Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Ryan Serhant

I recently interviewed Ryan Serhant on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is one of the most successful real estate brokers in the world, averaging a billion dollars of sales a year. Ryan Serhant is the author of Sell it Like Serhant and the new book, Big Money Energy, and stars on the hit TV show Million Dollar Listing New York. Ryan, thank you for joining us.

Ryan: Thanks for having me.

Adam: A question that I've asked many of America's top leaders and many guests of this podcast is how can anyone develop a winning mindset. And a big part of it entails channeling your energy towards meaningful goals. Your new book, Big Money Energy, has focused on how transforming your energy can transform your life. And before you were a TV star and a star real estate broker, you were living paycheck to paycheck. How did you transform your energy? And how can anyone else transform theirs?

Ryan: I think that what I needed to create was a level of confidence in myself when I first started off as a real estate agent in New York City that would then transcribe itself into a confident person that my marketplace would see. I think confidence starts with conviction. Conviction then becomes perception. Perception then becomes reputation. And the reputation turns into a brand. Once you have your own personal brand, which is, as a salesperson, something that was very, very important for me to figure out, right to develop who am I? What am I the guy that is known for selling? You know, why would anyone want to pick up the phone and call me? Why me? There 80,000 real estate agents in New York City alone, why this guy with premature gray hair? Why me? It starts with creating that brand. And anybody can create one. You have to have one but it boils down, if you do the math and the reverse, that goes from brand to reputation, to perception, to conviction. You’ve got to have conviction in yourself. And the only way that you can get that conviction and really understand it is by doing a self audit, and doing something people really don't do anymore, which is picking up a pen and paper and writing down what you like about yourself on one side of the piece of paper and the other side, write down what you don't like about yourself. Put those lists together, and then pick up the phone and call somebody that you trust. Okay? Now, not your mom, because your mom's going to be biased. Not your best friend, but the phone call somebody that you would actually say you know what? That person will be real honest with me. Maybe it's an ex boyfriend or girlfriend. Ex boyfriends and girlfriends are usually pretty good at that. And ask them, hey, what are my best qualities? I wonder about my worst qualities. Because we go through life so often just lying to ourselves because it's easier. And then the next thing you know, it's 2021. It's 2025. Right? All of that down. And you'll have a real clear understanding of what you think is good about you and what everybody else thinks and what you want to improve upon and what everyone else thinks you can improve upon. That's your baseline foundation for building the conviction to really retool your energy moving forward so you know who you are when you walk into a room. There are those who walk into a room who are full of what I like to call big money energy, you know, excitement, kind of that everlasting confidence that we all aspire to have. And then there are those who don't. Who walk in with their eyes on the ground. They're staring at their phone because they're too nervous to look up. They shuffle in, they only want to be around groups of people. And it's not that those people don't have confidence or brand. It's that they're lost, and they're confused, and they haven't spent the time to find out who they are individually as people today. And that's how you start.

Adam: I love that advice. And something that I tell audiences that I speak to is that I'm a firm believer that most people in life are bad at most things. I personally am bad at too many things to list. This show is called 30 Minute Mentors. If I had to list all the things that I'm bad at. It would take me an hour. Or wait- even way more than 10 hours. But I think that we're all good at a few things. And there's that one thing that each of us is exceptional at. There's that one thing that makes us unique, that makes us different. It's our superpower. It's what makes us special. And the more quickly that you can figure out what it is that makes you special, the more successful you'll be in life, the more successful you'll be in business, the more successful you'll be as a leader. And I love the concrete advice that you gave to listeners on how they can get on that journey of uncovering what it is that they're good at and what it is that they're great at. And can you dive a little bit deeper into your own journey of self discovery, and how you figured out what it is that you are great at?

