In this episode of Work Like A Mother, host Marina is thrilled to welcome the multi-talented Barb Betts, a real estate expert with 21 years of experience. As CEO of RECollective, consultant, keynote speaker, and host of podcast 'Relationships Are Your Superpower', Barb brings a treasure trove of insight to the table. Besides her professional prowess, she is a devoted mother of two and has been navigating a successful marriage for over 26 years. Throughout the episode, listeners will get a glimpse into Barb's multifaceted life, which includes her dynamic real estate career that's continuously evolving, her highly regarded real estate by relationship academy, her mastery in fostering professional connections, and her dedication to family and self-care strategies. Barb and Marina dive deep into topics such as work-life balance, prioritizing family in busy schedules, and the power of nurturing strong relationships at home and in business.

Mentioned in this Episode:

10x Is Easier Than 2x, Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Influential Personal Brand Podcast

Goal Digger Podcast

Relationships Are Your Superpower

Barb Betts

https://www.barbbetts.com/

IG: @barbbetts

Marina Tolentino

https://www.marinatolentino.com/

IG: @marinattolentino_

YT: @marinatolentino

Subscribe to my newsletter for more behind-the-scenes and encouragement from me!

https://marinatolentino.myflodesk.com/worklikeamother

Transcript:

All right, today, I'm so excited to have one of my favorite people from Instagram on the show. So the one and only Barb bets is here. And let me just tell you a little bit about this magnificent person. Number one, she is one of the ceos of re collective, which 21 years of experience in the real estate space. I mean, she knows what she's doing. So, number one, we have sage wisdom here with us, which is really great. She's also a consultant, a keynote speaker, a host of her own show called relationships are your superpower and a mom to two, and of course, a wife of over, I think, 25 years. Like, you guys have been married a long time, so suffice to say, she knows what the heck she's talking about.

So without further ado, I'm so glad to welcome you, Barb. Thank you for being here.

Oh, thank you for having me. What a sweet, sweet, sweet introduction. And, yeah, actually, my husband and I, it's 26 years going on 27. So, yeah, we've been married a long time, two incredible children, and, yeah, a very thriving, long standing real estate career that's kind of ever changing as I go along.

Yeah. And one of the big things I want to talk about is just your seasons of entrepreneurship and then how those relationships change and seasons of life. So the big preface of this show is talking to moms who are overwhelmed, speaking to the point that we try to do it all, but we're also failing at all the things at all the time. So it's never good enough. What the heck is success? It's a moving needle. I feel like you have so much advice about all of that. So we're going to get into the nitty gritty and hopefully leave women very inspired today.

Well, that sounds fantastic to me.

Yay. Okay, so let's jump into question number one. Tell me what you're loving about this season of life right now. In business and personally.

That's a great question. Okay, so, in business, I am loving. So, yes, I have a 21 year real estate career. I am a real estate broker. My husband and I own our own company together. I am the broker of record, which is always fun. Being the broker of record, above your husband. Supervising him is always pure entertainment.

But through that career, I developed a high level keynote speaking and training career inside the real estate industry. So for about the past ten to twelve years, I've also been speaking and training. Education is actually my passion. I wanted to be a teacher from the ripe age of five years old, and I would have been a teacher if I didn't have a child very young in life and kind of my trajectory in college, and things got derailed a little bit. So that passion kind of reignited in me in the real estate industry, and I started getting asked to speak and train at all kinds of real estate offices across California and then beyond. And now I have a full career doing it. And that has now how you and I connected has expanded into this actual brand of speaking and training that I'm now taking outside of the real estate industry. So taking all of the principles and things that I've taught the real estate industry for all these years and helping business owners in other industries apply them.

So I'm really excited about that, because, as you very well know, real estate is changing every day, and our industry is changing every day. Lack of transactions, lack of inventory, the lawsuits, everything else. So my husband and I, all our eggs are in one basket. So I'm really excited about creating some other streams of income outside of the real estate space. And then, personally, I would say what I love most about this season is my adult children. We are enjoying them so much right now. So I hinted to it earlier, but I got pregnant at 17, had my son at 18, so he is 26 years old as well, and I'm still married to his father. I always like to give that, dot, dot, dot.

My daughter is 22. They're full grown adults. And so now my son's in his career, he's engaged. He owns a home across the street and next door from me. I know it's like a mom's dream come true, or maybe a mom's nightmare. I don't know which way you look at it, but for me, it's a dream come true. And my daughter is in grad school, and she actually got into a program in my backyard, which is one of the best in the state. So we have all our kids home right now.

We are just really loving, enjoying adult life with them, and it is a completely different chapter of our life and.

Season of our life.

I miss so much about when they were little, but we're really enjoying this adult chapter with them. It's a lot of fun.

So good. And I love that encouragement, too, because I think so often we think, okay, 18, they're out of the nest right now. We're free. Or like, whatever. It's the next chapter, and they desert us forever. But you have figured out the system to keep them very close knit and.

In a good way.

Like, that relationship is solid. They're not feeling like they have to desert themselves.

