Hello everyone
and welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville
your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville
South Carolina I'm your host as always
Stan McCune Realtor right here in Greenville
South Carolina and you can find all of my contact
information in the show notes
if you need to reach out to me
for any of your real estate needs
here in Greenville or outside of Greenville
of course we work all over the place
today I had an hour drive
doing showings all the way down in Belton
which is in Anderson County
and then I went all the way up to Roebuck
which is in Spartanburg County
and cross through Greenville County along the way
so sometimes that's what happens
we have to be experts in all of these local counties
cause Greenville County
at least for me just is not a big enough county alone
in order for me to
to solely concentrate my work in Greenville County
so let me know my contact information is there
and please if you're watching this on YouTube
take one second to hit the thumbs up
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a little review
I would greatly appreciate those things as well
today is the Thanksgiving episode
I always do a gratefulness episode every year
and I really went back and forth on this one right
because I so little backstory about this podcast
I hate self promotion okay
and so I really struggled with that
cause every realtor has to do self promotion
on some level right
that's that's what marketing inherently is
if you if you're selling a product
you have to promote the product right
and as a realtor I'm selling a product
I'm selling a home buying or a home selling service
I have to promote it but I am the service right
me and and what I do and how I operate is the service
so it's inherently self promoting
and I really don't like that
I don't I feel very uncomfortable with self promotion
and so one of the main reasons I started this podcast
was that it was a way for me to kind of promote myself
without promoting myself right
it I can just show you guys my personality
I can show you how I think I can talk through issues
and you can decide for yourself
whether
that's the sort of realtor that you want to work with
whether that's the sort of person
that you want to discuss real estate with
whether that's the sort of person that you want to
to be helped with and maybe you decide not to
maybe you just find the content useful
but you don't ever use a realtor
whatever the case may be
this has become like
the core part of how I self promote
is simply by providing information to people
and it's gotten me a lot of clients over the years
and for that I am supremely grateful
and and every year
I do an episode where I talk about what I'm grateful
for around Thanksgiving
and this year is going to be it's it
I don't like it
because it's going to feel at the beginning
like I'm promoting myself
but I'm really gonna try to deflect away from that
and to promote the
the people that help me to get to where I am
but in order to do that
I need to to tell you guys something
a lot of you already know this
so it's not gonna be a huge shock
but for those that don't I won a few weeks ago
the Greater Greenville Association of Realtors
Realtor of the year for 2025
I won this award over roughly 37 hundred
other realtors
in the Greenville Association of Realtors
and I was shocked
I was really really surprised
because you know 37 hundred real chairs right
there's a lot of other really good agents
in this market that have not won Realtor of the year
agents with better production than me
agents with
with bigger teams than me
agents with cooler listings
no offense to those who have listed homes with me
I don't I don't mean it that way
but just all sorts of there
there's a lot of a
a lot of things that you can look at and
and the
Realtor association has their own set of criteria that
that they are specifically looking at
but at the end of the day
I won that award but the
the entire time I was thinking
about all of the other people that could have won it
and all of the people that helped me to
to get to this point where I could win
something like that and so I'm gonna show you guys
if you're looking on YouTube
what my award looks like there
you can see my name there at the bottom
I got referenced in the post and Courier
which is a a local newspaper as well
the Berkshire Halfway Global real estate network
email referenced
it's been kind of overwhelming in a lot of ways
here's also a little
if you're watching on YouTube again
a little pin that I won I was assured by Chris Bailey
CEO of the Great Greenville Association Realtors
that those are real diamonds on there right
and and of course I'm I'm not going to
question that at all
alright so now that I've gotten that out of the way
I'm going to basically expand on
on and and I'm not gonna take too much time with this
I try not to make this a super long episode
and also I've got stuff to do
quite frankly I need to get a haircut
if you're watching on YouTube you can see that and
and I'm planning to do that right after this
but when I accepted the award
I gave an acceptance speech
which was basically just me thanking the
the core people that helped me to get to this point
and I just wanna expand for those that weren't there
and even for those that were
I'm I I none of this is scripted and honestly
I've not really thought about it a whole lot
I hadn't thought about it
when I went up there and gave my acceptance speech
either
so I'm just gonna kind of let this be natural
and whatever comes to mind and so
I I I basically thanked
several people who helped me to get to this point and
and it starts with of course my wife Michelle
she has been there through the roller coaster
and it has been a roller coaster in
in real estate before real estate
it's all been a roller coaster
I I owned at one point
