Transcript of the conversation with Hollywood Realtor Scott Nell
Alyssa Butler
Welcome, we have Scott Neil here. Thank you, Scott.
Scott Nell
Yes, yes. Anything for Sammy? Anything for Sammy?
Alyssa Butler
That’s fair enough. Same anything for Sammy. Yeah.
Sammy Basu
Thank you, Scott. Scott, why don’t you don’t you introduce yourself? I’m such a big fan of business and your lifestyle.
Scott Nell
Yes, yeah. Well, Sammy, I like you, too. That’s why I’m here. Because my lifestyle is extremely busy. Because I’ve got three teenagers at home. They’re awesome. But they’re still three teenagers at home. And I’ve got a business that I’m fortunate that is going well with a nice team. And so, I’m pretty much nonstop the way my day is I get up, usually between 545 and six, and take my daughter to school, which is a really sweet time, because it’s just some alone time with my 14-year-old. And then I usually get right to work from there, and then do some pickup with some of the, you know, later on in the day in between work, sometimes the boys need to be picked up, they go to Crosby, there are 15 and 17 Awesome boys. And so, love to go to their sports love to go to scouts love to keep busy, but I have to you mean to me, it’s all about great, great, great systems so that I can take off and do what I need to do so that I can be a husband, be a family, man, dad, and also be a professional. So my schedule is always busy, but I’m not complaining. I feel fortunate for the things that have my life.
Alyssa Butler
That’s great. Sounds like you do your best to have that work-life balance.
Scott Nell
Exactly. Yeah, that’s what I did about 16/17 and 17 years ago when I got into the business, I originally was in the entertainment industry. I don’t know if I told you that Sammy. But I was in the entertainment industry just long enough to torture me. 10 years of supporting myself, but there came a point when it’s like, okay, this is I’ve got no control. I get into the room for callbacks with five guys. I know. And I’m going like all of them are great. How do you choose? How do you choose? They’re all great. And so then when my wife got pregnant, I said, You know what, it’s time to get out. I’m gonna use my skill set in real estate. So my entertainment skill set, I decided to move over. But I did it differently. Because like when I met with John Arrow, who was an icon in the business, I looked up to him. He said, So what are you going to do? What are you going to do Scott? And I said, Well, I don’t want to door knock. I don’t want to make cold calls. I don’t want to do open houses. I’m okay with caravans because they’re during the week. And I went down this list. And he looked at me and like, Who the hell do you think you are? He looked at me like I was crazy. And then once he got over the shock, and it because that’s what when you’re first starting in the business, you do, those are the lot of the things that you do and agents kill it. They make tons of money, the guys who do it, I mean, I’m in awe of these guys. They’re guys and gals, of course. And so they’re great. And so but then he looked at me and said, Okay, let’s talk about what’s your superpower. And we started talking about what my strengths were. And it’s about connecting with people doing great work acting like a fiduciary to people just being the agent that I’d want to represent my own family. And that’s how I got into the business. And I was fortunate because the first year and a half it was in the top 10 in my company, and then became a rising star with the Wall Street Journal, which I was like, how am I How am I even doing this? I was kind of blown away. I was going to come on. This is ridiculous. I thought it felt like a joke. Because I think so many people are so much better than me out there. That’s truly how I felt. And that’s how I got started. And then I just started to love the business more and more. My dad was in real estate and he was my hero and my mentor for so for so long. And so that’s a quick snapshot of how I got into it. Or maybe not so quick. Your time’s up.
Alyssa Butler
Yeah, that’s cool. Remember which movies I’ve seen you in.
Scott Nell
you’re gonna have to look hard. There was a Disney movie that I did, which I was proud of because it was just a cute movie. It’s called not quite human part two. And where I teach I teach a robot how to be cool. And the funny that what made it funny was that I was so not cool. So joke behind it. I was the uncool guy teaching a robot how to be cool and I was failing at it. And that was fun. So I did a few movies but in a lot of commercials but Nothing enough to break me nothing. Do you look back? No. Oh, you were in that? In? No, it was always that, you know, it was always that that actor or yo, I’m so close, I’m so close. It’s like, you know, just shut up. So if you’re not that close, you’re not that close now go do real estate. And that’s what I did.
