How to Build a Real Estate Business on Generosity (Without Going Broke)

21 closings in one quarter, zero paid leads. No Zillow, no cold calls, and no ad spend. Our guest today spent years as a missionary living off faith and other people’s generosity. Then he got his real estate license. And he did something that absolutely should not work. He took that exact same playbook, no leads, no generosity, and he walked himself straight into a commission business and it’s producing. So here’s the question we’re going to be pulling on today. Can you actually build a real estate business on generosity without going broke? Stay with me because by the end of this episode, my co-host Merrill, who happens to be this man’s coach, is going to prove to you that what looks like luck is actually a system. And we’re going to hand you three plays that you can steal before you get out of your car. Michael, before Merrill and I get into your business, introduce yourself. Who are you? Where do you serve? And how does missionary, how does a missionary end up selling houses in Madison, Wisconsin?

Great question. So yeah, my name is Michael Leeson. I live in Madison, Wisconsin. I’m originally from a small town in West Texas. My wife Emma is amazing. She’s a home birth midwife. So lots of lots of activity in our home. We’ve got five incredible kids from ages 22 down to 11. So we definitely stay busy. We spend a lot of time in the wilderness whenever we can. And uh yeah, just live live a full active life. So that’s a quick take on what we’re up to today. Uh yeah, in terms of the background. So when I graduated from high school, I did not like I just rejected the status quo. I didn’t want the American dream or any of the nonsense. I wanted to live a life of meaning. And uh that’s really what I was obsessed with at that time. And um through a whole process, I ended up joining uh what’s kind of like the Christian Peace Corps, more or less, but joined an organization called Youth with a Mission or YWAM, for anyone that’s that’s familiar with that. And um we so over the over the next 19 years, uh my wife and I served in over 30 nations, uh, doing a lot of teaching and mentoring, primarily kind of young, pouring into young leaders, um, and doing a lot of community development work and just inviting people to know and follow Jesus with their lives, um, kind of all over the world. So, and then around 2019, it was time for some change. I had been involved in real estate in terms of management, ran uh a couple of Airbnbs and done the various things. Um, and my brother-in-law was actually the broker owner of a of a real estate firm, and which was part of the reason I didn’t want to get into real estate. I didn’t want to join the family business, you know, my ego was was there. So, anyway, through a whole process,

decided that that was the way to go. But I got into real estate primarily to drive our investment that we wanted to be doing, and um did not even intend to be to have much involvement in the sales side, and then it just kind of took off and took on a life of its own. And here we are today. Excellent. You mentioned your years as a missionary, and I encourage anybody who’s listening right now, if you want to hear all about Michael’s story, he was recently on our friend Matt Farnum’s podcast, the One Life Podcast. I encourage you to go listen to Michael’s episode. Um, I think you’ll get a lot out of it. But, you know, kind of touching on your your life as a missionary before real estate, what did that teach you that your competitors maybe will never understand uh, you know, in a sales course?

Oh man, how long do you have? Uh so some of this is internal and some of it’s external. Um and so internally, I mean, my you know, I’m just gonna be as honest as possible. I think that like the big turning point for me was uh really grounded in my faith, like living and working from a place of acceptance and belonging and not working, so working from that rather than for it. Okay, so that was a big turning point in my life when uh when I began to approach life from a place of being love, from love, from acceptance, from belonging, rather than for those things. And so what that did, I think, was protected me as I jumped into the for-profit or business side that uh, you know, it just kind of protected me from running at this in a way that’s looking for approval. I mean, Matt, you mentioned Matt Farnum, you know, he’ll mention that like the business will hand you a scoreboard, it will hand you a playbook, and our the status quo is just to run with that and follow it, unless we have something different in our lives. So I think it just gave me a framework for what greatness and success looks like for me in my life, so that I don’t get caught up in the scoreboard of the industry kind of all all around me. Um, so that was that was kind of on the inside and on the outside, I think just like, you know, serving and like this whole framework of approaching life and work to serve and not be served, to provide more than we, to give more than we take, to um, you know, approach it with generosity. In terms of finances, you know, we learned lots of lessons about, you know, just living by faith, living on a shoestring. Like there’s no reason, there’s so many situations where we shouldn’t have been able to make our mortgage payment and we did, and they or to buy that flight to that place and and it worked out, or just seeing provision come up like miraculously, to be honest. And so what that did was just grounded me in this perspective that, like, you know what, provision can come from anything, you know, and I believe that like from a place of like trusting God, like provision, abundance is out there, and it’s just kind of a matter of, oh, there’s so much opportunity out there, it’s just a matter of us kind of having the the vision and the and the perspective to see it. So um as it pertains to like I as it pertains to business, you know, like to I think you can test me on this like next week, but I think I can say with honesty, if it all goes away, I’ll be okay. You know, like we we’ve rebuilt before, recreated. So like I don’t need this business, I don’t need the next commission to build my my ego to make me feel okay, or even for thank God for the provision of my family. Therefore, I can approach it with generosity and from a place of abundance rather than scarcity. And so I think that that was probably the biggest lesson, you know, in terms of finances that has helped us kind of in business is just to be able to say with honesty, like, you know what, we don’t need it. We don’t need it. So I can walk away, I can say no, you can say no, our relationship is still gonna be intact.

