Hello and welcome to another episode of Rooted in the Community with where we sit down with a small business leader in the community of St. Petersburg, Florida to discuss what they’re doing to not only grow their own business, but really help grow in the community and with the community as well. Today we are sitting down with Steven Hertzfeldt. He’s a Keller Williams realtor on the commercial side.

Also in my chamber, St. Pete Chamber leads and Luminaries Group. Excellent person. I’m really looking forward to discussing everything with him.

Before we get to that, I’m Mike Wagner, owner and chief lending officer of Green Oak Lending Group. Want to give a special shout out to Naiman Creative and Jordan for recording everything for us and making everything so crisp. Definitely appreciate you, Jordan and Stephen, welcome to the podcast.

How are you? Good, thank you. Michael, how are you today? I’m doing great, man. Right on.

So, yeah, as you said, my name is Stephen Herzfeld. I’m the director of commercial sales and leasing for the Jack Smith group out of KW St. Pete. Way cooler than the way I said it.

I like that already. We’ve got a real title. That’s awesome.

How long have you been, how long have you been with Keller Williams? I started with Keller Williams in real estate about three and a half years ago. Nice. Okay, so you’ve been doing this for a little while anyway, which is great.

You’ve seen a weird market. I would imagine it was weird getting into it. It’s been weird during the transition.

And so I think that’s just gonna just light a fire under me for when, when things are a little smoother. It’s never, it’s never static. You know, the market is never static.

With real estate, however, you know, really cutting my teeth and some unprecedented times I think is going to be an advantage, huge advantage. I would tell you that, you know, most people in a market like this kind of fizzle out and you’ve been pushing through, persevering. And the good news is the market is turning around a bit for us.

So I think we’re probably going to have a better looking 2025. But, you know, really at the same time, I mean, I met you in our Leads and Luminaries Group through the Chamber of St. Pete. You’re involved in a lot and you know a lot about the city and your community.

Give back. And everything you’ve been doing over the past year, I feel like that’s what’s really going to pay off and all the connections you’re making to really build that business. Moving into, you know, 20, 25.

So with that, I mean, can you talk a little bit about your experience with the chamber, your experience with networking, what you kind of do to, you know, get yourself out in the community and bring business in? Yeah, well, the listeners out there can’t see me, but of course we gotta talk about my mustache. Absolutely. If you don’t know me.

Kind of known for my handlebar mustache. And it’s a great calling card. It’s an awesome opportunity to be able to talk to people.

Anyone in the room I can go up to, or more often than not, they come up to me. Great icebreaker. You know, certainly.

I mean, you by far remind me of the most interesting man in the world. Right. Commercials.

100% with that. It’s funny too, because you and I sat down, what, a couple of days ago to kind of discuss what we were going to do here at a cigar bar. And literally, like within two, three minutes of sitting down, somebody came up and said, dude, that is an awesome mustache.

Like, no doubt about it all the time. But very rememberable. Yeah, it’s like, it’s almost like your brand.

Right. Like, people are going to remember that, which is incredible. It is.

I’m stuck with it now. I can’t get rid of it. You can never get rid of it.

And why would you? I feel like there’s so much work that went into it that you can’t. How long have you had that for? Let’s see. This is going to be going on seven years this winter.

And what. What happened was we were going and visiting New Orleans with some friends, and I had had a beard at the time, and the friends we were meeting up with used to be roommates of my wife and I. And at that time, I had grown a handlebar mustache too. Kind of just for fun.

Not as long had it maybe a year or something. But since I hadn’t seen our friends in a couple of years, I shaved off the mustache before they saw me when we got to New Orleans. Or shaved off the beard into the mustache and then just stuck with it since then.

That’s awesome. So there’s actually a picture of you out there with just the mustache and no beard as well? There’s a few, yeah. I was clean shaven at my wedding, for example, but there’s not too many.

Even when my wife met me, I had big mun chops. That’s awesome. So, you know, I mean, that lets, you know, off the rip that, okay, she’s going to be comfortable with whatever weird facial hair I’m going to want to grow over the years because she’s digging this right now.

That’s a good thing. No doubt. Yeah.

