IAM1947 – Real Estate Agent Helps Families Buy and Sell Their Homes

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”:

In this episode, the guest is Nara Rakhmetova, a real estate agent who has been working in the Northern Virginia area for about 14 years.

Key Points:

Nara's Journey: Nara Rakhmetova has been a real estate agent in the Northern Virginia area for the last 14 years, helping families buy and sell their homes in the process.

CEO Hack: Nara recommends the book; “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” by T. Harv Eker. This book offers insights into the mindset and practices that lead to financial success.

CEO Nugget: Nara emphasizes the importance of knowing and connecting with people. This not only helps you expand your network, but it also presents the opportunity to learn new things.

CEO Defined: For Nara, being a CEO is about being in a position to offer assistance and serve many people as you can.

Nara Rakhmetova Teaser 00:00

So basically I save my clients time and effort and gas by not letting them drive around multiple houses when they see something they want to go out and check out.

Instead of that, while they're at work, I go work for them and record a 360 virtual reality video of the house from outside in everything in the house.

Intro 00:21

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:46

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we were purposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focusing on finishing it out, fighting the good fight and closing out the job. I think just as important as it is to start something, it's even more important in how you conclude it or finish it out. So if you think of the different things that you can finish out, it'd be everything from a project, it can be from a day, it could also be from a business in and of itself and it can also of course be for the year. So when you think of finishing out, I want you to really think of these episodes, because what we're going to really focus on is the last question that we really ask, which is defining what it means to be a CEO.

All the creative, innovative, and I think truly insightful questions that we received from this question is really what we want to highlight during the show. But of course, we want you to enjoy the entire episode and think about how you're going to finish things out and how you're going to finish things out strongly. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Nara Rakhmetova.

Nara, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Nara Rakhmetova 02:17

Thank you. Hi, Gresh. How are you?

Gresham Harkless 02:19

I'm doing great. What I want to do is just introduce Nara. She's actually a real estate agent in the Northern Virginia area, and she's been working in the area for about 14 years, helping families buy and sell their homes.

Nara, I wanted to ask, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Nara Rakhmetova 02:31

Absolutely.

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Gresham Harkless 02:33

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Nara Rakhmetova 02:39

What happened was I came to this country about 21 years ago with my husband and a three year old son and was lucky enough to get a nice position and at a company in D. C., entered a corporate world, was making good money, was in the 30 percent of highest earning female employees. I don't know what you may call it, but it only took me like five years to drive myself into depression because I was selling a product I didn't believe in. I was doing something that I didn't really believe in.

So it ended up driving me into that depression, which took a therapy session with a professional to realize that, hey, I need to quit that job. So I had to quit that job and I had to become my own boss in order to not kill myself as a result. And so after thinking, what is it that I can do and be my boss, I decided to try real estate and first it was real estate investing and then somebody told me why don't you become an agent, learn how it's done. And then if you want to still invest, you can at least know how it's done and then invest with that knowledge.

But once I became real estate agent and once I saw the way that I could help people, actually a lot of the things that people face during those transactions, because it is the biggest investment in their life causes a lot of stress and anxiety. I felt like I was in the position to understand those families and actually help them remove that out of this whole process. I became a real estate agent, and that was about 14 years ago.

Never looked back.

Gresham Harkless 04:16

Awesome. Awesome. Obviously, I'm sorry to hear you had the depression and all of that was coming along, when you were talking. But I always say sometimes it's the darkest before dawn and sometimes those bad experiences redirect you towards where you should be anyway.

So sometimes you have to appreciate those.

Nara Rakhmetova 04:29

You have to go through them in order to get where you are. It's just the process. That's life, right?

Gresham Harkless 04:34

Exactly, exactly. You have to go through it whether you wanted to or not, but definitely seems like you're doing a phenomenal thing.

I wanted to drill down and hear a little bit more about what you're doing to help out these clients that you're working with.

Nara Rakhmetova 04:44

Absolutely. So you know there are a lot of real estate agents, realtors helping people buy and sell real estate. But what I do, and I think where I stand out of the crowd is that my philosophy and my goal number one is to really take that anxiety and stress out of the process, because I have a lot of first-time home buyers. I help a lot of downsizing families, empty nesters or people who are thinking about going into retirement and want to rethink their mortgage payment and do something about it.

So, when people do those real estate transactions, they are for the most part because they have to do something. It's not like on a whim deciding to change something in their lives. And so there's always stress associated with it. My goal number one is to remove that, and the only way I can remove that is by keeping my clients completely informed whether it's bad or good. Explaining things ahead of time so they know exactly what to expect and nothing is a surprise.

