Ryan Serhant: ARTRPRNR OF THE YEAR

2020 has challenged us all to rethink why/how/what we are doing and the real estate industry has been challenged to rethink how we sell homes, making it clearer than ever that the future of real estate will largely depend on digital media.

We featured many creative entrepreneurs in the post so when we were thinking of ARTRPRNR of The Year, we were looking for a purpose-driven visionary, reimagining the real estate industry of the future and making high-impact moves that are paving the way for the future or real estate, that is why we nominated Ryan Serhant.

Ryan Serhant chose to throw out new year’s resolutions, a choice that is typical of his belief that to succeed you have to grab opportunities, break habits and push forward. “Stop planning and start doing” is his mantra.

Serhant made his biggest career move yet and stepped away from the brokerage he had long been working for to launch his own venture with a forward-thinking innovative approach.

We spoke with Ryan over a video call, in order to glean some wisdom from him and learn more about what he is up to.

Courtesy of SERHANT.

In 2020, Ryan launched SERHANT., the first real estate brokerage designed and reimagined for the marketplace of tomorrow. It grew from the #1 ranked sales team in New York City into a full-service firm that is revolutionizing the traditional real estate model. The company is a multidimensional brokerage, made up of SERHANT. Brokerage and New Development, including SERHANT. Signature, SERHANT. Studios and SERHANT. Ventures and powered by proprietary, internally developed technologies and marketing capabilities, ADX and ID Lab.

SERHANT. sits at the intersection of technology, media, entertainment and education with a commitment to amplifying success for its business, brokers, employees, developers, clients, sellers, global course members and the industry as a whole.

Ryan’s journey is very inspiring. In 2006 he moved to New York in the hopes of becoming an actor, but after two years, reached a pivotal moment in his life and career when paying the bills became too much. On the advice of a friend, he decided to get his real estate license and change the direction of his life. This happened on none other than the day that Lehman Brothers collapsed. But Ryan wouldn’t let that deter him, telling us, “I just kept going and didn’t take a day off.” Before he knew it, three years had gone by, listing after listing was sold, and he realized he had forged a career and was on his way to creating an empire.

What makes his journey even more inspiring is the fact that before moving to New York, Ryan had no knowledge of the city, no friends or family, and knew no one who could help guide him into this new career path. Not to mention that real estate is a tricky business. As Ryan explains, you’re not in a store, you do not own the merchandise you are selling. “You have to convince people you’re the right person for the job and that you will see them through the biggest purchase of their life without them knowing you”.

He says, “it’s a people business… it’s who you know, how you know them, and how you take care of them,”  and, in New York, you’re often selling apartments that you and your friends can’t afford, so you are trying to break into a world that you have no connection to at first.

He started out by posting ads on Craigslist, spending more time at the gym so he can meet more people.  Ryan would meet people on the street, sell them apartments and then try to meet as many of their friends as possible.

He highlights the strange dichotomy that, as a real estate broker, and despite being a quintessential self-starter, these early years taught him to be gracious, “I would not be where I am today if it weren’t for the help of a lot of other people.” For him, gratitude is integral to his work and something he practices daily in order to honor those who took a chance on him.

Courtesy of SERHANT.

When it comes to managing his clients’ expectations, he says you must stay calm at all times but also feel free to match clients’ emotions, be happy for them when they are happy, and empathetic when they are disappointed.

Setting clear expectations and letting them know exactly how you work and how you will not work, what to expect and what not to expect are key to client satisfaction; Ryan says, “the reason that people don’t do it, is because of fear, fear of loss.” Fear of losing your client because of a boundary you have set is natural, but it’s better to have fewer clients who are happy than taking every client and leaving some dissatisfied.

When I asked what was a deal he is most proud of, he humbly responded, “The deals that I’m the proudest of are the ones where I was really able to help my client during a difficult situation.” He describes a seller going through a messy divorce, on her third broker because it was impossible for her to lower the price anymore. Using aggressive selling tactics and dropping the price in order to generate multiple bids, Ryan drove the price up from just shy of $8 million to over $10 million. His understanding of the client’s needs, and clear communication of his strategy, not only earned Ryan an outstanding commission, but he still gets messages from the client thanking him for his work seven years later.

Courtesy of SERHANT.

After working his way up the ranks, Ryan found himself at an impasse. He was working for a successful company but felt dissatisfied with the lack of innovation within the industry. “I don’t need a brokerage to help me today, I want to come to a place that will help me sell real estate in 2030,” and to him, most companies were stuck in the past. Ryan was positive that social media and taking real estate online was the way to innovate and attract new clients. With this realization also came COVID-19 and New York City’s lockdown, in a strange way providing him with the perfect opportunity to begin setting up his new version of brokering, SERHANT. By September 2020 he had everything ready to launch “a brokerage set up for the marketplace of tomorrow” where they were “powered by media and growing through training.” In addition to his brokerage, he also has over 6,000 agents in 180 countries that are trained through his education platform and are part of his network.

For Ryan media comes first; he created SERHANT. Studios as an in-house studio for his agents to use and create content, driving the entire business using social media. “We use everything we have at our fingertips to promote what we have,” he describes them as media marketers and to that end he sees the business expanding past real estate in the future.

In these times, it’s hard to speak to anyone without mentioning the pandemic and the effect it will have on the world. When I asked him about the future of New York’s real estate, he was confident in New York’s ability to bounce back. Post-9/11 and Lehman Brothers, New York saw a huge boom in real estate. He believes it will be no different after the pandemic. Ryan predicts that the summer of 2021 will yield great business for New York that will last several years.

In regard to New Yorkers buying real estate in Miami, he described the markets as complimentary, “People want their place in New York, in the Hamptons and in Miami,” and he doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.

Finally, I always like to end off by asking who someone is they are most inspired by; its always tough to single out one person.  Ryan said that, as agents, we don’t have much risk other than our time; he admires the people taking the greatest risks and succeeding.  He mentions his good friend Michael Stern of JDS Development as someone who has great vision and courage to take major risk, seeing the future beyond what most people see and assembling large plots of land for a project that could take many years to develop.

Ryan just released his latest book, Big Money Energy: How to Rule at Work, Dominate at Life, and Make Millions.

To dive deeper into Serhant’s sales and business expertise, check out his ground-breaking education platform Sell It Like Serhant ryanserhant.com/course/ that teaches professionals in any industry, and in any country, how to sell, have confidence and maximize success.