Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone

Dial, Grind, Close: How Robin Martin Brute-Forced His Way to Success

• Maria Quattrone • Season 1 • Episode 339

Share episode

What if the answer you've been searching for is simply putting in the work? That's the powerful message Robin Martin, leader of Premier Home Team at Keller Williams, shares in this compelling conversation about persistence, discipline, and accountability in real estate.

Drawing from his background as a college track coach, Robin reveals how he "brute-forced" his way to success in just six years through relentless activity. He transparently breaks down his journey from making 5,000 dials to get a single listing as a new agent to becoming dramatically more efficient through deliberate practice. The magic moment came when Robin realized success in real estate wasn't about luck or natural talent—it was mathematical and repeatable.

"Real estate is something you can work your way to success in, even when you don't have the talent yet, even when you don't have the resources, the database, the pipeline," Robin explains. This accessibility makes the profession uniquely fair—anyone willing to commit to consistent activity can build a thriving business. Maria and Robin agree that 20 meaningful conversations daily virtually guarantees a sustainable career, regardless of age or experience.

Beyond tactics, the conversation delves into the mindset shift required for lasting success. Robin shares how partnering with Place transformed his business by surrounding him with ambitious people who "rob you of your excuses," while Maria illustrates radical accountability through powerful everyday scenarios. The episode culminates in a profound reminder that your circumstances result from choices you've made—and only you have the power to change them.

Whether you're a seasoned agent or considering a career in real estate, this episode offers both practical wisdom and the motivation to take full ownership of your journey. Ready to be the solution to your own challenges? Listen now and discover how persistence and accountability can transform your business and life.

Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
Facebook Page: REMAX at Home Facebook
Facebook Page: Rise in Real Estate Facebook
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535

Maria Quattrone:

This will be the Solution Podcast and I'm your host, maria Quattrone, and today I welcome Robin Martin from Premier Home Team. He runs his business out of Keller Williams and he is a place partner and I'm excited because Robin and I met a few years ago. We hadn't had an opportunity since then actually to go deep into what's going on. But, robin, so welcome to the show as a first-time guest and if you know anything about me, you know that I come. I have a quote for you, especially for you today. Love it, especially for you today. Love it Energy and persistence conquer all things. Benjamin Franklin.

Robin Martin:

I like it yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

Energy and persistence conquer all things. I picked up for you this morning, based on the text that I sent you and what you sent me back, and I thought I think this is a good quote from Robin Through sheer persistence and will of making something happen. So, Robin, I know, you know, you are doing amazing things out there, mainly Delaware County service, in Philadelphia County with your team. We have 13, 15 agents, Yep, yep and we met a few years ago and you were still, you were working on figuring it all out.

Robin Martin:

Just bumping my head a bunch. Just bumping my head a bunch. Yeah, for sure.

Maria Quattrone:

And now you are a joint place, so you're a partner with them and you're rocking and rolling. But I want to go back to high level and have people and and you have systems and processes and a lot of transactions. It takes a lot to get there and so usually what I found in talking to I've interviewed over 350 people something with persistence, it's something that's embedded in you 350 people. Something with persistence, it's something that's embedded in you and came from somewhere long ago.

Robin Martin:

What would you say that was for you?

Robin Martin:

It's, it's probably, um, my, my athletic background, um, I ran, I ran track, uh, as a, as a kid, I ran track in college, um, and it's a grind, um, and but if you work really, really hard.

Robin Martin:

I actually coached track and field for almost a decade, um, before I, before I started real estate, Um, and it's, and it's kind of fascinating because sometimes the most talented people they're they're not very, they're not as successful and the ones that just work hard day in and day out as successful and the ones that just work hard day in and day out, um, they can, they can produce really high levels of success.

Robin Martin:

So I just kind of learned through my athletic and coaching career that you um, that it's a how to set a goal that's that's years away, how to work at it diligently every day and how to kind of push through those, the feelings right, the I don't want to do it today's, and the oh, this hurts today and it's just a little bit of pain. And I really believe that if you keep pushing through that, you're going to get there. And I've just seen it happen in my life and I've just seen it happen as a coach enough times that I can't deny that it's true. So when real estate started it was really that same kind of mentality and that's kind of what we did from the beginning.

