Jason Gelios is an award winning top producing REALTOR®/Author with Community Choice Realty in South East Michigan. Author of the real estate book ‘Think Like a REALTOR®: A little book about buying and selling residential real estate through the eyes of a REALTOR®.
Creator of The AskJasonGelios Real Estate Show, contributor of expertise to the likes of Yahoo Finance, Money, Bankrate, Fox News, Next Advisor, REALTOR.com and more, Jason educates aspiring home buyers, sellers and existing home owners tips and real world knowledge to help achieve their real estate goals. Jason is also a local speaker educating home buyers on the process of purchasing a home.
He is known for his transparent and honest way of representing buyers and sellers so that they have a deeper understanding of the process and walk away feeling valued.
Whether you are purchasing a home for the first time or planning to sell your existing home for the most money possible, Jason will help you navigate through the entire process to keep it as simple and stress free as possible.
Jason Gelios is well supported by a team of financial and legal experts, qualified home inspectors, appraisers and other professionals if needed. “I’m confident you will enjoy my professional and enthusiastic style of doing business and my knowledge of the real estate market!”
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up writing this book.
I’ve always had a love for printed books. I remember being a child diving into the entire Hardy Boys book series in my middle schools library. I would get lost in these books and the words that were on the pages. There’s something special about getting absorbed into a story that someone wrote that takes you into a whole other world.
As I progressed into my professional career, I wanted to create and share something that would outlast my time on Earth-something that provides value to those who come across it. For me, writing a book was a no brainer and the obvious choice. Being a professional salesperson and realtor, my focus is on being a trusted resource to others. People want to do business with those who care about their needs and problems they may need solving. When I first thought about a marketing piece, I couldn’t think of a better way to stand out from the crowd than to have my own printed book to offer others. This thought led me to write my first book on real estate. My second book, Beating The Force Of Average was inspired by my passion to help others create a life they truly want to live. You could say this book is a passion project of mine.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
When people read my second book Beating The Force Of Average, I hope they learn and realize that they can change the course of their life, to live a life filled with purpose and meaningfulness. To further realize they don’t have to settle for a life they feel is average, but one that provides them a reason to wake up invigorated almost daily. Many people settle for what they do daily, only to never live life to their fullest potential. The readers of my book can learn and apply the tips to change the course of their life-for the better.
What are the top three tools you are currently using to write, publish, and promote your books?
Because I’m almost always mobile, I use a free program called Google Keep to gather my spontaneous thoughts and ideas. This software makes it easy because I can voice capture my words and edit them at a later time, all from my phone. From there I transfer those words into a Word document to create my rough draft.
Once my rough draft is complete, I transfer my text into Adobe Indesign to hash out the design part. This software allows me to layout my entire book, placing design elements where I need them. Indesign also allows me to export the contents to a PDF or eBook format for publishing.
Since I have a graphic design background, I have used Adobe Illustrator to design the front and back cover of both my books. Although anyone can locate basic design software to create their own covers without having to learn design skills or advanced software.
What were the top three mistakes you made publishing your book what did you learn from them?
- Working on my first book Think Like a Realtor provided a major learning curve because I had never created a book before. I was navigating my way through the process and learning the best way to gather and organize my thoughts, formatting the rough draft into a final draft, and other factors such as publishing and distribution. I found myself having to reorganize my thoughts into the correct order I wanted them to be addressed in my book. My second book was much easier to organize because I worked on what sections would be in what order before bringing my thoughts into each.
- When I was creating the overall design and cover for my first book, I was unaware of the size requirements for printing, leading to me having to adjust the size of my book, which added more time and effort. There are many guidelines I had to learn in terms of margins and spacing for the book to fit the publisher’s requirements.
- Another mistake I made was overlooking the size requirement of the spine of the book and how that is affected by the length of the book. I had designed the front and back cover as one large file for print, only to realize that the spine of my book was not the right width. After doing some research, I learned that Amazon has a tool to estimate how wide the spine needs to be based on how many pages you have in your book. This was very helpful in my efforts of creating the cover.
When will you consider your book a success?
If any one of my books helps just one person’s life for the better, or solve a problem that they have, then I feel I have won. Because writing books is not my main career, I really focus on creating things that give others value and benefit.
