How CINC Helps The Miller Team Thrive in Northeast Florida Market

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Transcript

Darcy Miller: [00:00:00] And right now, just our CINC pipeline, not the whole pipeline, our CINC pipeline is right out about $20.6 million. And we've only been with you guys 5, 6 months I think. 

{Intro}

Darcy Miller: We're Darcy and Paula Miller. We're with Castillo Real Estate, which we own the company and then the Miller team, which is a team within the company that we run. Paula's the superstar. She's the broker of our company and handles all the fun stuff as a broker. And I'm in charge of kind of the CINC and the development and growth of the agents. So we have specific roles. We've done this for numerous years together, and we work really well together. So that's always been a blessing. And we're in Northeast Florida. Jacksonville St. Augustine. Whatever you'd like to add. 

Paula Miller: Oh, absolutely. I've seen this market come and go. We've been through the wonderful 2006 - 2008. Now we're [00:01:00] prepared. It is slowing down a little bit. The interest rates have affected the market, but I do believe that there is always an opportunity for buyers to buy their home. There's always people relocating, so you do have to still stay abreast of the market regardless of what the media wants to tell us. 

Jennifer O'Connell: Were you guys doing anything for lead gen before jumping in with CINC or what were you using for a CRM? 

Darcy Miller: Yeah we just started our new company a little over a year ago and we broke away from a partnership and another not a large company, but we had 60, 70 agents. I was doing all the coaching training. Paula was the broker and everything. And we did use a CRM. We actually used Ylopo back then as part of our lead generation tool. When we left there and went on our own with Castillo, we wanted to find something for our team that was robust, that had a CRM, that had all the abilities that [00:02:00] Ylopo had, but hopefully had maybe some processes that would generate better leads as a result of what was going on.

Paula and I actually interviewed a lot of companies prior to choosing CINC. We interviewed Boomtown and Real Geeks and Ylopo and all of the other ones, and a couple of things made the difference with CINC. 

One, our familiarity, cause Paula used it four or five years ago with our daughter, who's on our team. And so we were really familiar with it. And secondly, just the, the customer service, I think more than anything, nobody has a university you can go to really get better at the platform and the sense of urgency as it relates to you guys and and then that the basic product itself is just a tad better than most other things out there. And all of that added up to us wanting to move forward with CINC. 

Paula Miller: [00:03:00] Yes we know that everything is an investment and this is not a slam dunk answer to everybody's. Like some of the other lead gen it's you hope you get that call that day. This is more of a process and what we like about it is a process, but our agents who also have their CRM can actually utilize this. Keeps them in the system, so we're not using two different systems. This is one system for all of our agents for new leads, old leads, and we do feel it's a bit above the others.

Jennifer O'Connell: Thank you. We have a wide variety of agents in our client base - solo agents, some solo agents that are looking to build a team, husband and wife teams, so how large is the Miller team? What does your annual average production look like? 

Darcy Miller: We have seven members on our team right now. Our goal is to get we just aside before I answer the rest. We're looking to hire [00:04:00] more because our bandwidth. Our agents are so busy with these leads and people that they're actually working with, not just the everyday management of it. And they're so busy with it and productive with it that we're having to get new more people in here to handle all the leads that we're getting. So that's the 1st thing. 2nd of all - our total team in the last year has produced over $22 Million dollars in sales. 

And right now, just our CINC pipeline, not the whole pipeline, our CINC pipeline is right out about $20.6 million. And we've only been with you guys 5, 6 months I think. 

And really if you think about when we're getting leads and as we're building. We've already closed, I think, two CINC deals. Oh one, but we've got two pending right now and again, that pipeline based on percentages... 

Paula Miller: and we do an A pipeline, a B pipeline. The $20 million is the A pipeline. These are people that they're conversing with weekly, [00:05:00] daily, sending updates, they're opening emails. So we do feel that they're like, potentially A buyers. 

Jennifer O'Connell: I think that's a good segue. I know you said you haven't been with CINC super long, but we like to hear stories whether it's the lead that closed or maybe one that's in the pipeline, do you have any memorable CINC lead stories yet? 

Darcy Miller: Yeah. I think the one main story about the one that closed, is it wasn't actually a CINC lead. It was a sister of a CINC lead. And so we treated it like a CINC lead, obviously, but the sister closed and now the other sister is selling some property in Louisiana and moving here. So our agent is going to get big time double, triple dip on that. So that's just one person that turned into two.

Paula Miller: Which will turn into the family. Cause once the family's here, then they all come. It's a larger Pipeline. People don't realize that once you get that one person, you can develop the family.

Jennifer O'Connell: Thank [00:06:00] you. That's a great one. Do you mind giving us a sense of how your lead flow and maybe the quality of leads has changed since you started working with CINC?