Alyssa Butler
And where are you from? Did you move here for the entertainment industry? Yeah,
Scott Nell
I consider myself kind of a Northwest kid. However, I did start here in Woodland Hills. I was going to St middle school and church until about second or third grade. And I bring that up because it turns out that when I met my wife, we decided, hey, where are we going to go to church? And where are we going to start building our community? And it turned out to be the same school and church so all of our kids went through. And so it’s it has we love that community? Love the people love the pastor. I mean, it’s fortunate. But then we moved to Spain for two years. My parents were just very unique. They did things that other people weren’t doing back then. And they said, hey, look, my dad had a good business. He sold his business. And let’s go to let’s go to Spain. And it was like two years of just joy. I love Spain, love the Spanish people. It was just it was beautiful. And then we came back and I thought man, USA brick and sucks. The one kid I couldn’t connect with. I was being bullied and getting into fights, all sorts of stuff. My parents, my Mom, listen to her go, what happened? And so I started learning to protect myself, which is ridiculous. And finally, I found myself. It was up in Northwest Spokane, Washington, and hit my hit my groove when I started getting into theater. And I just loved it. I enjoyed expressing myself in that way. The kids in the theater were so much fun, and so real. I could connect with them. Because I wasn’t a jock. I just wasn’t a jock. And everyone thought because I’m 620 Yeah. This this. No, no, no, no, they would I would be the first one chosen on the court. And then once they saw I played the next round, I was like the last one. And it was humiliating. It was just humiliating. But I realized where my strengths were. Yeah,
Alyssa Butler
I can relate. I’m six feet tall. And you do not want to be on your basketball team. No, not at all.
Scott Nell
Yeah, I did this movie once called Scandal in a Small Town with Raquel Welch. And it was just a sweet Disney, not Disney but a movie of the week. And they said, Can you play basketball because they looked at me. And I was like, 26 And I looked like it was like I was in high school. And I said, Yeah, sure. I thought How hard could it be? You know, I mean, just so they get me out there. cameras are rolling. I’m the captain of the team, right? And I’m shit. I shoot. The missus. No, no, no worries, boom. It just keeps on it’s like it’s about to go. But it never quite goes in. And I’m thinking like, gosh, thank God, I’m a good actor. You’re not the captain of the team anymore. You’re one of the players. And I said, Okay, that’s fine. I get it. Because I just sucked it was so bad.
Alyssa Butler
That’s what editing is for
Scott Nell
They could have been I don’t think I was I wasn’t worth the edit. They weren’t giving time to I was a co-star but it was It wasn’t like nine seven or eight scenes were nice. It was a cute little part sweet part. But not enough where they’re going to let’s put some extra editing and special effects to this guy. No, that’s not the way we should be taught. So
Sammy Basu
I guess a lot of success has come from that
Scott Nell
So when growing up as a kid, you know you don’t look at the guy and go oh, yeah, that’s the one with red hair records ran over there, man. I just like to be the best me. And so people that that I attract. When I say back to them, I’m talking about the women on the married man and I’m happily married. So. But I think the people I attract are people that just appreciate you know, who I am. Because I’m always just trying to be the best man just, I mean, purely and simply be the most authentic. Best me in my business, Sammy. That’s how I think I did so well as I tried not to be someone else. I don’t drive a fancy car. I don’t wear fancy. You know, I’m not I’m not a suit-and-tie guy. I’m more laid back in that. But I believe our work is world-class, our work and the way we take care of our clients how we do things, and how we treat them. Right. And the quality of the work is gorgeous. Might I say www.va? Nel team.com You can look us up and look at our portfolio and you’ll see I’m talking about it’s beautiful. I surround myself with great people.