Ryan: I always wanted to do theater, theater and film. Growing up, my parents made me play every single sport. I was terrible, all of them. They made me take every single class, I wasn't great in any one particular class. So where as all of my friends were starting to, you know, as we got into high school and beyond, or leaning towards certain subjects and studies or sports, you know, where they were kind of finding their thing. I was just leaning towards that theater, with the other misfits who weren't good at sports or most school subjects, where we could go and pretend to be people we weren't. And that's really why I got into it, you know, I was overweight, this a little kid, really bad skin. No, you know, no girlfriends, a select group of friends. And playing dress up was a way that I could be somebody that I wasn't. So, you know, that was really, really big for me. And I didn't realize it at the time but that was a key, you know, character trait that was being drilled into my skull, which was, you are going to, as you grow older, be good at being other people and being with other people, because you've studied it so much, especially in your developmental years. And so when I got out of college, and I made the decision, you know, what, I'd rather regret the things I did than the things I never tried. And I went to New York City with a little bit of money saved up, to give myself the opportunity to try this acting thing. You know, I realized how hard it was, and how difficult it was to make money. And then I got my real estate license so I didn't have to move home with my parents, because I knew that would be total failure. And I quickly realized how similar the sales business was from the craft of acting, which was, you need to be good at being around other people. And I think my superpower is that I can make anyone my friend, anybody, no matter what your political or personal point of views are, no matter if you're a happy, angry, sad, whatever person, no matter who you are, I can make you my friend. And the key to sales is no one likes being sold. Nobody. But everybody loves to go shopping with friends. And it took me a minute to realize that but once that light bulb went off, and I realized that my first year in the real estate business, I knew you know what, I can do this. I know how to grow this. I know what I need to do. And then it was just sort of off to the races from there. Like an athlete, right? I think there are athletes that are born amazing. And I think there are a lot of athletes who've had to work incredibly hard at it, who don't need to practice, you know, who need to practice a lot more than everybody else. But they're still very, very good. I don't think that I had a natural born talent to be people's friends. My comfort place was by myself. I was very much an introvert growing up, you know very much just wanting to be by myself in a room with a movie, you know, studying movies. And that's what I liked doing the most. And I was very uncomfortable talking to people. I couldn't walk into a room and go talk to a stranger. That was the scariest thing in the world, let alone having to talk in front of groups of people. That was like hell to me until my life depended on it. Until I'd run out of money completely. And it was the summer of 2008. And I didn't know what to do. It was go home to Colorado and live out the rest of my days on a farm or on a ranch somewhere, or I got one shot to still stay in New York City because if I leave I'm never coming back. And if I'm here, I can figure it out. And the one thing- my kryptonite was dealing with other people because it made me so nervous. But then I realized, wait a minute, what am I saying? Why do I equate walking into a room full of other people as the scariest thing in the world when I'm dressed as Ryan Serhant but when I was playing someone or, you know, the woman in the dress? I could get on stage and do anything for anyone. Was it just because I had a script memorized? Okay, well, in sales, you're memorizing information anyway, about every single block, street, building. And so that's what I did. I figured it was the exact same. And so to get out of my own way, and to become comfortable in my skin, and to become everybody's friends, I realized it was all about two things; be prepared and what you know. So know your stuff, and know everything you possibly can. If I'm going to meet somebody and show them apartments on the west side, the day before I'm going to study everything, so that I'm never without something to talk about. I want to know every doorman, I want to know every coffee shop, I want to know every building, all the facts, just so that I always have something to talk about. So I don't get stuck as Ryan, not knowing what to say to somebody that I don't know. The second trick is to always ask questions, because there is nothing that anyone likes more than hearing themselves talk, especially buyers of real estate, or buyers of anything. They love the sound of their own voice. They're like babies, you know, babies cry so they can hear their own voices. So those are those two things. And it was- I had learned it all, you know, in my theater training, and I just didn't know it. I didn't know that I was learning it for that purpose at the time, only until much later. So I think anybody can do it. You just have to want to, which is hard to teach, obviously. And you just then have to put your mind to it, prepare, learn the information, just memorize it. It's not that hard. And then just ask questions. Ask questions, try to find something in common with somebody. Make it a game. That's what I used to do. I used to make it a game to try to find something that I would have in common with somebody just by asking them questions, and see if you can find three things. You know, if you're at a time, start making it a game, and now all of a sudden, guess what you're having an open conversation with a total stranger about stuff you don't even know what to talk about, because you don't work in pharmaceutical sales like this guy does.

