Jacki Semerau Tait - From $4 To Queen Of Relational Real Estate

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Jacki Semerau Tait is known as the "Queen of Relational Real Estate." Today she is a top producing Realtor and real estate coach, having founded Team Three 23 Real Estate Group with Realty ONE Mountain Desert in the Flagstaff, Arizona area. After losing her house and having literally $4 to her name, Jacki found herself needing to recreate herself and build and grow her income. While it was the lowest of the lows, it became the catalyst for her to launch into her dream life. She's shared platforms with Les Brown, Magic Johnson, and other top speakers. Jacki is also a bestselling author with books including Ignite The Hunger In You, Embracing Imperfections, Ignite Your Faith, and the children's book A Time To Fly.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Achieve financial freedom through real estate investing and secure your future.
• Build a successful real estate career from scratch and reach new heights of success.
• Overcome challenges in real estate and emerge stronger than ever before.
• Master real estate agent marketing strategies to stand out in a competitive market.
• Discover the power of writing and publishing books as a real estate agent to elevate your professional brand.

The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 - Overcoming adversity and finding purpose
00:03:24 - Lessons from the tough times
00:09:23 - Navigating the headwinds in real estate
00:13:14 - Real Estate as a Sales Job
00:16:29 - Advice for Experienced Agents
00:19:36 - Demonstrating Expertise and Value
00:24:18 - Pursuing Other Opportunities
00:26:02 - Co-authoring a Book with Les Brown
00:26:31 - Balancing Business and Passion Projects
00:27:23 - Avoiding Burnout and Building Respect

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Jacki Semerau Tait
And it was a long, hard climb to get out of that. I remember being able to get into a three bedroom apartment with my girls and feeling like that apartment was a palace because it signified like, okay, you're making strides. You're stepping up. You're getting your little family back together again, so to speak.

Mike Swenson
Welcome to the REL Freedom show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time, financial freedom through opportunities and real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some REL Freedom together. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the REL Freedom podcast, where we talk about building time and financial freedom through different opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. If you want to get started on your real estate journey, check out our website, freedomthroughrealestate.com. we've got a lot of great content, articles, blogs, past episodes on there for you to check out and kind of see what is going to be the best fit for you as you try to build wealth and gain financial freedom through opportunities and real estate, whatever that might look like for you. And today's guest has an amazing story talking about starting from nothing, or in this case, $4 and building and growing a great career in real estate. So we have Jacki Semiraud Tate. She is the queen of relational real estate, a top producing realtor and coach. And so we'll talk about your story and how that grew. But you're with team 323, real estate group with realty one based out of the flag staff, Arizona area, also a coach, and you've done a lot of amazing things. And so we're excited to hear more about that. So welcome, Jacki, to the show.

Jacki Semerau Tait
Thank you for having me, Mike. I'm excited to talk to you today.

Mike Swenson
So give us just a little bit about your background, how you, you came to be kind of the lowest of the lows, and, and how that's turned into something great. And we'll dig in and go from there.