Can you share a snippet that isn’t in the blurb or excerpt?
Why is it some people can beat the force of average while others struggle? Are they just born lucky, or is there something they did to achieve the level of success they were seeking? Why do some people find success and others struggle financially or emotionally or both?
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
For me, the pandemic was a reminder that life is precious, and that the next day is never guaranteed. As a realtor, I witnessed people’s priorities and needs from a home change. For example, in late 2019, the dedicated home office was a fading trend. Due to the pandemic, it became one of the hottest trends in home buying.
The biggest takeaway I learned from the pandemic is that no matter what life throws your way, you need to be able to adapt and overcome to succeed. You can’t go through life expecting nothing to interfere with what you are doing because that is unrealistic. The businesses, and people, that survived the pandemic made it through because they adapted to the circumstances and chose to succeed.
Here’s a great example. In my local area, as restaurants and most businesses were being forced to scale back or close their interaction with customers, an apple orchard turned to using the ingredients they had to make sanitizer to address a growing need at the time. Not only did they generate additional revenue from the product, but they were also seen as a helpful business because they donated some of these items to local healthcare facilities. This is a perfect example of what I mean by adapting and overcoming.
In my industry of real estate, the pandemic made things more challenging, yet I adapted to the new environment. I took the time to increase my education. I created and shared more social media content to engage with more people virtually, and continued to plug away at building my brand. It wasn’t long before people were getting back out into the housing market, and I was positioned as a stronger personal brand.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges I’ve had in recent years happened during the recent hyper active housing market. Home sellers were able to choose their selling price-literally. For every home I was showing, there were dozens of people waiting on the front lawn or driveway to view it. Home buyers who were sending over offers were offering tens of thousands of dollars over the asking price, with many offering creative options such as paying the sellers moving costs or offering a weekend getaway. It was very difficult to get a buyers offer considered because of the market.
Despite all these challenges, I kept moving forward. I reminded myself of my goals and that this is a temporary challenge. I increased my motivation through increased reading and taking in online content to stay energized about what I was doing.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before publishing your book?
This applies more to my recent book, but as I was preparing the margins for the layout, I was following publishing guidelines for the interior of my book, not knowing that I was following bad advice. Because margins and spacing guidelines are different depending on how many pages are in your book, there is no one size fits all template. As I reviewed a proof copy, I learned that my body text was too close to the inside spine, called the gutter. I had to increase the space and reformat the text to make it easier to read. This took an additional two days for me to properly format the body text of the book.
Please share one thing new self-publish authors can do to gain more reviews on Amazon.
I’ve found that the best way to gain honest reviews for a book is by simply asking for the reviews. Many times people are happy to leave a review, but they need to be reminded that it helps an author. This can be accomplished by adding a review request at the end of your book or adding a paper tab in the book itself. If an author knows who purchased their book personally, they can reach out and ask them to take a few minutes to write a review. Authors should never force someone to write a review or hound them until they do. Every review, good or bad, is a blessing and should be considered a compliment that someone took the time to share their feedback. In addition, even if someone didn’t purchase the book on Amazon itself, they are able to leave a review if they have an account.
Can you share some of the marketing techniques that have worked for you when promoting your book?
The best marketing vehicle for my books has been social media networking. Not only is this mainly free, if done right it’s a more personal look at what I am offering. For my latest book Beating The Force Of Average, I was sharing excerpts from the book along with a one-minute teaser trailer I had created using Adobe Premier. Even with the book released, I continue to share these because I have had great feedback from them. These posts have gained attention because people find it interesting and intriguing. By uploading the video directly to the platform, the video auto plays, capturing the viewer’s attention. Authors should always focus on what pulls a viewers attention and work from there. Authors should also post often with different types of posts in an effort to share different things about their book. This gives people insight as to what their book is about.
If you had the chance to start your career over again what would you do differently?
