Setting big goals and believing you can achieve them is the first step toward exceptional outcomes. Find out how brokers Troy Palmquist and Keven Stirdivant add consistent outreach to create maximum impact.
By elevating your price point you can automatically create exponential, rather than linear or incremental, growth in your real estate business. It’s the fastest and simplest way to make a huge impact and scale up.
I recently sat down to interview Keven Stirdivant, founder of KASE Real Estate, at the SideXSide event held at the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California. It was an amazing conversation—one that I think everyone can benefit from, no matter what’s going on in the market.
Stirdivant has been able to 10X his price point from under a million dollars up to $10 million properties, and we talked about the nuts and bolts of making that kind of leap. Here are our best tips.
1. Get your mind right
According to Stirdivant, creating 10X growth starts with mindset. He spent a decade selling homes for an average of $550,000 to $700,000. When he made the decision to step into a high-end market, he developed a way to limit the intimidation factor while boosting the motivation factor.
Number one, when you see that sale that’s like this big, scary sale, $10 million, whatever it may be, you have to just cover a zero. And then when you look and you visualize your check, you add a zero.
At that point, Stirdivant said, “Figure out the lie that’s in the middle.” The lie may tell you that you can’t, either because you’re not educated enough, you didn’t grow up in the neighborhood or you’re not right for the luxury niche. These “BS stories” may be based on you lying to yourself or someone else who encouraged you to think negatively about yourself.
The only thing that is stopping you from where you want to ultimately go is the make-believe BS story. And if you can overcome that, then you can elevate tonight.
2. Confront your limiting beliefs
Stirdivant is totally confident in his KASE team and teaches them to believe in themselves just as hard. “I’m 1,000 percent confident that I could take any of my trained Jedis here and drop them anywhere in America, and in one hour, they will find a seller lead,” he said.
If you’re already licensed, he said, then you already have everything you need to create a big impact with your business. Coming from a place of service and having total belief in yourself is the only thing you need in addition.
At one point in Stirdivant’s career, he got caught up in the lie of not being enough and operating from his past, he said.
It took a lot of, honestly, therapy, a lot of digging deep into my roots of why I think the way I do about myself. Because until I could re-engineer that, it didn’t matter where I worked, it didn’t matter what car I got, didn’t matter how I dressed.
Stirdivant experienced a huge shift when his father died at the age of 50 in 2012. “We had the same name, and so when I saw my name on funeral papers and I had three kids at the time, it really rocked me a lot,” he said.
Stirdivant thought about the opportunities his father had wasted and who his father could have been, then compared that to the trajectory he was on. A month later, he started KASE.
I had to get rocked to the core of my existence and [ask] ‘Who am I?’ to really figure out what I wanted to do. And it honestly felt like I was going to die. Like I had nothing. I’ve said this before: Sometimes when you feel like you’re going to die and you don’t, you really start to figure out how you want to live. That’s how I live my life. I do not want to play around, I don’t want to hang out with anybody who is not serious.
3. Elevate experience and expertise
No matter what price point people are in, they’re the same people with the same goals. The commission is the by-product, “it’s not what we do it for.” Helping people have a positive experience buying or selling is what we should be about, and the commission will follow.
Whether you go into Nordstrom’s and you’re buying a pair of socks or an Armani suit, you know the level of service you’re gonna get. It’s a luxury thing. I go to Nordstrom’s because I want that level of luxury service.
Not everything has to be $5 million or $10 million. There are parts of the United States where luxury is $1 million because the average sales price is $500,000. It’s the systems and the procedures that you’ve set up yourself that help you move to the next level.
Stirdivant agreed and said that he doesn’t market differently depending on the price point.
There isn’t a program for mobile homes and a different program for mansions. We are committed to offering a high level of service across the board. So the mobile home is gonna get the drone, the mobile home is gonna get constant weekly attention and feedback on their deal, as is the mansion. So I think how you are in one area is how you are everywhere.
4. Learn the principle of the 7 equities
According to Stirdivant, KASE “lives in this space called the seven equities.” It’s his own combination of advice from Tony Robbins, Zig Ziegler and Brian Tracy. The seven equities he has developed are mind, body, soul, family, friends, business and money.
Stirdivant says that most people tell themselves the lie that “being rich” is measured by money, a car and a house. Therefore, no real wealth is or can be free. If you shift your definition of wealth to what you do in the morning and how you end your day, “those things are free to everybody right now.”
That means you can wake up in the morning in a spirit of gratitude, work out, show love to family and friends, the people who matter most to you, and you’re already wealthy. Then, show up to the place where you play the game called “getting money” and it’s that much easier to attract because you’re coming from a wealthy mindset.
5. Create meaningful connections
One of the main strategies Stirdivant has used to create growth is prospecting through door-knocking. If he doesn’t have an appointment at all, he knocks 100 doors. If he only has one, he knocks 75 doors. If he only has two, he knocks 50 doors. If he has three appointments, he knocks 25 doors.
As for me, when I started in real estate, it was in the Santa Monica, west Los Angeles area. I used to go to the car wash. It offered an easy place to start conversations about the car someone was driving and it only cost me $20 for the car wash itself.
Hang out in the area where you want to sell. Go to the more expensive nail salon. Get a social membership at a local country club instead of the full golf membership. That way you’re interacting with people in the communities where you want to garner listings. For me, going to the more expensive car wash instead of the $12 one meant that I was hanging out with the group that I wanted to work with.
Stirdivant said that when he first started tapping into the multi-million dollar market, he went toward Laguna Beach, which meant he had to commute an hour back and forth from his home at the time.
Here’s Stirdivant’s door-knocking and follow-up formula:
- Focus first on giving the homeowner the most relevant and insightful takeaway you can possibly find that’s happened in the market. In Stirdivant’s case, he would look at the highest sale that had recently closed, then go around the neighborhood and share the sale.
For example:
‘Hey, my name’s Keven Stirdivant and I’m not sure if you saw, but your neighbor just broke this crazy record. Did you see that?’ (Note: They didn’t ask if it was my sale. I didn’t say it was my sale.) ‘I know there was a lot of activity on that deal. Any crazy chance you’d look at a $10 million offer if I left it in a Louis Vuitton briefcase on your doorstep?
- Mirror and match the energy of the person you’re talking to. If they seem like they’re in a hurry, say that you’re in a hurry and ask if you can shoot them a text. Look down at your phone expectantly, and 99.9 percent of the time, they’ll give you their phone number.
- Once you’ve connected by text, connect with them on Instagram. Message or text them and ask for their email or mailing address for your holiday card or another mailer. This is especially effective toward the end of the year and helps you build a complete CRM that you can use to continue prospecting once you’ve made that initial IRL connection.
- Don’t limit yourself or the potential of door-knocking. Stirdivant coached an agent who had only done three or four transactions previously. He door-knocked Serena Williams’ home and listed it for $10 million, and developed her as a client.
More than anything, keeping your mindset elevated and hanging around with like-minded individuals are essential.
As Stirdivant put it:
People are dreaming big. People are pushing each other to do better, not just financially, but spiritually, mentally, physically and with their families. And I think that, really, the core of being a millionaire is knowing how to ball out where it matters most, which is really in your mind, your body, your soul, and with your family. You do that and then show up to work and you go and hustle. Everything will fall into place.
