Outside The Box
Outside the Box is the podcast for real estate agents who want to grow their business. Every episode provides actionable strategies that help you grow your repeat, referral, and sphere of influence business. Referrals don’t happen on accident—they happen on purpose, and we bring you insights from top agents and coaches who have mastered the art of relationship-based growth. Tune in for practical, proven tactics that will help you generate more business from the people who already know, like, and trust you!
Outside The Box
98% Referral Business: Become The Mayor of Your City | Amanda Furman
Amanda Furman shares how she transformed from a middle school teacher into a successful realtor building a referral-based business through authentic relationships and community involvement. Her teaching background provided unexpected advantages in real estate, helping her manage different personality types and emotional situations while developing a reputation as the "Fox Cities Homegirl."
• Cultivating a 98% referral-based business through relationship building rather than traditional sales techniques
• Writing five handwritten note cards weekly to past clients for non-business reasons
• Creating a weekly "Fox Cities Friday" video series highlighting local businesses, now approaching 260 episodes
• Delivering pumpkins to over 600 past clients every October as a memorable annual touchpoint
• Establishing a comprehensive follow-up system including multiple touchpoints for Google review requests
• Focusing on being a "matchmaker" rather than a salesperson in real estate transactions
• Identifying and addressing client pain points during the moving process with thoughtful solutions
• Building and maintaining an organized database from day one to track and nurture client relationships
Remember, referrals don't happen by accident. They happen on purpose.
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Justin Armbruster – https://www.instagram.com/armbruster_jd/
Chad Armbruster – https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadaarmbruster/
We're like matchmakers, right yeah, I'm going to match that listing with the best possible buyer that wants to bring the strongest offer.
Chad Armbruster:Thanks for joining us on Outside the Box where we talk through actionable strategies to help you build your repeat and referral business. Remember, referrals don't happen by accident. They happen on purpose. For those who don't know, my name is Chad Armbruster and this is Justin Armbruster, full-time realtor and co-host.
Justin Armbruster:Today we have Amanda Furman, with the Amanda Furman Collective with Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group, joining us all the way from Apple City, Wisconsin. Amanda has been serving buyers and sellers in the Fox Cities area since 2017 and sold over 100 homes in 2024. Amanda, thanks for joining us today.
Amanda Furman:Thanks for having me.
Chad Armbruster:Great, so tell us, how did you get into the real estate business?
Amanda Furman:On accident. So I was a middle school and high school teacher. I taught for a few years full-time. Then I stayed home for about 10 years, always sort of dabbled in things. I was a cake decorator, I bartended, I waitressed, you know just things that I could fit in while primarily being a mom as my main job. And then, after about 10 years, I was really ready for a new career.
Amanda Furman:Um, I knew I didn't want to go back to teaching. I love the kids. I didn't love the pay. Um, I didn't love all of the politics that were involved in teaching in my area. Um, and I had my cousin's husband. Um is a realtor and he had been telling me forever that I should be in real estate and it was never the right time. Um, and when I knew I was ready, I kind of made a list of things that I wanted to do. Nursing was number one. But I didn't want to do four more years of school. So I looked at real estate and I was like, well, the barrier for entry is really low in real estate. Right, I can take a 72 hour class and pay a couple hundred bucks, and if I don't like it I'll move on to the next thing, so I did that and within about six months my production was higher than my team leads, so it went really well.
Justin Armbruster:Heck yeah, and I've always heard it takes hundreds and maybe a thousand hours to get your license to cut hair, but it takes, you know, a couple of classes and are you breathing? You know, come sell real estate. You know the barrier of entry for real estate is very low. But staying in business like what you have, that's the hard thing.
Amanda Furman:Yes, I would agree with that 100%.
Chad Armbruster:Is there anything when you're, I guess, your prior profession of teaching that you know you've taken from that and you've been able to kind of apply or kind of help you in the real estate business or yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Amanda Furman:So the first thing would be I was a teacher, and after, during and after teaching, I coached too. So the first thing would be, um, I was a teacher and after, during and after teaching, I coached too. So I coached for you sports in my area and, um, I I very quickly found out in my real estate career that if people trust you with their children, they will trust you with just about anything. So my first three clients were were all people who people who I coached their children in sports and also with working with middle school and high school kids.