Sammy Basu
It’s pretty awesome. I mean, turn on captions, but we’ll figure that out next time we post your website you know when we publish this. Why don’t you tell us, what you’re, you know, what your business is, and what you’re worried about in your business? Or, you know, anything we want to know, you know, you want people to know about your business. Yeah, I mean,
Scott Nell
in a nutshell, my team and I do residential real estate in the San Fernando Valley. We are called out of the valley sometimes. Because sometimes people just want what we bring to the table, there was a house, it was James Ingram’s house, you know, that musician from, you know, back in the 80s. Amazing, they knew that we would have the right vision for it. So what we did is we saw the house, we love the house, and then we brought in a PR piece, we call it the music house, we get the story of it. And then we started to tell the story of the property in words, and visuals and everything that we did, and then we just hit it out of the park with the property. Or we were asked to do Jillian Barberie, who you may or may not know, she was, she’s a costume, she was a sports announcer for a long time she was she did weather for a long time, she just she was around for. And when we saw her house, get a vision for it. And, again, attach the PRPs to it. And I asked her if we could use her celebrity in it. I said you’re not gonna be here anymore. So it doesn’t matter, does it? Oh, and she loved it. She loved it. She was putting on her podcast and millions of views. And she was showing off the stuff, we leaned into her celebrity and all of her amazing accomplishments because she’s a very special woman. And by the end of that, we just killed it too. So I think we’re good at telling the story of a property in a very unique way. So we look at it and go, Okay, what makes this property special, let’s not do what everyone else is doing. And then I’m not so full of myself that I don’t realize that the team is going to add to what I’m thinking and surpass it. So we bring in a guy who does listing design. So if I tell him, look, here’s the property, here’s what we’re doing it, here’s what I’m looking to accomplish. And he goes, Well, what about this, this and this idiot? You know, he doesn’t say that. But it’s totally in his tones totally in his turn away. So and, and I go, that’s great. That’s beautiful. And then the project manager comes in, and they said, are they going to do Windows floors, any of this kind of stuff, paint? No, it’s not in the budget. They said, Okay, and I said, I’m thinking we lean into this vibe, and they go, she says it has kind of a madman vibe. As I said, That’s how we’re going to do it. So before they did the estate sale, we took out all the stuff, this beautiful older stuff that they had in there, different kinds of furniture, and different, you know, accessories and stuff. And we started leaning into that. And we stayed specifically to lean into that, and then opened up the view making it look so much better. And with just $16,000, we went for putting it on the market at 2 million, which we were going to do and they were totally happy with that, too, we put it up at I think it was two to five and got 2.59. So because we went the extra mile, and thank goodness, they trusted us. And because honestly, because the team was great, I had a vision and the team delivered, delivered, delivered. And because everyone worked together, we made, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars extra for this for this state. And so we love doing that kind of stuff we don’t ever want to phone it in, we want people to allow us to bring it to its best on a tight budget and then make them more money.
Alyssa Butler
I love that. And also just there are so many beautiful properties here in Los Angeles. And the fact that you can see that and enhance that and respect the beauty of properties. I think that’s, that’s Yeah,
Scott Nell
I think it’s important because you look at it there, everything is so unique. And if it’s let’s say it’s you know, $700,000 condo that, you know, someone’s uncle, the elderly guy has been living there forever. I go in there and go, this is so important to him. So we go in there and we treat them the same way we treat everybody because we want everyone to have you know, just the best service the best return on their investment, you know, the best net. I mean, that’s really what it comes down to insert everyone seems to want. So that’s what we do. And the more that message gets out, I think the more it becomes something that you know where we get called in on properties just because they know that that’s what we do. And that’s what we specialize in.
