Uncover the secrets behind one man's unstoppable journey from a corporate finance career to a real estate dynamo in Nashville, as we sit down with Steve Frye from the Frye Group. Listen in as Steve divulges how he seamlessly transitioned into the real estate world, propelled by his wife's encouragement and his own indomitable resolve, turning a mere career switch into a remarkable success story with over 200 properties in just a span of four years.
What if you could tap into the brains of big thinkers and hustlers, would it influence your career trajectory? Steve believes it did for him, and he's ready to spill the beans. Tune in to hear Steve's vast wealth of experience and gain insightful advice on networking within the real estate realm. Hear him speak passionately about the importance of continual learning, being a valuable resource for clients, and the power of placing oneself in rooms filled with people who think bigger. Grab your headphones, this promises to be a riveting conversation that will leave you feeling inspired and ready to conquer your own real estate journey.
Uncover the secrets behind one man's unstoppable journey from a corporate finance career to a real estate dynamo in Nashville, as we sit down with Steve Frye from the Frye Group. Listen in as Steve divulges how he seamlessly transitioned into the real estate world, propelled by his wife's encouragement and his own indomitable resolve, turning a mere career switch into a remarkable success story with over 200 properties in just a span of four years.
What if you could tap into the brains of big thinkers and hustlers, would it influence your career trajectory? Steve believes it did for him, and he's ready to spill the beans. Tune in to hear Steve's vast wealth of experience and gain insightful advice on networking within the real estate realm. Hear him speak passionately about the importance of continual learning, being a valuable resource for clients, and the power of placing oneself in rooms filled with people who think bigger. Grab your headphones, this promises to be a riveting conversation that will leave you feeling inspired and ready to conquer your own real estate journey.
Hello everyone and welcome back to another unstoppable podcast with your host, megan Farrell. Today I have my friend, steve Fry with the Fry group out of Nashville, and Steve has done some amazing things in this real estate market and it's even brought his family in on board as well, and I cannot wait for him to share his story. I don't want to go in to steal his thunder. So, steve, welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell everybody in our audience who Steve Fry is.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thanks, megan, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on the show first off. Yeah, so I'm Steve Fry.
Speaker 2:I live here in the Nashville Tennessee market, grew up here most of my life. I am currently married 30 years with my wife and we met through our high school sweethearts. We have two, two boys as well. Both of them are actually realtors that work under my team now one's 26, his name's Logan, and one is 23, bailey. So we have our own little as you mentioned before, we have our own little fry group real estate team, that that we, when we work not only just the Nashville market but kind of all over the middle Tennessee area.
Speaker 2:I did that initially not by design but also to try to just get as much business as I could. When I first got into this world, switched over from corporate finance a few years ago, but when I so I kind of cast my net pretty wide when I first got into the market, of course, trying to get as much business as possible, and that kind of stuck a little bit. That's that's good and bad. I mean we have, we've had a lot of success, we've had a lot of business and but at the same time I mean we're kind of known now to kind of go all over the middle Tennessee market. So that's, like I said, good and bad things right, right, you're everywhere, everywhere everywhere yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, and we'll give people the links to how to find you after we get through this podcast here too, because I can just really read your credentials and what you've done. But some of the things that have really stood out to me when you say your bio over is then four years, I mean the amount of you know, the money and real estate that you have done, the amount of homes 200 plus properties I mean that is amazing. And in mentorship I'm sure you get asked a lot by people, especially you've been. You know you've been when markets are high, when markets are slower, and how you push through and still had a very successful business. One question I want to ask, because some people that I know are thinking do I stay in real estate? Do I get out of real estate? Do I get my license? What is your, what is your analysis on what's going on in the market today and what you give somebody that's really not been as busy or successful as you in the market?
Speaker 2:sure, yeah, and I get that. Like you said, I get that question pretty often and I mean when I first got in the market I had a corporate finance background. So I do feel like that having that corporate experience and organization kind of did help getting into the real estate game. I mean, from the outside, looking in real estate looks fun and it is fun. It can be fun. There's a lot of great networking you get to, you know, you get to work with your friends and family sometimes and you get to see some cool houses and you just get to experience a lot of great things. It's also a lot a lot of work, and I think everybody doesn't get that until they actually get into the business. There's a range of things that can happen. I mean, there's any which way the deal can go to go bad. It does.