Maria Quattrone:

It's a discipline. There's no, you know, your feelings are your feelings. A lot of times it's just made up stuff that you make up anyway. But it's a discipline to do whatever is required on the daily basis, day in, day out, without you know, without minimal complaints, because the more energy you bring to it, the greater possibility of being successful with it if you leave it aside. So in real estate, because that's what we do. But in real estate, many people decide that they don't want to do the work, and I always think about things like I could be digging a ditch, I could be so unfortunate and live in a third world country with no water and no infrastructure. I could be so unfortunate and be in a war zone, and so sometimes, you know, I bring it to that to the team, I dumb it down to, you know, really not even having basic needs, yet we can't make 20 more phone calls, hmm.

Robin Martin:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

It's really just choosing.

Robin Martin:

Sorry, go ahead.

Maria Quattrone:

No, no, no. We're sitting in like a nice comfy, warm or cool home, depending on the weather, or office with all the things that we need. And it's a decision. I mean you made a decision. So you made a decision when you got into this business because we met and I remember you were like adamant. You were adamant about figuring this out and doing it and it took how much time to do that so I've been an agent.

Robin Martin:

Um, in july it was uh, six years. So so been an agent six years. Started this team. It'll be five years in October. So it took five years, five good years. My first six months in the business. I had no idea what I was doing, so I don't even count that, but yeah, it took a good five years.

Maria Quattrone:

You've had tremendous success for somebody in the business for such a short time. What do you attribute it to?

Robin Martin:

Well, I would say that real estate and thank God for this reality, but real estate is something can brute force your way to success, and when I first started, I just didn't want to wait my turn. It seemed like everybody who was successful. They've been doing it for 20 years, they built this book of business and I just didn't have that kind of time. I got into this business late and so I had to speed it up and I started with expireds. It was like a miracle for me, because you watch people be successful when you're a brand new agent. You watch people be successful, you watch people be unsuccessful and you can't tell the difference between them. So it seems like luck, it seems like magic. Like Maria Quattrone, she just got lucky right. That's what a new agent would tell themselves if they saw you.

Maria Quattrone:

They don't know how much work, right.

Robin Martin:

They just see you winning. And so I didn't really get it and it seemed like magic and I just was hoping that I would be one of the touched ones, you know. And so I started calling expireds and I was terrible at it, but I tracked my numbers early on and so it was at the beginning I was 125 contacts to an appointment. That was 5% pickup rate, 6% pickup rate. I was calling some, you know, calling some older lists. So 5% to 6% pickup rate and 125 contacts to an appointment, and I closed a little less than half of my appointments, right.

Maria Quattrone:

So those are terrible numbers by the way, just terrible.

Robin Martin:

But it didn't matter because it was repeatable, right. So those are terrible numbers, by the way, just terrible, but it didn't matter because it was repeatable, right. Like it stopped being magic, like instantaneously for me. And so, even though you know you do that math, I don't know I'd have to like do it here on my, but let's see 20, we'll call it 20 times 125 times 2. So that's 5,000 dials to a listing right. That's pretty extreme, but it didn't matter to me because I could do that If I made 500 dials a day and I did that five days a week. That's a listing every two weeks. That's 26 listings in a year. That's a living right. And when that happened, like everything switched for me.

Robin Martin:

And real estate is something that you can, just you can brute, force your way through it. You can be terrible at open houses, just terrible, but if you host enough of them, if you host 10 of them a week, you're gonna get buyers Like this is that's why what I love about real estate is that it's fair, like you can work your way to success even when you don't have the talent yet, even when you don't have the resources, the database, the pipeline. You can just work yourself to success, and that's just not true everywhere, right? And that's kind of how we started. Just, we didn't know what we were doing, we were not great at what we did, but we were going to brute force our way to success and that's kind of how that was the platform at what we built.

Maria Quattrone:

Wow, those are some numbers. You knew the numbers, though it's now what are the numbers? Or you're not calling anymore, so I don't call expireds anymore.

Robin Martin:

But when I stopped it was same pickup rate and I was about 37 conversations to an appointment and I and I closed about 80% of my appointments, so that that was that's what it was when it was the end. So we many conversations do you have a day? So that was probably 30, 35. So this was so. That's 925 dials to a listing. So I started at 5000 and ended up at 925 925 dials to a listing.

Maria Quattrone:

Okay, well, it is what it is right Meaning. What else were you going to do?