Amanda Furman:You deal with a lot of emotions, different personality types, maybe kids that aren't really thinking clearly because of stresses in their life, and I've applied a lot of the strategies that I've learned dealing with adolescents to how I deal with my clients in real estate, which sounds kind of terrible now that I just explained it that way, but I think I started with just, you know, middle school kids are tough. I think everybody knows that. They're dealing with a lot in their life and I feel like, if you can, if you can communicate with them effectively, you can communicate with anybody.
Justin Armbruster:It is a real thing. Working with the general public is not easy. It is sometimes feels like working with middle schoolers. It is sometimes feels like working with middle schoolers. Yeah, I would agree with that.
Chad Armbruster:I would say, the part of this clip we would do would be something like, you know, real estate, learning to deal with children, something like that, I suppose.
Justin Armbruster:Working in real estate is like working with children. Yeah, yeah, for sure, that's a great clip.
Amanda Furman:We should definitely advertise that Right.
Chad Armbruster:That's funny. We won't insult any clients clip. We should definitely advertise that, right, that's funny. So, um, so I guess what's like the one habit or routine that's kind of helped you consistently, you know, stay in front of your sphere of influence and help you generate repeat referral business.
Amanda Furman:Um, we and I say we because I have a real estate team we are very, very relationship based. Um, it comes first. It we're about 98% referral at this point. Um, and that's because we take care of our people and we follow up with our people. Um, we also are super active in our people. We also are super active in our community and we highlight that in social media. So we're involved. You know, besides just going to the farmers markets, the school fundraisers, we do a weekly series where we highlight local small businesses in our area. That has been a referral source that I didn't even contemplate. I did it to just show my involvement in the community and supporting my community.
Amanda Furman:And then the business owners that I was interviewing slowly started to become my clients. You know I was supporting their business and they wanted to support mine, which was really cool and just an organic way to earn business. I'm very involved in our downtown area. I serve on the board of directors for a couple different programs and just you know, always like I kind of like to think of myself as the mayor of my area.
Amanda Furman:I don't know if you can see I have Fox City's homegirl as sort of my tagline and that's because you know I'm out there and I'm involved and I'm like the cheerleader for our area, because I love it here and I want everybody to love it as much as me.
Justin Armbruster:I love that. So your business interviews that you do, I'm assuming you're posting things on social media, all that good stuff. Is it like a planned, like hey, I do two of these a month and this is what they always look like? Is it just kind of an imprompt, when you know you go somewhere? What does that look like?
Amanda Furman:Yeah, that's a good question. Um, so I started. It's sort of evolved over time, but, um, the reason I started doing them is because when I got into real estate I had no money to spend on marketing and I also am not a salesperson at all I'm very good at relationships, I'm horrible at sales and I thought how can I market myself but also be an asset to my community? I come from a family of small business owners, so I know what an important part of their community they are. I know how hard they work. So that just kind of was an idea that came to my head and it started very grassroots and it still is. I use my iPhone Sometimes. I'll meet at the business. If they don't have a brick and mortar, we'll meet at my office times. I'll meet at the business. If they don't have a brick and mortar, we'll meet at my office, and it's just an organic conversation where I introduce the business owner and they talk about their business.
Justin Armbruster:I think that's super important. So many realtors I mean myself included when you want to get into video or whatnot, it's always you need all this equipment and you need to spend thousands of dollars to make it look. You know all this stuff, and that's not true. You use your iPhone. You've been doing it for years. It's successful. You've picked up referrals. You don't have to have a massive budget to get into something like that.
Amanda Furman:Correct yeah.
Chad Armbruster:So do you. I mean, are you trying to do a couple of month, or oh?
Amanda Furman:yeah, we do them every Friday, so we call this series Fox Cities Friday. So the Fox Cities is the, the area that I'm from. It's a bunch of smaller, midsize cities, um, that we're in a river Valley area, Um, and every Friday, uh, we at 6 AM we post this interview. Um, I think we're on episode like maybe two 260. So yeah, we had to take a little bit of a break during COVID. It was hard to meet with small business owners then. A lot of things were hard then. But yeah, we picked it up and, you know, changed it a little bit over time, but not too much.
Justin Armbruster:Episode 250. Wow, that's impressive. Just staying with anything for that long is super impressive. That is super cool.
