Breaking Into The Real Estate Arena With Loida Velasquez
Have you always wanted to be a real estate agent but don’t know where to begin? Diving into the real estate space can be very challenging, especially so if you’re a woman! On today’s podcast, real estate agent and realtor Loida Velasquez joins Stefanie Peters to share her real estate journey - how her background in marketing management combined with her passion for real estate allowed her to become very successful in the short period she’s been in the business.
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Listen to the podcast here
Breaking Into The Real Estate Arena With Loida Velasquez
I am excited to have a dear friend and fellow real estate lady boss in my presence here. I'm going to give you a little bit of a rundown on Loida Velasquez. She is a real estate agent with Team BC at eXp Realty in Southern California. She is known in the real estate community through her amazing YouTube channel and social media presence where she helps thousands of agents with her real estate related videos. If you are looking to become a real estate agent, especially being female, there is not much content on YouTube to help guide and direct you. Her videos are on point. She's built most of her business through like old school approach of cold calling, door knocking, expireds, for sale by owner. She's been named by BombBomb as one of the top five Video Influencers for 2019 in Sales Training. She is the only woman in that category and being the founder of Lady Boss Empire, that lights me up.
Thank you so much for that intro, Stef.
Thank you so much for jumping on. I've been thinking about you a lot lately and the success that you've had on the court being a real estate licensed agent, but also off the court you do a lot of things old school. You also do a lot of incredible things in the social media and the tech world and even by editing your own videos. It's incredible. I want to dive right in. Share a little bit of a backstory, how you got into the real estate arena and how you broke in.
I got into real estate about five years ago, and prior to that, I used to work in marketing and advertising for eight years. I love what I did. I was working with a lot of entertainment brands, automotive brands. In the last three years in that career, I was traveling 100% of the time working at auto shows and vehicle releases, but it got to the point that I was never home. I was living out of a suitcase from a hotel to a hotel, and I didn't see myself doing that for the rest of my life. That's when I started to take a look at other avenues.
I saw real estate as an opportunity for me to branch out and do my own thing, take everything that I had learned in marketing and apply it into something that I knew that if I became successful. I was able to do the sky's the limit type of thing where nobody would tell me what to do, or how much I could make. It would be more about me putting my skills to the test and be consistent and disciplined. When I got into real estate, I started to create YouTube videos which are the ones that you saw, you mentioned and it was me putting my journey out there so that other people could see what it was like to be a real estate agent.
Back then, I remember going on YouTube and I wasn't finding many women talking about their experience. I wasn't able to relate to a lot of these older gentlemen, older real estate coaches. I figured, “I'm going to put out my videos. If it helps at least one person with one tip, that would make me happy.” I saw that a lot of people were relating to the content that I was putting out and here I am a couple of years later, still putting out content on YouTube.
You have 60,000-plus subscribers now.
I'm already at 60,500. It's growing rapidly.
What resonates with me the most is when I started my entrepreneurial journey, I was not outgoing and now people look at me and they're like, “You're outgoing. You love people.” You embrace it. You're out there.” How did you transition to that place? That's great and awesome that I've been able to morph. I'm grateful that entrepreneurship has helped to push me to that place. What I think is unique about you is that you crush the stereotype that you need to be ridiculously outgoing to crush it in real estate.
Even growing up, I have always been like a quieter mellow laid-back person and I'm sure you'll see that. I remember growing up in college and in high school, I would hate to raise my hand. I would hate to speak up because I always felt that what if I said the wrong thing or people would laugh at me. The first job that I had was doing marketing and promotions for a beverage. I was still in college. I think I was like twenty and my job was going to give free drinks at concerts and festivals and talk to people.
Breaking Into Real Estate: Being more open and more outgoing will allow you to reach more people and connect with other individuals.
When I started doing that, I was like, “I'm getting paid to talk to people?” That forced me to get out of my shell because now I had to talk to strangers and compared to what I thought it was going to be like, it was easy. People were laughing and smiling. At the end of the day, I was getting paid to promote a brand and share with people the benefits of the product that I had versus the competition. That's what pushed me to that next level of getting out of my comfort zone and seeing that it wasn't that bad as I thought it was going to be. I was able to take that into real estate because like you mentioned, I do cold calling. I do door knocking where every single day we're talking to strangers. I got that experience and put it into real estate and that helped me get out of my shell and be able to talk to people. At the same time, I'm not like a crazy person that's always talking that never stops. They're like, “I need a break from talking too much.”
What would you say were the two things that helped you to get out of your own way and to be able to put yourself out there or was it like point-blank, I did it?
