The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Construction Intelligence for Realtors: How to Speak the Builder’s Language and Represent Clients With Confidence by Scott Grozelle

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It's a very amazing man on the show where we're talking about his book and insights

and some of the different ways that he can help give people some creative advice

on how to improve their lives.

He is the author of the latest book that came out December 16th, 2025,

called Construction Intelligence for Realtors.

How to speak the builder language and represent clients with confidence by Scott Grosell.

We're going to get into it with him, find out some of his insights and all that good stuff.

He is a veteran new home sales professional consultant with over two decades of experience

in the residential construction industry.

He's one of the builders, realtors and buyers across North America

helping bridge the gap between clients and construction professionals.

His passion is empowering people with the knowledge they need to make smart decisions

whether they're building their first home from the ground up or leading a sales team.

Welcome to the show, Scott, how are you?

I'm doing good, Chris.

All right.

Give us your dot com.

Give us your dot coms where can people find you on the interwebs?

Yeah, so they can find me on Scott Grosell dot com.

And that's where all my information and any kind of education programs and stuff like that.

I can be found on that site for sure.

All right.

So give us a give us a dot com or I'm sorry.

Give us a 30,000 overview of where you what's inside the book.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I guess throughout the years of my working with construction and home building,

almost 30 years, I ran into just a lot of, you know, miscommunications seem to be the big problem.

So after after all these years, I kind of thought I put together some books.

And one of them was the real estate intelligence construction intelligence for for realtors.

And that one really was put together just to bridge the gap between the realtors, builders and clients.

There's nothing worse than watching the, you know, a nice deal.

Nice bill.

Go off the rails for, you know, just because of communication.

So that's, that's what that's all about.

Yeah, communication is key.

Now is this your first book you've written or are there other books that you have?

Yeah.

So my first book was more geared to like for clients that are building new home construction.

So that one was my first book.

And that one's also called Secrets Home Billers Don't Want You to Know.

That one's just got all kinds of, you know, it's got charts.

It's got real life stories that I ran into over the years.

When clients would come to me after I got out of the home building or even during when I was still home building.

They would ask me for some help, you know, and usually it was something that was miscommunication was always the contracts me, whatever was.

So I thought I was going to build up a bunch of information over the years that I kept a lot of notes.

And that's kind of how I got started with the first book.

And I did.

Now one's for new home construction sales people.

And so what was the proponent that wanted to make you write this book?

Why did you feel this really need to be taken care of?

And what are some techniques of using communication to be effective in dealing with all these parties?

Yeah.

I mean, with builders, they're working with timelines, they're working with their margins.

Realtors aren't, you know, they're more or less looking at comparables square footage and stuff like that.

And when you're talking with builders, they get frustrated when all these extra details are going into a home.

And they all cost money.

I mean, if you've got a square footage of, say, 2000 square foot home, but you've got a large area with vaults,

you know, vaulted windows, vaulted ceilings, you know, there's a cost association with all that.

Yeah. And so I started putting together what made sense to me.

And these are things that I used to work with with realtors because in our home building, construction home building company,

I had, you know, shared an office with one of my own, our co-owner.

He was a realtor.

So we had, you know, 25 agents on board with us.

And they want to learn.

So that's when I started getting into that kind of, you know, into those kind of education, I guess you could say.

Yeah. So.

And so communication is really important.

You know, it's, it's, if you don't, you know, cross layer your teeth and dot your eyes, things can fall apart.

You know, I used to be the mortgage business as realtor for six years.

And yeah, I mean, when all it takes is one thing to make a whole deal fall apart.

And there's so many pieces and parts.

There's so many working, you know, things you're relying on other people do their job and you're trying to do your job.

Sometimes you're trying to corral everything or manage people to make sure they do their job.

It's quite the thing, really, when it comes down.

So you get into the details to help educate realtors on how new homes are built.

What goes into them, kind of what the builders are expecting from realtors, et cetera, et cetera.

How do you talk about red flags as well in new construction older homes?

So tell us about some of those details that you talk about in the book.

Yeah, so with new homes, you know, if a builder's being vague and the contract, you know, your allowances and stuff like that are not, you know, sufficient.

That can throw that, you know, throw the whole project side was pretty quick.

And with resale, I mean, if you've got older, you know, older age back system, aging roof and stuff like that, you need to know these things before you.

You know, before you're working with a client, so communication is something that, you know, seem to be the biggest thing missing in the industry.

I mean, realtors are not lazy. I mean, they're, they get all the training and they do all those things that are right.

But the construction knowledge part of it, timelines and this thing said, you know, when you're doing a site walk through a messy site, always to me is an indicator of, you know, there's problems.

