How Adam Dow Became New Hampshire’s #1 Real Estate Agent—and His Proven Systems for Teams and SEO

In Episode 56 of The OT: Only Teams for Real Estate Podcast, Daren Phillipy sits down with Adam Dow, the #1 real estate producer in New Hampshire, to unpack what it takes to grow a dominant team and real estate brand in a small market—and how Adam’s mastery of SEO, systems, and relationships built a $1.3 billion career.

“I’m not a salesperson. But now I’m the number one agent in the state.” – Adam Dow

Whether you’re a solo agent looking to expand or a team leader wanting to master long-game marketing and leverage, this episode is packed with golden nuggets you can start using now.

A Humble Start with a Bold Move

Adam didn’t plan to get into real estate. In fact, he got hired at Coldwell Banker on a whim—without telling his wife—while they were on their way to buy a Christmas tree.

“She asked, ‘What’s it pay?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ll figure that out.’” – Adam Dow

Despite scoring the worst ever on a personality test for real estate, Adam built a billion-dollar business from his hometown of Wolfeboro, NH—a tiny town on the picturesque Lake Winnipesaukee.

SEO Mastery That Drives $14K/Month in Organic Traffic

What sets Adam apart is his long-term investment in search engine optimization (SEO). Starting 20 years ago, Adam created hyper-targeted content for niche searches like “Lake Winnipesaukee boathouses”—which made him the local authority for affluent buyers.

“One of my first big clients walked in and said, ‘I’m looking for the boathouse guy.’”
—Adam Dow

Adam’s content strategy includes:

• Writing articles on specific local topics (e.g., luxury neighborhoods, boating, high-end roads).
• Using long-tail keywords like “Sewall Road real estate” to capture serious buyers.
• Republishing answers from client emails as SEO-friendly web content.
• Keeping content fresh and dynamic by linking to active property lists on each topic.
  

“If I had to pay for all the organic traffic I get, it would cost me $14,000 a month.” – Adam Dow

The Power of Influencers: Top 10, Top 100, and Top 100 to Know

Adam breaks his sphere of influence into three powerful categories to generate high-quality referrals:

1. Top 10 Influencers – Community leaders who mentor and refer business.
2. Top 100 Influencers – Acquaintances with social pull; track and nurture them intentionally.
3. Top 100 People to Know – Local service providers (e.g., dog walkers, stylists, contractors) that new residents need and trust Adam to recommend.
   

“I tell them, ‘I’m building a five-star service list and want to include you.’ That builds the relationship.” – Adam Dow

Listings: The Strategy Beyond Exposure

Adam’s listing strategy isn’t about gimmicks or blasting every website—because exposure isn’t the problem anymore.

“You’re going to be on Zillow. Exposure is not the problem. It’s how your home shows up when the buyer sees it.” – Adam Dow

He focuses instead on:

• Preparation – Staging and property readiness.
• Promotion – Aggressive and smart marketing strategies.
• Price – A strategic conversation, not a starting point.
• Professionalism – Clean, consistent presentation with high-end brochures and materials—even for $300K homes.
  

He also sets expectations with clients early:

“If we don’t want to have a finger-pointing conversation in five months, I’m okay going with your price now.” – Adam Dow

The Magic of Team Leverage and Proximity

With 20 agents and a lean admin team, Adam runs a statewide expansion model. Each agent is positioned as an “area expert,” not just a buyer’s agent.

“Luxury clients want the name on the sign—but that doesn’t mean I do everything.” – Adam Dow

By utilizing conference calls and Zoom meetings, he maintains visibility without micromanaging. And his partnership with PLACE allows him to offload operations, HR, training, and more.

“I built the first floor. PLACE gave me the foundation to go 10 stories up.” – Adam Dow

What He Wishes He Did Sooner: Systems over Creativity

Adam admits his early focus on branding and creativity kept him stuck in lower unit volume. His advice for new agents?

“Create a listing checklist. Do things that other agents won’t. Then systemize everything.” – Adam Dow

Lessons from a Mastermind

Adam’s parting wisdom?

• Be intentional about your network. Influence is earned, not given.
• Write articles every week. Even one a week gives you 52 chances to be found.
• Invest in your people and let culture drive your team.
• Don’t avoid conflict—face it to grow.
  

And one of his core values?

“Proximity. Be around people who bring you joy, business, and education.” – Adam Dow

Final Thoughts from Daren Phillipy

“Adam Dow is the definition of smart, strategic, and successful. This is one of my favorite interviews we’ve done on The OT.” – Daren Phillipy

🎧 Listen Now

To hear the full episode, search for The OT: Only Teams for Real Estate Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or visit OnlyForTeams.com. Want to join the conversation live and ask questions? Hop on the Zoom call every Tuesday at 12PM PST.

Transcription

Announcer  00:00

Welcome to the OT only teams in real estate.

Adam Dow  00:15

So you know, basically what I had to do is, what did I do first do in that first 10 years that got me by success. Now I had to train the team to do that. So I think that people have tons of SEO ready content in their email. You know, they’ve sent an email that’s answering all of these questions for a buyer send. They never use that information ever again. They get the same question, they recreate their answer. Like just, just by doing some of this stuff, you probably have creating a whole bunch of template ready stuff just by answering real estate questions. So if you bet back to some of the answers that you’ve given to your to your clients already, you know, spruce it up with chat GPT. Make sure it’s original, even though it’s coming out of chat GPT, but you know the questions that you get asked over and over and over again, you want to have those on your website as well. So if you want to go on at an aggressive price, I’m okay with that, as long as our relationship can stay the same and you don’t point fingers at me or my marketing five months from now, like, if we don’t have to have a finger pointing conversation, in five months, I’ll go with your press. Like one of the words that I used a couple years ago, and it sprung back up. And in our in our in our team, is proximity. You know being in proximity with people that you want to learn from being in proximity with people that you want to do business with, people being in proximity to people that you enjoy being in proxy or enjoy being hanging out with. I think sometimes we’re working so hard we lose track of those relationships, of people that you just you can have fun with, right? So I’m learning to be in proximity with things that bring me business, things that bring me joy, and things that bring me education.