One of the things that pushed me in real estate is I needed to be a little bit more open and more outgoing and in turn that would allow me to reach more people and connect with other individuals. That would possibly mean me getting sales, getting buyers, getting sellers, and we were in the business to get paid. That's what pushed me.
When I was promoting on Instagram that you are going to be on the show, one of the women asked the thing that you were talking about as to what she was concerned about. She was like, “How do I get the confidence to put myself out there as a real estate agent? I'm in my shell, in my comfort zone and I don't know how to get out of my own way.” I think what my mentor told me is he said, “You can either be shy and poor or outgoing and rich.”
I was like, “I know what I'm choosing.” Even more than the wealth that it generates, it's also the impact. It's the drive and the determination to make a difference in people's lives and if I don't open my mouth and I don't put my arm around someone, there's no way that I can make the impact that I'm called to make. I think that's beautiful that you have a driving why that it helps monetarily, but it's also within the mission.
I know even watching some of your YouTube videos, even though you are outgoing and you do put yourself out there, you still have that soft-spoken demeanor. I think that's inviting to a lot of people because you have someone like me who can try to shop, and I can sometimes be a little brash or cut out, say it like it is. I think with you having that empathetic, compassionate, putting your arm around someone, but yet putting yourself out there is a phenomenal, magical combination. I think people don't get intimidated by that type of demeanor and they're that much more open to asking questions and being a part of something bigger.
I feel that there are a lot of people even in the comments and the messages that I do get that are similar to me or they tell me, “I feel like I've known you for a long time and you don't come off as being super salesy, but everything you say sounds natural, but you're still going for the appointment or the close.” Even when I started doing YouTube videos and I started getting subscribers, I remember when I got the fourteenth subscriber and I was shocked. I was like, “People want to watch me? I'm just some girl from LA that doesn't even talk a lot. Nobody knows who she is.” It surprises me sometimes at how much I have grown and how much people have been able to relate to me because of how I am and my personality. I'm not all up in your face, but at the same time, it's like I make my point and I'm here and I'm genuine in my intention to want to help.
You're authentic, you're genuine and you're there to help people every single step of the way. As we both know, real estate is a roller coaster and there are some massive highs and some massive lows. I want to hear what has been your biggest struggle in real estate and how have you been able to overcome that?
I would say that in the beginning, especially for any newer agent, it's when it's the toughest where you start questioning yourself whether or not this industry is even for you because you find yourself putting in the work, making the calls, staying consistent, but you're not getting the appointments or you're not seeing the results. I remember being six months into the business and questioning myself and looking at all of the negative things instead of focusing on the improvement that I have had. For me, it was changing my mindset and working on my mindset to make sure that I was staying positive.
Also, to trust the process to know that if I'm putting in the work and I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing that other top producers have done, eventually, I will see the results, but it does take time, patience, determination and commitment. Otherwise, another thing is that outside influences, if you're listening to other people putting you down, sometimes it's family, sometimes it's friends and they're questioning, “You haven't sold anything yet?” Then it also adds on. It's like a combination of all these things, but you have to have like a shield to know like, “This is my goal. This is what I'm going to do no matter what people think or what they tell me.”
Breaking Into Real Estate: If you don't open your mouth and put your arm around someone, there's no way that you can make the impact that you’re called to make.
I truly believe in real estate or wherever else you go in the entrepreneurial journey, business is won and lost in the mind. The other thing that I thought was fascinating is you drove that process hard. If you want to share, what was your daily mode of operation every single day as far as your cold calling, and your door knocking? When you first got started, what did your agenda and schedule look like, and then what does it look like now?
When I first started my first year, all I did was door-knocking every single day. From 8:00 to 11:30, I was door-knocking and then I would take a lunch break, and then in the afternoon I would do some admin work or I would try to put together newsletters and get all my systems set up. Then it was back to door-knocking. After 5 or 6 months of that, I started to incorporate roleplaying. From 7:30 to 8:00, I was roleplaying every single morning. Before I started roleplaying, I knew that I knew the scripts.
I almost didn't want to role play because I was like, “I know what I'm supposed to say.” I thought it was cheesy, but then once I started to do it and I started to incorporate cold calling, which was probably a month, 7 or 8 of my first year, then I saw the difference of the confidence that I got and how my skills started to improve over the phone. Many times, I was encountering the situations that I was roleplaying live with the first person that I called as an expired and it was almost like I would get a smirk in my face because I would know exactly what to say next as an objection handler.
