TT125 How To Differentiate & Become THE AUTHORITY In Your Industry with Ed Parcaut

Join us as we uncover the enigma of the mortgage industry with renowned industry veteran, Ed Parcaut, who impresses us with his 25 years of experience! Brace yourself for an insightful discourse on the current US financial climate, where we tackle the pressing issue of inflation triggered by government overspending. What will it take to bring balance back to the nation's budget? You'll find out as Ed shares his expert opinion on the matter.

Are you curious about the unique opportunities that await homeowners in California and Florida? Or perhaps you're intrigued by the complexities of buying a house in Scotland. We unravel all these topics and more with Ed. Additionally, we'll dig into the potential additional costs that could sneak up during the negotiation process. Ed's radio show and documentary, as well as his enlightening book, have made waves in the industry; we'll look at how these mediums have helped educate and guide people venturing into the world of home buying.

Our lively conversation isn't just about numbers and market trends though. It also comes with a dash of warmth as we share stories about our pets. We delve into the challenges and rewards of dedicating time to radio and video shows, and how to handle criticism in the digital world. Ed's recent hit with a viral TikTok is not one to be overlooked. All this and more, combined with Ed's emphasis on attention to detail and importance of operating procedures in the mortgage industry, will leave you informed, ready, and excited for your home buying journey!

Enjoy!

Connect with Ed at https://lendingforliving.com where you can learn more about Ed's  expertise in the mortgage industry and his book "Financial Freedom: Building Personal Wealth through Homeownership".

You can find his book in multiple formats on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org

Links:
Roberto on Instagram http://www.instagram.com/robertorevillalondon
Tailoring Talk on Instagram http://www.instagram.com/tailoringtalkpodcast

Credits
Tailoring Talk Intro and Outro Music by Wataboy on Pixabay
Edited & Produced by Roberto Revilla
Connect with Roberto, head to https://allmylinks.com/robertorevilla
Email the show at tailoringtalkpodcast@gmail.com

Chapters

• 0:09 US Inflation and Economic Concerns
• 10:26 Industry and Real Estate Insights
• 22:25 Differentiating Yourself in a Competitive Industry
• 29:47 Military, Football, and Professional Success
• 40:07 Commitment, Dealing With Haters for Media

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome to the Tailoring Talk Show with your host, roberto Ravilla. Bespoke tailor-mendware designer and owner of Roberto Ravilla London Custom Clothing and Footwear. I activate your superpowers through the clothing I create and the conversations on this podcast. We'll meet self-starters and creators to learn about their journeys, while they share valuable lessons to help you be the very best you can be. Please support the show by subscribing, and it helps so much if you take a few seconds to leave a rating and a review. My guest today is an experienced and respected professional in the mortgage industry. With over 25 years of experience as the founder and CEO of Lending for Living, he has a passion for helping clients navigate the complex process of purchasing a home with ease and understanding. With his unique perspective as a proud veteran of the US Navy, he is committed to empowering his clients to achieve their financial aspirations and build a personal world through real estate investment. Here to show you how you can become the authority in your industry. Tailoring Talkers, please welcome Ed Harcourt to the Tailoring Talk show. Ed, how are you?

Speaker 2: 1:27

I'm very good and since I've been doing podcasts, I've saved that opener with my name like that before.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 1:36

You added that extra level with that accident.

Speaker 1: 1:43

Oh, thank you. Yeah, no, and I'm always worried about pronouncing people's names correctly, so I should have actually asked you that question whilst we were having our little pre-talk there. Firstly, I've got to say a massive thank you not that it will make a difference to anyone listening to this, because God knows when this is going to go out over the next couple of weeks, but it is very dark behind you. You're calling in from California. Yes, I am Top of the list of places that I need to travel to very, very soon. It's very early in the morning, so thank you so so much for being here. I would imagine at this what time is it over there right now, 6.20. 6. Oh, my God, would you normally be in your office by now, or do you roll into your day a little?

Speaker 2: 2:31

slower than that. No, I'm usually putting together my show for my, so I do a five day a week live on Facebook, linkedin and YouTube at 8.30 AM and so I'm going through what's going on and writing my notes for my show and getting it ready, because a lot of people don't realize how much time we put into doing our shows. If we do a half hour show, we probably put in two to three hours of work and I got that from you know I don't want to say about from being in college and all that stuff. You know when you're talking about how long you're in school and how much you have to do. But on the radio I do a local radio show, talk radio, and I have to do the same thing for that, to get ready for that. So that's something I'm used to. So I'm up early, by the way, going through seeing what happened, watching everything and seeing what to talk about. But you know this week has all been about, you know, inflation.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Oh well, oh yeah Well, I mean hot topic at the moment, right, Huge huge.

Speaker 2: 3:28

Yeah, we shut that pipeline down. I knew we were in trouble. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: 3:33

So yeah, I mean there's kind of rumors going on around and we're recording. What are we? Middle of October, almost that because I think you guys over in the States have stopped putting like your base rate of inflation or whatever has stopped going up, you're very quickly had realized that I don't know anything. And also the other thing that I stopped doing about four or five months ago is I just stopped watching and listening to the news because it was just every time you open that stuff up just a cesspit of just horrible. And you know I just don't need to put my brain with all of that stuff.

