- 3 days ago
The conversation dives into the four pillars of business success — belief, lead generation, organization building, and leadership — with Rochon emphasizing that consistent prospecting is still the foundation of predictable income, regardless of market conditions. He explains why agents should lean into the lead sources that fit their personalities and strengths, whether that’s sphere marketing, expireds, open houses or online advertising.
Rochon also shares how his team is using AI to improve speed-to-process, client communication, and follow-up without replacing the agent relationship. He warns that agents who ignore AI and emerging technology risk falling behind over the next few years, while those who embrace it can create more time for high-value client interactions.
The episode also touches on private listings, industry disruption, and the mindset shifts agents need to survive market uncertainty. Rochon’s message throughout is simple: stop focusing on what you can’t control, commit to daily lead generation, and do the work consistently.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Trust and education are the foundation of modern real estate sales.
Consistent lead generation still solves most business problems.
Agents should choose lead sources that match their personality and strengths.
AI should support relationships, not replace agents.
Speed-to-process is becoming a major competitive advantage.
Mindset and self-belief are often the biggest barriers to success.
The agents who survive tough markets are the ones willing to do the work consistently.
Related to this episode:
Dan Rochon's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danrochon/
Greetings Virginia
https://www.greetingsvirginia.com/
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the
Rochon also shares how his team is using AI to improve speed-to-process, client communication, and follow-up without replacing the agent relationship. He warns that agents who ignore AI and emerging technology risk falling behind over the next few years, while those who embrace it can create more time for high-value client interactions.
The episode also touches on private listings, industry disruption, and the mindset shifts agents need to survive market uncertainty. Rochon’s message throughout is simple: stop focusing on what you can’t control, commit to daily lead generation, and do the work consistently.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Trust and education are the foundation of modern real estate sales.
Consistent lead generation still solves most business problems.
Agents should choose lead sources that match their personality and strengths.
AI should support relationships, not replace agents.
Speed-to-process is becoming a major competitive advantage.
Mindset and self-belief are often the biggest barriers to success.
The agents who survive tough markets are the ones willing to do the work consistently.
Related to this episode:
Dan Rochon's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danrochon/
Greetings Virginia
https://www.greetingsvirginia.com/
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the
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NewsTranscript
00:08if you're feeling stuck in real estate right now um we've got some solutions for you uh today i
00:15spoke with dan roshan he is a realtor with exp realty and founder of greetings virginia sales
00:22network he also has a philosophy called teach to sell and he talks very tactical strategies for
00:30boosting your business right now and what mindset you really should have before you even start with
00:37the real work so enjoy the podcast dan welcome to the real trending podcast thank you tracy
00:43yeah so we're we're gonna talk all things um teach to sell today and your philosophy
00:49so why don't you um it's it's kind of serving before selling so why don't you talk to me about
00:56how that approach will work in a higher rate um lower volume market cycle like we're in right now
01:02although it's increasing volume is increasing so yeah well it's all about gaining trust right so
01:08whether and to me it's more important more vital to be able to to be able to gain the trust
01:15of those
01:15you know prospective clients that we have and our own clients to be able to um to be able to
01:22help
01:22them more so right so for me this is needed more than ever before and i discovered this once upon
01:29a
01:29time i was a real estate broker and i had a rather large brokerage and every agent would come to
01:35me with
01:36the same problems over and over and over again and one morning i woke up having my coffee i was
01:41like
01:41what if instead of being reactive what if we were proactive and taught our clients what to expect
01:49before the problems existed and that's really the the the meat of teach to sell it's being proactive
01:56it's educating it's gaining trust and it's ethically influencing so in your so you're with exp
02:01realty so are you um do you have explain your team so is this something that you're teaching
02:09kind of your coaching to your downline as well as your team or tell me a little bit about how
02:15you're
02:15using this sure yeah absolutely to my downline to my team but really but you know ages all across the