Jacki Semerau Tait
Well, I'll. I'll kind of condense it down, because I can tell you so many different aspects of this. But here's the most important thing is when I got my license in real estate, I was married. I had an infant and a toddler, and I really did it just to become an investor. My ex husband and I, at the time, we wanted to start building a portfolio. We had actually purchased a house that was completely trashed, and we fixed it up. You know, we did the paint and the cabinets and the new appliances. We did kind of all of the fix and flip style thing before there was a big fix and flip, you know, HGTV, whatever out there. I know I'm dating myself, but that's okay. So I really, we enjoy doing that for our residents. And we thought, why don't we buy a house and do it again? And I started working with an agent who really didn't understand what we were looking for. And instead of trying to find the right agent, I just said, why don't I get my real estate license and I'll figure it out and I can represent ourselves, you know, our own book of business. And so that's what I did. Funny enough, what ended up happening is I got my license and I fell in love with real estate. And I said, I think I want to do this for real. I want to do this for clients. And so I did. And that my ex husband and I never did buy any investment property together. We actually got divorced shortly thereafter. But I found this passion for real estate and have been in that industry ever since. That was in 2002. So, yeah, so during the great Recession, I actually found myself kind of losing everything. And I had a few deals in escrow. And I specifically remember I had two luxury properties in escrow. I personally was starting to watch the end of the money at play, and I was in a little bit of a position, but I was fine. I thought, oh, I'm fine, because I've got these couple of closings coming up, and it'll be no big deal. Everything will work out. And then for those of you who might remember the stock market crash in June of 2008, that happened. And both of those deals fell out of escrow because both of those deals were highly tied to their stock holdings. And so both of those buyers had to cancel out. And that was sort of the start of the getting to my $4. I ended up having to short sell my house, took my two kids, my pride and all of my belongings, moved into my parents house. So that was a really, that was a tough thing for me. I mean, here I am. I had been extremely successful. I was in my early mid thirties, and to kind of have to get to that point, but I have to tell you, it was one of the best things that happened. So I end up moving in with my parents. I'm working so hard, not just on my real estate business, but my background is in marketing and advertising. And so I'm also starting to help small businesses with their different marketing things. Anything I could do to get back up on my feet again. So I'm working 18 1920 hours days sometimes just really trying to crush it. And, you know, I mean, here's the thing, though. We're in the middle of the great recession. It wasn't like, this is just a personal story. There was a lot of factors that went around that as well. And that's how I found myself down to my last $4. I had helped some businesses with marketing, but they were slow paying because they, too, had to make tough choices. They had to make the tough choice. Do I pay the outstanding marketing bill or do I make payroll this month? And so it was like, okay, I'm going to make payroll, and then we'll pay. Jacki and I got paid by every single business I worked with. It was just a matter of when. So I'm trying desperately to get back up on my feet, to get back out of my parents house and on my own with my two daughters. And I wake up one morning and had some outstanding invoices, hadn't been paid yet. I'm obsessively checking my bank accounts, and I had one this particular morning, one that went down to zero, one that was at negative. And I opened my purse and I have four single dollar bills to my name. And I remember looking at that and saying, this is the extent of my net worth. Now, of course, we know that's not true, because, frankly, I was in debt up to my eyeballs, so I had no net worth. I mean, truly. But looking at that $4 and knowing that that's what I had to deal with, and not knowing when that next money was going to come in. And so to get from that point to where I am today. There were a lot of lessons learned during that point. But I will tell you that what happened is getting down to the bottom of everything I had, everything I owned, having my pride hit all of that was the best thing that could have happened, because in rebuilding everything, I had to really dig in and find my why. Up until that point, the why was just simply because I could. I found I was good at it. I found that I had, you know, I had a knack for marrying my marketing and advertising and my real estate knowledge, and I was good at working with clients, finding the deals, that type of a thing. I never really stopped to say, you know, what? What's the bigger effect you're having in the world? But by getting down to the bottom of everything, that was what I had to reach in and find, like, why are you even bothering? Why are you doing this? Why do you care? And I would say that I show up so different in everything I do because of that experience. It was a long, hard climb, you know, to get out of that. I remember being able to get into a three bedroom apartment with my girls and feeling like that apartment was a palace because it signified like, okay, you're making strides, you're stepping up, you're getting your little family, uh, back together again, so to speak. And, um, yeah, so I think the biggest lesson, and if there's anything that anyone gets out of that story is just to really dig in and know why you're doing whatever it is that you do and have kind of that bigger purpose that you show up for. It's not just about the paycheck. There's so much more at stake. And the difference that you're making in the world and in other people's lives is what really matters.

Jacki Semerau Tait
So true. It's so true. And I think, you know, for, for people in this business, I love how you said right now we're in a little bit of a headwind because you are so right. The, the winds have shifted. And I know for some agents, they don't feel like it's a headwind. They feel like it's a hurricane and they're walking into it, you know? And that's why I do find it's so important to really dig in and know what your why is. And know what is it about real estate that you are attracted to? Why is this how you want to earn a living? And I think you're right. The public perception, especially right now, with everything that's in the news and all of the shifts and changes that are happening, not just those external factors, but also now within our industry, have a lot of people questioning things. I think it's just really important to know your value and your worth as an agent and why you do what you do, because that's what you hang on to in the tough times. It's what helps you dig in your heels when you need to.

Mike Swenson
Well, and also, I think for agents, too, it took me a little while to realize, like, there's other things you can do in the real estate space in addition to in leveraging your ability as an agent. Right. Um, you don't have to just do sales. You don't have to just do one thing just because somebody else is doing that. Like, there's other ways that you can find some income, build some growth. And it's a part of the reason why I'm passionate about building financial freedom through real estate. You can invest in a property or two, or you can work on some sort of side opportunity or side business within real estate that could help and grow so that I'm not necessarily reliant just on commission sales every single year, because I, you know, I've described it as, like, there's just a playground of opportunity in real estate, and being an agent and making sales as an agent can be one piece of that. But there's so many other things that you can do, too, so that when the headwinds come or they get stronger, you're in a hurricane or a tsunami, you can pivot a little bit and shift a little bit so that you can stay in the real estate industry.