And your wife Hayley’s amazing. Thank you. I’ve met with you guys multiple times.

I’ve met your new son, Conrad. You’ve got an awesome dog. I mean, how’s family life going right now for you? It’s good.

I think what I kind of say sometimes is we could complain, but we can’t complain because, honestly, we have it better and easier than a lot of people. The baby, Conrad, he’s been awesome, sleeps well, eats well, doesn’t cry, so doesn’t make it easy, but, man, I can imagine it’s a lot harder for a lot of people out there. So we could complain, but we can’t complain now.

You got a great attitude when it comes to it, though, right? Thank you. And you guys are doing a wonderful job. I mean, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your son, I think, once at this point, at your house.

Oh, actually, I think. Did he make it to the house? Once at the house? Yeah, absolutely. A couple of times.

Maybe at some networking. Maybe at some networking things. Drag him out.

And again, another icebreaker. Our. Our Wheaton terrier dog.

Another icebreaker. I kind of make a bit of a scene where I go places. It’s awesome.

I love your dog Dublin. I mean, I’m Irish, so how am I not gonna love no name? Yeah. And I remember when you brought him to our L and L group, like, I don’t know, eight, nine months ago.

Who know, times are weird now. And I’m like, oh, my God, that’s awesome. I couldn’t leave him alone.

So, no, he. He always goes around and greets the room and comes right back, sits at my feet. So great dog.

That’s it. And people are happy. People are smiling.

So now they’re thinking about you, and now they’re thinking, oh, maybe I’ll do a house, you know, and we are looking to move or whatever it is now. You’re top of mind, so I’d love that. With Keller Williams, I mean, so tell me, kind of, you know, what are you enjoying about being with the Keller Williams team in St. Pete? You know, what are you seeing as, you know, developing with your team and, you know, are you guys.

What’s the culture around that, like, Right? Are you guys pretty tight, or how does that kind of work for you? Sure. Well, Keller Williams is the biggest brokerage in the world, real estate brokerage. And what we leverage from that are the connections for referrals.

Our business at the Jack Smith Group comes an enormous amount from referrals that we get from agents in other parts of the state, the country and all over the world. People moving to the area or just connections they happen to know in the area already. So that’s totally indispensable.

I mean, you can join other realtor networking groups and things like that, but the opportunities you have to meet in person at the family reunion event, the mega camp event, joining daily or weekly calls, zoom calls with. With agents all over the country. We take advantage of all that to do a lot of lead gen there.

So we’re. We’re sticking with kw. I mean, that works for us as a team.

We’ve got a great system in place for that. Of course, other brokerages, you know, they have. They have their own cultures.

There’s big ones, there’s small ones. They all have their advantages and, and maybe disadvantages. But with kw, there’s a great pipeline for bringing in new agents because there’s a lot of training available.

So an agent might join the brokerage, go through the Ignite sales program or even the advanced sales program called Bold. And at that point, you know, you have someone that’s kind of qualified, experienced, they’ve sat down with a coach who’s put them through, you know, doing calls, doing script practice, writing practice contracts, things like that. So that’s phenomenal.

When we need to bring new talent onto the team, it’s a great resource. Both of those are huge things. So that’s actually.

And I want to. I want to circle back and talk about both. So the referral network that you have with your agents, I mean, that’s huge.

So you’re in St. Pete, but at the same time, if you have somebody moving to the Jacksonville area now, you can refer that out to an agent Keller Williams, agent in Jacksonville, to help that person, just like they can do if anyone’s moving into our area with you. So, I mean, that’s absolutely huge. Does that work out of state, too? It does, yeah, it works out of state.

And I don’t know that we’ve ever. Well, I’m certain we’ve done some international ones as well. Now, for anyone listening not familiar with it, Realtors are allowed to be paid a referral from other realtors or other brokerages.

So you, if you can imagine how success, how useful it is to have an already vetted client kind of that you have a relationship with or that you are being given, you know, given that referral, the honor of A referral, it goes a long way. It’s basically like you’ve, you know, you make a hundred calls before you end up getting an appointment, and you go on two, three appointments before you end up getting a listing signed or a BBA signed. And so you’re already getting through, weeding through a ton
of what would otherwise be leads or cold calls or anything like that, and getting closer to that step of working with a client and closing a deal.

