Luc Lising is a 22-year-old realtor that reached the top 1% bracket of all realtors in Canada within 2 years. Luc and his team have done over $180m in real estate sales, closing over 300+ deals over the last 2 years.
Luc started a side business in the automotive industry in 2022 and scaled it to 6-figures within 4 months.
What you will learn
- How and why Luc started his side business (even though he was already super successful)
- Luc shares how he achieved massive success in the real estate world
- Discover the biggest challenges Luc faced as a realtor during the pandemic
- Why timing hasn’t been in Luc’s favor when it comes to his business (and how he got around the issue)
- How Luc built relationships and used networking to scale his side hustle
- Learn more about the true power of networking
- Luc shares his 10-year vision for the future
- Find out the major lessons Luc has learnt as an entrepreneur in the early stages of business
- Plus loads more!
Transcript
Jeff Bullas
00:00:04 - 00:01:05
Hi everyone and welcome to The Jeff Bullas Show. Today, I have with me, Luc Lising and he is in Toronto, Canada and I'm at Lake Como in Italy, I always love this tech because we can chat to each other on the other side of the world and high definition, we can do it in video, we can do audio and it's a pleasure to have you on the show, Luc. Now, I'm gonna introduce Luc and Luc is 22 years old, so he's a little younger than me, not by much, but just a little bit. He's a 22 year old Realtor that has reached the Top 1% bracket Realtors in Canada within 2 years and that's quite an achievement, I would say he's an overachiever. But we're gonna discover more about his journey here today and we recommend him. Luc and his team have done over $180 million real estate sales. They closed over 300+ deals over the last two years and he's also started a side business in the automotive industry in 2022 with his younger brother and scaled to 6-figures within 4 months.
So Luc, welcome to the show, it's great to have you here.
Luc Lising
00:01:06 - 00:01:08
Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.
Jeff Bullas
00:01:08 - 00:01:27
So Luc, it looks like you're almost born an entrepreneur. So when did your, you know, starting this entrepreneurial journey start for you, what was the first sort of inspiration and when did you start your first business?
Luc Lising
00:01:28 - 00:02:33
It started off in high school and I think just like most of us, some of us have that burning desire inside of them that just doesn't go away and I didn't know what that was. I just felt very uncomfortable with going through the indoctrination of the education system, that's what I call it, that's what I believe it is. And I felt uncomfortable. I didn't know what it was, I didn't understand the economics behind and the history behind the education system and finance and things of that sort. But long story short, when I was 17 years old, I just stumbled upon the idea of starting a social media marketing company because us, you know, Gen Z and millennials are always on our phone. We know social media very well, but a lot of business owners don't, so that was a bridge that identified that I could use my knowledge in that space to how business owners that don't have the knowledge. So I started off building a marketing agency at the age of 17, turning 18-ish and most of my clients were in real estate. There are realtors and then at the age of 18 going into 19, I got my real estate license and that's how I got started in real estate sales.
Jeff Bullas
00:02:33 - 00:03:04
It's cool. Now timing can be everything. Well not everything, but a big part of success. Now I believe in the last 2-3 years that the real estate market has basically exploded around the world in a lot of places as people moved to work remotely. And I believe that Canada was one of the biggest markets that will move the most in terms of percentage gain in the world. Tell us a little about that market timing.
Luc Lising
00:03:05 - 00:04:39
It was actually a very tough time and I'll tell you why because I'm 22 years old now, right Jeff. And if it wasn't too long ago where everything was locked down, I started off my real estate career at the start of the pandemic. So not only was I 19 years old with zero experience with a baby face like this, I'm not also entering the toughest time because we couldn't meet anybody and everybody is scared. Nobody's thinking about real estate when there's a possibility of dying from a virus that we didn't know about. So I entered, I started my business with the start of the pandemic and then 2 years later, 2.5 years later, after even the lockdowns are over, we're now in this recession. So timing hasn't been in my favor. And to your point it has been everything. But it's also something I'm very grateful for because I've developed the skills to go through and develop a business at such a fast pace, fast rate during the toughest times. So when these times do pass, guess who's gonna have it very easy for me because I've done it all through the toughest times I couldn't see people for 2.5 years, everything was closed. I couldn't take my clients out to dinners and lunches and coffees. We had to do Zoom calls and there's something different when you can sell to somebody or build a relationship with somebody face to face. So I didn't have that luxury. The timing was tough and now we're in a recession where interest rates are flirting around 6-7% in certain areas of the world. Now it's getting harder to purchase and qualify for a mortgage. There's less people buying, it's getting tougher but same work needs to get done.