02:22country um they they adapt you know this philosophy adopt this philosophy and implement it so it's i'm
02:30agnostic in regards to brokerage i really truly am i think that the agent should be with the broker
02:35that believes that you believe is going to help you and um and you're going to make an investment
02:40into that so whatever the investment is you know that depends on the person the philosophy works not just
02:47in real estate sales but it works in any sales insurance life insurance plumbing it doesn't matter
02:53it's really about you know taking the time to be in rapport connect energetically and then ask adept
03:01questions which are you know deep diving questions and then to be able to uh to to listen to actively
03:10listen and those are the three steps of what i call the cpi communication model consistent predictable
03:15income communication uh communication model and when you follow those three steps then you're going to be
03:21able to align with your prospective clients and your clients more so yeah absolutely and so um what do
03:27you think the biggest mistake agents are making today that are that's keeping them they're keeping
03:33them stuck well it's going to start with belief right so so there's really four pillars to sales
03:38and the or four pillars to a business so the first one is to believe in yourself if you don't
03:45believe in
03:45yourself then you're going to be challenged with having any success in sales or you know any part
03:51of your life that that you want to achieve you have to believe that you can do it first once
03:56you
03:57elevate past that belief then it's about lead generation it's about finding finding the right
04:02prospects and about like my way of finding business is not the same way that i would recommend for
04:08everybody it's about identifying your strengths identifying uh your superpowers and then leaning into
04:13those consistently on a one to three hours five days a week basis non-negotiable so it's first you're
04:20going to believe in yourself then you're going to lead generate and then if you really want to then
04:24elevate your business then it would be an organization building would be on top of that that's finding the
04:29right people to be to partner with in business that's finding the right systems ai you know there's so
04:35many different ways that we can you know we can leverage today and then finally so first is belief and
04:40then lead generation and organization building and then finally it's about leadership and leadership
04:46is to be able to teach somebody else how to think so that they can get what they want so
04:50the biggest
04:50challenge depends on where you are in that you know in that hierarchy if you're new and you're you don't
04:56believe in yourself then hey we need to talk about that we need to give you some some tools and
05:00models
05:00so that you can have faith if you're if you believe in yourself and you're not getting business guess
05:05what that's a lead generation opportunity and if you're you know etc which is built on top of that
05:10so the market's been anything but predictable for agents and you talk about predictable income so
05:15tell me how how that works and what it takes for an agent to get there sure well i have
05:22the fortunate
05:24experience that i've been in real estate sales since 2007 so i've gone through different cycles i've gone
05:30through you know the worst economic times i've gone through government intervention i've gone through
05:36um the pandemic you know you know and for those that have been in the business as long as i
05:41have
05:41been then they've gone through the same but not everybody has been in the business that long
05:45and so there's there's ebbs and flows i'm fortunate i have not had a no a broke month since 2008
05:52so the philosophies that i teach the methods that i teach they're proven in any cycle so depend you
05:59know whether if it's there's not enough business technology is going to kill us whatever the case may be
06:04it really boils down to a very very simple process of following the four pillars that i described
06:09earlier and of those four pillars the lead generation piece after you believe in yourself
06:14would be the most important and and that could be prospecting that could be marketing that could be
06:19networking it could be whatever it is but you got to do that one to three hours a day five
06:23days a week
06:24and when you do that i promise you it doesn't matter what the circumstance is it doesn't matter what's
06:30going on the economy or technology or whatever i promise you you will be successful but you have
06:36to do that work so are you a believer in buying leads are you believer in spear marketing um circle
06:42prospecting uh what you know or all of the methods whatever works best for you tell me a little bit
06:49about you i think it's really it's about what works best for you my first listing appointment i got
06:54six days after i got my license and it was an expired listing and i remember never get you know
07:00walking up knocking on the door taking a step back smiling well actually i did nothing of that because i
07:05learned all that later either way i knocked on the door i probably wanted to go crawl underneath my car