Looking back at my career, the one thing I would change is when I participated in my formal sales training. When I first started in sales I had been thrown into the field without any formal training, dialing the phone for dollars so to speak. Somewhat later in my career, I had been offered formal sales training, which had me excelling and exceeding my quotas. Not to mention it benefited those I contacted. If I could go back in time, I would have invested in a formal sales training course to get me to where I wanted to be a lot sooner in my career.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
The best tip I have to be productive is to do everything you can to not waste time. Every day the world presents itself with time wasters that can derail from what we want to achieve. That is if we allow it to. Remaining disciplined and staying focused on what we need to do day in and day out is crucial. This is why I follow my calendar to the tee. I review my calendar daily, weekly, and monthly to make sure I am the most productive I can be because you can never get time back.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to finish writing your book?
With my second book Beating The Force Of Average, I had created the book cover before diving into the rough draft. This allowed me to envision how the final book would look, although some revisions to the cover did happen. Considering I am a visual type of person, this allowed me to remain motivated throughout the process. Even at times when I felt like quitting, it kept me focused on what I am trying to accomplish through this project.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs and authors?
I highly recommend ‘The Little Red Book Of Selling’ by Jeffrey Gitomer because every entrepreneur should have basic sales skills to get an interest in what they sell to gain the success they desire. You could have the best product available, but if it doesn’t sell, then nobody will know about it.
Jeffrey also has a podcast where he shares his sales tips on gaining attention and building a brand in what you do. In addition, I like to listen to Gary Vaynerchuk for his social media advice. Gary always shares great tips on how to break through the noise to bring attention towards your brand. Both these experts also offer online training courses that dive deeper into the skills needed to be successful.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
I am currently learning how to better juggle the multiple projects and ideas that I have to better my career and experience my current and potential clients have with me. I am working on more value pieces for both digital and print to offer people who come in contact with me directly. This ranges from helpful print aids for my home buyer and seller clients, to upcoming eBooks for the masses. Because I want to accomplish so many things, I always try to learn something new about time management and managing multiple tasks.
Writing my second book inspired me to create a template and resource sheet to make my next book much easier to write and put together. Instead of hoping that I remember these things, I keep these tips where I can access them with ease.
If you only had $1000 dollars to promote a new book, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I would apply the majority of this money towards social media advertising i.e. boosted posts to my network and local area. The remaining funds would be applied towards purchasing physical copies to give away in contests or raffles, or at speaking engagements.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new authors?
I would tell aspiring authors to not allow them to get overwhelmed by the process of writing a book. When you have a general idea of what you want your book to be about, work on getting the thoughts out. Don’t focus so much on punctuation or how sentences flow at first. Just get your thoughts out and work from there. In my own efforts, I was getting my thoughts and ideas out without stopping to correct anything. This allowed the creativity to present itself. There will be plenty of time afterwards to refine and organize your thoughts more. It is also helpful to break down certain ideas into touch points or sections in your book. This makes it much easier to work on different sections without getting lost in your rough draft.
What is your favorite quote?
My favorite quote is from the late life coach Zig Ziglar that goes
“You can have everything in life you want if you will just help other people get what they want.”
– Zig Ziglar
This means that if you go out into the world with a focus on helping others, the universe will reward you. This serves as a reminder in my daily life to help as many people as I can.
Who should we interview next and why?
I would love to see you interview the number one sales author Jeffrey Gitomer. He is a great author who played a big part in my ambition to begin writing business books. His no-nonsense approach to sharing valuable information is unparalleled. Plus he is a down to earth kind of guy who shares value daily.
What is your definition of success?
Success to me means waking up almost daily not being bothered by what you don’t want to do. To further explain this, it means to love what you do on most of the days in your life. To feel as though you have purpose in what you do.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Believe it or not, I do experience some form of fear. I remind myself of the worst that could happen if I move forward anyway. I then look for the positive outcome that could occur as a result of getting past the fear to move forward on what I want to do. I would say that most of the time spent worrying about fear is based on a false sense of sacredness. When fear strikes, we automatically assume it will hurt us causing us to retreat before even trying to move forward. So if we can analyze the fear we are having and remind ourselves that it’s based on a false sense of feeling, we can move forward past fear-effectively and more often.
How can readers get in touch with you?
I invite everyone to connect with me on my website jasongelios.com, ItsAllAboutTheRealEstate.com, and on my social media channels which are located on my websites.
Previous Book Interview: Meet Jason Gelios, Author of Think Like a Realtor
