Jason Williford: Building A Prestigious Brand
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Success doesn't come easy and can take a lot of work and sacrifice. Jason Williford is a great example of someone that is willing to put in the time and money to build a brand and achieve success. In fact, Jason has spent over $1.1 Million on his own personal and professional development in his life. From homeless to working with some of the highest performing people in the real estate space, Jason would like to share some of the tips of how he got there and his desire to help others do the same. He's the CEO of Platinum Real Estate Coaching, launched a TV show called Agents On Fire, and just released a book titled "The Ultimate Real Estate Machine: How Team Leaders Can Build A Prestigious Brand And Have Explosive Growth With More Freedom and Less Risk". He's worked with some top sales gurus like Jay Abraham, Kevin Harrington, Ben Gay III, Cory Bergeron and Michael Bernoff and has a wealth of information to help others reach their own success.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Jason was kicked out from home after he graduated from High School, he was homeless and lived in his car for eight months.
- He started out with selling timeshares, then went on into the remodeling industry, became a general manager with the second largest remodeling company in America. He blessed with amazing mentors through the years
- Now, he is a coach, a trainer and now an author working with high end people in real estate.
- Jason have discussed the content of his book entitled “The Ultimate Real Estate”. This book is for any real estate agents looking to grow a sustainable business with explosive exponential growth, that they can later exit and have more freedom in their life.
- He also discussed the three highest dollar producing activities for any entrepreneur. Number one (which comes from Tony Robbins) is strategy. Number two is marketing. Number three is innovation
- People can connect to Jason via jasonwilliford360.com
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro and overview on Jason’s career.
03:11 - About Jason’s Book “The Ultimate Real Estate”
08:55 - Jason’s advise about marketing a business.
17:30 - Talking about how Jason manages his time despite of having a book, coaching and TV Show.
19:21 - Three highest dollar producing activity for real estate agent.
26:08 - How people can connect to Jason.
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL freedom podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together.
Mike Swenson
All right, welcome everybody to another episode of The Real freedom podcast here. And I'm so excited to share. We have Jason Williford here. And Jason has a wonderful story to share with us. He also has a new book coming out. So a little bit about Jason kind of a serial entrepreneur guy, high school education, he started out selling timeshares got into real estate. He's a coach, he's a trainer, now an author working with high end people in real estate and wants to give back, he's got a TV show that he's working on. So there's so much there. So I just want a quick highlight your book, The Ultimate real estate machine, how team leaders can build a prestigious brand and have explosive growth with more freedom and less risk. So that book is what's coming out soon. You're here to talk about that and your career. Welcome, Jason. We're so excited to have you.
Jason Williford
Thank you. Thank you for having me on. I am super excited to be on.
Mike Swenson
Why don't you just share a little bit more, I mean, obviously, give a little bit of a background there share more about you know, what got you started, where you're at today and the journey to get there,
Jason Williford
Where I started out at, and not to sound cliche ish. But I did come from very humble beginnings. rough childhood, I was kicked out of my home the day that I graduated high school, I was homeless, I lived in my car for eight months. And abbreviating that story, you know, I do have a high school education, all this stuff I used to be embarrassed about. And that is one thing I think I help people out on because you know, don't be embarrassed of your past, it is your past, it's not your present. And it doesn't define your future either. So you know, after the high school education, did not spend one day in a formal College and I'm not being braggy about that either. I do believe in college. But through the years, I invested over $1.1 million back into professional development and personal development, your business will only develop at the rate that you develop as a human being.
Jason Williford
So I've been blessed to have amazing mentors, through the years fast forwarding through, start out with timeshare, then went on into the remodeling industry, became a general manager with the second largest remodeling company in America at the time. And what I learned from there, just like in many experiences in my life, I learned, you know, big media marketing, Radio TV marketing, than just that one location three $400,000 a month. So I learned a lot from that business. And yes, that ties into my greatest mentor Jay Abraham, who I wrote the book with the ultimate real estate machine. And that's what the book is about is about utilizing Jay's principles and how we utilize those principles, brought them into real estate, and how it's highly effective in real estate, which one of the chapters is chapter number nine is and I'm digging back into the book, marketing mistakes that cost huge profits.
