Show notes
Louise Phillips Forbes describes her transition from dancer in Broadway to an industry leader in real estate. Louise talks about what is she and her team doing now at a down market. Louise also discusses the importance of building relationships with other realtors. Louise also talks about how her very authentic style/look impacted her business. Next, Louise discusses the importance of participating in associations and giving back to the community. Last, Louise discusses teams in real estate business. Please follow Louise on Instagram here and also her team here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Louise Phillips Forbes can be reached at 917.846.8640 and lphillips@bhsusa.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’re gonna talk to an agent who had no business background before becoming a real estate agent, and his todate closed over 5.5 billion in real estate by embracing her authentic self. You’re gonna want to check this one out. So stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host to the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with superstar and I really mean superstar Louise Phillips Forbes from New York. And before we get to Louise in really You guys can’t get we can’t get to her fast enough. But before we do, please do me a favor to things leave us a review whatever app you’re listening to us on. Let us know what you think of the show. We really do take those comments to heart and it helps us get in front of more people and also tell a friend I think one other realtor that needs to hear what Louise is about to tell you and trust me you’re gonna want to share it after you hear this but let’s get to the main event. my conversation with Louise Phillips Forbes. Today our guest on the show is a New York City legend Louise Phillips Forbes with a Louise Phillips sports team with Brown Harris Stevens in New York City. Let me tell you more about Louise. For over three decades Louise Phillips Forbes has been an industry leader in New York’s residential real estate market with their career sales exceeding dramatic pause 5.5 billion end up dramatic boss she is considered one of the elite power brokers in Manhattan she really is a true superstar Louise has been named residential agent of the Year by REBNY, which is the Real Estate Board of New York for her consistent achievements and leadership within the industry. She’s a multi time winner of homesteads real estate, which is now brown hair Stevens esteemed broker of the Year award. Louise has also been acknowledged many times as the number one listing broker company wide and currently lists one of the firm’s top sales sorry currently leads one of the top firms top sales teams, she has developed a significant following among developers buyers and sellers throughout Manhattan from the Upper West Side and upper east side to the West Village Tribeca Wall Street really everywhere Manhattan and and the boroughs are Louise probably serves prominent New Yorkers, please follow her on Instagram, which is Louise Phillips Forbes team. I will have a link to that in the show notes and also visit our website which is Louise Phillips forbes.com. And we will also have a link to that as well. Louise, so happy to have you. Thank Louise Phillips Forbes 4:06you. I’m just gonna add to that lovely intro. That there’s also Weezy underscores says and that’s W E z e underscore F E z if you really want to get a little essence of Weezy D.J. Paris 4:23should I call you Weezy as opposed to one Louise Phillips Forbes 4:25I met my husband on a blind date and I was like oh, all my friends call me my husband’s very elegant and he certainly elevates me. And I was like oh my friends call me Wheezy and he was like turning the menu going. I will never call you with a D.J. Paris 4:42fan of the Jeffersons or Louise Phillips Forbes 4:44I don’t know but you know I’m from Nashville, Tennessee, and that’s just what everybody called me growing up. So I D.J. Paris 4:51love that you still have a little tiny bit of that Nashville accent which I just think is one of the best accents in our country. I love that Nashville accent Well, Louise Phillips Forbes 5:01you know, when I when I’m negotiating particularly, it’s something that I don’t intentionally do it. But when I’m a little nervous, I go home, you know, we go home, my home and my accent and so, yes, wait till I spend about 10 days in Nashville. And then I’m like, y’all, it’s waiting for y’all do it. D.J. Paris 5:23Oh, I love Nashville. So my everybody loves Nashville. It’s pretty much a universally beloved city. It’s like Charleston is kind of that way, Austin, there’s a few cities that you’d never you’d be hard pressed to find somebody that goes, Oh, Nashville, yuck. Like everybody loves it. But anyway, let’s get to to your origin story. Like our audience always loves to hear I know you’ve been been in this business for 30 plus years. But why did you get started? And how’d you get started in real estate? Louise Phillips Forbes 5:53Well, I always say that I kind of fell off the boat from Nashville to New York City, I came here, really seeking the Broadway lights, I was a dancer. And, you know, I still I miss it. I did some off Broadway things. But you know, really, with everybody who is in real estate, we all have multiple chapters in our life, I would say the new generation is being educated to be in real estate. But my journey was through the back door, which was through through coming here and ended up in New York. And literally, I was bartending and somebody was like, you’d be so great in real estate. And I went, I took the card, I met her friend, and he was like, You got a job. And I called my brother, I was like, I got a job, I got a job. And he’s like, you know, that’s commission only. Oh, no. And for all the new brokers out there, I just want to say keep coming back, because I literally made $8,400, my first year. And I lived on 30 bucks a week, I came to New York with a ton of bucks in my pocket. And, you know, almost $6 billion later, you know, I have I am. So in the right place, I have a degree in special education and elementary education. And I had a scholarship to dance and dance to dance companies, and how real estate, build all those holes, I have no idea. But it’s not the business of brick and mortar. It’s really the business of people. And that is what blows my skirt out. You know? D.J. Paris 7:39You know, that is, by the way, just the blows my skirt up expression is adorable. I love I love that. I love that. But But you’re right. And it is it is a relationship, of course business. It’s an interpersonal business, and you know, brick and mortar. Even real estate offices aren’t that packed anymore, unless there’s teams that are working in need to sort of have that space. So many people are, you know, moving away from from the brick and mortar offices, although I still there’s obviously still tremendous value in that. But I would love to learn a little bit about, you know, you’ve been here, you’ve been around 34 years, I want to dive into sort of just a more challenging topic, because of where we currently are. And it’s something that everybody’s probably experiencing some version of, which is it’s a down market, it just is we it’s where we are. And the interest rates are up, of course, inventory is down again, I