Adam: Ryan, that's great advice and very much in line with what I tell audiences that I speak to, because I'm a very big believer in the importance of small talk because the end of the day, small talk is really a gateway to meaningful conversation. It's all about identifying areas of commonality, using the couple of minutes of small talk, to open the door to discovering where we actually share areas of interest. And you've gamified that which is a really interesting approach. What are some other tips you have on the topic of relationship building? How can listeners, once they're comfortable- which you've given great advice on how to initiate some of these conversations- ultimately, transform these interactions into meaningful relationships?

Ryan: Listen, you, have to balance your time. You know, most people think- and I thought this too- like, I don't have the time in my life to have 1,000 friends, but you're not looking to make best friends, you're looking to make friends. You want to be able to scroll through your phone, all the contacts and say, man, I have a lot of friends and not scroll through and say man, I've saved a lot of contacts. So you got to put in the work, okay? And for me, it's about remembering key moments. So it's about remembering people's birthdays, the day they got their dog, the day their kid was born, the day they got that job. I am relentless at remembering and putting into my calendar life event updates for everybody that I know. So that I always am reminded to have a reason to pick up the phone or pick up the phone and shoot a text or shoot an email to everybody to touch base with them as a friend. Because like, you know, your doctor talks to you sure, but he's not picking up the phone and giving you a call when your kid has a birthday or on the anniversary of you getting that the job you always wanted that I happened to find out about because I was selling you an apartment and you got that job which enabled you to afford the apartment. And so little things like that, I think, go a long way towards building long lasting relationships because it's, you know, when you have relationships as a business, which most of us do, and especially when you work in sales, you need to figure out how to nurture those relationships and that's one way to do it right use use your calendar and remember those life events.

Adam: You can't sell a billion dollars a year of real estate without deeply understanding negotiations. How do you approach negotiations and what are your best pieces of advice for listeners when it comes to negotiations?

