Balancing a Real Estate Career and Motherhood: Interview with Mendy Clark

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Guest Contact Information:

Mendy Clark
Broker/Owner @ SV Real Estate
512-771-7174 cell
mendy@svretx.com
https://www.facebook.com/mendyclark
www.svretx.com

Join the conversation as we delve into the life of Mendy Clark, a successful real estate broker and mom of four, who shares practical tips and her experienced insights on juggling motherhood and a thriving real estate career. Mendy discusses the importance of organization and time management, the meaningful relationships she’s cultivated with her clients, and her transition from realtor to a broker. Furthermore, she provides valuable advice on networking with other agents, consciously allocating time for self-care, and the adaptations she had to make as her children grow older. The interview also highlights her engagement in her children’s activities, her approach to scheduling personal and client time, and how she integrates her children into her work schedule when necessary.

 

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Introduction and Technical Difficulties
00:00 Introducing the Guest: Mendy Clark
00:48 Getting to Know Mendy
00:55 Mendy’s Journey in Real Estate
02:40 Balancing Motherhood and Real Estate Career
03:29 The Importance of Scheduling and Time Blocking
04:22 Using New Construction as a Learning Opportunity
06:48 Building a Presence in the Community
10:20 The Role of Team Mom and Family Support
13:38 The Impact of Color Coding and Scheduling on Family Life
16:55 The Importance of Partner Support in Real Estate Career
18:28 Unofficial Marketing: Building Connections through School Activities
19:14 The Power of Networking in Real Estate
19:23 Involvement in Children’s Education as a Realtor
19:43 Balancing Parenting and Real Estate Career
20:31 The Importance of Community Involvement
21:40 Turning Personal Activities into Business Opportunities
22:17 The Value of Organic Marketing
22:28 The Role of Parents in Children’s Activities
29:30 The Importance of Personal Time and Self-Care
30:06 Balancing Personal and Professional Life
37:00 The Importance of Building a Professional Support System
37:50 The Power of Referrals in Real Estate
39:18 Contact Information and Closing Remarks

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Balancing a Real Estate Career and Motherhood: Interview with Mendy Clark

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 0:00
Y’all in this episode we are talking organization and time management acts for Mama agents, with a dear friend of mine and colleague, Mendy Clark. Mendy is a real estate broker and owns SV real estate here in Central Texas. She is a mom of four, and has successfully built and nurtured her real estate career while raising four kids, and now has her first grandbaby. Mendy’s husband, Adam is a huge supporter of Mendy’s and I am happy to have her on this episode, talking about how she stayed organized, how she managed her time, and how she raised for men, because they’re for men now. And Balanced her clients all while doing a real estate. Hey, Mendy.

Mendy Clark 0:49
Hello, how are you?

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 0:51
I’m good. So how are you? Pretty good. Pretty good. So you’ve raised four kids, you have developed a thriving real estate career. You went on your own

Mendy Clark 1:05
this will be six years as I got my broker license October 30th of 2017. And we opened the LLC in November. Wow.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 1:15
Yeah. I can’t believe it’s been six years. I know what’s gone really quickly. How long have you been doing real estate in general? Because you did that while you were raising your kids as well? Yeah.

Mendy Clark 1:28
So I got my license in 2002. So we’re 21 years in? Yeah. Because read the baby who you can’t call him a baby anymore. But the baby I got my license before he turned one. Before he turned. Yeah, yeah, he’s 22. Now

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 1:43
for kids all under the age of one. So we

Mendy Clark 1:47
had four boys in five years. Y’all were busy. We were busy. But we were young. And I always wanted four kids. And I always wanted them close together. I assumed one would be a girl. But that was not meant to be. But do you know, I think it’s actually a blessing that they were four because I paired them up. We had buddies, you could put two in one room to one another. Yeah. So I was actually it’s actually worked out really well that they were all boys. Because it was an all or none mentality. I think I would have gone overload if I had a girl. Because now I do girls hair. And I’m like, I don’t know how to do your hair. Like, I can’t breed. I guess those are skills you got to learn now I guess. Yes, I do. Because the grandbabies a girl. Yeah.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 2:31
So you’ve got to learn that. Yes, I