Um commission breath. We’ll carry on and go. What’s that? The commission breath. Basically, no commission breath. Yeah, so it’s it’s a daily practice, right? This is not just like a one-time thing, but like a daily practice of just like coming, even honestly, like laying in bed this morning. My I was disciplined, it was earlier. My daughter was sick last night, it was earlier than I wanted to get up. And my first, I was like, I just paused and was like, thank you, God, that I am accepted and loved. That’s my that’s what I’m like starting the day from, rather than me like running after it, kneeting, and trying to earn it. And I didn’t feel that in the moment, but I stopped to to reiterate that. And then I got up and made coffee after that, you know.

Now, I I wanna I want to back up a quick second because uh, you know, the the the missionary background is so cool, but you’re just one of the most interesting people that I have the privilege of coaching. You you you you you you mentioned briefly that you’ve got five kids, which is no small feat, and and it seems to me from the outside looking in, you seem like just amazing parents, you know, and and you you have such a good relationship with your kids. You and I have talked a lot about these little dates that you do with them one-on-one. I mean, you put so much effort into that. But then also you don’t mention that, you know, I’d love for you to mention that you’re like an extreme marathon runner, and aren’t you training for like an Iron Man right now?

And the last, I really want you to tell us just one thing really quickly about your vacations, your guys’ backcountry stuff that you do. I mean, there’s so many interesting things. I I really want our audience to know these things about you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my wife and I believe firmly that good things happen when we get outside together. And we need to, you know, we need the to step away from the the haste and the hurry and the screens and all this stuff. So our yearly family bonding time is a two-week wilderness trip. So uh so in early, well, for for a couple weeks in August, we’re headed to Southern California to the Wimanoosh Wilderness, just outside of Durango, and uh we’re heading up into the mountains there. So that’s that’s our yearly like we’re gonna come together. Um, so we’ve got, you know, there’s there’s the unity side of that, there’s the challenge side, there’s the awe and beauty. Um, and I think that all of those things are like these core ingredients for maintaining cohesion and and intimacy as a family, you know. So those are things that that we try to like design our our our times together, kind of incorporating, if that makes sense.

Kristi, what do you think our teenagers would say if we’re going on a two-week in the mountains, backpacking, no cell reception, no internet, uh, no running water, like sledding in, like you guys, you’ve done this in the snow, you’ve done, I mean, this is hardcore. Yeah, dig, dig your, yeah, you gotta dig your hole to take care of your business in the wilderness, you know, all that. I cannot imagine our kids. Uh I I it sounded so beautiful. Do your kids like it or or do they complain the whole time? It’s it’s mixed, and there’s a little bit of a detox period. You know, there’s a couple of days, even for me, you know, there’s a period of of kind of detox, and then it’s like the first time that you see, you know, I have this this memory of we’re in the Tetons, like up on a pass, and the full moon is coming up over there, over the over the mountain, and and our kids just slowly migrated over to just sit and take this in together. And uh I was like, wow, this is it. Like, this is it. Like when I just think it’s so important for us to be able to stand in awe, you know. And I know, Mirror, like you’ve been digging into astronomy and and uh and like I’m inspired by the same thing, yeah. To regularly have the experience to feel small and stand in awe, as well as take on challenge and and you know, get extended time together, it’s important.