Speaker 2:So you've always got to be got to be ready and you also have to be really prepared and experienced to be able to navigate your clients kind of through those areas. So I think the first thing I always tell people is just soon as you I mean, if you're going to get into real estate, educate yourself as much as you can before you get there. If you're already in real estate, if you're, you know, new to the game, just absorb as much information as you can. I mean getting on listening to podcasts like yourself you've got you've got a great podcast and I know you do some amazing things with empowering women and just people in general in the national market but soaking up as much education as you can, and not just in, not just a surface level, but kind of diving in and really understanding, because you're going to be dealing with people's lives, their money. I mean we don't proclaim to the attorneys, we don't proclaim to be mortgage lenders there's we got amazing people for that kind of stuff but you do need to know your way around those areas so that you can help to guide people and put them in touch with the right folks. And then, if things start to go wonky with the deal, you got to know how to navigate out of that.
Speaker 2:So that was my first, my very first experience in real estate is I just dove into the numbers and understood as much as I could. I literally brought my corporate finance background into the real estate world by just trying to educate and dive into the real information what markets made, what kind of money and when you first get into real estate too, it's you're looking for. Most people look for friends and family to try to sell to. That works great for maybe three to six months. Sometimes it doesn't work great. I didn't account on that. I mean, coming from a corporate background, I wanted to make sure I had a steady stream of income. I was more concerned about keeping the lights on as opposed to just being a fun little hobby. So I educated myself.
Speaker 2:I dove in and I figured I was as much as I could and then I started pushing myself as a resource and my experience out to the market for people that were looking to invest in the Nashville and Middle Tennessee markets. So that was my first big leap that got me going and it was all about the investors on the front end and then the residential stuff kind of came along after that. So the business is starting now to come from different directions.
Speaker 1:I'm a pretty heavy referral based agent after four and a half years, which is where you want to be.
Speaker 2:I mean, you don't want to be chasing leads all the time. So but education? I know that's a long way of saying education, but it's education.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with that. I always tell people all the time because, like when I first went into, you know I would help them bell with their marketing. I didn't know anything about title and I'm like, why would John Delano want to bring me on when I didn't know anything about title? But what they saw was a new relationship and I knew people. And I think that's within any business that you're in.
Speaker 1:You have to be a relationship builder and like that, you know you came to one of our happy hours. You have to be out in networking and I think so many people forget that sometimes. And it's so important because even if you are successful, you know as you, you still chose to come to networking events from time to time when you can make it, because you never know who you're going to meet. That could be the next big deal. Or when the market goes slow If it does hopefully it never does, but if it does, you know you have those connections because people are always going to be by houses. They're always going to be out there with a form of business. It's how are they going to connect with you to do that? So I love what you said about relationships are safe. That's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's amazing advice too about the networking piece. I get lazy about it sometimes. I think everybody does a little bit. But you know, because you do have to, I enjoy it. I'm a pretty extroverted person. I like getting out there and talking, but after you've been out all day and then you come home at four and there's a, there's a networking meeting across down at six. You know you just have to. You have to make sure you can. You know you keep their motivation and energy up for those types of events.
Speaker 2:Every time I network, I go to social events and these meetups. My business, my business prospers from it. I mean it's always I meet great people, I get good information. Sometimes I just learn new information and it's not always an instant gratification thing. Sometimes it's people that I'm connected with that connect me to other people and you start to see that after a couple of years in real estate I mean real estate is definitely not an instant gratification kind of business. You definitely have to create those relationships, foster them over time and it all starts coming to you.
Speaker 2:But it does take several years usually for most people to kind of get going. I got lucky in the fact that I went after investors and it worked and anybody can do that. I mean I recommend that to everybody. I mean, learn the investor world, know what the because they're smart folks, know what they're going to be asking about and just be a resource. And then it's not as much of a sales game, it's more of a match game. It's like let's connect you with the right properties and if you've got enough of a buyer network, then if the right property comes along, let's throw it out to 20 guys and I do that all the time. I throw it out to 15, 20 people and say who wants this? Effectively, and it's worked over the years. It doesn't always work, but it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I love that part of it too, because I find with the meat-throwing networking events now, a lot of the ones that don't show up are like, well, things are slow, I don't really have the money to get out, and things like that. I encourage you to take seasoned advice. If you're listening to this, if you're an agent that's in a slump, or if you're just getting into the industry or just take real estate out, whatever you're doing, if you're in sales and at all point you're in sales at some part of your job get out and make new friends, make new connections. You're not always going to feel like it. There's times where I'm like, man, I could really go home and get some extra sleep or get some housework done myself, and I'm like, no, I cheese to do that and, like you said, you always benefit from it. And not even that. You leave like you feel like you've accomplished something. So let's say, if you're an agent and you're slowing down and you're not having that business, you're still going to feel like you're getting some wins. Sometimes it starts by getting a little bit of win to get your confidence back up, to get you back on the journey of like succeeding again and stuff in the market.