Announcer  02:14

Here’s your host. Daren Phillipy,

Daren Phillipy  02:18

Hey everybody. Welcome to this week’s ot only team for real estate agents. My name is Daren Phillipy. I am your host. And do you like smart people? Do you like people who are actually really successful? I do, and I like hanging out with them. And we just did it today. We met with Adam Dow from New Hampshire, and you guys are going to love him. Adam is the number one producer in the state of New Hampshire. I got to meet him at the only team live event that we had earlier this year. And man, I’m so glad that he came in today and shared a bunch of nuggets, couple things that he did. Number one, he broke down a couple of key ways to target key people, like those influencers that are in your your community. He kind of shared how to make that happen. And then he’s also a really big SEO guy. He gets massive business and massive traffic to his website by playing the SEO game. So he shares a little bit about that. So you guys are gonna love listening to Adam, so good and so smart. And little side note, if you ever want to see something really cool, why don’t you Google boat house, Lake Winnipesaukee. That right there is a really cool thing, if you’re if you’re from the New England area and you’re up in that area, you probably know this, but out west, they don’t have houses like this, and so super cool to check out. Thanks Adam for bringing it up, and Thanks Laura for googling it. It was very cool. Anyway, you guys know the only way to be able to ask Adam questions in this in the only team zoom mastermind is to actually be in the room. All you need to do is go to only for teams.com click on that little button that says, join the the room, and there you are able to ask questions at noon, Pacific Standard Time every Tuesday. But if you’re not there, you can’t ask the question, so you’re missing out. Adam had some great stuff you couldn’t ask. So I need you in the room. Join the room every Tuesday at noon. Go to only, only for teams.com and you can jump, jump in there. And that’s pretty much it. That’s my quick commercial. I want to know what you guys think after the OT so I’ll see you then. Alright, guys, thanks so much for being here and hanging out with me and the the mastermind of masterminds, Adam Dow. He runs the Dow group in. New Hampshire. I grew up in Washington. I don’t even know where New Hampshire is, but I have a feeling it’s the Northeast. He runs a massive team, and you guys gonna love hearing about it. Over the last 12 months, 264 closings and 180 million in volume. Those are from command. Oh, man, probably a couple months ago, but Adam, thanks for being here and talking with the

Adam Dow  05:26

crew. Happy too. Thanks for having me, you bet. So tell us a little bit

Daren Phillipy  05:31

about your team. I had a lot of fun meeting you at the only team live event a few weeks ago and tell us about how your team is structured and how many people are on your team and and your story behind what got you here? Yeah,

Adam Dow  05:46

so I grew up in the town that I serve. It’s a second hometown in New Hampshire, on a lake called Lake Winnipesaukee. If you ever saw the movie, what about Bob? That’s the it’s the lake, but it’s not actually in New Hampshire. They filmed it somewhere else and stole our name and so grew up on the lake, went to business school, worked at a consulting company. We’re about two hours north of Boston. I always thought I would go from college off to the races at the corporate world, but ended up hitting a tough job market. I had a at the consulting company. We’re going after venture capital money. And the venture capital money, our company went out of business. And I’m like, You know what? I could work all my life, and my my wife and I were thinking we could work all our lives then move back to wolfboro, or do it now and figure it out. So that was about 22 years ago. Moved back to wolfboro, the town I grew up in, got into real estate. It’s kind of a funny story, because I didn’t really tell her, like I did no research before getting into real estate, I was basically on monster.com if you remember, that website, and looking for marketing jobs and things like that. And really nothing was available. But cobble banker had an ad, and I went in, didn’t tell my my wife, we were going to get a Christmas tree. Actually, I’m like, I’m just gonna go run and do something interviewed. He said, I’ll save you a seat. You’re hired. And I went back, and I told my wife, I got a job. She said, what’s it pay? I said, I don’t know. I’ll figure that out. And that was my real extensive research into getting into real estate. And what made matters worse was I took a test, the personality test that they had at the time, and 14 years later, I learned that I scored the worst on that test, that anyone that took it in 14 years, because the office manager, when I came to Keller Williams, she called me up and said, I want to work for you. I said, I can’t afford you. And she said, we’ll figure that out. And, you know, hired her, and things worked out there, but she told me the story that no one else had scored. So it basically said, run from real estate. So that was my beginning. I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know it didn’t pay a salary, and I wasn’t bent to sell real estate because I’m not a salesperson, but now I’m the number one agent in the state. Sold at $1.3 million or $1.3 billion worth of real estate, 300 houses, over a million bunch of residential stuff, team of 20, and it’s working out. Great,

Daren Phillipy  08:18

dude. That is awesome story. Yeah, you you still kind of do your own thing. You don’t check with your wife anymore. Is the

08:27

director of ops. So okay, so she knows everything

Daren Phillipy  08:31

right on. I love it. Well, tell us a little bit about your org chart then,

Adam Dow  08:35

okay, so Becky and I run the team. She does a lot of the behind the scenes, does the finances, obviously, is in on the major decisions. I’ve got a marketing person or marketing coordinator, Operations Coordinator, so basically, you know, the transaction side of the business and the marketing and for listings and ourselves, each of those people have a VA to support their their business, and I’m in the process of hiring an EA, which I haven’t had for a long time, so I’m very much looking forward to that. And so pretty lean on the on the staffing side for a team of 20 agents.

Daren Phillipy  09:16

Yeah, that’s no doubt about that. And and you have are your buyer, your agents, buyers and sellers both or or is that separated? Yeah,

Adam Dow  09:24

so you New Hampshire is unique in that there’s, like in my town, you know, at any given time, there’s about 150 realtors, and there’s 150 sales in the entire town. In the state of New Hampshire, I think there were 6000 sales total in the month of January or February. So we just there’s not a lot of units. So for me to have a big business, I had to expand. So I had buyer’s agents and seller’s agents in my little town that basically handled my business. But I. As I started to grow and what we did was, instead of saying a buyer agent, we use the term area expert, because as the person with the name on the sign, it’s hard to give somebody, Hey, you want to talk to me, but I’m just going to give you to a different agent. So our conversation is a little bit different. If somebody calls and said, Hey, I want to, you know, I’m looking for a house in Meredith, and say, great, you know, you’ve called the right place. I’m Adam Dow. I’ve been doing real estate here for 20 years. I’ve got an area expert in Meredith. She owns a property in Meredith. You know, she’s got kids in the school, like all of the different things that make somebody who lives there a better realtor than somebody that’s 20 minutes away. So now this team of 20 is basically comprising a whole bunch of area experts all over the state. So the area expert tends to do both sides. But for my leads in my area, I still give out seller leads to one, one or two people, and buyer leads to one or two people, and those, those are separate, but most of the team will do both. So