Jason Williford
There's 29 marketing mistakes, that cost you huge profits. And there's one of the mistakes that I made. And I was thinking about it before you were preparing for this interview. And one of the marketing mistakes that I made is not having your headline refined. And because Jay talks that one headline one crappy headline, versus one magnificent headline can be a difference of 21 times, which is 20 100% different results and where I messed up on the title of this the specially the subtitle, I think I would say on this book just being open and really honest. How team leaders can build a prestigious brand have explosive growth with more freedom and less risk. There's two words that after final of this cover was done. I was like, hey, this book is not just for team leaders. This book is for any real estate agents looking to grow a sustainable business with explosive exponential growth, that they can later exit and have more freedom in their life.
Jason Williford
There's just so many, you know, golden nuggets within the book. Yesterday, I gave Kevin Harrington a copy a hard copy of the book, because Kevin Harrington has a original Shark Tank cast. And he gave he gave me a blurb for the book. back to the book. And he said, after he read the book, this book is the business Bible. For those looking to grow a sustainable real estate business that thrives. I book to keep forever and refer back to when you're faced with business challenges. So that's how the book was written, not just to be a book that you read one time and you put the book down. The book was written with timeless principles, not fads, not a, the latest click funnel or Facebook ad or YouTube ad, whatever it is, it's a book about timeless principles, that you read it once, then you read it once per quarter. Yeah, you put it on the shelf, when you have complex business problems, I'd have mental breakthroughs, and not have mental breakdowns. So the book was made to go back and reference.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and Jason, one thing that I was gonna say that I that I really like is, you know, if we think about building financial freedom through opportunities in real estate, it's mindset, it's growth, it's investing in yourself, like you said, investing $1.1 million in your your own personal and professional development. It's building systems, repeatable systems that can scale your business. And I think that's where a lot of times, you know, people get into trouble is they think too short term. And they think, you know, I'm only looking three months ahead six months ahead a year ahead. But in your case, it's I'm looking at building up a platform here, a foundation that I'm going to grow from, and the more knowledge that I have, the more personal development that I have, the more systems that I have the brand that I'm building, all of that is going to build on top of each other. Versus I'm just Joe Schmoe real estate agent, and I had the same year in real estate for 20 years, and I look up and I have nothing to show for it.
Jason Williford
Yeah, and I have a friend, I can't remember who said it, or where it came from. But he said that, hey, you don't want to die behind the real estate desk. And what that means to me is, you're 70 years young, and you're selling real estate, not because you want to. But because you have to, you know, one of the great events that I went to, and actually Jay Abraham spoke at, he's one of the main speakers at Tony Robbins business mastery. And as what Tony said, at that event that has really stuck out is if your business does not have an exit strategy, you don't have a business, you have a job, you know, that exit could be a selling event, or that exit could be, hey, my business is running, I'm just not in the business, I'm getting passive income from that business. Exit Strategy does not have to be three years, it doesn't have to be five years, it can be 50 years, but you have to have some kind of exit strategy. And that's what book goes into a good bit more detail about
Mike Swenson
one of the other things I was going to mention. So as you're talking about quotes is a quote from Albert Einstein that's in your book, because I got an advanced copy of that to look at any fool can make things complex, but a genius can make the complex simple. And that's the important thing too is I could talk to you about this principle. And as a, as a high detailed person, that tends to be my fault, because I talk in detail, you know, but but to be able to make something so complex, simple. That's really where a lot of the money is made in marketing and like you had mentioned about, you know, having that that one line can really make a big difference in your business versus, you know, not having something sharp. And those are the key marketing principles that that really matters. So what are some other things in terms of as a real estate agent, as somebody in mortgage or title what are some things that you would advise people to focus on as they're thinking about marketing their business
Jason Williford
I almost died last year. So another piece about me almost died, q4 of last year, extreme extreme pain, I was in the ICU for eight days. My neighbor next in the room next to me passed away while I was in there. So you know, some profound things happen. And my mission statement in life just became really clear and simple. And it's, Hey, I just want to impact positively 10 million or more people in my lifetime, directly or indirectly, with or without getting recognition from it. So if I said something and I impacted you, and you when that out impacted 8 million people, and they didn't even know that it came from me. Hey, I'm still winning. I just hit 8 million right there. So
Mike Swenson
I'll be the guy Jason You just I'll do the 10 million you can impact me I'll go impact the 10 million your jobs and I'm good with that.