You know, and I've always said that I never seen a good build come out of a messy site or vice versa, right?

Yeah, that's very true. That's very true. In your, in your book, some of the other things you discuss is how to guide clients through walkthroughs, upgrades, warranties and timelines.

I talked to us about some of that.

Yeah, so walkthroughs, you know, there's, there's key walkthroughs always.

And, you know, when you're doing rough ends before the drywall goes in and stuff like that, you want to identify, make sure things look the way your drawings are showing.

I mean, that's right there. That's always a good thing to make sure the drawings match, right?

It's true, right? I mean, I've seen it several times where all of a sudden, you know, a doors misplaced or

the wrong, you know, wrong location for plumbing. I mean, it's good if you're, you know, if you know what you're looking for yourself, right?

Yeah.

You know, if you're guiding your client and identifying these kind of things, that's, you know, that really gives them confidence.

And, you know, builds trust and at the end of the day, they're going to refer you over again, right?

Now, I mean, if you're building trust and doing all those things and showing confidence, you know, confidence is a really big thing.

I'm going to be a little mean here, but I used to work with a lot of realtors.

I mean, I was 20 years of the mortgage businesses, six years with realtors.

And sometimes I would sit in my realtor manager head, I don't think it was the, I think he was the CEO or head manager.

I was, you know, they were usually family owned brokerages.

And I would sit there and realtors would pour in and out of the office.

And the questions that they would ask from, and maybe I'm just a guy who's been in business too long, free to, you know, since 18.

But the business, the questions that they would ask, they would leave the room.

And I would sit there with the manager and looking up and be like, what the fuck was that?

Yep.

Are we hiring morons around here? What's going on?

And, and if you want to pull facts, there's, there's only a small percentage of realtors that are hugely successful.

And probably because they've learned and espoused the things that you have in your book.

I can testify to that because they've learned their trade.

A lot of, and, you know, given, I mean, I hate to be mean to realtors, but many of them are very part time.

They're kind of doing it for a deal once a year and, you know, at the average realtor lose below the minimum wage.

And so it's really important for to learn these techniques.

You want to learn your skills.

And there seems to be a very large part of realtors.

I'm not going to give a percentage, but very large part of realtors, they just kind of phone it in or they think that just saying this is a kitchen to someone who knows what a kitchen is, is how you do your job.

So I really like how you put this book together and you put these details on there that can make them understand this stuff.

Because I can say I used to sit just in horror.

Sometimes the other questions is I would see asked going to be like, they went to 90 hours of school for this and they didn't learn this shit.

And I want to learn it.

Great. And those are the ones that elevated fast.

Yes, those are the ones that are going to be the successful ones.

Yes, exactly.

Like I looked back at a couple of properties that we saw just not in that long ago.

And one we had over in the Rocky Mountains.

And it was a top floor condo.

And the realtor we were selling it.

And the realtor was just going to get the square footage and realized we had huge balls, rake windows, lots of nice detail.

I mean, the detail was not like the other ones in the building, but he compared us to one of the same square footage.

Oh, well.

And $150,000 less than what we were asking.

I'm like, I'm not, it's not acceptable.

This is the comparable.

So I don't really care.

I mean, so at the end of the day, we got what we wanted.

We got the price.

He was, he was thankful at the end of the day because we educated them on why these are worth more.

It's just not able to square footage.

Your views, I mean, you've got all these things and all these things make a big difference.

And when your clients use it, you're trying to look out for them.

Yeah.

It's a big deal, right?

Yeah.

Because your job is to have their fiduciary duty at best of heart and represent and work to their fiduciary duty.

It's amazing how that's taught in realtor school.

And then I've had that conversation with the billionaire.

And yeah, I mean, it's kind of interesting where the, where the one industry that I've seen that every two years, they're forced to have an ethics reminder of what ethics are.

Yeah.

I used to sit and just be like, this is a really cool class.

I love it.

And then the question you hear asked about fiduciary duty and stuff, I'd just be like, are you fucking serious?

Like you're in this business, huh?

You shouldn't need, you shouldn't be even working in McDonald's with some of the ethics here.

You know, and I've had all sorts of, you know, I've had those side things where people try to go around fiduciary duty.

Just tell me what price your client wants. I'll tell you what my price going.

I'll make a deal here so we can get this done.

I'm like, yeah, you're going to lose your license, right?

I saw a lot of shit in the business.

But you know, there's good realtors and they're the smart realtors that have them working knowledge like you.

They've worked their trade.

They've invested in knowing more.

And reading books like yours, I think could have really, I would have been handing it out back in the day.

Like I said, I kept a lot of notes and a lot of stories.

So the book was built around real life experiences and it was fun to do.