Jeff Bullas
00:04:39 - 00:04:47
Exactly. So do you think your skills and social media marketing helped you build relationships remotely?
Luc Lising
00:04:48 - 00:05:45
Yeah, I think it's a leverage that I had because like for example when I started both businesses in my real estate and in my auto company, the only reason why I was able to get it off the ground so quickly is because I had that background knowledge in social media marketing, I knew right away that when I was going to start My Future Condo, my real estate company 2.5 years ago that for me to get my first set of clients, I had to start advertising right away and I knew that already, I knew exactly what to do because my previous existing clients, they were my guinea pig. I knew how to set up their landing pages, the lead forms, their ads, their campaigns, everything. All I had to do is copy and paste it, send it over to my own business and boom, I had my own set of leads So that it definitely gave me the leg up. And now we're living in a time where we have TikTok and organic reach has been just blowing up. So you don't even have to spend much money, you don't have to do anything to be creative. You can get in front of a camera like this, chop it up, put it on TikTok and you can reach 4-500 views at a time.
Jeff Bullas
00:05:46 - 00:06:21
Cool. Now let's wander back a bit. You started a side hustle for your younger brother. And so, and I believe you got a 50/50 split on that. So that was also in other words, the marketing agency was a side hustle. You did it during high school, okay. So it wasn't like you went and got a job and then that's how you started making money. You actually started making money while you would actually study. So tell us a little bit about starting a side hustle with your brother in a car detailing, I believe it was.
Luc Lising
00:06:21 - 00:08:35
100%. When you've done it once, it gets easier and easier. The first $100,000 that you're ever going to make will be the hardest money you'll ever make because then after that it compounds. So for example, when I started My Future Condo, my real estate company. The very first thing that I did was I called everybody that I know. The average person knows 200 people. So if you know 200 people, that means your network also knows 200 people. Therefore your network is actually 40,000 people. I had that force that I understood that I didn't know just 200 people. I was looking for the people that know the people that I know. So what I did was I called everybody that I know from My Future Condo. And then I said, listen, I'm in real estate. I don't want to sell you anything, I just wanted to actually ask you for your advice on the marketing that we do. Can I get your feedback? Call everybody that I know, I asked them that, they would say no problem. Look, I would love to give you the advice that I have for my feedback. Then I would respond and say, great, do me a favor. Open up your phone, follow me on Instagram, TikTok and subscribe to my business newsletter. That way, boom, now I have 200 people in my database and every single week they're getting an email from me in an Instagram post seeing that I'm in real estate. These people may have never purchased from me directly, but if every single week they see Lucas doing something real estate related. They're gonna think of me just in case they meet somebody on the subway that's thinking about buying a home, boom, they're gonna make that introduction to me because I'm always top of mine. So that's what I did for My Future Condo. The reason why Auto Vision GTA, my side hustle, was able to scale to 6-figures within four months is because I already knew exactly what to do based on my previous business experience. I called everybody that I know, I told them I have a detailing company, if they need a detailer or they know a dealership that needs assistance with detailing, let me know. If not, no problem at all. Let me get your feedback on the marketing that we do. Now, I'm always top of mind. And it took me just to put into perspective for real estate. It took me a year and a half to do my first deal after that. I started doing deals upon deals, for Auto Vision GTA, took me a week to get my first clients because it's obviously a much smaller sail. But it took me four months to get six figures.
Jeff Bullas
00:08:36 - 00:09:07
So in terms of what you're doing, where did you, this inspiration for marketing, okay. Social media as a platform but you've got to have the ideas in other words you identified 200 contacts out of those people to reach 40,000. You got good mass. It's great. So where did the idea come from to basically power up your network? Where did that idea come from? Was it a book? Was it reading a blog? Was it watching TikTok? Where did the ideas come from?
