🏠 Small Town Start For This San Francisco Real Estate Giant

While nearly $1 billion in sales now, Ruth Krishnan grew up in Missouri as 1 of 9 kids.

Growing up in a modest Midwest family, she often had little to eat and was found wearing hand-me-downs.

But living in a small, crammed house didn’t stop her from dreaming.

With nothing to lose and the desire to make her own way, Ruth moved to San Francisco in 2002.

She started selling Kirby vacuums door-to-door and realized she had a knack for sales.

Always growing, she started selling high-end appliances at expos.

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Ruth came to my company in 2002 and rapidly become of our top sales producers.

Then in 2005 she was promoted to Showroom Manager of BSC Culinary of San Francisco ww.bscculinary.com, where she again excelled in sales production and leadership for the company and her staff of 10 people.

- Review from owner

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While selling, she emailed Home Depot, which led to her getting a role in kitchen design.

This is where Ruth studied and grew passionate about interior design.

Eventually, this led to her own interior design business.

She was now scratching her entrepreneurial itch, but when the 2008 financial crisis hit, Ruth’s design business was hit hard.

As a new mom, Ruth needed a solution, and fast, so she turned to real estate.

This probably wouldn’t be at the top of most people’s list during 2008 but with her experience in sales, marketing, design, and real estate, it made sense.

In 2009, was only the beginning of leveraging her real estate and design expertise to command high prices and identify hidden opportunities for clients.

Since then she consistently ranks in the top 5 out of 5,000 SF agents because of her unique ability to help buyers & sellers.

With 86% of her buyers going into contract in only 1-2 offers, on average her sellers get 8% higher than list price, and 25% of her deals are done off-market.

Even ranking her as the #1 buyers’ agent in SF.

So how does she do it? That’s what I wanted to break down to shine a light on this San Francisco real estate giant.

Hiring & Firing Unrealistic Home Buyers So That You Can Close More Deals Quicker

Even though most agents want listings, Ruth saw an opportunity to make huge connections with corporate accounts, people moving to SF, and a way to stand out as a top-tier buyers agent.

Which simultaneously leads to long-term listing business, but first, what does she do differently?

Ruth isn’t your typical buyers’ agent.

She invests hours of work before committing to working with a buyer and even firing clients more than most would.

But this is the exact reason why her buyers rave about her buying experience.

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We interviewed a handful of agents, but ultimately selected Ruth because of her knowledge of the process and commitment to her clients.

Ruth and her team helped educate us throughout the process including reviewing past 6 months of market data with us, seeing a number of houses together to understand what we cared about, and helping us refine our parameters.

Ruth was never pushy with us on houses - but very importantly, also shared her opinion with us and coached us on trade offs which she thought we’d be most happy with in the long run.

She really took the time to understand what we cared about, what we were solving for and what our constraints were.

In terms of the offer itself, Ruth and her team are pros - they guided us every step of the way to maximize our odds of winning and helped us win on the first offer we wrote with Ruth.

- Recent buyer client

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And it’s not because she gets them to close quickly.

86% of the time in the first 1-2 offers.

But it’s because she helps them find the right home more quickly than most people would.

As we all know, with the overall trend in real estate, clients win long-term.

So how exactly does she do it?

She only works with buyers who are committed and realistic.

The process starts with an intensive, often 4-hour meeting.

Ruth walks buyers through a "past sold" exercise with buyers that she learned from her friend Keri Shull.

During this exercise, she invests 3-4 hours going through the recently sold inventory from the past 6 months.

There’s 4 main factors that can help buyers adjust their search:

1. Price
2. Location
3. Home Type & Size
4. Home Features

But this avoids wasting hours and months for her and the buyer searching for the wrong house.

It gives a realistic perspective on what they could & would have actually bought.

She also mentioned that this motivates buyers to act more quickly & decisively when the right home comes on the market.

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We met with Lauren last summer unconvinced that we could actually afford property in San Francisco, but having heard good things from a friend, we figured it was worth a call.

Lauren helped us understand what to expect in the market by having us review recently sold properties to see what was selling in our price range, and had a good sense of list to sale prices across SF that helped us narrow our focus to a realistic set of neighborhoods.

Lauren has experience helping buyers in all price points in SF, and always made us feel like a priority despite our feeling that we were looking for a diamond in the rough.

After narrowly missing out on the first property we bid on, Lauren helped us get our second offer accepted under crazy circumstances.

We had an east coast trip planned, and wouldn’t you know it, the property that ended up being “the one” came on the market hours after we left and accepted offers a day before we returned.