Well, and I would say that's a great point to make, something that I did accidentally as a mother. Well, I shouldn't say that. I actually don't have a great relationship with my parents, transparently. So I did everything the opposite, and I did everything I could to ensure that I never have that relationship with my children, and I've succeeded. And you are absolutely right. How you raise them in the family unit that you create absolutely is a lens into what your future relationship is going to be with them as adults for.

Okay, we're going to deep dive into that a little bit more, too, like seasons of life. Right. And how you're able to juggle all of that. But before we do that, I mean, walk me through day in the life of Barb right now, because it is, is very different from my point of view as a team leader. And I'm in the transactions versus yours and working on these extra streams of income. What's, like, an ideal day for you?

So an ideal day for me. I get up pretty much at the same time every day. I actually wake up more naturally now than I ever have before in my life because I really have programmed myself. So I get up anytime between five and 530. I believe in starting my day early because there's some things I need to do intentionally for me to really set my grounding for the day. And from there, I get up, and I am an avid peloton user that actually started, believe it or not, in January of 2021. I stepped on the scale and I said, oh, I don't like that number. That isn't okay.

And I didn't feel good. I didn't feel good in my own skin. And so I made the decision. I'm going to do something about my health. I'm going to do something about my weight. I'm going to get this off. And so I did. And I did that by joining Weight Watchers, but also getting this peloton that my friend encouraged me.

And I thought, okay, well, it'll be a good thing. And it's in my house, and I have no excuses. And now I literally ride that thing every single day. If I cannot ride that thing, I am not a happy human. So 20 minutes on my peloton every morning, and then I read, I journal, play on instagram for a little bit, get caught up, do some engagement, watch the morning news, and then I am usually ready and back at my desk between somewhere between eight and 830, or in my office with my real estate company. And from there, I am a firm believer of calendar using your calendar time blocking, priority management, all the things I live and breathe by my calendar and my to do list. So I take my to do list, I use clickfunff as my project and task management system and I write down all my to dos for the day. Sometimes I've even done it the night before.

I look at my calendar for the day and then I start following my calendar. So really my day is driven by my calendar and I'm either doing one of three things, I'm either pouring into my agents and my team at the real estate company, or I am creating content and things for my speaking and training business, or I'm delivering that training and content via webinars and things of that nature. Then at the end of the day, my husband and I have this kind of routine that we've developed in the evening which we can talk about that I think is really helpful for anyone who works with their spouse. And then usually by 7730 I'm watching a little bit of tv and because I get up so early, I'm usually asleep by nine. And that's pretty much my day every day. It doesn't really ever change.

Yeah, and what a great schedule you've got so much. Well, I think what I love about it is hearing you say you live by your calendar and you actually follow. Meaning if you put in your calendar that you're having an hour lunch, you actually follow it.

Agreed. Agreed. I joke that I have to put my calendar when I go to the restroom and my assistant cracks up laughing at me because she can see everything I put in my calendar. Funny story, actually. So she's been with me ten years and her ten year anniversary was Labor Day week this year and we planned a huge surprise party for her. You should see me trying to plan that on my calendar in code because she sees everything. It was the most hysterical thing ever. But yeah, that's how much I live and breathe in my calendar.

And you're absolutely right. The one thing that kills me about people when they say time blocking doesn't work, I always say this, time blocking doesn't work because you're not doing it. If you actually did it and followed it, I promise you it would work. And I used to say, it's not going to work for me, it's not going to work for me. That's not how I'm wired. It's because I wasn't freaking doing it.

Yeah.

Started doing it and it became a habit. Oh my gosh. The difference in my productivity. The difference in the amount. When people are like, barb, how do you get so much done? You're so busy. The number one thing I say back is, I am not busy. I am productive. I get the right things done during the day that only I can do.

Yep. You know your mastery, you know your sweet spot, and the parts that give you energy and aren't just like a time suck. That leads me into the next question is, like, what support system have you built to this point? Like, how much are you delegating off your plate? Who's on your team that's helping do all these things?

Great question. Well, I have my amazing, incredible husband. So, yes, we still sell real estate. We still have a database. We're still doing transactions. But transparently, I would never sit here and tell you that I have this huge speaking and training career that I run a brokerage, and I sell all the real estate. Because you would be like, really? That's not human. And you're correct.

So my husband is handling most of our day to day real estate activities. He's going on the appraisals, going on the inspections, doing all the things. I have a director of operations I just mentioned who's been with me ten years. She's basically my right hand and my left hand and both of my eyes on most days. I have a marketing assistant back at the company, and Kara actually is driving pretty much everything with my brand currently right now. But transparently, that's because real estate transactions are down. If real estate transactions were where they were two years ago, I would have to have a whole nother assistant help me with my personal brand as well. So I don't want anyone to sit here and think that you can have one person do all these things.

It really depends on the season, again, the market. How much business are you doing? But I have built a support network around me so that I truly am trying to only do the things that only I can do.

Yeah. When would you say, what's your advice? I feel like every agent is different about when you should make your first hire.