Amanda Furman:There's been. You know what is the? There's a saying that something like I'm going to ruin this, but people copying you is like the best form of flattery. People copying you is like the best form of flattery right, is it?
Justin Armbruster:imitations the best form of flattery.
Amanda Furman:There you go, thank you, and there's been quite a few other realtors in my area that have done the same thing, and they all did it really well and effectively, but none of them stayed with it.
Chad Armbruster:Yeah, oh, really.
Amanda Furman:Just that consistency, I think, is what sets us apart.
Chad Armbruster:Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah, just sticking with it. So what are some common mistakes that you see new realtors making when they're trying to grow their real estate business?
Amanda Furman:I think, wanting it more being desperate. Nobody wants to be sold and I think a lot of new agents come, come in and they think I sell houses and they come off as very salesy. So I think it's super important to just be who you are and focus on taking care of people and forming relationships and the business will just naturally come from that. Like I told you, I'm not good at sales. I'm terrible at it, but I'm really good with people and I'm really good at nurturing relationships and I'm very empathetic and understanding and I'm good at communicating and those are all skills that got me to where I am. There's no magic wand that somebody new into real estate can wave and suddenly get all of these new clients immediately. You have to earn it, you have to work hard and it's not easy. But if you're consistent and you just form those relationships and people's trust, the business will come to you.
Justin Armbruster:That's funny, top producing I can see it now. Top producing Fox City's realtor admits she's not great at sales but will continue to sell. You know lots and lots of homes every year and I feel the exact same way. People don't. People love buying things but they hate being sold to, and so you know our job as realtors is it's very little. It's not really sales. I don't view myself as a salesman, especially because I just want to. You know, our job is just to help people do what they already want to do, and I don't have to sell you this house. You already know, if you like it or not. You know I'm just here to help you do what you want to do already. I think that's super cool.
Amanda Furman:And I think that's super cool and it's a great philosophy that not a lot of realtors take and should.
Justin Armbruster:We're like matchmakers right.
Amanda Furman:Yeah, I'm not going to sell somebody on one of my listings. I'm going to match that listing with the best possible buyer that wants to bring the strongest offer. That's how I look at it. And of course you know we have to. We have to know about marketing, we have to know how to negotiate contracts, but even that, too, is all relationship based.
Chad Armbruster:Absolutely. I've not heard it that way. Matchmaking I like that.
Justin Armbruster:It's it is. It is a real thing. I and you know this. But I have a whiteboard in my office with active buyers, what they're looking for, and I often I mean I spend 30 minutes to an hour a day just searching the MLS who would be a good fit for this one I need to send it to them Who'd be a good fit for this one. Or even with off market properties that I hear of coming up, you know, who would that be a good fit for? I mean, that's that's a huge part of our job is matchmaking with, with houses, with people that would be good fits.
Amanda Furman:Yep, we're kind of hunters too, aren't we, yep? Hunting for what's going to, you know, be best for our specific clients that we're working with.
Chad Armbruster:Yeah, so when you say developing relationships, is that more of you're talking about the interpersonal relationship that you, you know, are establishing, or are you talking about you're good at like after the fact and your, your followup and stuff? I guess, when you talk about that, what are you focused on?
Amanda Furman:Um, I think both of those. To me they're equally as important. So one thing that the really the only requirement to be on my team is to come to our team meetings and to write five handwritten note cards every week, and they can't be anything business related. So, you know, I often like if I'm struggling, I usually write between 10 and 15 a week, but if I'm struggling to find five, I go to social media and I look for pain, pleasure and celebration and I just write people.
Amanda Furman:But, for whatever reason, right now I've had a lot of people in my sphere losing pets, losing dogs, and when you take the time especially as a pet owner that has lost a furry child, I know how hard that is and when you take the time to write a handwritten card and send it to somebody, um, in that situation, like I would say nine, 9.9 out of 10 times, whoever I send a card to, no matter what, reaches back out to me and lets me know how much you know that means to them. So it's just like being a good person too, right? Um, it comes in, comes in really handy. There's no, we're not looking for business. We're just looking to to be there for people, um, that are in our sphere, in our community.
Amanda Furman:Um, that has brought I can't tell you how much business that has brought me. It's hard to track that, but it's exponential. We do the same thing at open houses. So at our open houses, you know, you have the sign-in sheet. Sometimes it takes three years. But when those buyers come back to us they say we got all of your handwritten cards and no other realtor has ever done that. And we just, you know, keep in contact.