Daren Phillipy  11:07

you, because you run, you, you basically run the whole state. And like you said, there’s only, like 150 transactions in in your town. You really run a massive expansion team across the state, isn’t that,

Adam Dow  11:22

right? It is in I’ve taken the OS, I’ve taken some of the courses, and you know what they teach you in most of the expansion type environments is you have to have a strong hub. You have to have, you know, the transactions down pat. You have to have your procedures laid out. And COVID was great because it taught us all how to use Zoom. So now, anytime we’re doing a meeting, whether even if there’s like 10 people in the home office and two people that aren’t, I still will be a picture on Zoom, because I want everybody to have their space and not feel like you’re not in the meeting or what have you. So that’s been a really good thing. And so, yeah, and what’s good about my Market Center is it’s actually an hour away from my office. I’m in a business center. And then we’ve got, I think, a total of nine business centers, so I can actually expand without leaving the MLS, without leaving the Market Center, without leaving the caps. So it’s a, it’s a really good place to go far, because we have to, wow,

Daren Phillipy  12:23

that is awesome, awesome. Well, let’s, let’s talk about how you create leads in a whole state with 20 agents. That’s got to be interesting to hear.

Adam Dow  12:34

Yeah. So there’s two, two things that we do. One is what everybody you know, I think some of the strongest businesses are built on sphere. And when I first got in the business, I did it for 10 years. I got to, got up to number nine in the state, kind of, doing everything on my own, you know, going on vacation, talking on the phone, doing everything that agents do. And then I joined Keller Williams, and it was more of coming up with a team. And what I didn’t realize was I I knew a lot of the right people. I knew how to interact with them, how to impress them, you know, things like that. Was a member of the golf club, go to a large church, like, it’s like, there’s all of these circles of people. And I always had a golf shirt with my logo on it. I had pens with my logo on it, like I was in the secret agent. And I, you know, I tell people when I’m on luxury panels or things like that, I’m like, You want to also be impressive. You know, you want to have something that when they ask you, how’s the market, we have our elevator speech. I remember my first so, you know, basically what I had to do is, what did I do first do in that first 10 years that got me by success. Now I had to train the team to do that, and it was really because of a sphere based business. So we’ve come up with three categories. We’ve got the top 10 influencers, we’ve got the top 100 influencers, and then we’ve got the top 100 people to know. So three categories, and we define influencer, it’s not like social media, it’s somebody who has influence in the community, and they’ll use that influence to get you business. So there’s two parts to influencer in our world. So we actually have a tag in brevity in our CRM that says, have relationship earning a relationship. Because my first influencer, it took me three years to get into a relationship with him, where he used his influence to give me business. So it’s a long term thing. So when I started building a team, I had to figure out, all right, what did I do? Like, I need to put a system around it. I can’t just say, hey, go be good friends with the accountant in town. You know, play golf with a lot of, you know, the people that are builders. I had to say, all right, yes, go do that. But you have to be intentional about it. So we’ve got a very good sphere based. Business, the top 10 influencers, basically, those are people that are absolutely influential in the community, and they’re your allies. You know, oftentimes they’re mentors. I treated them like a mentor relationship. And then the top 100 influencers, those are tougher to maintain relationships with, because how many times as realtors, do you get a referral from somebody and they say, oh, yeah, so and so told me that you’re a good realtor and that I should live with list with you. And then they say, and then I think, Oh, I haven’t talked to so and so in three years. Like, shame on me. So it’s a way to keep track of those people that are using their influence for you, to make sure you’re thanking them, you’re staying in contact with them. And then the top 100 people to know is basically all right, you’re moving to wolfboro. Here’s 100 people that you need, you need to know, because I think we all kind of have that list. You’ve got your mortgage people, you’ve got your, you know, finance or your insurance people, but you don’t have that might be more important is the hairdresser, the dog walker, the handyman, like those people that everybody wants to know, but they’re on your list, and they’ll pick up the phone if you say, Hey, Adam told me to call you. So tell

Daren Phillipy  16:05

me, tell me, I love how you have this broken down. This is no doubt strategic in the way of breaking into a market. You kind of had to do that because you have 150 transactions in your own town. Teach me how to break into or build those relationships with the the top 10 influencers. That seems like, really that first step?

Adam Dow  16:30

Yeah, so I mean the first the first step is being intentional and identifying, right? So if there’s 20 accountants in town, you might want to make a decision, do I want to be friends and earn a relationship with the 20th account? Or do you want to do the number one accountant in town, and if they already have a realtor friend, then pick number two like they’re going to do a good job, but be intentional about who you want to go after. So we talk about the top 10 being people that you need to seek out and go to. Where they are. Are they in a charity? Are they? Do they volunteer somewhere? Are they in the golf club? You know, I’m wearing my my golf shirt. It was a bucket list item for me to join this, this club, and this is where Bruce was when I was pursuing the relationship with him. So he would call me up and say, Adam, I’m playing golf with these two, these two guys. You need to know them. Or I’ve got this woman that’s very influential in this area, you need to play golf with us. So he was intentional about me building those relationships as well. But his was the relationship that spurred all of that on, and it took me three years to get there. So top 10, you have to go find, identify, earn, and earn means you’re, you’re being impressive. You’re sending them real estate statistics. You’re selling them deals. You’re selling them sending them charity, things that are going on. You’re just staying in contact, but not with like a recipe card or something like that. You have to be impressive, and you’re dealing with them. Top 100 are probably people that are in your sphere. They’re, they’re they’re in the board that you’re already serving on there in the church you go to. They’re in the at the golf club. But you look around the room and you’re intentional about All right, I need to know that person. And then the the I teach the people that the people to know, is find one and talk to that person and say, I’m creating a five star service provider list. You’re fantastic at what you do. I want to introduce everybody that comes into this town to you and your services, because I know that you’re going to do a great job for them. Do you mind if I put your name on the list? Do you want me to put your cell phone website or whatever? And then they’ll thank you, and they say, great. And then you say, All right, you know what kind of a list I want people like you. Can you give me one name of somebody that I could call that should be on this list for newcomers to this area, and if they give the name, then that’s a very easy phone call to say, hey, so and so gave me your name. They say you’re amazing at this Can I have you on this list, and that that’s just a train. You can follow that train as far as you want. And you can do 50 calls, 100 calls, and you’re getting five star service providers, as somebody else’s opinion, who is also a five star service provider. So that’s how you build that people to know list. So,

Daren Phillipy  19:18

good dude. I love that. Love it. We were talking before we started, and you said that you’ve been working on your SEO and your pay per click for 20 plus years. Will you help for those who are looking to pick up more business on organic SEO and also strategic SEO with pay per click. Teach us some stuff.