I basically just take my client's hand and take it from step one to the last step, which is the closing. As a result, I get a lot of hugs and thank yous and kisses and smiles and happy relief at the closing table. That's what I work for. That's what I'm looking forward in every transaction.

Gresham Harkless 06:02

Yeah, that makes sense. And like you mentioned, I can imagine when you get and you sit down to make that final signature, so to speak, our signatures, maybe I should say, you probably do have a lot of stress and everything. But when you finally understand that you've been saving or maybe planning to do this for years and years and it's come to fruition, I'm sure that makes everything work.

Nara Rakhmetova 06:20

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes.

Gresham Harkless 06:22

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I also like the fact that you do make it a point to educate people on that, especially if you're first-time homebuyer. First time you're doing anything, there are so many things you don't know and to be able to lean on somebody to be able to say, Hey, you can help me out with X, Y and Z.

Or at least I may not know everything, but at least I know I can talk to my real estate agent so that they can explain everything to me helps out a ton as far as like alleviating that stress.

Nara Rakhmetova 06:43

Exactly. Industries change with time, and there are a lot of other restrictions that came along after 2008. And, even if you bought before, even if you bought and sold before, and you think you are very experienced, it still helps to have a good professional on your side that you can pick up the phone and call anytime with any question and get the answer.

Just like with a good doctor, a family practice doctor that you can ask questions anytime that something comes up, we cannot be professionals in everything and you don't know what you don't know.

Gresham Harkless 07:14

Exactly why it makes so much sense to be able to have somebody you can call. So Appreciate you for doing that and definitely helping out those first time home buyers.

Now I wanted to ask for what I call your secret sauce and you might have already touched on this, but what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Nara Rakhmetova 07:27

I use the latest technology in my practice. I make it a point to research and learn new techniques and new technology in order to save my clients time, money, energy and effort. And as an example, latest technology that I've been using is the virtual reality house hunting.

So basically I save my clients time and effort and gas by not letting them drive around multiple houses when they see something they want to go out and check out instead of that while they're at work, I go work for them and record a 360 virtual reality video of the house from outside in everything in the house with my commentary. And then I send them the video and I provide the virtual reality goggles when we first meet so that you can actually see those homes at 2 a.m. at night sitting on your couch and deciding, okay, do I want to actually drive to that house and see in person or do I see something already on that video that I don't like?

That helps narrowing down ten houses potentially from, For you to drive around to one, two or sometimes none, and that saves a lot of time, a lot of effort and especially if it's a family with little kids, but it's impossible.

Gresham Harkless 08:38

Yeah, I can imagine, especially, definitely in this northern Virginia area, it takes so long to go down the road. Sometimes takes an hour just to go down the street, so.

Nara Rakhmetova 08:45

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 08:46

Being able to save time is tremendous. I can imagine to that, when you're doing that commentary, like when you're actually recording, you probably already know the client. You probably already have an idea of what they're looking for or not.

So you can provide them kind of unique perspective on what they're looking for.

Nara Rakhmetova 09:00

Yeah, absolutely. Then another plus of this technology is that for the sellers, I do the same thing. I will record virtual reality tour, which is a 360 video, and anytime a buyer wants to see and approaches me, I will send them the link and say, why don't you take a look at this video?

If you still want to come see it, I will schedule the time this way. I am limiting the look you lose, people who are not very serious, who just want to see inside. And it's a hassle to get your house ready for showings. You have to make it constantly clean. It's not life if you live in the house and there are so many showings. That way, with your house virtually available online, you are saving yourself a lot of hustle.

Gresham Harkless 09:44

Yeah. I can imagine a lot of stress too, especially like you said, if you're living there and you have people come, I can't imagine how that is, but I can't imagine it's not an exciting time probably.

Nara Rakhmetova 09:52

Not really. No, it's a hassle. Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 09:55

Yeah. That makes sense. What I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have. But it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Nara Rakhmetova 10:07

I don't know about effective and efficient, but at least it puts me in the right mindset. I read and try to follow the principles every single day of the book that's called Secrets of the Millennial Mind by T. Hoff Ecker. And if you follow those practices, it just puts you in the right mindset.

It's basically working and living from the place of abundance of everything. It just makes life better and easier and more pleasant to live, and that's what I live by.

Gresham Harkless 10:41

Yeah, that makes sense.I haven't actually read that book but I have seen that book. I can't even actually see the cover funny enough is that I haven't opened it, but I definitely will now. But yeah, that living and operating from that kind of mentality of abundance helps you see the world in an entirely different way instead of the lack or the scarcity that a lot of people do.