Justin Armbruster:We don't need to hear from them.
Amanda Furman:Just hey, we're here to help you when you're ready. Hey, we saw this property. It was really similar to the one that you looked at Like. Let us know if you're interested. Nobody uses snail mail any day, you know anymore. It's all texts and email. And we do that too. Um, but those handwritten cards have been a big part of our business.
Justin Armbruster:Handwritten notes. They are the most underrated piece of marketing that you can do and I sometimes I don't even like to call it marketing because it's like what you said, it's just being a good person, you know, just taking the time to care and taking the time to write them and think of someone, even you know, non real estate, especially non real estate related. I've even heard we have realtors in our office who and I don't know how you do it they have non branded note cards, no logos, no, nothing, it's just a I'm. I do not care about real estate, I care about you and I'm writing you this note and of course, everyone knows what you do. You know, but you don't have to necessarily have a logo on your note card to write it.
Amanda Furman:Yeah, that's exactly what we do. I mean, I have, you know, cards for losing a pet, like celebratory cards, uh, welcoming a new baby cards. Um, we do have branded cards. Those are the ones that we usually send out to our um, like open house follow-ups or um, even like referrals. We send out a thank you, um, you know, a thank you note card with a little goodie in it Thanking for referrals. But yeah, it's, everybody loves getting mail, like you know. It's fun.
Justin Armbruster:Yeah, and the open rate on snail mail is like 100 percent.
Amanda Furman:Yes, I mean really good point.
Justin Armbruster:I mean people are going to read it. I mean an email. You know, maybe they do, maybe they don't it. If you want to get a message across, that is the way to do it.
Amanda Furman:I've never thought of that. Really good point.
Chad Armbruster:Yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say it reminds me One time I got a card, a handwritten card, from a BizVox client just thanking me and I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe they're sending me a card. And I immediately texted him and said, hey, thank you for that, I appreciate it. So I completely understand, or, can you know, relate.
Justin Armbruster:I mean, sometimes, if I'm going to, text say I have, I have coffee with someone. You know, it was great catching up with them. Oftentimes people will, you know, send a follow-up text. You know, hey, it was great catching up with you. Yada, yada, yada. You know I try and as much as I want to text them that right away, hold back, I'll write them a card and send that. And so I have just basic ones that on the front that I had printed, it just says this is not a text, dot dot dot. And so when they open it up, you know it's just, it's exactly what I would have texted. But you just take the time to write it. Hey, it was great grabbing coffee with you the other day. I hope you know you and your wife continue to do well, you know, whatever it is. But I saw that and I thought it was funny. I'm like I'm going to print those.
Amanda Furman:Yep, I love that. Maybe I'm going to steal that from you.
Justin Armbruster:Do it, do it, do it.
Amanda Furman:That's fun.
Chad Armbruster:That's really fun. So I mean, we've't talked about that you do. That's unique. That kind of helps you generate referrals and stay in front of your database.
Amanda Furman:Yeah, that's a good question.
Chad Armbruster:Before we dive into that, the Outside the Box podcast is all about building repeat and referral business, because smart realtors know that serving your clients is that secret sauce.
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Amanda Furman:I don't spend a ton of money on marketing, but the money that we do spend, most of it goes into. We call our clients our homies. I hate the word client, so we call them our homies, but most of the money we spend on marketing is spent on our homies. So, whether it be like traditional things, like you know, a client appreciation party, we do like the pumpkins. We deliver a pumpkin to everybody's porch the first week in October and that goes back through my entire database since I first started in real estate. So this past year I think we delivered 600 and some pumpkins to people's porches.
Amanda Furman:And that little thing like a pumpkin means a lot to people, especially when you deliver it in early October and it, you know, it's the big changing of the seasons around here, so you know I will get texts that say, oh, we got our pumpkin again. We always look forward to this.
Amanda Furman:We just really, really focus on staying top of mind with our past clients and I found that they tend to send people that are like them to us and we like working with the people that we've worked with for the most part, or we would have fired them and we wouldn't be following up with them. So it's sent us just like serious clients, right? Like we don't pay for Zillow leads, we don't market on realtorcom, I like those super wholesome leads that get sent to us by our past clients. I also don't think that people or realtors put enough value on Google reviews.