Adam Dow  19:47

Yeah, so it’s all about unique content. It’s all about creating content around what people are searching on. You know, for me, I’ve got Lake Winnipesaukee. It was great because there’s not a lot. Lake winnipesauke is, I think there’s only one, right? So I like it. Back in the beginning, there was people that wanted to be on Lake Winnipesaukee, and I thought to myself, all right, what else can I bolt on to Lake Winnipesaukee that will give me an article to write or a category for of searches. So I wrote a whole big thing on Lake Winnipesaukee boathouses, because that’s where you can pull your boat in. You don’t have to cover it, you know, if it’s raining and you’re, you know, trying to dock the boat. Boathouses are amazing. They’re valuable. They’re expensive to build. Those are the clients that I want. So I write an article about it, and then I have a link of all the boathouses that are available on Lake Winnipesaukee. And it’s cool because, you know, one of my first big clients, he walked, I remember, he walked right in the front door of my the my old office, he he walked in, and I was like, in the back, he’s like, I’m looking for the boathouse guy. He was a big, loud car dealer type, and I know he was talking about me, but he had searched one of his ag boat house, and he used to race offshore boats. He owned a giant car dealership, and he became a client. He’s become a friend. Actually, just got invited to his This was probably 15 years ago. Just got invited to his birthday party. They’re closing down a jazz club in Portsmouth. But it’s because I knew what SEO was 20 years ago that I’m now friends with this really good guy. He’s taken us on jets and boats and, you know, things like that. So but as being as specific as you can, unique as you can in the content and providing something of value, like the list of properties are that? Are that are available? Because Google likes that, because that list is always changing, even though you’ve got some content that introduces it. So that’s good, and nowadays it’s a little bit more competition. So it’s time on task consistency, like if you do one article a week, that gives you 52 articles a year, or two articles a week, the more that you do, the better for your website. And it’s worth taking the time to do the extra like the the meta tag description, the Meta Tag Title, like, if you don’t know what those are, I’m sure you can google and figure it out, but actually getting the whole complete picture, if you label the video, you know, put the keyword in the video, if you’ve got a picture in the name, the picture the same as the keyword of the article, and now you can do you know, Google has all kinds of things saying, all right, what are the popular terms for lakewanibasaki, real estate? Write an article about every single one of the terms. Back in the day before spell check was in everything, I had an article common misspellings of Lake Winnipesaukee. So if anyone did the misspellings, they’d find my website too.

Daren Phillipy  23:04

Now you said, you said you said you did forensic analysis on your website, yeah. And you said that couple years ago that the traffic that you get on your website, you’d be paying how much?

Adam Dow  23:18

Yeah. So if they did a study, if I was paying for all the organic traffic that I’m getting, it would cost me $14,000 a month.

Daren Phillipy  23:27

Okay, so this is very substantial. You could either spend your money buying those leads, which you do on the Pay Per Click, but that organic traffic is is free as can be by just being consistent with your your activities and creating content, is that, right? Yeah,

Adam Dow  23:45

and one of the things, if you’ve got a strategy, and if you’re getting out the organic or even if you’re getting the paid, make sure that you have the analytics to show that there are people on the website like I don’t have, obviously, the traffic of a Google of Zillow or realtor.com but I’ve got a New Hampshire website, and if I can show that, I’ve got 300 people from Massachusetts that were on my website last week. Even though that’s not a big number, it’s a better number, like we talked about this, I tell my listings, it’s not necessarily what I’m going to do, it’s what I’ve already done over the last 20 years to prepare you know our audience for your house. So the more specific you are, the better. Even being more knowledgeable in the arena, explaining long tail terms is something that I’ve done forever like so there’s you got the bell curve of terms. You’ve got the New Hampshire real estate. As you know, lot of people search on that, and in Boston, I want to get out of the city New Hampshire real estate. But that buyer doesn’t know where they want to be. They don’t know what the different towns are. They don’t know really anything. They just type that in. And

Daren Phillipy  24:59

that’s. Short, that’s a short tail, that’s a short tail. Term, right?

Adam Dow  25:03

Oh, that’s the tall. That’s the That’s yeah, so that’s, that’s the top of the bell, right? It’s like, yeah, like, in here, yeah. So short, yeah, um, because there’s a lot of them, they’re expensive, you know, things like that. But if somebody searches on Soul Road, real estate, that’s a the once the most, I have a $13 million Listing coming on that, you know, that’s a very expensive road. If somebody’s typing that into Google, I’m willing to spend almost anything to get that person on my website. So boathouses on one of us, a key beaches on one of us, Aki Sewell Road, VC, Shore, bald peak, which is, you know, this golf course. You know, all of those things, if I’ve got articles about them, if I’ve got active listings about them, you know, I’m happy to spend money on that. So whether it’s organic or you’re spending money, you’re getting people to those pages. Make sure that you can actually document with Google Analytics or whatever, showing Hey, you know, for me, I show I’ve got people from Boston, I’ve got people from Greenwich, Connecticut, I’ve got people from Newton, Massachusetts, all the rich towns, and they were on my website last week. Would you like to put your house in front of them?