a a frozen yogurt shop while I was a realtor
that I I'm not good at at managing frozen yogurt shops
it turns out
I've we've been a parts of of down markets
up markets good times great times we've laughed
we've cried all of the cliches right
all of the cliches
but real estate is is different
has a a different
it's for spouses and and I can't speak from experience
I can only because my wife is not a realtor
but I can imagine that for spouses
it can be kind of crazy right
because there can be times
where you don't make very much money
for long stretches of time
and then you can make a ton of money in a very short
stretch of time and then it's like
well what's happening
now it's helpful for me
I manage our finances so I can
I can make it all work right
I can kind of smooth out all of these weird
little rough edges
but through all of that
Michelle has she's
she's has had my back the entire way
I know that some people struggle with their spouses
in this industry with just like
making sure that the finances work
and the schedule works and what not
she has always been very supportive of all of that
and has always tried to relieve me of
of whatever she could
in order that I can focus on the business
to the extent that I need to
and and
you know there have been times like in 21 and 22 crazy
crazy years
when the business was was so crazy
I mean there would be times where I'd have family plans
that I would have to cancel last minute
there are times when it's like we're
we're in the airport trying to board a plane and I'm
like negotiating a contract or
like on the side of the pool with the family
or
you know
times that we're doing a road trip
and I have to be like I
I like to be the one driving on a road trip
that's just my personality
and I'll have to be like hey babe I
I my phone is blowing up
can you drive I've gotta
I've gotta work
and that happens quite
quite frequently in road trip situations
cause if if you're a realtor
you know the moment you go on vacation
your phone starts blowing up
as a as a matter of fact
as we're entering Thanksgiving
that's happening yet again
which is right on right on time
so all of that to say
she has played obviously a
a huge role in
in me winning this award
I want to reference my my
and thank my mom as well
my mom obviously played a
a huge role in my upbringing
she homeschooled me
up until 7th grade for those that don't know
she then worked at the Christian school
so I saw her pretty much all the time
she worked at the Christian school that I
that I ultimately graduated from
that I went to from 7th grade until graduation
and she has been in my corner as well from day one
she taught me so much of what I know
you know if if
if you if you have obviously
as I've already said she homeschooled me during
like the most formative years of my life right
so
if I have benefited you in any way with my knowledge
or my real estate ability
or whatever she has to take some credit for that
now she's gonna listen to this
and I'm sure she's gonna have some kind of
a funny comment about that
but that is that is the truth
like that's that's not an exaggeration
and you know
at the end of the day how you're raised
makes such a huge difference in how you end up
later in life right
how you end up you're the
how stable you are as an adult
how capable you are as an adult
what your work ethic is all of that kind of stuff
and I credit my mom with with a lot of that
additionally
Bob Morgan
if you know
the real estate team I'm on is called The Morgan Group
Bob Morgan is the founder of the team
we're just a small little team
and Bob took a shot on me so
so to speak
before anyone else did
I
met with him as I was in the process of
of of becoming a realtor
and I had a connection to him
through the person who was my realtor
who I really liked and
and had become friends with and he was just like
hey you might be
you know if you're gonna get into real estate
you should strongly consider joining the team
I'll set up you know
a meet and greet kind of thing and if you know Bob
Bob's not a big fan
of taking inexperienced realtors onto his team
but he saw something in me
I'm not sure what that was
we we joked about it recently and I honestly
I probably
just need to have a conversation with him about that
but
but he took he took that shot on me
and I said in my acceptance speech
something that a lot of people don't
don't probably know about me
is that a lot of what I Learned from this business
as a realtor a
a lot of who I am as a realtor comes from the
the first few years of my career
I would be at the seed and Joiner offices
which at that time our office was on North Pleasantburg
right where now where the office of guest and Brady
the attorney is and
Bob and I had an office in the basement
of that building a nice moldy mildewy
basement office
a lot of good memories for me down there
but we would be there pretty much every night
at least it seemed in hindsight seems that way
pretty much every night until 7 or eight PM and
I didn't have a whole lot going on
in those first few years right
my business was slow
as it is for a lot of Realtors when they first start
Bob had a lot going on
and so I would just hear him working the phones
talking to other realtors
talking to his clients talking negotiating
talking through contracts talking through issues
talking to appraisers
just conversation after conversation
after conversation and I Learned
a tremendous amount of what I know in this business
from just hearing Bob talk
and there is something to that right
something to you know
in in real estate we don't have apprenticeships
like some other industries do
so I and
and I was in a really weird spot
because I became licensed while I was in my final year
working a salary job
so and and I started getting clients right away so
I really jumped into the deep end without any
like real formal training