Chad Armbruster:Like.
Amanda Furman:Google reviews.
Amanda Furman:If you think, I look at reviews on everything that I go to, if I'm looking for a new restaurant, if I'm in a new area and I'm going to be staying at a hotel, if I'm, you know, booking an Airbnb. I read reviews and we're not any different from that as realtors. We're a business providing a service and really focusing on asking our past homies, our clients, to make sure to leave a Google review. That's something we started in the last six months and that has grown our business by quite a bit. And again, it's free.
Chad Armbruster:How and when do you ask for those Google reviews?
Amanda Furman:So we have a whole follow-up system. You know, I will, if it feels natural, depending upon who the client is in the closing, I will say something about it and again it just it has to feel right. But then we have a client follow-up process and within that process is asking for the Google reviews. So we usually have three different touches. We send out a preferred vendors list and within that list, three weeks after our client closes on their property, we stick a little card in there that just says, hey, if you haven't done a Google review yet, like it would mean a lot to us, we call text. Usually we have six touches and if after six touches they don't leave a Google review, then you know they probably are.
Justin Armbruster:If after six touches and they don't leave a review, you probably don't want them to.
Amanda Furman:Yeah, possibly Right.
Justin Armbruster:That's funny. You mentioned the Google reviews. I think it's super important to have those and I focus on those a lot too, because I find you know if I'm going to get interviewed for a listing or if someone wants to get coffee and kind of just chat about their needs, I mean it's all an interview but they're interviewing you long before that. You set that appointment, you know, and part of that's with there's two phases to an interview. You know they'll check out your Google reviews. They might check out your Facebook page or your website, just kind of see what you're about. Then they call you, then they do their in person interview, whether or not they call it that or not, and if you don't have those kind of things for them to do their initial review, you never get the opportunity sometimes for the in person one, and so that's super cool. We haven't talked about those on this show yet. I don't think, and that's that is a huge part of working by referral.
Amanda Furman:We we just set up, we've taken the Google Reviews sort of to the next level now, where we have a buyer packet that we bring to open houses and within that buyer packet and I don't know anybody else in our area that's doing this we have a QR code that links right to our Google Reviews and then, with the handwritten note cards, with those buyers having access to our Google reviews, you know, they can kind of get to know us without actually knowing us. So again, kind of like that layered onion approach of just helping to earn people's trust.
Chad Armbruster:Oh, that's nice. Okay, so I just clued in at the open houses. Then the QR code takes the prospective buyers to your Google review. Um, so that's perfect. Yeah, okay, get with it. I'm sorry, so, uh, I'm a little slow here. Uh, so that's uh, that's interesting. And then the other thing that makes sense to me on what you said is, with six touches, asking for Google reviews. Well, of course that makes sense because they, you know, they say, whether you're direct mail, you know like what we do, or staying in front of people, they have to see you over and over and over again in order, you know, to, to get them to, to do something or to call to action. Well, this is the same way, even though you're you've already got them as a client asking for that review, you have to do that, whatever three, four, five, six times. So I mean, yeah, that completely makes sense, as opposed to just once, which I'm assuming a lot of realtors just I'm a one and done kind of guy and that's it doesn't work as well.
Justin Armbruster:But you have to think through too. You know it might take six or seven times, but they don't realize how important it is to us. Like, you know that is a very important, and so you know they might, you know, read the text or the email and think you know it'd be nice if you could, and they don't get to it. They're in the middle of moving. I get it, but it's like, yeah, that is super important, and so it takes some follow up.
Amanda Furman:Yeah, and that's that's why we started doing that follow-up process, because we don't. I've had people ask me for reviews before and very unintentionally I don't do it because I'm driving and I read the text and that you know, we don't know what's going on in people's lives. So those six touches like they don't happen all within the first, you know, month of closing. It's something that goes out about a year. We haven't gotten to that year marker of our follow-up program yet, but that's our plan.
Justin Armbruster:Yeah, and I don't want to keep talking about the reviews, but it is so important and underrated I mean even throughout the transaction or when you're interviewing with them in the beginning, dropping subtle hints I'll sometimes say, hey, you know, it's my goal to provide you such a great service that when I call to ask if you could leave me a Google review, you're going to be pumped to do it, and you're going to do it the first day. That's my goal, before we even get into the transaction.