So while that referral fee can be significant, 20, 25, 30% are typical, that’s actually, in the end, a cost that is totally worth paying. And it. It sounds like maybe that’s just someone collecting, you know, money without really doing any work.

But they’ve built that relationship. They’ve vetted the clients, and then they’ve made that introduction with you, and they’ve done the work to interview other agents for that client. So it’s.

It’s kind of like just an extension of your team in some ways. You know, an inside sales type of position. No, it’s.

And it’s huge. I mean, absolutely. And thank you for, like, breaking that down.

And. And really, I mean, that’s a huge, huge thing. So if you’re in sales and you’ve called on leads before, and you and I have both done this, I spent a whole nine years of my life going on hundreds of leads a day.

Right. Like, we know what it’s like to weed through all that, but there’s no. There’s nothing better than gold coming through.

Somebody that’s been vetted, somebody that has the understanding that you’re going to help them, and you’re the person that’s taking the handoff, and you have that with somebody that’s now hyped you up and gotten them over to you. And it’s like. It’s like the greatest thing ever, because, you know, that process is going to be smooth.

You know, the trust is already established. You know, a lot of that’s done at this point for you. So for 25, 30% referral fee back and forth to do that, it makes absolute sense.

Easy cost of business. Easy cost of business. So that’s huge.

The other huge thing that you brought up was the training and everything that Keller Williams offers. So if you. As you start as a new agent.

Right. Which absolutely huge, too. So I came from Quicken Loans before it was Rocket Mortgage, and their training for mortgage bankers was unrivaled compared to anything else you’re going to see out there.

Right. So you’re very. You’re very fortunate to be able to have that.

I know Keller Williams is huge. I know how the big they are. I know how long they’ve been around.

I know they probably have something very similar to get you right up to speed. And the fact that they offer that and put the time in, I mean, you know what it’s like out here with both brokerages on the real estate side and the mortgage side. It’s usually, here’s a phone, go out and do your thing, and you’re not getting much help, right? That’s right.

Yeah. And it’s a. It’s a wild, wild industry to.

To be in. We all kind of know the trope of it being a low barrier to entry, and there’s a lot of truth to that. There’s a lot of people who see the opportunity in real estate and, you know, get really jazzed about it, but they don’t really have the background professionally, the habits, the drive, the training.

And so you need any help you can get to get started. Some people knock it out of the park from the start, but that is by no means typical. That wasn’t the way for me.

You know what I mean? Like, you get. You get a decade and a half into it and you kind of feel like you know what you’re doing all of a sudden. So, you know, 100%.

That’s amazing. Personally, though, you’re pretty invested in the community. You’re doing a lot of things in a lot of groups and, you know, you volunteer and you spend your time doing a lot for the community of St. Petersburg, Florida.

I kind of tell us a little bit about your passions and what you’re into on a business standpoint and then also on a personal standpoint as well. Yeah, well, one small thing I’ve done for a while now was for four years, I was the president of our neighborhood association and the VP the year before that. So that’s North Kenwood in St. Petersburg.

Just a. You know, we love the neighborhood near downtown. Not in downtown.

A lot of convenience, you know, to. To stores and. And grocery stores, restaurants and stuff in a beautiful neighborhood.

Just. It is. Yeah.

Yeah. And so that was really rewarding. Although this past year, I didn’t run for president again with, you know, the family, starting the family with baby Conrad there.

And that was rewarding. It was very cool. It’s a great way to make a lot of connections within the community is to be involved like that.

But I just had to wind it down, you know, step it back a little bit. Besides that, I’ve done work both professionally and as a volunteer in advocacy for transportation and housing issues. That’s something that, you know, our area of course struggles with, with the growth that we have.

Very passionate about alternatives to driving. That’s not to say taking away the choice to drive from anybody, but to give the choice to people who do want to walk, bike, take transit, rely on Uber, rely on their scooter, anything like that. And those choices, you know, really are freedom in the end.