Darcy Miller: I wouldn't say the quality of the leads have changed. I think the leads are as good as you work 'em, right? I mean there's I think there's a lot of people out there that because somebody's not interested right away, they let 'em fall through the cracks, and they end up buying with somebody else or whatever. And we want to do everything we can to stop that from happening, right? So we're very disciplined and diligent about the way we manage every single person that comes in. 

Paula Miller: And the drip campaigns are like we have a two year one so that they're still being reached out to. We're still contacting them. It's just a nice system that. We understand. We don't want to bother you every day. We don't want to make phone calls. We understand that your time is valuable. So we do keep them on that long term drip campaign, and we haven't been with you guys long enough to [00:07:00] see them emerge, but I know they will. I really do. People are like, they like somebody that works. 

Darcy Miller: Yeah. Yeah. And I would also say that yes, while we're in this for the longterm, I think that going back to my original point is as you work these leads, what seems like a bad lead at the beginning or maybe a non interested lead. We just had one literally with Keaton, one of our agents. No contact, no answering the phone, nothing right. This week, they chatted, and the person's in the market for a home. So they've now set up guidelines and everything for how the relationship is going to be moving forward.

Those are just things that again, If Keaton hadn't stayed in flow with that person, whether it was autotracks, AI, Keaton texting without response, whatever the case may be, we would have never gotten that opportunity. So, again, quality of lead is what you make it.

Are there bad leads? Yeah. Yeah. Big deal. That, that happens, but [00:08:00] we don't need many leads to make a lot of money at this. 

Paula Miller: But the thing is, I do think that coming through the process, I do think our agents know when to trash the lead sooner. I hate to say it, but you get that feeling. You understand those email addresses and the 1234 phone numbers.

And it's at this point, they're like don't waste your time on that one. Trash it. Let's get another one. Because they are so busy. I wish I could hire 3 more agents tomorrow. 

Jennifer O'Connell: So. online leads being different, obviously, than sphere leads or referral that you already have that connection with, obviously you're keeping up with them on auto tracks, but are there any talk tracks that work better for you guys when you finally do get those leads on the phone? What is your approach to working internet leads versus... 

Darcy Miller: Yeah, we're very coachable. Look, I've been training and coaching for real estate [00:09:00] for 20 years, right? And everything works if you do it. However, when we went to CINC U with our team and we use the basic "Hey, this is Darcy with the search finder website, the home search website. We're just wondering, are you interested in buying a home in three to six months or are you just browsing," right?

Using that opened up a bunch of doors, right? It got people into conversation. So, when I say we're coachable, we do what you guys say works. And what you're finding works. And then what we saw worked at CINC U. We set 14 appointments during our power hour. Just on our team alone. And so, we know that you guys have been there, done that. You're working hard at this stuff. Now, do we throw in little nuances and stuff like that are pertinent maybe to our market or our relationship building or things like that? Sure. But for the most part, at its foundation and at the base, we're doing what you guys know works. 

Paula Miller: We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Darcy Miller: No, no reason. Copy what works. 

Jennifer O'Connell: So as your database [00:10:00] grows even larger and without being able to hire so many new agents or agents going on vacation, you only have so much time to keep up with these leads. You've touched on it a little bit, but can you speak more specifically to the CINC products or tools like AI or behavioral messaging that help you stay on top of those leads? 

Darcy Miller: Yeah I think it's the whole program, right? You can't just pick one. I don't know where you guys faith is or anything, but in Bible, you can't just pick one verse and say, yeah, that's me. No, you got to take it in its entirety. And so your training in all of the processes and systems, it's not going to be as effective as if you pick and choose. So we do everything, right? We love the AI. We interrupt it when it's appropriate. We turn it back on when it's appropriate when we get the assurance from the prospect of which way we're going to go with the relationship. We turn on auto tracks right away. We add to those things. We make our P1, P2, P3, F1, F2, F3 calls [00:11:00] every day. Our agents are very good about that stuff. And when you have those types of processes in place, you're typically not going to miss on much, right? You're not going to get everybody, but you're going to talk to people, and you're going to have an opportunity. And that's, all we can ask for is an opportunity to convert somebody, right?

Paula Miller: And I do think that what you haven't hit on is the app on the phone. That is so strong. We have one guy that is had to go work full time to buy a house. So he's working, but he literally can stay in touch with all of his customers through the app on his phone. He can take over AI. I just think that is so strong. You don't have to walk around with your computer anymore. And I felt like we always had to because if you wanted to track the notes of the conversation, it's like you have to be sitting in front of your computer. You don't have to do that with the app. It's so robust. So I do think that's [00:12:00] something that you you all need to market as a very strong tool. 

Darcy Miller: Yeah, I think we talk about that accountability every week in our team meetings as we talk about the mobile app, and they make their notes in their mobile app and all of those things. So yeah, great point. Great point. 