Daren Phillipy  26:15

So, so good and, and this is one of those things where you can’t shut your business down. Just start being an SEO geek. That’s not going to work. What you just said, I think, was the best advice is, be consistent. Provide content every single week, if it’s weekly, or if it’s bi weekly, or whatever that is, but be very specific on on the area that you’re working on and then do your other lead generation that really creates the business. This is a longer game. It’s

Adam Dow  26:45

a very long game, but it’s also, I think, that people have tons of SEO ready content in their email. They’ve sent an email that’s answering all of these questions for a buyer send. They never use that information ever again. They get the same question. They recreate their answer. Like just, just by doing some of this stuff, you probably are creating a whole bunch of template ready stuff, just by answering real estate questions. So if you bet back to some of the answers that you’ve given to your to your clients already, you know, spruce it up with chat GPT. Make sure it’s original, even though it’s coming out of chat GBT. But you know, the questions that you can ask asked over and over and over again, you want to have those on your website as well. So good,

Daren Phillipy  27:31

so good. Let’s talk a little bit about listings you you list through the whole state. What are some of the things that you do to have your listing separate from everybody else? Or how do you leverage your listings in your team? Yeah,

Adam Dow  27:44

so, I mean, one of our main things that we do in our listing presentation is say that exposure is not the problem. You’re going to be on everybody’s website. If you’re talking to different agents, if you listed me, I’m going to be on their website. And if you listed them, you know they’re going to be on my website. So exposure is not the problem going Zillow. There’s millions of people on Zillow. It’s not about getting more eyes to your property. It’s about having your property ready for the photographs, having your property ready for the for the showings, having your property ready to go out to all the different websites. So we focus on, I talk about preparation, promotion, price and professionalism. You know, preparation is their job. Promotion is my job. And I say, I just told you I’m going to blast it to the world, and everybody else is going to help me expose your property to the market. But if it’s the photos aren’t good, and if it’s not ready for showings, then it’s going to fall flat and we’re going to get stale. So I focus most of my effort because I’ve already shown the SEO like, I that, like, if you can get through the fact that it’s not going to be if I show it to somebody, like, if I call somebody in Massachusetts, hey, you got to come see the house. That’s not a marketing plan. It’s like, all right, how do we make your house present in a way that it’s going to get top dollar? So we spend a lot of time on I pay for a stager, and it’s not necessarily to bring in the furniture. It’s just a staging consultation. Because back when I came back, came over to Keller Williams, I talked to a stager. I said, Listen, I’m going to give you everyone. I’m going to write you a check every time I get a listing, but I want you to, you know, maybe discount the price a little bit, knowing you can have a bunch of business for me, and it’s going to lead to business for you. So when I’m in the property, I can say, You know what, if you listed with me, I want you to call this person and say, I’m listing with Adam Dow. He told me that you can come over and give me a whole house consultation. And I tell the owner, she looks at every room through a camera lens. You’re looking at every room for a lifestyle, how you live, you know what’s comfortable? She’s looking at it to drive you more money, like so if you take it out of lifestyle, and they’re decorating to let’s make you more money. So we talk about that. So that’s the preparation promotion. Go through the marketing plan, and I find that sellers are happy to reduce their price if they’re confident that those first two are taken care of. And that’s how I frame it. I say, you know, I focus on price. We kind of have this market range, but if you want to go a little bit higher, I will commit to all of my promotion. If you commit to all your preparation. And if that doesn’t work, then we’ll talk about price again, like they don’t mind it being the last conversation. They just don’t want it to be like the first conversation. And then I talk about being professional, like wanting to show up, cars, clean, dressed appropriately. And with the other big thing that we talk about is our brochure. Like I can talk to I’m blue in the face when I’m talking to the people, because we have showings. We don’t have lock boxes, but even so, they’re going to remember maybe a quarter of what I’ve told them, if they’re smart. So we make sure that our brochure and we bring a copy of it, even if it’s a $300,000 house, our brochure is going to accurately depict every single value that you have in this house. Because if, if they go back and they’re trying to decide on buying between three or four different houses, we want to make sure that yours not only presented well when they were at the property, but presents well when they’re thinking about making an offer and for how much so it’s all about the process. It’s not necessarily about the marketing, because if I talk all about the marketing, and it doesn’t sell three months from now, we’re only going to talk about marketing. But if I talk about all about the process and the strategy, and you know how the price might be a little bit higher, and that we would talk about price later, we can just continue that conversation three months from now, and I say, I no one deals worth any any relationship like I want to make sure that I’ve got a good relationship with you now, but more importantly, I want to have a good relationship with you in five months. So if you want to go on and an aggressive price, I’m okay with it, as long as our relationship can stay the same and you don’t point fingers at me or my marketing five months from now, like, if we don’t have to have a finger pointing conversation in five months, I’ll go with your price.

Daren Phillipy  32:16

That’s That’s funny, but it

Adam Dow  32:19

works, because then I when they start pointing fingers, I’m like, Hey, remember that? Remember that conversation that I had five months ago, the finger pointing? You’re doing it. I

Daren Phillipy  32:27

love it. All right. Let’s talk about the leverage portion, and specifically, I think this was this when you I know you were wearing the shirt, but Thanks, Jay, reminded me of it. You have partnered with place. Give us a little 32nd overview of what is place, and then why you were able to partner, or why you chose to partner with place.

Adam Dow  32:54

So I use the analogy of, I built a house, right? So I got a first floor. You know, we did, we did a bunch of deals in 2022 like COVID, all that kind of stuff. I think we did two 20 million or something like that. And so, really good first floor, but I was at a really big pain level, like I had all of these hats. Do I go recruit somebody? Do I redo my training program? Do I pay the bills? Like, do the books look at my income statement? Like, all these different things. When you get a big business, like, it is a big business, like, it’s not just one realtor, and we’re not just selling houses, we’re doing all kinds of things in in that’s behind the scenes, and all that kind of stuff. And I’m like, Alright, I need to reinforce my foundation, or put a new foundation underneath this really nice house that I built, but it’s only one floor, and I could have done that. I could have gone out and hired a director of sales, hired and, you know, HR company maybe got an account, like all of these different things. But I was talking to, you know, I’ve been in relationship with Ben, and was introduced to Chris during the process. And the decision came down to me putting this new foundation underneath my team, which is painful, right? It takes time, takes time away from selling stuff. And I was like, All right, I could do it myself, or I could have place. Come in. They do they do my websites, they do my books. They do all my HR, they’re constantly updating their training. I use brevity, so all the training is is for my team, so I can send and they’re always coming up with certifications, like they’ve got a conversions class right now. They get negotiations, like all of these things, but it’s geared right to my team, like a lot of the trainings out there right now, like when I go to family reunion, it’s basically I could do this, I could do that, I could do this, I could do that, which I could but it takes time and effort on my side. I’m I value time almost as much as money in business, right? So if I can give up some of my earnings, i. To get some more time back. That’s basically what place does, like they do all the websites. I mean, we’ve talked about SEO. I was big on SEO. Place provides me an ad word advisor that I meet with on FaceTime and been on Zoom every two weeks, you know. So it’s taken a lot of the things that I was doing put a new foundation in what I instead of putting maybe another floor on that I could have done by doing it now, I can go 10 stories up, because it’s it’s all them on the foundation. Yeah,