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That’s awesome. And I mean I know you’re passionate about non car riding because I mean I feel like you’re one of the biggest cyclists that I know down here. So how long have you been doing that for? Like you kind of like from the exercise standpoint, it’s a huge part of your life.

A huge part of my life. Kind of give us an idea of what you do. Not everybody who rides a bike, you know, can be thrown in the same category because you certainly have people doing it for purely for recreation, some for fitness, some for transportation, some totally out of necessity.

And in a lot of ways I just fit almost all those boxes, you know. So I was a passionate rider, rider and racer for about a decade. Raced at an elite level all across the country.

That was ton of fun, had some opportunities. I like getting behind the microphone a little bit. So I’ve done some announcing for bike races, things like that.

And then because I was living in Boulder, Colorado for 12 years, I did, I did grow up here in Pinellas county, went to Seminole High School and that is when I got into bikes. But when I lived in Boulder, Colorado I didn’t have a car for much of the time because it’s a city that even in the winter, you know, the bike lanes and the bike paths are plowed just as soon or sometimes even before the rest of the, the rest of the snow covered roads are. So with the right clothes or the right bike it’s very
easy to get around, very comfortable.

And a big part of that is kind of that your origins and your destinations of your trip are relatively close together. And that’s something that People have always appreciated about urban places is the. The walkability, if you will, the pedestrian friendliness.

And St. Petersburg is well known for that and is, you know, moving more towards that direction all the time. Yeah, it is, which is awesome. It’s been a real transformation in St. Pete, even over the last two or three years.

And you’re originally from here, you were here through high school, so you’ve seen a tremendous amount of growth since you were born in here. I mean, honestly, like, it’s been incredible. How do you feel about that? And how do you feel that it’s going to affect the residents and the small businesses as we move forward in the next five, ten years? Yeah, certainly.

I think people conflate the issues of affordability a little bit when it comes to talking about development, housing, things like that, density, urban planning. We are all sort of under this illusion that urban places, cities are more expensive. And I shouldn’t say illusion, because it’s very much true.

But that’s largely driven by the demand and the scarcity for these places. People want to live in walkable neighborhoods, and not everybody does. I understand that.

Not, you know, some people are. Are stoked to be in their car. That’s their third space, you know, But.

But right now, a lot of people aren’t given the choice to live in urban places, in walkable places, because we built them and then they’ve sort of been static since then. They. We haven’t.

They haven’t grown with the population. You don’t really build a new city from scratch. So what we build new continues to be suburban sprawl, which, you know, just pushes people further and further away from their jobs and entertainment districts, dining districts, things like that.

So there are a lot of costs that offset the savings, if you will, of being out in some, you know, excerpts of the area. Yeah, because you’re not thinking of the gas that it’s going to take and this and that. Yeah.

You know, and everything else. So, I mean, we’ll see what ends up happening. I feel like, you know, Citi’s doing a decent job so far.

But, you know, the nice thing is, like, even with the Chamber of Commerce, some of the stuff we have a voice on, and we get to go to these committee meetings and board meetings, and we’re fortunate enough to do that. And, you know, with the Chamber, too, that’s how you and I started out meeting. Obviously, it was in our leads and luminary, a group which is super cool.

I mean, kind of give us an idea of, like, how the Chamber of Commerce in St. Petersburg’s had an impact on your business, the community and everything else around you in the past year, year and a half? Absolutely. I just think if nothing else, it’s a great way to stay focused on your business because you can kind of socialize, you can learn from other people what they’re doing with their businesses. And back to kind of referrals.

When you, when you see someone all the time, whether it’s, you know, twice a month, three times a month, something like that, for chamber events, you start to understand more what their business is like, how they operate and you know, they’re invested in their business because you keep seeing them there at the, at the events, at the meetings, introducing you to people, things along those lines. So you build a lot of trust really quickly with people in the Chamber of Commerce, for example, and
other networking groups can be the same way. Other social clubs and things of that nature can be the same way.

But the Chamber is full of people who are dedicated to their business. They take it very seriously. And because their face is their business, they operate in an ethical and honorable way.