Amanda Furman:Maybe they remember that, maybe they don't, but then you know in three months, six months, whatever the time is when we've closed, and I send that text, maybe they remember that and like oh, we're going to leave this day one. That's very proactive. I like it. I'm learning a lot from you today?
Justin Armbruster:No, it's in. Sometimes it's. Sometimes I'll say something. It's like, yeah, I don't actually do that as much as I should, but I have heard that before and I wish we should do that more. But yeah, I've heard that. If you had to start over today, what would be one of your top priorities for building your business and developing a strong network of clients and repeat business?
Amanda Furman:Establishing a database.
Justin Armbruster:Okay, what do you mean by database?
Amanda Furman:Keeping track of my clients and keeping in flow with them, which means, you know, following up with them. I didn't have any sort of organized database with my clients until I had probably been in the industry for about two years. So when I went to make my database, I lost people. I know I did, you know I. I lost people, I know I did. I didn't have their contact information, whatever the situation was, and once I had my database, it was so much easier to create a sustainable, repeatable client follow-up process.
Justin Armbruster:For someone who doesn't have a database and we can all, conceptually, we all have different definitions, maybe what database means For someone who doesn't have one and is saying you know, I want a database, that's a great idea. What does that look like to start? What does yours look like, or what would be? How would you encourage them to get that going? What are some practical tips?
Amanda Furman:no-transcript with that very basic information so that you can continue to follow up with those people. I think most brokerages provide some sort of CRM program where you can manage your clients. I know Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group has one where they will keep in contact with your clients for you if you want. We don't really utilize that on our team. I am a bit of a micromanager and I want it to be personal. I don't want to just send you know, happy 4th of July email with fireworks, like I want it to be.
Amanda Furman:Here's the firework shows that are happening in our community and you know, we usually send that out like July 1st and then it'll have all of the firework, shows the dates, the times, the location that's happening in our community. I like to do that sort of thing.
Justin Armbruster:I like that. That's so good and that goes so much farther. Yeah, a 4th of July firework graphic with your logo at the bottom. That is one of my biggest pet peeves in our industry. You know, holiday comes around Christmas, thanksgiving, 4th of July you can guarantee to see 25 posts from realtors with their logo at the bottom of fireworks. I mean, it's just like clockwork.
Amanda Furman:So for sure.
Chad Armbruster:One quick follow up that I didn't didn't think to ask is on the pumpkins Logistically, how do you deliver 650 pumpkins?
Amanda Furman:It's a all hands on deck type process, so everybody on my team has to participate in it. We usually take a few days and deliver them. This year I was super grateful I now have a child that is a driver. So I solicited a little bit of slave labor. I think I compensated him with Chipotle so he drove his younger two siblings around while they ran out and put the pumpkin on the porch. So it's not fancy, it's not glamorous, we're usually covered in dirt and our cars are, but it's worth it.
Justin Armbruster:Do you like attach like a note or a business card to it or something I assume.
Amanda Furman:So we have a little tag with a ribbon that we tie on the stem. We always do like a contest whether they can paint their pumpkin, carve their pumpkin, and then they can enter it into the contest that we have where we give away a prize. But yeah it'll, you know it'll say some little jingle on it. You know, happy Halloween. We'd be scared, you know. I don't know, I don't remember what they all say, but you know, basically letting them know it's from us we're grateful for, for the opportunity to work with them and, hey, decorate it and have a chance to win a gift card to one of the small businesses downtown.
Justin Armbruster:Love it.
Chad Armbruster:It's good. So what do you think is the key to turning a one time client into a lifelong referral source?
Amanda Furman:into a lifelong referral source. I think it's nailing customer service through that initial experience, really going above and beyond, and the reason I started working with BizBox and I know you guys did not solicit any of my experience with BizBox, but I do want to talk about it so my husband and I moved cross country four times in 10 years and it's so stressful and one of the things that always stressed me out was packing, because it's a lot right and I, when I got into real estate, I made a list of the biggest pain points of moving and thought to myself how can I address those through my service to my clients? So I chose to work with BizBox. After doing some research, I found you guys and just yesterday I was sitting in a CMA appointment with a potential client appointment with a potential client and she was talking to me about how stressed she was about, you know, moving and what is she going to do with all of this stuff. And I texted my assistant and I said order, tracy biz box.