Luc Lising
00:09:08 - 00:13:04
Yeah, I instinctively knew that I had what it took to get shit done. But at the age of 17-18, you don't know anything. I'm 22. I've sold $180 million dollars worth of real estate. I still don't know anything. So I knew at the age of 17, when I was getting like, you know, my businesses started, I'm thinking here like, I'm working relentlessly 8-9 hours a day after high school. So I spent seven, this first seven hours of day in school, 6-7 hours a day in school and the rest of the night working on this side business on this marketing agency. But the progress was extremely slow. I'm just thinking, all I need right now is somebody to tell me exactly what to do. I don't need motivation. I don't need someone to teach me how to be disciplined. I've always been a disciplined person because of my upbringing, I’m Filipino, it's because of my upbringing. I've always been disciplined. I don't need that, I don't need somebody to try to pump me up. I don't know. I just, what do I do? What's the actionable steps? How do I write this email? How do I, what do I say on the phone, on the sales call. That I just knew I needed that one person. So when I got licensed in real estate, six months into my career, I went to a networking event and there I met a guy named Jamal and he was a real estate investor, whatever, we made a connection, and then he added me to a WhatsApp group chat with like 11 other real estate investors. In there, a bunch of them would send each other deals like, oh, what do you guys think about this deal in Toronto? What do you think about this deal in London? Ontario? Whatever it is, somebody sent a deal in Windsor, Ontario. And I saw the listing agent, his name was Mike Seal, the deal was so good of a deal, I clicked on Mike Seal’s profile, his website and I saw his website and he had a ton of listings and I'm thinking this guy has like 40 active listings. That's a lot of listings. He's killing the game and its investment real estate, which is what I'm passionate about. So then I called Mike and I say like, I'm trying to wrap my head around this, how do you have 40 listings? How do you have 40 people that trust you to sell their property? I don't have a single person that wanted to look my way, how are you doing this? Whatever, he gives me a quick advice on the phone then I stop and say Mike, you know what, I'm gonna move to Windsor, which is a five hour drive away from me. So I'm moving to Windsor and I'm gonna learn from you. He says, whoa, whoa, kid, relax, relax. He said, don't do that. Speak to my friend, Jazz Taker in Toronto. He does very similar things to me, but he's closer to you. Just speak to him and see where that goes. I had no idea who this guy was, ended up, Google searching this guy and Jazz at the time was the number one real estate broker across Royal Lepage, Canada. And for your listeners that don't know Royal Lepage, it's the Canadian equivalent to Keller Williams. So it's a massive organization. It's probably the second biggest one in Canada behind RE/MAX. Anyway, I called Jazz and I said Jazz, I got your number from your friend Mike Seal. I was ready to make the move to Windsor, Ontario just to just to work with him. But instead, he asked me to reach out to you. He says, no problem Luc. How long have you been in the business for? I said six months. He said, how old are you? At the time, I was 19 years old. And he says, well, how many deals have you done? I said zero, he says, well, unfortunately we don't take on new agents. Well, I said, well, Jazz, you're making a big mistake if you don't meet me. And then he was like, he was quiet for like seven seconds. And then he was like, alright, meet me on Monday. He sent me a link to his calendar. I book a time slot for an 8AM on a Monday. I showed up, dressed well, showed up early. And he says before you even spoke, I knew we were gonna take you on the team because you have the right attitude. So to answer your question, Jeff, networking to me is the most important thing. I think any time I start any business, I look at the top of the industry and I then think how do I bring that person value? I might not know anything now, I might not have the secret sauce to propel their business within the next two months. But I mean if they like me because of my attitude, my persona, whatever it is, that's enough to get my foot in the door.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:05 - 00:13:08
So, how big is your network now, Luc?
Luc Lising
00:13:09 - 00:13:19
My network now is quite extensive. If I wanted to call and meet some very important politicians here in Ontario, I can make that happen within a couple of hours.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:20 - 00:13:31
So, alright, so you're interested in investment real estate, you’re two years, is it two years in now since you started?
Luc Lising
00:13:31 - 00:13:47
Three, in real estate, technically 3.5, maybe four because I got, it's funny you ask that because I got license at 18 and then the next day I turned 19. So technically I started at 19 and I’m turning 23 in a couple of months so you can kind of do them out there.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:47 - 00:14:12
Okay. So you've obviously learned from the best in your industry and you weren't afraid to contact them and show them that your attitude was one of motivation, drive and discipline. So what's the next steps for you going forward? Where does Luc want to be in 10 years time?
