On the 107th episode of The Richard Robbins Show, I sit down with a woman who was nicknamed The Negotiator by her father when she was just a little girl. Today, she is an instructor of MBA Negotiations at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto and has dedicated herself to empowering Fortune 500 clients and diverse audiences across the globe to become better communicators and negotiators. Fotini Iconomopoulos, author of Say Less, Get More, is an expert in navigating high-stakes negotiations and has made a career teaching her clients, audiences and students how to become better negotiators. “You can negotiate and not only protect relationships, but also build better ones, if you’re doing it effectively,” Fotini says. She continues by saying that curiosity can be your most powerful tool while sitting down with another party, “Who is sitting across from me right now and what is important to them? If you haven’t considered the person on the other side, then why should they engage with you?” In this episode, Fotini and I talk about the evolution of negotiation and why a present-day approach is necessary to getting what you want. Fotini gives real estate professionals insight on how to approach conversations with their clients, pinpoints the importance of knowing your clients why and she explains that it can be just as powerful to listen as it is to talk.

On the 106th episode of The Richard Robbins Show, I sit down with a man defying the conventional idea of retirement. Today, at 68 years young, he is still the Broker of Record of both Royal LePage ProAlliance Realty and Performance Realty and plays in a band that still tours North America (in his spare time). Mark Rashotte, a 40-year veteran in the real estate industry, lives his day-to-day life with the energy of a person 30 years younger. Last year he purchased Royal LePage Performance Realty in Ottawa, Ontario, and is now responsible for 700 agents under his leadership. Despite his success in the real estate industry, there is another passion that has consumed his mind and heart - music. In the 1970s, Mark and his band played 250 shows a year as a pop group, playing across Canada and the United States. Their group named ‘Photograph’ was signed to Capitol Records and released an album in 1981. When the band dissolved in 1984, Mark explains that his transition from music to real estate was more seamless than you might expect. “You are an independent contractor,” Mark tells me. “You’re out working, keeping people happy and it’s a service business.” 40 years later, Mark is still heavily involved in both music and real estate and has no plans to retire anytime soon.

On the 105th episode of The Richard Robbins Show, I sit down with a man who has found incredible success in the real estate industry and, even more so, at home with his wife and 11 children. Mark Burke, a 20 year veteran in the real estate industry is a 2nd generation agent who learned the ropes from his mother. Before his career as a real estate professional, Mark found himself on the sales and marketing team with Coca-Cola, increasing their gross profit by 50 million dollars annually for their Canadian portfolio. Despite his success, Mark switched careers because something had become more prominent and important in his life: Family. In this episode of The Richard Robbins Show, Mark and I chat about the importance of family and why it’s crucial to achieve work-life balance. Mark gives us his perspective on how to approach a pricing conversation with potential clients properly, the reason for using locally-specific real estate data and why authenticity could be your greatest asset when it comes to doing more business.

My next guest has been part of the RRI organization for over 20 years. His dedication to this industry is palpable and what he continues to provide to his team, his clients and to agents across the globe is admirable. Nathan Dart, a 2nd generation real estate professional has been selling real estate in Maryland, D.C. Metro for 23 years. He has graced The Richard Robbins Show podcast with his insights once before, sharing his secrets to building the perfect team on Episode 25. It’s undoubtedly a worthwhile listen for anyone looking to transform their people-dependent business into a system-dependent one. In this, our 104th episode, Nathan and I evolve the conversation and focus our attention on a new technology dedicated to revolutionizing the buying and selling experience in the real estate industry. This new property technology company, Final Offer, is a negotiation platform that offers total transparency between buyers and sellers. “The buyers are winning, the sellers are winning and the industry is winning,” Nathan tells me in this very eye-opening interview. On top of that, Nathan and I discuss the ongoing antitrust lawsuit with NAR, the future of real estate negotiations and how technological advancements in AI will influence our industry immensely, in the not-so-distant future.

Is there anything more important to entrepreneurs than mindset? In this episode of The Richard Robbins Show, I sit down with Professional Certified Coach, Prosci Change Practitioner, CEO and Founder of The Momentum Institute, Vered Kogan. Vered is a mindset coach with a deep passion for helping individuals release the mental and emotional obstacles that prevent them from achieving their goals and successfully adapting to change in their life. “Oftentimes, change fails because of the human resistance to change,” Vered tells me. She continues to say, “It’s not because there’s not enough time or money or the idea isn’t great. People actually don’t resist change; people resist the transition.” In this podcast, Vered explains why the transitionary moments during a period of change in your life are important to focus on. We talk about why negative emotions are powerful opportunities to learn about yourself and we discuss how your mindset can be trained by playing a quick, fun game.  As an added bonus, about midway through the podcast, join Vered and I in a live and interactive meditation session that will bring your feelings, intentions and awareness to the surface.

