Service Sells: Turning Clients Into Lifelong Fans | Nick Bailey

We sit down with Nick Bailey to unpack why repeat and referral businesses beat lead-chasing, how to shift from order taker to advisor, and where tech actually earns its keep. The through line is service that reduces stress and stays memorable long after closing.

• career path across agent, franchise, portals, T360
• why money-making activities drive survival
• moving from transactions to lifetime value
• buyers need real advisors again
• financing literacy and inspection strategy
• tech vs toy and AI that saves time
• brokerage leadership, culture and fit
• practical service that anticipates needs
• tracking ROI through lifetime value and referrals
• 2026 outlook for agent count and sales
• simple systems that prevent repeat client pain points

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Want more insights and strategies to grow your real estate business? Connect with us and follow along for expert tips, industry trends, and more.

Justin Armbruster – https://www.instagram.com/armbruster_jd/

Chad Armbruster – https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadaarmbruster/

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Meet Nick Bailey

Nick Bailey 0:00

Good agents anticipate the unexpected needs and they deliver to the client before they know they need it. They take the stress out of them.

Justin Armbruster 0:36

My name's Justin Armbrowster, I'm a full-time realtor, and with me, Chad Armbrooster, CEO of BizBox. Today we have Nick Bailey joining us. Super excited to get into this one.

Chad Armbruster 0:46

Special guest. We appreciate Nick being here. Nick was an executive at Zillow. He was the CEO of Century 21 and CEO of Remax. Currently, he's the chief real estate officer of T360. Nick, thanks for being here.

Nick Bailey 1:03

Yeah, thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Chad Armbruster 1:05

Great. So you know, just uh uh a little bit, you know, how we got introduced was was kind of interesting. We um started uh to to to get some signups at Bizbox, some agents that came on, and we kind of noticed a pattern. They were all with the same agency over and over again. And so uh our uh main account executive decided to call one and just say, Hey, thanks for signing up. Uh, how'd you hear about us? And they all said, Oh, well, Nick Bailey was speaking at a conference and he said, uh, you know, custom moving boxes uh are a great gift, and this and that, and and and send us our way our our way. So at that point, Sean is his name. He just did some uh some investigation and and said, All right, I gotta call Nick and and thank him for for mentioning us. And and at that point, you I think you had a good conversation with him, and then we just decided to connect. So I appreciate that anyway.

Nick Bailey 2:02

It was a great story. And by the way, you're being too kind. Actually, Sean's words were he called this agent and said, How did you hear about us? And they said, some guy that was speaking to us last week was talking about it. So it wasn't quite Nick Bailey, it was some guy. But hey, it worked. I think and yeah, I've been talking about you for some time, and we'll get into it and talk about the story. This you know, you told me not to make it a commercial about BizBox, but it's a really cool personal story of one of your current clients, which happens to be my personal real estate agent, that how it came together, and we'll get into it. But it's a it's just a pretty cool story how we ended up uh meeting and coming together for this.

Chad Armbruster 2:42

Yeah. So tell us, I guess, tell us about your story,

Nick’s Unusual Start And Career Arc

Chad Armbruster 2:45

how you got into real estate and everything that you did and and where you're at now.

Nick Bailey 2:48

Yeah, sure. You know, my my real estate story started actually in high school. Uh it's ironic. I I kind of had my own business as a teenager. It wasn't real estate specific related, but I needed a space. And so I ended up, I was looking for a space in the small community where I live to rent. And I found a space and the local bank owned it. And I went in and said, Can I rent it? And they said, No, you can buy it. And it was two retail buildings on Main Street. And of course, I was a junior in high school. I didn't know anything about real estate, nor did I have the funds to buy commercial real estate, but they had foreclosed on this property. So they said, go into it, nothing down, and there's already a tenant in one out of the two spaces. And I did it. Uh, and then while I before I went to college when I graduated high school, I bought my first house instead of paying for a dorm. And I didn't realize this was my start to this industry. And so I've I got licensed when I was 21 when I was going to college, and everyone said a part-time college student could never sell real estate. And uh ended up, it's 29 years that I've been licensed, which is crazy to say. It's been a really cool experience. But agent, broker, I'm still a licensed broker 29 years later. Had the opportunity to work in the franchise world for you know a company called Remax. I left and worked on the technology side and then went to the portal side through acquisitions of Trulia and Zillow. Super exciting time to be there. And then I was recruited over about eight years ago to uh lead Century 21 and rebranded that organization. And uh I live here in Denver, Colorado. I never moved to New Jersey where they're headquartered. And throughout this entire journey, I ended up staying in Denver with my family, wife, and two boys, and uh ended up back at REMAX, which was crazy leading that organization. And then a couple of years ago, moved into more of a consulting and speaking. I spend a lot of time speaking within the industry, conferences, events, to brokers, to agents, to just take the lenses and the nearly 30 years of experience and share with others like they did with me.

Justin Armbruster 4:57

How many years were you actually selling with your license? Five. Five.