Ryan: I mean, I could talk about the skill of negotiating, you know, for the next 10 hours. But let me see if I can distill it a little bit. There's a couple things. First and foremost, before I get into any negotiation, I decide where the negotiation is going to end. Let me just use my business as an example, because it'll be easier for me to explain, you know, I'm a real estate broker, I represent a buyer and a seller, okay, sometimes I just represent the buyer, sometimes I just represent the seller, sometimes I represent both. Each of those sides thinks in their mind that they have a number that they're going to get to, otherwise they're not going to do the deal. Like they're convinced because they're the boss, and they're in control. Each of those sides is wrong. The one who controls the deal is me, because I don't work for the buyer and I don't work for the seller and oftentimes, I'll even tell them that just so that they know, I work for the deal. So I am determined, and a lot of times I'll actually write it down on a piece of paper. And in this negotiation, here's what I think the apartment’s worth. And this is how I think I'm going to get there. And then I let the other two sides kind of like sports teams figure out which way we're going to go, how are we going to run the ball? Are we going to throw the ball deep? No, are we going to incrementally increase our offer 5,000 10,000, 20,000 at a time? Are we going to go up 100 grand? My best and final, that's where we are. So that way, if I know where we're gonna get to, I know the end game. And that way I can lead both sides to that place, which enables me to get a deal done much faster, and enables me to get the deal done in the first place. And you know, it's really, really important that way. You have to be able to kind of direct the two sides, like you would be directing a movie, you know, where the end is, you know, what the conclusion is. And now you have to direct each side to get there. You know, most sales people do it the wrong way. They say, well, no, I work for the buyer, or no, I worked for the seller. And I'm going to do what the seller directs me to, and I'll advise them, but I'm going to do it in their direction, and that's wrong. You are now a glorified waiter. You are not a power broker. Power brokers control the situation and get deals done right. That's how it works. And I would say that that is probably the biggest key to the negotiation. Second from there is if there's no closing people talk to you about how do you close? How do you close? I can't close, you know, I've talked to this person about buying hot tubs for six months, I just can't get them to close. It's because if we go back to what we talked about at the beginning of this podcast, you don't have conviction in yourself, which means that you don't have conviction in what you're selling. Which means that the person you're talking to isn't going to have conviction in what they're buying. It all starts with your core. But what do you know about yourself? How do you allow yourself to talk about what it is you're selling, or what you're trying to negotiate. And so once you pick that place, okay, you don't close at the end, you close to the beginning. So unlike dating, which would be awkward if you closed at the beginning and would probably get you beaten up, with sales you can close at the beginning. And an example of this would be, let's say I'm with a buyer, right? And I'm meeting them now. And they want to go buy something. Don't take them around for a month, or two months, or a year. Show them everything under the sun, and let them tell me where to go. When they say oh, I want to go and well now let's go look on this side of town, now let's go to this part of the city. Okay, you know what, I actually think I need an extra bedroom, let's do this, this, this and this. If you give a buyer or a client that leverage with you, they're gonna abuse the crap out of you, not because they're mean, but because you let them and they think that this is now how this goes. Just like a baby. Babies aren't born bad, but they will act out over and over and over if you let them because they don't know any better. They just think that this is the way it is because that's how you parent them. So the way to close is to be the most disciplined parent. And I'll sit down with my clients at the beginning. And I'll tell them, this is how this process is going to go. We're going to go around, we're going to see five places. I know you want to see 50 but you don't need to see 50. And if you want to go see 50, by all means go see 50 and come back to me and I'll help you negotiate it because that'll be a huge savings on my time. But we're gonna go see five, and we're gonna narrow down. We need to see one again, we'll go back on Tuesday. But let's go see those five because those are the best. And given the fact that we're in 2020 and we all have phones and computers, we can really narrow it down based on all the video and all the photos that are out there anyway. And then once we do that, then we're gonna talk afterwards, and maybe we get your financial advisor on the phone. We're gonna talk about which house you want to make an offer first, and then we're gonna let the deal decide which one you want to move forward with. So once I have that little talk with them, then I'll wait and see what their response is. Maybe they'll say, oh, no, Ryan, I wasn't prepared to make an offer tomorrow. Okay, so let's not go out tomorrow. But let's go out when you're ready. Because I only work with buyers. If you want to shop with me, you're happy to go shopping, go shop. And then let me know. And obviously, every client is different, you know, this conversation changes as we improvise. But if you control the situation from the beginning, then you control the client. And then you can control the deal. It's the minute you open your mouth at the beginning. If you've lost control, then you've lost control during the entire process. And then you're only going to sell what God has in store for you. And I am not patient enough to allow that to happen.

Adam: Ryan, you shared so much pertinent advice for listeners who are working in all kinds of industries. You don't need to be selling real estate to apply the wisdom that Ryan just shared, you could be in just about any industry. It's extremely important to approach negotiations understanding what it is that you want to get out of the negotiation. Setting the terms, understanding that negotiations are fluid, being flexible. Really, really good advice. Ryan, I wanted to ask you about a topic that you brought up in the beginning of our conversation and you mentioned the importance of building your personal brand, which in your case has extended to the success of the brands of your different business ventures. What are the best tips you have for listeners on branding and on personal branding?