Speaker 1:So I really hope you guys that are listening, or really listening to what Steve's saying. This is the man that knows his stuff. He's all about educating himself and getting out and networking. That's what it is, no matter what level that you're on. So let me ask you this, steve let's go back, let's back up 2018. When you decided to make the switch I know they kind of did that had to be a little scary right To leave something that you were so familiar with, to go in and be like, okay, I'm leaving this guaranteed salary for me working for myself as an agent, 100%. What gave you the motivation to do that, to go through that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was. So I had a nice. I got a nice long career, 20 plus years in the corporate finance, always in the healthcare side, and I had some great jobs that were long term jobs. Then I had a couple of jobs right there, right around. So I was 48 years old when I switched over in 2018. I had a couple of jobs in a row that went away, one due to acquisition, and then I got the new gig and then that went away because I moved operations and it was like, oh my gosh, here I am, 48.
Speaker 2:And I mean, unfortunately, ageism is real and the corporate side, I mean you get to a certain age, you know like you just feel the pressure of, hey, this 25 year old maybe not have the experience, I do, but he's a lot cheaper and you just know that the potential writing is on the table. So I was just tired of having my employment dictated to me at that point. So my wife, lisa one of them married two for 30 years, by the way, high school sweetheart she told me. She said why don't you try real estate while you're looking for the next job in finance? So I took her advice because I'd been talking about it for a while. So I took her advice, took the exam, got lucky, got through it the first time and literally from the time she said hey, why don't you try this? Within a month I had my, I passed the exam, had my license and I was working at a brokerage and from there it was just game on. I was just head down on it and I was still kind of looking for a job at corporate finance side, but I was so excited about the real estate edge to it. And again, even on the front end it's tough. I mean I got lucky by getting successful pretty early on. But even then I had and this is a great story my very first day as a realtor I did an open house and I just crushed open houses when I was on the front end. I did two every week.
Speaker 2:And for anybody who's on the open house and that's another thing I would recommend just go to open houses. Not only are you, does it give you an opportunity to potentially meet an unrepresented buyer, which is the whole point of open houses. To have someone come in the door and to go into a million dollar open houses usually doesn't get it for you, because every one of those guys knows, 15 guys like me. So sometimes at like half, you know, half $500,000 and under, open house is the perfect spot to try to meet somebody who doesn't, who's not represented or they're new to town. So but anyway, very first open house at a condo I had met a client and they, a month later we got them a house. So first day, first open house, I met a client. It wasn't that house but it was a different house that we got them in and I thought I'm hooked, I'm addicted.
Speaker 2:Now I didn't have another closing for five more months after that, but the snowball things were snowballing in the background. I had a lot of things that were happening. I knew I was making tons of connections, I had some potential offers that didn't work through and then five months later, you know, I had that next closing and then after that it was a million bucks a month and then the next year two million a month and then three million a month and it, but it was all. You know, it all just kind of fell off, snowballed off from each other. So again it's, you know, even though it looks easy sometimes, you know people put up a lot of stuff on social media, you know, saying just sold this to put this under contract.
Speaker 2:I do the same thing. There's a lot that goes behind it and there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that aren't successes behind the scenes. You know there's a lot of failures behind the scenes and you learn from all of those. It does frustrating. And this year is a year last year and this year, because of the interest rates going up is a year where you start to see some more of those failures. You got to have thick skin and you got to have, and that's why I cast my net as wide as possible. You know I try to go to as big of an area as I can. I work not only in residential and with investors, but I also work some commercial deals in land development and starting to do my own builds here in the next few months that we've been working on for a while, and I also work the Smoky Mountains, which is three hours from here, but I've got and now it's just them set up in that market.
