Tony Ray Baker- Real Estate Professionals that Teach

Justin Stoddart  0:00  
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, as you know, my mission and my passion are to help you think bigger. When you think bigger, great things start to happen, your business grows, and the options and impact you can have in this world also grow. So I'm thrilled today to bring you somebody who's going to solve this problem. Do I keep my feet close to my chest? Or do I share them? I want to introduce to you Tony Ray Baker, he's out of Tucson, Arizona, and a top agent there. He's in his 25th year. And Tony Ray has been working by referral all that time. And the cool thing that I want to highlight about Tony RAM, sure, there are tons of things. But the thing I want to talk about is that he does a lot of teaching and instructing. And I think you and I are kindred spirits in that regard, Tony because I love giving away knowledge via teaching. It's one of my favorite things that's hence the birth of the think bigger real estate show is how can I find people that help me and others be able to share knowledge with the world? So first and foremost, before we get into specifically what due to teaching, I want to thank you for taking some time to pour into the thing for your real estate audience.

Tony Ray Baker  1:04  
Yeah, man, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Justin Stoddart  1:06  
Yeah, total pleasure, a total pleasure. Tony Ray and I have crossed paths and had a conversation, it's been probably what, 30 days or so ago, maybe a little less. And his energy is just fantastic. Just the kind of guy that I could see in front of a group of people that would just really excite them. So Tony, Ray, let's get into talking about what you do to teach. Obviously, you're a high producing real estate agent, you do that by referral. But in addition to that, you teach a marketing advertising to real estate agents, which is interest to referral partners, other business owners, and then of course, even, you're always teaching to your sphere as well. Talk to us a little bit about the class that you host, on a monthly basis. What does that look like? How many people come etc.

Tony Ray Baker  1:51  
So we do two different classes. Actually, once a month, I do a trolley tour of Tucson, and we take out 40 agents, and we show them the and we show the city and development and what's going on. And then I do a class for usually about 90 to 100 agents show up at the Association of Realtors in Tucson and that class is dirty down like marketing, anything we can do to give them guerrilla marketing that is low cost, but really effective. To help them understand how to get more clients and how to do more business. That's a three-hour class.

Justin Stoddart  2:27  
So and that happens every month as well.

Tony Ray Baker  2:29  
No, so that I rotate, I alternate those. So I do probably one month and then I do the big class the next month. And then I, of course, inform both how to get to the classes to keep them on track.

Justin Stoddart  2:40  
Tell us Tony Ray, how many? How many? How big of a city is Tucson? I know it's grown a lot. It's growing really rapidly. Yeah, tell us like how big of maybe how many real estate agents so we kind of get our arms around what you're doing here.

Tony Ray Baker  2:53  
I don't know how many agents we have currently. I know at my office alone, which is the largest local office, we have probably about 900 agents. At our office, there are about a million people with Tucson in our little suburbs. Okay. And so there's probably a My guess is if they did account now there's probably about 600,000 and city proper. Okay, then two sons, one of the fastest growing cities, as usual, it always has been. And there are an estimated 200,000 people moving here in the next four or five years coming.

Justin Stoddart  3:28  
So you're very similar in size to Portland, Oregon, where the show is based out of which is really, really interesting. So here, to put it in perspective, we have about 8500 agents. So my guess is your numbers are probably similar. So and 90 to 100 agents a month, you're instructing them and essentially giving away best practices that are working for you and your business.

Tony Ray Baker  3:52  
Yes. Yep, absolutely.

Justin Stoddart  3:55  
Has there ever been a time where you thought to yourself, I can't give my secrets? This is my competition. I can't teach them exactly what I'm doing. Or they'll beat me at it. My market share will go down as a result. Did those thoughts go through your head? And how did you overcome them? Or how have you overcome?

Tony Ray Baker  4:13  
No, they don't go through my head, I have never believed in scarcity. But I've always believed that there's plenty for everybody. And I also truly know that if-if you and I go head to head for the same listing, and you get the listing, I didn't lose that they were just to connect for you. And it shouldn't have been a Connect for me, I truly believe that we're supposed to have the right connections, and I don't work with clients that we can't help and that we don't have a certain level with. So for me, teaching others to do what I do, it just means that maybe one of the people that come to my class might get a listing that I didn't, but they deserve that listing, they were the ones that connected with the client. So I don't have that I never have thought that way. I just believe we all the payoff for me is not altruistic, trust me it is very ego with when I get to teach the agents right when I get to be with them, my transactions are much nicer, we have a level of respect when they call and we're going through the process, we know each other, they have a level of respect for me, there's appreciation, it makes my life beautiful, much better than if I was disconnected from the agents.

Justin Stoddart  5:21  
So the euro. So this isn't just like you being Mother Teresa like this is a very strategic business move on your part. And you've simply found that your business is actually bigger, better and stronger. By having that abundance, having that abundance mentality,

Tony Ray Baker  5:39  
right, I get to be one closer to the other agents. But also stuff comes from that as well. by teaching I learned, and it's a beautiful thing for me in the room, watching people's eyes light up when I'm teaching a subject. And I feed off of that. And then I have more communication around that in my class. And then I learned from them as well. So we all learn together. And I don't ever have a script for what I'm going to teach. I know like my class this week is going to be on video and social media. But I have no idea where that's going to go. I have no laid out script for that I will teach for three straight hours on everything I know. And I don't know exactly what will happen by the end of that thing.

Justin Stoddart  6:20  
It's incredible, man. You are a big thinker. Again, the purpose behind this show doesn't just have people build big empires, right? Although that tends to happen when people are big thinkers. But it's also to have like to teach people how to have an abundant life and I so much love. What you're doing here is that just the overall job satisfaction, right career satisfaction of having like 90 to 100 people that walk out of your class saying thank you like I'm a better agent as a result of that. It's just got to be deeply gratifying.

Tony Ray Baker  6:50  
It that is awesome. I totally agree. It's a beautiful part of it. And understand to that we have that level of respect from those agents also allows me to work Monday through Friday, from seven eight in the morning till about five or six at n...