Taking Action with David Kurz

Stuart: Foreign. Welcome back to another book More show. Very excited today because we're joined by David Kurz who's author's written two books with us. David's a owner of Kurz Real Estate based down in Miami. David, welcome to the call.

David Kurz: Thank you. I appreciate the invite and I mean excited to talk about this because we've been, I've done a lot with you guys, so I'm pumped.

Stuart: Yeah, I'm excited too. I think I've mentioned on the call a couple of times before with, when we were talking to Betsy that kind of get a little bit detached sometimes from how people are using their books in the, in the end process. So it's always exciting to see other reorders coming through or people sending updates through as they're kind of tweaking their books in later stages or like yourself doing, doing multiple books. So it's, it's exciting to see people get their books in the first place done and dusted, but it's really exciting to see people using them out there in the real world and making a difference. So for the audience listening, do you want to give a quick update on the business that you've got down there, just kind of position it a little bit and then give a quick overview of the two books that we've written so far?

David Kurz: Yeah, sure. So I own a real estate company here in Miami, Florida. I've been open for about a year. Prior to that, I ran a very successful real estate team and with that team we got to a very high value of numbers through the development of a very strong foundation in our business and a strong culture. And I was one day advised that it'd probably be a good idea if I opened up a real estate company. And I thought hard about it for about 10 minutes and I said, sure, I should do that. So we came, we opened up a company. We're one of the fastest growing companies in South Florida. Within a year we're at almost 90 agents. We have great production, we've been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Real Deal, Curved Magazine, Mansions Global South Florida Business Journal, and most recently we were nominated for the most innovative brokerage by Inman in the country. So lots of great stuff happening.

Stuart: How much of that, I mean that growth over a year is pretty fantastic. How much of the exposure that you've got has come through kind of intention based marketing or putting yourself out in those environments specifically or how much is just it's happened in the background?

David Kurz: You know, I think that a lot of the stuff that I Do is very direct marketing. I'm very strong on social media. I have a strong social media presence. I ensure that I keep doing things such as writing these books to continue to market myself and remain in people's faces all the time. So I think that that's one of the things that I can attribute to our success thus far, is that we have a strong intentional marketing platform and program, you know, and every time we post on social media, every time we create a video, every time we, you know, do a podcast such as this one, we don't just do it and then forget about it. It's not like, you know, do it and forget it. It's more like, do it. And then how can we use this to market what we've done? Very simply, like, we. We were nominated for this Inman Award, most innovative brokerage in the country. There were 30 nominees for this one category, but 30 out of the entire country is, wow. Our first year in business. So everybody else in the category had been in business for five plus years at 600 age, 4,200 agents, one of them, you know, and so I think to myself, I'm like, we are at a level that it took someone else to get five years to get to, and we're pushing and we're doing so well in that nature. We didn't win the number with the award, but we were nominated. So we'll forever market the fact that we were nominated year one in business, you know.

Stuart: Yeah, I think that is. And that's such a key thing, I think, for people to pick up on and understand. There's so much time and emotion gets sucked into creating something in the first place that it can be very easy to then think, oh, thank goodness for that. It's done and dusted, and I move on to the next thing. Whereas there's so much juice in the orange still to squeeze. If one of the best is analogy to what's happened. Yeah, to leverage it.

David Kurz: To leverage it. People forget that they have so much to leverage, you know, like, look, these books are strong marketing tools. They're huge. And I realized that. I've seen people do books like these and then they, like, push them for a few months or whatever. They realize they're not getting a lot of sales for whatever reason, and they just kind of forget about them. And, you know, and if it comes up passing in conversation, that's fine. Not me. I wrote two books with you in the last year, you know, so, you know, we're using them like there's no tomorrow. Yeah, you Know, if we sell a million copies, I'm blessed. But you know, just the other day we had, we had, we had our, our one year anniversary party for the company and, and the publication that we put out said the first 100 guests will receive a free book of the most recent one. And so we gave away 100 books and I signed every one of them, you know, and so it was amazing because it was great to see how many people would get there early, especially for Miami. In Miami no one gets anywhere early, right? So you know, if you're planning something for 6pm, you better tell everyone 4pm and so we just kind of, since no one gets anywhere early, we kind of like told everybody that we're going to give away 100 books. First hundred people show up, get a free book. And no kidding, that place was packed within the first hour of the event. And, and it shows the power that the book has. It's the power of it.