Jennifer O'Connell: No, that's a really good add. Thank you. And then my last question, are there any challenges in keeping up with your team, or how do you use CINC to build predictable processes for your team and help them from a training and accountability standpoint? 

Darcy Miller: I think you guys make that easy as well. Every morning I wake up ,and one of the first things I do is go to my app, and as the broker, I can see everybody's activity. Who they've contacted, who they haven't contacted, who's still a new lead status from yesterday. If that happens. But that said, with those tools in the mobile app, I can be drinking my coffee and going through and seeing what our new leads [00:13:00] are, have they been attempted to contact, old leads going just down through the cycle and seeing going back a few days. Have we caught up to everybody? Or is there anybody way down the list that's still a new lead? And I'll text people and I'll say, Hey guys, or Aaron, how come you haven't? Got to this person, right? 

But when I look at our numbers as it relates to response time and reaching people and, those kinds of things. Man our numbers have gotten so much better since when we started. I think our average response time right now is like 27 minutes. And that's with two agents that are not real good at responding and three agents that are really good at responding. So I'm. I'm really, I'm tickled about that. I really am. And I think that makes it easy. So again, just your tools make it easy for me to monitor, manage and track. And every single team meeting every week, we go through CINC. We add [00:14:00] some value from CINC. And so, there's never a meeting that we have that is not CINC centered. And that's how we get accountability and buy in. 

Jennifer O'Connell: Thank you. I'm going to open it up. I don't know if there's something that you guys want to touch on that you haven't or Richard if you have additional questions. 

Richard Kaiser: I did have a few additional questions. So 1, I had my grandparents moved moved to Florida. They moved down there for the Mayo Clinic from The Villages, right? I'm sure a lot of people do that. And then I had an uncle move from Tennessee down there. They're still down there. And so one of the things In talking with clients, one of the recent themes that's coming up more and more often is this thing of more out of state and out of market, right?

So typically people in the past have been moving 5, 10 miles, right? To go find their next home. Now, on average, it's 70 miles or more. And right? So many of those are out of state or different markets. And I know I got to imagine Jacksonville seen a decent amount of that. Can you [00:15:00] speak to how your approach of generating and following up with Out of market leads is versus a referral from somebody's brother who lives down the street.

Darcy Miller: Yeah, I think we could probably do a better job at that, frankly. But again, I go back to our bandwidth. We need more agents to be able to put in more marketing ideas and more things associated with maybe some expanded market share. However, we do get a lot of leads from CINC that are out of state and we actually have. Our pipeline is full of them.

Paula Miller: Our customized drip campaigns, because some of them will say, Oh, I'm just looking. We want to retire in Northeast Florida. We don't know when. So we have to do these long term customized drip campaigns, but most of our CINC leads are from out of state. 

Darcy Miller: Yeah I don't know about most, but it's a lot. 

Paula Miller: I think the ones that are, A buyers right now are out of state. [00:16:00] 

Darcy Miller: I would say that's accurate for sure. 

Richard Kaiser: That's interesting. And then I think the follow up to that is, so one of the things which I personally would not do. So somebody wanted to tour a home. I always want to be there. I'm the person who wants to open the drawers and everything else.

But one of the things we've been hearing is more and more often. Just the FaceTime tours or especially if you got to go through a lot of inventory, some people aren't going to. I don't want to go to 30 homes in the next two months. How have you guys have you seen an influx in doing FaceTime tours and virtual tours? Like, how do you guys handle those? 

Darcy Miller: Exactly like you described. We will make a show. As a matter of fact, Keaton has some buyers up in Georgia that are coming down and he has been touring homes and live FaceTime and showing them. And that's keeping them A) loyal. B) informed. It's nothing they're going to buy right now because they're not here yet, but he's giving them a sense of what's going on in the market. And here's what you can get for your [00:17:00] money. And those kinds of things. So it's important. 

Paula Miller: Let me elaborate too, because we are in such a large market. Northeast Florida is enormous. So we go from Fernandina all the way to St. Augustine, out west to Lake City. So the what we're doing and part of these tours is we're giving them the information. Okay, you can get this type of home on the West Side because there's new construction everywhere. And so typically, we try to give them the information about new construction because that's where they're what they're hoping for. And each market is different where the homes start.

So we actually do a lot of face timing before they even get here because we cannot be driving them around 400, 500 miles. So we try to give them all the statistics of the different areas. First with a few face times with a little price adjustment showing price per square foot in this area. Northeast Florida is very fortunate because we have a school guide and it gives them all the [00:18:00] information of every school and their rating. We have the tax structure. So we as agents have to narrow it down before they even get here because it would take them forever. 