07:09but nonetheless um i didn't get hired all right and that's fine and i did expire for a long time
07:15early in
07:16my career and that worked for me would i recommend for most agents to do expired listings no way because
07:23it doesn't work for most because it's it's you know it works it works if you work it but you
07:27got to do
07:27what works for you so my recommendation is to really again find what you're good at doing and then once
07:34you
07:34find out what you're really good at doing then look at what are the options open houses fizz boats expires
07:40um pay pay for leads etc personally for my personal business the way that i get most of my business
07:47is
07:47going to be um sphere of influence right but you know that depends like do you have a sphere of
07:52influence that knows that you're a real estate agent so that's a whole nother thing uh so that works for
07:56me i still call expire today i still do you know like clever and ojo and all these pay you
08:02know pay
08:03referral sources that you pay on the back end that's a big uh part of our our business and then
08:07also
08:08absentee owners we um distressed property owners i was at a distressed property this morning i swear
08:14it looked like uh you know the roof was caving in it was really really dramatic and we got that
08:18from
08:18a facebook ad we buy houses ad and that's how we found that okay interesting so what are you seeing
08:24top performing agents do differently today that maybe they weren't doing two or three years ago
08:29you know it's today it's about understanding that there's there's things that have entered into
08:35our market today specifically ai and it's going to continue to grow at a pace that by my prediction
08:432027 that at that point if you're not already embracing technology and artificial intelligence
08:50and big data or working with a company that does so then you're going to be at a major disadvantage
08:55my philosophy is to let the systems to let the um artificial intelligence to allow for
09:04to leverage all that so that you can focus on the relationship okay so understand that that's not going
09:11to replace the agent it's going to help the agent but only for the ones that get into it today
09:17all right because if you wait another 18 months it's going to be so exponential in the growth of it
09:22it's going to be really really challenging for a real estate agent to be able to you know to start
09:28at that point because there's going to be so many of their competitors are going to be ahead of the
09:32curve those that are embracing it today how are you specifically using ai and prospecting yeah so a
09:38couple different ways for you know and we're still developing this ourselves right so for me speed
09:43to process is the most critical thing that a real estate agent can learn i used to when i was
09:48a younger
09:49coach i used to teach speed to lead but then i recognized that it's speed to process meaning that
09:54if there's a buyer lead that comes in let's say you're doing a facebook ad or whatever you get a
09:59buyer lead and you call that buyer lead within minutes you're much more likely to be able to convert
10:04them than if you call them within hours that's an opportunity right there to be able to use ai
10:10to call on your behalf not to replace you so the way that we triggered it in in our business
10:15is
10:15if somebody doesn't call so so a lead comes in it goes to my inside sales agents goes to my
10:21agents
10:21comes to me and if nobody calls that lead within four minutes ai will call and say hey i'm an
10:27ai bot
10:27i'm calling because i see that you were looking for homes on the line would you like to have a
10:31conversation with dan to learn more about this okay so we're transparent we're not trying to fake
10:36you know fake it because i think that's inauthentic right but to me it's more important that there's some
10:42sort of connection faster and now that's the speed to lead the speed to process would be now
10:48how quickly does the lender get to them how quickly do you get to approved how quickly do you get
10:53them
10:53looking at homes okay because the longer that that goes the less likely you'll ever do a transaction so
10:59you want to make sure you condense all those steps to allow for somebody's you know cousin to come in
11:05and say ah you're stupid to buy a home right now that type of stuff uh but mostly ai right
11:10now it's
11:10used in in that piece there that i just mentioned to you for lead generation but mostly we're using
11:15it for client care and making certain that uh my goal not my goal this is what we do that
11:21every single
11:21one of my clients hears from from from me or somebody on my team five days a week and they
11:26hear
11:26from me personally twice a week and i've got that set up to be able to allow for for ai
11:31and for the
11:31tools to be able to supplement and and help us with that um based on the emails i get from
11:35rocket i
11:36think they're doing the same thing so they hold my mortgage some of this some of that stuff's gonna
11:41go you know it's gonna it's like anything else when email came out you know hey let's email 10 000
11:47people and we'll get business well obviously that went away quickly so there's things in the future