Jason Williford
I'm good with that. But is the biggest area you know in it just go in there. The book is has stats there's a great book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. And that book was about, you know, metrics and about it took years to write the book because it took years to get the data. So there's a lot of data in this book. It's not theoretic. It is proven data. And one of the data points that's in here is, the hard truth is that I can't remember the number but it's something like 87 or 89 or 91%. of consumers that was polled do not trust real estate agents. Mm hmm. That's not good. You know, the industry has been for a long time and still is and will be for a good bit of time as something doesn't change is very open for disruption, Zillow, they tried to take a hit at it, strong hit, they're probably not even done yet. And I did the figuring one time, how many billions of dollars that the consumer pays on real estate commission.
Jason Williford
Of course, there are companies that would love to intercept that money and cut who out be the real real estate agent. So the answer that question through my ADHD is the strategy of preeminence, which is becoming the preeminent agent in your market, which is chapter number four, I strongly recommend, hey, if you don't do anything else, if you just read chapter four, not just read that chapter. But if you really embody the strategy of preeminence by becoming the preeminent agent, the one that falls in love with their clients, more so than their products and services, you're not just a transactional agent that's just looking for closings, you're playing a different game at a high level, the game of lifetime clients,
Mike Swenson
you know, the the mindset around lifetime clients, if you think the average person moves every seven to 10 years, you've got seven to 10 years of time that you're spending with them when they're not necessarily doing business with you specifically. So that's where the relationship is important. Can you be that resource for them that friend to them that help help to them in other areas, outside of just buying or selling? Because then you don't come across as the transaction guy of, hey, I'm looking to sell all right, I'm, I'm like, like one of those Wacka moles, where I pop up now, because it's seven to 10 years. And now I want to sell your house, but it's how do you feel that other time by adding value to them in the real estate space, that's so important?
Jason Williford
Yeah. And that's chapter five, the lifetime value of a client. And it actually even doesn't just say why it's important to have the lifetime value of a client. There's even a quick exercise in there that shows you how to calculate what your lifetime value of a client is. And let's just say seven years, hey, it's a long sales cycle. But if you stay top of mind, and let's say, statistically, you buy six homes over your lifetime, which means that that's what 11 transactions or whatever it comes down to. So that's 11 transactions over your lifetime. But the big multiplier on top of that of a supercharger is having predictable referrals, generating strategies in your business. And that's another one of the chapters is on having a predictable referral generating system.
Jason Williford
And I see the huge problem and I had the problem and still have some of the problem in the question comes down to how many put not haphazardly, not accidentally, but how many predictable referral strategies do you have in your business that predictably, generate referrals? That common answer is, I don't have any, you know, having a predictable referral generating system. Because referrals, they are the number one most proven, most profitable, most overlooked, most underutilized, lead source on the planet. They're also the client, you know, just like you, you've been in the industry a long time. And you know, which, if I sent you out on a listing appointment, or a buyer appointment, would you rather have that appointment of a trusted friend that's already set you up? So now, you've already been positioned and they're predisposed to doing business with you? Or would you rather go out on the lead that came from Facebook?
Mike Swenson
Yeah, it's already done. And for me, I'm a relationship type person. And so if I have somebody that tells me, Hey, I had a great experience with this person, I'm like, Okay, sounds good. You know, now it's not, hey, I'm also interviewing you and five other They're agents for this house. Yeah, it's yeah, I took your word, you had a great experience, it makes it a whole lot easier. So yeah, you're right. So many people do overlook the repeat and referral business.
