it could cost you financially, it could cost you personally, it may even cost you your freedom. So we must show the industry and the public that we are worth every bit of our commission. And it’s easy to do if you show the statistics on not using a Realtor and the numbers that are now coming out from Orlando and Vegas on the Instant Offers and everything else like that. It’s easy to show how you protect seller equity. And that’s what we have to do. Otherwise, people are only going to think of the saving they’re going to get and not the loss in equity they’re going to get. And that’s the thing.

Jonathan: Gentlemen, we’re coming close to the end of the Podcast part of the show. I’ve got my thoughts on this which are a little bit different to both of yours. But we can discuss that on the YouTube part of the show. So Thomas, would you like to wrap up the Podcast part of the show?

Thomas: All right. We’re going to continue this conversation on YouTube folks, so come and join us there. But for those of you that joined us on the Podcast, I want to thank you very much. Wellington Pendell, will you please sign off with letting people know how to reach out to you and Career Compass?

Wellington: Absolutely. Super easy folks. You just go thecareercompass.com. Three words, thecareercompass.com and everything you need is right there. You can sign up for a seminar. You can become a member. You can see videos. You can see all the fun that you’re missing. And you shouldn’t be missing it. You should be there. So again, thecareercompass.com. Everything is right there at your fingertips.

Thomas: All right. And Jonathan, how can people reach you if they want to find out more about Mail-Right?

Jonathan: Oh, it’s really easy folks. Go to the Mail-Right Facebook page. You’ll be able to see all interviews that we’ve done. Go to the Mail-Right website. We’ve got some big changes coming to the Mail-Right product that I think will make it even more great value. Or you can go to the Mail-Right Twitter feed and you’ll see our latest posts and information on that.

Thomas: All right. And you can find me on thomasjnelsonrealtor.com or social media, Facebook and LinkedIn or do the old-fashioned thing and call me at 858-232-8722. Thomas J. Nelson, San Diego Real Estate, where I’m never too busy for your referral or to share my experience with you about Career Compass, if you have any questions, especially you California Realtors. All right. We’re going to sign off for this week on the Podcast. But come join us on YouTube for some more questions about this dynamic topic of Stop Zillow. Bye bye.

The goal was to host strategic real estate seminars to teach creative marketing techniques and provide tools for success that most, if not all Realtors had NEVER seen or heard of previously! This is where I (Thomas) renew my real estate license in one fun weekend of learning, networking and of course license renewal exams…but you’ve never had this much fun renewing your license!

———————-

“Beef” Weelington Pendall
THE CAREER COMPASS
THECAREERCOMPASS.COM
3525 DEL MAR HEIGHTS ROAD, STE. 160
SAN DIEGO, CA. 92130
619-990-1106 office
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Support@TheCareerCompass.com

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