That's a great question. Well, I think transparently, the best advice I ever heard in my entire career. When everyone thinks they need an assistant or they need a buyer's agent or they need insert whatever it is, sometimes the first hire you need to make is just someone to clean your house. So what agents don't realize is we go immediately to the work side of our life, and your audience is these working moms. What I realized the first person I needed in my life was a housekeeper. When I realized, you know what? If I have any free time on the weekend, why am I cleaning my house? And why am I not taking my children somewhere so good? Once I realized, you know what? If someone cleans my house every week, and I do have someone come every week, and I have had someone come every week for probably 15 of my 21 years in business, then I can spend more time with my family in the evening. I can spend more time with my kids on the weekend. Or maybe it's my girlfriend, Heather Valentine.

She is the biggest producer in the Richmond, Virginia area. She runs an incredible company. She sells a couple of hundred homes a year. And when her kids were little, she had a tish. And I say she had a tish because her name was Tish. And I used to always joke that sometimes agents need a tish in their life. And what Tish would do every day is she was a school bus driver, okay? It was already cleared through all the school districts to be a good human and all the things. And what Heather would have her do is come into her home every day.

As soon as she was done driving the bus, 30, 10:00 would come in. We'd literally just pick up the tornado that had happened in the morning.

Amazing.

The smoothie, the breakfast. So what was Heather doing? Cooking breakfast for her kids, getting them out the door, not worrying about the laundry or the clothes the five year old left on the ground. So Tish would go through, clean up the house, make it all neat and tidy. So what did Heather do when she came home from an evening listing appointment? She actually could sit on the couch and read her children a book instead of doing all those other I. And at that time, once I really met Heather and got to know Heather, my children were older. My children are much older than hers. But I thought, that is so amazing. Every agent in their life.

Yeah. Because if you don't have the help, let's say hubby is working full time, too. There is so much load of the tornado.

It could be grocery shopping for you. It could be cutting up your fruits and vegetables and packaging things so that you have healthy food. There's so many things that people don't realize can be done for them. Now, transparently. When do you need help in your real estate business? Because no matter how much help you have at home, you still have a business to run. Right. That's a situation that's different for every agent. And a lot of it depends on what state you sell real estate in and what your requirements are.

Right? Because, again, I use my girlfriend Heather, as an example, in Virginia, their paperwork is a 16th of what it is. In California, some states, Illinois, they have attorneys that do almost everything that I have to do. Yeah, I think it depends on what state you're in, what your business flow looks like. But what I will say is, you know, you need help when you start dropping the ball or can't deliver the level of service that you'd like to to your clients. If you're having to lower your standard to serve your clients, get help, because you cannot afford to lower the standard that you deliver to your clients or your fiduciary duty or your legal obligations. So when that starts happening, that I think is the warning sign that you need some help.

So good. And I think for so many of us, it's that transaction, like roller coaster where you're like, I got business, so I'm going to stop doing everything else. And then, okay, I closed the business, and I'm no business.

No business. Yeah, because you're not regenerating.

So good. Thank you for that. Okay, so I want to go into, when your kids were younger, your son was very heavily involved in baseball, and I'm sure your daughter was into stuff, too. How did you guys juggle all the activities and still be present parents?

My favorite thing to talk about, literally, my favorite thing to talk about, because I think that part of the reason I have people always say to me, oh, yeah, your kids are quite the losers in life. And they're saying that funny, because my daughter is in graduate school at 22 years old, which is very young to be in a graduate program, getting her doctorate in physical therapy. She was a competitive dancer her whole life, 4.0 student, went to a four year university. Incredible girl. My son was a highly competitive baseball player, graduated high school, was drafted very high in the major league baseball draft, or went to college and played eight years in professional baseball and just retired, actually, because of just multiple injuries, and now is a professional sports agent in the baseball industry. So, very highly successful kids, but that are also very close to their parents. And I can tell you the number one thing that made that happen is that they were the number one priority in our life. Period.

Period. There was never, sorry, mom, can't make your baseball game because I have an open house. Those words were never echoed out of my mouth. There was never, sorry, Mandy, dad can't be at your competition this weekend because he has to go show a house. Their activities were time blocked on our calendar as a priority. And if someone needed me at the same time, I had a conflict with my family. The answer was, I'm sorry, I have an appointment at that time. Would 03:00 work for you? Or how about 10:00 a.m.

Whatever the time period, I could fit it in or something that I learned really young that I would employ every single person listening to this is how you control your calendar, is you control it. You don't ever call your doctor's office and say, I'd like to see the doctor. Tuesday at ten, they offer you appointment times. The number one thing I learned when I was talking to a buyer or seller on the phone when we need to set up a face to face appointment is, I have availability. And you give them the options on your calendar. I rarely had someone say, oh, I'm sorry, none of those work for me. When you start teaching people that they have to respect your calendar and your time, that's when you start winning. So that way, those baseball games, those dance events, the important things to our kids, it could even be that they had an activity at school going on or a singing performance.

We never put our business before those activities. And I think that has made the biggest difference in our kids lives, is they don't regret their parents being realtors. A lot of kids do. Because mom was never home. She was always gone at night, she was always gone on the weekends. She always missed my soccer game, dance, whatever it may be. And in our world, that just didn't happen.