Lauren had a good understanding of our needs/wants by that point, and went above and beyond to tour, send us videos, and counsel us through the offer process from afar.

This was in September 2022 as interest rates were climbing, and the possibility of being priced out of the market was very real.

Yet again, we were not the first offer accepted, but when the stock market took another dip and the first buyers backed out, Lauren was the first person the sellers agent called because of her excellent communication throughout the process and her ability to clearly indicate to the sellers that we were serious.

We locked in a good rate that day (thanks to a lender referral also from Lauren), and felt immensely lucky to have found a home that had it all – ample parking, big kitchen and dining room, lots of flex space, and a huge backyard with a mature tree, just two blocks from McLaren park and its amazing nature trails – especially when interest rates jumped a full point the following week!

- Another recent home buyer

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It all starts with asking intentionally smart questions upfront to understand their true wants & needs.

And this goes beyond just typical bedrooms, size, price, or location, and it helps refine the search.

Allowing her to have candid conversations with buyers.

She prepares buyers thoroughly leading up to offers, so they are confident in making aggressive offers and going significantly over the list price when needed.

For example, talking through plan B scenarios ahead of time.

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Against all odds, we were able to secure our dream home, surpassing nine other offers in our first attempt.

We had been searching for a home for only three months, and we honestly thought it would take longer or be more challenging to find a property that met our needs.

The odds were stacked against us in this competitive real estate market, with high interest rates and a low inventory of entry-level single-family homes.

However, Ruth's expertise and dedication helped us overcome these challenges.

- Yet again, another recent buyer

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Her intentionally small client list means she can give each buyer full attention.

Her team is very responsive and available to buyers throughout the process.

They handle the hundreds of details so Ruth can focus just on the client.

This highly customized, client-focused process allows Ruth to get 86% of her buyers into contract within just 1-2 offers. Her unique approach stands out with clients, but that doesn’t stop with buyers.

A Real Concierge Level of Service For Sellers

Ruth’s ability to sell for premium prices begins with her unique listing process. Plus her deep design, sales, and marketing experience.

In SF, traffic can be unbearable so the pandemic created an opportunity for her to bring the majority of her listing appointments virtual, saving a ton of time.

During the listing appointment, she qualifies sellers upfront so that they are comfortable handing over full control of the selling process to her.

This can often mean fully moving out and handing over the keys.

With two small children, we really appreciated the degree to which Ruth and team took most of the complexity of a home sale off of our shoulders and made the process as smooth as possible.

From the first meeting it was clear that Ruth and her team bring a tremendous amount of experience, professionalism, and efficiency to the process of selling a home.

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On the first visit to our property she brought along contractors and stagers to determine the highest ROI areas for improvements and proposed a thorough and detailed budget and calendar for making improvements prior to bringing our home to market (ultimately we remodeled two bathrooms and made several other cosmetic upgrades to make our house show its best).

Her well organized team ensured that all work was done on time and on budget, organizing various contractors and external parties as necessary.

When it came time to list Ruth expertly analyzed the rapidly evolving market to help us with pricing strategy, and her marketing strategy and negotiating skills allowed us to go into contract after being on market for only 24 hours with an offer 13% over our asking price and well above what we bought the house for just 4 years earlier.

If this had been our whole experience with Ruth and her team we would have been thrilled, but what happened next truly put her service on the next level.

Just one week before we were set to close a historical atmospheric river storm system pounded the Bay Area, causing water intrusion and extensive damage at the property, throwing our pending deal into doubt.

Ruth calmly and masterfully negotiated with the buyer to keep them at the table while she simultaneously set her team to work getting bids from various contractors to make the necessary repairs.

Her team handled EVERYTHING, sourcing bids, negotiating prices, booking contractors, keeping everyone’s schedules straight, and keeping us and the buyer updated as everything developed.

Her deep connections with local contractors of all kinds made this whole process seem smooth, and we were able to close just one month later than we originally planned.

The level of service her team provided was amazing.

She is a true professional and we would hire her again in a heartbeat.

- A recent seller

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She invests $4-5k and way more, preparing each listing with:

• Project management of everything, here’s one short list of upgrades they did for a home: New cabinet hardware, New kitchen countertops, Painted kitchen cabinets, New appliances, New garage door, Re-grouted the bathroom tile, Painting interior and exterior, Added hardwood flooring to the kitchen, Landscaping, Replaced some interior doors
• Staging
• Photos, videos, and other marketing

This high-quality "canvas" is critical for marketing success.

Then her team handles all the details and project management so she can focus just on the client.

This level of service is hard for most agents working solo.

Her home prep, marketing, and negotiation skills earn sellers on average 8% over the listing price.