Nick Bailey 5:03

Um, I I'll I'll say five, but I have a caveat to that, which is the coolest story ever. It was about, I want to say three years ago, I was president and CEO at RE-MAX, and I ended up, I sold five million dollars in real estate the year I was president and CEO, one in one year. And it just happened to be for very close friends. And and my rule is in those roles not to transact, but it was really my wife and I's very best friends. And long story is they sold a couple of properties, then they bought a couple, and then I bought a lot to build a new house. But it was really fun to go on the road in that role and tell people I sold, I was CEO of a major global company and I sold five million bucks in real estate. Funny part is I was speaking in California, nobody clapped. I spoke literally the next week in Ohio and got a standing ovation. So if that doesn't show you the price differences, but that is a true story.

Justin Armbruster 6:02

I appreciate that a lot. Uh being in Northeast Kansas, you know, our average sales price uh is probably close to 200,000. And so when you know you say five million, it's like, hey, that's a full-time gig. You know, you're selling a lot of houses in Northeast Kansas.

Nick Bailey 6:15

That's the top producer. Yeah.

Justin Armbruster 6:16

In California, they're like, what are you doing with all your time?

Nick Bailey 6:19

Yeah. Who did you split a transaction with? But what was great about it when I talked to agents, and I loved to share the story, is we talk about a lot of change in this industry, which is true. But yet there is still something about the foundations of repeat and referral business and relationships. And sure, the tech on how I wrote a contract, how I engaged with the title company, many of those aspects were way more efficient. The systems are still fragmented in many ways, which I know a lot of the prop tech vendors are trying to continue to make better. But it was a really great experience to come in 20 years later and sell real estate and actually be better at it without doing it for 20 years than I was when I did do it. And that was just because of what I learned along the way from really top producers.

Justin Armbruster 7:10

Yeah. So your so after you got done selling, you had some exec roles with uh with Zillow, Remax, Century 21. Uh with Remax and Century 21, were you, I guess, was your day-to-day working with agents as a broker, or were you more of doing top more exec stuff? I guess what was your interaction like with agents?

Nick Bailey 7:29

Yeah, really good question. So obviously leading global organizations. C21 had 128,000 agents in 80 countries. When I went to Remax, 145,000 agents in 110 countries. So very much leading the vision of these companies that were very well established, been around for nearly 50 years. And what does it look like moving forward in the industry? So that's where I spent most of my time. However, with broker owners and franchisees and agents, my main role that I loved was being in front of the membership. And so I spent a fair amount of time in front of agents and brokers helping them work on the business and development. And the reality is statistically, 78, 79% of agents, when they get a license, churn out within five years. And so it was amazing that I could walk in at 40 years old with 20 years experience and be 15 years younger than the average, but have

Lessons From Selling Again At The Top

Nick Bailey 8:30

2x the experience in the industry. And so I ended up taking on kind of a coaching teaching role with agents and brokers through my through my executive roles, uh, because that's what I love to do.

Justin Armbruster 8:43

Yeah. So I was getting ready, I was gonna get into that. Um so with a almost a 79% failure rate, what are some things that you see in maybe a new agent or a a current agent that when you see certain characteristics or qualities in an agent, you just know they're gonna make it. You know, they just started, but you just know. Can you is there some common patterns you've noticed?

Nick Bailey 9:06

I can sum it up in uh what I will call money making activities. You're running your own business as an agent, and there's a lot to do, whether it be marketing and let's just take just listed, just sold, or transaction management. But the reality is if you go a day, two days, or a full business week, and you are not in front of someone that potentially wants to buy or sell, you didn't work. All the things like picking up the dry cleaning, washing the car, making postcards, those are all really important to the business, but they're not money-making activities. They're all ancillary activities. And so that would be number one. Number two is most agents look at this business as transactional, that I'm gonna sell you a house or I'm gonna list your house. And they think about that one-time commission, where when I look at all of the really top producers, I'm talking like the top 10% of agents that sell in the business, there was one common theme, which is they looked at a client not as a one-time client, but a lifetime client. There's no such thing as a past client for top producers. And so those that didn't look at the business transactionally of where's my next deal gonna come from, but really it's who do you know that wants to buy and sell? And it's all about data and or uh database and repeats and referrals. I know that's not fun and sexy and oh my gosh, Nick had the best idea in the world, but it truly is the foundation of the best producers. And that's what I would always see.

Chad Armbruster 10:38

What that reminds me of is um that story you tell about how one of the agents in your office, it was when you were first in the business and you were there. There was only a few people there in the office or whatever, and he walked into your office and said, I don't know why you're here. You need to get out and start seeing people. If you're spending time with realtors, you're not spending time with the right people.

Justin Armbruster 10:57

Yeah. And it's funny that you bring that up. You know, I'm sitting behind my computer working on, you know, Facebook ads or Legion and my website. And, you know, those are all good things. But when you're hunkered down for a week, just working on those things, you're not seeing people. And, you know, people are the lifeblood of your business. I always say that I am not in the housing business. I am in the people business. Houses just sometimes get in the way.