Yeah, such a good answer. Because I think it's so easy to make the excuse that, oh, the kids can wait or they're not that big of a priority. And we put the client over our family so often when, if you just phrase it to the client of, like, I have another appointment, as if it's another buyer or seller.

Exactly.

So why should we treat it differently?

Well, and another thing I always say to agents is that part of this is how we chose to do business. The highest level of respect you will ever get in your business is by someone who is referred to you typically, versus an Internet lead. An Internet lead is not going to wait for the baseball game to be done, but clients that are referred to me when I say, you know what, I'm so sorry. At 03:00 I have another appointment. And it turns out they know it's a baseball game. They're like, no problem, see you at 430, see you at five. Totally understand. And they end up respecting you for it.

So I think some of this comes down to, if you do work, if you want to get a ton of business and open houses is the only way you generate it. You have no choice but to work open houses all weekend. I didn't have to do. Do that, or I would just schedule the open house around my children's activities. So I think a lot of it's how you choose to do business. But no matter how you choose to do business, you are still in control of your calendar. No one else should be in control of it.

Yeah. That is so good. I think so many of us need the shake up because we convince ourselves in desperate times to do desperate measures, but then we sacrifice our families, and then it's just the whole shit show. So thank you for being the firm.

Rock on that. The client will wait for you if you're good at what you do. How many times have you ever called a doctor, a specialist, that you really need to get in and see, and their first appointment isn't for a month or two.

Yeah. And you're like, I'll wait.

Yeah, you wait. That stylist. That's the best insert, whatever it is. Will you wait for them? Heck, yeah, you will. You're not going to sacrifice, going to super cuts to get a crummy job done. No offense to anybody who works at super cuts. Right. But if you want a high level color experience, you're not going to go there.

And you'll wait. Your people will do the same thing for you, and they might be waiting a day or an hour. They're not going to wait six weeks to get on your calendar.

Yeah. And I think as women, we're so easy to please, or wanting to please, that will be apologetic and like, I'm so, so sorry. And begging and like, no, this is your moment to boss up and own it with confidence. You have a schedule conflict, so I have option a or b. Like, bottom line, that's it. So good.

Yeah.

Okay. So you mentioned your marriage, too, and definitely having a couple of things that you've kept to keep it alive, kept to have that one on one time, even though kids on your calendar make it a top priority. How are you also prioritizing your marriage to last this long? What are you guys doing?

Great question. Well, first of all, we're polar opposites, so that's always good. Second of all, in our own business, what we've done really well is understanding and defining our roles clearly. So I know exactly my role, he knows his role. And we don't cross over and challenge each other on those roles. So staying real connected to our roles in our relationship has been super helpful. Prioritizing time for each other, honestly, to be transparent came from getting involved in the real estate industry. So by getting involved in the real estate industry, I had conferences and events and real estate functions that we would go to.

And so it was an excuse to have him come with me. And my kids, it was like, oh, they're going on a work trip. It's not, mom and dad are going on vacation without us. Yeah, they're going on a work trip. And so my kids came to actually love it because they loved it when their aunt came to stay with them, because that meant not as many rules as mom. And there would even be times where my son would be like, when are you going away again? I'm like, oh, you want a week where you don't have to clean your room? I see how you operate, kind of scheduling it. So if you don't already have that, I think a trip away every quarter is essential for any married couple because let's be transparent, when you're married and you're in a hotel, it's just life's different. So go have some fun.

Get away from the kids. I do think that is critical, because if you don't prioritize your relationship when the kids are gone, it's going to be real boring. Right? I think that remembering to prioritize that relationship is super important. And then the last thing that we did, and obviously, I'm speaking to anybody who's married to their business partner, because do work together all day long, and we do spend a lot of time together during the day. First and foremost, people thought that we know, like, we really would cross paths all day long because we were both doing different things. But the one thing that we did, probably the best, and this benefited us and our family, and this is something we accidentally created. But any spouse, marriage family can do this. We would get home and let's just say the kids were coming home from their activities or doing homework or whatever, and he would get home, or I would get home, and we would continue talking about our day real estate.

I could have even been on the phone doing contracts, talking to him, like, hey, did you call this person back? When's this closing? How'd the home inspection go? Whatever it may be, for whatever reason, artificially, we created this connection point between dinner and ending our day, our work day. And so we have a firm belief in our family. We eat dinner together as a family at the table as much as possible. And the second dinner hit the table, we would naturally stop talking about real estate and we start talking to the kids, because what we figured was between three and five, when they're doing homework, they don't care what we're talking about. But once dinner happens, they don't want to hear about a listing anymore.

Yeah.

So looking back, I realize that was huge in our life. And so what would happen is we would have dinner, we'd stop talking about our business, start talking about the kids, do the dishes, clean up, start watching tv or relaxing. And then it got to a point where if I needed to, because real estate goes 24/7 so let's say I get a text message from a client, and I'm like, man, I need to ask him a question. Or you're tempted, while you're sitting on the couch, to just start talking about real estate again. And I started conditioning myself to email him or put it on his calendar.