Jacki Semerau Tait
Long term, for sure. I always tell agents you need to be a product of your product, and I think that's true no matter what you are. In, you know, whatever business you're in, you should be a product of the product. So for real estate, a lot of realtors will get started and maybe they don't even own their own home or they just bought their first home or whatever the case may be, wherever they're at doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter where you're at on that spectrum. But wherever you're at when you start as an agent, you should have goals about your business, but you should have personal goals as well. So if you're renting and you are a newer agent, your first goal is to own your own home. Your second goal becomes to buy your first investment property, so on, so forth. Because this way, number one, you are a product of the product. Number two, you're hedging yourself against when those tough times come, especially if you do have investment properties that you can, you know, put to work for you. And then also if you have a vacation home, if you are a person who's in a position where you can have a vacation home now this vacation home, if you hit tough times, I usually will recommend make sure your vacation home is something that you are ready, willing and able to turn into an investment property if tough times come and thats something you have to do.

Mike Swenson
Trey yeah. One of the things that used to always bug me when I work with newer agents is they would come from someplace outside of real estate, whether it was sales or marketing or whatever. And they treated their real estate job just like another sales job. I can sell copy machines, I can sell whatever it is, or I can sell homes. And they look up after six months or twelve months and see, oh, so I made just as much as I did over there, but I'm spending more time working. So I think I'll just go back to that other sales job and it's like, no, there's so much opportunity. Year over year growth where we wanted to help agents see year 2345 can be much larger than you're comparing year ten of your past industry to year one in real estate and give yourself a little bit of time. And so many people get out of real estate because they see it is difficult, but they dont necessarily see the huge future opportunity. And for somebody like you, look at all the opportunity thats come your way because you stuck it out, leadership opportunities, ownership opportunities, whatever that might look like. If you would have just gone back to sales and marketing in another industry, there might have been great opportunity, but maybe not, not to the same level of what you can find here.

Jacki Semerau Tait
Well, and thats true of any sales position too, right? If you think about it, sales is such a future based business. And so I know for myself, I help coach our brand new agents to realty one group, Mountain Desert. So we have about 700 agents in our specific franchise across twelve different offices. And when the newbies come in, they come into my program, I help coach them and then we pair them with a mentor and we do that for their first six transactions. So I'm involved heavily in helping them get that super heavy work done. But I'm always telling them, you know, like the work you do today is what feeds you in 30, 60, 90 days. It's what feeds you in two to five years. And so you have, you have to stick with it. If you create the right habits in your business, those habits will translate into opportunities realized, sales commissions in your bank account. But if you don't create the right habits in your business, then you're right, you're going to, you know, you're going to kind of be like, oh, I don't know, six months a year in, I don't know if I can, can handle it. So I mean if you're listening to this and you are in that position where you're brand new or you've been in it maybe anywhere under five years, I would say really do, before you say I'm just going to get out, really do a, an analysis of what are your habits. If you're doing the right habits, the success will come.

Mike Swenson
Yeah, because a lot of times it can feel like you're just running on a treadmill each year and it's like January 1 comes and I'm back at zero. And yeah, if you're doing it right, you should see year over year growth. And maybe because of the market there's a blip, you know, every now and then. But you should be seeing hopefully some growth in your career, especially those first couple years. And then, yeah, finding other opportunities out there. What's maybe some advice that you have for agents that have been in the business a while and are seeing the challenges that are coming up today? What's, what's some advice maybe that you have for them?