Ryan: So going back to what we talked about previously, I think a lot of people make a mistake when they look at other people and they say, I want to be like that person. And you mistake that person's brand with something that you're capable of doing which is impossible, because that person is that person and you are you. Why would you ever try to be somebody or not or try to be somebody else- that's weird, don't do that. You're awesome because of who you are on your own. That's what makes you exciting, that's what makes you confident, that's what's going to make anyone want to work with you, because you are so confident in yourself and they want some of that. Confidence is attractive, confidence is sexy, confidence is the brand. And so you have to remember kind of where the brand is built from. If we go back to kind of what I said at the beginning, reverse it, brand, reputation perception, conviction, it's very, very, very important to remember it that way. Because then it makes the brand easy to understand. And it gives you the formula. That's the formula. It's not buying ads, it's not going and buying an ad in the newspaper and saying Sally: Top Realtor. Anything Sally touches turns to Sold. That is now not your brand, just because you paid for it to be out there. You know, maybe if you pay for it every day for 10 years, eventually people are gonna say, oh, you're the Sally Sold person, then sure. But if you don't have that kind of money, and I don't think any of us do, and your brand is built from that reputation, which starts with what you know about yourself and who you are as a person and figuring out what makes you, you. That's why I said reach out to people, or at least to one person who you trust to give you honest feedback, because maybe there are things about you that you didn't even realize were part of your brand, like I didn't even realize. And you might think it's crazy. If you know me or you see me, I didn't realize that part of my brand was the color of my hair. Like I was embarrassed about the color of my hair for so long. I started going gray when I was 16 years old. Like you do not want to be in high school with gray hair. Okay, you don't want to be in college with gray hair. So when I got to college, I started dyeing it because my parents weren't there to tell me No. And when I got out of college, I kept dyeing it because I wanted to be an actor. I didn't want to be cast as an old man. And my face isn’t old but my hair definitely is. But then I realized later on, wow, okay, this is how people know me. And they know me is coming off as older and more mature than I am. That is part of my brand. The hair is part of my brand. I'm gonna own it. I stopped dying my hair, and I just owned it and started wearing gray suits. You know, I think I went a little too far. But I owned it and I made it part of my thing and it made me memorable. So what's memorable about you? Is it your cat? Maybe it's your dog? Maybe, you know, it's the fact that you love to run. You know, maybe it's the fact that you're a foodie and you just love food and you're so good at you know talking about food, maybe that's your thing. And maybe from that you can create a YouTube series about how much you love food, just talking to the camera just about food. And if you sell tires, maybe you make a meal with a new tire, right? Meals and tires. That's it. That's a show that should exist. Someone's listening right now, make it please. Because it doesn't matter, because it's going to be so authentic to you, and so organic to you, and what you talk about in your excitement is going to bleed through the screen. People are gonna want to watch it because no one else has the balls to take that pen to that paper and write down what they like about it about themselves and what they don't. Because it just doesn't make them feel good. And it means it's going to take work, right? It's going to take work to figure out what that brand is.

Adam: I really appreciate the advice you shared in a short story for listeners. To your point, a few years ago I was trading emails with a retired general. And in one of his emails to me, he said, Adam, I really admire you. And when I saw Adam, I really admire you, I was taken aback. Why is a retired general, telling me that he admires me? Something's a little bit off on the email. And then I continued reading and he said, I really admire you for including in your bio that you're a lifelong Angels fan because throughout the course of my military career, I always included in my bio that I am a huge Ohio State football fan. And everyone throughout my career gave me a hard time about it. So I can totally understand where you're coming from. And I think that's great. So it was an area where I was able to connect with this retired general over the fact that I'm a long suffering Angels fan. He's not a long suffering Ohio State fan, because they've done really well over the years of football. But it's really important to embrace whatever it is about you that makes you, you. Whatever it is about you that makes you unique and do it in your authentic way. So that's great advice, right?

Ryan: Yeah, thanks.

Adam: You're in an industry where failure is something that everyone experiences, not only every day, but throughout the day. What do you consider the biggest failure of your career and how can we best manage failure no matter what it is that we're doing?