Stuart: There's still such a, we talk about it quite a lot. There's still such a, such a power associated with having something published in your hand regardless of the process it took to get there. The fact that you're ending up with something physically created. There is something out in the world that's different from electronic publication or just the nature of what it is has a special magic in the eyes of the majority of people out in the world that says this is something more authoritative or carries more value than something else you could have in that example given away at the time or used in a different context. I think that's one of the, it's something that I think will pass in time as self publishing becomes more of a known quantity and more and more people start doing it. But for the next five years at least, I think there's definitely an advantage for people who move at the moment to create something because it still, before

David Kurz: it becomes such a normality and people can perceive it and get it done, it becomes, it becomes an advantage.

Stuart: Right now, yeah, we jumped in, or I jumped in rather than went off, off on a tangent. Now we were talking about the two books you'd written so far. Do you want to talk briefly about what those two books are and how they differ from each other slightly?

David Kurz: So because we were growing and becoming so successful and we had a successful team, a lot of people were coming up to me and asking me, you know, what is it that you're doing differently? What is, what's the difference between you and everyone else? Why are you growing at such a rapid rate? Etc, etc Etc And I had very few answers that were realistic because I think it's simpler than most people think. You know, it just requires a ton of hard work. And most people don't realize that it's the work that gets you there. Right. So, yeah, we. So I sat down and I was talking with my title partner. So I'm in real estate and I have a title partner and he has a very successful title company. He has about 15 offices throughout the state of Florida. And we sit down, we talked about it, and we started talking about what we do and what he does and so forth, so on. And I said, you know what, we should write a book about this. And that was the first book. The first book, it was called the Blueprint and it was strategy to building and developing a successful real estate business. We wanted to give people the strategies necessary to build a successful real estate business. A lot of people get their real estate license and they just have a license and that's it. And then they leave and it's gone. And like, they don't know what to do with it. And they try. They do a deal here and a deal there and they're screwing up and they're doing unethical things and so forth, so on. They don't realize that having a real estate license means that you are now officially a business owner. Like, now you need to go build your business and treat it as such. You're not an employee anywhere, you know. And so I think it's so important that people understand that. So the first book was really giving people a blueprint to developing a strong foundation. It was a very simple book, I think was just over 50 something pages. And it was, it was in Q and A form so that it felt like you were reading a really good interview. And with that it was because it was in Q and A form and it was such a small book, it was a very easy read and people really received it well. And for a lot of people, I had people come up to me and say, man, you know, I knew that I just never applied it or I knew that. And it took me reading this to really see the difference, you know what I mean?

Stuart: And it almost goes back to the authority thing again. The fact that it's written on a page gives the words additional additional credibility or additional authority, or it allows people to see them or hear them in a slightly different way than if it was just in a conversation. Because as you say a lot of these things, it's not rocket science. A lot of it is just doing the Work and doing it in a consistent way that leads to an outcome.

David Kurz: Yeah, exactly. It's about being consistent. It's about doing the right thing. It's about, you know, building a strong foundation, you know. Yeah, that's what it's about. So the second book kind of took me to the next level. People said, okay, well I have the strong foundation, but what again, you know, I see that you have a foundation. You, what makes you different. So we wrote a book called Take Action. Right. And it's the billion dollar guide to a billion dollar business. Like the four corners to this foundation. And so Take Action is really designed around the idea of being a true entrepreneur and doing what's necessary to be one. Taking risks, not listening to the naysayers, getting away from all of this, what the four corners of the foundation are, based on my experience, and how to use those four corners and how to put them to work for you and how to build your business accordingly, you know.

