Learn how Jay Miller built a #1 selling real estate team

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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:08] SPEAKER_02: As I always do, you're the subject of this podcast.
[00:15] SPEAKER_02: So tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what you're doing today, kind of thing.
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: Okay well thanks so much for having me fill up. I really appreciate it.
[00:24] SPEAKER_00: I was excited to jump on today.
[00:26] SPEAKER_00: So I'm a realtor. I own, I'm a realtor but I, it's a little different because I own a real estate brokerage.
[00:33] SPEAKER_00: So I'm the broker of recordant owner and it's an independent company.
[00:37] SPEAKER_00: So it's not a, you know, a sub corporation or anything like that under one of the majors.
[00:43] SPEAKER_00: I used to be a remax guy and I wanted more autonomy and such.
[00:47] SPEAKER_00: So I moved off and I'm an independent now.
[00:50] SPEAKER_00: So it's a little bit more of an entrepreneurial build.
[00:56] SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, that means you're an entrepreneur because you obviously been in real estate and that's, that's basically, you know,
[01:05] SPEAKER_02: a self-survival business, but basically based on your own, you know, on abilities and performance.
[01:13] SPEAKER_02: What made you decide to become an entrepreneur?
[01:16] SPEAKER_00: You know what? It was always there when I was a kid.
[01:21] SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I always had business ideas.
[01:24] SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I had my own driveway ceiling business when I was a teenager.
[01:29] SPEAKER_00: With a partner I had, I had a glass cleaning business where I work taxi to the tails and at the time I had long hair and I said,
[01:37] SPEAKER_00: class, do your glass and I used to clean windows.
[01:40] SPEAKER_00: So always coming up with ideas and I used to carry a little micro cassette recorder.
[01:46] SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember though.
[01:48] SPEAKER_02: I'm old enough.
[01:50] SPEAKER_00: I used to write an idea.
[01:52] SPEAKER_00: I used to just, so they would be fresh in my mind.
[01:55] SPEAKER_00: I would tell the recorder ideas.
[01:56] SPEAKER_00: I'd be standing at a bus stop as a kid, you know, saying, you know, different ideas.
[02:00] SPEAKER_00: You know, I had, I had one idea before buck stores were really big, the, the dollar stores and there was no dollar ram.
[02:08] SPEAKER_00: There was like, by way, and a few of these other kind of discount stores, but there wasn't really dollar stores.
[02:14] SPEAKER_00: And I had one idea back then.
[02:16] SPEAKER_00: I was going to call it, who gives a buck?
[02:21] SPEAKER_00: So I was always, always thinking of ideas and yeah, entrepreneurial.
[02:25] SPEAKER_00: So real estate was a natural progression when I became, you know, when I became an adult and had to give it a more assertive.
[02:35] SPEAKER_02: Did you grow up in an entrepreneurial family?
[02:38] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my dad was a, he was a salesperson for various, he was an industrial mechanical salesperson for selling valves.
[02:48] SPEAKER_00: But he started a few different entrepreneurial.
[02:54] SPEAKER_02: That's often happened.
[02:56] SPEAKER_02: You know, for people who are listening for you, what's the best thing about being an entrepreneur versus having a job?
[03:03] SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not easier.
[03:06] SPEAKER_00: It's, it's, that's one thing people think, you know, you have more flexibility with your time and all that.
[03:11] SPEAKER_00: You do, but you have to be so invested that you're really dull.
[03:15] SPEAKER_00: So I would say it's, I love the creative component.
[03:18] SPEAKER_00: I'm a creative person. So I just love the, the whole idea of, of creating.
[03:27] SPEAKER_00: You know, whatever it is, the product, the service, how you're going to do it, the look, the feel of your company, all of these different things are just, they're really important to, I think, creativity is, is the variable in business that makes one business superior or lack of a better word than another.
[03:46] SPEAKER_02: Okay. So, you know, your industry partly because of the pandemic and the change, but I mean, that can, every industry has changed or is changing.
[04:01] SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's, that's nothing new.
[04:05] SPEAKER_02: What do you see is, you know, where's the real estate business going over the next, you know, sort of Janet, which is a decade, basically.