It became like a game. That's all I did all of those years. Now, it has gotten to a point that I still cold-called expireds in the morning and also for sale by owners. I focus a lot also on referral business and growing social media because I get a lot of business referral business from agents that follow me. I work that in my sphere of influence, past clients, and every person that I had put in my database from all these past years.
What I think is cool about this is success loves speed. You put in the hustle early on with the hours and hours in the cold calling, door knocking, and the roleplaying. You paid the price early on when the average person would be dying after an hour of cold calling. You were like, “No, I'm going to do the short-term sacrifice for the long-term gain.” Look how it has paid you tenfold. How long did it take you to get your first sale?
It took me about six months. I started the door knocking and I would do that every single day and that helped me with the interactions with strangers. Once I started to incorporate the cold calling, I started with the expireds from previous years. The first listing that I got was from a gentleman that I cold-called. He had expired two years before. He went off on me on the phone, but I can hear it in his voice that he was still motivated and wanted to move. I stuck in there and I asked him questions, “Tell me about your last experience.” With this particular case, he had been in the market for almost a year and came off the market unsold. We ended up putting the home on the market. It was priced correctly. This time we double ended it and it was right under a million and that was my first one.
Many people would have given up in the first 90 days or in the first 120 days. I think that's important to drive that home that “overnight success.” It's been months and years in the making. The other thing that I think is great about you is that you are crystal clear on what your IPAs, Income Producing Activities, are. Many people go to the office, shuffle the papers around and then they let something throw them off the handle because they get emotional on it. Especially as females, something that we have to master is those emotions and not have those emotions master us. What were some things that kept your feet to the fire? Are you extremely self-motivated or did you have someone that was there to keep your feet to the fire? Did you have a coach? What did that look like?
I personally am self-motivated, but then along with that, I had my family, thank God. They were supportive as well. I know a lot of people can't say that. I know a lot of agents that say, “My family was doubting me. They kept on telling me to get a real job.” Along with that, my boyfriend was the one that I started working with and he was also supportive in pushing me into my goals. He started before I did. I remember him telling me, “You're not going to be cold calling for the rest of your life, but the goal is for you to do it hard the first few years that you build a database and a system that eventually, people are calling you and you don't have to make the calls ever again.” That stuck to me because I feel that sometimes people think, “I'm going to be in real estate for the rest of my life.” That's not the goal. The goal is for you to start from the bottom, then build a team if you want, then financial freedom and get out and have a team working for you and things like that.
Tell me a little bit more about your vision of where you see your business evolving? I love that you're working yourself to the place where I'm like, “I don't have to be in the grind on the daily. This is what my ultimate vision is.”
Along with continuing to do real estate, what I do want to do more of is training, especially newer agents. I have found a passion for that lately. I knew that I had a lot of agents that follow me because of YouTube, but I never knew how many of them were new or thinking about getting into the business. If you've seen my videos, some of my videos are straight and harsh telling you the truth about real estate. I'm surprised some are still like, “I'm still interested.” I tell you all the bad things and you're going to want to cry and things like that. I still want to continue doing that.
Breaking Into Real Estate: If you’re putting in the work and doing what you’re supposed to be doing that other top producers have done, eventually, you will see the results.
Also, probably more speaking, traveling, doing courses, and empowering not just real estate agents, but women as well. I feel that myself being the first generation out here and then being the first one to go to college and everything that I feel that I have accomplished. I know a lot of people might be able to relate to seeing me. It gives me a lot of fulfillment to know that I can share my experience and what I have gone through and show others like, “If I did it, you can do it too. If you think you're shy or that you're not outgoing, look at me. You're capable of doing anything that you set your mind to do.”
You are such an inspiration to many people even in the Facebook group that we started together, Not Just a Pretty Face-Women in Business. I have loved your content in there and even the course that you're launching. Tell people the details on it because I think this is important to find a mentor that has done what you want to do. I've always said it this way, success leaves clues, so does failure. Be able to invest in yourself, which is your greatest asset, and learn from the best of what they've done so that you can have that same success. All the women that are out there that are contemplating wanting to start a real estate business, I would love for you to share the details on this course that you're putting out. I've loved what I've seen.
The reason that I came up with this course, it's the New Real Estate Agent Bootcamp. I came up with it because I always get messages and comments from people thinking about getting into real estate or brand-new agents asking me about scripts or what motivates me or how can I be successful in listing presentation and objection handlers. I figured, “What a great way to bring everyone together and teach them also that they can hear from my experience, my stories, hear my tonality, and how it is that I respond to certain scenarios firsthand.”