Daren Phillipy  35:29

so I love the way you describe that, because you We did talk about your admin being light for the size of your your team, and the reason why you’re able to be light on your admin is because you have a partner that provides all this leverage for you to be able to have that like light wouldn’t, isn’t that? Isn’t that right?

Adam Dow  35:53

Yeah, and I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it that way, but I think you’re right. I did a, I just, I was doing my recruiting kind of materials presentation or whatever, and I basically wrote down all the people that I have a relationship with, because I’m big. Like, when my my son went to college, I’m like, Dude, this is important. Like, when you go to college, you’re going to hang out with some people, and those relationships might last a lifetime, right? So make sure you go to places that we will find people that you want to have relationships for a lifetime. So be very careful about your initial earning of relationships, you know? So for me, I’m like, I’m huge on relationships. I’m huge on partnerships. So I wrote down here’s all the relationships that I’ve earned over the last 20 years that I have their cell phone number. I can call them. They give me advice. I hang in the same room, and I’ve got probably 30 names of place from AdWords training people from Ben and Chris to Chris Stewart, who runs the mortgage like the head of the AdWords, the head of design, the head of all of these different departments in my team, gets the whole benefit of that.

Daren Phillipy  37:11

So cool. So cool. You said one of the things that was really valuable for you is that you’re able to leverage your your your relationships with your it’s not a hand off with with your luxury agents that are across across the state tell us a little bit about how you’re able to you didn’t call them handoffs, but go deeper into that, because when you’re doing big production, handing it off is nervous, a little nerve wracking. Yeah,

Adam Dow  37:44

no. And I think, you know, when you have a luxury business, those types of clients really want to talk to the person whose names on the sign. And so there was always the, why are you giving me a buyer agent? Like I want to talk to the boss. I want to talk to the person that’s, you know, I read the bio on I don’t want to talk to somebody that I don’t even know, right? So it was a problem, you know, because, you know, my, my last year as a single agent, I did 27 sales for 23 million, you know. So it was mostly, mostly luxury. And so I’ve got these clients and listings that are going to bring this, this clientele in that they don’t want to have the handoff, they don’t want to be sent to a buyer agent, even though the buyer is probably better at, you know, being a buyer agent, than I am. So we came up with some terms like so instead of listing agent, we call it property expert. Instead of buyer agent, we call it area expert. So when somebody calls and says, I’m looking in the wolfboro area, I said, fantastic. I can’t wait to work with you. I can’t wait to introduce you to Sonia. She’s the area expert for wolfboro. She’s been on my team for for eight years. We’ve done a lot of deals together, so I’m bringing some to the team. I’m not handing her off to a different agent, like I’ve got my responsibilities. I’m still helping with negotiation. I’m still helping with you know, I say the power of the conference call is amazing, because in the beginning, I was doing a lot of conference calls, especially when you’re getting people up and running in real estate like Sonia doesn’t need a lot of conference calls now, but I’m actually doing one tomorrow with her zoom and but if you’re a team leader and you’re a luxury team leader, you shouldn’t be doing any phone calls on your own with clients, because that means you have to do all of the work of all the action items that come from That phone call, but if you even have somebody listening to say, Hey, I’ve got my area expert on the phone, you know, just in case, there’s questions that come up that they’re better at answering, and then you hang up the phone, and the area experts doing everything, because they’re really doing all the work for the client. So if I’ve got 20 people like that, we did 200 something to. Was last year. I think I went to three closings. So it’s, it’s not that I’m seventh level or anything. It’s just that’s our structure. We have people that have responsibilities for doing certain things. And it’s, it’s actually better for the client.

Daren Phillipy  40:16

So good dude. I love the way we put them. What have you learned over the last 12 months, running your team

Adam Dow  40:26

culture like it’s kind of overused these days, but you know, hiring the right people, being patient, being being in business that with people you want to be in business with, just not who are going to provide big business for you. I’m really excited about the team that we have right now. I’ve lost a couple of producers, and you know, some you’re like, that kind of stinks, and some you’re like, you know what? I’m going to sleep better. You know, you’ve got the people that you’re like, how am I going to feed them tomorrow? So they’re not complaining. So I’ve been doing kind of the slow and steady, having the right people, and I’ve learned that it’s probably better to if you’ve got the spidey sense that it’s not working out. You know, solve it sooner than later. You know, one of the reasons I don’t like recruiting is because I don’t like telling people No. So I’m afraid if I start talking to somebody and they’re not a good fit for the team, then I have to tell them no. Which I hate, which is another good thing of place, like with this. EA, they did the indeed, they did all the interviews. They did the screening, and they sent me three agents, three, three people, and I interviewed one, hired the first one because she was good, not because I was afraid to say no, but so. But you know, once you if you do have somebody in your world, it just isn’t the right fit, there’s not enough money to make it the right fit. Like, even if they’re a top producer, or whatever, it’s just, it’s because if they leave it leaves room for somebody else, like, you’re gonna have people that that come in that are very happy to fill a gap, especially if it’s a big gap. Like so sometimes we’re afraid of the big gaps being created by somebody leaving, but that creates a big gap for you to fill. Right

Daren Phillipy  42:15

love it. Little side note, in junior high, you didn’t send your buddy over to break up with your girlfriend that you or the girl that you had a crush on or, okay, that’s why I’ve been

Adam Dow  42:26

staying in relationships.