[04:16] SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a very interesting question because I've pondered this a bit.
[04:21] SPEAKER_00: Your real estate as this sort of sales force kind of situation is relatively new, as far as, you know, the history of it, you know, years and years ago, I mean, there was a lot of private deals.
[04:36] SPEAKER_00: And then if you look into the 50s and 60s and 70s, maybe more so in the 70s, but before that, there was the odd real term in the neighborhood kind of thing houses with sell for $20,000, you got a seven percent commission.
[04:47] SPEAKER_00: It was all different like that. So the money wasn't an attractor. And then as it sort of house prices, especially in the greater Toronto area went up, the real estate, our industry started to boom.
[04:59] SPEAKER_00: And then you started seeing real estate teams and bigger brokerages and these sort of like build outs. And what's interesting about that is that the governing bodies, I still find they're trying to catch up like Rico and Treble.
[05:13] SPEAKER_00: Like there's this build and this rules and regulations that are quaint there yet. So it's a bit of the wild west. I'll be honest with you. And you've got to really watch because, you know, the code of ethics, like everybody's trying to reassertry and just recently, a real meaning to your Ontario real estate association.
[05:33] SPEAKER_00: And recently, I've made the course two years. So it's a two year course to get your real estate broker's license. People used to get it in three weeks. So it's this growth, kind of like the law society, right?
[05:47] SPEAKER_00: They kind of build into what it is. And so I think you're going to see it become more professional as time goes on. I think it'll be able, you know, you'll have to have more education.
[05:59] SPEAKER_00: I think that in the future, if house prices stay where they are, they're going to be downward pressure for sure on commissions. And I think there will be a lot of change actually.
[06:11] SPEAKER_00: I really do. I think it's a kind of a new way it's boomed when I started. There was 17,000 realtors on the Toronto real estate board. And now there's around 60.
[06:22] SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know people I say you throw a rock you hit a realtor. Everybody in their go is a realtor. So, so I think, yeah, I think we're in for a lot of change. I think there will be some attrition with the education. There will be some some attrition with just competitiveness in the industry and such. So yeah, a lot of change coming up.
[06:44] SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, you've grown your business over the last what 20 years.
[06:49] SPEAKER_02: 18, 18.
[06:52] SPEAKER_02: What's been the greatest challenge you've faced in your business today that you've managed to overcome? I mean that you can pass on to others that might hit a similar kind of challenge.
[07:05] SPEAKER_00: I would say that for realtors, and probably for all entrepreneurs is the 24, 7 component is difficult for people. I embraced it.
[07:19] SPEAKER_00: But, but I think that was one of the keys to the success was that component of just you're always working.
[07:24] SPEAKER_00: And I used to look at it like if I could get a couple hours off in a day, not like a week off or two days or a week and or anything, nothing like that ever.
[07:35] SPEAKER_00: But it a couple hours where I could really try to decompress or spend time with my kids. I found that that was really helpful.
[07:43] SPEAKER_00: I would always carve out a time on Friday night from my wife and myself. And then I had these little things called kids.
[07:50] SPEAKER_00: I used to come home and see my kids between four and six and then back out to appointments after.
[07:56] SPEAKER_00: So I think that being an entrepreneur, being in a real estate broker is 24, 7.
[08:02] SPEAKER_00: I think that's tough on people.
[08:03] SPEAKER_00: And they're they're always waiting for a vacation. And then they the minute they book the vacation, they get busy with business.
[08:09] SPEAKER_00: So I think it's finding that mindset where you can carve out periods of time in a day.
[08:17] SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of your time.
[08:19] SPEAKER_02: Do you even even pretty successful?
[08:21] SPEAKER_02: Like successful, Jay.
[08:23] SPEAKER_02: You know, if you could go back, say 15 years, what advice would you give yourself that you know might have made it easier?
[08:35] SPEAKER_00: You know, back to the work ethic.
[08:37] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[08:38] SPEAKER_00: I think I think that I took a, you know, a rocky approach, you know, cut me, Mick.