11:51regulation government regulation there's going to be traditions there's going to be uh the the consumer
11:57reaction so there's things that are going to work and may work today that won't work six months from
12:02now uh like those emails that you mentioned i don't think that those that's going to work in the
12:07future because it's going to get it's going to get saturated yeah it's fun seeing how much equity we
12:12have but we're not using it so it's like i'm not calling them but um you know lead generation has
12:19shifted and there's a lot more competition today also um you kind of emphasize systems and
12:26consistency so what's one thing an agent can just start today um to put them on the right path i'm
12:34going to give you three options do one so you ask for one thing do one of these three either
12:41for sale by
12:42owners open houses or online advertising if you're a relationship-based agent and you you have
12:52patience and you're going to nurture a relationship for sale by owner that may be a little counterintuitive
12:57because you may think a more aggressive agent would be good with that a more aggressive agent would be
13:01good with a um with an expired one out of seven for sale by owners who you meet with that
13:07you nurture
13:07the relationship will hire you if you are a go-getter and you're fearless and you you know you're like
13:15hey
13:15i'm i'm all in i would do expires i don't think that's an addition one so i'm going to give
13:20you
13:20four open houses would be again if you're touchy-feely and you make people feel good and
13:25you're more relational and you maybe you may tap people on the shoulder when you're communicating
13:29with them and and make people really feel good that would be open houses and then uh the last one
13:35would be uh would be the ads you can do facebook ads you can do google ads whatever the case
13:40may be
13:41that's for that agent that's a little bit more ambitious speed to process it's really all about
13:47speeds the game for those types of leads yeah and and we're seeing i mean we're seeing huge changes in
13:52the industry right now with the consolidation and um you know just the the whole private listings and
14:00the who owns the data you know first to the data um how what separates the agents that survive
14:08are from the ones who don't in this kind of crazy market we're in right now i think the ones
14:14that
14:14that are always going to struggle and i've seen this over 20 years so i don't know if this is
14:19unique
14:19to the you know to today but are the ones that are just believe that you know there's money falling
14:25off the trees in this business don't understand exactly how freaking hard it is and it is a job you
14:31have to lead generate one to three hours a day five days a week now do you have to do
14:36something that
14:36you don't like no not at all that's why i just gave you four options to say hey look pick
14:41one of
14:41these that works for you the agent that's going to survive in today's market is going to be the agent
14:47that's going to survive in any market and that's the one that does the work the circumstance is the
14:53circumstance there will always be opportunity in 2009 when i early in my career was short sales and
14:58bank owned homes and everybody says oh my goodness it's like nobody can succeed in this well
15:04you just have to do the work and i promise you in any market you do the work uh you'll
15:09get rewarded
15:09and the other piece of it is is the harder that it gets the more opportunity there will be for
15:14those
15:15that want to be able to do the work because the harder it gets the more people are going to
15:18quit
15:19and that's actually a competitive advantage for those that are willing to you know to to
15:23regenerate on a you know five days a week basis absolutely and um let's talk private listings
15:29um because there's a lot of debate about it right now i mean it's uh you know off-market listings
15:34have been around forever um but it's taking it's taken to a whole new level now so what do you
15:40think
15:40is a really smart strategy for agents right now so that they're not limiting their opportunity but
15:45they're also um you know doing what they what is best for their business i guess i should say
15:51i'd say and if anything you have to focus on what you could control and you have to accept what
15:57you
15:57cannot so whether it's you know off-market listings or it's the we buy house you know buyers open door
16:05whatever the case may be or technology or ai whatever the conversation is there's things that
16:10you can control there's things that you cannot so ask yourself the questions of where's the opportunity
16:17what can i do such that by doing it everything else gary keller everything else becomes on
16:22easier or necessary right and from the one thing and then do that one thing but if you're not asking
16:28the questions and if you're having first of all my recommendation stop having the conversation
16:33because you're spending the time i'm talking to the agents not you tracy sorry but no i know
16:41but stop having the conversation because the conversation is only going to cause fear it's
16:47only going to cause anxiety uncertainty and it's not helping you have a conversation to say what do