Stuart: Yeah.

David Kurz: And so that's, that's what the second, the second book was like. Almost like the blueprint told you, the strategies, like the, the map to getting a foundation together. The second book was like, okay, you've got this map, so now what do you do? Right. So now you have to take action in your life, in your business, push it forward, you know.

Stuart: Right. Kind of they're going from the 10,000 foot view to the 500 foot view of.

David Kurz: Exactly.

Stuart: Of. Here's the bigger picture, but here's what you need to do. The way you're using them at the moment, do you use them in conjunction with each other? Do people tend to flow on that path from being an outsider to the high level view of the first book to the second book? Or they use them a little bit more independently at the moment?

David Kurz: No, independently, I would say for the most part. What I've noticed though is that some of the folks that have seen me do the second book and seen us promote the second book notice by going into, into the sales page of my, of my books that I'm almost seeing a one for one purchase, meaning that the people who did not catch the first book are going in and grabbing both books. And so the books can be read independently. They're not necessarily to be continued. It just ended up being the way I had written it, you know, but each book can be read independently and can be used independently. And personally, I hate to say this, but my second book, honestly for me was a thousand times better than the first book. And, and I guess, yeah, I guess, you know, like the first one is like trial and error, you know, but the second one was a lot more passionate. It was. It had a lot more of me in it. It just kind of felt like I've had people come up to me and tell me I can hear you talking to me when. When I'm reading this, you know, and that's exciting.

Stuart: It's a great point. Because the way that we create them, the way that we base them off of interview style recordings with people that aim to get someone's voice to come across in the book is something that we really try to maintain throughout. And it's, I think, a key difference between a number of, I don't want to say like textbooks, but cold, colder, drier books that. More factual books that you can pick up off a shelf versus the story of someone, the voice that you can hear that's clearly trying to pull you from the COVID to the back cover from the problem that you've got that made you raise the hand in the first place to request a copy through to a solution. And I think that's the key difference that sometimes people forget because the. The traditional book, if you like, the colder, drier, more heavily edited book, the more grammatically correct book, if you want to say, is what people are very familiar with. Because that's, practically speaking, that was the way it was done in the past because of all of the overheads creating it now, to be able to create something that really brings your voice through, that brings your personality through. At the end of the day, you're trying to speak to your tribe and those people are the people that know, like and trust you already. So really bringing that through, I think is one of the key benefits that's often and overlooked in this type of book.

David Kurz: Yes, I agree with you 1,000%, I think. And you know, just being able to get yourself across is 100% key.

Stuart: Yeah. And consistent with the rest of what you're doing. Particularly for businesses that are very. Not necessarily personality driven, but that have a strong personality, I think that carries through. It was interesting what you were saying about the first book versus the second book. The second one you feel much more comfortable with. But I think that a lot of it is based on the fact that you did the first one in the first place. I know a lot of people that we speak to are almost hesitant or they're almost working for the waiting for the perfect scenario to be in place and they feel 100% confident before moving forward. But I think there's definitely something to be said for just Getting the first one out there because you learn so much from, A, the process, but B, how it's received. I think that makes a key difference. And I'd certainly advise anyone listening not to hold off waiting for the perfect scenario or feeling 100%.

David Kurz: No, there isn't. I think one of the reasons why people come up to me and say, hey, listen, I feel like you're talking to me in this book is because I've done so much video work. And so a lot of the folks that are reading my book are watching my YouTube channel and watching me on Facebook and seeing the video work. So they hear me and the book goes in line with what I'm doing. And. And I think that, that, you know, people who are sitting around waiting for the perfect time to get a book out, I think it's ridiculous. It's like, to me, it's like saying, I'm waiting for the perfect time to have a baby. Please, God, ask for me. When was the right time? You know, like, you know, I don't know that there's a specific right time. Like, is there, you know, a white picket fence scenario that says, you know, it's the perfect time, like, to fly

Stuart: over and deliver the baby down the chimney?

