Real Estate Happens
All things Real Estate! From the crazy things you see in real estate to better ways to do business. Thought provoking to get you fired up and ready to take on the day. Kenny Letner is the Broker and Owner of Aweigh Real Estate in Virginia Beach VA. Join us as we explore the different aspect of Real Estate as it pertains not only to the real estate professionals but also to the consumer and see what is changing in the real estate landscape.
Real Estate Happens
Reviving the Personal Touch in Real Estate: A Journey with Real Producers Magazine
Step into the world of real estate with me and my guest, Joni from Real Producers Magazine, as we stroll down memory lane to explore the birth and evolution of the magazine right from Indianapolis under the guidance of Remington Ramsey. We'll address how technology, has altered the personal touch in the real estate industry and how we are striving to bring back that old-world charm. Real Producers Magazine, with its relevance and reach, is determined to bridge that gap and reintroduce the handshakes in the industry. Let's engage in some fascinating stories from the magazine that underline the 'I never knew' factor, intending to inspire and uplift our readership.
As we wrap up, we delve into my recent chat with Claude L. Clark, President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau, and reflect on the profound impact of philanthropy in business. It promises to be an enlightening and inspiring journey into the depths of the real estate world.
Hey guys, welcome to Real Estate Happens. We are so graciously happy and wonderfully surprised to have a special guest today. We just did a podcast just the other day. I normally try to do these about once a week, but a very special lady stopped by my office and I drug her in here. It is right now 11 o'clock and she has to be a Cooper's Hawk to go drink for the day here in about 30 minutes. But we have none other than Joni from Real Producer Joni, how are you, hey, doing? great, kenny, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh, so glad You know it's several years ago. You know you and I really kind of met and got to be good friends and I've enjoyed our friendship and the things that we've been able to go over and we call each other for advice all the time. But I'll never forget when you first called me. You called me, oh, i've got this magazine, and you know blah, blah, blah. And I went, oh, okay, well, that's cool. Another, you know play to play kind of thing. But that's not what it is. And you've done such a great job building the real producers in this area. I would love it if you just take a minute, just go back to when you started, how you started, why you started where you were and where we are today with the Real Producer magazine, because I think it's such a wonderful thing, not just the magazine but the gatherings that you have and bringing the industry professionals together in this area just amazing what you've done. So I'd love to hear kind of that story background.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great. So the background is mostly like my husband and I were working together, we own a couple of businesses and we realized we needed to diversify. So I started studying for my real estate license and I was going to go and become a rock star realtor. And then the real producers opportunity was presented to me and I thought it was such a great opportunity. That was five years ago When I first started looking into it. You know I thought, well gosh. You know I thought print was dead.
Speaker 1:We all kind of thought it was dead until you hit the scene and you kind of did some CPR on it.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know, and there are forms of print that are dead when they're not read and they're not relevant. But this particular real producers is so relevant to our audience, our readership, that it was irresistible. So I couldn't resist and I went and flew to Chicago for some training. And you know what I found out about real producers is it started about eight years ago as a concept in Indianapolis by a young guy named Remington Ramsey Remington's awesome Shout out to Rem. You know Remington was selling co knives and closing gifts to realtors And what he found was it was really difficult for a good business to get into a realtor office And and when they did get into the office, what they had, or who showed up for their lunch and learns, were the part time realtors and the brandy new realtors and the group looking for the free lunch, the group looking for the free lunch, and not necessarily top performers.
Speaker 3:And Rem was working in another area of our business that focused on, you know, high end neighborhood publications It's now the stroll publications And he decided that sort of model could work really well in the real estate community because, let's face it, right around that time, or just before that, the text message replaced the handshake and we needed to bring the handshake back to the real estate industry because it got really hurt by that, by technology kind of took the relationship aspect away from realtors. When I did my first closing 20 years ago, you know everybody sat at the closing table the you know selling agent, the buying agent, us, the sellers, you know the lawyers, the whole bit, and you know, and today we don't see that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's funny. you should mention that because we've talked on here several times about the different generation generation next to millennials and they all have different traits about them And most millennials will tell you that they would rather text message somebody than call them any day of the week. So what you're saying is getting this magazine and having these groups and being these agents together has really brought the aspect of true networking back where it should be.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, you know, one of the favorite things. so the real producers model produces the monthly publication that's all about top realtors. And then we do frequent social events where we're bringing the top realtors together with our business partners. at the events My favorite thing to overhear and I hear it often is oh you're, kenny Lettner, we just did a deal together, nice to meet you. And when I hear that it warms my heart because I, you know it's. it's the reason we're in business is to help connect, elevate and inspire top real estate agents. And so you know, the magazine tells great stories.
