Every Agent Has a Story: Josh Altman

This story comes from Josh Altman of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles, who shares the lessons he learned helping a customer find a lease and how the small mundane things can lead to bigger opportunities if you have the right attitude.

• Give your prospects and clients the time of day when they ask for it (unless it’s beyond your control)
• Leverage the referrals and networking opportunities you gain from your sales or rentals.

Every Agent Has a Story is proudly brought to you in association with Console

 Transcript

Hey guys, Josh Altman, Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing, or Foxtel, for you guys here.

When I think about stories that have gotten me to different places in my career throughout my life, this one stands out for me. This one is a story about a young lady who called me up regarding a lease.

Now look, I typically like to sell big, big houses, so when a lady called me up for a lease for $4000 a month, I didn’t love to do it. But I said you know what? I’m gonna do this. Who knows where it leads to?

I picked her up. I showed her leases for $4000 a month for a week. She didn’t like any. I showed her again for the next two weeks. She didn’t like any.

So a month and a half went by, she still didn’t pick any lease.

Now I did the math in my head, and we don’t make much money off of leases, right? By the time she found her lease, I had lost money with the amount of time that I had spent showing her houses. It was a month and a half later.

That night, she was so excited we found her a lease, she called her dad who was sitting at dinner with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He tells his boss that his daughter’s very excited because she just got a lease.

The boss says, “Hey, I got a penthouse in L.A. If he’s so good, why don’t you set up a meeting, and maybe I’ll use him to sell my house.”

I meet him. I list the house for $4.5 million.

While I’m sitting that house, I meet somebody who walks through and I sell them a $12 million house.

I’ve done the math for this nothing $4000 lease, and over the past three years, I’ve sold $38 million worth of real estate that all stemmed from that $4000 a month lease.

I love you guys. I’ll talk to you soon. Josh Altman, Million Dollar Listing, and I’m out.