David Kurz: Yeah. Like, is, you know, baby's born, there was no pain whatsoever. Baby came out talking. I don't know what, you know, what's the perfect scenario? And so for me, it's like, whatever you're doing right now and it's relevant and you feel like you can share it. I think the world is so polluted with garbage right now that if you can forward content, true content, helpful content, something that could actually put somebody in the right place and help them, I think you're in good position to write a book. I don't care if the book is 35 pages or 135 pages or 335 pages for that matter. Those 35 pages could be the most relevant 35 pages that someone has ever read. And for you, as an author, it helps your business grow. It really does help your business grow. It's helped me recruit. Every time somebody sits down with me and talks to me about joining my company, I give them a copy of my book, I sign it for them right in front of them, and they feel privileged to have the copy of a book signed by the author. Right. And so that's. So it helps me recruiting. Aside from recruiting, it helps the rest of my company. We have almost 90 agents and we have five employees. It helps the rest of my company Tell the world that their broker is an author and share the story. So they're sharing the book. They're telling people, check out this book. My broker just did. And they're sitting with their clients, their sellers, and their buyers, and they're saying, my broker wrote two books last year. My broker is a public speaker. My broker is a business coach, and he runs our company. You know, and just that right there tells you some of the other things that the book has done for me. It's allowed me speaking opportunities, and not just free ones, the opportunity to get paid for a speaking opportunity. It's allowed me the opportunity to have folks tell me, listen, I would like you to coach me one on one. How much would you charge me for that? So not only has it helped my real estate company and my real estate business and the agents that are in my company by utilizing yet one more tool to say we're better than the next one, it's also helped me on the side personally to develop a passion that I have, which is teaching, training, coaching and speaking and to get paid for it.

Stuart: There's so many elements that you just talked about just in that sentence, and I think anyone listening in almost just needs to pause now for a second and then just scrub back 60 seconds and listen to those elements again. Because I think buried in just those couple of sentences that you said are four or five key ideas that could accelerate someone's business to the next level. One of the points that stood out was talking about the people you have working with you using the book when they're talking to clients. And that element of, again, leverage of taking the one thing that was created, but leveraging it into multiple different use cases of how it can be used to deliver value to people. It sets off that relationship. It starts a relationship with a customer or prospect in a way of giving something of value, whether that customer or prospect is a recruitment, customer prospect, something that you're looking to bring into the company, or a customer externally giving them something of value when you're not expecting anything back. Not only does it set that relationship up on the right footing, go from a position of giving, but it also exactly said establishes some credibility and authority that might otherwise struggle to get. It sets you apart from the competition. It puts all of the cues to the psychological cues to this being the right company that either I want to work with or want to work for. It sets them all up through an asset that is relatively straightforward to create

David Kurz: and, you know, sitting with somebody. So now that we're just talking on that Topic sitting with somebody and whether they join your company or not, you're giving them a book that's going to help their business. So there's a bunch of different scenarios that come out of that. Number one, the perfect scenario where they come work for you immediately and they're so excited to be there. Number two, they read your book, become a better business person and a better real estate professional. And the next time that you're doing a deal and they happen to be involved on the other side of the deal, you know who you're dealing with. You have a more educated, more proper person on the other side. You know, another scenario could be that they read the book, they enjoy it, they decide to wait a little bit, and then in the future they come back and work for you because they never forgot you to begin with. And so I can keep going with different scenarios that could come out of, you know, coming from a place of contribution and sitting there and saying, hey, here's my book, take it, read it, it's good stuff, everything. You know, this is, by the way, let me just point out, this is the type of training and coaching you'd receive at my company.