I mean, yeah, I like educating people and I've been pulled into many situations over the years.

And if I can help, I can help if I can't, you know, so be it.

Yeah.

You talk about negotiating.

That's one of the other things they found interesting.

I've always, you know, there's a co-name of mine who ripped off the Christfoss brand that we had eight years into it.

Who had no followers.

So he decided to hijack a brand or hijack sip, who's in negotiating.

But back in the day, in the early 2000s, I would negotiate for deals.

And you go back and forth.

That's a negotiation.

And I have these people that would come to me and they'd make, you know, some offer, a little bit, maybe, or something.

You know, and to me, you know, if you understand negotiations, I think I learned this from Nightingale Conan.

The, I can't remember who the author was in the 90s or 2000s, I learned it from.

But basically you start on the far edges of a negotiation of what both parties might think are plausible.

And then you move to the middle and you keep going back and forth.

And one of the other things that really surprised me in real estate business would, you know, people come to me with, you know, they're asking for 30,000 off the price, maybe just an example.

And we'd be like, no, that's not going to work.

Bring us a better off to the table or, you know, I would, I would write back and, you know, stand or position.

And then they went every right back again.

I just swander off.

And you're like, wait, wait, are you going to come back?

Yeah.

You can't come back.

This is the negotiation back and forth process.

It's a back and forth.

It is.

And that's supposed to be back and forth.

You're right.

Yeah.

And, you know, you work things out.

And, you know, maybe, maybe you come up with conditions where you're like, okay, maybe you want 20,000 off, we want you to fix, repaint the place or something.

You know, there's all sorts of ways to make a deal work as you know.

And they would just, they would just leave.

Yeah.

And I'd write them and I'd be like, do you have a counter?

There's probably way to make this deal work.

And I'm actually kind of, I mean, I'm not betraying my clients' fiduciary duty.

But I'm kind of giving signaling that, you know, my client would like to sell this home.

And they might be amenable if the terms of, you know, conditions we can all agree on.

But you've got to, you've got to present.

But with me, I don't think a lot of them really understand, you know, the whole process.

Yeah.

And that's where it gets lost too, right?

Yeah, that's where it gets lost and all the negotiating and everything.

Now, what are some of their aspects in this book you talk about?

You talk about, it's for realtors in their new homes, agents who want to start build stronger partnerships,

resell focused realtors who want a construction edge.

Teams broker just look into training resources.

Boy, like I say, I would have had in your book out there.

Everybody I saw at the, at the Monday meeting at the real estate office.

Everyone wants to elevate their real estate.

So it sounds like some people that are just general real estate people or are general people.

Maybe you want to have your home built.

You want to know how to talk to construction people and communicate, had to check for stuff and,

how to keep issues from coming out of control.

It sounds like a pretty smart getting.

That's, that's it.

I mean, there's so many, like you said, in a lot of moving parts to this, to the industry and just elevating yourself.

I mean, we still have like appraisers that would just get so upset with the realtors.

Yeah.

I mean, that's the other end of it.

And like you said, broker's brokers, you know, they had some way they're comfortable with.

They would recommend them all day long.

So yeah.

With this extra little knowledge, I mean, that's just going to elevate.

And that's going to, it's going to create your database.

It's going to throw your business.

And I mean, for entry level people, they're just getting into it.

You can really do quantum leaves and get ahead of some of the season veterans that all they know what to do is work with.

Cosper square foot.

And, you know, and they're really good at selling you how, how your house is not worth what you think it is.

But they don't know a lot of times of what's behind the scenes of this.

Yeah.

So that's where it comes in.

I mean, it's for resale.

It's for new homes.

It's working with builders that are frustrated.

It's working with appraisers that are frustrated banks, landers, all of them.

So it's just another area that I see.

I look at it this way when I went to Best Buy, where I would walk into an RV to buy an RV or something.

Those guys knew everything about the product.

And I'm thinking, why do these people not know really much about what they're trying to sell?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like I say, a lot of them are part time.

A lot of people get into it.

Their spouse makes all the money.

And they're just kind of, I don't know, him handing a deal or once a year.

Some of the average real estate agent lives below the poverty line.

So your book can really help people.

I think in really good there.

Tell us about some of the services you offer on your website.

Do you do coaching, consulting, training, speaking?

Give us some insights in the offers there.

Yeah.

So we've got one that we've just, we're putting together right now is I've got one landing page, realtorbuilderguide.com.

Uh-huh.

That kind of gives you some 10 mistakes that builders make.

So there's ongoing blogs and information that I've got on that.

And then another landing page is nobuildermistakes.com.

Uh-huh.

Those are all the costing mistakes homebires make hiring a contractor.