Nara Rakhmetova 10:59

Absolutely. Yes. Positivity, abundance, and always looking for good things in anything that happens to you.

Gresham Harkless 11:05

Yeah, absolutely. I always heard this kind of comment where, things don't happen to you, they happen for you. That's like this idea of abundance, because it's happening to propel you to where you're supposed to be anyways.

Nara Rakhmetova 11:15

Yes.

Gresham Harkless 11:16

Absolutely. I love that. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Nara Rakhmetova 11:27

Oh my goodness. If right now I've discovered a networking, after helping families with their home purchases, what I've realized is that when you get to know people and you understand where they work, what they do, you are in a position to connect them. So if somebody does something in one profession and needs another service in a completely different industry, and I happen to know that person, it makes me so happy to make a connection and introduce people. If there is a new client or new business or a new job that comes out of it, it just makes me happy. What it led me to is organizing networking events for people to come in and network like on a monthly basis.

But what I've also came to a conclusion is that I can be more effective and efficient if I constantly utilize the same concept by connecting on LinkedIn. I've been connecting to with LinkedIn professionals and talking to them and meeting and instead of just connecting and be done with it, I am messaging them. I am reaching out to people and I'm saying, Hey, you guys, I have a big network. How can I support you? Can we talk? Can we meet for coffee? Can we call? Can we have a 5, 10 minute call? How can I support you? Is there anything I can do for you?

It's not asking for real estate business. It's just trying to see if my network can connect people within my network or to have some more business going on or a new client found or a new job started, it just makes my life so much richer. That's what I'm enjoying. I think if I had a time machine and I told myself, Hey, 14 years ago, you could do this. I would definitely start with that because that's just something that brings joy into my life.

Gresham Harkless 13:05

Yeah, I absolutely love that and obviously we got to connect on linkedIn because you reached out and that became to fruition. I really loved when we were talking and chatting just on how you were able to combine the virtual with the physical.

I'm a big proponent of that and being able to do both, not just one or the other, but both here. To connect on LinkedIn, but then go get coffee or go get lunch or whatever that is it seems like that's where it takes the relationship to another level.

Nara Rakhmetova 13:30

Exactly. Because you are able to find out things that you wouldn't know otherwise. You would be amazed at how many new things I learned just by talking to different people, different professionals, different, industries. It's just a lot of information that then sits somewhere dormant until somebody else mentions it.

I'm like, Oh, hold on a sec, I have this guy that I can come with and I've already made those connections, which feels great.

Gresham Harkless 13:55

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that CEO nugget. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition for being a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show.

So I wanted to ask you Nara, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Nara Rakhmetova 14:08

Oh my goodness. That's such a big question. Being your own boss comes to mind, being able to decide the direction of your business, however small you want to stay, however big you want to be, it's your business. You are ultimately responsible for it.

Yes, responsibility is heavy, but it's the joy of when you see the results and when you see the development and when you see the growth. because it's just you. You are the CEO. It's you, and if you have employees and you are able to make their lives better because of your growth, that's even better. So I think it's all about being able to give and help as many people as you possibly can.

Gresham Harkless 14:49

Absolutely. I think that makes perfect sense and I appreciate that definition, but now I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and then also how best people can get a hold of you.

Nara Rakhmetova 15:04

Thank you so much for this opportunity first of all, because it's really always great to be able to share your knowledge and the energy positivity, to anyone willing to listen. I can be easily found online. If you search by my name, and as an NCARA realtor, you'll find my YouTube channel, you'll find my Facebook group where I educate people about real estate transactions.

You'll find my website where you can search for listings. I am everywhere online. Like I said, I'm utilizing latest technology and internet is huge part of it and you can find me on LinkedIn as well. I'm here just to trying to help as many people as I can, even if it's just answering a question, and even if somebody is not doing business with me, it's not about money.

Ultimately, it's about helping people achieve what they're trying to achieve. And if answering one question gets there, that's great. If helping somebody buy or sell a house gets them there, it's great. It's ltimate goal is to get them where they want to be.

Gresham Harkless 16:08

Absolutely. Absolutely. It sounds like you're doing a phenomenal job of doing that so I truly appreciate you for reaching out on LinkedIn and definitely, of course, spending time today.

I've truly had fun and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Nara Rakhmetova 16:19

Thank you so much.

Outro 16:21

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast, powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co.

This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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