Podcast 9 – Real Estate and Mortgages with Mario Quintero

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: Welcome everyone to the Interactive Entrepreneur podcast, sponsored by Interactive Accountants, where we help minimize your taxes and measure your success on today's show. We're joined by Mario from STR and Tanner mortgage Corp, as well as being a licensed real estate professional since March of 2005 on the real estate.

Since November of 2002 on the mortgage side. So Mario's killing him both on lending the money and helping you find the home. Exactly. Since prior to that mayor's experience was with RJ Reynold's tobacco company for 26 years, 27 years, actually, excuse me, where he was a divisional sales manager, responsible for all volume distribution and share of market within the operating unit, about 105 million.

Mario welcome to the Interactive Entrepreneur show.

MARIO QUINTERO: Thank you, Matt. It's a pleasure to be here.

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: I appreciate you coming on. So Mario, we're gonna get right into it. As you know, when we spoke about prior to the show is that we ask all of our entrepreneurs for basic questions. The first question that we're gonna ask you today is what is the biggest success in your career and what are a.

MARIO QUINTERO: So I would say that the biggest success that I've had in the last 20 years, cause we we've been in business 20 years. This November is the way that we structured the business. We structured the business to be a long term by referral only type of boutique operation. So when I first got started, I went out and looked for the best possible coach.

Or coaching company that I could find in the United States that could help me build a practice, which was primarily a referral based type of company. I don't like chasing people. I don't like getting on the phone and calling prospects. I don't like following prospect slip, uh, scripts. So I wanted my phone to ring on a regular basis.

Without me having to call and chase anybody down. And I've been successful in doing that. Uh, over the last 20 years, we do not buy leads and all our clients are primarily referred to us by other clients

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: and having gone through that coaching process. And now having developed this business after 20 years of just being referral driven, what is that?

MARIO QUINTERO: What it's taught me is that regardless of the economic conditions, especially that affect the lending and real estate industries that I'm very involved in, regardless of the economic conditions, my phone never stops ringing. Gotcha.

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: So now flip side of the coin, Mario, what's your worst failure in your career and what did it teach you?

MARIO QUINTERO: My worst failure in the last 20 years was attempt. To set up a real estate partnership with two different brokers. Mm-hmm , uh, they were dependent on me for their own success and I had to cut those relationships fairly quickly. And I would say that those were my two biggest failures because not only did it happen once it happened twice, it cost me money.

It cost me. It taught me a lesson that, you know, I'm not designed to be a partnership type of person. Gotcha. Uh, you know, when the other people do not work, like I work, it just doesn't work for you. It doesn't work for me. We have a problem and that's it, you know, it's, it's just the way it

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: is. I know, especially me as an entrepreneur as well, you know, I, I have staff that at some day, I really do hope they come, they become a partner in my business, but at the same time, I've had partners in the past and out of those two relationships as well.

They haven't worked because the people just necess well, in my case, not necessarily everybody's cases because there are partnerships out there that work, but in my case, and what it sounds like wasn't your case as well is that we were married to people for lack of a better word that weren't necessarily committed to the business as much as we were.

Absolutely. All right. Well, third question, Mario. If you could share with our listeners, your number one business tip right now that you think listeners on our show would benefit from.

MARIO QUINTERO: So you need to treat your clients as five star V I P clients every single time. If you wanna make a difference for yourself and differentiate your business, you need to do this because the majority of business owners out there.

Do not believe in going the extra mile I'm talking.

I have found that our business has sustained and grown for 20 years because of the level of personalized service that we give to our clients. And I see it all the time with business owners that we purchase their services when they're starting. They will bend their back to go and do anything we ask of.

And after their business grows, they don't continue to service like that. Gotcha.

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: You know, one of the struggles, I think that every entrepreneur has starting off is like trying to get over that hurdle of having that first client or second clients. And to your point, you know, they will bend over their back.

You know what I mean? But the other side of that flip coin is. You know, once you do become what we'll call like a seasoned or a more experienced entrepreneur, is that you still need to maintain that to your point, like a five star level service, or, you know, if you're not gonna be able to maintain a five star service, it should be at least three and a half, four on an ongoing basis.

You know what I mean? So that the customers feel their, their, their needs are being attended to the client, whatever you wanna call it. And the. Product the service, whatever it may be you're you're selling or, or, or doing is of that level so that you can keep those clients in your ecosystem.

MARIO QUINTERO: Not only retain those clients, but those are the clients that are gonna refer you to their friends and family.

Exactly. And they're coworkers. So unless you are cultivating your, your, your list of clients, Those are the ones you need to focus on. You don't need to focus on strangers, you focus on the people that know you and that you've already served.

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: Gotcha. So having heard that, what do you say right now is probably the biggest challenge facing you? Not only in the real estate side of things, but also in the lending side.

MARIO QUINTERO: So like I said earlier, our. Pipeline of clients is usually pretty stable regardless of economic conditions. Because when we went through the 2008 to 2010 real estate collapse, we kind of reinvented ourselves by adding additional products and services.

And then again, between 2012, 2014, there was like another hiccup in our business. Once again, we reinvented ourselves and now we've got this, uh, interest rate situation, which is affecting a lot of people. Uh, but you know what, we're fortunate because like I said earlier, our referral based business continues to come in regardless of market conditions.

So we're working with as many clients today as we were three months ago. Gotcha. So that's the beauty of building a referral.

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: Okay. So, and to, to answer that question in a little bit of a summary right now, the challenges that you're facing are really just more of like market based conditions that no matter what in your industry, they're gonna go up, they're gonna go down.

They can't change that fact, but the consistency that's always been there has been the fact that based building your business based on referrals, hasn't impacted you really? It, it seems like at.

MARIO QUINTERO: That's basically it, the, the only thing right now that would be a challenge is the, uh, sometime the client perception of what they hear on TV.

Okay. Okay. So, you know, once we discuss their concerns, clarify it for them and, you know, let 'em know where we are today and what the potential solution could be in the future. Once they conduct a business today, we always give 'em an option for later. Once they understand that they're pretty comfortable.

And one of the things I suggest is really stop watching TV because there's a lot of people on there, especially on the business channels that do not have a clue of what the hell they're talking about. There's some very good ones. What out of doubt, but there's many that don't have a clue. What.

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: Which is why we encourage everyone to listen to podcasts, not TV, right? Uh, well, listen, Mario, I really appreciate you taking the time today to meet with us at the Interactive Entrepreneur. Uh, if you'd like any further information on Mario's business, his real estate business, his mortgage business, Mario, where can people reach you?

MARIO QUINTERO: Our office number is (305) 598-1600. And my cell is (305) 588-0451. We love to answer your questions, whatever you have.

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: Mario, could you just repeat those as numbers? One more time for our listeners?

MARIO QUINTERO: Sure. The office number is (305) 598-1600. And my personal cell number is (305) 588-0451.

MATTHEW SHEIBLER: Thank you, Mario. We appreciate you being on the Interactive Entrepreneur Podcast.

Let's give Mario Quintero A. Little cheer and again, we appreciate all your listeners out there taking the time to listen to our podcast. Once again, this is Matt sheer with the Interactive Entrepreneur sponsored by Interactive Accountants. We already help minimize your taxes and measure success. Thank you everyone. Take care.