Darcy Miller: Yeah and part of that is we have the education guide on our website, on our CINC website. And of course we've added all the areas that breaks down all the statistics for those areas on our website as well.

If they want Fernandina Beach, they can click on the Fernandina Beach link on our website, scroll down and see. So yeah, we've got all that in place to help out as well. 

Richard Kaiser: And then I'd say, one of our colleagues, he also has a real estate team as well, and he's got a CINC site. And so his big thing right now is, one of the things he's, seen is okay, as leads are coming in, appointments are still happening, right? But you have the appointment and where maybe in the past, you might've seen more that closed within 60, 90 days, right? And in some of those cases, so [00:19:00] maybe you'd say they're still in the A pipeline, but maybe that A pipeline that was six, I don't know how you guys, 60, 90 days, maybe now that someone's going six to nine months, because you got a find with affordability inventory, right? Six to nine months. So then the question is, when do you go in and get the buyers brokerage agreement? 

Paula Miller: We actually we don't. I've been doing this for 28 years. I don't think a piece of paper is going to make somebody want to work with me and I truly believe that. It's just part of who you are and what kind of service you provide. We don't force that issue here. 

Darcy Miller: That said, we do, in buyer counseling, we have a loyalty talk with them. We ask them for their business exclusively, and we explain to them, if you go to an open house, you tell them you have an agent. Because somebody is going to try to steal you from me. If you go to a for sale by owner, let me negotiate with that person on [00:20:00] your behalf. We tell them, if you go to a builder, make sure that you take my cards and you tell them. Otherwise, it will be fox watching the hen house. We explain all of the scenarios associated with loyalty. If other agents call you, tell them, give them my number. Those kind of things. 

Paula Miller: We try to educate them. But I'm not going to make anybody sign. 

Richard Kaiser: But it's more of a verbal, it's a verbal agreement, but you're very clear that this is what our loyalty expectation is about doing the work. 

Darcy Miller: Yeah, we do that. We do that. And we found over time that look, real estate is a relationship business, not a unit based business or a transaction based business, right?

If we have somebody sign a piece of paper that makes the relationship more transactional, more unit based, as opposed to where we've had a lot of success over the years is our clients become our friends, so to speak, right? Because we built that relationship based on our personalities, based on our sense of urgency, our [00:21:00] professionalism, all of that stuff, and we're servant hearted.

Paula Miller: And I do think that the confidence level of bringing value to a transaction. When your first newly a licensed agent, where's your confidence level? What's nice is that our agents have the confidence. They have the backing to be able to be servant hearted and to understand, you know what, I'm going to get that buyer. I'm going to get that seller just because I know what value I can bring to that table. 

Darcy Miller: Yeah, definitely. We based on value propositions and relationship based selling methods. That's how we go about it. So yeah, we don't sign anything. 

Richard Kaiser: Paula, I think I cut you off. You were about to say something about your A pipeline.

Paula Miller: Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I was going to say our A pipeline still goes back up to 90 days. Some of them may last a little longer, but when we ask the questions is who you're talking to when do you [00:22:00] think they're going to close? We want the short term, a six to nine month close is a B buyer because you're not speaking with them as often. So I just wanted to give you our definition of an A buyer. 

Richard Kaiser: And you were saying how that A pipeline was how big right now in six months? 

Darcy Miller: An A pipeline so it would be an A/B pipeline. Not an A pipeline. I would say that eminence, we're about $20.5 million. So when we look at that and we say, okay, what if we only close 50 percent of it? And then what are our splits? And when we look at the revenue from something like that on a worst case scenario, even lower than market trends, we feel like, hey, we're doing pretty well.

Paula Miller: And it's not making money the first year. It's breaking even, whatever we get above it is gravy. And maybe we can put into more leads, but right now our goal is just 

Darcy Miller: establish processes, create buy in [00:23:00] and get ready for the exponential growth in years 2 and 3. 

Paula Miller: And then have the agents be able to plug and play and not 

Darcy Miller: Now that said, we have an agent that's working with a $3 million buyer right now we got from CINC.

Paula Miller: And that's big in this area. I know not all areas, but three million's pretty big in northeast Florida. 

Darcy Miller: Yeah, but if you look at do that times two percent times fifty percent, and that's what we make. So it's pretty good. That'll pay for the year and more. 

Jennifer O'Connell: This has been excellent. We really appreciate it. 

Darcy Miller: We thank you too. We couldn't do all this without the resources that you provide for us. And and really the, really good customer service. Again, like I said at the beginning, that's what sets you guys apart in my view. Not that anybody else was bad, yours is just better. And that's what that's what we needed at this time with the market changing and starting a new company and the new team and all of this stuff. So we've been doing this for years. We know how to do it. And to have you [00:24:00] guys as partners is very, important to us. And we really appreciate all that you provide as well.