Speaker 1:Very smart. Yes, put yourself in hot markets like that too. You know you got to start somewhere. People, come on, listen to these gold nuggets here that he's selling out at you. You know, looking for things, looking for wins Sometimes, like you said. I mean like when you started you said it might have been what was? You said five months until your next commission check or your first one. I mean there have to be times where you're like man, you know, is that my right decision or not? But you stick with it.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think so many people see they get so close to like almost getting there and then, they get so discouraged that they just don't stick it out a little bit longer to get them through the finish line. And that's where all the abundance is and the abundance mindset I'm all about that versus scarcity bouncer. But you know not only that. You have brought your two children on with you now that is helping the fry group, which that has to be a proud dad moment, like a full circle moment, to have your kids on board with you.
Speaker 2:It's great, yeah, and I don't take nearly as much advantage of having everybody together as I should. My wife is just a dynamo. She's great at operations and she's great at organizations. You know she's always on me about Did you check back with that person? And you get so busy. It's difficult sometimes to just stay on top of everything. But I've got amazing resources around me and it's my fault for not always leveraging them the way I should. But, yeah, it is cool. It's cool to be all sitting in. We have like an apartment behind our house where we have a family office. Everybody's got their desk and we'll all be there at the same time. You get the whiteboard up, we'll have the TV, your music going on the background. But it's cool that that is what our work life is.
Speaker 1:That is so cool and yeah, and again, it's not always easy, but it beats the alternative definitely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Well, you are a family. I mean, it's not always easy. Yeah, see, sometimes, even when you don't work with family, it's always easy. But let me go back to your wife here too, because I want to hone in on this. I'm all about intentional congruence and I think if you choose to be married, you have to have a spouse that is going to support you and you got to support them and you have to have that full circle and I'm all about mind, body, soul and spirit. You know you have to make sure everything's sped in that area. It sounds like your wife from day one was just a hard not go get her supporter for you, Like we're going to get bare heads down, we're going to work hard, we're going to make this work. And she believed in you because if you had somebody in the background saying, well, you better not make it fail or you doing leaving.
Speaker 1:you may have not been as inclined to be as successful as you are, but I would say a lot of that will come from having a supportive spouse at home.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, 100% yeah. And if it's whether it's a spouse, a friend, a kid, I mean whoever it is, an uncle, a grandmother, whatever you've got somebody that helps to kind of, because it's tough, I mean you find yourself feeling like you're just like banging your head against a wall and just running the marathon every time. So it's nice to have somebody that's there to kind of continue to push you and say just keep going, Just keep going, because everybody's got that mindset to where they feel like boy, should I look to do something else? Is this the right thing for me? And, like you said, I had a five-month spell between my first closing and my second one.
Speaker 2:But during that time I was working 100 hours a week and I was just going and going and going to try to push towards that. And I don't want anybody to burn out in this industry. It's easy to do it. But guess what? In your first year you can work 100 hours a week or 80 hours a week or 60 hours a week, whatever it is, but you can put the time in to make this successful, because it has just about like any, not just real estate, but any industry and any company. I mean, you're an entrepreneur, You're starting your own business and it has huge rewards on the back end. I will say to my wife I wish I would listen to her more, Because usually she'll give me advice on something and I'm like you don't understand, I'm on the front line, You're not wrong, You're wrong. And then I think about it or I come back and I'm like she's right, and she's usually right and I know that's a woman thing, but she's, I can support it.
Speaker 1:You can listen to this anytime she wants to now. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and if you've got a spouse there that's kind of giving you good-sounding advice who's not emotionally tied to things like you, like you are, when you're in the middle of it, it's always good to stop and listen to what they're saying and you kind of go through that.
Speaker 2:I mean, one of the things she's always beyond that on me about is to create better systems and better processes, and I'm not that great about that stuff. I'm good at talking to people, I'm good at the real estate side, I'm good at looking for properties, finding deals, negotiating, contracting, all that stuff. But there's a whole big bag of worms behind you as far as setting up the right CRMs, the right systems and just follow up and all that stuff, whether it's client follow up, whether it's marketing social media. I'm trying to get a little bit better at, definitely like everyone else is. But if I were to listen to her earlier on, it would have been, I think, an easier ride for me too, because you find yourself and you don't have good systems you find yourself scrambling and always having to be the point person on stuff or recreating the will, as opposed to already having a system. That's kind of creating the will for you.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah and that, and it keeps you, like you said, on track as well. But what I'm hearing too, though you also know your strengths, and then you also know what are not your strengths, too, either. So you could delegate it out, or you could. You said you're always having to look like what can I fix, what can I? You know, but one thing that I've learned by being around successful people is they don't spend a lot of time worrying about stuff Like shoot or aim shoot, then readjust target as needed, and I think that that's totally fine.