16:55i need to do with this circumstance right now and then do it but yeah complaining i was going to
17:02use
17:02a word that may have been a little bit inappropriate and i censored myself um thank you complaining of a
17:08you're welcome complaining about it it's it's just a waste of time energy and it's going to set you
17:13back rather than recognizing it and and rocking and rolling and just you know moving forward through
17:18it oh let me say this tracy a storm so think about this if you could think about any of
17:24those
17:24circumstances as a storm and if you could think about when there's a storm most people want to run
17:30away from it there's a hurricane let me run away but guess what that storm's still going to overtake
17:36you if you run through the storm you're going to be able to be in that storm for less time
17:42than if
17:43you try to outrun it yeah it's something to consider and you'll get to the eye of the hurricane at
17:47some
17:47point there you go and then you're going to run through the rest of it so no i'm thinking that
17:52i
17:52i'm going to run around in circles so if an agent listening right now wants to reset their business
18:00over the next 90 days what should they do well besides getting my book teach to sell
18:04i would say take a look at your business and get real with yourself get real with what you're
18:12willing to do i was coaching a gentleman yesterday 20 year veteran and he was saying to me he says
18:17listen i i generate leads all day long but i don't convert them i don't follow up with them
18:23now he knows what he needs to do so the conversation we were having yesterday was not it like it's
18:29clear
18:29what you need to do but it's the emotions that are going to stop you it's the fear that's going
18:34to
18:34stop you okay so you've got to be able to understand is am i more afraid of making a call
18:42to a prospective
18:42client or am i more afraid to tell my wife i can't pay the mortgage this month you get to
18:50choose
18:51okay now i'm you know i'm not married so you know i can tell but i don't want to not
18:56be able to pay my
18:57own mortgage right right and so so understanding you have a choice and you know that choice may be
19:03may not be an easy choice but you get to choose yeah all right we're going to do a lightning
19:07round
19:07just as your mind so best lead source right now uh best lead source clever okay most overrated tactic
19:16in real estate most overrated tactic uh door knocking probably but it does work but it's it's
19:24it's it's a tough one okay yeah i don't want to do that in florida it works it works but
19:31it's not
19:31very efficient and it's it's it's a it's a long long game yeah um one daily habit every agent should
19:39have and i know what you're going to say because you've already said it you want to answer that
19:44question for me tracy it's i think you said one to three hours of lead generation every day right
19:50five days a week right now think about this if you if you for one to three hours a day
19:56had conversations let's say it's two hours that's 10 hours of conversations in a week's time
20:04certainly you can have at least 100 conversations in 10 hours or let's say it's 50 let's be pessimistic
20:09or let's say it's 40 whatever it is at the end of the day at the end of the week
20:15if you're having
20:1640 conversations with the right people you're saying the right thing and you're saying it often
20:21enough then you will convert one of them yeah and 39 of them in the example we're using 40 for
20:27the
20:27basis 39 of them will reject you yeah the 39 rejections is what stops us but guess what if you're
20:35going to make whatever you're going to earn from that one closing a week yeah then i guarantee you
20:40if i asked you to come work for me and you make you know 100 calls this week at the
20:44end of the week
20:44i'm going to pay you ten thousand dollars you would say yes okay now guess what pretend that you're that
20:50boss and have that conversation with yourself and when you do it i guarantee you you'll have success
20:55okay um biggest mindset shift agents need today i would say the biggest thing that stops us
21:02and again i i say this in teach a cell and teach a cell there i i use the hero's
21:08journey to be able
21:09to write that book and the the hero is the reader the guide is the book and the demon in
21:15this is not
21:16good enough not good enough is the biggest thing that is that causes us to not be successful whether
21:24it's my website's not good enough my knowledge is not good enough my uh follow-up is not good enough
21:30or worse yet i'm not good enough so conquering that demon of not good enough which is that belief
21:36that we started this conversation with is the biggest opportunity for most to be able to have
21:40success um last one is your definition of the success in one sentence well success in life is abundant love
21:51success in business is having choice okay i hope that that was one condensed sentence
22:01well dan thanks so much for joining real trending i appreciate having you on god bless you tracy thanks
22:08well dan this is what i hope so we're getting in his face
22:17bye
22:17bye
22:18bye
22:18bye
22:18bye
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