Speaker 3:I was a top producer, a rising star. the rising stars like less than five years and crushing it. We have on the rise realtors who've been in a little bit more than five years but maybe overcame something and did a big comeback or, you know, is just crushing it. We have folks who are making a difference in the community and sharing those stories.
Speaker 3:My favorite thing to hear about the magazine is the what I call the I never knew factor. You know, when I can do an article and they see a picture of Kenny Letner in front of his outside grill and he's like a gourmet chef and nobody knew this. And you know people come to me and they're going. I never knew Kenny was a gourmet chef. You know, i never knew it, and so it's super fun to share the stories And and the feedback I get from top realtor's is that they really enjoy reading it. you know top, top realtors have told me they read it word for word, page for page, cover to cover, every month without exception. And that just warms my heart because you know the the feedback I get from those that are featured and those that are reading it is thanks for making us human again. Well, you know.
Speaker 1:I love that aspect of it because there have been and I'm one of the ones. I read your magazine. Every time it comes out I read it. I want to know who's participating. I want to know who is supporting it, because the people that you're vendors that are helping to support that magazine and I like the magazine, i try to support them. And but I read about these agents that I hear about and I see they're doing a lot of business. I see they're doing great things in one thing or another, but then I realize, wow, they're, they're actually a human being and they've really got some great things going on in their life And there's, like you said, things I didn't know, you know about people. I find that fascinating every time I, every time I read about something for somebody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's super fun. You know I always tell people it doesn't suck to be me. I just you know I have a good time. Something that you know the realtors appreciate about the vendors that are in there is that every one of those vendors is recommended to me by top performing agents. So you know they're not the ones out there that are desperate. These are the professionals who've built their business on a lot of referrals from top agents.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about that for a second. I think there might be a common misperception that all you have to do to get in this magazine is being a top 500 in the Hampton Roads production, blah, blah, blah. And that is not the case. You could be number two and never get in this magazine. Because it's more than just your numbers, it's your character, it's who you are, it's what you're doing, it's how you interact with other people, because without being nominated by more than one person, you're not getting featured in this magazine or being in this magazine.
Speaker 1:So that adds this, this incredible element to what you're doing, which I think is amazing. That's why I say you know, this is not a pay to play, or simply, you know top leaderboard kind of thing, and, and you know, there's a lot of companies that have leaderboards in their offices, right, and it's always the same top three people on that leaderboard. I don't have a leaderboard in my office because I don't care if you're doing five deals a year or if you're doing 100 deals a year. If five deals a year was your goal and you reached it, that should be celebrated just as much as the guy that did 100. And you know, because everybody has different priorities. So so I just really appreciate that it's not just about the numbers, it's about the person, the character, the things are doing within the community and things of that nature Also. I think it was wonderful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, and that was something we did very intentionally at Real Producers. You know we didn't want it to be, you know, available to the highest bidder. You know I've had people offer me money for the cover and and you know we just can't do that. you know, and we won't do that. We really depend on our nomination system, which is really complex. That will take a whole nother podcast to explain, but it is explained in most of the issues.
Speaker 1:I think that's a really good point. You cannot pay to be in this magazine, i don't care how much. Well, i won't say that, because if there was enough money to retire and run one issue, sure, but you can't pay to be in this magazine and that's, i think, a big. I think that's huge, it's huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're a top realtor there, there is no charge. Now the businesses are who support it, you know. And and and back to them. You know I meet with every business. Again, i make sure they're not desperate. I make sure that they value that. This is about relationship. You know, even at our events, our business partners aren't coming and setting up a trade show booth. They're there to shake hands and kiss babies. You know. They're there to make the Start of a relationship that could turn into business over time. And that's really important, because nowhere in this area are top producers getting together on a regular basis like they are with the real producers platform.
Speaker 1:How many people do you normally when you do a big event? how many people show up at those events?
Speaker 3:we had just over 200 at the last event we had, and that was about 180 realtors and about 2530 partners.
Speaker 1:That is huge in and of itself. I mean that that's a big event really is for this area. Anytime you can get more than two realtors in the same room, you've done something right, i mean. So it speaks volumes for how Unpressured these events are. You go to events and it's just you feel like you're just being sold to left and right, and it's just. It's just not that way.
Speaker 3:Well, and the fun part, kenny, is, you know, not all of our events are that big. We also do some smaller events every two months. We pulled together Those that were featured recently and they bring their brokers and their coworkers and you know other realtors who, just you know, cheer them on. Our tagline is connect, elevate and inspire, and that is there's no better way to elevate and inspire realtor than to celebrating their nomination and article in real producers. We frame the articles and gift them to the realtors and And it's kind of cool and they just really appreciate that we're really the only third party validation of their success outside of their brokerages that that exists.