Speaker 1: 4:13

But I was talking to a realtor recently who said that there was some little shred of positive news coming from across the pond, which you know meant that there was some optimism starting to creep in over here, because obviously we're still very much I don't know so much guided but led by you guys over in the States and whatever happens over there obviously has a big effect on confidence and so on over here. Are you starting, are we starting to see the kind of first glimmerings of hope and good news, or are we still a long way from that.

Speaker 2: 4:50

Well, here's the problem, and I don't want to get into the politics, but you can't fix. You know, if you're in a family and you have a husband and wife, or two husbands and two wives, whatever that family is, and you have a budget and one of them's on the budget but the other one's not on the budget, it doesn't work. You know the whole family falls apart with the financials. That's where we are in our government. You have the Fed trying to fix the inflation issue not necessarily the best way, but the only way they know how to, you know, tighten the money supply. Then you have a government who is spending every dime they can get their hand on for any little program they want, and so we're still overspending with this current administration.

Speaker 2: 5:31

And I'm not knocking Democrats or Republican issues is to go back in with Clinton.

Speaker 2: 5:38

The first two years he did the same thing, he did his own thing, and then he, like this didn't work, and then he got together with all the parties and they actually worked it out and he did really well.

Speaker 2: 5:47

The second this current president doesn't care, I don't even know if he is the current president and that's a political statement, but it just seems like there's an issue. I knew the moment we shut he shut down that pipeline when he first got in office that we'd see inflation and I didn't know we'd be back to 1973. And we're on a tipping point right now to where we're almost going to have stagflation if it keeps going the way it's going, if we don't get a stop, because we actually showed a ticked up a little bit this month, you know for September, but really it's long term. Where's it at and what's going on? The other issue we have is the feds not buying mortgage backed securities as much as they were and keeping them on their books or letting them roll off. If they would actually start buying again, we'd probably be about 150 basic points lower in rates than we are right now, which probably would mean instead of seven and a half on our way to eight, we'd be at six and a half on our way to seven.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Yeah, yeah, I was. When I was away in Cyprus towards the end of August, my wife and I we just kind of got the hell out of here and took a couple of weeks out because we were kind of reaching burnout. But the German couple who were on the sunbed next to us every single day I think he used to do the kind of six in the morning and when he got up he'd come and put his book on the sunbed just to save the spot and wear creatures of habit as well. So we quite liked being on the bed next to them. But after about day three I kind of took an interest in what literature he was putting down to save his spot.

Speaker 1: 7:26

And, long story short, it turns out he's like a chief medical officer type person over in Germany. And you know, at some point inevitably we got talking and politics kind of crept into it and we were talking about your, your president, and I said I don't know, it's like I don't really, you know, really get totally into these things, but he doesn't really seem very what's the word all together there, right? And he was saying, yeah, I'm a chief medical officer in my country and from what I can see, he's not fit to be doing the job that he's doing, because he's ancient and something's kind of there's like a few screws loose going on up there. But anyway, look, we're not here to talk about Joe, by the way, we're here to talk about you and no but one last thing, one last yes, go for it.

Speaker 2: 8:17

Do if we. The problem, the reason we're here, is because people voted with their emotions and not their pocketbook. And if you do anything emotionally in life, it does not work out, except for marriage usually. But I don't I wanna say wrong, but if you have any normal decision, if you do it emotionally, it will mess up, and that's what happened. People didn't vote for something, they voted against something and unfortunately they didn't like somebody who tweeted meanly, this is what you get when you vote emotionally is this situation, and so it needs to get changed somehow. And if it doesn't, if we get him for another four years, our country will never come out of it, will never be the same, will never be able to pay off our deficit. And that's not just me being the sky is falling chicken little. That is proof. We're at a point where interest is so high. We'll get another couple of years. We won't be able to pay off our debt because we won't be able to service the interest.

Speaker 1: 9:15

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, when you got it.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Yeah, no back to homes. Well, no back to you. This is why we're here, because you are a veteran of the mortgage industry I guess you'd call it well, that's what we call it over here and you have really found a way to kind of pull yourself up and above the competition to become someone who's recognized as a thought leader and so on, but also from the outside, looking in. Your passion really does genuinely lie in trying to help homeowners to make the best out of their investment decisions so that they can be set on the path to financial freedom. What made you, what kind of brought you into that industry in the first place? If I take us back to Ed 25 years ago, so you'd have been like 15 years old or something.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Yeah, something like that, yeah sure.

Speaker 2: 10:19

I drink a lot of water.

Speaker 1: 10:21

Yeah, tons right. And you moisturize too.

Speaker 2: 10:25

I see, I love that.

Speaker 1: 10:26

What got you into the industry in the first place and where did you start to kind of think I can do things a little bit differently here?

Speaker 2: 10:38

Well, because I was a start. So I'm a besides, a veteran of the mortgage industry. I'm a veteran of the United States Navy, so I served our country. So, and when I got out of the Navy I ended up I was going to get in the real estate industry, but I've been 91, 92, it was a really bad year. So I ended up getting into the computer industry and then I created this whole program and it was falling apart because of the company.