So I love it. So for everybody who’s listening, I know you’re already like, I want to meet Michael, right? Uh what you need to know is that he is running a handful of plays that anybody can copy. So as we get as we actually get into these plays, Merrill’s gonna kind of pull apart each one. So that way, you know, come Monday, you guys can you can you can implement. So I want to talk about play number one. So your wife Emma, who you mentioned, runs a birth work practice, uh birth work practice. Merrill called it a mid-wifery, wifery? I don’t know how do you say it?

Yes, wifery, not wifery. Wifery. Okay, I learned that quickly. So uh so she’s incredibly successful, booked out for months ahead, and her clients somehow become your clients. And I’d love for you to actually walk us through that. How does that loop work? Yeah, so to be honest with you, I mean, I wish I could say, like, hey, we had this grand strategic plan. Like, we’ve just kind of like fumbled our way through it and chased after what seemed most interesting to us and uh where we could serve other people and whatever. So that’s how we came to this. January 1st, 2024. She um she launched her practice. January 24, that same day, I went independent as an agent and started building my own team. Prior to that, I had worked with a friend’s team for a few years. And um, so that day, I think it was January 3rd, we looked at each other, we were like, what did we just do? Like, is this and I had

that like internal fear like, oh no, was this a fluke? Like, is this business gonna continue to grow or what’s gonna happen from here? And we um, with Merrill’s encouragement, we we ran a launch event for our businesses, but we did it together. And I was like delaying months and months, and Merrill’s like, you just gotta do this, just book it, just do it. And so we did it, and it was just it was imperfect, but it was beautiful. I had, I don’t know, a hundred people gathered in this in this local cafe, and both of us stood up on chairs together and were like, hey, thank you guys for being here. We love all of you. You know, it was like our friends, our sphere, um, everybody. And it was it just felt right. It was like, this is special. This is special that we get to we had always worked together in the past, and we wanted to work together in the future. So what we started doing was um, you know, joint client events. And um, if she’s hosting something, we had 50 people, 50 moms and babies at our house on Monday, a postpartum gathering. And I made sure to be there because I want to connect with these people, but also we’ve learned like, yeah, it’s strategic for me to get in front of these people and build trust and get to know them. And Emma’s clients, she gets so many gifts from her clients, it’s crazy. Like she gets paid and then she gets gifts, she gets gifts cards and all this stuff, and and they just love and trust her. And I’m so when they see me, they’re like, You must be okay if she loves you, she trusts you, you know. So um, it’s you know, like those are such beautiful, magical relationships because there’s this this built-in trust in love and care that’s already there. Emma has walked through the most like intimate, challenging, personal moments of life. And so then I get to pick up the the home search or selling process with them from there, and it’s just like it’s magical. And then our kids babysit for them, you know, it’s just I think just like presenting who who we are in our whole like we invite people into our lives and family and community. So we’re not just trying to build transactions but build community through all that.

There there was a little bit of uh, you know, Michael being overly humble there at the beginning. You you brought it back around though, uh, you know, it kind of made it seem like it was all by accident. But no, the truth is that it it is nice that your wife has a business that’s so complementary of your business, but you guys have been very intentional. All of your client events, uh I believe, unless you did one that I don’t know about, all of your client events have been co-client appreciation events, right? The you did you did the something at a at a coffee shop, I think, once you did something at a Chick-fil-A. Didn’t you do an apple picking and a family photo? Like you have invested into the community, and when she does an event, you’re there. When you do an event, she’s there, and your guys’ clients are just you know latching on to both of them. That’s just super cool.

Yeah, correct. Yeah, and and so much of that is with your help. So thanks, Roll. You’re the one who did all the work. I just had the idea. You guys should do it on an event together. Here’s the part I don’t want our listeners to miss, right? So if you’re driving right now, uh, most of you might not have a spouse with a booked-out business, and that’s fine. This isn’t, you know, go marry Adula podcast. The play is whose clients are already becoming clients six months before they’d ever call an agent, right? Like find the person in your town this week, you know, for Michael, the an agent with zero referral network when he started, you know, he was looking ahead. You know what people who are having babies need? Houses and and potentially moving and things like that. So um I absolutely love that. And uh, Merrill, why don’t why don’t you take us into play number two?