Mendy Clark 2:33
will. I will take that task on.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 2:35
So how did you manage to deal with your responsibilities as a mom, as well as starting a career not only learning everything that you have to learn in real estate, but handling your clients. So I

Mendy Clark 2:48
take a slow and go approach partially because I did have four kids at home. The oldest has an October birthday. So actually had four at home for a year and a half before he started kindergarten. So I took that year to really learn really learn the contracts, because you just you don’t know like you get out of your test. And you’re like, great. I’m an agent that doesn’t tell me much about practicing daily. So I really took that time they all had naps. We had our scheduled I’m a very schedule oriented person. I’m somewhat to an

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 3:23
extreme. What do you mean, you’re scheduled to an extreme,

Mendy Clark 3:27
everything goes on the calendar. If it’s not on the calendar, it is not happening in our world. That is the way my boys have been raised. That’s the way we got Adam, my husband onboard as well. Down to grocery shopping, phone calls. If I needed quiet time nap times were on there so I could block it off so that when they were taking nap time, that was my study time. So there was literally two things on my calendar on there. One was the kids naptime. Moms study time.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 3:55
So you’ve used your calendar to actually work categorize your kids and their activities.

Mendy Clark 4:03
Yeah, I think now they call it time blocking, right? That’s the term that I’ve learned. But yeah, everything went there. We had a schedule, I had to get out of the house. I’m not one that can sit at home. I need to be out and about. So we would take field trips, we get in the car and we go to a new neighborhood and go meet the agent there. Interact, walk through and about back in 2000 to 2003. You had so many new neighborhoods going in, we will take we lived in a range in Austin. We were one of the first streets that was built. We’d get in the stroller and we’d walk we’d go down and see Randy work at Dr. Horton. He worked there. We’d go walk and see him we go through model homes. For me. It was a way that I could get out when I could feel like I was productive as an agent and kind of learned some basic story. Absolutely. And I knew a little bit of I could tell you what kind of flooring it was just from our own personal experience. But I really got an idea of what was being put in homes, and which builders were putting these things in home. So when you come and you don’t have necessarily clients or you don’t have a good knowledge base, new construction is a goldmine. Yeah, and they don’t care. If you bring your kids there, guess what, they have water. And it’s wonderful. Just take care of your kids, right? You don’t let them run amok or anything. But it was a really good avenue for us, we also got to check out the amenity centers, because we stopped at the park that was being built or had already been built. Nowadays, I would educate my agents do that. And you’re taking pictures and video. While you’re there and creating content in 2002 to 2005. That really wasn’t a thing, right? We still did paper MLS sheets that we would go with our clients on. But that was really good. It got me on the house, it kept the kids occupied, it was like a field trip of sorts, they got to go to someplace new. Two to five year olds could care less if you’re taking them to a mall, or anything. If you’re giving them snacks, you’re spending good quality time with them and you’re napping. They were taken care of. Right? It’s all about this next, it’s all about the snacks, that was a good way for me to occupy my time and ramp up in the business. So that because I did feel that I was a step behind. Right, I joined with the big box brokerage because I felt I needed that name behind me as Cloud as a new agent, and somebody that was just doing it slow and go. I bought I couldn’t do phone times, that was a big deal, right desk duty. I’m sure we all remember desk duty, I couldn’t do desk duty,

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 6:45
you probably do sit in the office,

Mendy Clark 6:48
not at all. So I couldn’t do that. I didn’t do a lot of marketing myself back then. But I was building a presence in my community, which now looking back served me so much better, because I built my name and my reputation in the community that I lived in worked in and that my kids went to school and and so about a year and a half in when Garrett started kindergarten, I put Mason in a Mother’s Day Out program, my number two, he went with the friends. So we coordinated pickup drop offs, which gave me time that I could go to an appointment, I would take them in the mornings because that was usually easier. She would pick the boys up. And then I’d go to her house in the afternoon and pick them up. So that was too.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 7:38
So what do you think with the other two? Did you take them with you on a point Matt salutely