Speaker 2: 11:01

I took it to a couple of years later and my neighbor owned a mortgage company and I had, you know, my bachelor's, my master's, and I liked numbers and so I went to work for them and I was like, wow, this is amazing. You know, I can actually help people get into homes, I can help them. And at that time I was taking people from 13 interest rate to 9% interest rate and they loved me. And what's sad is I'm almost at the rates where I came into this industry right, almost 25, and it's like really I can't believe we're here. But back to the whole thing. So I got in this industry and I realized that I really like numbers, I really like helping people understand the process, understanding how easy it is to own a home and for most people they build personal wealth through home ownership, not through a 401k, 403b or IRA Most people don't have those but anybody can buy a home and that's why I like about this and it changes the family dynamic going forward.

Speaker 2: 11:56

Once you own a home, then everybody else in the house can go oh, I can own a home too, and you know where most people I deal with their first generation home ownership and that's huge to me because if you look in the last five years, if you own a home, you're now up 200, 300,000 in equity with money that you wouldn't have had if you didn't own a home. And California is the unique state of all the states. It's California and I would say Florida are the two that have increased the most in equity over the past so many years. In my little town in Modesto, california, we were going up 22% a year in value.

Speaker 2: 12:38

Wow, yeah, and the problem is and this is our issue throughout the United States. But really in California we're short about 2.7 million homes that we need to build to get caught up, and we will never get caught up. So that means appreciation. So anybody over there buy over here, you're going to see appreciation like you wouldn't believe just because of the fact that we don't have enough homes. And if you look at nationwide, we're short almost 18 million homes nationwide. So there's a huge opportunity there.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 13:12

I don't know if I answered your question, but I kind of fell into the industry. Nobody goes to school and says I want to be a mortgage person. That's just not thought of. It's like some people want to be an actor or whatever, but most people don't say I want to be a real estate agent or a mortgage person. They just kind of fall in the industry and then go. This is a great industry. However, our industry going forward for the next 10 years is going to be some of the leanest, hardest times in our history.

Speaker 1: 13:39

Yeah, and I guess what you've got to do anyone, especially younger people that are looking to get in the industry and need to develop a backbone really quick or get into a different industry. Or get into something different altogether.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Yeah, exactly Going to nursing I'm not kidding All my family my wife, my kids, that's what they're into, except for one of them. And you can always do that and then also do this. You know what I mean. But it's just it's not going to be like any other time in history. We're only going to do of existing home sales it's normally 85% of the market. We're only going to see 35% of that going forward. And so I mean, if you look at, California normally does 450,000 homes a year. We're going to be lucky if we had 151,000 this year.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Yeah, wow.

Speaker 2: 14:28

Yeah, we are. That's not a reason not to own a home. That's a totally two separate entities. There's a huge change in our industry when it comes to real estate and everything else, of who pays what commission. How is it and just a quick question over there when you buy a home, who pays the buyer's commission to the when they write an offer? Is there, do you know? The buyer's commission, because here over here the seller pays both sides of the commission.

Speaker 1: 15:01

OK, they pay the listing agent and then they pay the person who brings the buyer.

Speaker 2: 15:05

That's changing. There are some lawsuits and basically going forward, they're just going to pay the listing agent and no one knows how they're going to pay for the person to bring the buyer.

Speaker 1: 15:17

So it probably works a little differently over here, because so we have estate agents, or you call them realtors, and they obviously have a commission, but that usually is taken from the seller, not the actual buyer.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Yeah, there is another secondary kind of hand market that goes on in some parts of the country Well, probably all parts of the country actually when the seller and the agent will look to make some extra cash commission from the buyer and usually that's a kind of scheme where the realtor says to the seller listen, I can achieve this price for you.

Speaker 1: 16:06

And then the seller says, ok, well, if you manage to achieve that price for me, I'll outside of the official commission, I'm going to give you this, but then they'll try to find a way to extract that from the buyer during the negotiation stage. So yeah, buying real estate over here is kind of a complex process. It's also extremely stressful and you can spend months in the process and it can still all fall apart at the very last moment. The only difference over here is up in Scotland, so across the border they have a slightly different system where if you're going to buy a house and you make an offer so if I'm going to buy your house, ed, and you accept my offer, that acceptance is binding there and then and then we go through all the paperwork and the due diligence and all of that kind of stuff South of the border in England and Wales. It is very much that the whole thing can fall apart at any point in time for any number of reasons.

Speaker 2: 17:11

So we have the process down. I can close a purchase in nine days.

Speaker 1: 17:17

Wow, yeah, yeah, okay, come over here, we'll get you out. Yeah, no, exactly. Well, it's like someone who was working front desk at one of the law firms that I work in. He's just retired and I said to him what are you going to do, expecting him, you know, to have a little house in the country or something? And he's actually bought real estate in Miami, so he's moved to Florida.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Yeah, I mean, and that's one place that is, the values have went up even more in the last few years anywhere else, but it is one of the places that they're worried about the values going down over the next year or two.

Speaker 1: 17:54

Yeah, your book. How did that come about? Was that something that you'd wanted to do for a long time? Was it something that became almost necessary because of the way that you were wanting to try and help more people? And what was that process like for you? Was that a?

