At Keller Williams London, Prime, we were incredibly fortunate to be given a seminar by Linda and Jim McKissack, who are two of the top agents in Keller Williams. In this blog post, I will share the knowledge that came from the seminar.

Linda McKissack’s Mission Statement is: “To help successful real estate agents and business entrepreneurs understand the power of leverage and passive income so they can create freedom and margin for what matters most!”

When Linda and Jim first got into real estate in the late 1980’s, unfortunately Jim and Linda were $600,000 in debt after owning restaurants and nightclubs. Texas experienced an economic crash and the banks called for all $600,000 immediately.

Linda and Jim came to the conclusion that “if you want to make a lot of money, real estate was the way to go.” Looking back on their choice to go into real estate, they both felt that it was the best career decision that they ever made.

In her first year in the real estate business, Linda made a $3,000 gross salary. Linda said that her “don’t quit attitude” and the fact that she “kept learning and pushing forward” were the reasons for her success.

They sought out mentors, such as Keller Williams very own Gary Keller and they started to implement what they had had learned from Gary and success followed. Over time, Linda became the #1 agent in her city, the #1 agent in the company and was named in the REAL TRENDS top 100 real estate teams in the entire country.

As Linda and Jim were building their real estate business, they were masterminding with a business psychotherapist, Dr Fred Gross, who worked with the top 1% of industry professionals. At one of their meetings he explained “What you have built is great, but you do realise that the day you sell your last house, will be the last dollar you will ever make in real estate.”

Dr Fred Gross went on to explained that he felt that they had two fundamental problems. Firstly, even though they had a business, neither of them could effectively step away from the business for at least 6 months and have it continue to grow. Without them, the business wouldn’t work. Secondly, he felt that they needed to focus on passive income streams so that they could have more freedom in the future.

Linda was one of the first real estate agents to turn her business over to someone else to create a passive income stream. The business has been able to run successfully without her for the last 18+ years.

Linda and Jim also built passive income through real estate investing in the early 1990’s, while they were still in debt. They did this by partnering with a builder friend of theirs on their first two deals. Today, they own over 110 long-term rental properties and 4 real estate franchises, among other pieces of real estate. They also used profit share to their advantage - they brought in 20 people and then those 20 people brought in 20 people each. They now earn in excess of 7 figures in passive income a year!

In their previous real estate company, before joining Keller Williams, they came to the conclusion that their “vision was bigger than that company’s vision” for them.

After moving to Keller Williams and after gaining some success, they hired 1 administrator and then after some more time, hired another administrator. This allowed them to free up more time to do the things that they loved – advising people in the real estate industry!

Although cold-calling is a big part of lead generation in the US, Jim was not a fan of cold-calling or prospecting and chose to meet with people rather than call them. He felt that this was where he was his most natural and it was what he focused on over the years.

They both took the steps to purposefully save 15% of their income and then invested that money. They came to the conclusion that most people eat, wear or drive their money and they didn’t want to fall into this trap, too.

As an estate agent your first goal should be to work out what the value/ knowledge gap of the client is and then tailor your presentation or pitch towards their knowledge gap. Alongside this, when on a pitch, don’t simply explain your good points – actually show them and let them experience it if possible.

Linda and Jim said that the simplest way to success is to study successful people and copy them. It is the shortest path to success because successful people have failed in the past. By copying them, you don’t go through the same mistakes that they did.

One of the best pieces of advice that Jim was given when to always try to let people self-discover their own needs and then evaluate if you can and how you can add value to their life. In the real estate industry, people are always after advice on how much their house is worth and what it could sell for. Free valuations twice a year are a great way of adding value to people’s lives!

Jim believes that “money is never going to stop someone with a great plan. In the same breath, if you have the knowledge, then the money will come.” It’s all about matching skills with other people’s money.

Linda and Jim both said to remember that there are only 24 hours in every single day. Simply, focus on the work that would pay you more and give you the most rewards. As it says in ‘The One Thing’ book, “What’s the one thing you can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

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Relationships + Validity + Value

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Time

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