Yeah, absolutely. So your generosity PL. Um, do you want to just uh, you know, you you built a a bit of a system for figuring out how you wanted to uh gift and and and figure out how much you wanted to spend on kind of loving back on your clients and your people. Can you tell everyone about that? Yeah, so what we what what I wanted to do is map out the whole process. I want somebody who’s working with us to to just say, wow, all the stuff, you know, every step of the way. I want them to walk away saying, I’ve never I’ve never felt so seen, I’ve never felt so heard, I’ve never felt so loved through the process. I did not anticipate any of that. Um, and so what I wanted to do was take us at our best and capture that in a process and then do the math to figure out, okay, what does it cost us to repeat this for each client? And um, yeah, so we mapped out each kind of landmark experience from the first contact to after the first appointment, um, writing the first offer, working our way through the inspection contingency, you know, to closing to month three to month six to to one year anniversary of home ownership, you know, on the on the buyer side, and um, and figuring out how can we make each moment special. And um, and again, what’s it gonna cost us and how do we go above and beyond to to create that? So that that’s the that’s the backstory, and then just trying to systematize that and make sure that we don’t drop the ball when we get busy, you know, and delegating the important stuff and always having somebody on call. We want concierge type service for every client. So, how do we do that and who needs to be involved? And um, and that’s that’s been a great process so far.

And and you even, I mean, one thing that I want everyone to know is that you you even, I mean, you budgeted this thing out. You just you you know exactly how much you’re going to spend uh you know on each client gifting kind of uh annualized, right? Yep. So we mapped it out, uh, and this doesn’t include client uh like client events. This is about one-on-one touches. Yeah, for for everything leading up through the one-year anniversary, we were at about $370 per client. So is this like basically that’s the ideal? Is this like basically your own version of say something like a client giant where you put someone on a subscription and they get things?

But with like more like love, you know, like you know, more home cooked, can we say? Like a little a little bit more like yeah. Um we’ve got a constant back and forth dialogue for you know for these clients. So I’ve got a closing at 3 p.m. today. These guys love the outdoors, they love their dogs, they’re super active. So I’m going back and forth with my assistant Hannah on, hey, what’s the and she has all this information, okay. Outdoors dogs, okay, how do what’s the what’s the what’s the play here? What are we gonna get? So we got them uh a gift card for you know uh going out boating on one of the lakes here in Madison. And we had previously on their home purchase done some stuff for their dogs, and you know, it’s all this stuff at paying attention, but just again, like having a process. So I love the client giant model and idea, and I think that’s great to fall back on. But if we can add a little more intimacy to the process, you know, a little more like, hey, we see you and we’re listening to the process, and uh, you know, and that involves some some attention and and and work and in somebody to be able to execute it, of course.

Awesome. So again, if you’re listening in your car, here’s your homework from this, and it’s a big one. I want you to pick a client, right? Map their first year with your their first year with you. Every touch, every gift, every card, then put a number behind it because what Michael did is very important. You know, being generous, right, with no number behind it is just how you’re gonna go broke, right? He calls it his generosity PL. So maybe even steal that name from him because it’s a good one and it’s an incredible practice. Obviously, it’s paying off for you. Um you’ve mentioned, you’ve mentioned love a couple times on here, right? You have a rule that I actually love. Everyone in your database gets cards and newsletters, but only your top 100 get the premium

treatment, right? So I’m curious, is that why is that list capped? Like to add someone? Um, do you take someone off? How does that top 100 list work? Yeah, so I think with that, so that’s a tough question. And I’m always like, I I want my like a fan, our family motto, one of one of our family motto is there’s always more room. There’s always more room at the table. My 11-year-old repeated that to me recently. She’s like, Well, there’s always more room, right? And like 100%. Like bring more, bring up a chair, like there’s more room at the table. And so, like, this is a struggle of mine is like, how do how do we, if we’re doing something, well, we want to invite them and we want to include them. But, you know, like you said, there there has to be, I think this is there’s this tension, right? Between just like radical generosity and profitability. And at the end of the day, like the business has to be profitable, or my team’s gonna suffer, right? Or my family’s gonna suffer, and we’re not gonna be able to serve people, we’re gonna fall apart. So we’ve got to stay profitable, it’s gotta be intentional. So I think that like a lot of back and forth conversation with like with my assistant, for example. I’m like, hey, what are your thoughts? Should these people get this? And so she kind of helps me to like sift through and kind of pare things down a little bit. Um, so yeah, I think that it’s if I if I say a hundred people, there’s a good chance that it’s that it ends up being 112, you know. But I think that, you know, there’s guidelines and then there’s and then there’s rules. Um, I’m more of a guideline person than a rule person, but uh as my broker can attest to. But uh the yeah, I I think it it’s flexible, but it’s got there’s got to be some parameters of like where is there reciprocity in this, and that that’s I think an important kind of wisdom piece with generosity. Um, you know, seeing. About this earlier, a lot of people are like hesitant to like practice in generosity. Is there they’re like, well, what if I’m taken advantage of? Or what about this one person? And you know what? 95% of people are gonna reciprocate generosity, you know? And I’m not gonna build my business around the 5%. Like, are you gonna be taken advantage of? Yes. Are people gonna be entitled? Yes. But I’m not gonna build a practice around that the exception, right? Like that’s gonna happen. It’s not a question of if but when. And uh, but we’re building it around the 95% and pouring out generosity with wisdom and parameters. If I, if they’re if I pick up on entitlement, if I pick up on um on just people like maliciously wasting my time or even like naively, then I’m gonna have a conversation with them. But otherwise, it’s like, hey, you’re out. Like this is I’ll have grace for you like personally, but like, no, you don’t get to come to the event if you’re you know, if you’re gonna have that kind of mentality.