and if you know anything about real estate school
which yeah you gotta go to real estate school
in order to become a realtor
but at least at that time
real estate school is mostly focused on
the code of ethics mostly focused on
you know really high level sorts of stuff not
not how do you run a business
not how do you talk to appraisers
not how do you deal with other
with other realtors and and how do you negotiate
none of that we weren't talking about any of that
in real estate school well
I was able to hear it from
from Bob who had
you know at that time over
probably close to 20 years of experience
now he's north of that obviously
and that was that was incredible
like that was not how I planned to learn how to
how to do real estate but that was how I Learned how to
how to do real estate was just by listening to him
for for several years and just learning
learning from him learning from how he did it
and sometimes he would just say and
and still to this day he does this
because he's still a lot more experienced than me right
and still sometimes I'll say something
it's just like you know
I hadn't really thought about it that way
and it's just
it'll like completely change my mindset on like
you know I've been thinking about this
this way but
but the way Bob just framed it
I actually I
I like that framing a lot more
like that's that's the correct mindset
and so I wouldn't have this for sure if not for
all of those evenings
just down there in the basement with Bob
Matthew Thrift my broker in charge
at my office for
for the better part of the past 5 years
he's another person that that I want to shout out to
so if you don't understand the structure
every real estate office
every brokerage has to have a broker in charge
in some cases
the entire company is just one person
in which they are the broker in charge
and the owner
in the case of C Dan Joiner
we've got what like 400 agents
across multiple different offices
the office that that I'm in
that Matthew and Lauren Hendrickson
are the brokers in charge over
we have
I think several hundred agents just in our office
and listen
I talk to a lot of realtors that
that don't ever hear from their broker in charge
don't have a clear way to get a hold of them
I had to help one agent from another company recently
write up a contract
because they couldn't get a hold of their broker
to ask them a question and
and they were lost
like they were completely dependent on their broker
for them to be able to write a contract
I had to like I had to like help them with it
which is honestly malpractice
from their
their standpoint to have to go to a competing realtor
for something like that
cause I was representing my party right
so obviously I was trying to help my clients out
not the other realtor
but with Matthew
you know I remember I
I've I've texted him a few times late at night
something pops up you
you never know what's gonna happen in this business
and I remember one time I was just like hey
I'm really sorry for for texting you late at night
you know feel free to respond tomorrow
and and he just texted right back something like
until my head until my head hits the pillow
I'm available like something something to that effect
and that's that is who Matthew is and he
he has a very sharp mind for for contracts
for just understanding the industry as a whole for be
for being a step ahead on
you know as our industry has been under attack
with a lot of lawsuits for
for making sure that that our company has
is taking proactive steps to make sure that we are not
in a position of liability
if lawsuits start coming down on smaller brokerages
right
they've already started to come down on these mega
brokerages they haven't as much
started to come down on local brokerages
but that could be next right
and so
he's been ahead of that and that's
that's
something that a lot of people aren't thinking about
right now
like when they choose what brokerage they go with
a lot of them are just like
who's gonna give me the
the highest percent of my commission right
because obviously
I split a portion of my commission with C
Dan Joiner and for a lot of realtors
that's the beginning and the end of their search is
well
what's my commission split gonna be
But if you end up becoming named in a lawsuit
because your brokerage was named in a lawsuit hmm
that's not great
I'd rather potentially pay a little bit more
and a lot of times you're
you're you're it's not it's a misnomer
often times these brokerages that are that are taking
giving you a better commission split
are robbing Peter to pay Paul
they're getting their money in another way
not not all the case
not all the time but in a lot of times that's the case
but at the end of the day
there's so so much more to consider than just that
and Matthew has been great about that
the entire time that I've
that I've known him that he has been
the broker in charge at at my office at C
Dan Jonah so I'm
I'm extremely grateful to him and for
for his guidance of our office
but the highlight for me the
the two people that I really wanted to highlight
and that I did in my acceptance speech
are two people who are no longer with us today
and I've talked about these two
people in in other episodes before
and the first is my first broker in charge
which was Fritz the barber
Fritz
he was had a similar impact on me that Bob did from
from the standpoint of anytime she spoke
there was just wisdom
wisdom and knowledge just came out and
and she had
she was an expert on so many different things like it
it's it's really hard it
it's hard in real estate
to become an expert on one thing
she was an expert on everything in
in my opinion
from from my experience and
and we used to have weekly meetings
and those weekly meetings
our our company no longer we
we do more of a bi bi weekly meeting structure now
but when we were doing those weekly meetings