Speaker 2: 18:13

rhetorical question or was that a question? No, that was a question.

Speaker 1: 18:18

I just I'm so sorry. It should have warned you. My questions are very long-winded.

Speaker 2: 18:23

No, that's fine because basically I wanted to write a book and one of the reasons I wanted to write a book is there's only one of me, so I can only talk to so many clients per day, right Per hour, per whatever the issue is, I wrote my book. The way I qualify people, I look at the credit, their income and assets, and that's why I wrote the book is so that I could have sent people could read my book and understand the process so much easier and understand. I'm sorry, my dog decided to wake up.

Speaker 1: 18:53

I got my two here that come running in.

Speaker 2: 18:56

I heard him, but I thought you could hear him. So the reason the book is so important is that you could read it and know exactly what is going to be fired of you once you get into contrast and to go through the process. And it's important because I had one of my friends. Dad says I've read many real estate books. I've never seen a real estate book who talks about credit, the first chapter, and because we can't do anything if you don't have the credit Right.

Speaker 2: 19:23

And I go through how to fix that, but it was something I wanted to do. I didn't know I'd ever be able to do it because I don't know if you've been through the book process. It's not cheap if you do it and you don't make money off of them. I mean that's not. The purpose of it is basically to get that knowledge out there and I use it for every one of my clients. I'm going to work with a cinema copy.

Speaker 2: 19:42

I said please read this, so that way you understand stuff, because we can go through our whole system of how we explain stuff to people. But we might miss something, right, you? Because I have a system where I had I had a business partner for years and we were in the same office, just so our employees didn't have to say it twice. And he's like dude, the moment you pick up the phone, you say the exact same thing all the way through the train and when you're on the I go. Of course I want to make sure I hit everything and so people understand the whole process. And that's exactly what my book is and I'm happy I wrote it and I'm glad I did and I give it out to everybody and it helps a lot. And then I tell other, I tell other mortgage people. It's like my book doesn't say use ed, it's most important thing is the education. Yeah, not to get all the business in the world, but it's to also was to be the authority in the in the industry.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Yeah, because no, it's not, it was beforehand.

Speaker 2: 20:37

There's three. I did three things to be the authority. First, I got on radio for and most people at the time in 2018. I said do people still listen to radio? Because I didn't. I listened to. You know other stuff and talk radio here in the States is so huge it is the last free press that there is and so people really listen to it, and I grew that. You know we have 51 to 71,000 listeners a week on that station. Wow and yeah, and I get 50% of my business from the radio show, which most people go, and that's unusual, and it's because I also turn the radio show into a podcast. I also do nine lives a week from my radio show on all other mediums. So it's I've taken across multiple mediums in order to do what I want to do and it's really to make sure people know who I am, because I was told about four years ago I was the best kept secret and so I wanted to stop being the best secret. I wanted everybody to know about it.

Speaker 1: 21:33

Yeah, no, exactly, I mean, that's the thing. Best kept secret is probably the way that I would. Well, I do describe myself on a daily basis when you know people say to me you know how do you grow your clientele? And you know, the truth is, it is all via word of mouth and referral. I mean, obviously our Google reviews are starting to help, but not massive numbers. You know, we pretty much do rely on the goodwill of our clients. The problem there is that, you know, maybe 50, 60% of our clients don't want other people knowing where they get their clothes from and how they look so good, and so I think that's why I'm the best kept secret. So you know, I'm now just starting on this journey of you know how do I start to shout, but obviously to the right people, because I don't need the entire world. So you know, this is why this whole area fascinates me.

Speaker 1: 22:25

But going back to the book, I mean you can see where. That's where you first started to differentiate different. Oh my God, here we go. Now I've got tongue twisted. See this, this whole thing about British people know how to speak English. It's complete nonsense. Differentiate yourself, because I've dealt with so many mortgage advisors in my adult life and I've never known of any. They all just speak gobbledygook to me, right. So a lot of it I have to kind of check with someone else. Fortunately my wife is actually quite intelligent and she's an economist, so she understands all this number stuff. But no one's ever presented me with a book that actually just gives me a written guide through the entire process. So no wonder that was the beginnings of you, you know, because it doesn't matter if in that book you don't say use ed, it's just a general guide for the process. I'd be more minded to use you anyway, because you're the only person who actually bothered to go to that much effort for his clients.

Speaker 2: 23:27

Yeah, I mean it was important to get that information out there and you're right, it does help. I can't complain. It helps drastically. When you say oh, by the way, I wrote a book and it came out in February and it was Amazon best seller in two categories home buying and selling and mortgages, that helps a lot. Then you drop the radio show. You drop the fact that I was also in a documentary last week, last year, that came out. It's called Hacking Real Estate. It was about how did real estate people make money in the? You know, not actual real estate people, but how people bought real estate and made money in it. And I was the only mortage person. And how that came about was I was at a traffic and conversion event and the lady who's doing the documentary started to ask me questions and I was like you got a radio show, I want you on my documentary to talk about that and so, and that did really well. I've had more people reach out to me because of that.