Speaker 1:No, i think it's great. so we've talked about where you came from, what you're doing, let's talk a little bit about where you're going. You know what do you see in the future of real producers? because I know you have. you know you have the real producer unit on the south side, you have the peninsula. What do you see? where do you see the future of real producers?
Speaker 3:The future of real producers is going to get. It's going to get big. We just started a national podcast, nice Yeah, that's been cool. We've we've had a couple of our local rock stars appear on that. I think are targeted to do that. But locally we are just celebrating four years in print south side and one year on the peninsula. And that's pretty cool, especially the one year on the peninsula, because this year has been a wonky year to be in real estate. It's been tough right.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know I say tough, it's just it's not any tougher than in the other market While we are now in the. It's just different. And you know we have to learn to pivot and with these, these different things that happen in our market, to kind of make that happen. So I tell you that I'm going to mention somebody real quick, michael Little Iron Valley. Has he been in a magazine?
Speaker 3:So Mike was our cover recently, oh, that's what I thought, so I thought that was the case.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was kind of a fun story. So Mike was supposed to be our cover like two years ago And then some major changes happen And he had just gotten his brokerage license and he got thrusted into being the managing broker a little bit earlier than he expected. So we put that on hold And I was super excited to have him on the cover. You know he's a great success story. You know this kid started kid. I say you know I'm an old chick, but you know this guy started selling boats from the back of a Navy ship as active duty and reached my top 500 list and that's cool.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny, when I was involved with an investor in listing houses for him and he was flipping them, he bought one of them and I was looking back through my text messages and, sure enough, there he is and we're talking about it, and it was like, hey, i can't get there today, i'm on deployment or I'm on the ship, and it was only still active duty. I think this was only like three years ago, if that I mean. So it was somewhere along in there. So so when I realized that I'm like, well, damn, he went from that. And you know, he just, i think, had a thing I just read the other day He just listed, he just signed his 200th agent.
Speaker 1:So I think when a company comes on and grows like that, it says a tremendous amount about the leadership of that company, because, yes, agents will move for money, but they don't. It's really not about money for agents. Most of them it's about the relationship and the training and the and the feeling of being belonging to something bigger, with good, strong leadership up front. That is attracting agents. And he is attracting agents left and right, and I think that speaks well and nobody's ever seen anything bad about it. I've talked to a hundred people and everyone's like, oh no, he's. You know, he's great. I, i think one of my agents said he they called the brokerage to complain about something. One of the agents that did as all agents will do, right, and he called him back Hey, nope, nope, we'll take care of it. And so I thought that was it was really good. So I'm actually I think I left him a message.
Speaker 3:When I want to get him on the podcast and really have a conversation with them too, Yeah, you know Mike is one of those great examples of you know, in trying times and, let's face it, the last five years in real estate have been interesting. You know this market has pivoted daily for the last at least three, four years, and you know there's two types of businesses. There's the one that when things get a little tough, a little different, they hide their heads in the sand and wait for the storm to pass. And then there are others who look for the opportunity and and you know Mike's a great example of that Kenny, you're a great example of that. You know those that are looking, and real producers is a great example of that.
Speaker 3:We grew exponentially. In fact, change is really good for us. The more things change, the more the community binds together and you know, building community is what we do And the more things change, the more so The future of real producers. We're going to be adding some masterminds and just getting together with the folks who are really crushing it in the market so they can share how that's going and help some others. You know, bring some others along.
Speaker 1:No, i think that's great And you know I had on here the other day Claude L Clark.