Sammy Basu
Scott, to keep it real. Can you share a story where things didn’t work out that well like there were some mistakes made and you probably had to adjust the way you did things? Yeah, I’d
Scott Nell
rather not. I’d rather not do that, Sammy, but thank you for asking. I appreciate that. You want to keep it authentic. Whatever. Yeah, I got to think of what I what I can say and what I can’t say is there’s one deal that I can’t say I’m Usually there’s like one deal a year where it’s like, oh my gosh, like, I feel like we did everything right. And it doesn’t work out. Usually, it’s because usually, and this, this is not to mean full of ourselves as a team. But if people listen to us, we, and when it comes to real estate is not that complicated. You, what you do is you prep the house well, right, which could mean staging, it could be painting, you prep it to show it off, it’s best from start to finish side to side, top to bottom, you market it well, in our marketing is stunning. If you look at Look Us Up, you’ll see it’s, the marketing is so beautiful, and then you price in the sweet spot, you know that you’ve done the first two things, right? So if it doesn’t sell, then you know what its price, you know, its price. But it’s so rare, our analytics are so amazing because people get that. And they see that that’s the way we do it. But I did have one recently, and it was we got this property, they prepped it, where we helped to prep it and stand in the stage it. But it just took them month after month after month to do something that should have taken two to four weeks. By the time that they were ready to put on the market, the market was starting to pivot. And so and Mark lists interest rates going up and everything, we put it into escrow at full price thrilled. And they were going like well, maybe we shouldn’t have taken this off. I said no the market is declining, right? Now. We need to keep this we need to keep this and they just kept giving me a hard time over and over. And I’m like guys, look, I want the same thing as you I’m not I don’t want to ever leave not even $1 on the table. I want to do this. But eventually, that buyer went away. And then it was just really, really tough to get people in. So I said, Look, we need to adjust the price because our most recent cup is not to eight anymore. But that was six months ago. Our most recent copy now is right here, and it’s 2.5. But we need to do this. And they wouldn’t do it. And they kept on wanting to do things that weren’t gonna make the difference. And I’m going that, guys, that’s not what works. You hired me. I’m gonna, I’m a professional. I’m an expert, I want to do you guys just let me do this. And they wouldn’t. And in their defense, I started getting a little bit, I was getting so frustrated because like guys, and so I would go out of my way to do things. And then when I’m talking to them are still upset wildly. You know, I get impatient because I’ve been so patient for so long, but it’s not happening. And so I said, Look, you guys, why don’t we just, you know, I know one of the brothers well, let’s just call it a day because our relationship is more important than us. And they said, Okay, so we ended up I released them from the listing, went with someone else, and put it down to eight to two, five the first week. And I was like you Mother, can you beat me out? Sammy? You know,
Sammy Basu
that’s the part we’ll highlight.
Scott Nell
it was like, I couldn’t even believe it. And my mastermind group, which is this group where we share best practices business, all that looked at me and they said, This is the one you need to let go. Do not take this on. And it’s so hard. Finally just take a deep breath. And you turn around you look at your wife and kids, you look at your life and you go like this in the scheme of things. This means nothing. So it still bugs me but not the way it did before. So in that one what I could have done differently Sammy getting to your question in a very, very roundabout long way. Asked me to put it in the LA Times. And I said, Look, I used to spend more on the LA Times because of the deal with my company than anybody. And all the times we ever did it. I got one or two calls, it makes no sense to put into them. And they said, Well, you know, we still want you to try it. So basically, you’ve already spent 1000s. Now spend another couple of 1000 on something that won’t work. And I was like, Guys, it makes no sense to do that. Let me put it into social media and geo-targeting, and doing email campaigns. But let me put my money into all that stuff. And so looking back, though, I’m going you know what, maybe appeased that situation, you know, and done that. So there’s sometimes I look back on when Yeah, maybe I could have done better there. Or maybe I could have been more patient at the end. But no, I don’t like being treated poorly. I’ll just say that. I’m very nice to people and when I’m not treated well I’m not I don’t respond very well to it. Because it’s like come on, it’s it’s me. I’m, I’m a fiduciary to you, I’m doing right by you. I’m going to walk away from the deal. Just be nice. So I like working with nice people.