Jacki Semerau Tait
So my advice would be like, look at big rock stars. Look at Madonna or Lady Gaga or somebody. What do they do to stay relevant? Well, they're constantly reinventing themselves. So if you've been in this industry for any length of time, maybe you've had some success. Now you're coming into the headwinds and you're like, things are shifting, things are changing. A lot of people will tend to just put their head down and do more of what they've already done. My advice is you got to reinvent something about your business. So maybe it's in how you're showing up, maybe your past marketing you've gotten super complacent with, you know, hey, I do this, that and the other. We run social media ads, we pay for leads. We have our website, we do this, that are, you know, what have you reinvent what you're doing to market yourself. Maybe it looks like starting videos. Maybe it starts like, okay, fine, I'm going to learn this TikTok thing. I think it's ridiculous, but I'm going to do it, whatever that looks like. For you to reinvent the way you're showing up again, your habits need to be solid and they need to be in place. So if you, same advice that I would give any agent, that if you find yourself struggling, you have to analyze your habits. You have to really be looking at, what am I doing on a daily basis. I teach and preach a five day work week. So whatever those habits look like, you do them five days a week. I, you know, in real estate, we're on call seven days a week. We all know that. So there's going to come, you know, whatever two days you set aside doesn't always have to be, you know, Saturday, Sunday, whatever two days you set aside for yourself to take the time off from your habits. That's how you get your downtime. A lot of times those habits are going to lead to stuff you're going to do on those days anyway. But if, you know, those are the days where you're not necessarily making the calls, you're not necessarily, you know, reaching out and prospecting, those are the days that like, hey, if something comes my way, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to go forward, I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity. But if nothing comes my way on that day, I'm taking some mental space where I'm not prospecting actively. So that's kind of your first and foremost thing is to make sure your habits are in place. But as long as you keep those habits in place, that's your next step, is reinvent yourself. So I always, you know, tell people, be like Lady Gaga, reinvent the way you're showing up, and it will make a difference for who you're attracting into your business and helping you reach a new, a new audience.

Mike Swenson
I think, too, it's key to differentiate yourself from, you know, a lot of times, especially in this space now, right. The real estate agent commission has gotten a lot of press and people are talking about it and what do we do? And so being able to differentiate yourself from everybody else, right. We're not just a garage door opener. We're not just, oh, I know, seven agents, they're probably all the same, right? That's not what we're here for. So we have to position ourselves to be the expert, to be the person that's willing to give better service, find better deals, whatever that might look like. How are you going to be different than the other five agents that everybody knows?

Jacki Semerau Tait
And I always encourage, especially right now, with what we're going through. I actually, through my coaching program, I'm helping agents learn how to better present their value, how to show up a little bit differently, how to convey what it is that they do. But what I will tell you where this all starts, is that a lot of time agents get really stuck in. How do I get the business upfront so they're really front loading their value? Whereas in our industry, what I tell every time I do a buyer consultation, every time I do a listing presentation, the message I give is, listen, 25% of what I do for a living is matching the right buyer and the right seller and putting them together. The other 75% of what I do for you comes into fruition the minute we start to negotiate. Because that's where, you know, I mean, hey, our industry, we're getting hit hard, you know, in terms of our value. And it is because the public frequently just sees us as, hey, you know, I'm just going to show up and open the door for you and then, sure, I can put together contracts, but then what? You have to be able to negotiate on behalf of your client. You have to fight for your client. And I think what happens is, as agents, if you're really good at being a good agent, the general public has no idea what you're doing on the back end. And so you have to be willing to tell them that. There's so many contingencies that you have to be able to keep that contract together. And especially in a tough market, keeping those contracts together is not easy. One that had a crazy low appraisal and it was one that, I mean, it came in egregiously low. And when you dig into it and you see the adjustments, he did give the adjustments, he didn't give the generals adjustments. Price per square foot that he used, it was egregiously wrong. And so in that situation, it was like I had to spend and so much time on the phone trying to get all my ducks in a row so that we could fight that appraisal. And then in the end of the day, then taking it to the client to say, okay, here's our options. We can fight. And here's where our, you know, here's our legs to stand on, but here's what that process looks like. And then, adversely, we could use this appraisal, but now we have to go to the buyer. We have to renegotiate a new price. If you're not willing to come all the way down to this price, which I 100% said, no, don't do that. Because this is such an egregiously wrong appraisal that there's no reason for you to do that. But if we want to keep our closing on time and. And you want to go forward with as little pain as possible, then let's renegotiate a price where maybe you're coming down. They're coming up. That was a full. That was a ten hour day just in trying to keep that one piece of the puzzle together. But in the end of the day, what do your clients actually see of that? In my ten hour day, that was about 45 minutes, actually, on the phone with the client. Everything else was happening behind the scenes. So it's knowing that these are the things, this is the reason you earn that commission, is because when there is a bump in the road, you fight for your client to keep things together and come up with a solution.