Nick Bailey 11:21

I love that you said that because I have said for years, real estate agents do not sell houses. Houses sell themselves. Now we may help stage them, market them, present them. We sell the process or the service to get people in or out of a house. Um, and so I think once agents understand that they're selling the service to get to the finish line, then all of a sudden they think about how they serve their clientele in a much different way versus I sell houses. Those are where I think the agents churn out of the business.

Justin Armbruster 11:54

Oh, you take the words out of my mouth. I mean, every client I meet with, uh, as I'm doing a you know, buyer consultation or meeting for coffee, I always use the line that uh real estate is the best sales job in the entire world because I'm not really selling you anything. You're gonna know if you like the house or not. I'm just here to help you along the way.

Nick Bailey 12:13

Yeah, and I think the epitome of example of that, I tell people they when I've said this in the past, people kind of

Why Most Agents Fail

Nick Bailey 12:20

hesitate, some do. And I said, here's an example. If I was, when I was selling real estate, if I had a family that maybe had one child and is expecting twins and they were looking for a four-bedroom, there might have been the best deal that was a one-bedroom on the market. I guess I wasn't a very good salesperson because there was nothing I could do to convince uh a family looking at having three kids and maybe more that a one-bedroom was the best deal on the market. And so the reality is they're gonna find what fits their needs. Now, I can help navigate that with them, but bottom line is totally tracking. Uh, the best producers in the world understand exactly what you're talking about.

Chad Armbruster 13:01

I guess I was kind of doing some research and I saw that a few years ago you had said uh that agents had become order takers. That's right. I guess what did you mean by that? And uh has that changed in the last few years?

Nick Bailey 13:15

It has with the market. In fact, I was speaking just a couple of weeks ago, and I asked the room, there were about it was uh not a huge group, about 350 people. And I said, ladies and gentlemen, are we in a buyer's market? And this was just a few weeks ago, because as you know right now, there's a lot of discussion about the market. You wouldn't believe the next few minutes. And I let them go down this rabbit hole as a group of the confusion that was taking place in the room. And I said after I went through this exercise, and I had a lot of data showing that it wasn't a full buyer's market and why. But the reality of the exercise was if there's confusion in this room, think of what consumers are experiencing. And we are have to be the voice of reason and the experts for our database and our sphere. They're looking to us to guide should I buy or sell? Is now a good time to buy? All these questions that have surfaced. Whereas you rewind three or four years ago and I met order takers, a new listing hit. There are agents that left their kids' soccer game because they knew they had to race and speed over to get there first to show them. And I said, So, what I love about the market right now is consumers, let's be honest, didn't need you as much three or four years ago. They may need access how fast you could have written an offer, maybe how you negotiated multi-offers. But right now, consumers need an agent more than they have in the last five years. And so if agents think about that, they are the trusted advisor, they either need to know the market, know financing, that's one thing. Agents haven't had to know financial financing options in a while, um, as well as they need to know them today, because it is more of a hurdle for buyers. And so that's a great example that if you don't know these components, then you need to learn them to be the trusted advisor.

Justin Armbruster 15:15

Yeah, I even think uh, you know, three or four years ago, our value was significantly reduced. Uh, you know, with how quickly things would be selling, you know, you're you're right. We they didn't need us as bad as they do now. And I'd argue that today, not only do they need an agent more, but they need an agent who knows what they're doing. They need an agent who's in the trenches every day, who knows the financing options. This is an opportunity for agents to really show their value because it's a lot more difficult. I think financing is just the tip of the spear on the intricacies of the value that an agent can provide today that maybe they wouldn't have been able to three or four years ago. Think home inspections. Three or four years ago, we weren't doing a ton of them. So, did an agent need to know about the uh the the best inspectors or the contractors to make sure things get taken care of afterwards? No, but today, you know, you get to really flex your value when uh all these problems arise that we didn't have three or four years ago.

Nick Bailey 16:13

Yeah, and even though it's not a quote official buyer's market, I don't believe it is, buyers have more leverage than they did a couple of years ago. So the equilibrium side is is more there. And so the idea of a buyer coming in with two pages on an inspection list for resolution, that didn't happen. And so to navigate, that's different. I'm gonna throw out one example for your audience. If you have agents listening and we talk about knowing mortgage products, I'm gonna say this how many of you know what an all-in-one mortgage is? And I say that in front of rooms. Yeah. I rarely have, I know I have less than 1% that know what that product is, but it's one of the newest, best products out there, especially for higher net worth individuals or executives. It's a really interesting mortgage product. Um, and I won't go into what it is, but for your listeners, if you don't know what it is, that's an example of go find out. I'm gonna go find out.

Chad Armbruster 17:11

So um, what are some of I guess the biggest misconceptions? Uh, you know, maybe agents who are first getting into the business or trying to build a business that they might have about building a real estate business.