[08:46] SPEAKER_00: You know, I took that approach to the business. Sometimes I just would outwork the next guy and I, and since then, my modus operandi has changed a lot.
[08:58] SPEAKER_00: You know, not just becoming more experienced and smarter, but just a component of sort of operating from a point of connection and sort of like, you know, sort of like the oneness of all of everything and just being this, it's just a more, it's actually more spiritual truthfully.
[09:23] SPEAKER_00: But it's, it's a, it's not quite so just like puzzle and grind.
[09:30] SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of that and I know and I know what people believe that and you do need to work hard. Absolutely.
[09:36] SPEAKER_00: But the working smart and the, and the component of real true connection through energy is most important because that's that really helps.
[09:48] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, moving on to kind of mentoring. You know what, we've, we've all had great.
[09:55] SPEAKER_02: You don't have tons of mentors, but there's, you know, one or two that you keep.
[10:00] SPEAKER_02: What's the best piece of advice that you've ever received from from a mentor?
[10:07] SPEAKER_02: And you use, you know, that those are the, that's the advice you constantly come back to.
[10:13] SPEAKER_02: What?
[10:15] SPEAKER_00: Interesting. I would probably say that the, the mindset.
[10:22] SPEAKER_00: So in business, we get this, hit this feeling that it's like you need to, you need to beat the other person or it's like get yours before someone else beats you to it.
[10:32] SPEAKER_00: That, that is, there's this mental thing, this competitiveness, this situation that this kind of that goes on inside of our brains.
[10:39] SPEAKER_00: And realizing that there's enough for everybody and that good guys don't, good guys don't finish last. They run a different race.
[10:50] SPEAKER_00: I think that was really huge for me. You know, like you're just, you're running a, it's a better race. It's a more fulfilling race.
[10:58] SPEAKER_00: And you just, and there's enough for everybody and, and that's really helps because it's very stressful being in that where you feel.
[11:07] SPEAKER_00: You know, competitive or jealous or whatever it is inside your business around what somebody else is doing.
[11:16] SPEAKER_00: It's, there's enough for everybody and you just do your work, you stand your lane, focus, and you just run a better race.
[11:24] SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, we'll hit challenges that we don't expect.
[11:29] SPEAKER_02: You know, have you found a way to handle those ones?
[11:38] SPEAKER_02: You know, because they come up once or twice a year or once or twice a decade depending on the size of them.
[11:49] SPEAKER_02: Have you been doing it long enough? Have you found a way to get around that wall kind of thing?
[11:56] SPEAKER_02: The process?
[11:59] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely. There's, you know, it's, we don't, I mean, there's so many, so many platitudes on social media that when you say one of them,
[12:08] SPEAKER_00: it just sounds like another platitude, right? But the truth is, if you, if you approach your difficulties or the sufferings you go through or your, just the fact that you don't, you don't lose, you learn.
[12:22] SPEAKER_00: If you approach it from that standpoint, there's something in there for you.
[12:27] SPEAKER_00: You know, you, you can break through a barrier by, by moving through that.
[12:32] SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, you gain wisdom, you gain experience, you know, how to handle it better the next time, or maybe you adjust your systems or you, or you build out something so that, you know, a component or a contractual, something contractual, that just helps you negate that in the future.
[12:50] SPEAKER_00: So it's about, it's about understanding that, that, you know, you just, you will learn from it rather than being upset or frustrated.
[12:59] SPEAKER_00: You got to get through that quick 15 seconds. That's another one.
[13:03] SPEAKER_00: You know, 15 seconds, two minutes. Let yourself have it. It's okay. You're human. Your ego's freaking out.
[13:09] SPEAKER_00: You know, let yourself have it. And then you got to get through as quickly as possible.
[13:13] SPEAKER_00: Realize there's a lesson inside of it and move through it to the other side and then adjust and, and the ideas you have, you implement.
[13:21] SPEAKER_00: That's another thing. Anybody can have ideas. People say, oh, you need great ideas. Of course you need great ideas, but you need to implement the ideas. Then things improve.
[13:30] SPEAKER_02: Did thinking, okay, let's, let's get away from philosophical stuff now and moved to what I tell him some rapid fire questions.