Jason Williford
But in there's 217, predictable referral strategies, but it would be hard to implement all 217 strategies. But what if you go from one or two to 15, in 90 days, or, you know, 20 in six months, that's when you have a predictable system, I duplicable system. And that's what I'm training right now. You know, the TV shows agents on fire. Kevin Harrington was in episode one from Shark Tank, Jay Abraham's and episode two, I'm also planning on bringing some other special guests that are, you know, very worldly entrepreneurs, or best, the best marketers in the world or sales gurus in the world. That's what I'm doing right now is I'm putting them through elite agent referral mastery. And it's amazing the breakthroughs that they're getting in the first two weeks, and we're only doing it. And I say the first two weeks, I think we've been on four or five calls.
Jason Williford
So far, we haven't even got into the meat of refer. We haven't even started building their referral system. But it just shifted their paradigm, the way that they're looking at things now, versus the way that they were looking at things two weeks ago, it's just super excited for all of them there. And it was this book was written strategically, because I knew the very first thing I needed to do was open up everybody's mind to a different way of thinking. And chapter two is unleash your inner creative breakthroughs. Breakthrough genius, just long story short, read the book.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, let's talk for a second then about the other stuff that you have going on. So you know, obviously a lot of the book has been your your past years and learnings and everything that you're kind of compiling together here. But but your your coaching, you've got this TV show, as you kind of take a step back. How do you balance your life? And how are you balancing kind of the strategy of which things you're pursuing, at which time because you are a serial entrepreneur, you have a lot on your plate, you do want to grow big business here in real estate. So how are you deciding how to best spend your time?
Jason Williford
That's a really great question. And quite honestly, just by the, the, the way, I think is, and I have people that are, you know, friends of mine, they're like, God, dude, you, you have a TV show, you have a book camp coming out, you have all this stuff going on. And I don't I just don't think that way, you know, maybe it's a part blessing. And it's part curse as well, is that I feel like I'm stuck at times, like I don't have enough going on. You know, after almost dying last year, I have been in a big building phase of really building content, of course, not just writing a book. And this book is not a cheesy lead magnet type book where that's all it is just to say, Hey, I'm an author. This is a real book with real gold within the pages of it took a long time. Plus, I have three other books that are ready to go to the publisher afterwards. Actually, I had one that ahead of this book, but I had the opportunity with Abraham. And sometimes you just you have to run with it.
Jason Williford
And that's what I did, you know, the TV show as well. So really, for me, I'm just a run running gun type guy. Yes, I have a lot of growth to do myself. Because you're either green in growing, or you're Brown and dying. There's no finish line. But there's no finish line ever and optimization. And I just know there's always more in me and I can always do better and things that I can do better to go back answer your question, you know, is getting a lot better by plugging things in the calendar sticking to the calendar. Sometimes I do great at that. And sometimes I fall short, but also focusing on my time of what are my highest dollar producing activities for me to be in. And it's really simple when you keep it like that. Number one, and this comes from Tony Robbins, number one strategy number two, marketing.
Jason Williford
Number three innovation. That's the three highest dollar producing activities for any entrepreneur to be in to stay in those high dollar producing activities. But you know that's working on your business. Working in your business where the three highest dollar producing activities were real estate agent number one being face to face listing appointments, the highest dollar producing activity to be in not a buyer appointment because a buyer appointment research shows that You spend 1/3 of the time with a seller than you do with the buyer. Then number two, negotiating a contract number three prospecting, which even goes into the book that you can take a majority of number three off of your plate by having by leveraging the power of inside sales agents. So to answer your question, I want to stay as much in those high dollar producing activities as possible, in the least amount in the low dollar producing activities, probably common knowledge, you may have heard of, hey, I'm working in my business versus on my business, or vice versa.
Jason Williford
The other layer that most people have not heard of, is working above your business. And that's really taking your business to the next really nice level, because, like working above your businesses, you know, what if, you know what about the strategic partnerships that you can have with outside people, the joint venture deals that you can do the, you know, purchasing of, you know, databases from, you know, a retiring agent that, you know, has built an amazing database, and they are the preeminent agent in the marketplace. And, you know, hey, they're just looking to, you know, have fun in life now, and not deal with, you know, real estate. There's opportunities all over the place when you look there. And I'll finish with this one quick story.