It was so good.

And then he would look at it. We literally laugh your rear end off. We would sit on the couch, and I would watch him read the email. But we didn't talk to each other about it, so our kids didn't hear about it. Morning when we got up, we'd start talking about it again. So we put this artificial stop between dinner and bedtime that no real estate talk happened. And believe it or not, we still do that today, even though our kids could care less what we're talking about at dinner.

It's a boundary that really just makes family time sacred. That's the biggest thing. And it's not that you're working 24/7 like, yeah, you can shoot off the thing, but it's not embracing the whole room and the whole environment. Like, it isn't a box. And same thing that goes like, nothing good happens between 08:00 p.m., and like, 07:00 a.m.

It's really true. And the other thing it taught us was we don't have to get back to the client right away because I have to ask him a question, or he may need to give me an answer about something before I can properly answer the client. And so it also created this environment where the client can get the answer at 08:00 a.m.. Tomorrow. Really interesting thing that we did that nobody told us to do it. It just became one day I was like, you know, do you realize we do this? And he's like, yeah, I didn't, but we should keep doing it. And we have. We still do it to this day.

That's so good. I think it took me about a year to figure that out. My first year of real estate because you want to please so bad and you're so desperate for that commission. In the beginning.

Yeah.

I was calling at like 09:00 at night. Buyers like crying on the phone and I was like, whoa. So now I got a text the other night at like 930. I didn't respond until 930 the next morning.

Exactly. One thing I will say that I have done really well is utilize your technology. Like schedule send in Gmail is a gift. There's been plenty of times I have hopped back on my computer at 11:00 p.m. At night when the kids are going to bed or because I want to answer the question, get it off my chest. I never hit send right away. I do scheduled send for eight the next morning because that client is not going to get used to me answering them at eleven at night. But it doesn't mean you can't write the email and be ready to go.

So use your technology.

So there's definitely a trend with this whole conversation is that you have very strict but good and protective boundaries around all areas of your life and you have to stick to them. We're not like Willy Nilly loosey Goosey. When I feel like it, it's like, no, this is the way that it is because this is the way our life is so, so good. So with your marriage specifically, I think this is something my husband and I are going through now is like trying to rebalance our masculine and feminine energies. Which sounds a little woo woo, but I just came off a date with destiny with Tony Robbins. So that's why. But I have found over the last probably five years, I've totally gone masculine because I'm building business and that's a very masculine trait. But then I bring that home and it's forced him to become more feminine to account for me.

Like, we can't both be masculine and at war. So I just took over our household completely. Everything was like control freak. And so I'm wondering, how do you still allow him to be the lead? Or have you always been that way? Have you had frictions when you feel like you're taking over everything and then he feels not important? How do you guys do that?

That's a great question. I think it's really personality based. We've never had that problem. He leads in different ways than I lead at home. He, for instance, funny story, has turned into the chef in our home. And I crack up when my kids say that I don't know how to cook because they seem to forget I was the only one that cooked when they were little. The only reason he started cooking was before he got into real estate. He had a job where he got home at 03:00 every day, and I was starting to be late on appointments.

Before you know it, it's 536 o'clock, and he's hungry. And he would text me, how do you cook the tacos? Like, how do you cook the meat for the spaghetti?

What?

Seasoning? So he taught himself how to cook, and then I backed off, like, buddy, you can have it. And now he's the only one that cooks in the house to the point where if he's not here, I don't know, I wouldn't survive anyways. But all that to say that a lot of it is personality driven, in that he doesn't need to be in the spotlight. He doesn't have a personality that wants to be in the limelight, where that is my personality. So we've never really had that problem at home. But then you talk about masculine and feminine. He is very pragmatic, very direct. I am very aesthetic and very kind of nurturing, and both just play our roles in that space.

So I think it just comes down to honoring who you guys are as people and letting each other have that space in specific seasons, because it could be that your kids are getting older and they just hear it better from mom, and he needs to let you do it versus seasons, where maybe dad has the stronger voice or the stronger relationship with them at that moment. So I think you have to have open lines of communication. In what role are we playing right now, and when am I going to back off and you take over? And I think it's just keeping that line of communication open.

Yeah. And most importantly, it's always we over. Me. I think that's the big thing we've learned over the years. We're entering year 13 of marriage, and I'm feeling it. So that's good advice. Yeah. Thank you.

And then, so self care, right? You are very busy women with a very time blocked schedule. But how do you prioritize taking care of yourself in alone time or recharge? What does that look like for you?

Yeah, arguably, I probably don't do that enough to be quite transparent, but what I can say is that I actually don't need alone time. Believe it or not, I have a personality, so I understand my personality very clearly. I've had a lot of personality assessments done, and I'm something called gregarious, which means I have a really big people tank for people. So I like being around people. So how I do self care is intentionally putting time in my calendar for friends and family and fun date nights go on the calendar. I don't just say to my friends randomly on Thursday, I'm like, hey, I have Saturday morning open. You want to grab coffee with my dear friends, or do you want to go shopping, or do you want to do this or that? So I'm putting that kind of personal time on my calendar. I struggle with the self care from the perspective of, go get a massage, go do this, go do that, because I just don't like doing that stuff.