I would go to him and I would be like
I know I'm gonna get something out of this meeting
I know that Fritz and
and she was always the one that ran the meetings
and it was like
I know that she is going to say something
in this meeting
that's going to change my perspective on something
that's going to prepare me for something
that's going to help me in my business in some way
and week after week after week she did that
and honestly
it didn't even seem like she was even like
prepared in those meetings
not because she seemed unprepared
it just seemed like she was just going off
off the top of her head
just tons and tons of knowledge and wisdom and
and and it was incredible
she was huge for our for our
for our industry she was
one of a very
very important person in
in the state of South Carolina for
for
for the real estate industry in our state
I'm not gonna get into to all of that
because you you can certainly look that up if you want
you can just search for her name
you'll see you'll see tons of stuff about frizzy online
but unfortunately
she's no longer with us today
because she did pass away in
in I believe is 2020 of cancer
and in incredibly
incredibly heartbreaking for the entire company
for my office
but she she left a legacy
and again
this award that I've won
she has something to do with that a
a lot to do with it quite frankly
and I wasn't on the phone with
with Fritz he
very often
I actually only went to her office one time and it was
it was towards the end I think it was
I think it was right before her
her cancer diagnosis
that I had to go it was definitely before Covid
so yeah it most likely would have been before her
her cancer diagnosis
and I I only went to her office one time
I got lost on the way because that
that old sedan journal office was a labyrinth
once you got you know into
into some of those back offices
and that that's just a memory that is
even just sitting there with her
because she was such a larger than life sort of
personality
and and just
and she honestly
she could be intimidating
like if if you weren't ready for
for how she was going to approach it
absolutely you would be intimidated by it
but that was exactly what we needed as a company
that was what the association of Realtors needed
when she was heavily involved with the
with the Realtor Association
she brought a fight to our industry and
and honestly
we really could have used that the past few years
because there's been
there's not been as much fight in the real estate world
in more recent years
in my opinion
that there should have been
we've kind of let things come to us
and she would not have been in favor of that
she would have absolutely been like no
we need to stand up for what's right in our industry
for what's right for our clients
for our agents and all of that
and yeah like I said
I didn't
I didn't prepare any notes and I'm just kind of
kind of rambling
but I admire her so much and I'm so grateful that
that I got to have you know
roughly 4 four and a/2 years
under her as my burger in charge
and and of course last but
but certainly not least
is my father
my father also died of cancer just a few years ago and
for sure for me
this award is is dedicated to him as much as to anyone
I did a whole episode on my father after he passed
I don't remember what episode number it was
but it would have been a couple of years ago
so if you wanna go back to 2023 and and
and look that up
feel free to I had some people tell me that
that it was their favorite episode that I had ever recorded
so it might might be beneficial still
I don't know
but I just wanna say that a lot of who I am
is absolutely directly influenced by my father my
my personality very very similar
in a lot of ways to his personality
he was
he was analytical I'm
I think I'm more analytical than him
but I definitely get that analytical side of
of my brain from him
he was extremely focused
and and always busy right
he always had something going on
he worked like three jobs at one point
and not because he was like one of these people that
you know couldn't stick with a job
he just kept having opportunities come his way right
he just kept
people kept seeing hey
you have a gift that can be shared with other people
can you do that can you do that in this situation
you know so for those that don't know
he was a he was a Baptist pastor in New Jersey
in a small
church in New Jersey and
and through that
he got the opportunity to be a minor league
baseball chaplain
he got the opportunity to be a nursing home chaplain a
Protestant chaplain in a Catholic hospital which was
in New Jersey
that was a line that didn't get crossed back then
now maybe it's a little bit more
you know egalitarian now up there that
that that might be more common
but he was if I remember correctly
the first Protestant Chaplin on staff ever at the
at the Catholic hospital at Saint Clair's
hospital in Dover
which was actually the hospital that I was born in
in New Jersey way back when
aka Dover
Dover General
if hopefully I'm getting all those names correct
we're going we're going way back here
but
I wish I wish
obviously
that that my dad
as well as Fritz he were around to
to be able to participate in celebrating this award
because
they both they both had such an impact on me
and I you know
I think in particular for
for my dad a lot of it comes back to
to the work ethic
cause every day I saw that work ethic from him
I saw
but I also saw that he knew when to stop right there
you can't just work yourself into the ground
and we would you know
he would watch sports we would go to sporting events
we would we would take vacations
we we would
we would do things and he would
he would take a break from the work
to make sure that he would focus on these
on these things that are what
what people now like to call
the nice buzzword is self care
he knew to