Daren Phillipy  42:28

I married her. What are you talking about? What do you feel like you need to learn? Um,

Adam Dow  42:38

I am learning. You know, the I avoid conflict, which is why I could never be a lawyer, but I’m a great realtor, because I’m creating Win, win scenarios all over the place, right? So, but I’m learning some of these things that are important. You know, fierce conversations is a great one. You know, one of the courses to take and in prioritizing is huge, like my procrastination is actually marketing and cost per click and all that stuff i It interests me, but I probably, at times, work on that because I like it, versus doing something that I don’t like. So, you know, it doesn’t get doesn’t get better, but I’m always trying to learn. I’m always trying to read a book, to listen actually, I’m not a reader. Listen to a book and go to the classes. I’m trying to be like one of the words that I used a couple years ago, and it’s sprung back up. And in our, in our in our team is proximity. You know, being in proximity with people that you want to learn from being in proximity with people that you want to do business with, people being in proximity to people that you enjoy being in proxy or enjoy being hanging out with. I think sometimes we’re working so hard we lose track of those relationships, of people that you just you can have fun with, right? So I’m learning to be in proximity with things that bring me business, things that bring me joy, and things that bring me education.

Daren Phillipy  44:16

Love it. Love it. Jay’s getting all excited. He’s all wound up and are ready to ask questions. I’m going to give them one more so, because I’m from Washington and and I’ve never been New Hampshire. If, if I, if I’ve got a day to come to New Hampshire, where do I need to go visit?

Adam Dow  44:35

What time of year you’re coming? Four Seasons.

Daren Phillipy  44:38

Let’s, let’s stick with like, late spring, early summer, probably

Adam Dow  44:45

you’re coming to my town. You’re definitely coming to my you went sideways. What happened

Daren Phillipy  44:48

there? Yeah, I’ll fix it.

Adam Dow  44:52

So if you’re coming to wolfboro, we were on a 44,000 acre lake. That Lake winnipesauke is 44,000 acres. There’s there’s eight towns that surround it. It’s crystal clear. So swimming and boating and sailing and all that kind of stuff. If you come in the wintertime, they’re skiing. We get over 100 in the summer. We get under zero in the winter. So if you want to come see the foliage, beautiful in the mountains, I never thought I would stay in New Hampshire. Like, this place is awful. It’s boring, and then you move away, like, oh, not everybody can go on their boat end after work, you know? So it’s actually a pretty cool place. No income tax, no sales tax, no dividends and interest tax. I know in Las Vegas you don’t have income tax, but we don’t have sales tax or interest in dividends, tax either.

Daren Phillipy  45:41

Wow. Okay, that that’s actually very good sales pitch there. Adam, appreciate it. Um, okay, for all you have questions, raise your hand. Jay, he’s got his he’s that kid in class, that middle way through the question or the the class. He’s raising his hand. Jay, do your thing.

Jay Hendrix  46:02

So I love how you talk about how you’ve made decisions. But what is a decision that now, on this side of it, you wish you made it a lot sooner, and it would have a bigger impact on your on your business.

Adam Dow  46:17

So being a marketing guy, I love creativity. You know luxury love you know the luxury clients love creativity. I always was, redesigning my brochure, redesigning my website, redesigning all of this, which is all good, but I wish I was less creative and more systematic in the beginning, like I tell a new agent, the first thing you should do is list everything that you are going to do in a listing process and a listing checklist that does a couple of things. One, you can use that for your listing presentation, figure out things that you’re going to do that no one else does. If you’re a new agent, you probably have more time. So what you can tell in a new client or a listing is you can say, I’m going to call every single top agent in Las Vegas and tell them about your property. Lots of I’ve found that lots of those top agents don’t have a lot of time to check MLS, so they might miss it. So I’m going to commit to you that I’m going to do a handwritten note, or I’m going to do a phone call or whatever. So if that’s part of your listing checklist, and that’s something that you do that’s different than everybody else, you know. So So do that because I was, I was doing things, you know, I do one thing cool for this person and another thing cool that for that person. And I think that’s why I was stuck at a lower volume. Luckily I had the, I mean, lower units. Luckily, I had the volume to make up for it. But as soon as I started systemizing things, I was better able to hire people, better able to get listings based on systems versus creative stuff. So that’s one thing that I would have done a little bit differently.

47:58

Very, very good, very good.

47:59

One tag, one more because I don’t

Daren Phillipy  48:01

see it. That’s fine that nobody else is raising their hands. Okay. Well, great. Well, welcome back to the OTA live there chirping in Adam’s ear for the like 45 minutes. Hey, Daren, let’s go.

Jay Hendrix  48:15

I love that whole the whole concept of the way place really, really gives you leverage by going out and finding your the people that are that are supporting your team and giving you the top three, that is like bananas. So I love that. Do they also do that on agent side as

Adam Dow  48:39

well. So they, they, they have a software that has you type in a job description, and they actually, they give you job descriptions and they modify it for your team. And then they they have a software that sends it to the indeed, it’s like all of the different things. It can come into the CRM with a tag, and they can have an auto plan that goes out. They actually have an AI that will, that’ll talk to the candidates like they’re they’re real people. I haven’t jumped into all of that yet, because I have the smaller operation staff here. I’m just growing slower. But this year is the year that I’m actually going to start recruiting and turn some of that stuff on, especially when I get an EA I’m an under promise, over deliver type person, and so I know that there are teams out there that are absolutely crushing it with the place recruiting stuff. I’m just, I’m just haven’t done it

Jay Hendrix  49:40

yet. Yeah. So, so is that the same as the, as the recruiting tool that’s in brevity.

Adam Dow  49:46

It is, it is, there’s a couple more aspects to it that I think we get that, yeah? Like, I think we beta test it, we get it first, and eventually it makes it out to brevity.

Jay Hendrix  49:57

Yeah, I played with the with the brevity that I’m. Not I’m not using I’m using it to track my conversations. I’m not really using it to generate the conversations yet. So anyway, that’s good, awesome. All right, anybody else want to ask questions, or I’ll just

Daren Phillipy  50:13

keep talking. Oh, there you go. Laura, great, great question. Jay, Laura, do your thing.

Speaker 1  50:18

Well, I was just Googling the boat houses. So I’ve is this is, like, this a frame thing over the water?