On the 102nd episode of The Richard Robbins Show I sat down with a man who not only has 30+ years of real estate experience and is in the Top 1% in Canada for Royal LePage, but he is also a highly respected coach and member of the RRI team. Bill Parnaby has been a licensed real estate agent since 1992. Working in the Caledon area, he has maintained his #1 ranking for the past 15 consecutive years.  When I asked Bill about his success, he simply told me, “I do everything I can to keep people away from me.” He explains that, “I mean that in a good way, I keep people serviced well enough that they never have to ask me a question.” Bill’s philosophy of Serve Don’t Sell has helped him maintain a loyal clientele and has seen his business flourish. However, it wasn’t always like this. As Bill puts it, “I used to be a goal chaser.” He did more and more, never hopping off the real estate treadmill, to the point that he was burnt out and wanted to quit the industry altogether. That was until he switched his thinking and started operating his business differently; not chasing the money but instead, serving his database and his community. In this episode of The Richard Robbins Show, Bill and I talk about the importance of mindset and how changing his perspective changed his entire life. Bill shares his strategies for effective marketing, offers insight on what the top 3 things agents get wrong and how to fix it and lets us know why committing to a schedule is the best thing you could ever do.

On the 101st episode of The Richard Robbins Show, I sit down with a longtime friend and colleague within the real estate industry, Phil Soper. Phil is President & CEO of Royal LePage and Bridgemarq Real Estate Services, the largest real estate brokerage firm in Canada, with over 21,000 agents across its businesses and doing roughly $146 billion in property sales in 2021. With decades of experience in the real estate industry between us, Phil and I share our thoughts on what to expect in the year ahead in terms of sales, pricing and interest rates. “If we were talking about the American market, our faces would be longer. It would be a more dire situation,” Phil tells me. Due to the conservatism of the Canadian banks, we find ourselves in a much safer position moving forward in terms of financial stress on Canadian homeowners. In this special episode of the podcast, Phil and I are discussing today’s real estate market. We talk about what to expect come 2024 and theorize a few possibilities for the Canadian real estate market. We talk about the similarities of 2008 to today, why home prices could see a surge and why immigration is the key to Canada’s strong real estate industry. Interested in hearing more of Phil Soper? Check out episode #2 of The Richard Robbins Show that I recorded with Phil in 2019.

On the 100th episode of The Richard Robbins Show, I sat down with a friend who has lived two lives in the real estate industry. Mark Arnstein, a 27-year veteran as a real estate agent, began his career in the beautiful city of Vancouver, British Columbia. 8 years later, after growing a substantial business and clientele, he packed up and moved to Toronto with his wife. It was quite the adjustment for Mark as you can imagine. “You take a big fish in a small pond but drop it inside of an ocean, it takes a while to adjust,” he tells me. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, Mark dedicated himself to understanding this new landscape and learning the Toronto market. “I became a student…I needed to understand the market and know where the value stood.” Mark dedicated himself to doing two open houses a day over the weekends and began to geo-farm an area that he now dominates 19 years later. On this episode of The Richard Robbins Show, Mark and I discuss the 3 crucial steps to successfully geo-farming an area. Mark shares his process for picking an area, budgeting, frequency and how to get a 10x return on your geo-farming investment!

Creating a brand is one of the most difficult things when starting a business. Your brand holds so much weight, as our next guest describes it, “It’s what other people are saying about you when you’re not in the room.” Juliet Wright, Founder and CEO of Tally Creative, is our next guest on The Richard Robbins Show. A Brand Stylist who focuses on empowering you and your business, Juliet is the leader of a dynamic team that has pioneered a groundbreaking methodology for brand development. “Often times to get a brand off the ground, or a company off the ground, you need someone to believe in you and see that big picture,” Juliet tells me. Today, Juliet tells me that Tally Creative focuses on inspiring belief, activating potential and elevating excellence, taking a company's brand, marketing and advertising to a whole new level. In this episode of the Richard Robbins Show, Juliet discusses the importance of knowing (and living) your values as a company, and why having a solid foundation rooted in your values is key to your success.

We would all agree that there is nothing better in life than having a wonderful partner. My wife, beyond a shadow of a doubt, makes me a much better person. That said, it doesn’t mean that it’s always easy! On the 98th edition of The Richard Robbins Show, I sat down with an amazing, spirited, high-energy person named Annie Lalla. For the past 15 years, Annie has been a cutting-edge Relationship Coach who maps the complex emotional landscape of relationships. “Relationships are the hardest thing there is for humans to do,” Annie confesses and I think we can all agree with that statement. She helps clients cultivate romantic esteem and develop collaboration skills that go beyond shame, blame & power struggles. “Conflict is not an indicator that something is wrong,” Annie explains during our chat and tells me that, “I teach people how to fight in a way that is healthy.” In this episode of The Richard Robbins Show, Annie and I talk about how to create better relationships in our lives with the people that we love the most. Annie talks about how to optimize relationships in your life, offers some conflict resolution tips and brings a roadmap for creating evolutionary relationships that last a lifetime.