to take advantage of those opportunities
to find those opportunities for self care
even though he loved his work
he didn't have a
an inherent need to step away from work
because he hated work he actually really loved work
and it's kind of similar for me
I really love what I do in real estate and I'm very
very I'm so grateful to be in a business
that I can genuinely enjoy what I do everyday
but at the end of the day
it is work and it does it does drain the battery
and you
you have to find things to recharge that battery
and so I I saw
I saw from first hand experience what
what it looks like how my dad was able to to keep going
while the battery was being drained
and then the things that he would
do to make sure that he recharged that battery and
and those lessons
those are really important lessons right
my dad didn't know anything about real estate
he would frequently tell me how
how puzzled he was that I had
I had figured out real estate
right that I had figured out a way to be successful
he was also an avid listener of the show
he would he would frequently send me messages
some of the last messages I have from him are
excuse me
some of
some of my last messages from him are
him you know
telling me his his thoughts about the show
so so yeah
he he would
he would frequently you know
of course he
he was you know
if you if you see any of the
any of the the
the dad memes that are that are out there about how
you know dads give very short text message responses
he would do that he would just say
you know something like interesting episode this week
I'm like good interesting or bad interesting
like did you disagree
you know
just things like that and it was
it was always funny I got a good chuckle out of it
sometimes it would turn into a
into a deeper conversation sometimes
not often times not often times
it would just be like interesting episode
but I appreciated that
that
you know he let me know that he was
he was listening to
to the show back then I didn't have it on YouTube
so he couldn't watch it but he was always listening
and he made sure that I knew that
when I was at college I went to Bob Jones and
Bob Jones back then was
was not the easiest school to go to
because we were kind of confined to the campus
it's really hard to get off campus
I didn't have a car even if I did
you weren't allowed to drive it until like
your junior year you could park it on campus
but you couldn't move it
you you couldn't go if you're a man
you couldn't go off campus with a woman
and quite frankly if you know where Bob Jones is
it's right on Wade Hampton and Pleasantburg
like you can't really walk anywhere
It I mean you can but it's like dangerous
there was one time me and my friend Bobby
we walked to Sonic
it took like 45 minutes one way to walk to Sonic
and it was like taking your own life into your hands
Sonic isn't even there anymore
they they
they closed down
a year ago so
my dad would
oh and there were no TVs or anything
we couldn't couldn't watch TV
and there was no streaming
you know this is early 2
you couldn't stream a whole lot and
my dad would would send me
every few weeks he'd send me like $10
cash
and newspaper clippings
from the sports section of the local newspapers
so that I could kind of like feel connected to home
and that $10 I could make that $10 stretch out
like I could make $10 stretch out for weeks
you know and
of course at
at Bob Jones they
you know all
all the food and what not
you you could eat there
people joke that they gained a freshman 15
because you could eat whatever you wanted over there
right it wasn't necessarily good food but
but there was a lot of it
but
but getting those newspaper clippings
being able to read about you know
how the sports teams were doing up there and
and you know
again it
this stuff wasn't online at that time
or at least not easily accessible online and
and so you know
that was just something that tethered me back to home
and and just
just gave me gave me something to look forward to
you know when I
when I check the mail gave me something to
to to think about that that wasn't school work and
yeah just just a lot
a lot of a lot of good memories and
and you know
a lot a lot that I'm grateful for
so I appreciate you guys listening or watching
sorry I'm a little bit emotional
let me let me grab something to drink here
sometimes a little water goes a long way
but but I appreciate you guys
you guys are the final ones that I want to thank
in all of this
because you guys play a role in this as well
all of my clients I I
couldn't win Realtor of the year
if I never had clients as a realtor
and this podcast in some way contributes to that
but you as listeners contribute heavily to that
even if you've never used me as your realtor
I consider you a
a part of of how I'm able to to win an award like this
so I'm immensely grateful to all of you
thank you guys so much for listening and
and for watching
and that's it I hope you guys you're
you're probably already
had Thanksgiving by the time you're listening
or watching to this
so I hope you guys had a wonderful Thanksgiving
hopefully the party is continuing whenever you're
you're watching or listening to it
and now here we go
we're entering into the true holiday season
here in December
so it's gonna it's gonna get crazy
but it should be fun
so thank you guys so much for watching and listening
please like rate review
subscribe
all of those good things if you need a realtor
well realtor of the year right here
that'll be the
last time I ever reference that on the show
well I shouldn't say that
I'm not gonna say never
but
I I don't plan to do another self promo episode
like that
but I did feel like I needed to
to expand on what I said during my acceptance speech
and hopefully you guys understand that
so thank you so much need a realtor
my contact information is in the show notes
we will talk to you guys again next time!