Mendy Clark 7:41
They absolutely went with me, Cooper my number three he had a speech delays. Okay, so we had multiple appointments a week with physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. And so when I would go drop him off for an hour, I would just have one with me, that’s a perfect time to meet up, drop off paperworks run errands whenever I needed to do in that area I was able to do read went with me so much that he was actually a blessing. Because if other people had their kids, because think about your consumers, they are not necessarily going to go get a babysitter every time they need to see a house if they have no issues bringing their kids with them because it’s their house that they’re looking to buy. Without Reid was actually helpful because he would interact with their kids, he would want to show the closets and pantries he loved showing closets and pantries to friends and clients. So he would go I found the pantry. But I come from a very real perspective, right I am who I am. I never wanted to put on airs. Most of my clients came from people that I knew, or word of mouth. So they knew what they were getting. When they got me, I come with people. I’m not gonna go put on a business suit to show you a house, just like ranch property. I’m gonna put the boots on, we’re gonna go walk it, things like that. So I didn’t go get all dressed up. So I didn’t have to take that extra time to do that. And I would always ask somebody, Hey, I’ve got I’ve got my two year old, I can go show it to you now or we can set up a time. If you want to do it differently, what works for you. Right if your clients opportunity to tell you if that’s a stopgap or not. It’s fine. Most of them are like, No, I want to go see the house. Come on. Let’s go do that. Also, I think I had a team that helped. So I had my mother in law and father in law lived in town. Oh yeah, we’re very close to us. She would always be dropped the kids off. So if I wanted to go somewhere where I knew I was going to be out three, four hours showing a whole bunch of houses and I thought okay, this probably isn’t going to be the best for my clients to have a two or three year old with me, or it was going to overlap. A pickup or a drop off, Barb would take them. And they would be at Barb’s house for a while. As we got a little bored. Oh my gosh, it was fantastic. It was absolutely fantastic. As we got a little bit older and get started kindergarten, I volunteered a lot. So I made friends. You made friends with the people with their moms. Yeah, their moms, their moms. So we to this day they are. So my dear friends and my best friend was the beginning of that relationship. We met when her oldest and my main my mason started kindergarten, they did Kinder registration, and we met, and ever since then she’s now one of my agents. So Stephanie, you know, 70 Honest, Evan. So we did what we call T mom. And one of our T moms. She had a daughter that had cerebral palsy. So she had limitations on what she could and couldn’t do with her son as well, because of her daughter, Stephanie. She had little ones as well and other commitments. And so we all work together. And we said, Okay, listen, I’ve got to have a doctor appointment, or I need to go show houses. I got the bliss. We’re good. Those three boys became such good friends. And are such good friends to this day. Today. Right? Say Stephanie, son, Adam was Mason’s best man. Oh, wow. I did not know. Yeah, absolutely. So we did T mom. And you figure it out. And you work it out? Because there are times where you don’t want to take your child with you. Yeah,

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 11:27
I can see that. So when you start talking about scheduling, how detailed did you have to get? Did you just throw stuff on there? Or do you say you live by it? Did that follow through with the kids too? Are they like, scheduled? Yes.

Mendy Clark 11:44
And no. Yes and no. Which will you go over? I do have four. So I have Cooper is very much. So it like for even if I wanted to make a stop, like I had a little list he couldn’t read, he could barely speak, right. Because of his speech issues. I had a little list that we carried in the car. It was mine because I was very paper oriented. And if I wanted to make a stop, he will because he knew like he was very aware of his surroundings. And there was a whole bunch going on. He just couldn’t get it out. But at four or five if he knew that if I stopped at targets. And target was not on our list. He really gave me a book. Like if not good luck. Oh, yeah. Whereas read was like, hey, Target, he would know. But I was very good at communicating from a young age. Hey, guys, we’re gonna go do this. We’re gonna go do this. Oh, Mommy’s gonna go meet a client and show a house. So they were almost raised in this scheduled environment. But we’re going to make pitstops I always carried snacks in the car waters in the car I always built in if I knew I was going to be out there lunches, things like that. Poor read never took a nap and a bit. Ever. He slept in the car or the umbrella stroller. Oh, wow. But we’re all the time. Absolutely. But if you see him as an adult, he is very carefree. He’s very easygoing. When things change. He will schedule right with. I have one that schedules placeholders like I do. But read. He’s got it in his head. But he’s very adaptable. It made my children very flexible and very adaptable. And they are matters as an adult. Absolutely. And they are so far more capable as children than I think sometimes we allow them to be. I did work my children. In some ways. they’re color coded. I did that. Yeah. Right.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 13:46
You’ve got them. Yeah, you got each one of them has a different color assigned, correct? Because they were so close together. So did you do that on your calendar today? Absolutely. I