Sammy Basu
Good point. Yep. Oh, no. I think there’s some lessons to be learned there. You know, listen to your team. And then life is more important than work. I you know, love that about your attitude to work and you know, and walking away from deals that are projects that you know, are causing you more heartache, then you know
Scott Nell
I had something I wanted to bring up, keep in mind if we just talk about cybersecurity for a second.
Sammy Basu
Sure, yeah, it’s not we’re not familiar with that topic, but we’ll try to fumble around the search.
Scott Nell
Let me because the truth is in our business, let’s, let’s face it, people in our business, we’re dealing with huge amounts of money. And money being transferred. One of the biggest things that people deal with in our business is when the money is being transferred boy, is if they if somehow someone hacks into the account and then convinces them that they’re supposed to go somewhere that it’s not the wired stuff means, the wiring, it’s like in bold at the bottom of Escrow every email that escrow sends out. And then that also means, I get concerned because we work with everybody, we’re open to working with everybody. But sometimes we work with more private people. And we need to make sure that no one can get into our systems, that people because if they get into the systems, they’re going to see things that we see that the seller says, I don’t want anyone to see that or know that. So that kind of protection is crucial. And so, which is why just you know, we hire a transaction coordinator. The paperwork handles the security side of that and everything, but I still do worry about that, to be honest with you. I mean, you’re always safe until you’re not right.
Sammy Basu
Yeah, so there are two things to it. One, and there is a thing called Data minimization. That’s, you know, part of the new California privacy law, okay, delete any personal data that you no longer need, or mask the sensitive part out of it. So, you have no we have no right to keep some people’s personal information if it’s not needed. So don’t carry on to a lot of data baggage, you know, people business owners love to do that. So that’s one part. But the second situation that you mentioned is very real. I have been I’ve worked for companies that do business worldwide and they have a little studio somewhere in Europe or you know Australia like a different country right? Where they have done some work editing work or like you know studio work and now the way the finance team works is like they get an invoice and the pail the invoice this has happened so many times Scott finance doesn’t do the checking, you know, maybe and this is happening even now with one of our current clients where they got hacked. So the email looks legitimate. Everything looks good, you have this conversation but you’re having it with a third party right there like supply chain is really important like so you’re being you’re being secure is not good enough. You’re partners in a secure right so then you have to have a contract with them if I lose money because of your security lapse you are liable for that, not me, right? Similarly, with this payment part, there is just one simple solution very manual solution. Anytime anybody says this account number has changed. Anytime some new information is introduced, just call up that person and verify if was you. That’s
Scott Nell
Exactly by the way they say that there’s always verbal communication when it comes to any money that’s been transferred.
Sammy Basu
Yeah, otherwise you may have to go back to your childhood place of Spain and look for poor people we’re having some whatever there was a famous Spanish dish Paella
Alyssa Butler
I make that every Christmas. Oh, yeah. For Christmas. Hmm. Yeah, I know if a random family tradition but so you’ll have to let me know how it is I it’s pretty good but I’m sure it’s nowhere near traditional.
Scott Nell
Sammy next time I see I gotta show you this picture of this friend of ours. And oh my gosh, I it was it was like a piece of art. The way they put it together my mouth waters thinking about it. The amount of seafood that went in there that fresh seafood the spices and the waist the way she did it. I mean, to this day, I’m my mouth is watering thinking about it. But hey, you gotta go out and get yourself some good pay, but it’s got to be good stuff with really fresh seafood.
Sammy Basu
Well, that’s a wrap. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate you taking so much time out of your super busy schedule. Now I know that you’re a movie star.
Scott Nell
That’s funny. That’s fine. By the way, it doesn’t show us recording. I hope it is recorded. I’m kidding. Thanks for having me. Alyssa was a pleasure meeting you.
Alyssa Butler
Well, thank you so much. I saw your website – it looks beautiful. So we will link all of that information for everyone to check out. Thank you so much. Okay,
Scott Nell
Thanks, guys. Talk to you soon. Bye.