Speaker 2: 24:18

It's just doing stuff that other people won't do is what you need to do and I do everything that makes me uncomfortable. Doing live radio is very uncomfortable, doing, you know, doing podcasts and doing all the stuff I've done. You go back to my original days. Those are some of the worst interviews or stuff I've done. I mean, have you went back to someone? You're old, old stuff and you're like, oh my goodness, I cannot even listen to this. Yeah, exactly. But I mean the most important, depending on who's listening to this. But if you're listening to it because you want to buy real estate, the most important thing is find somebody who knows what they're talking about.

Speaker 2: 24:55

And when I wrote my book, I wanted to make sure it looked really good also. Right, I mean, that was, if I'm going to put the effort in, it's got to be really good. Two things I wanted I didn't want to pamphlet and I didn't want Moby Dick. I wanted somewhere in the middle where somebody would pick it up and read it in the next three to four hours and be done with it. Because if it's too thick, people don't read it. If it's too small, they think there's not enough information in there for them to get anything out of it. So that's why I picked the size. That I did and it really works, because most people can get through it in about three hours. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:34

Wow, and the TV show or docuseries, you call it Documentary. Yeah, yeah, did that go out on national television.

Speaker 2: 25:44

No, it actually was done by a certain company who does documentaries different than everywhere else, where they have the whole following and then they sign up and they watch the whole thing and then they shelve it afterwards. I wish it would have been on Netflix, but then we wouldn't probably be talking and I'd be retired, yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:03

I mean Hacking. Real Estate has got such a sort of kind of Netflix, kind of docuseries sort of title, hasn't it?

Speaker 2: 26:10

Yeah, I mean they did really well with it because everybody who's in it pushed it out to their people and other people and it grew pretty big. But it was not. You know, the original name wasn't Hacking Real Estate, but everybody got into the word Hacking. I'm sorry, mike.

Speaker 1: 26:28

Oh no, that's okay, Don't worry. I'm surprised that mine haven't.

Speaker 2: 26:33

Well, it's my wife's Rottweiler who thinks that she's more important than anybody else, of course. And then I have an American bully that I rescued, that I found on a walking trail. He was tied up to the exercise equipment late at night on two marches ago and now he's here and he's a really good dog. She's the female, she runs the neighbourhood, she runs everything.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Yeah, no same. We have a Cavachon female, Emily. We've had her since she was a puppy. She thinks that she's the alpha of the house, but we have two cats as well. And then we have Bailey, who's a working cockaspaniel. But we found him. He'd just been dumped on the side of the highway with a broken leg. We drove past and then we turned around and came back, because we spotted him from the car and picked him up and rehabbed him and he's been with us for five or six years now Amazing dog.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Yeah, this one, my American bully's name, george. It's after George Costanza. It was a walk out of my year at George when I took the car.

Speaker 1: 27:40

Yeah, I think he got the name Bailey because we'd literally just seen a movie with Dennis Quaid, I think it's called. I can't remember what it's called, but anyway the spirit of his dog from when he was a kid gets passed from dog to dog to dog until eventually it finds him as a fully grown adult and the kind of catchphrase with the dog was Bailey, bailey, bailey, that's what he used to say to him when he, you know, teaching him how to do a particular type of catch or whatever. Apparently they just really love that name. So when we found him that's what we called him. I'm really surprised he has not even twitched as I said his name four times, so weird. Anyway, sorry, let's off dogs back to you.

Speaker 2: 28:22

It's about personal stuff too, yeah, of course.

Speaker 1: 28:26

No, absolutely. So. There was something really specific. I was going to ask you before we got to talking about our dogs, and it was. So someone who's listening to this that might not necessarily be in the real estate industry is doing something else and they're thinking well, you know how do I I'm in a really competitive space. What do I do to? You know, differentiate myself? There's something you talk about where you know, I think before you start signing up to go on radio shows and put yourself out there, you kind of need to roll back a little bit and actually just kind of look internally and you talk about sort of working out what your actual hidden talents are, what's? Can you just kind of guide us a little bit through Ed's kind of view of the process of that?

Speaker 2: 29:22

Well, you know, I don't know, I had hidden talents. I don't know what you're, no, so when I you know, I'm like you take.

Speaker 1: 29:32

Sorry to interrupt just before I let you go, but let you go on. But you know, for example, with you before you got into business and you know, started your firm and so on and did all this wonderful stuff in the real estate industry. You know you're an army veteran. You know you served Navy veteran.

Speaker 2: 29:51

Sorry, sorry, I'm not a soldier.

Speaker 1: 29:54

My son's a soldier, I'm not. That's it.

Speaker 2: 29:56

So Army Navy has a huge football. We go against each other, so it's okay.

Speaker 1: 30:01

Okay, sorry, navy veteran, I won't even edit that out, so everybody knows one idiot I am.

Speaker 2: 30:09

No, you're not an idiot, that's you. You're not in America, it's okay.

Speaker 1: 30:13

Yeah, I don't know Actually. Do you know what it's?

Speaker 2: 30:15

I watch football over there all the time.

Speaker 1: 30:17

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:18

No, it's my team, so go on no, tell me no. No.

Speaker 1: 30:26

Okay, fine, I support Arsenal. So, but Manchester City, oh okay, yeah, well, you know, are we friendly rivals.