So it’s very easy to refer someone in a group like the Luminaries and Leeds with the Chamber of Commerce. I couldn’t agree more. And I mean, honestly, being able to be surrounded by like our little group in there, which is grown, meant immensely over the past year, year and a half, really, I consider everybody in there somebody I trust because I see how hard they work at everything else.

So they’re working that hard. I can only imagine what they’re going to do when we in their business, using them in their business, doing a deal or helping, you know, fulfill a contract or whatever they’re doing. Yeah, 100%, which is awesome.

Well, yeah, I mean, I’ve got everything I need. I feel like this has been great. I mean, we’ve kind of shed some light on the business, shed some light on what you’re doing in the community.

But. Anything else you want to add? No, I didn’t come prepared with any notes or anything, but I think we’re really, we talked about it being a transition right now. The market.

We’re looking at interest rates coming down again, or, you know, they have been coming down, they’ll be coming down again. There’s been so much latent and pent up demand for people purchasing housing who’s held off. There’s a lot of latent and pent up demand of people who have held off on listing their properties.

So we, we don’t know exactly where Things are going to go. The, the market has. Listings are taking longer, but some of them are not great listings.

Some of them are not priced right. Some people think that, oh, my neighbor sold theirs last year or the year before for X amount and obviously it should be 10% more now for the neighborhood. And that’s not been the case for the last two years.

We’ve been more, more flat, more plateaued with prices. They have continued to go up in Pinellas county, but not like the double digit appreciation we were seeing for the preceding four years, if you will. Yeah, I mean really like after 2021, things just took off.

Right. You know, even, even during 2021 there was, it was quite intense, but with that coming down, you know, and then knowing that too. So another, another thing that’s going to end up coming up for all of us, I feel at some point is you have the balance between everything now.

Right. So your business will start picking up. Like I think we both know cyclically that this is going to start happening.

This is a great time for us in the market. But at the same time you’ve got the family and you have your business to business commitments and you have everything else. How are you going like, what’s your strategy and game plan going into that to kind of balance all that going through the next year, two years, five years of hopefully a very nice cyclical market where we’re up a bit? Yeah, well, balance is, you know, the key word there and not everybody nails it perfectly.

I have certainly not gotten everything sorted for myself with, you know, the changes with my family. Not in the gym often enough, you know, not seeing friends and things as much as I’d like. But every, every week getting a little better at that, you know, adding a day in the gym or making sure.

I’m lining up one on ones with people in the chamber of commerce to make sure I’m, I’m healthy socially and not forgetting, you know, not just becoming a recluse. So that should kind of be a lesson for everybody that right now if you, when you see these changes coming and they’re, you know, they’re so clear that it’s, you really need to prepare. We were talking on Tuesday about, you know, your refi business is going to be just unprecedented.

You won’t be able to keep up with it. It’s going to be so much because of the folks who are locked in with, you know, 5 and 6% rates, who are new, they were already ready to refi. They, they bought their house knowing they’d be doing a refinance.

So right now you kind of put in the sweat and it pays off when you come out on the other side. Absolutely. I think you’re, I think you’ve got a great game plan going into it.

And I think it’s, it’s the consistency of change throughout life. Right. So we can plan and we can go.

Great. We have to be aware. And like you said, do not ignore that when you see that coming up, like prepare and go, great, let’s game plan it.

Let’s start breaking it off. Let’s break some gym time or some meditation time aside to each day so you don’t go insane. Right.

Mentalize everything. But it’s constantly changing. I mean, you know, you just kind of keep adapting as you go through.

And the nice thing is I feel like with our little group that we’re forming and all these groups in St. Pete, you have people now. It’s, it’s interesting, right, because you have people that you can kind of rely on too. So if things are getting a little intense or you’re going to miss a, you know, chamber event or something like that, we have enough friends that are probably going to be talking about you and getting that word about you anyway.

So it’s kind of nice with that sphere of influence. It’s. It’s almost like a second team outside of your Keller Williams team.

It’s a little bit of a sales team. And it’s also just vital to be able to rely on your partners and vendors that you work with. And that’s one thing that the chamber also has, is you know, that you can rely on them.