[13:39] SPEAKER_02: So kind of a little bit more relaxed. Okay.
[13:42] SPEAKER_02: If you weren't doing what you were doing now, what would you be doing instead?
[13:50] SPEAKER_01: I would probably be a musician.
[13:54] SPEAKER_02: A musician. What kind of instrument?
[13:57] SPEAKER_00: I play guitar and sing and I play a little bit of everything drums, but I probably would guitar and sing.
[14:05] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[14:07] SPEAKER_02: What book are you currently reading or listening to or however you absorb book?
[14:12] SPEAKER_02: Or is there a book that you've read that you would recommend to our audience?
[14:20] SPEAKER_00: I am currently reading a new earth by Eckert Tolly, which is a spiritual book, but the power of now by Eckert I just finished and that's a great book.
[14:34] SPEAKER_00: And it can be really applied to business because it's about now.
[14:38] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. You're always wallowing in the past or birth of focusing on the future and we need to have goals.
[14:44] SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take that moment.
[14:46] SPEAKER_00: Be most powerful.
[14:50] SPEAKER_01: Are you a molligor or a night person?
[14:53] SPEAKER_01: No.
[14:56] SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
[14:57] SPEAKER_02: You're one of the small, I wouldn't say about 85% of people I asked that question.
[15:06] SPEAKER_02: They're entrepreneurs.
[15:08] SPEAKER_02: I'm mourning people.
[15:09] SPEAKER_00: I know. I know. I've got some oddball components to it all.
[15:15] SPEAKER_00: I built it a lot of my business at two o'clock in the morning.
[15:19] SPEAKER_02: Yeah. That's right.
[15:21] SPEAKER_02: So if you had to pick one word to describe yourself, what would it be and why?
[15:33] SPEAKER_00: I would say, I would probably say it's a tie between creative and sincere.
[15:44] SPEAKER_00: I'm absolutely 100% like if I, if you know, I mean what I say.
[15:49] SPEAKER_00: And so I'm 100% sincere around it and creativity drives my life.
[15:54] SPEAKER_00: I'm always looking to do something that's creative.
[15:57] SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
[15:59] SPEAKER_02: Let's keep being you up at night.
[16:02] SPEAKER_00: You mean as far as concerns?
[16:03] SPEAKER_00: I try not to get too, too worked up about everything as I say.
[16:12] SPEAKER_00: We move through it.
[16:14] SPEAKER_00: But you know, I would say it's interesting being an entrepreneur.
[16:20] SPEAKER_00: The honest answer would probably be, I think about my business a lot.
[16:25] SPEAKER_00: You know, processes, ideas, creative stuff where you got to shut it down.
[16:31] SPEAKER_00: I don't want quiet the mind. Go to sleep.
[16:33] SPEAKER_00: But not I don't, I'm blessed.
[16:35] SPEAKER_00: I don't have a lot of, you know, big problems going on.
[16:40] SPEAKER_00: Like I have things going on, but I tried to.
[16:46] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[16:47] SPEAKER_02: Jay, that's, that's, we're going to come to an end.
[16:51] SPEAKER_02: But and it's been really interesting.
[16:53] SPEAKER_02: I love some of the things that we said earlier.
[16:56] SPEAKER_02: It was great.
[16:58] SPEAKER_02: How can people get a hold of you if they've listened to it and they want to talk to Jay?
[17:03] SPEAKER_02: How, how, what's, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you?
[17:06] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what, send me an email would probably be great.
[17:10] SPEAKER_00: You can call me too, but my email is jajmiller.ca.
[17:14] SPEAKER_00: It's really simple.
[17:15] SPEAKER_00: And it's the Jays Jay.
[17:17] SPEAKER_00: Jay.
[17:18] SPEAKER_00: Why Miller?
[17:19] SPEAKER_00: Yard.
[17:19] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[17:20] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[17:21] SPEAKER_02: All right, Jay, thank you very much for coming on Candid's podcast.
[17:24] SPEAKER_02: We really nice talking to you.
[17:26] SPEAKER_00: Likewise, Philip, thanks for having me.