Speaker 1: 30:39

City City. Yeah Well, the proper Manchester team, because we always joke when man United come to town to play when we beat them, but their supporters don't really have far to go home because they mostly live in London anyway. So, yes, navy veteran, so you bring not just experiences that you had during your time serving, you know, but also there'll be certain disciplines and so on that you'll have brought, and maybe a different view of the world, a different approach to problem solving as well. So, you know, I would guess if I had to sort of take Ed and try and work out what his hidden talents were, I've got some places in your past that I can go to to then start to kind of extract things and say, okay, well, you know, you've got experience of doing this and problem solving here and doing that and so on. So yeah, sorry, now I'll let you go.

Speaker 2: 31:46

Well, yes, I'm a unique individual. On being in the Navy, I taught me attention to detail. The dumbest thing they teach you is how to make a bed. Well, it's not about. Making the bed is attention to detail. And then you, over time, that's what you've learned. You've learned how to do. We have these things called SOP, standard operating procedures, when the military so someone does is your, because you could be gone tomorrow and they need somebody to fill that position. So you need to have all.

Speaker 2: 32:10

So I use those things in my business, but it's really important. But also what I brought from the Navy which is not the greatest thing is I'm very direct what. I don't sugarcoat anything. This is the way it is, blah, blah, blah. And so I irritate some people but a lot of people like that, and especially in my industry when I'm telling you this is the way it is, this is what we need to do to get around it.

Speaker 2: 32:32

If you don't like the way I'm talking and explain, I'm not yelling, I'm just saying, hey, this is what we need to do, this is the issue, this is what we need to get around it.

Speaker 2: 32:39

90% of people are good with that. 10% who are not I don't want to work with because I'm not going to do what I want to do and get you into a home. My whole goal is to the moment you come to me and you want to buy a home, be careful, you'll probably be in that home in 30 days. And that's what shocks a lot of people, because it's about the process and getting you in that home. I try to explain. In our industry, people try to make it so difficult and say how hard it is and the process when in reality, it's so simple and so easy and that's why I wrote my book, so people can understand that. But when, about what I do and how I did it, I look at how because of where I am with the revan direct and how I sold I sold by the phone for many, many years.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Yeah, I didn't realize that a deep voice can tell you. Put headphones on.

Speaker 1: 33:26

Oh my God, you do. My voice sounds like it's about 20 octaves higher than yours. I could never get it down that low. Your voice is so cool and it has so much gravitas as well.

Speaker 2: 33:37

Right, and I didn't know that. Now I know why. I did so well by the phone for 18 years. Right, I got into people, especially when the wives would get on, they were the ones who would actually do most of the financial stuff. But I didn't realize.

Speaker 2: 33:50

And I got on radio and I was like, well, my voice is totally different, you know, because we don't understand how we sound. We always think we sound horribly. Put a set of headphones on, that's exactly how you sound and you don't sound as bad If you're Gilbert Godfrey. There's nothing we can do for you, but other than that, but anyway. So back to my industry. So you know we're very competitive. So how do you stand above everybody else is one of the things you want to do, no matter where you are, is do everything that makes you uncomfortable, because if you're doing that, that means get on stage, speak, I speak. I got on radio. I didn't you know that was live radio at the time. So you make mistakes, that's okay. They want you to make mistakes, they want you to be human. They understand if you make a mistake on radio, they don't want to take it out because they want people to know it's live and it's there.

Speaker 2: 34:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:36

And so I did so. First I was like, how do I get better, how do I do other things? And that was radio from the radio, doing all the other stuff from that show, and then it just took me into doing more and more stuff. So I'll never say no when it comes to doing anything. So when they asked me to be in the documentary, of course I mean, geez, how many people in my industry can say that they were in a documentary? How many people can say that they're on a radio show? How many kids say they have a book and a bestseller book?

Speaker 2: 35:03

But be careful when we talk about this beforehand. Yeah, you might get to a point where people are like, okay, he's too big for me because somebody's, somebody's celebrity. You don't care who it is. I always tell people when I you know, hey, on the radio show, I'm gonna. You know, if you call, I'm gonna call you, I will be the one calling you back. And they're shocked when I call back and it's like, okay, I'm just. I put my pants on the same way as everybody else, sometimes a little bit harder lately because I've gained weight, but it's usually the same.

Speaker 1: 35:34

Yeah, and I got from personal experience. I can. I can definitely agree with what I was saying there because you know, through the podcast and so on, I mean example the other day I had a new customer come into the workroom to get fitted up and so they walk in and I'm usually at my sort of little fitting room at the back and so my head, taylor, usually greets them and says he's at the back there. So they come through and I come out to greet them and they're like, oh my god, no, it's not God, it's me, roberto. I wasn't expecting to see you. I was listening to your podcast on the train to get here and I thought I'd be seeing someone else. I didn't realize I'd be seeing you in person and I was like All the communication that you've had from us has been for me personally. What made you think you were meeting anybody else is my name on the thing.

Speaker 1: 36:29

But there is this kind of and then when you're, when you're talking to your clients you were talking about best kept secrets before we started recording.