Speaker 1:People don't have to have it all figured out to get started. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can tweak as you go, you can put systems in place as you go, you can learn as you go, and I think that you truly are at a place now where people did look at you as a mentor because you've been so successful, and I know when I tell people that I was going to have you on the podcast, they're like oh man, I can't wait to hear that. I can't wait to say you know, get some nuggets from him and stuff. So you know kudos to you and what you're building with your brand and your family and your legacy in general, and I'm not sure really why the lots have went off in here, but I guess it just did.
Speaker 1:So I look angelic on here with you today, steve, I know on time we're running closer to it, but let me, let me ask you this. I think it would be some advice that you would give somebody in the next six months in real estate. What do you need to do to position yourself within the next six months? What's going on in the market today?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it does go back to the networking and getting out and connecting with people. I mean, you know, you have a whole big world out there telling you how to do something by people that have never done it, and that's frustrating to listen to you because you have all these experts out there that don't have any experience in what they're saying to do. I mean, that's what social media is full of, but there's some really good, there's some, there's some really good folks out there, really good mentors, good advice to take, but a lot of it is just getting out and connecting with people that have that's better way more experience than you are. And when you again when you whether you're getting into real estate or you're getting into another industry when you start out, I mean you're thinking, ok, let me just get to this point and then let me just get to that point, and you start just kind of those building blocks up. But I wish I would have done this earlier on.
Speaker 2:But if you start hanging out with and connecting with folks that are way higher up the chart than you are, all of a sudden your goals just get incrementally larger. But you're also around people that are giving you the right advice so you don't spend six months, you know, doing the wrong thing or taking bad advice or doing lead generation where you shouldn't have done it, because it's easier to do it this way. So there's plenty of people out there that aren't always up for sharing information, but there's a whole lot more people that are willing to give you advice and, you know, kind of be a mentor. And it doesn't have to be a formal setting, it could just be a friend group and it could be hey, can you, can you introduce me to this guy? I know you know this person. Can you introduce me to that guy and let's get together and talk shop that there's so much to learn from that and I feel like that advances everyone's learning curve and in business. So so much.
Speaker 1:I love that you always got to be in frames of bigger people. That is when I think my my career, like has really took off, or really helped me would be when I got in rooms where these people were making, you know, easily a million a week, Some of them but some of them lost on.
Speaker 1:I looked at their hustle and I looked at what they did and my question to them was like, tell me your routine, like what is your morning routine look like? What is your daily routine look like? Because I knew that these people want to play around and by doing that it kind of exposed me and made me think bigger, because so many people we don't know what we don't know and we're like I grew up in a small town and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with having a nine to five job at the electric company. That's what you want to do. That's awesome. It takes everybody to do everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah ones that are in that are entrepreneurs and they work crazy hours and they do things. You kind of need to have that guidance and by being in rooms with people if you're the smartest one in the room, I totally disagree with that. I think that you need to be like you said put yourself in rings, that people that are thinking bigger, that are doing things, because there's always going to be somebody that is and it's going to keep you learning and eager to grow as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, yeah, I love that Well, steve.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you always at the end of the podcast with. What does it mean for you to be unstoppable? What does unstoppable mean to you?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean great question, and I've seen some of your podcasts and there's been some really great answers on that. But so, but I think for me it's to be able to create an environment with my business and a structure, so though I'm in control of it and it I could take it as far as I want to. I don't have. There's always going to be points where there's going to be roadblocks or people that try to push you down. But if you've got your good system in place, good people around you, then you can go as far as you want to, and just a matter of how much you want.
Speaker 1:I love that. That is really a really good answer. Well everyone, this is Steve Fra, and how can they find you online? Can you tell them how to get to your website and your socials?
Speaker 2:Yep, absolutely so. Our website is fragroupnashfieldcom. We're actually just actually changing it over and so we're updating it even more than we had before, but please go visit it. It's got some some really cool animation to it and some good search features on it for looking at properties. You can reach all of us, naturally, through that website. I'm on Instagram as well Steve Fry Nashville and Facebook, so all the socials and if you want to reach me by email at Steve at frygroupnashfieldcom, and price F R Y E.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and you've got your active properties on there. I was looking at them today I was like well nice, very nice, very nice. But well, thank you so much and you guys take tuned to our next episode coming soon. Thank you.