This course is four weeks long. Everything is held inside of a private Facebook page and I do weekly live training and along with the live training every week, I'm always posting guides and tips on newsletters. This is an open space for everyone that's in there to take advantage of me and ask me as many questions as you want about anything real estate related. At the end of the day, my goal is to help others and empower them and show them that, “Let's not reinvent the wheel.
I'm here giving you everything that I have done that has worked for me so that you can do it and replicate it. If you stick to it, you're going to see the results.” Even this last boot camp, I wrapped it up, even within the first two weeks, I had some agents tell me, “I did what you said and it worked like magic and I had my first listing appointment.” A week after the training started, two people got their first buyers under contract. It makes me excited that everything that I'm telling you works. You see it firsthand.
When I got my license, I had many people in my brokerage being like, “Where do we go from here? How do I get the listings?” I was in a partnership where I was fed different listings. It was simplistic for me because of that partnership but for a lot of them, I'm like, “You may want to hire a coach. You may want to hire a mentor.” What I love about what you have to offer, you're not only a mentor and a coach, but there are other people that are learning who are at that same level that they are. Also, that is being able to help each other along the way. Not only can they get help from you, but they're a part of a bigger community that's bigger than them so that they can feel like, “I can have this power partner that keeps me accountable.” You are miles ahead but there are other people that can relate with them as well. I think that's powerful. Even above and beyond one coach, you've got a community that you're creating.
That's exactly what this is and what I wanted it to be for everyone that joined. I remember even one of the members that joined, and Spanish is her first language, she was interested in getting into real estate. She was going through the courses and she shared her video and her experience. It was a little difficult for her to film herself, but she wanted it to put in the group and she said, “My family is doubting me. They're telling me that I'm too old. Why am I even doing this? I don't speak English but I feel that everyone here is supporting me even though I've never met you all. Every time that Loida teaches, she makes it seem easy in terms of the content is easy to understand because some things goes over your head.” That’s the feedback that I have gotten. Everything that I have taught because of my story, people easily remember it and it makes them want to continue to want to know more about real estate.
Loida, I am excited to watch that impact more and more people as you teach. You have such a beautiful heart behind why you do what you do and your mission of empowering women, which I am all about. If someone met you and said, “Loida, I want to become the boss of my own life and call the shots. What's my first step?” What would you tell them?
I would say the first step is to write down your goals and put timeframes when you want to accomplish it. I feel that sometimes people want to do certain things, but it never gets done because it keeps on getting put off but if you put a date to it, now you have a commitment. It's like an appointment.
My dad always taught us when we were younger and he said, “Write the goal in pen, the date in pencil. You’ve got to run the best that you can towards it. If you don't make it, pick yourself back up and drive towards it again.” What is your definition of a boss?
Breaking Into Real Estate: People think the goal is to be in real estate for the rest of their lives. That’s not the goal. The goal is for you to start from the bottom, build a team, create financial freedom, then get out.
A boss is someone who has control of what it is that they're doing and at the same time, empowering those that are wanting to learn from them to all grow together to the top.
Any last words of wisdom, Loida?
I would say for anyone that's reading, we've talked about goals and being your boss and my experience in real estate. Have faith and be focused on what it is that you want to accomplish and know that you can do it. You have to believe in yourself first before other people believe in you. If your goal is that big and you're determined to accomplish it, you're going to do whatever it takes even if it makes you be outside of your comfort zone or get in an uncomfortable situation.
I know that I have many readers that are going to want to follow you and be a part of your core. Why don't you share all your handles and all the details?
You can visit my website, LoidaVelasquez.com. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, everywhere at Loida Velasquez.
Thank you so much for your time. I'm honored that you are here and a part of this. For all of those that are reading, my heartbeat behind this mission of why I even do The Boss Life podcast is for you to fire your fear, build your faith, and to become the boss of your own life. Let's get after it, guys. Let's make it happen and let's make an impact.
Thanks, Stef.
Thank you.
Important Links:
YouTube channel – Loida Velasquez
Not Just a Pretty Face-Women in Business – Facebook group
Loida Velasquez – Facebook page
Instagram – Loida Velasquez
About Loida Velasquez
Loida Velasquez is a real estate agent with Team BC at eXp Realty in Southern California. She is known in the real estate community through her YouTube channel and social media presence where she helps thousands of agents with her real estate related videos! She has built most of her business through the old school approach of cold calling and door knocking expired and for sale by owners. Loida was recently named by BombBomb as one of the top 5 video influencers for 2019 in sales training and the only woman in that category!