Speaker 1: 36:39

And again, it's a problem. I get all the time, you know, I tell people, you know a lot of my clients. They say that they want to recommend me, but then they kind of keep me as their best kept secret. That actually doesn't do me any favors whatsoever, and partly it's because they don't really want anybody else knowing who dresses them and why they look so good. But some of it is actually that they think because of what they see on social media, because of what they hear about our business growing and doing well, and then the podcast and so on and anything else they see me doing, they just think I'm too busy and I'm too big to take on New people, which is absolutely not the case. So that you're right, there is a danger there and you know it's about trying to find that sort of balance as well, making sure people know that you're still you, you're still ed, you're still bobby and you're still you know, same old approach to blowing. You still want to help people.

Speaker 2: 37:39

Yeah, because I, even though I do all the stuff I do, I really work from referral right, just like you do. But the issue really is just how do people understand that? Get that across them. The reason we get in this time and we can do video across the pond, as you guys say, we can do so many things that we couldn't do before. Right would be a phone call. It would be the newspaper. We know about things so much faster than anything else. We have so many ways of getting information out to where there's overload. But it's important to understand that we're doing this so that you know who we are, so we can tell you exactly what you're going to run into.

Speaker 2: 38:14

There's only one of me and that was the reason I was the best kept secret until my book came out, because I only worked with a handful of agents, because I worked with the ones who can be busy. I didn't work with hundreds, because there's no way to support hundreds. There's way to support 10 in a good market. In this market, you gotta do 25 to 30 just because they all maybe have one To do it and I, my whole goal in life is to help 30 to 40 families a month and that's that's important. But in this market it's hard to do that just because there's not the homes to be sold.

Speaker 1: 38:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. So how much time are you spending in your business nowadays because obviously your CEO of lending for living how big is the organization and how much actual kind of face time are you having with your with your own customers?

Speaker 2: 39:09

Well.

Speaker 2: 39:09

I'm the only one that talks to my customers so I talk about front and then through the process they talk to a couple different you know contract processors or assistance, but really I am the one that talks about front gets the whole thing to put together to actually, and then they bring it, they send in their documents and then it goes to another person and then at the end I'm there at the end for them. So, excuse me, sorry, early still. No, that's okay. So the process is really so, because we had done it nine days. There's not a lot of time to play around, but our average escrow that most people do is 21 days now normally used to be 45 or 60 days and my big problem with that is time kills all deals. You know, the longer something takes, the easier it is to fire and I don't want that to happen because someone could lose a job, someone can pass away during the transaction.

Speaker 2: 40:01

It's important to get it done fast, so yeah, so I'm forward facing all the time. The question really is how many hours do I do the radio and video a week? That's probably say about 10 hours a week.

Speaker 1: 40:19

Yeah, which doesn't sound. I guess to most people doesn't sound like that much, but when you take it as a chunk out of your, you know the hours that you do have in a week. It's a big commitment.

Speaker 2: 40:30

Well, it's, you know, daily I do super much. So Monday I do a morning show and then Tuesday I do four shows, right, and those are four lives. And then Wednesday I do the radio plus. Then I do another two lives. So it does eat up your hours of your morning. And then not only that, you have to okay, well, we're gonna have them cut up. We're gonna do this. You gotta go through the process. You have to get ready for the show.

Speaker 2: 40:54

Every half hour of my show is, I'm probably looking at, two hours of you know what's going on, where is it at? And I have a co-host on the radio and I have a co-host the same co-host for the five of the lives and with the recent cut-ups we've been able to do through different software, it's always me talking and he's like you talk all the time. I'm like then speak, it's not my problem. You know, I have all this information I want to get out and get this information out. You give numbers, right. This is where our market is. This, what's going on. Do more than that. That's on you, not me and it's and get that information out there, because people need to know who you are in order to work with you.

Speaker 2: 41:33

Yeah, absolutely and the more haters you have, the better and the reason.

Speaker 1: 41:38

I say that is because you're nobody until you have a hater. Yeah, I'm starting to get that.

Speaker 2: 41:45

Yeah, that's, and it's engagement. Who cares? Yeah, I had. I finally had a tic taco viral for me. I'm a bit in Modesto, california I think I'm at 735,000 on that one and it was a stupid little thing about how to buy a manufactured home, which is what you would know is probably a mobile home. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 2: 42:06

Yeah, yeah, absolutely they call them differently here now, but anyways, about how to get around this tax thing and everything. And the thing went viral because people were like he's such tax evasion. That's different. No, it's not. But it didn't matter. The engagement it was that I don't care if it was good or bad. That was what got it to go and be seen by more and more people and increase my followers, and that's all you need to do so yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 42:32

Yeah, no, absolutely Don't worry about the haters they're what you want, because they're going to be there. It's easier to be negative than positive.

Speaker 1: 42:43

Yeah, no, absolutely, 100%, totally agree with that.

Speaker 1: 42:47

The first time I got a couple of on my Instagram reels, I got a couple of stupid comments or kind of some people being really quite hurtfully critical. I took it to heart straight away because you know I'm passionate about what I do and I'm a people pleaser all the rest of it. But you know, since kind of doing a bit more, getting a bit more of that, and also, by you know, virtue of this podcast, being able to talk to and learn from amazing people like you, I've come to realise that actually, you know, the more of them the better. Bring it on, because they're the ones that you kind of really bring to the fore what you're doing and actually kind of help propel you if you use the energy in the right way and also don't fuel them directly. Speaking of connecting because we have a lot of listeners in the States Funny enough, we actually have more listeners in the States than I do here in the UK Really, yeah, I mean it's great for you, especially if they're looking to buy one.