Ryan: I would say, this is something I talk about a lot. And because I go through it a lot, you know, in Big Money Energy, in the new book, I talked about a day where I think I lost $72 million in deals in one day. I think it was last year or so, maybe the year before, when Trump was in negotiations with China over trade. And it looks like we're gonna get a lot of tariffs from China. And so the stock market plunged 1,000 points and on that day, everyone in New York City pulled out of deals, because it was just the worst. Little did they know, you know, the next year, we would get hit by Corona, etc. And, you know, what I ended up doing at that time, was I, again, took out a piece of paper and a pen. And I wrote down two lists on the left side of the paper, I wrote down everything that is good in my life right now. Everything that's good. Could have been my breakfast, could have been the workout, could have been family. And I tried to get specific, like real specific. Don't just say, air, you know, that's not specific. What is it about the air- that the air was clean today? What is it? Be real specific. Everything that's good in your life, give your health. You can walk without pain. That's a good thing. Write that down. A lot of people can't even say that. Write down everything that's good. On the right side, write down everything that's bad. Start with those deals you just lost or with that failure. Write it down, explain it, and go through everything else that's bad. And if you do this, okay, if you do it right, the left side of the paper is always going to be longer than the right side of the paper, you will always have more things in your life that are good than bad. And so what it'll teach your brain is that failure is relative. Failure is short lived, it's temporary, because you have so much else going for you. And that if you're not trying, you're not failing, okay? And if you set yourself up to understand that, if you're in sales, for example, like I am, that your job is to fail, then the wins are bonuses. My job is to go out there and pitch for new listings and new clients all day long. My job really is to not get them because there's 80,000 real estate agents in this city and I've got tough competition, then okay. Every time I don't get one, no problem. Do my job. Just do my job. I tried doing my job. And when I get them, wow, that's my bonus. Boom, I got another one. Oh, I just got another one. Holy shit. I'm racking up bonuses today. That's awesome. Problem is, everybody is raised to think that they're the best and that they are winners. And so when they go out and they fail, they think they've done something wrong. And they think that life has done something wrong, when it's just not the case, your job is to try and fail. That's what you're supposed to do. And another little trick, if I may, that you can do because I, I had a really hard time with this, you know, the acting business is full of rejection and failure. And it's really personal. And it's about your face, because your face. Real estate is full of rejection so you work for free until you don't, right? You work for free all day long until someone decides they want to buy that apartment. And hopefully it closes and you get paid months and months and months and months and months later, on the day that you have a failure. And it's the worst. You cannot believe that you just got fired. She just broke up with you, something terrible just happened, whatever it is, when should you go into your calendar on your phone? If you don't have a phone calendar, I don't know who you are or what year you're living in, but then go into your paper calendar, I guess and go one month out. Right? So if it's right now it's the afternoon, go 30 days out and write into that calendar at the exact same time. How do I feel about x? So how do I feel about Bob firing me? How do I feel about this deal dying? How do I feel about Samantha doing this? Whatever it might be, whatever your quote, unquote, failure is, whatever is negative in your life right now, write that down in a month. What's gonna happen is eventually that month is going to pass and you're going to get there. And that day is going to start like every other day and be fine. You're gonna see that calendar invite, you're gonna notice it, you're gonna say what, Samantha? Oh, alright. That sucked. But guess what? So much other stuff has happened the last 30 days that has been pretty good. Everything is okay. And it's going to teach you in muscle memory, right, that your failures don't mean that much because there's so much life to live. And it's going to teach you to move on from them. You're not going to belabor, you're not going to throw away a whole day or all week because one thing that happens, you're going to be okay. You're going to realize, oh wait, no, I've done this exercise before. I've taught my brain already. I've taught the muscle and my brain to get over this really quick because I know a month is going to go by super fast. And I'm not going to care. I'm actually going to forget this deal. And you're going to start doing it so much faster, so much faster, so much faster.

Adam: Ryan, thank you for all the great advice. And thank you for joining us.

Ryan: Of course. Thank you so much for having me.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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