Mendy Clark 13:57
can’t show you my calendar. But yes, absolutely. It’s still that way. Oh, yeah. My Google Calendar. Next time I see you. I’ll show you my Google Calendar has all of our colors. So I’m purple. I know that shocks you with my office. Adam is orange, even though he doesn’t he’ll tell you he doesn’t have a color. And then green, blue, red and yellow. There. Google calendars are their colors. Yeah.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 14:23
Okay. So out of those colors other than Adam, his orange. Do they like the color that was assigned to them? Or did they just say

Mendy Clark 14:30
Do they do Garrett pick to get started? He got some he was the oldest. So he picked green. What’s his favorite color? And he picked blue for Mason. And that works great. Mason loves blue. Cooper got red. And he’s the one that I’ve probably worked the most because he’s still gravitate to that color. Really? Oh, absolutely. If you watch him when you see him out in public or in pictures, most of his clothing is red or maroon. Do you like burgundy color shades? In black and gray? Oh, wow. His sneakers are Maroon? Oh, yeah, it’s quite remarkable. Reid is the only one that really rebelled against his color. But he unfortunately he got yellow. You T was not doing well, in 2001 when he was born, I don’t know. So he got yellow. That’s when he got he didn’t enjoy it. Now, really never really know. But he does not buck the system that is in place as our household when it comes to things. Like he knows that if something is yellow, it is yes, it is funny. And they buy things for each other that are their colors. So I did work them, but it helps me stay sane. And in terms of scheduling, I put blocks on my calendar that were possible client at times. So when I get a client, one of the things that I do is I talk about their availability, right? We all do. We’re looking at houses, we’ve set up your portal, what is your schedule look like? Mr. Mrs. Client? When is your free time that we’re going to be able to go out and go shopping? What does that look like for you? Where do you have flexibility? Because then I could take that and I could pop in placeholders and buckets of time that were reserved for Adam knew I had people on standby whether it’s teen mom, or Barb or Adam, we all knew Yep, mom, she might be gone. She might be running out. So I did that whether I needed them or not. I did that. So that makes sense. very sane.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 16:40
Right? You’re very systems oriented. I guess I’d say even in the very beginning, just with your kids, you are putting in systems to keep you organized. And time management as well. Because that’s a complete system, you

Mendy Clark 16:57
have to have your buying in. So when I embarked upon this journey, Adam and I sat down because I left a nine to five job. I didn’t go back after the third was born. Okay, I worked until Cooper was born. And then I didn’t go back to Dell. I stayed at home and I never thought I’d be a stay at home mom. So even before I started real estate, we had schedules for the kids and things like that. But Adam and I sat down and you have to have your partner’s buy in. You have to in this business, because you not only have to schedule it, but you have to be prepared for a little bit of unpredictability, right, so much so that Adam chose sales roles where he didn’t want to travel. Okay, he could have taken an outside a e role or something like that. He chose a career path and roles that allowed him to stay local. Okay, because he knew that him traveling when the kids were under 10. Four of them, and my field of work was probably on put us over the edge. That might have been too much for even T mom and in laws to handle. It wouldn’t have worked. For years. He did that until the kids were a little older. And they were a little bit more self reliant, more independence. I had my feet under me in terms of the career a little bit. I was more stablished I also didn’t do a lot of outside marketing. So I was a little more reactive.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 18:32
Would you say that? Having four boys in school and every grade has its own set of moms. You’re surrounded by new moms.