Mike Swenson
You should keep a document or a video blog of all those challenges that have come up. And you could be like, here's why you're actually hiring me. You may just think that it's this, but here's the 77 times that I had to go through hell and back to be able to keep a deal together when another agent wouldn't have been, it wouldn't have been able to do that. And that's why you're hiring me for this over every other agent. And here's my blog of 77 issues that came up that I've handled, that nobody else would be able to handle.

Jacki Semerau Tait
So it's a good idea. I'll take you up on it.

Jacki Semerau Tait
Well, thank you. My first book I ever wrote is called a time to fly. It's right there, and it's actually the one I'm the most proud of, even though, I don't know, it may be sold, like, hardly any copies. I don't know. But I actually wrote that book. It's a children's book. And I jokingly say it's an autobiography. It's my autobiography because it really is. It's about this baby bird who was afraid to fly. And so the mom of Robin comes to little baby Robbie and says, listen, it's time. We got to get you out of the nest. It's time to learn to fly. And baby Robbie's like, nope, don't want to do it. So he finds all these other animals that he can, you know, he's like, hey, well, what about, what about this animal? What about that animal? I can do what they do. And then the mama in her wisdom says, well, no, that's, you know, that's not going to work. And here's why. And then, you know, the mama Robin's like, listen, this is the gift and the talent you were born with, but if you never use it, you'll never know how good you could be. So of course, baby Robbie takes the opportunity, gets the courage, and decides to fly. And of course, he's brilliant at it. And so it really is, it's all written in poetic form and it's a message for kids, but grown ups can benefit from it, too. That stop trying to do what you weren't meant to do and step into your greater purpose for which you were created. So that's really what that book is about. But the ignite the hunger in you book I'm really proud of, too. I co authored that book with Les Brown and a few others. And that's the book where I tell my $4 story and kind of get in depth in terms of how I was feeling, what I was really facing during that moment, and what happened when I got through it. So really proud of that. I did have an opportunity to personally mentor with Les Brown in 2021. So that was a really amazing opportunity. Got to write the book, got to share the stage with him at a big event in New York City, all sorts of stuff. So proud of those two. I do have a third book, too, that's not there called ignite the faith in you. And so that's about a faith journey.

Jacki Semerau Tait
That's a great question. My daughter owns her own business, and she's trying to launch an online course. She's a dog trainer. She's trying to launch an online course. And she came to one day and asked something similar. She goes, mom, how do you do it all? I was like, I don't know. I have no idea. It's kind of like that, that analogy where you have the jar and then you put the marbles in, and then after you put the marbles, you put the rocks, and then the sand fills it all up, and then you put more water because there's actually room for things. I'm like, yeah, I identify with that jar a lot. There's just always things coming at it. But I would say truthfully, you know, kidding aside, one of the things that I do is I really am protective of my time. I have very healthy barriers and boundaries that I've set around my business. And so for me, that's part of how I'm able to accomplish this kind of thing. Because I do hang up my real estate hat at a certain time of day. I do try really hard to protect my Sundays, my clients. One of the ways that I effectively avoid burnout is I let all my clients know. You can reach me 09:00 a.m. to 07:00 p.m. monday through Saturday. Those are very generous work hours. Unfortunately, a lot of agents think they just need to be at everybody's beck and call 24/7 what actually happens is, number one, you get burnt out, and number two, your client doesn't respect you as a professional when they feel like, they can walk all over your time at any given time of day. And so that's part of it. So by protecting my work hours, I keep my real estate and my coaching within those work hours. So when it comes time for passion projects like writing a book or what have you, those are the things I can do, you know, earlier in the morning, later in the evening, on Sundays, things like that.

Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, congratulations to you on the success that you've had and for people that want to reach out to you, learn more about you or connect with you, how can they do that?

Jacki Semerau Tait
So the best way to get in touch with me, if you go to the website stepstostrength.com, all spelled out stepstostrength.com, you're going to find everything about me there. You can connect with, you know, buy my books, connect with my coaching program, find my YouTube videos, whatever. But if you are an agent listening to this today and you want to know how to create those really good habits so that you can build a business by relationship, which is the way, I mean, my business is about 94% referral based at this point. And so if that's something that you're interested in, I have a free gift for your audience. If they just go to buyreferral.com, b yddeh referral.com, and they can download my four steps to sphere of influence mastery guide, and it's, it's a free gift to you, but it also will put you in the hopper so that when I launch a new coaching pod, you'll be notified.

Mike Swenson
Well, thank you so much, Jacki, for coming on and sharing your story. And best of luck as you continue to grow in the future.

Jacki Semerau Tait
You bet. Mike, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.