Amanda Furman:And she put in the order, sent it to her and I said to Tracy, the potential client you're going to have boxes on your door within the next five days.
Chad Armbruster:they're going to be delivered right to you.
Amanda Furman:Start packing.
Amanda Furman:And she was like, really like, you know, like, and it's just again, I don't know anybody in my area that delivers boxes to their clients doorstep. Everybody has to pack. You know, even if you have movers, you still have stuff you want to pack and the fact that we can brand them and they'll have those boxes. I have boxes from moving 20 years ago that are still in my basement unpacked. So you know, I just think to myself this is part of the marketing plan too. It's taking care of my clients, going above and beyond. But now, every time they go in their basement, even 20 years from now, there's going to be my face and my contact information on the side.
Amanda Furman:Yeah, exactly.
Justin Armbruster:So we didn't even have to pay for that.
Chad Armbruster:That was the easiest. I didn't even ask for that, but thank you.
Justin Armbruster:That was a softball.
Chad Armbruster:Thank you for that, I did like I don't think I've used this. We've used this verbiage in our marketing, but pain point, uh I think that's.
Justin Armbruster:we're going to start using that. So yeah, it is a huge pain point and nailing down, you know, putting yourself, yourself and your client's shoes on the pain points of moving. I was given the advice when I first got in the business that as a realtor, you know, take it or not, but as a realtor we should move every five to seven years so we have a real understanding of what our clients are going through every day. Because it's easy for us to forget, because we're not the ones moving and we deal with this so much, but it is. It is stressful and people don't like moving and identifying those pain points is really important.
Amanda Furman:Yeah, I think moving is probably in the top three most stressful life experiences you can have and I promise myself, especially during that that cycle of moving, remembering how stressful it was, I promised myself that I would never lose sight of one. What a stressful, overwhelming process it can be physically and emotionally. But also we're helping people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and obtain or sell their biggest personal asset for a majority of the population, or sell their biggest personal asset for majority of the population, and that is a huge undertaking. And every time I really think of the scope of that it's like wow, they're trusting me to do this for them and that's an honor. And it sounds cheesy, but I remind myself of that every single day because there are a lot of really great realtors in our area that my clients could choose, but they chose to work with us and I'll never lose sight of how important that is and what an honor it is to be able to help people with that.
Justin Armbruster:I'm going to ask you this because it feels like you have, but maybe this is just who you are. Have you read the book unreasonable hospitality? You have you heard of it? You know what I'm talking about at all and you can say I'm surprised.
Justin Armbruster:I don't, I, I don't know that one but well, it sounds like your business embodies the whole premise of the book and that the idea behind the book is it's a it's a restaurant owner who and the whole premise of the book is how can we go above and beyond and provide a level of hospitality that's unreasonable, where people look at the service we provide and say why are they doing that? That's above and beyond what I'd expect, and whether it's your biz boxes or other touch points you have, we're only kind of getting a bird's eye view of your business. You really embody that and if you haven't read it, you should read it. It's a fantastic read and maybe the author can take some notes from you.
Amanda Furman:Well, I have an Audible credit email that just came through today, so I know what book I'm buying.
Justin Armbruster:Yep, I just listened to it a couple months ago and it's changed the way I thought about my business, and so you would love it. Plus, there's actually a chapter for real estate. There is a chapter where he talks. He goes into depth on real estate agents and how he's spoken to lots of real estate teams and brokerages and talks about personalized gifts instead of, you know, a bottle of wine. It talks about handwritten notes instead of generic postcards, things like that, and you'd really like it.
Amanda Furman:Okay. Well, like I said, I know what I'm spending my Audible credit on. Yeah.
Chad Armbruster:Well, we love stories here. I mean, do you have a story about your biggest or best referral, or any referrals that you've had, or anything that surprised you, or just you like to repeat?
Amanda Furman:Anything that surprised you or just you like to repeat, my biggest listing I ever had was a referral, so it was a $1.4 million listing in our area and this was a couple of years ago, so I mean, that's a very high dollar property in my area.