Well, first of all, so well said, thank you. I really liked what you said about the 95 and the five. Let’s stop building our business practices around the exceptions. Uh, I I think there’s a lot of times and places where real estate agents do that. So that was brilliant. But you just finished a round of exhausting pop buys. We were talking about this on our coaching call yesterday. I mean, you know, where we kind of relearned this lesson all over again, where, you know, again, Michael’s generosity sometimes is knows no bounds. And, you know, so you guys were home and and and you’re amazing. Michael, genuinely, you’ve got we didn’t really talk about this a ton in today’s podcast, but you’ve got a fantastic assistant, Hannah. We’ve done a lot of calls with her on them as well. And so I I get to know a little bit about her, but she was home making cookies and home packaging, their recent pop buy uh thing that they did that had like multiple components, and then delivering them, and they did them for everybody. And and and it took dozens of hours with we had kids delivering them, he had assistants delivering them, he had his buyer’s agent, you know, and and it kind of became this exhausting thing. And so so so now we’re doing these pop buys kind of uh uh half halfway, kind of rushing through them to get it done, right? And wouldn’t it be better we just talk, you know, to just do 25, but make them high impact, right? And that’s kind of the same concept of like trying to keep your your your most important list to 100, because you’d rather make a big impact with a hundred than a mediocre impact with a thousand.

Totally. Yep. That was a that was a key takeaway from this week. That’s live. It’s like, hey, 200 people, 250 people, like let’s scale this back and make it more high impact with fewer and have the conversations. And so, you know, that that that mantra of deeper with fewer is is something that I’m thinking about a lot in my life right now. Okay, I like that. You know, I Merrill told me something recently about your business that I’d love for you to share with our listeners. Um, tell everybody about the map. I guess something along the lines of every closing gets a pin, like the buy side gets one color, the sell side gets another, and then you put it on your phone almost like it’s an app.

Yeah, so the Google custom map is is a great hack. So, and it serves multiple purposes. So it’s got, you know, the geography of our clients laid out, but then, and so that’s helpful for us. You know, it’s encouraging to me. I look at it and I’m like, holy cow, look at how much we’ve done. Uh secondly, it’s great in conversations with clients to say, like, hey, um, well, you want, so yeah, we serve this area. Actually, let me zoom in here and show you exactly what that’s looked like in this city. Um, and it’s helpful for things like the pot buys and the logistics to see, like, okay, in this region, so we want to pair off everybody through here, or I’m driving through a neighborhood and I’m thinking, like, well, who do we have in here? Oh my gosh, I’ve completely forgot about those guys last October. And so I’ll shoot them a text. Hey, I was just in your neighborhood, I was thinking of you. How are things? Did you get the plumbing thing sorted out? Or, you know, stop by and say, Hey, I saw that you got the new gutters, it’s looking great. You know, so all those purposes, you know, internally for our own reflection, externally for you know, the logistics of projects and whatnot, but also demonstration of you know past success and effectiveness to potential clients.

