Name: “Million Dollar Listing New York” star Ryan Serhant’s biggest tip for scaling a business
Uploaded: 2023-06-23
Duration: 4 min 48 s
Description: And what he wishes he knew when he first got into real estate.

And what he wishes he knew when he first got into real estate.

“Million Dollar Listing New York” star Ryan Serhant’s biggest tip for scaling a business

Real_Estate

And what the "Million Dollar Listing New York" star wishes he knew when he first got into real estate.

Ryan Serhant’s biggest tip for scaling a business

When I was in New York City trying to be an actor and all I wanted to do is just get a part of what, what can I do to be different? I gotta, I gotta stand out in the audio. Someone told me, stop trying to be different, stop trying to do what everybody else is doing. Here's the secret. Just try to be great, be so good that they can't ignore you. And that's how you'll differentiate. Sirhan is a triumvirate of companies that uses technology to empower the gig economy through real estate brokerage, sales, education and media. We have 6 million, I guess a little over 6 million followers and subscribers across platforms and accounts right now making us, I think the most followed real estate brokerage brands on the planet and we now have just over 15,000 sales people in 110 countries in the education side of the business. And we just crossed 350 licensed agents across seven states on the brokerage side of the business. I was in New York City after I graduated college in 2006. And I wanted to be an actor I was doing odd jobs here and there and I eventually just ran out of savings and I had to figure out how to pay my bills. I was going to pay rent. Otherwise I had to move home. And at that time, moving home was in Colorado and I didn't want to go home to Colorado because I'd never come back to New York. A friend of mine said, hey, listen, you're good at me. Information and improvising with strangers and you can get up and talk in front of people. You don't know that's sales, you should get your real estate license. I took the test all the tests actually. And on September 15th, 2008, I became a licensed associate real estate salesperson. And that morning Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. And so that was day one, I think like 80% of all licensed real estate agents quit in the first year because they just can't handle the rejection. They don't know how to make an income for me. It wasn't that bad and I became addicted to it and I loved the job of sales and how limitless it was. And then most people know me from a TV show called Minar List in New York. The New York City real estate market right now is on fire. I put theater to the side, got into real estate to take myself seriously and answered an open call audition with 3000 other agents in 2010 and was picked to be out in the garland in New York that ran for 10 years. I'm in the gym by five o'clock, I'm out by six o'clock. I'm showered and in the office by seven o'clock. Then I run around and I show clients and I'm building business and then I go to dinner or to an event every single night and I'm back in the office till about midnight one o'clock and then I wake up at 4 23 and do it all over again. Don't focus on scale focus of growth. We got to higher, higher, higher hire and do all of this so I can be bigger and bigger and bigger for what more people with more problems, not more money, focus on building a business. That's so great that no one can ignore you and then scale will happen by default because you just have something so good. You're going to need more people to work with you to facilitate the business and to handle all the customers. Unfortunately, I think for me, if I knew then what I know now about what I do, I would not be where I am today because I never would have done it. It's way too hard. Ignorance is so bliss had I actually looked left and right and asked the questions instead of it just been so focused on forward momentum, I would have totally talked myself out of getting into real estate. Are you kidding me? I was showing apartments in the end of 2008 in cowboy boots, khaki pants and a collared shirt because those were my nice clothes. Well, people had like the New York Times out that said if you buy real estate, you are an idiot, right? Markets had collapsed at the end of the world, the great recession. And I was just like, let's go. Real estate is great. I started Sirhan in September 2020. Everything around me was still boarded up from the riots, from George Floyd, right in June. And everyone thought I was sick. Like, I think people were really concerned about my health and they asked me like, you're really starting your own real estate company in New York City, are you sure had? I known then how hard it was to start your own company and how, how actually expensive it was and how hard it was to hire people and everything that I know now. Yeah, I don't know if I would have done it, but I mean, that's, that's also the benefit of just focusing on what's directly ahead of you. It's like a sprinter, you know, and I say that all the time, every day is a race, you just don't know what race you're running. And if I focused on it, if I knew today was a marathon, do I really want to run that far? I think today's going to be a sprint. But by the end of the day I'm like, oh, my God, today was a marathon. Thank goodness, I did not know that going into it.