Speaker 1:He's the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau here in the Greater Hampton Roads and just a great guy, and he also runs a company called Coastal Outerwear and Coastal Apparel and Coastal Cornhole. So he is a really great guy And you know, from day one, from day one, he was giving back to the community and charity and one thing or another. And I don't think people realize this. But you do the same thing Every month. You run a specialty, a specialty article on a charity that means something or that is making a difference, and and you know there's no charge for them to get that done. It just has to be a good charity. So you guys have been doing that from day one And I feel like a lot of the companies, a lot of the businesses that are doing well are are really collecting on some good karma because they do have that philanthropy part of their business that's giving back to a community, that's giving to them. So I think that's amazing that you guys do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's something that our parent company and two company feels very strongly about. We really want to elevate those who are giving back. You know we worked with a very we. We work all over the country within 120 real producers markets I think it's 130 now And over 700 high end neighborhoods. We're working with a pretty bougie demographic And and and we know that that so many people who hit the certain level of success really do value the opportunities that they're granted to give back to the community And and we get to celebrate that We'll either run a free ad for a 501c3 or write an article about a really worthy cause. You know we're doing a cool one with a gal up in Williamsburg who puts together these Christmas boxes and and sends them, and last year they all went to the Ukraine for kids to really have a great Christmas. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, and you're you know, i mean everybody knows, i mean I make no bones about it, i'm a Shriner. My philanthropy is the Shriner's hospital Children's Hospital. You know, shriner's hospital is an amazing organization. They take kids with problems regardless of their ability to pay, it doesn't matter and then make sure that they're taken care of. So I have that philanthropy. So every year we do a very large Cornhole tournament. We're one of the largest regional Cornhole tournaments on the East Coast at this point And you, you know from year when we first started to try to get that going and try to get support for it, when it was just such a struggle nobody knows what you're doing or knows what's going on You supported us And you know we really appreciate that And it really did help make a difference. So thank you so much for doing that, johnny.
Speaker 3:We enjoyed doing it. And, by the way, guys like I went to that Cornhole tournament last year and that was just rocking fun.
Speaker 1:It's out of control. I have never in my life. So I'm not a big Cornhole player. I'm. I know how to put on an event right. I know how to do big production events.
Speaker 1:I did a barbecue tournament four days, seven bands, 24 professional barbecue teams Casey did that four or five years ago raised like over a hundred grand for a charity at the time. So I know how to do that. But I never know. I don't really know that much about Cornhole, right, I thought the bag still had actually corn in it. They're high end resins and this, all this other kind of stuff had no idea. But I also found out the first year we did this. I had, you know, because we set up down the KOA we have now. We've got ax throwing and food trucks and airmail challenges and a 40 by 140 tent and 16 sets of board set up and professional. It's just amazing. But because one of the ways we're going to sell of alcohol. The first year I had the bar set to be opened at noon. That was the biggest mistake I ever made with Cornhole players.
Speaker 3:Why's that?
Speaker 1:Because they start drinking at 8.30, am. Right when the gates open. There was a line at the bar and they're like where's the bartender? So, yeah, so then now we open the bar 15 minutes before the gates open and we're ready to go. So, but yes, it's a great time. We have great, wonderful sponsors Prosper Insurance, we have STC Construction, t-mobile Hall Automotive. We have some of the amazing sponsors that really come out and spend time with us and do that, and this is October 13th and 14th at the K-Way Campgrounds. Parking is free, just getting in is free, just come have a good time. We got the beekeepers playing on Friday night, lewis McGee playing on Saturday night, so just gonna be a wonderful time. So I'm sure you'll be coming out again.
Speaker 3:So Lewis is an old friend of mine.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, he is amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I took guitar lessons with Lewis many years ago.
Speaker 1:You know it's the beekeepers. The lead for the beekeeper took guitar lessons from Lewis also, so it's kind of interesting to have them both there. I get Lewis. He was at our year before last he was there. No, last year, one of the years he was there, and about every 30 minutes because we have Reverend Spirits, which is called Dorman, out of Norfolk, one of the best bourbons around this area just amazing Sponsors every year. So Lewis likes his bourbon Little bit, yeah, little bit. So about every 20 minutes I would take a bourbon up to him and I think he played for like six hours.
Speaker 3:He does tend to lose a little track of time with the bourbon give him a grand manier. Oh, is there any song he doesn't know? There are very few songs he doesn't know. There's a few he refuses to play.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, well, joanie, anything else that you would like to add, anything that you would like the listeners to kind of hear or be thinking about?
Speaker 3:Well, if you're a top real term or a top real estate professional, we look for your nominations. Go check us out on Facebook. It's HR, real Producers And-.
Speaker 1:You can't nominate yourself.
Speaker 3:And well, you can.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't go a long way, doesn't go over well.
Speaker 3:Right, right, kind of like a farting church. We love our nominations. We'd love to hear from the top realtors. you know we love your engagement and we certainly love when you do come to our events. If you are a business that would like to be in front of top realtors, i'd love to hear from you And we can certainly talk to see if that might be a good mutual fit.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So guys, you heard it here Give Joanie a call. You can find on Facebook Real Produce Magazine Hampton Roads. Real Produce, hampton Roads. That would be a great time. Until next time. Thank you all for being here. I appreciate y'all's support. We've had a great, tremendous response lately and we're just gonna keep growing this And I think at some point here in the near future we're gonna do some live broadcast and see if we can get some calling questions. Guys, have a great day. Real producers Kenny Letter signing off. Have a great day.