Such a practical, such a practical and easy takeaway. I mean, everyone can go take action on that. Go get all your past clients and put them on a map so that you can see them all visually. Really simple. So many, so many use cases for that. All right, Michael, let’s let’s pivot and ask a different kind of question. You are possibly guilty. I mean, we we both believe in giving and reciprocity, but but if anyone’s guilty of overgiving, it’s you. I mean, you’ve paid for staging on $300,000 listings, you’ve eaten handyman expenses, uh, you know, I mean, that you know, you’ve you’ve you’ve cut your fees, you’ve contributed, you know, I mean, you’ve done a lot of times you’ve given a lot to hold deals together and different things like that. Um, how do you draw the line without losing who you are? And, you know, I mean, how how how do you think about it?

Oh my gosh, such a good question. I think it’s an ongoing tension. Um, yeah, I mean, uh showing up like wanting to help, like Merrill, you’re such a helper, and I know of you, like you just you wanna like whatever it takes, you know, you wanna you wanna help through the situation. So the handyman, sure, you know, the the cleaners, yeah, we got that. The stagers, sure, we got that. Oh, you need somebody to remove that couch, I’ll be there in 10 minutes, you know. Um, the like one parameter for me is like if my family, it’s gonna, if it’s gonna cost my family, then like it’s likely a no. You know, if it’s gonna cost me time, date, night, whatever it might be, then then it’s a no. If it’s gonna cost me my time away with my family, then it’s a no. Um, you know, if it’s if it’s a financial choice, then absolutely it thing things come into play. So then it’s uh an honest conversation with the seller. If I do say yes, then it’s like, hey, we don’t usually

do this. But for you, we’re gonna make this exception. And so we’re we’ve just pulled some strings. We got our guy in this afternoon to take care of this. So we want them to know, like, hey, this is an exception. Don’t refer us based on this, you know, but also this is a special moment for you because we we really care about you, you know, we want to make this work. Um, but yeah, as far as the numbers go, you know, we Merrill, we just had this conversation uh around like, oh, how do you yeah? I think you called me out. You’re like, okay, you want to be full, full service, right? And that’s you know, taking the line from Chris, Chris Voss, and you know, this full fee agent book. I want to be full, full service, full fee, right? We do, we do it all for you, but we need to encompass it within our fee. So what I’m starting to do is is, you know, I don’t want to limit my generosity. I want to build a container for it, I want to build a structure for it. So I’m going in and saying, like, hey, we can do this for, you know, take, you know, whatever our normal fee would be, and then we’re gonna bump that up half a percentage point, and we’re gonna do all this for you. We’re gonna take care of all this for you. We’re gonna be here for you, we’re gonna take care of all of it, or a quarter of a point, you know, whatever it’s gonna take. And um, because we want them to to, you know, again, we want them to feel like it’s all taken care of, but we’re right, you know, I’m in the process of building this container for that generosity to make sure that it’s all accounted for in the end.

I love it. And I think that everybody listening has felt that before, the fear of maybe charging what you’re worth, maybe it makes you less generous. You know, I I think that I love the way that you said that you’re putting it in a container. Um, if anything, I this is something I work on with my clients a lot. I’m like, um, I because I have so many clients like you that are really generous, and and we we actually have to put guardrails up for them. And I love that’s what you’ve kind of done. And you said, okay, is this cost of my family, right? If it comes to money, if I, you know, putting it in a container so that you can be as generous as you want without having that negative impact. And then also knowing that you can charge you know what you’re worth because you are full service and and full fee. So, well, as we wrap up, um we like to do what we call rapid fire. And so Merrill and I are gonna ask you a series of questions and you can just, you know, rapid fire, tell us the first thing, you know, that comes to your mind um as as we end the segment today. So um you mentioned your morning. How do you actually start your morning? Like the first thing.

Oh my gosh. All right, so uh wake up somewhere between 4:30 and 5. Uh, my I try to practice my first thought is like, I am loved, I am accepted. Thank you for everything in front of me today. You know, some iteration of that. I get up, I make coffee for myself, for my wife, have her cup ready, some hot water in her cup to get it warm. If I hear her coming up the stairs, then uh, you know, pour some coffee in there. Um, and then I sit down and uh read and meditate on some scripture from there uh for you know anywhere from 10, 20 minutes, something like that. I think about my day, how grateful I am for the opportunities in front of me, even the ones, especially the ones that I don’t know about yet. And then it’s time to get to work and head to the gym.