You know, whether you’re doing a mortgage or it’s your title person or even things like a house cleaner, you know, in real estate that, that comes up all the time. You’re cleaning a house before the sale for either photos or just helping the person move. Movers, another great example.

And it’s a reflection of you and your business, who you give recommend referrals to or who you refer to your clients and have it. It basically is an extension of your team, like you said, 100%. And there’s nothing scarier than handing off one of your referrals to somebody that you don’t know so well and then having them not really, really work that way they should.

Right. And work that lead the way they should. And then it creates a lot of hassle for you and you’re kind of burning a, a relationship with a referral that you were just trying to help out on.

That’s Right. You know, yeah. In real estate, you.

You tout yourself as an expert in the area and you really have to walk the walk with that. So you, you need Rock solid partners to. To get the job done.

It’s not just you. There’s a lot of moving parts in a deal. No, it’s 100% it.

I mean, absolutely. And I couldn’t agree more with the team that we have over there and the people that we know. And like you said, moving like you’ve got Rock’s moving company or if you need junk removal, easy peasy with Ron.

But you know, they’re going to do a good job. They’re people that I’ve used before. They’re people that I trust.

Right. Just like you and I have worked on a few now and I, you know, we both, I feel like trust each other and it’s like, great, we’re through that. It kind of backs up.

You know, here’s all the things that you said. Okay. You actually followed through.

This is awesome. Now I want to refer you to everybody, right? 100. You know, I mean, it’s.

These days, you know, online reviews are not what they used to be as far as being a worthwhile indicator of how. How someone’s business is. That’s just a matter of there being a lot of junk out there, really not wanting to trust everyone’s opinion and then reviews that are purchased and.

Or just, you know, fictitious. So that’s. That doesn’t go as far as it used to when it comes to finding people to work with.

So you’ve got to have that relationship face to face in person and with the experience that you’ve had of doing deals together or referring business to each other. 100. 100.

And I’m so happy to be a part of the group that we’re in, like getting into that group, I think it’s been about 13 months, 14 months I’ve been in our chamber group. And really since I started, you know, getting into the networking side of things with the shift and rates and all of that. And I mean, honestly, I felt like I’ve met like a second family and you guys, it’s crazy, right? And you wouldn’t really feel that.

You know what I mean? Like, mostly I’ve worked at many places before and you have your little team and you have your friends and that’s all great, but you don’t like everybody usually, and you really don’t even know everybody. Right. Even in the company.

You’re not going to know everybody here. I feel like we’re walking into a chamber connection event or whatever it may be and you’re just standing there and people are coming up to you now and it’s like, hey, how are you? You know, come over here. I have to introduce you to this person.

And the energy that we have, I think in our group and really in St. Petersburg is so much different than anything else that I’ve seen. Right. I mean, well, I just think our chamber is very effective as well.

They put on great events, they have just a great system. We love our luminaries and leads group like you’ve, like we’ve talked about. And then with their advocacy efforts, I think they’re very level headed.

I think they’re very open minded about what they want to support or what they want to oppose happening in the city. It’s not too staunch and you know, stodgy, if you will. They’re, they might take a stance and then they might get new information and, and kind of change that a little bit.

So they really are flexible and truly trying to benefit the, the community and the business community. Absolutely. No, I absolutely have had nothing but a great journey with you and everybody else we know on there.

It’s been fantastic. It has, yeah. So no, this has been great.

And Steven, I want to thank you again for coming on. I think we got to really shed a lot of light on, on you as a person and you growing up here and everything, you know, and really what you do to help people in this community. And that’s really the American dream of getting them into a house, making that a very comfortable and easy process for them so that they can start a life and they can get to their goals with their families just like you are.

So it’s absolutely amazing what you do. Tell us again who you are. That’s right.

So Stephen Herzfeld with the Jack Smith Group. I’m the director of commercial sales and leasing at kw. Awesome.

And Steven, I want to thank you again. Again, this is Mike Wagner with Green Oak Lending Group. Rooted in the community.

Appreciate your time. Yeah, thanks again. La.