This comes from experience and learning strategies to avoid scaring off buyers.

Unlike some agents, Ruth also doesn’t believe in double-ending deals to avoid conflicts of interest and instead refers them out to the team.

And her process creates not only a reputation but real data to prove she actually gets top dollar.

This extensively thorough process, with full control from the seller, helps her strategically market a property to qualified buyers & negotiate with more strength for her seller.

Exceeding their expectations on sale price.

White Glove Operations

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We touch heavily on her multi-year hiring process and $130,000 per month overhead of her team on the podcast.

So we’ll move into 4 of her marketing strategies that have helped catapult her business over the years. Plus, what she’s investing in the future.

Long-Term Marketing Only

Ruth thinks of her marketing like real estate, building equity in long-term plays.

Unlike some agents, she does zero cold prospecting leaning into her strengths instead.

• 50% of her business comes from clients. Repeat and referrals.
• 10% from other real estate agents.
• 20% from online organic leads.
• 20% from business-to-business networks.

Strategic Gifting

As you might be able to imagine, her buying and selling process plays a huge part in her repeat business. However, her strategic gifting plays a major part in it as well.

She has a lead gifter on the team who can help organize and “automate” gifting campaigns.

This allows her to text someone whenever she notices something like a birthday, special occasion, or milestone.

There’s handwritten cards and higher-end gifts like:

• cutting board with the iconic map of SF on it
• specialty local chocolates
• yeti cups
• kitchen knives
• and more.

And her top 50 to 100 clients who she considers a whale, they will “gift” them multiple times a year.

The secret from Ruth is not always thinking of WHAT or HOW but WHO.

• Hire someone
• Organize the database
• Set up the gifting program together

Recommended resource: Read Giftology by John Ruhlin

SEO, Content Marketing & Personal Branding

While a lot of this builds her brand, Ruth always believed & wanted a high-quality website.

So she invested heavily in her website, SEO, blogs, and videos to rank high in organic search.

That’s why 20-40% of her business can come from people online finding her thanks to her extensive work in building out a resource for people.

Building Community: Facebook Groups & Masterminds

Ruth built a network (mastermind) of other women professionals in SF in all different industries.

A mastermind like this can be like a book club, “therapy” group to share problems & find solutions, best practices, etc.

There’s been people like:

• Designer
• Architect
• Contractor
• Painter
• Financial planner
• Multiple attorneys
• Chiro
• Consultants
• PR
• Wedding planner

Etc.

She’s generated over $15 million in business from her moms Facebook group by offering value.

They’ve done things like:

• Hosted events and live videos for the group on home tips
• Collected emails and nurtured relationships for conversion later
• Continued marketing to group with newsletters, market updates etc
• Interviews different business experts (financial advisors, attorneys etc) and provides market insights

One trick from Ruth is talking about how {INSERT CURRENT EVENT} is affecting the housing market.

Finding Corporate Accounts & Other Unique Opportunities

Imagine landing corporate relocation accounts like Salesforce which employs thousands in the area. But she didn’t land them by luck.

She built relationships with people who helped her get in the door and then she went above & beyond in her presentations.

She developed relations with financial planning firms and found the gap in niche markets, then positioned herself as the expert to fill them.

• Private school consultant
• Hospitals, residency
• Senior living community

Her presentation books were designed to have everything she wanted in them.

These books cost $30 each to produce… which is more than what most would expect to invest, but with branding, perception is often reality.

So all of this combines to be the reason she runs a navy seal-like real estate team in SF.

And if you want to learn more about Ruth and how she runs her team to be one of the top in San Francisco and the US, then check out the full interview I did with her on the Breaking and Building Leaders YouTube channel.

🧱 An Unfiltered Conversation with NY's #1 Mortgage Lender (Top 10 in US) | Brian Scott Cohen

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Meet Brian Scott Cohen. This is an unfiltered conversation with Brian Scott Cohen, NY's #1 mortgage lender, top 10 in the US, and the most reachable mortgage lender in NY with over $6 billion in loans & 9,000 homeowners served.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• 00:00 - intro
• 02:15 - his story after 19 years
• 07:34 - 19,000+ TikTok followers: embracing digital
• 10:25 - overcoming tough markets
• 16:54 - high volume but high touch
• 22:55 - work life integration as a high performer
• 25:38 - over prioritizing communication
• 32:08 - becoming the knowledge broker
• 34:36 - meeting & working with Ryan Serhant for 15 years
• 40:25 - Brian's secrets for long lasting relationships
• 46:23 - educating & expanding into new markets
• 57:06 - world class leadership