But I believe my self care is time with friends and time with people I love that involve real estate.

Yeah, that's so good. Just refilling your tank. It can look like whatever it needs to look like that leads into, I mean, friendships. So for a lot of people, I feel like there's been so much relocation and transition and just like our military families. How do you recommend getting started if you have minimal friends and you want that back in your life again? Because I feel like, I don't know if it's just me, but we're, like, going through a loneliness epidemic in America. We're so on social media that our deep friendships have faltered and don't even exist anymore. So, been in one area for a long, long time, but what's your advice for that?

Yeah, I've been in an area for a long time, so I have deep rooted friendships. But I would say it's all about being intentional.

Right.

And I think it's also looking at friendship differently than we used to, where if you are new to an area, there's no reason you still can't create a night where all your girlfriends hop on, Zoom, and catch up.

Right.

But locally, I could imagine, if I was new to an area, I think I would lean on groups. I think I would lean on Facebook groups, especially younger moms, for instance, in our area, I'm not a part of it because my children are older, but I guarantee I would have been a part of it when they were younger. It's called fit for mom. And I think many areas have chapters and areas, and literally, you go out and work out together with other moms, and you bring your kids and your babies like you do stroller walks. And I have an agent that used to be with me who she built her entire, pretty much, career off of fit for mom. So I think that finding groups and finding connection points with technology, there's so many things out there that I think we just have to look for them and find places to belong. Getting involved, I think at your kids school, right? Getting involved with the other moms, getting involved with the parents, getting involved, most of our friends. And still to this day, if I look at, for instance, tonight, I am having my seven best girlfriends over.

We do a girls Christmas every year. We do an earring exchange. Four of the seven women that I am best friends with, we all met through baseball, all of us, and we're still best mommy friends. And all of our kids are in their 20s. So getting your kids involved in activities and then showing up and being present for those activities, you're naturally going to find friendships and relationships. Like go to practice, don't sit in your car, go to dance and sit in the lobby, don't wait in your car. Because you do that, you're isolating yourself and it's awkward and it's weird, but we all have phones these days, so just go sit in the lobby and get out your phone and smile at people and conversation starts and naturally you become part of that conversation and before you know it, you're going to be organizing playdates and friendship groups and everything else. So I think you have to be intentional about it and you have to put yourself out there, which is hard for a lot of people.

But you got to do it if you want those relationships and someone has.

To be the first. That's the biggest thing. You can't wait for it.

You are absolutely right. Like organize things. Like be the organizer. I always joke that, and this is just a side note for parents, but most of my business came because I was the one who volunteered to do everything for baseball. So I was always a team mom. I was always the one that sent the emails, the ones that organized everything, because then I got to choose the date and time to make sure I could be there. Every email had my company logo on the bottom. Don't ever send it from your personal email.

Little bonus trick, moms always send it from your real estate email. You want everyone to know what you do. I just organized everything and then before you knew it, and then I did. It helps. I had a kid, my son, who is me on steroids, character of a human, and everyone wanted to be his friend. And so I naturally had all these kids and parents through my life that then I was able to build relationships with.

So good. I feel like every time I go to a thing, it's like everyone's on their phone and no one wants to talk to each other. So I just need to be like, hi, sister.

I'm Marina. Yeah. Just introduce yourself, start talking, or at minimum, start friend requesting the moms that you see all the time on social media and start following them and engaging. Because the great part about social media is it rewards engagement. So the more you engage with somebody, the more the algorithm is going to think you have a relationship, and then maybe they're going to see something that you're doing. Conversations start naturally, and then you've got to make the effort to say, hey, you know what? While the kids are at practice next week, let's go walk the park. Or, hey, while the kids are dancing next week, let's go down the street to the coffee shop and grab a cup of coffee. All of a sudden, you're now creating those relationships.

Yeah.

And then instead of dreading practice, you're looking forward to it. It's a girl date.

Exactly.

So you mentioned your Christmas earring thing, and I feel like you're the guru when it comes to gatherings and client care ideas. Drop them on us. Like, what are some of your.

Oh, my God, so many.

Give me. Yeah.

So people always say to me, well, what about all your clients that aren't invited? I'm like, I never call them client parties. Tonight is a client party. Every single one of my girlfriends is in my database. But it is a girl's Christmas. We do an earring exchange. It's so fun. We fight. We get very competitive.

About these dang earrings. I'm already bummed that I'm like, I really like the earrings I put in that bag. Should I go switch them out?

Just kidding.

My other. If you're talking about mom girlfriend style party that is also a client party, is every single Valentine's day, I do a Galentine's day. Galentine's day is just so, you know, technically now formally, February 13, day before Valentine's day, is Galentine's day. And I do a Galentine's day favorite things party. So it's a spin on Oprah's favorite things. Everyone brings their favorite things. We do this fun exchange. My friends at clients literally move their life.