Luc Lising
00:14:13 - 00:15:28
What do I want to be in 10 years? I think, that's a good question. It's funny because I often don't think that far ahead, but I do, I just know within the next couple of years I'll be like, yeah, like I know in the next few years, for example, I've yet to cross the seven figure mark. So I know in the next year I'll be there. It will be very likely I end up there in the next 12 months in the next few years. It's really hard to say. I think as long as I achieve exactly what it is that I want to achieve. Like my metric, is how much revenue can I generate a lot of people, for example, like a basketball player, their metric is, how many times can they get a ball into a net, right? That's their metric, that's what determines how successful they are. For me it's just how many dollars can I generate. But I also like to, like I'm a Christian man, like I'm very religious and I don't just use that term loosely. Like I pray every single day, all that stuff, so I'm never out to scam anybody. I do it with integrity. So my metric is how many dollars can I earn. And right now I'm looking to cost that seven figure mark and really in the back of my mind, by the time I'm 25, I'd like to cross the eight figure mark.
Jeff Bullas
00:15:29 - 00:16:19
So what makes you interested? That's the question. So what makes you motivated and interested in real estate? Is it because you, I know we had a chat before, you said one of the things that might have value originally was desperation. So what motivates you today because sometimes the ideas for business come from either inspiration or desperation, okay, in other words, a good idea or I really need to put money on the table. The founders of Airbnb, they needed to put food on the table because they weren't able to pay the rent as well. So what motivates you? What is it, because dollars are one thing, but there's more to life than dollars. What else motivates you, Luc?
Luc Lising
00:16:20 - 00:18:00
I think the idea of becoming a person that's the opposite of who I am today and the opposite of who I am going to be in the future, the idea of that person scares me. So somebody last week on the podcast asked me like who was my hero growing up, assuming that I was motivated by a hero, an idol trying to emulate somebody else. I never had a hero, I've always had a villain and I was always terrified of the idea of me being extremely overweight, broke, single, lonely, smoking weed all day playing video, that terrified me. So I vowed years ago, I was probably even four years old, not even knowing what weed was, just kidding. But I just vowed my entire life, I would never live that image. It's disgraceful to myself and this is disgraceful to God. So what motivates me is the fear of not living to my true potential because I know that within the next couple of, any moment it can all go away, but if I'm in my best physical form, if I have the sharpest mind, I can get back up like this in a matter of seconds. So just me being as sharp as possible, just knowing that for whatever reason there's that competition that's out there, the slight edge that they have, that can be the one up on me, just that idea of somebody being better than me or the future, even my future self being better than who I am today, judging who I am now, just that villain, if you will, that's what keeps me going. I never really had any kind of positive if you will like, to me that's positive but not positive in the sense where it's just like I don't know like, it's just that building that image that terrified me and that's what really just kept me going.
Jeff Bullas
00:18:01 - 00:18:03
Right. So it's almost a negative motivation.
Luc Lising
00:18:04 - 00:19:17
In a way. So, you can, some people call it negative but to me it was positive. To me it's positive because it's molded me to who I am now. And if I'm happy with where I am now, then I have to be thankful for my thought processes in the past, the way I thought and the decisions I made in the past. So some may say it's negative because it's that fearful act of it. But I think of it positively because it's made me who I am now. My brother can confidently say he has a 6-figure business at the age of 20, he's my younger brother because I had that discipline. I put in the reps in at an early age to learn how to build businesses at a rapid pace and now we can easily do it on a win and that can only have happened because of that image of me not being able to do that, I didn't like that. I wanted to be able to do quickly and now here's my villain. I was able to scale Auto Vision GTA to four months but my villain is why can't I do it in two months. Now that's irritating me, I gotta get better now, I can do it in two months and then one day it's gonna be two weeks and then two days and then two hours it's gonna get to that point. So that's what keeps me going. I think that's what makes it positive.
Jeff Bullas
00:19:17 - 00:19:19
What keeps you up at night?
Luc Lising
00:19:20 - 00:20:24
Man, I was just having nightmares last night because I started like Auto Vision GTA expanded because we were totally just a detailing company last year. But because of the relationships that I've developed in the dealership space because a lot of our clients are dealerships, we've now expanded to flipping cars. And then what kept me up until 2AM last night. I was in bed at like 10PM, on my phone, fell asleep for like 30 minutes and then I woke up again at 2AM because I had this burning thought of how are we going to scale the flipping business? Because I have leads upon leads coming in trying to sell their cars to me and it's my job not to flip the cars. I'm thinking, how am I gonna do this at a scale? Because now I need towing companies, I need staff that can do the praising and just that's where my mind's going. And then on top of that, I've sold three real estate deals this week now I got to firm those up so my clients will back out. So that's where my head's going, it's just like the little things, that's why some may say it's a bad thing. That's why I don't really think 10 years ahead. I just know exactly what needs to get done today and that's what kind of keeps me going.