Robin Martin:

That's a really good point right.

Maria Quattrone:

We have new agents that come join us.

Robin Martin:

I always, you know, I think, oh, seven houses, open houses, that's a lot. You know, we don't, our standard is three on our team, but even three, three seems like a lot. I'm like what else are you doing?

Maria Quattrone:

I mean, if you went to Comcast and punched in or anywhere else and you work 8.30 to 5.30, you'd have to do work. So this is the work. If there's in a team model like you and myself, the agent doesn't really have to do anything else but dial the phone.

Robin Martin:

So if you have and cash their checks.

Maria Quattrone:

If there's no appointments that day, then there's nothing else to do but make phone calls, right?

Robin Martin:

But that day-in, day-out discipline is hard. I have a lot of understanding of what they go through, understanding of what they go through, and that's the coach in me that I really enjoy helping them work through. That it is not what we're taught. We're not taught entrepreneurial thinking right, we're taught. Nine to five I mean, I remember I used to work for USA, or it doesn't even exist anymore. That's how old I am and I would go to the. You know, I remember I would go to the bathroom and I'd like to stay there an extra five minutes and I would just, I would feel I would laugh because I like they just paid me $2 for nothing. You know.

Robin Martin:

Like that's like instilled in us, this kind of like shift work mentality, and that's all most of the people around us that they know. So I don't really I have a lot of understanding for our agents as they navigate these waters. Most times you go to a job, you work twice as hard, you get a 5% raise, so why work twice as hard? And so all of this, I think, is really kind of ingrained in our minds, and so I love working with agents to help kind of free them and to think about the world in an entrepreneurial way, so that they too can understand and feel the benefits of being the master of your own destiny and the hero of your own story. And I think that's just not natural, like we're not bred to feel like ourselves, as the hero of our story, to be victors, not victims, and and so helping them work through that, you know it's it's it's my life's work, it's the thing that I love. I love the most about about, about having a team.

Maria Quattrone:

It's interesting and I it's interesting it's we're in a sales job, so our job is to sell real estate to as many people as we want, which is the beauty of it. I think that you know, if you don't want to be in sales, then this probably isn't a good spot for people. I did a day in the life of a realtor last night webinar for people that aren't in the business and and you know, after 21 years of this, to still have the energy and enthusiasm yeah, and straight away, tell them, like I never went to a settlement that didn't start with a conversation, so conversing. So what do you think an agent needs to do, robin, in today's marketplace?

Robin Martin:

To be successful.

Maria Quattrone:

Yes, activity what do you think that looks like? It could be a lot of different things right.

Robin Martin:

It's finding what fills your cup, like what you're good at and what gives you energy, but I think it's. It could be. Could be door knocking, could be circle dialing, could be expires, it could be Fizbo's, it could be first-time homebuyer seminars, it could be open houses, it could be. Could be you know, working your sphere super hard. It could be setting up tables at 25 festivals across the greater Philadelphia area over the summer. These are all things our agents have done this year. It's really farming. I mean, we could go on and on and on, but pick a lane and go and do a ton of it like a ton and you're going to be bad at it when you start Like. I used to live in Nicaragua. I arrived there um able to say the word burrito and agua, right, and and I learned how to speak Spanish, but I learned it by being terrible at it. I have a number of amazing, embarrassing speaking Spanish stories that I like to share with my team because it's okay to suck.

Robin Martin:

It's okay to not be good at something, but that is the path that everybody walks to get good at something.

Maria Quattrone:

No one arrives good.

Robin Martin:

Just do it, the sheer volume of that activity, and you'll get good while you're doing it. You don't have to practice and get ready to get ready. I mean, you should practice, but don't get ready to get ready. Just jump in sheer volume of activity and that's the activity. Activity, activity. That is the solution. Some people are going to be innately more talented at it when they start, and that's fine. And then doing it with intent, and then doing a little bit of self-analysis when you're done Ooh, I said that that didn't land right.

Maria Quattrone:

Ooh, I did this and they didn't like it.

Robin Martin:

Ooh, I didn't pick up on this cue. Maybe I should try that something different next time and just consistently get better and go. That would be my advice.

Maria Quattrone:

The value of the compound effect. Doing this work over and over again and over time, it compounds. Agreed. Why did you get into real estate? Agreed why did you?