I already have people messaging me, when is it? Because they don't want to miss it. I do that. And then the other thing that my husband and I, now that our kids are older, do a ton of is happy hours and dinner parties and just gathering people together, friends, groups of friends, and just treating it as, at the end of the day, if I've done one thing right in my career, is treating everybody as a relationship, not a client and not a transaction. And when you treat someone as a relationship and then, oh, by the way, you are really good at what you do, and then you have a marketing plan. That's my entire system. The entire system I teach business owners is you're good at what you do, you need to communicate. You're good at what you do. You need to have a marketing system to stay in touch, but you more importantly need to have a connection strategy to stay connected and build that relationship.

And if you do that enough, over time, they're going to remember what you do when it's time for them to do it or when they have a friend or someone you need to help.

Absolutely. No, I love the idea of just curating fun experiences that you would want to go to. First of all, so it doesn't feel like work. It doesn't feel like a question for the Galentine's things. What's your price point on that?

So funny. I've done it so many different ways. I used to do $10 or $20. That got really hard because what can you really find that's good? So last year I did you bring four items up to the same item, but up to $30. So that way it's $120 to participate. But when you're doing up to $30, you really can bring something that's a little bit more useful to everybody. I have a friend that does one where she keeps it under ten. It's the hardest thing in the world.

It's like, what do you want me to bring? Ten? I don't know what to bring these days. It's 699, but yeah, so I've bumped it to more like 20 to 30. And people just bring better stuff. And then my other little side note on Galentine's day is you have to make it clear, no food and no alcohol. People like to bring their favorite bottle of wine. It's like not everybody drinks. And so I always say, no food, no alcohol. But other than that, you can bring whatever you want.

I'm going to implement. Hold me accountable. It'll be so fun.

Seriously. My husband actually looks forward to that night. He sits in our room and laughs at how loud we get. Because literally, if you don't know what a favorite things party is, essentially everyone brings their favorite thing. You do a little number draw thing. I stand up and I say, hey, this phone is. It wouldn't be a phone. This phone is my favorite thing, and here's why.

And then everyone in the room starts freaking out because they want it. They don't know if they're going to get your thing. And then you say, I'm number ten, and everybody holding the number ten gets your favorite thing. And then they barter for stuff at the end and they fight over stuff. It is like the best day ever. We love it.

Okay. Totally doing it. And then you're also so good at referrals and building a nationwide network. So what is your big advice when it comes to, like, hey, I need an agent, and so, and so how do you even start that? What's the system that works for you?

Well, the way you start it is you have to get involved outside of your area. You can't start that network if you stay in Oahu, it's not going to work. So you have to get involved. Start going to industry events, go to your local or state, know. Start to get to know agents outside of your area, especially you guys out on the islands. I mean, I'm sure there's people all over listening to this, but specifically, you guys need to get out there. And I know that's hard, right? But no, just posting it in a Facebook group saying I need an agent in Oregon is an awful idea because you have no checks and balances.

Right.

So creating, and really what it is is I think all of us go to industry events. We go to either coaching training or we go to other groups we belong to. Your job there is to not just learn, it's also to make your trip work for you. So your job there is to connect with other agents, meet other agents, get to know other agents, and then go home and create a database of other agents. If I've done one thing right, it's actually take the business cards and put them into my CRM and tag them and categorize them appropriately as agents so they're not getting my marketing. But I have this robust database of agents now that I can connect with and refer to. And then the other thing I would say is, do not go with the recommendation, which is, in my opinion, wrong, of so many agents, which is this idea of, I can't be friends with other agents on social media. That is the most advice I've ever heard.

That's the best way you can get to know other agents, right? Build relationships on social media, connect and engage with them so that they get to know you, too. Because referrals in real estate, what most people don't understand is that we are one of the only industries legally allowed to give a referral fee in lieu of business. Attorneys can't do it. Financial advisors can't do it, but we're not capitalizing on it. But then you have to remember by doing it, you've got to be able to put your name to the person you're giving that referral to. So at minimum, I always tell agents I got a good database. So if you really don't know somebody in Minnesota, message me, because I likely do. You're still going to get the referral fee.

But here's how it works with me. My friend in Minnesota is going to be so grateful because they know I was the source of that referral and that you just got to work at it and you got to develop the relationships.

Yeah, no, that's so good. So you were real estate by relationship. So that's your course, right? Is that coming soon? Another launch date? What's your plans?

So what I actually have done with my, so I have a real estate by relationship academy, which is eleven modules where I teach agents exactly how to build their entire real estate business from a to z. What I decided to do with that kind of mid last year is I turned it into a mastermind. It's a monthly mastermind. It's called relately, and it's a mastermind of agents from across the country. And we come together once a month and we talk about whatever you need to talk about. Because what I learned is agents don't just need help in growing their business by relationship, they need help in strategy, organization, team management, negotiations, transaction management, risk management, all kinds of stuff. And so we come together every month, and as part of that mastermind, which is only $99 a month, you get access to my entire academy that I used to sell for thousands of dollars. And so you get the academy, you get to be a part of this mastermind, and then you get access to me answering all of these questions like, I need an idea for this.