Nick Bailey 17:24

That it's easy and it's a get-rich scheme, and you get to wear nice clothes and and uh flexible hours. That's the one I love. Yeah. Um all of which are true if you know how to manage your time and communication well. Um, I I think the other major misconception is how you have to have systems and organization, they really will help you out

From Order Taker To Advisor

Nick Bailey 17:50

in the end. And I I think a lot of agents get into the business and just fly by the seat of their pants. And I know that because uh, Your Honor, I was guilty. I wish the first five years that I sold, I would have been able to have the experience of being surrounded by the the thousands of top producers I've met since then. Um but going back, looking at lead generation out of your sphere as the number one thing that you should focus on. And as long as you do that, there will always be someone that's calling you to do business. The rest of the details will come together.

Justin Armbruster 18:30

Uh so being with several different brokerages and speaking at uh all sorts of different events, you're probably very well versed with you know the options that agents have when it comes to where they want to hang their license. What uh if you were talking to an agent, uh what kind of expectations would you set for an agent? What is the role of a brokerage and what makes a brokerage a good place to be at versus not? Because I, you know, agents always think the there's always the grass is always greener. I'm gonna go over to this new brokerage, or I'm gonna go try this. And what would you have to say with the the role of a brokerage to an agent?

Nick Bailey 19:02

Find brokerage leadership, whether it's the owner, whether it's a manager that fits with what you want to do in the business. There are agents that want to get in and be a solo agent, maybe for their entire career, and that's okay. There are other agents that want to come in and build a team and then build a mega team. So it depends on what your what your goals are. But the number one thing is culture fit. Now, unfortunately, too many times I think people join offices or change offices because they take into consideration first what is the brokerage going to charge me to be there, whether it's flat fee, whether it's via a split, however you slice and dice, the reality is when you're an agent in a brokerage, you are going to provide the brokerage some type of revenue to help support you as an agent. Now, whether you need a lot of training and support, whether you need a little bit. That's all going to depend on you as the agent. But I will tell you it's leadership and culture and where you believe you're going to fit and feel comfortable. Now, when people change offices, here's the one thing I see they love to blame the company that they're at because the new company has this and you don't have this. Or sometimes it's inherent in the nature of salespeople. Sometimes agents need to make a change to reinvigorate themselves. I literally just spoke to an agent that sells over a hundred million dollars a year in real estate. She's only 41, 42. She's second generation, two children. She's an amazing agent. She calls me tears and I said, Amanda, what is going on? She said, I just don't know if I need to make a change. There was nothing wrong with her current company. It was she needed to reinvigorate herself after the grind of 25 years. And so I see agents change a lot for that reason, too. And I think that's okay.

Chad Armbruster 21:04

What I like about this interview is I most of the people we interviewed wouldn't be able to uh talk about what you just said. Somebody, you know, knowing somebody who does $100 million in business and that. So I mean, you've worked with these elite producers around the world. Uh, what, you know, makes them so great at building a referral-driven business?

Justin Armbruster 21:26

Two things. One is But before we get into that, the Outside the Box podcast is all about repeat and referral business. And great realtors know that the key is serving their clients.

Chad Armbruster 21:37

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Justin Armbruster 21:47

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Chad Armbruster 21:57

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Justin Armbruster 22:10

Stand out with BizBox while your competitors end up in the trash. Now, back to the show.

Nick Bailey 22:15

Obviously, keeping in contact. The average consumer only uses us, us agents, three times in their entire life. I literally, literally, my neighbor right next door, they just listed their house a few weeks ago. Three weeks on the market had one showing. And we live in a neighborhood that we have not had in the last five years a house sit on the market for more than five days. There are only 43 homes in this neighborhood. We back a thousand-acre bison reserve. It's very easy to sell a house in this neighborhood when it's done right. And they called me and said, Would you come over? We know your background. I hadn't spent a lot of time with them talking real estate. And we walked through kind of what's going on with our house and why it's not working. But the reality was they said to me something really important. We haven't done this in 17 years. And so here you have really smart people. They're retired, really like exceptionally successful people. And but the idea that they said, but we need some help with this, we haven't done it in 17 years. And so I think agents forget that the fact that consumers don't use us on a regular basis, maybe

Misconceptions And Money Activities

Nick Bailey 23:40

one or two or three times, the most sophisticated successful people in the world still need our advice. And so when people say, Oh, I had a really good agent, we bought a house about five years ago, and they can't even remember their first name. And so that's a big thing, is really keeping in touch. And the second thing is, and this goes into how I um with my agent Susie, that's a a BizBox client, and I've got to talk about it because it's just a great story, is is the service level. Moving is stressful. It's really stressful. And my my personal assistant, I love telling stories. This is also, I only tell like true stories. My executive assistant that I had at REMAX, she's been there for like 25, 30 years. Uh, she called me this past weekend and she said, her and her husband haven't moved in nearly 20 years, and they're thinking about moving. She doesn't like change. And she calls me NB and she said, NB, what do we do? And I'm really nervous about this. I don't know if we we want to retire. We need to get a ranch style. The stairs hurt my knees. I mean, it was all this classic stuff that we hear. She said, but I told my husband, moving is so stressful. Maybe we should just stay here. And so, long story, the reason I tell it, and going back to Susie, my agent that's one of your clients, is what Susie's really good at, and where your company, I think, provides just a tremendous service, is good agents anticipate the unexpected needs that a client has and they deliver to the client before they know they need it, i.e., they take the stress out of moving. And when a good agent eliminates as much as they can or reduces the anxiety, they will remember your name, you keep in touch, and they are so happy to tell their friends and family this is who you have to use. And that's how you build a successful repeat and referral business. It's not hard. It really isn't hard. Um, but you have to, it's almost like if you're a really good server in a restaurant, and we've all had them, you know, those people that you just have an amazing experience in a restaurant, but you hardly even know the servers there. Everything just went beautifully. You didn't have to ask, can I get more water? Can I get something else? It's almost like they're reading into your brain that they just are paying attention. And I think people that have the DNA in this business of recognizing behavior and anxiety and know how to eliminate it, this is the best career they'll ever have.