Robin Martin:

get into real estate? Um, well, it's not a. It's uh, you know, like, when you ask, people like that are married, well, where do you meet? It's not always a great story, you know, uh. So, um, I, I was, uh, I was a college track and field coach for a long time. When that that career ended, I had a friend who was a realtor. She sold us our first house and she thought I'd be good at it. I thought maybe this might make sense and so I tried it, and that's the story. It's not super compelling, and that's the story. It's not not super compelling, but that's. That's how I started. It was an invitation of a friend. Her name's Carrie Carr. You might know her, and Carrie was a good friend of mine. She was just starting in her real estate career and she was having success and she brought me along. That's really the whole story.

Maria Quattrone:

That's great. You always have to have a friend in real estate. Yeah, I had a similar story. My friend thought I would be great at it and I investigated. I was in advertising sales for 11 years. I've been making calls for 32 years yeah, a long time.

Robin Martin:

But it compounded.

Maria Quattrone:

It compounded. Yes, we teach you can do open houses, you can do door knocking, whatever, but we just teach call the database. 57,000 people in there, tons of people to call. Call the database, make as many calls as possible, have at least 20 conversations a day. Everything else takes care of itself 20 conversations a day.

Robin Martin:

You are going to sell houses.

Maria Quattrone:

I don't care if you're having where you're having.

Robin Martin:

That's really. Yeah, I agree with you.

Maria Quattrone:

If you have 20 conversations a day, you'll make a good living, a decent living, in real estate At least yeah, At least a decent living.

Maria Quattrone:

And this is if you don't even have all the skills yet. I have 19-year-olds right from high school selling real estate, doing deals. Just don't call in the database, yeah. So you know, people don't. You're not too young, you're not too old, you can do this. Nobody's going to say you can't sell real estate because you're 19 or 80. There's a lady out there in the south. She's 100, she's selling real estate still. Yep, the sky's the limit. 100, she's selling real estate still.

Robin Martin:

Yeah, the sky's the limit and that's what makes this industry so amazing.

Maria Quattrone:

Right is that that's there's just not a lot of places anymore where that's true, but that's definitely true here and you could do as much as you want or as little as you want. Where else can you go and have this kind of opportunity? Mortgage, yes. Insurance, financial services. You need more experience for financial services, though, and you need to get your Series 7. A lot easier to get a real estate license. Even easier to get your MLO license and insurance license Yep license, an insurance license? Yep. But those careers are also viable, for the sky's the limit, mm-hmm. You know, my friends in the mortgage industry make in half a million, a million dollars a year from sheer work ethic. Yeah, and if you do enough of it, you figure out how to do it right. Yeah, exactly, but it's about be the solution. Robin, you're the solution. You recently not that a little while ago you partnered with Place.

Robin Martin:

We did.

Maria Quattrone:

How has that impacted your business?

Robin Martin:

In a number of ways, but I think the most important is it's just who you surround yourself with. You surround yourself with, and if you're the, you know, if you're the smartest person in the room you need to find a new room and Place. Was that opportunity for us and our agents to be able to be in a room where we're consistently looking up and learning from people who are doing it at a higher level than us?

Robin Martin:

right there, we kind of we set these limitations for ourselves and then we go to, like. We went to an event a couple months ago and it was a, you know, a sales event. You had to do these. If you did this high number of activities, you called it this event and there were- 5,000 files right 5,000 files, 50 open houses.

Robin Martin:

Yep, yep, you got it 5,000 files, 50 open houses, 50 ads to your database, five listings or something. Yeah, five listings going live and 10 buy side or listing side agency contracts. So you had to do three of them to qualify for the event. And one of the people that got up and spoke was a single mom with a six-month-old who did all five, who did 50 open houses in 10 weeks, who did 5,000 dials in 10 weeks, added 50 people to her database and had 12 or so listing and buy-side contracts signed and put five listings live, listing and buy side contracts signed, and put five listings live.

Robin Martin:

And it was this moment where you're like my excuses are gone, my life is easier than her life, and if she could do it, I could do it. And I think there's this magic to being surrounded by ambitious, successful people that are crushing the real estate game. It just it robs you of your excuses, and I think we all need to be robbed of our excuses every once in a while, and so that's a big piece of that. We're running playbooks, the very best playbooks that real estate has to offer, proven by really, really established, powerful real estate teams and just the highest levels of support and the highest levels of training and you put all that together, it's kind of a magic box. So at one point in time I decided that I was going to do anything I could do to support my agents at the highest level. That was going to be my calling card. It was, it was, it was a.