Jeff Bullas
00:20:24 - 00:20:31
So it sounds like you're doing a lot of it yourself or are you or do you delegate?
Luc Lising
00:20:32 - 00:21:19
I do delegate and I think right now like on the car business side, I'm so grateful because I also have a strong network there. Like I mentioned the story of Jazz Taker in real estate who mentored me. In the car business, I had a good friend that mentored me as well and him and I started to partner up on certain business ventures, which is the flipping cars because he has his own dealership, he has the infrastructure, he has the towing, all of that stuff. I just have to help put those pieces together to make the process look smooth. So like, I do delegate, I do have a strong team that have a strong network of people that can get stuff done, but ultimately I'm the head, I'm not the tail, so I have to make the final decisions, I have to make sure everything's running in order. Otherwise my ship will sink.
Jeff Bullas
00:21:20 - 00:21:45
So what's the, just to wrap it up here, you obviously might have had a disciplined driven. Now, what are the major lessons that you could share with other people that want to start an online business, started side hustle, started to be an entrepreneur. What are the top tips you'd like to share with them today just to wrap things up?
Luc Lising
00:21:45 - 00:23:55
Yeah, this is going to be coming from the perspective of someone that's 22 years old and I would say, yeah, I would say have an ego, but don't have an ego. I, until this day, will humbly sit next to the people that I know who have accomplished more than me and I'll say, tell me what, you know, I don't give a shit about my accolades. I don't care that I'm in the chairman's club for Rural Peach, Canada, I don't care, I'm not that cool. Tell me what you know, because you know something I don't know and I will humbly listen to you, if you approach networking and relationship building from that perspective, nobody likes the guy that tries to put on the image of a hot shot, nobody likes that. Even if you're actually good at what you do, nobody just likes the hot shot. Come across as someone that's genuine, that is how you network, you've gotta network your way to the top, I couldn't have built any of my businesses. If I didn't have people that were already killing the game teach me everything. And the only reason why they taught me everything is because I humbly listened, they said jump, I said how high? I'm in that position in my life. I don't know if that's just me being 22 years old. I don't know, I might be like that when I'm 42 years old, but I still humbly listen to the billionaire telling me, Luc, you're doing this wrong. I'm never too arrogant, never too cool. My advice for people is to network, connect with the Jeffs of the world, the Lucs of the road, anybody that can teach you what you don't know, humbly listen to them, humbly learn from them, assuming they have your best interests at heart and in mind. And it will be the best decision you make. Just put all the ego, all the garbage set aside. For me, when I was 19 years old and I reached out to Jazz, I was actually his assistant for the first full year. That was the hardest year of my life because I'm this kid thinking, oh, I know what I know, I have to drive and that work ethic, why am I an assistant, why am I not in sales yet? Why is he not teaching how to do the actual business? He's making me do bullshit. That was the hardest year of my life because my ego is getting in the way, I want it to be something I wasn't yet. So I'm looking back at it, it's just like, I'm glad I kept it cool, I'm glad I was humble because if I just blew up in his face and said, never mind I'm doing this by myself because I don't want to be your assistant anymore, who knows where I'd be. I'm sure I'd figure it out, but who knows where I'd be.
Jeff Bullas
00:23:56 - 00:24:36
So to sum it up, what I've heard from you is that number one, network and use and as we discussed during our chat today, you can use, you can do that with technology tools and social media as you've done. Number two, don't let ego get in the way of learning. Is that your top two? That's it, okay. And I came across a great term when I interviewed someone recently and I said, your ego is not your amigo and you've just, and you've actually just basically amplified that message. Thank you very much.
Luc Lising
00:24:37 - 00:24:38
Yeah, Thanks Jeff.
Jeff Bullas
00:24:39 - 00:25:09
So thanks Luc. It's been an absolute pleasure. I don't know what you call it in America, in Australia, thanks mate, great for a great chat. in America and Canada might be thanks buddy, it's been great, but thank you very much for sharing your passionate youthful driving motivation. It's been a revelation and I feel absolutely glad we caught up and chatted between Lake Como and Toronto, thank you very much Luc, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Luc Lising
00:25:09 - 00:25:10
Thanks Jeff, for having me.
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