Stuart: The point that you said there about starting from the position of contribution, the fact that all of these benefits that you and the organization get are almost secondary to putting something that's valuable and making a contribution to the broader profession. So I'm sure that when you started, there was a business based incentive for doing it. At the end of the day, the majority of things that we do have to have some sort of return, but the, the level of return that it's had and the breadth of the return probably far outweighs that initial thought. But I think one of the reasons that it was very successful or they have been very successful is that you wrote them from the position of this is 50 pages. What's the most valuable thing that I can put in these 50 pages that even if I never see this person again, they're going to get something out of. And I think because it started from such a authentic place, a place of giving value, that it's then led on to such a successful tool in so many different areas. Yeah, I think it's easy for people to forget as well, particularly if you've been in business for any length of time. We talk to people quite a lot who are maybe struggling to think of the right approach to their customer group. And it constantly surprises both myself and Betsy and Susan how easy it is for people to forget the small pieces of information that they take for granted having been in business for a year or more. But for someone on the outside looking in, those small pieces of information that seems straightforward can be so valuable. I think you hit the nail on the head when you were talking about people saying, you know what, I've heard this information in places before, but it took actually sitting down and reading it and wrapped around a kind of comprehensive narrative or a story that is kind of delivering a message. But people should overlook the simple steps.

David Kurz: No, they shouldn't. And I think, you know, I've been in the business for 11 years now and there's a lot that I know because I read a lot. So. And I feel like there's people out there who don't know a lot simply because they don't read enough. And I'm not talking about just books like the ones that I wrote. I'm talking about the market and I'm talking about blog articles about the real estate and I'm talking about things that are happening in their community and I'm talking about the federal government and interest rates and, you know, and so if I can provide them with something that says, hey, listen, this is, these are the things that you need to know if you want to be successful, period. And, and we've talked a lot about real estate, but with the second book, I really try to make it as general as possible. Yes, I'm a real estate professional, but this is whether you're selling lollipops on the corner or houses, you know, houses to millionaires or houses to the medium income family or, you know, cars at a car dealership, it still applies that you're in sales, you're in business, you

Stuart: know, like you say, the principles. It's always good to have examples to kind of illustrate a point, but the principles are very often the principles. And I think your approach and what you've had success with so far, a lot of other people will find benefit and value from that. And one of the benefits of real estate is it's an example, a use case that a lot of people are familiar with. So it's easy to share those stories. And no matter what business you're in listening to this, I think you'd get a lot out of take action because it is core principles that apply across the board. Yep, I'm conscious of your time, so thanks very much. There's a couple of questions as we kind of come to a close. And then before we finish, don't let me forget to ask you to share with people where they can get a copy of the book and find out more. Just before we're wrapping into that, the two questions I was going to ask was is there anything now that you've written the two books and you've had them out there for over. I think the first one was a bit more than six months ago. So it's been out there for a while. You've used them, you've written the second one based on that understanding of the first. Is there anything that you wished if you could have a rubber, a lamp and a genie would come out and grant a wish for how you could better use them or an easy way to create them? If, if there was something on the top of your wish list around using a book as a, as a tool in any way, is there anything that springs to mind?

David Kurz: I think that one of the things that I really want to try and figure out is do is to be sponsored by folks to come out and speak about the book and drive up the coaching business, the sales business, like the sales of the book, and bring a huge attraction to my real estate company. If I can do that more. If there was a genie that came out and said, you get one wish and the wish has to correlate with your book, it would be for the book to get me in front of more people so that the book lands in the right hands. The right hands puts me on a stage. 500 people, a thousand people, 5,000 people in front of me buy my book and then they like me and then they use our business. That is like full circle for me. You know, if there are real estate professionals in the stands or in the audience, they decide, geez, I'd like to work for this guy. And they come join our company. Or if they're not real estate professionals, they say, geez, if I ever need a real estate professional, I'm going to hire one from this guy's company. And so for me it's kind of like, you know, a full circle situation. Book gets in the right hands, right hands gets me on a stage, the stage gets me in front of people. I do my thing on stage. That leads to the purchasing book, Building my business, building my coaching business, building the book sales and building my real estate office.