Maria Quattrone:

This is part of my DNA.

Robin Martin:

I wanted to support my agents at the highest level and so when this opportunity for place came up, it put me in a spot. You know it's not cheap, but it put me into a spot where, if I had said no to place, I would have been going against my own principles, Because this was the very best opportunity in the country for my agents and I could not take advantage of it.

Maria Quattrone:

Good stuff, really good stuff. What's on the horizon for you?

Robin Martin:

Well, you know world domination, you know just really the regular. We're just growing, and I mean that in every sense of the word. We're growing as humans. There's a number of us doing the 75 hard challenge right now. We're growing that we're just becoming better people together, because that's really real estate is just a linear progression that goes according to your growth as a human right. So we're growing together. Our businesses are growing, we're expanding and adding new people and I don't think that I don't really believe in a lot of limitations. So we're just looking to become better agents, better humans, and share that with more agents. As we continue to grow and as long as we keep to those principles, I can't wait to see what the future brings.

Maria Quattrone:

I love that, I love that and it's you know. I would say you want X, y, z and I said well, who do you need to become? Who do you need to become? Who do you need to become? And the number one thing daily you can do is your own personal development. Become radically self-aware and accountable. And I ask people this question. So I'm sitting at a stoplight, I'm in my car, I'm waiting for the light to turn green, the car comes up behind me and hits me. Whose fault is it?

Robin Martin:

No, nobody's fault, everybody's fault.

Maria Quattrone:

Curious, tell me. Well, it's my fault for being there. So here's I'm standing there, you and I are talking. We're having a conversation. We're in-depth conversation. We're standing about two feet apart from each other. I'm holding my cup of black coffee. I have weight on today. Somebody comes over and as they're coming over to say hello and give you a hug, they trip, bang into me and the coffee spills all over me. Whose fault is it?

Robin Martin:

I'm curious, I'm fascinated. Tell me more.

Maria Quattrone:

It's my fault. I'm standing there, I'm holding a cup of coffee. I choose to hold that cup of coffee. I choose to wear white Coffee's all over me.

Maria Quattrone:

My white clothes become steamed coffee. That's radical accountability and awareness. Yeah, that's great. It's something that I teach. In fact, it's part of my platform, beolution. I'm going to send the final stages of finalizing the book Be the Solution. It's. I'll tell you what the cover says. There we go. I was working on this yesterday between 10 things. What if the answer you're searching for is you. Be the solution, a guide to living and leading with purpose? The answer you're searching for is you, because you know and this is I'm included in this okay. So I always say to people are you where you want to?

Maria Quattrone:

be in your life right now and they tell me yes or no, but let's say they say no, I say, well, there's only one person to blame for that. Pick up the mirror and look into it. It doesn't matter what happened to you as a kid, what happened to you with your husband, your wife, your kid, it doesn't matter. You know, I wrote a post wrapping the other day and I made like a face in it, like kind of like you know not, it wasn't I wasn't smiling, I wasn't angry either, I was just like kind of in between, whatever that is. Anyway, I wrote I said people need to get real. I said you're not where you are. I said people need to get real. I said you're not where you are. I said you know, for example, I'm not in Italy right now for 90 days and that's because of the decisions I made or didn't make Is why I'm not there.

Maria Quattrone:

The decisions I decided to make or not make. I could have been there. I chose to be in real estate. Yeah, I chose these things. I chose, I chose, I chose, we choose this radical self-awareness like that I like that.

Robin Martin:

Well it's. It makes it impossible for you to be a victim right, that's right.

Maria Quattrone:

That's all what it's about. And when things do happen, like things that aren't great, you sit back and you go. That didn't to me. It happened for me because it taught me something, and that's a hard pill to swallow. Yeah, you know, real estate's just a vehicle, not really about real estate, not life. Thank you for being the solution. You're doing a great job.

Robin Martin:

Thanks for having me.

Maria Quattrone:

My pleasure. Congratulations on all your success and your team. They got a great leader in you. They really do. You're such a caring and open and warm individual, so God bless and keep on being the solution, thank you, thank you.

Robin Martin:

Thanks for having me again, my pleasure.