Mendy Clark 18:44
Yeah. That was my marketing. That was unofficial marketing. Right? Right. No marketing dollars. It’s your time and your energy. Because I was always involved, right? You’ve got PTAs you’ve got your boosters. I ran events. I was on the PTA board. Like I did the carnival at the elementary school. I started by Saru mom and I went up and by the end, Stephanie and I were running that carnival together. She wasn’t an agent, but we did all the things. So people see you in in doing other things and they’re like, Wow, okay, she got it done. She was under budget. She added to the program. She made it better. She seems to have herself together. Oh, wait a minute, is that does that so you’re a realtor on your shirt? It does. So

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 19:31
it was a gentle lead into the real estate. It wasn’t hounding them. You were there to serve. You were there to participate in your children’s education and experience. And then they gave you some additional ways to further your career. I tell agents

Mendy Clark 19:48
now you should always be involved with the schools that are in your own feeder pattern of your house. Whether you have kids or not. You can sponsor a booth. You can sponsor their folders, you can Watch when they’re doing canned drives, or sock drives or things like that. You can go read to kids, you can do the watchdog programs, there’s so many ways that you can interact, that don’t cost a lot of money, which is beneficial for agents that are trying to build their business. Go do your time, your time. And your present, says a lot about who you are as a person, and is more passive, but they see you interacting, it’s a way to communicate and start that relationship. And then build on it more organic. I’m all about organic marketing and things like that. You’ve been

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 20:35
involved in your kids activities, and you had two that were in band, inside

Mendy Clark 20:41
two in band and two and football by the time we got to middle school, high school. And

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 20:45
you were very involved in all of

Mendy Clark 20:47
those match, probably Adam would say too much. When we built 150 page book, media guidebook, right multiple years in advance, I think I did it seven years for football. And it’s of your own doing, like they have just a simple little program that gets handed out on Friday night football games, and you’re in it’s black and white. And it’s a cost expense, not an income bearing expense. And you’re like you could totally do a program and habit color and habit sponsored and you could have ads in here and then just do a simple little roster at the football game, you could do that. And then you become an income generating activity. But it literally takes months of you and your husband’s time to build every year. One might say that’s probably overkill. One might.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 21:39
It’s it sounds like a lot.

Mendy Clark 21:41
It is. But it was built in I was in also networking with local businesses, it wasn’t just myself trying to grow my business, you’ve got another local business, right? The local plumber, hello, that’s a good person to interact with and know, the electrician, the printers in town, right? I got on such a good business relationship with Minutemen and Cedar Park was wonderful. So then you take that and you’re then meeting new parents that maybe aren’t quite as involved, and they see your ad and they’re like, hold on, this lady has brought it to me is the person that made it and was selling it. But her company’s in here as an advertiser. Hold on, I need to know more about her. And you meet on that, and you bet. So it’s very organic. And it’s very good. But yes, it’s very time consuming. But we started that with our kids years ago, we said if you’re going to invest your time, and energy into some activity, we darn well are going to invest our time and our energy as well. We’re not just writing a check for you to do this activity. Because I need to know who you’re interacting with. I was a little bit of a mama bear. But I didn’t have that grown up were kids of the 70s and 80s. Did our moms even know what a PTA was? We didn’t have that. Like my mom, she she was busy working, she had jobs, she didn’t have time to enrich me write or make sure I was doing extracurricular activity. So I went into motherhood and said, I’m going to be a part of what my kids are doing. My friends are doing it, we’re all doing it together. It’s much more fun to do some volunteering, when you have somebody that you know, and you like next to you working hard, but it showed my kids a very strong work ethic. But here’s what I also did when it came to scheduling when they got to middle school, and high school or any extracurricular activity. I am not the mom that’s going to sit in the stands while you are practicing, tackling or banned, more sitting at your private lesson. I’m not going to spend my hours sitting there doing that that is your time. With your coaches, your instructors, you don’t need me sitting there watching you do it to make you better. Right? Okay, so that was perfect time as they got older, drop you off for your trumpet lesson, I’m going to go over here and show house or go meet with this client or this agent, I’ll be back. They don’t need you hovering, while they’re doing that, that’s their time for their craft or activity that they’re doing. Okay. So that’s what we set them all down very early. And so this is you’re doing it because you want to do it not because you have a cheering section, right? However, wow, say that again. Okay. So when you are doing an activity, you are doing the activity because you want to do this and that is your time with your coaches, lesson teachers, right, whatever. That’s your time to practice. You don’t need a mom or a dad sitting there hovering over you while you’re doing watching your every move. I’m not a coach.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 24:44
I’m sure you’re there for the games and everything.