Justin Armbruster 26:30

I think what's really cool about that and an opportunity that agents have uh to provide that level of service and what makes it easy is our business is so repeatable. The same stress points that your past clients have, your future ones are gonna have too. Whether that's you know, they need boxes to move and you can provide those, that's awesome. Whether it's the they get to closing and you do your final walkthrough and they realize they didn't turn on the utilities, it's like, well, that's gonna happen if you don't remind them. Or, you know, you get a week after closing and they sent an Amazon package to their old house, like that's gonna happen. You can alleviate some of those pain points just by being organized and prepared by, you know, a week before, letting them know to schedule their utilities. Um, you know, a couple days before, remind them to change their Amazon shipping address and show them how to do it in a graphic. Uh I mean, there's and the list goes on and on on how you can just be systematically prepared to solve all those problems before they happen because you know they're gonna happen.

Nick Bailey 27:32

Uh, so where were you? I just got a text last week from uh the buyer who bought our house, and my wife sent in two Amazon packages to their house. Now, this has happened for a year and a half, and they hate us. Uh, so that was one thing that wasn't done. But through this process, I I mean, I know you don't want this a shameless plug on your product, but I've got to tell the story because I think it's super helpful

Picking The Right Brokerage

Nick Bailey 27:55

to agents. So we sold our personal residence. Um, it's two years ago. We moved into we built a home and we we didn't know. Custom home took almost two years longer, not two years, two years longer than we thought. And so we didn't know when we were gonna move. But coming down to your service, our agent Suzy, I'm gonna give her a plug. Susie Wargen, she's at Remax Alliance, um, South Denver, tremendous agent. Hard after 30 years to surprise and delight me. And by the way, I was president and CEO of Remax at the time. One, try to select an agent when you're in that role. Two, no one wants to be your agent. Uh Susie was up to the challenge and she said, Nick, I won't treat you as any different than I do any other client. And of course, she was with the brand that I was leading. And so specifically, here's what happened. She said, We're going to not list your house for 10 days. And she had this whole thing mapped out. We're going to do this on Monday, this on Tuesday. She said, Then I'm going to have my house cleaners come in. And I almost, my wife and I were almost insulted because we are meticulous and I'm in real estate. Uh, but she said, nope, here's what I do. My cleaning crew comes in. The next day, our my stager is gonna come in. I look at her and I said, We don't need a stager. I know how to do this, but I wasn't allowed to talk back. I had to just go along with the process. And her stager came in, which by the way, she had some great ideas. Here's where Bizbox came in. She told me the next day on Wednesday that I would get a PDF from the stager that morning, and it would outline everything that we had talked about, and the doorbell rings. And so I open it, it looks like Amazon delivery, and here is this beautiful package of moving boxes. And her face is all over the side, just like you've got the background here. And I pause for a minute, and I my first thought was, Oh, that's nice, but I don't need moving boxes. We're not even on the market yet. We haven't moved. Lo and behold, guess what we did that evening? True story. We took that PDF from our stager and we used two out of the, there were like 30 or 40 boxes in there. Tape, bubble wrap, everything we needed. We took two of those boxes and we put a few things that the stager told us that we needed to do, which were great ideas. If we hadn't had that unexpected delight service, guess where I would have been? Home Depot, buying boxes. Because we don't we don't keep those things. We are we are not clutter people. And so it's a really cool story. Um, not only for the surprise and delight of anticipating the need that we needed boxes before we even knew that we needed them. And yet at the same time, her wonderful face is imprinted on the side. And I've said, you know what's hurting repeat and referral business? Stainless steel appliances, because your magnet and your calendar doesn't stick to it anymore. It's true. But even though we unpack immediately, like our house was done. 48 hours later, we had a party. Every picture hung, every box was gone. But we still, if you open our closet in the hallway, there are still two of Susie's boxes that every time we get a towel, there's her smiling face, and we remember her. And so I think it was twofold on how to create an amazing experience

Building A Referral-First Business

Nick Bailey 31:30

for us that we didn't know we needed, and how to develop repeat and referral that we'll never forget who she is. And yes, I'm in the business, and I stand on stage and tell everybody about this almost every presentation I give. But I was just telling my wife, literally before I got in this call, I've referred her five clients in the last 12 months. And so, agents, if you're listening, this stuff works. Don't think of it as spending $40 to $150 for a service like this. But if you take five transactions and our average price point, pretty amazing investment. Pretty good ROI.