Speaker 2: 43:52

They're looking to buy one thing before you get there. So I call it. You have text balls. So the problem is people won't say it to your face but because they can hide, you signed somewhere else. Because I used to have a guy that worked in my office. He would never say anything to me up front and then he, soon as he would leave, he would text me this and he'd all have all this like to be behind them to text me everything you wanted to say. He couldn't say it to my face and I called it text balls. And it's the same thing here. They only have balls because they can do it and then they're out on your face. So if they can't do it to your face, it doesn't matter, don't even worry about it.

Speaker 1: 44:26

Yeah, I'm sorry that I just wanted to get that out there, because I'm really upset about it and they take it personally.

Speaker 2: 44:34

No, people are just a mean and they're rude. Their lives are horrible. They want to make yours horrible, so don't worry about just moving on.

Speaker 1: 44:41

Yeah, no, absolutely. How did you deal with that guy? Out of interest.

Speaker 2: 44:46

Just ask them why you couldn't do it to my face. And if you can't do it to my face, I don't want to see text from you.

Speaker 1: 44:51

Yeah, yes. Could he tell you why Was he just scared of you?

Speaker 2: 44:58

I am a bigger guy, but that's beside the point. I've left it for years.

Speaker 1: 45:08

Awesome, ed. How can people listening that are thinking I really like this guy. He's straight as an arrow, he's no BS. This is the kind of person that I want to work with. How do people connect with you?

Speaker 2: 45:25

I made it real easy. I have a unique French last name, Parkour. That's Ed Parkour everywhere, Ed Parkour everywhere.

Speaker 1: 45:36

that's the easiest way to do it. That's it. Google Ed Parkour, and that's it. You'll come up everywhere.

Speaker 2: 45:42

Sorry, my dog, sorry to start popping.

Speaker 1: 45:45

That's okay. I'm going to make sure that I at least put some of your direct links in the show notes and also the link to your book as well, both on Amazon over here and then obviously all the regular big book stores like Barnes and Noble and so on over at Stateside.

Speaker 2: 46:02

And I made it easy for you. You can just go to getedbookcom.

Speaker 1: 46:07

Also I love that. Yeah, See it again.

Speaker 2: 46:10

If you write a book, make it easy for people to find it, because if they have to go to Amazon and type in your name, they spell your name wrong all the time. So my link is getedsbookcom.

Speaker 1: 46:21

Yeah, perfect. And again, this is you just walking your walk in your talk, just absolutely no bullshit, straight as an arrow, not wasting any time. I absolutely love that, ed. Thank you so, so much for joining me today. Have you had fun?

Speaker 2: 46:41

I had a great time. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm really a tailor. I just thought that was your unique name for your podcast.

Speaker 1: 46:49

Yeah, so it originally started as I was meant to be talking about menswear and fashion and all that kind of stuff and literally from the get go it kind of morphed into a entrepreneur, self-starter, creator, you know, kind of sharing stories, kind of thing. So really, I do tailoring because I love to help people. Clothing is the mechanism I do that and the podcast has just become an extension of that. I just get to help people in different ways through having conversations with amazing people like you. So, yeah, thank you. So so much once again.

Speaker 2: 47:27

No, that's the same thing with me. We're bear with me for a second. That's the same thing with me, because we want to help people right, yeah. And I'm not going to radio show people like, okay, well, my wife, and like people don't want to know about real estate constantly and so that's what we talk.

Speaker 1: 47:41

Community, not just the radio, you know not about real estate finance.

Speaker 2: 47:45

all the time it's about community.

Speaker 1: 47:46

Yeah, and it's the embodiment of a phrase that I heard recently from a recent guest, tom Antion, and he was. He taught me and told a story from from his youth and the lesson of the story was give before you get. You go in with that mindset it's pretty much any interaction you're going to have with anyone in life rather than a kind of profit revenue first attitude. I think you'll get back more than you ever could wish for, rather than doing it the other way around. You know where. You're just going in purely just to see what financial gain you can get out of someone. You have to just and that's so true.

Speaker 2: 48:26

You have to give, and when you give, that's when people want to come back to you and give back to you. That's important to give and that's why I'm in Rotary, because we do that all the time. So I'm actually the president of Rotary. You know, rotary is right.

Speaker 1: 48:39

Yeah, yeah, rotary Club.

Speaker 2: 48:41

Yeah, yeah, and that's why I joined its service organization. The more you give, the more you get, and it's kind of a self-saving, but it's true, yeah, perfect.

Speaker 1: 48:53

Can't think of a better way to end this episode. Thank you all so much for joining Ed and I Don't forget Tyler. And talk is on Instagram and you know I love feedback, so email me at the address in the show notes, remember to subscribe, rate and review, and you can also click the share button in your player to send this episode on to someone you know who might get some help or be inspired by Ed today. And if you're enjoying tainering talk and want to support the show, you can do so through the link in the show notes. Have a great week, be good to each other and I'll see you on the next one.