Mendy Clark 24:48
Yep, that’s the flip side. But we also had to come ahead and have a conversation because as they got into middle school in high school, Adam was traveling, right? So he was traveling to the States so he’d get up super early in the morning and then try to make at home. We talked to all the kids, there are times where as much as I want to be at a game or a concert on may not make it. However, I will make sure that somebody from Team Clark is there, whether it’s your grandparents, whether it’s Teen Mom, because our kids, they all ended up doing same activities, you will have somebody there from Team Clark that’s there to cheer you on. And see how well you did or record it or something like that.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 25:35
And even when they went on to college, you still were definitely

Mendy Clark 25:39
Yep. But because I had to tell them, Look, I’m just like, practice, you don’t need me hovering over you. I know that you are you want somebody to see your work, and come up afterwards and say that was a great game. That was a great concert, you sounded wonderful. That catch was great. I know that you thrive on there. I thrive on no thrive on getting applauded for when you work hard and do something I said, but I need you to know, as you grow into adulthood, then you don’t always have a cheering section with you. So cheer for yourself. Correct. So if you’re doing this because the goal is on Friday night, the football game or the band concert on Saturday, if you’re doing this just because you want somebody to come up to you after and say good job, you need to rethink why we’re doing this. Why are you spending all this time and effort and that was something that I just felt was important for them to learn. You are choosing to do an activity here at Mason Cooper and read for yourself because you enjoy it. Your friends are doing it and you want to do it. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be there to cheer you on. But there are times in life something happen. And nobody’s there to cheer you on. Does that make it any less special? What you did, you shouldn’t feel any less special about what you did. So there were times and there were times because just with four kids, I said we’re going to be over block double blocked. I go it may not have nothing to do with dads travel schedule, or mom’s work schedule. It might simply be that there’s a football game in this stadium. And across the way three miles is a band concert. We’re gonna just I’m gonna go to which one I can do if I can get to both I’m gonna get to both. But we may divide and conquer. Just like when the kids were little, it’s soccer, little bitty soccer when they’re 4567, whatever. They love to schedule those games. All on Saturday mornings between eight and 12. Right. And it’s great that LA can Cedar Park Melbourne like they’re all right there at Melbourne. That’s fantastic. And that’s wonderful. Do you know how hard it is to push a double stroller from one end of the Millburn park to the other to get from one kid gang to another kid getting better playing at the same time? No. Yeah. It was great exercise for me. i That was wonderful. So you have to if you have just one kid, maybe it’s a slightly different conversation, right? I had four kids very close together. So real estate business priorities aside, that’s a conversation you have to have in bigger families. It

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 28:30
causes you to have to supersize your organization and really come up with a plan that you could implement that would keep you not dropping the

Mendy Clark 28:41
ball. Absolutely. And just like when you block I blocked off placeholders for clients. I blocked off the kids stuff, too. You block off that game, just like you block off a doctor appointment. And if you have a client that says okay, I can only go on Friday, after five. Okay, I can give you Friday. I can meet you at five. And but we have a hard stop at 645. Yeah, what’s our next time block? Because you don’t I assume that because I have somewhere to be at seven o’clock.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 29:10
Raising four kids handling all of their activities, being married, which comes with its own set of priorities in itself to keep your relationship healthy, which y’all have. And Adams amazing as you think about all the things and all of your real estate clients and everything that you’ve accomplished as well as education getting your broker’s license, how do you fit in Mendy time? How do you fit in that self care? Does it fit in? Do you schedule it? Do you have time?