Chad Armbruster 32:14

Well, and I'm glad you brought that up. And uh sometimes I hear that about you know, ROI, what's the ROI? And I I mean, uh it's kind of like, okay, I assume marketing dollars, if you're building your business around repeat and referral business, uh, it seems like it would be very difficult, no matter what you're doing, to track our ROI when you're trying to stay in front and build that that database. I mean, how how would you how would you, when agents come to you and say, well, what's the ROI on something like that? I mean, how would you respond?

Nick Bailey 32:48

I respond honestly, which is the fact that agents aren't good at tracking that. And I don't think there's anything that I can say that's gonna tell them to do it, other than introducing one line every time you meet a new client. How did you hear about me?

Chad Armbruster 33:03

Yep.

Nick Bailey 33:05

Always. I mean, and I have another story of a broker out of Texas that leads right into AI, truly had an incoming, not a repeat referral, but a new client, 80-year-old um gentleman that his family owned this huge strip center. The dollar store was closing and said, Will you list the building? This is millions of dollars of uh of a listing transaction. And he's a great broker, great agent, and said, How did you hear about me? He said, I asked Chat GPT, because he didn't live in the area where they own this, who the best agent was. But to my point, this isn't an AI conversation, but to my point, he was so good in saying, How did you hear about me? And he went, click, I'm getting a multi-million dollar listing. Now I know where to focus my marketing dollars. And so I think if you ask the questions, your clients will map out the ROI for you, and you don't need a spreadsheet to do it.

Justin Armbruster 34:06

Yeah, and I even think because I I as a realtor myself I battle that all the time. What's the ROI on this or this or that? And I think a short answer is you know, you won't be able to know. You know, what's the ROI on biz boxes? I don't know. What's the ROI on, you know, map calendar magnets or what's the ROI on, you know, paying for the house cleaner? I don't know. But I know I had, you know, 19 referrals this year that all closed and those all feed into that. It's like that's gotta mean something. You know, if you really wanted to track it, you could find a way to do it. But just knowing that you're not gonna have an ROI, it's not a uh a row as a return on your ad spend kind of thing, but it's just uh, you know, it all works together. And if you provide this high-level service, good things will come and just trust in the process.

Nick Bailey 34:54

Yeah, that's right. Well, and I also think when we go back to the lifetime value, I have a very good friend, um Jared James, uh great friend of mine, and he's a coach in the real estate business. He has been for years. And he started selling real estate. He talks a lot about the lifetime value, and he said, let's just say the average commission in your area is $10,000 for a round number. Most agents, when I talked about it at the top of this being transactional, they'll look at one client and say they're worth $10,000. If they had a sign over their head that said $178,000 instead of $10,000, how would you deliver service or follow up or keep in touch with them? And the reality is that's how much one client is worth if you keep in touch and do this level of service. So I'd say an easy way to track it is anybody that's bought or sold with you, if they buy or sell with you again, or you know specifically they sent someone to you as a referral, you should take all the money you spend in your marketing activities that touch them, add that up, and then see what you've generated on them. And that'll very quickly tell you if you're spending money in the right areas. Yeah, absolutely.

Chad Armbruster 36:06

Yeah, that's a great answer. So now you had brought up the tech side and AI, I guess. Uh, you know, we all chase after the the shiny new thing. Um, you know, as far as agents go and digital tools and tech, I guess. Do you see some that are worthy of money and time and some that are time wasters? Uh, do you have an opinion on that?

Nick Bailey 36:28

I do. I'm a I'm a big proponent of tech. I always have been in the in the business, and it's amazing though. I have one talk I do, it's one of my favorites. I call it, is it a tech or toy? And I use the example of remember the first generation iPad? Uh I got it for Christmas. This wasn't a setup. I didn't even know we were gonna talk about it. Look, I have it right here in my desk drawer. It won't even turn on anymore. I thought it was gonna be amazing. I keep it as a prop when I speak. I thought it was gonna be amazing. I wouldn't maybe have to carry my laptop on the airplane. And but what I realized is it really didn't do much. Or if you wanted to project, you had to have a special cable and it couldn't charge while you project. It just didn't fill the need. What I realized is all I had was a big screen television for my airplane rides. And yet everyone said it

Stress, Service, And The Moving Boxes Story

Nick Bailey 37:20

was gonna be the best tool for real estate. Now, fast forward, tablets are amazing today. The the tech has evolved. But when it even comes to let's just take AI, obviously being the hot topic of the day, we're all gonna use it. It's all built into tools today, but there are so many companies out there that are talking about the features of AI, but they're not talking about the output or the results that it creates. And so it's I I get to see so many of these prop tech firms, especially in the role that I'm in with the organization of T360 because tech and consulting clients, that's a big part of what we do. And I look at some of the agents that sign up for some of these things and I ask them is this getting you a buyer or seller or getting you a commission? And it's amazing how some of them freeze. Yeah, but it's really cool it does this. But does it really get you a buyer-seller or commission check? And I think it's just a really good sanity check. It's like apps. We all know, right? We all have them. We have hardware, software that we think does really cool stuff, but sometimes it takes more time and doesn't let us focus on the things that we actually need to. So whether it be specific items, I like to generalize it and say, whatever you spend time, make sure it's related to money-making activities.