Amanda Furman:Our average sales price is around 360 right now and on top of that, it is one of the most prominent homes in that area. It's on the historical registry. When I was given the address from my referral source, he started describing it and I literally pictured in my head myself riding my bicycle by that house as a kid and being like, oh my gosh, I wonder who lives in that house? Um, so it was um, actually, uh, a business coach that I hired, um, who is a pretty um coach that I hired, who is a pretty prominent business owner in my community, and he was the one that referred those sellers to me.
Amanda Furman:And again like such an honor to work with a historical estate. I was a history teacher so I'm a historian by degree, so it was like the best of both worlds coming together to to have the privilege and honor of selling that property.
Amanda Furman:So, that was really cool and it was really neat to just a little like feel good. You know, pat on the back to myself that this promise business owner that was coaching me trusted me with these very, you know, high end I'll say um clients that he had um for me to help them, so that business coach was worth every penny you paid him for the uh, all the things you learned and the referral Yep. And he knows that he's gotten lots of handwritten note cards and other things as well.
Chad Armbruster:So yeah, that's good Funny.
Justin Armbruster:Well, we like to end our time on outside the box with some rapid fire questions that we'll shoot you with the kind of some either or this or that's. Let me know when you're ready, we're gonna hit you with them.
Amanda Furman:I'm ready.
Justin Armbruster:Zillow, realtorcom or homescom. What do you recommend a client use when they're looking for homes?
Amanda Furman:I think Realtorcom updates listings status the quickest, so I'd say Realtorcom. I don't like any of them though.
Justin Armbruster:That's, that is the right answer, but unfortunately, we're using one of them Book or audio book.
Amanda Furman:Audio book. I spend way too much time in the car.
Justin Armbruster:Okay, most impactful audio book you've read, listened to.
Amanda Furman:So recently it would be Beyond the Hammer by Brian Gottlieb. He is a local business owner in my area who grew a tiny little bath remodeling business into I don't even it's. It's an insanely large business. Right now that's gone national and he just writes about basically being a good leader in business to your employees, your contractors.
Justin Armbruster:Love it Beyond the hammer. That's what you said.
Amanda Furman:Beyond the hammer. Yeah, perfect, can I give one more?
Justin Armbruster:Yeah, please do.
Amanda Furman:Okay, this is another book I just finished. It's called the gap and the gain. I can't even remember who it's by, but it's by a pretty big author in the, you know, self-help, self-development scene and I think this will resonate with a lot of top producing realtors and it's all about living in the gap. So we have a tendency, as high achievers, to never really appreciate what we've accomplished or celebrate what we accomplished. We always live in that gap between our goals. Right, we're not big enough, we're not doing enough, um, and it's just basically like a psychology um experiment about training your brain to not live in the gap to celebrate your accomplishments. I'm doing a really bad job of describing it, but it's a phenomenal book um, for anybody that is driven.
Amanda Furman:Anybody that is driven and a high achiever.
Justin Armbruster:And what was the title? One more time.
Amanda Furman:The Gap and the Gain.
Justin Armbruster:The Gap and the Gain man. Maybe I should read that book. Or let's do it, because I did get an Audible credit as well. Oh, perfect, there you go. There we go Office or home office.
Amanda Furman:Office for sure I'd be 500 pounds, I'd be in my. I'm in my pantry every 30 seconds, thinking I need a snack when I work from home, that's funny.
Justin Armbruster:Do you have a business mentor or coach or influencer that you listen to?
Amanda Furman:Rachel Hollis.
Chad Armbruster:Rachel.
Amanda Furman:Hollis podcast. She's sort of geared towards entrepreneurs, specifically female entrepreneurs. I'm a fangirl of her. I've read all of her books, listened to her podcast religiously.
Justin Armbruster:Love it. Final question If a listener wanted to refer a client to you, what local areas do you serve and what's the best way to get ahold of you?
Amanda Furman:So we serve most of Northeast Wisconsin. So not a lot of people nationally know about the Wisconsin area. But north of Milwaukee to south of the Door County area it's about a 150 mile radius. South of the Door County area it's about a 150 mile radius. And then to get a hold of me, afurman at coldwellhomescom or social media is probably the easiest place to find us. Amanda Furman Collective with Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group Perfect, Awesome, Amanda. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. This has been awesome. Yes, Thank you guys. Both so much for the opportunity and also for creating a business that has helped me elevate my business.
Justin Armbruster:Thank you, thank you.