Mendy Clark 29:42
That’s lovely Robin, that’s fantastic. So you know what I mean? I know I know. And it’s very important and the older I get, I know how important it is. So when they were younger, because I don’t have necessarily a lot of hobbies. I used to have hobbies. I loved reading I had a large library. And I know this would shock you. But I had an Excel spreadsheet, it was all color coded with my series anywho I think I had like 1500 books. It was crazy. And so I would read and my quiet time was bubble bath. Cuz I just we always we would get houses and had this big garden tub and it was just something that I wasn’t used to. And if you run into any of my kids, you can ask them, what did your mom do for quiet time when y’all were little, and they would all tell you Oh, she would go take baths and read her book. And so they knew unless you’re bleeding, or the dog was running down the streets. We are not bothering mom. So that’s what I did. And I would go out shopping, I like window shop and things like that. I get my nails done to this day and still get my nails done. That was quiet time for me nails and pedicure and the kids. I Cooper now goes with me to get a manicure. Because he likes it and it’s quiet time. So that’s really what I would do. But I didn’t do a lot of it. I didn’t do enough. Because I would always put their stuff face forward. Yeah, absolutely. Now as they got older, I did, I would spend more time by myself, my girlfriends, and I were gonna go have brunch. So you just kind of work it in now we go camping. I really think that’s all we do. Adam and I have a camper. And we have a camping group of friends and we go camping. But when I started the brokerage and decided to level up, so to speak and take that on, that was the hardest thing I have ever done is going from an agent to a broker and opening a company like that mentality that stressed that it put on me, I was just not prepared for in any way. And so I kind of let a lot of my hobby time go. Because I was trying to grow that and I always said I was going to be small, I was going to do an independent I was going to be that person learn as I go. And with that comes its own rewards, and not so many rewards. So I don’t do it many hobbies now I don’t have as much self care now. We get together with friends. That’s what we do. Adams always been really good about hobbies and things like that. He had some efficiency. And he now wood works and toodles in the garage, that kind of thing. Toodles in the garage, which leaves me quiet time and I watch TV. I love watching TV. I always have TV. I have a TV in my office that’s usually on. And I am a real housewives junkie. Oh my gosh, it makes me feel so good about myself. Right and made it through a dinner without throwing a drink or yelling at somebody.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 32:38
Oh my gosh, or flipping a table.

Mendy Clark 32:40
You didn’t flip the table? No, no. So it’s that kind of stuff that you do you figure out where your little happy spot land, sometimes you’ll have it and sometimes you won’t in this business. You and I both know this business is somewhat cyclical. And it is also somewhat, when you’re really busy. Like I love the 2018 to 2022 years. They were wonderful. But oh my gosh, I need a break. Right? I couldn’t see. I was so busy.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 33:14
You probably just need to calendar but yeah,

Mendy Clark 33:18
I did. We did we had to put way to put dates and add them a part of our dates were showing houses, get in the car with me un spend time with me why gotta go I’m out for six hours with three different clients get in the car. I’ll get you a copy on the way. Come on, chop, chop, let’s go. And that’s what we did. But we got to spend time together that way. So sometimes it’s not fancy. You know what I mean? So you do what works for you in this business. Like what works for me may not work for you or another agent that’s just starting out. But what I will say is you can’t be too hard on yourself. Especially if you’re a mama agent was littles at home, they’d have to take priority and their schedule Trumps yours. But don’t be afraid to tell a client. You know what? I can’t do it. I’m blocked off every day from 12 to two. That may be your kids naptime. You don’t have to tell them it’s your kid nap. I’m blocked every day from 12 to two unfortunately with appointments that have already been preset, I can meet you after that or we can choose another day and choose a day that’s three or four days out so that the college kid that helps you out that you found or the mother in law or your mom or a friend divided up right so they can come to nap time. So the so plan ahead and that’s when you utilize those people some pretty new with you do with what works but I don’t ever tell people my appointments if it’s a hair appointment, a dentist appointment a kid appointment. May they figure out that my Friday at seven o’clock is a football game. But you know what that pertain to business because I’m a sponsor? Oh, season tickets. I wear my shirt with my Ranger gear or whatever. rubber. So technically, me showing up as business related. Because I’m representing my sponsorship to that organization. Just so happens, I’m also getting to watch my kid, which makes it nice. It’s a win win. So figure out what works for you. And utilize that to your advantage. I think we overshare I’m an overshare. I know you know that about me. So I find that my client wouldn’t say that. I know, my clients, I always tell them at the end of our relationship, I want you to consider not only the work that we’ve done, but consider me a valuable resource and a friend to call on in the future. Either way, I can call on you, or you can call me I want us to connect, I want us to reconnect. I want to know what’s going on in your kiddos lives, important event. And I want you to know what’s going on in my life as well. And so because of that, I feel that once you get into a relationship with a client, you’ve reached a certain level, it’s okay to say, Hey, have you ever been to one of these high school football games? Because you’re not from Texas? And they’re different here? Why don’t you come on with us? Come to the game on Friday night. Let them see in a window in so to speak, without overwhelming them because some people see my window in and they’re like No, close the blinds, please. I don’t want I don’t want to see.