Jason Williford
And it's actually in the book, and Jay talks about a man that walked the earth all this life, and it's probably a theoretical story. But he walked the earth. And he said, Hey, at a young age, I'm going to collect all the change that I find, and we'll put it in a big jar. So over his life, he walked around, looking at the ground, everywhere that he's seen it, he accumulated a lot of quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, guess how much he accumulated over time? million dollars, something like $22.38 per the story. But what he missed out on is the question because he was always staring at the ground. So he missed out on countless sunsets, sunrises, his kids playing experiences with his wife, and not to count all of the business opportunities that he could have had over $22. And some change.
Mike Swenson
Well, they say stepping over dollars to get to Dimes is really a great example of that. That story right there. You know, talking about spending $1.1 million in personal development and professional development. How do you decide what what you're gonna spend your your money on? In terms of your professional development? How do you put together that plan?
Jason Williford
Yeah, for me. And again, referring back to the book, it's in the book and a chapter called four steps to greatness, from mediocre to magnificent is the name of that chapter. So it outlines in that chapter, you know, there's not 500 steps to take to happen. You know, I don't have just one mentor. I have, obviously, Jay Abraham as a mentor. I have Kevin Harrington as a mentor, Ben gay, the third as a mentor, Roland Frasier meant Perry Belcher all these high level, you know, entrepreneurs, marketers, a majority of them directly, some indirectly. But also I have Jay is an amazing entrepreneur, business and marketing mentor, but Jay may not be the best one to structure, my Brazilian jujitsu plan. He's not the one to teach me Brazilian jujitsu is who is the best, the best that I can afford at that particular time. And that's who I want in that niche that I'm looking for growth in which area that may be in my life. And that's who I want to invest with that I can, if I can afford them at the time.
Mike Swenson
I like that mentality afford the best that I the best that I can with what I can afford at that time. And I'm sure over time for you that's grown.
Jason Williford
Yeah, we could when we started our company, we started out with $700, between my partner and I, and that was to also manage the family off of so we and we had lost everything, everything. We'd had success in our lives. But we lost everything houses, cars, my boat, all gone. I was luckily I bought a second car because that's what ended up being my first car. So we built everything on cash, because our credits at the time, we had no other choice. And I've kept and I learned lessons from the Great Recession. And that was a huge hard lesson learned was, Hey, Bill with cash if you can.
Mike Swenson
Well, yeah, I mean, we've we've covered a lot of good stuff in the book here. Just a few things that I was just gonna mention. For those folks that want You know, find out more about the book here, you know, chapters on some marketing principles that separate you from all the competition, mistakes you made. We talked about that utilizing inside sales, referral generating systems, you're either multiplier or diminisher. What losing taught me about winning, so just a lot of great talk, talking points and topics, and like you said, a book that people can go back to, and reference time after time, instead of just reading it through one time. So on any other kind of thoughts or closing comments, just one.
Jason Williford
Yeah, one closing thought that I wanted to give is that is that as part of the book, there's over $1,200 worth of bonuses attached to when you buy a $20 book, the book is way worth, way, way, way, way, way, way, way more than you'll get way more value than the the 20 bucks that you spend. But we all also added on over $1,200 worth of bonuses in there too.
Mike Swenson
And I know for folks watching too, they'll see the background, Jason will afford three sixty.com Any other ways that that folks can reach out to you.
Jason Williford
And actually, when you go to jasonwilliford360.com, you'll see that everything lives within there, my social media sites, any of my websites, my contact information, to schedule an appointment with me, it all lives right there. So is what I'm getting at. There's also a little button on the bottom of mind that says my three sixty.com If you click on that, you can also get yours and it's not it's not expensive at all whatsoever. You know, Albert Einstein and the you know, any, you know, any fool can make things complex, but it takes a real genius to make things simple, and they did a great job with that. Two hours, I had all that stuff, like tied into my 360 accounts. So I'm just gonna, just a quick plug for my 360 I don't own it. But it's been super helpful for me and I just like the to give value back where I can say,
Mike Swenson
Alright, well, thank you so much, Jason, for coming on, you know, for folks listening to this, you know, visit his website, go grab the book, read it and take advantage of that $1,200 of additional value.
Jason Williford
Thank you, brother. I appreciate you Mike. Thanks for having me.