know Manhattan is kind of its own echo system there that maybe sometimes a little bit outside of what the rest of the country is, is experiencing. But, you know, I would always love to hear from huge producers like you and your team. How are you keeping everyone motivated work moving forward? What is your team focused on right now? Because of course, you’re still working? Louise Phillips Forbes 8:58Right? Of course. I mean, listen, I I didn’t have a Rolodex for all the young listeners, that was a thing that we held all of our contacts in. Now we have our phones, but but I had no context. All my friends were like starving artist. And, um, and you know, I would just say that I was not comfortable with the Commission model because that meant that I needed to, I had to find I had to be worthy. I needed to earn my keep. And and something clicked in me which is a philosophy in down markets and up markets. It doesn’t matter. That I realized that if I looked at myself, not as a salesperson, but an educator. I felt much more comfortable and if I operate it from being of service at all times, what goes around comes around. So these are those markets that operating by Mike by being of service to my competitor, and sharing my knowledge and collaborating and doing more than I need to do comes back 18 fold. So, that is one of the greatest wisdoms that I’ve learned through trial and error, honestly. And there’ll be people that will, you give them an inch, and they take a mile. And then when you really need them, they’re not there. But for the most part, for the most part, it is, it is appreciated. And honestly, it’s what buyers and sellers come and go, but we have each other for decades, and the richness that that gives you in wise wisdom and experience, and I love it when I’m going to lose a piece of business. Hopefully, I’m losing to somebody I respect. D.J. Paris 10:58Yeah. And and, you know, there’s enough business to sort of go around, right, and you don’t win every deal. Of course, as you have been in this business long time you win a lot of them, obviously. But it is it is always I always say it’s always a good idea to play nice in the sandbox, especially because it is at least for now. It’s called a cooperative commission. We’re supposed to be cooperative. Yes. Yeah. How important? How important is the relationships you’ve built with other realtors over your career? Louise Phillips Forbes 11:25Massive, massive? I mean, every time I do you know, so you’re talking about like, you’re asking me, it’s a difficult market. So what’s my advice? What are we doing? You know, we are out there every day. I, I am very data driven. I always say I’m not the smartest pencil in the in the bucket. But But I but I get so much accolades for effort, energy consistency, I never I never give up. And and I think these are the markets where your knowledge and data like who can figure out what anything is worth since COVID. Right? Because it’s so there’s no cycle, right? And so I, every time I get a pitch, which we probably average five to seven a week, if not more. I talked to 50. I’m not saying for 50. Brokers just for that analysis, what’s happening? Do you have any offers heavy, you know, when you drop the price, did it make a difference, then I’m not only giving my owners a bunch of numbers, I’m telling the story to the texture, the broker wanted to list this at $2 million, but the owner asked to put it on for three weeks at two and a half. Well, eight weeks later, they just dropped it to 199. And the market is different today. So So that’s telling the story. So I don’t have to pressure anybody, we’re partnering together. It’s like, Hey, I can’t make up the market. So that kind of collaboration is how I approach everything, whether it’s a buyer, a broker, I’m interviewing to an agent to come and work on our team, like, Who are you, and you demonstrate that by the data points that you share them? D.J. Paris 13:19Yeah, so it’s important to know the market and to study the market on a daily basis, which I suspect, most agents probably could upgrade their amount of time they spend learning, learning the market and on a daily basis. And in addition to the prospecting and working with their existing clients, and all of the things you need to do to keep the business running is this idea of and collaboration, learning from other agents is so important. And I wanted to go back to something you had said about educating because you are an educator, that was your, that was your training. That and and in in special needs, which of course is requires an even really a more sophisticated skill set to be able to address the needs of of people with developmental disabilities and those types of challenges. And it probably I would assume your level of patience that you have, in communicating with with clients and really educating them is probably served you extraordinarily well. Because again, as Realtors we oftentimes can forget how challenging, you know, emotionally a purchase or sale can be for the client, it’s easy for us to sort of say oh, it’s all going to work out, but it may not feel that way to the client in real time. Louise Phillips Forbes 14:32salutely Absolutely. And I would also say that I learned a long time ago for myself, because I used to be on the same roller coaster as is them when we didn’t get the deals. I was so disappointed. I also felt it was somehow another my fault. And and you know what I have come to look at everything and this is part of me having an executive coach and me learning so that you know, like, sometimes your skill is not necessarily the most important thing, if your will is there. And, and it’s also how you perceive it like, listen, have faith in the process, that was not the right house for us. And we have to, we have to say, what can we have learned from that? What would I have done differently? Should we have given that extra 20 grand that we really wanted to wait? Maybe we could have gotten their attention. But But I also don’t dwell on it. Because usually, we learn a lot about ourselves. And most of all, they learn about themselves in their partnerships, their relationships have of who’s going to really make the final decisions, and when do you let go of the numbers and you focus on the heart of it. Because that, to me, is why I really am so fulfilled, because what I do is not a transaction. It’s it’s, you know, it’s purposeful, it’s it’s making, it’s, you know, I built the rest of my life around my home. To be a part of that is such a privilege. Yeah, D.J. Paris 16:10it really is, there’s, I think we couldn’t ever over focus on the interpersonal importance of, you know, being in this business, you’re legitimately, you know, working with somebody who maybe it’s their largest financial purchase of their life, or certainly one of the larger financial purchases in really, probably anyone’s life. But it’s more than that. It’s that emotional connection we all have to our to our abode to our residents, we we feel a certain way about it, it’s important, it defines us in a lot of ways. And you I also want to talk about aesthetics, just just briefly, because I think we never talked about this on the show. And of course, aesthetics are just one little minor portion of anyone’s business. But I love…
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