Stuart: Yeah, that's interesting. I'll shoot an email once we're, we're done. This kind of use case of how people are executing on the book once they're complete is something that we're internally very aware of. A lot of the effort goes into creating it, but then there's not that much support that we follow up with people, we give people examples. And there's the beyond the book, which gives people a couple of examples of how to start using it. But definitely, definitely leveraging the books a little bit more is something that we're looking at. So there was something I was looking at a couple of weeks ago which we've just said has reminded me. So I'll shoot you an email afterwards. Then maybe we'll be back on the show in six months time. And there might be some movement on that. The last one, which we kind of touched on already. But just. Is there any advice to anyone else either who's thinking about it or who's sat on the fence in terms of writing their film, this book? Any words of advice to those guys to make a best start?

David Kurz: Yes, I think that, that the best possible advice that I can give anybody who wants to do this is to just do it. My entire second book is about taking action. Like really, at the end of the day, you just have to commit to it. And so if I could take a moment and give some of the folks out there the steps to committing to it. Figure out. Figure out a topic you want to discuss. Then figure out the top 10 things you want to tell people about that topic and then submit it to Betsy and create a questionnaire and get the book done. It will take 30 minutes. People don't realize this, and it drives me nuts. You can finish an entire book in collectively two and a half hours.

Stuart: Yeah.

David Kurz: And then you could have that book on your desk to give to your clients, to give to people. You imagine when my agents buy 10 books and they take a book with them to a listing appointment and they say, that seller sitting there thinking to themselves, what makes this agent special? And they feel, by the way, I want to leave you a copy of the book that my broker wrote. It's a difference. It's a change. It changes everybody's perception. Everything's different now, you know. Yeah, you wrote a book. You don't write a blog, you wrote a book.

Stuart: You know, and again, it's coming from a position of giving. It's setting up that relationship with something with the relationship with the customer, something that gives value to them above and beyond the value of that individual transaction. And I think the. Both the authority and the reciprocity that that builds is pretty outstanding. Fantastic. Well, I would add to that and suggest that anyone that's sat on the fence and thinking about it needs to grab a copy of David's book as well. So where's the best place for people to go to find out more about Take Action and the blueprint.

David Kurz: I mean a couple places. If you go to Amazon.com and you search for David Kurz K U R Z, both my books will come up top of page. The other option is to go to Kurzre.com that's K U R Z R E.com stands for Curz Real Estate. And when you're on there you can just scroll down and have several different directions. You can go on the website, obviously, search for homes, meet our agents, meet our broker. One of those tiles says purchase our books. And once you click on there, it'll show you a picture of both books and you can click on either one. It'll lead you right back to Amazon.

Stuart: Fantastic. Well, we'll be sure to make a link in the show notes here so that anyone who's listening to the show, anyone that's listening on the podcast, we'll make sure that it's in the notes on the podcast player as well. So just click through there and that will follow the links to David's stuff. Fantastic. I can't thank you enough for your time today, David. Really exciting. I know that we're in talks on the third book at the moment as well now, so I'm excited to see how that one turns out and then check back in with you in a couple of months to see what the progress with these are as well.

David Kurz: Absolutely, anytime. I appreciate the time.

Stuart: It's real pleasure, real pleasure. Like I say, it's always good to see, to get a chance to talk to people who are actually not just creating in the first place, but how they're using. And it's really exciting to hear you guys knocking out of the park.

David Kurz: Yes, thank you. Well, thanks to you guys for all the help that you've given us.

Stuart: So I tell you, it's a pleasure. It's like I say, it just really makes a difference to or it really makes it worthwhile rather to see people using it. So thanks again for your time. Thanks everyone for listening as well. We'll be back next week with a regular show. Just one of the last things that David mentioned then was the structure to create in a book and how simple and straightforward it can be. Keep an ear out over the next couple of shows because we're about to release a slightly variation on the 90 minute book product that should make it even easier for anyone that doesn't have a strong topic in mind to get a book created and out there. So keep an eye out for that. Check out the show notes for links to Dave David's book, and we'll catch you all next time. Thanks, David.

David Kurz: Thank you.