Speaker 2 36:18
Close the blinds. Like we’re done. We’re done. That’s it. That’s it family. Right? Exactly.

Mendy Clark 36:23
Just like when we go camping now. I’m not like I first of all, I’m not take camper, I have an actual RV, it has a fireplace, I have two air conditionings I have a Starlink we have a sap phone. If we go to Yellowstone, like I’ve got all the things, right. So I’m not afraid to tell a client, I’m actually keeping that weekend. So when we see one of my agents can show you the house, right? I’ll prep it for you and show you the house. But I’m not afraid to say that on TV. Because a lot of what I do can be done, I’m at a point in my career where it can be done. And I’ll tell you, the fastest way to get business is go on vacation, or take class. Exactly. And one of the things that I did not do that I now tell my agents to do whether they’re a mama agent or network with other agents, you’ve got to build not only your personal support system, you’ve got to build that professional support system. Right. So go to win, and you do it in trainings, you go to events go out there and don’t be afraid to meet agents and talk to agents. Because you never know they may live to neighborhoods over from you. Right. And they’re trying to grow their business at the same time. And they also have little kid. Yeah, you’re a support system for each other, whether it’s watching each other’s kid, so you can do the business. Or you know what I am out of town this week, but I’ve got a fantastic agent refer you to them. Yeah, that’s such an unknown. I didn’t know anything about referrals. The first five years I was in this business, I could have been making so much money by referring to people, but I wasn’t out there networking, I was in my own little bubble. There’s been somebody that you’ve worked with before or that is personal to you. If you’ve got somebody that you can have, watch the kids, if you can’t take them with you. If you know that agent and you have seen the way they operate, and they operate their business in a way that you feel is valuable, and similar to yours, refer them build up that referral network. So that one, you’re still taking care of that person, you’re showing the value of our service as a realtor, which is important. I don’t think we applaud other realtors as much as we should. Because we’re very focused on our own. I go into every transaction and always have as we are cooperating agents, not competing agents. We all work together to get the deal done. So I’m not so that’s it’s all about networking and not being afraid to get out of your comfort. And now I think it’s a lot easier because we do have so much social media that we didn’t have when I was starting. And that’s probably where I lack now because I’m coming to videos and things like that. I’m way behind the eight ball there. But now I think it’s easier connect and network. Join groups jump

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 39:19
in Mendy the water warm. Thank you for joining us. If folks wanted to reach out to you about real estate in Central Texas. How best can they get in touch with you?

Mendy Clark 39:30
I always have my phone very close by me. So my cell phone is the best way to get ahold of me. 512-771-7174 you can also find me on facebook instagram as Mendy Clark. Yeah,

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 39:44
we’re gonna put Mendy’s contact information in the show notes below. So you’ll definitely have it and feel free to reach out to her. Thanks again. Mendy.

Mendy Clark 39:52
Thank you so much.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA With Robbie English) 39:53
Thank you for tuning in to this episode. We’re dropping a new episode every Sunday at 12 Noon. Central. We’d love your support for The REALTEA With Robbie English. Please do us a favor and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. It only takes a couple of seconds and it really does help us out. Also, be sure to share it with your colleagues and friends. Until next time, we hope you have a profitable and productive week.