Chad Armbruster 38:45

So you had mentioned T3, I guess. What exactly is T3? Uh, what do they do? I kind of heard some rumblings about the 2026 trends report. So tell us a little bit about that.

Nick Bailey 38:56

Yeah, it just came out. So T360 has been around um since '97. Stefan Swanipool, a lot of people know the Swanipool Trends Report. Um, it's the largest uh residential real estate consultancy and research firm in the US. Um, so all the things around research and consulting for this business. And so, yeah, check it out. The new trends report just came out a few weeks ago, literally this thick. Five major trends that are happening in the industry going into 2026. And so we we rank the top thousand brokerages in the United States. We we do the rankings of the top companies and a lot of research around it. We do a lot of things too with getting into mortgage, things like Rocket, Redfin, Portal, Zillow, homes that people want to know kind of what's the inside scoop outside of just the headlines. And so if you want to get an inside track and see what we think is the roadmap to 2021. That's the type of research that we share with agents and brokers that might help map your business plan a little bit. And then we do lots of consulting with technology companies, brokerages, and all of that. But we're essentially the underground of the industry, of knowing we know more about every brokerage, every competitor, every trend that's happening. And so this is like a vault of secret information. But we're able to publish some of the major trends that we see coming out of those relationships.

Justin Armbruster 40:32

That's interesting. Uh full disclosure. I had no idea what it was you were doing now. And so I uh that was super intriguing, uh intriguing. Are you familiar with uh uh Brian Buffini and what they're doing in their coaching industry?

Nick Bailey 40:45

He's a very good friend of mine. Yes.

Justin Armbruster 40:46

Okay.

Chad Armbruster 40:47

I don't know if you've heard of him.

Justin Armbruster 40:49

Well, I don't want to name drop it and make Nick feel better. No, I don't know. Uh I just got done watching his uh his 2026 projections, his uh predictions um that he did. Very well done, by the way. Yeah, I think.

Nick Bailey 41:02

His stage was super cool too.

Justin Armbruster 41:04

Yes, super cool. So his the two things I took, I mean, there's a lot of information there. The two things I took, some of the points he hammered home, were in 2026, he's predicting 20% uh of agents will will drop their license. And he's he's project uh predicting 14% increase in home sales across America. Do you, I guess with some of your background and what you know, would you uh you have an opinion on those predictions?

Nick Bailey 41:30

Yeah, I I'm trying to think. So on the 20% of licensees, let's talk net count, I I believe he's too high. Okay. And by the way, I'm supposed to call, I'm supposed to talk to his brother Dermot this afternoon. So it's funny you brought his name up. And uh by the way, I've been personally coached by that organization. So I think very highly of them. But anyway, I think the 20% is too high. I forecasted a couple of years ago that even based on the churn that I mentioned earlier, that the vast majority of agents churn out within five years, is you're gonna naturally have that churn. That's that's gonna happen every single year. The 20%, I think he he's referring to net. So if we have 1.4 million realtors, will we have 20% less even uh even with the churn and the new licensees? The reality is, I think with the market increase, most of the major churn that's in double digits has happened in the last two years. Now, my forecasts were a little more aggressive two years ago for the number of agents that would drop out. And ironically, given historical trends, more licensees stayed in. I expected we'd go from 1.6 million realtors. I thought we'd hit 1.2 to 1.25 by now. And we're still on the realtor side. There are more people licensed that are non-realtors, but you know, we're still hovering around that 1.4. So I'm gonna guess by the end of next year we're pretty flat. So I'm gonna have to get into a debate with Brian on this. I know it'll be a healthy one. Uh transaction-wise, let's see, I'm gonna calculate real quick

ROI, Lifetime Value, And Tracking

Nick Bailey 43:10

because I'm thinking percentage. I had forecasted because I gave the raw number, I was 4.7, 4.8 million transactions that I believe we'll have in 2026. So I was probably right around his number of 14. I might have been around 16 to 17 percent higher.

Justin Armbruster 43:27

Well, that's interesting, especially the new home sales going up and you know, agents going down. It sounds bad, but as a full-time realtor, you know, I want everyone to be successful. I wish everyone could make it, but at the same time, it's like less agents and more home sales. That sounds great.