Adam Dow  50:26

Yes. So

Speaker 1  50:28

there. So do you do the people own the parcel directly in front of this long walkway? And then do they build like, a coffer dam or something to be able to build in

Adam Dow  50:37

that area? So a lot of the boathouses that are over the water. They used to, yeah, they used to build, like, put a dam in so they could actually build, or they built on top of docks and things like that. You’re not allowed to do that anymore. You can build a boathouse if you dig it into the land, because technically, if it’s in the lake, that’s state waters. So now you have to build it on your property. So you can do a 30 by 30. So if you get I sold a boathouse that was 42 by 42 over the water, and it had three bedrooms, a kitchen, fireplace and a place for the boat. It was amazing, and it had a really nice house behind it. And that was a lead from I remember I was earning the relationship with Bruce Correll. I shouldn’t, well, no one knows him, but Bruce is my, my mentor, and he’s just an awesome guy. He’s the one that took me golfing and things like that, and but he had his friend, you know, sitting on the dock. And I was, like, very nervous, because I was still earning the relationship. And I was like, pulling up slowly. It’s always awkward when you’re in a boat, like pulling up, the kind of staring at you. Who is this guy pulling up? And I pulled up, started talking, and the person I was sitting with, Bruce was the guy that owned this big 42 by 42 boathouse. So it was a lead. But those boathouses can be amazing. They can be in the land, they can be over the water, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1  51:55

Yeah, they look awesome. I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s good, good to know something like that exists.

Daren Phillipy  52:02

Yeah, exactly. I’ve never thanks for pointing me this direction, Laura, I wasn’t, I was thinking it was just like, oh, the little like, you know, well, house, whatever these are, it’s

Speaker 1  52:12

a full on house. And you just pull your boat underneath, and then you live upstairs, right? So that’s, that’s pretty awesome

Daren Phillipy  52:19

looking. Jeez Louis, we do not have that up in Washington. Very cool. One I have one last you have any more questions? Laura, you want to talk about boathouses more? I am curious. Jay got me thinking about your systems. What’s the most valuable system that you’ve said you’ve been able to implement that has really helped you in your business.

Adam Dow  52:45

Back in the beginning was the listing checklist is like, All right, yeah, what do I want to do every single time? What do I want to hire to because when you’re hiring your first assistant, if you don’t have a checklist for you’re going to do for a listing, then they just sit there while they’re waiting for you to do something and but more recently, we’ve been concentrating on, I was going to say, like feedback, like, as the listing days on market goes up, you know, feedback super important. So getting in the habit of putting it in one place, really, you know, tracking who’s been to open houses. I’ve got one agent. She, she’ll have the open house sheet, and she’ll save that sheet for two years, and then when she lists something else in that neighborhood, she calls everybody on the sheet, like, I know I met you two years ago. You know, you were coming to this neighborhood and and she’s done deals like that. But can you imagine getting that phone call saying, I can’t believe you remember that like so having the systems around the activities of the listing process and keeping track of who’s coming in, how they’re coming in, you know, tagging the people appropriately, that’s just been super important

Daren Phillipy  54:00

that is, actually, I love that that’s a little nugget that you could just take and put in your pocket. Well, we are dying to there’s people that are dying to send you referrals to New Hampshire. What’s the best way for someone who’s watching or listening to send you a referral? Adam, Adam dow.com.

Adam Dow  54:21

Is my website. If you would follow me on Instagram, it’s Adam dow.com Luckily, I’m at the age where, when interest when the internet was coming out, I could get my name all over the place. So Facebook, Adam dow.com or slash Adam down. So yeah, if you could follow me on Instagram, and if you’ve got buyers, send them to my website or my cell phone number is 603-867-7311, call me. And it truly is a better process, like if they’re looking in Meredith, New Hampshire, I’ve got an agent there if. Looking in the sea coast of New Hampshire. I’ve got an agent there, and what I commit to people is, if I don’t have an agent there, and there’s a better agent that I can refer people to, I will. I’ve got a network of people in areas that don’t have an agent

Daren Phillipy  55:14

yet. Love it. Jay, you are you are right. Adam is smart. Dude. You did not disappoint Adam, I loved hanging out with you, dude. You’re super good guy and freaking so smart man. So I really appreciate your time sharing with us, and I’m glad we’re

Adam Dow  55:32

friends. Awesome. Yeah, I’m glad we made the connection. Okay, that’s

Daren Phillipy  55:36

it, guys. I will see you guys next week. Ooh, check this out next week. So we’ve got a guest host, not Daren Lee Phillipy, but we’ve got Matt miyali, who’s been on there. How do I say it again? Matt mialli, Matt mieli, who’s been on the OT before. He’s actually the guest host, because he’s interviewing his buddy, Eric, who is the expansion master for kW, and so should be a fun one. So be good to them guys, and I will see you guys couple weeks. Okay, there you have it. Another great ot every single week, every Tuesday at noon Pacific, you get to hear some great stuff. Otherwise, you have to wait, like, a few months to get from get the information. So jump in the room. Now. Little side note, am I right? Are those boat houses at Lake? Wooden passaki? Pretty dang cool. They need to put those all over the country, but maybe it wouldn’t be that special anymore, but check that out. I think we have to agree, pretty cool way to to go to the lake right now. You guys know, I don’t do this just as a hobby. I do this because I run one of the largest real estate companies here in Vegas, which is Keller Williams, the marketplace. And I spend most of my time coaching and helping non kW agents with the business, specifically to help grow teams and build teams. So if you’re wanting to build a team, or you are building a team and you need some ways to be able to make your business more efficient and get some of your life back, contact me. My number is 702-706-4949. And help you out. That’s what I do. Even if you’re not in Vegas, I can help you. So contact me, and we can be effs, and I can help you through your real estate business. And that’s pretty much it, guys, I am done talking, and I can’t wait next week is going to be a good one. You heard me say at the very, very end, you have a guest host from one of the previous guests, so you’re gonna love it anyway. Tune in. Can’t wait to see you guys a couple weeks. Keep on rock and I’ll talk to you guys soon. Until then, glad to do some good.

Announcer  57:54

Thanks for coming to the OT. Remember, you can join us every Tuesday at 1130 Pacific, Standard Time on Zoom, gain zoom, access the OT archive and other team [email protected] See you next week. You