What would you do for this? I'm in this situation, what would you do? What would Barb have done 20 years ago? All those types of things. So we do that monthly, and then we have a Slack channel where you can message me at any time, have a question, need advice on marketing piece, whatever it may be. That's what I turned it into.

Amazing. So people can drop in literally anytime and then just go to the one.

Meeting, the one meeting a month, the Slack channel, they can watch the academy at any time. They get access to all my members only webinars. I've done them with Chelsea pipes and Hillary Billings and Shannon McKinstry and a couple other really good marketing gurus in our space. So kind of have access to all of the trainings and things that I do from time to time.

So good. That's so exciting and such a value for people. Holy moly. Good job on that.

People want community. Like you said, they want community. They want to feel like they belong. And it's not a large group. And I like it that way because we talk about some tough stuff. So if you're not present, you get the recording. I mean, we had an intense conversation a few months ago about trademarking. I didn't realize how many agents don't understand trademarks.

And so really good stuff.

Amazing. Thank you for that. We're going to wrap this up because I think, yeah, we're about 45 minutes in. I don't want to make this like an hour and a half episode, but I do wrap this up with some rapid fire every episode just for something fun. So give me your Starbucks order. What is like your go to?

Oh, my gosh. That is a loaded question. So my morning Starbucks order is a Vente Americano with steamed half and half and two pumps of something. So right now it's sugar cookie. It was pumpkin, and then it probably will go to vanilla when everything gets boring again. My afternoon drink is like an iced coffee or an iced Americano with half and half and usually one pump because in iced it just tastes different. Whatever flavor I want, you're a twofer.

There we go. Okay. If last minute for dinner, I know hubby cooks, but what would you put together if you're on your own and.

You'Re like, oh, if I'm on my own, it's going to be like taco salads, taco meat and lettuce. Can't really mess that up. Spaghetti. I am the best at making tacos. So I joke about the tacos earlier. So yeah, if I have to cook dinner, that's what's happening.

Okay. Love it. What's your go to fave? Department of target. And do you have a favorite designer?

Oh, my gosh. These are tough questions. My favorite department in target is probably, oh, my gosh, probably the home area. Just because I buy stuff I don't need because it's cheap. And my favorite designer, I don't really have a favorite designer. I shop a lot. That's my vice. So when people are like, I'll take them all.

I eat snacks in the middle of the night. I'm like, I shop. Yeah, I'm bad at shopping. No, let me rephrase that. I'm really good at shopping, which is the bad part.

Yes. Okay, drop us a favorite book or a podcast you'd recommend to the audience. Do you have.

Oh, my goodness. So actually, I am currently reading a brand new book that just came out. Ten X is better than two X. And I'm kind of obsessed with it, so. By Jen Sullivan. And I forget the other author. It's a co author thing. Ten X is better than two X.

My favorite podcast is the one that we are a joint part of the influential personal brand podcast. I love Rory and AJ's podcast. They interview so many incredible people. I also really am a big fan of Jenna Kutcher's Gold Digger podcast. I just love. She kind of covers all different aspects of business and life, which is really cool. And the thing I love about podcasts is that. And you can pick and choose what you want to listen to.

That's what I love. It's not like a book where you have to read and get through the whole thing. It's like, oh, she did a podcast on toddlers. I don't need to listen to that type thing. You can go through and pick and choose you want to listen to.

Yeah. And she's been on that for over five years. Like a.

She is incredible.

Totally. Okay. I think I know the answer to this one, but TikTok or Instagram?

Instagram. I will say TikTok is my. Now, my. You may not want to hear this, but TikTok is now my YouTube. I go to YouTube anymore to find out how to do something. I go to TikTok because I'm rapid. I don't want to watch a 15 minutes video to figure out how to boil an egg. I've heard this 90 seconds.

How to boil an egg.

And show me real quick. That's awesome. Okay. Where can people find you online? Obviously, the journey doesn't stop here. They just got this great introduction.

Where should I. And I'm so grateful for it. You are fantastic at this, by the way. Miss new to podcasting, you are incredible. You need to know that, and everyone needs to hear that. I have been interviewed by hundreds of people, and you're fantastic. So Instagram is my jam. I'm just at Barbatts.

I'm obviously also on Facebook and LinkedIn and all the other things, and then you can find me at my website, and then my podcast is all about relationships and driving them in your business, and that's. Relationships are your superpower.

Yay. Thank you so much. So, for everyone listening, I hope you guys learned a crap ton of information. Like, honestly, we need to relisten and take notes like I'm going to, but make sure to hit the follow if you're not following along. Wherever you're watching or listening to podcasts, there's a new episode every single week. And I'm so excited to keep it growing and keep the network expanding, because just because we're interviewing guests doesn't mean you guys aren't going to connect with them, too. And I think that's where it's super exciting, is that we just keep expanding this network of moms, of hustlers who are doing it and really curating a life that serves us in all the ways. So thank you, my dear.