Nick Bailey 43:44

Well, it sums up this way the barriers of entry to get into this business are very low. It's easy to get a real estate license, news flash. The barriers of success in this business are extremely high. Yep. And it's funny, every time someone gets a license and they say, There need to be less agents in this business, and not enough of them are qualified, but they got into the business easily as well. I think here's the deal the market doesn't slow down, agents do. The market doesn't speed up, agents do. And so this is case in point of agents that have been around for 25, 30 years selling real estate. It was like when I sold real estate, I found agents starting in November, December, January holidays. Uh, nothing's gonna sell at seasonality. Do you know year after year for the five years that I full-time sold? My biggest months were um December and January. Because where was the competition? Good agents made their money in the summer or the fall, and so they kind of stepped away. And I came up and cleaned up the scraps. And so I think it's totally up to an agent at the end of the day. All my predictions, there's only one that I'm ever right on. I know this 100% for 26, people are gonna buy and sell. Yeah, they just are. I don't care all the macroeconomics and the interest rates and all that affects our business. I get it. It may go up a few hundred thousand transactions, it may go down. But the reality is people are gonna buy and sell. That's not the question. The question is what agents are gonna be there to help those buyers and sellers. And so you can have a great business. People during the Great Recession, it was different, it was hard, foreclosures, short sales, but there were some agents that had great businesses during that time. So markets slow down, they speed up, but that's not the reason agents are successful. Agents speed up and slow down. That's the reason they're successful or not.

Chad Armbruster 45:42

Love it. Yeah, that's great. So I I mean, as far as I'm just kind of hearing you say that the the business, although there's you know, changes on the fringe and things like that, AI coming along, essentially the business is the same, it'll remain the same. It's about those agents who do a good job at basically building re repeat and referral business. Uh I mean, that's more or less, it seems like that. That's your opinion. Is that right?

Nick Bailey 46:05

It is. And and then the things, little things. Agents should never write a listing description again. They should never have to do a manual CMA again. So that's where the tech tools, and you talk about specific ones, there's so many of those things that I used to spend three to four hours on a CMA 29 years ago. I did one for my neighbors, I told you, that wanted some help. I peeled that baby off in eight minutes and took over a more robust report to their house than their agent gave them. So that's an example of yes, Chad, to your point, the foundation of repeats and referrals and relationships is still going to drive how you get more people, more buyers and sellers. Using the tech to offload those unnecessary tasks, I think is just a key to being efficient and being able to get more buyers and sellers. But the foundation of the business, no one's talking about right now. Not talking about Susie giving me moving boxes to change my life. Everyone's only talking about, or my moving experience, everyone's only talking about the tech side. And so I think fast forward a year from now, two years from now, you're gonna hear a lot more people saying, Oh, we only talked about AI for three years. We forgot to talk about moving boxes, cleaning services, stagers. We forgot to talk about all how important that stuff is.

Justin Armbruster 47:29

Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. Will you want to switch to some rapid fire questions and get Nick out of here?

Chad Armbruster 47:33

Yeah, there you go.

Justin Armbruster 47:34

Cool. Well, we like to end our time on outside the box with some rapid fire questions, just some either-ores that we'll hit you with.

Nick Bailey 47:41

Let me know what am I nervous? Because you didn't tell me what these are gonna be. So I know.

Justin Armbruster 47:44

Rapid fire, Nick. We don't mess around here. Okay, I'm not scared. Okay. Uh book or audiobook? Audiobook. Audiobook. Podcast or audiobook? Podcast. Okay. Uh you have a podcast you're listening

Tech Or Toy: Choosing Tools That Pay

Justin Armbruster 48:00

to listening to that you think realtors should listen to?

Nick Bailey 48:02

I'm glad you clarified that realtors should listen to because there's one I'm listening to that is I I'm not even gonna say what it is. It's just one of those. I I listen to it in the car to the airport. Um, and it's nothing to do with business. It doesn't expand my brain, but it's just entertainment for me. Um, okay, realtors need to listen to your podcast. How about they listen to ours? Ask T3 is a great one.

Justin Armbruster 48:29

Yeah.

Nick Bailey 48:30

Um, I think BAM is great with Byron. I think that's a great one as well. And I think James DeWiggins and Keith Robinson do a great job on theirs too. Love it. Yep.

Justin Armbruster 48:41

Big fan of the BAM guys. I listened to all their stuff. They're great. Nick, hey, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate you giving us a minute and um letting our listeners listen to the wisdom you got. We're super grateful.

Nick Bailey 48:50

Yeah, likewise. And I hope I wasn't too commercially on your product, but as you can tell, I know that's not the reason I was on today, but I'm a I'm a super fan of what you're doing and how you're happy.

Justin Armbruster 49:01

One final question. Where can people find you at? If they want to follow your stuff, you mentioned you have a podcast, are you on socials? Where can people find you?

Nick Bailey 49:07

Yeah, absolutely. I go by broker Bailey on a lot of stuff, but you can type my name into most anything and you'll find me pretty pretty quickly. I can also go to t360.com.

Justin Armbruster 49:16

Cool.

Nick Bailey 49:17

Even ChatGPT. You will find me there. If you enter my name in ChatGPT, you will find out a lot about me.

Justin Armbruster 49:22

I love it. Cool. Nick, hey, thanks for your time. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, guys.