Um, what is that’s awesome routine, by the way. What is one app you would never delete? Oh, one app I would never delete. That’s a great question. Um as of this week, whisper flow. Whisperflow. Kristi’s so excited you just said that, you don’t even know. Honestly, like it’s just such a great dictation app. Go get it. It’s so accurate, it’s so much easier. Check it out. Yeah, it really is awesome. Okay, so the best gift you’ve ever given a client, dollar amount aside. The best gift I’ve ever given a client is help, is uh nanny help. Having my kids, my teenage daughters, go help. They’re in the throes of it with two young kids, they’re moving, and I said, Hey, you know what? Let me get some help for you. Have my two daughters go over there, babysit, organize, fold laundry, do dishes, whatever it, you know, because there’s the cleaner thing, and then there’s other things, but she’s just saying, like, hey, we’re gonna show up and solve problems for you. Whatever you need, take care of the kids, take them to the park, whatever it might be. That’s golden.

What’s what stands out as one of the biggest like client reactions uh uh of appreciation or a pop buyer at a client event, or like can you anything really uh big that a client did back for you, other than of course they’re always giving you repeat and referral business. That a client ever did back to us. Um, oh my gosh. Or just a reaction, right? Like, you know, a someone who was just super emotional or like just a memorable moment. We had, yeah, we had an elderly couple recently that like sold their home of 50 years and they had just moved into assisted living. The sons were helping with the property. Dad had just had to move into memory care, you know. So I’m face to face with mom, went to the assisted living facilities multiple times and just sat with her and just heard the heard the stories. And I took them a um, I took her a photo book after the closing of all the listing photos. You know, we put it in a book with the address on the cover and and took her the book and she just melted into tears. She said, This is my home, this is my home. And she and she wept, and I was just like, I was I was broken, you know, it was just it was so humbling. Wow, wow, what a moment. But her gratitude back to me was just overwhelming.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, it’s uh I was kind of getting emotional this thinking about it. I was like, oh, I you you made that so visual for me to kind of see you sitting there and and going through that experience. And um, well, so for someone who’s been listening this whole time and they’re thinking, uh, I want this guy in my corner, right? I’ve got a client moving to Madison. Where do they find you? How can people connect with you? How can people work with you? Oh my gosh, we would love to help any of your people um in Madison or anywhere in Wisconsin, we can get them connected. Um, they can find me on Instagram, the Michael Leeson. Um, they can email me, Michael, at homecomingmadison.com, and we will connect. We’d love to help.

Awesome. Okay, so let me wrap up for our listeners some of our biggest takeaways. So, number one, it was the top 100 rule, right? Everyone in your database gets a card. On top of your 100, though, they get that premium love that he mentioned. Um, and so get started on that list tonight. Uh, number two, I love that map. The that’s a free tool. And and he gave you so many ideas of how to use it, whether you’re driving through the neighborhood to organize your pop buys as client proof or successive proof, and also just to make yourself feel good when you see all those pins on the map.

Um especially hard closing day. Um, the generosity PL. I that one is I I I love that. Michael put a number on what it costs to love a client for a full year. And I just know that uh that’s something that you can replicate in your business and uh and and not go broke and and truly do that. So those are three moves. And I believe, I told you at the beginning, I believe that Michael proved generosity can build a business model. And Merrill, you know, kind of proved that it is done through system. So I’ve given you the, well, I’d actually say Michael’s given you the place. So now it’s your turn to take it and run.

So, Michael, what’s the one big thing that you’re most focused on with taking it and running moving forward? The thing that I am most focused on right now, and I don’t this is maybe like again more internal to me, is I am just practicing this, and I was thinking a lot about this this morning. Is I don’t want to look at just what kind of business do I want to build, but I want to look at who am I becoming. I want to become the kind of person that can steward and run and lead the kind of business that I want to have in the future. And so rather than thinking about how do I build that, I’m thinking, how do I become who I need to be? And I believe that the opportunity and everything around it is well, you know, the oh, I’ll find the opportunity as I become who I need to be. So I’m very focused on that right now, thinking about who I’m becoming. I know that my habits and my routines are the best predictors of who I will be in the future and my community. So those are the things that I’m working hard on right now to align who I am with that future that I want.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Michael. Um, so for our listeners, um, please like, subscribe. Our YouTube channel has the video version of the podcast, but we are also found on wherever you like to get your podcasts. We love to bring incredible people like Michael to the podcast. Our goal is to give you something actionable that you can apply to your business. So we’ve given that to you guys. It’s your turn to take it and run.