So it kind of shows you before you get into the trap, right?

And the other one, the realtor builder guide, you know, is 10 mistakes that builders make when working with or, yeah, builders make when they're working with a realtor.

So these things all kind of play together and it's just, you know, it's, it's a really set this set the tone.

It's the other thing that what I'm doing right now is I'm putting together a six.

I would explain this.

I'm just kind of finalizing now.

I've been working on it for a few months, but it's kind of like I've got six spots for realtors that are going to be putting us a six week long program together.

And just coaching right through it.

So it's, you know, once or once a week for six weeks and, you know, it's, it's myself doing it through zoom and, you know, helping, helping bridge that gap.

I just think it's, it's, there's a market for it.

I've been working, the thing is I've been working and doing this for several years now.

And I just really started to work at it harder now.

I mean, in here in Mexico, I just built a six plaques right here in Porto Vierta.

Wow.

Yeah, it was, it was, that was a challenge to put a rooftop pool.

Yeah, you know, that's just finished up with so 50% of them now.

And, you know, like coaching that to work, I can work as an advisor on that kind of some construction didn't bring over the years.

So maybe you can get hired by construction builders to work the agents and communicate between.

I've done that. I actually had, all right.

Before I left Canada, I had a guy.

He was working out of Calgary this, he was getting ready to get the ground on a big project, a huge project, you know, like 120 units.

And, you know, a lot of, you know, people committed capital to it.

And he wanted me to look over things because he was just not afraid about where, where was sitting with numbers.

And I analyzed it. I had him send me all the information and I just, I dug great deep into it.

And he was definitely being misled, I would say a whole lot about it.

But, you know, I helped guide him through that process.

And it worked out well for him.

Saved a lot of money.

Saved a lot of money.

Yeah.

Been a lot of good things.

So people can reach out to you and book a call on your website, they can buy the book and get into everything else.

Anything future coming up?

Any future books? Anything else you want to plug in the show while you're here?

I don't know. I'm just kind of, you know, I'm pretty busy with what's going on right now.

And I just finished, like I said, the six plaques.

I got a few renovations that I'm working on also.

But this is more of my passion where I want to go with, with, you know, you spend your whole life building all these, you know, all these stories and

just situations that you've dealt with.

You know, I do get one of the warranty program providers that we had has actually sent me clients with builders that they're having a problem with.

The clients are having problems with particular builders.

That's been kind of an eye-opener too.

I mean, they send me all their contracts and then I analyze and they help them.

You know, the big thing is when you're going into a contract is, you know, make sure you know what you're signing and make sure you know what you're getting.

And that's, that's the big part of it.

Oh, yeah, make sure you know what you're getting.

So give people a final pitch out to pick you up your book as we go out and your comms.

Okay. Yeah, my dot comms is Scott grows LGR O Z E L L E dot com.

And the, our book is here. Let me just make sure I always go to write secret home builders don't want you to know.

Like it's anybody that's doing renovation new bills anytime you're dealing with contractors.

It's got so much information checked like less pro tips and, you know, it's, it's got so a lot of good information in there.

And the new home sales for new home sales without the nonsense.

I mean, that's one is definitely more geared to realtors working with new home sales and just, you know, the new home sales professional is not necessarily a realtor, right?

And they sit in the show home, you know, how to close more deals, how to pre-qualify all those kind of things.

I mean, that's, you can waste a lot of time working with people that are just tire-kickers.

Oh, yeah.

You recognize wasting your time, you're losing, you're not working with the right people.

And that's why.

Yeah, I mean, I would go to my wife and I would go to the different show homes when we go on vacation.

And I was just, I just loved doing that.

You know, it's just seeing how these sales people were going to respond to questions and watching other people coming into the show homes.

And it was interesting.

And you know, I learned a lot right from that.

And the successful ones were asking the right questions.

They knew what to pre-qualify.

Yeah.

If that was huge.

That is huge.

I trained our guys that way.

Our guys.

It was, it was fun.

And the ones that wanted to learn did well, they did great.

I mean, some of them are in the poverty line and well below.

But there's some that are making, you know, I don't know what the top percentage of these, you know, of that industry, but it's high.

Like the ones that are making the highest amount is a very low percentage.

Yeah.

So I think it's five or three percent.

Yeah.

Smaller.

It's pretty low.

Yeah.

That's great.

And then obviously my third book, the construction intelligence for realtors is most of my last or my latest one.

And I might do another couple books or maybe a couple of extra editions if I see, you know, the need for it.

But I feel good about what I've gotten.

It's kind of keeping me pretty busy.

And I don't want to go to enjoy life too, right?

Yeah, you got to enjoy life here in Mexico.

Beautiful place too.

It is.

That's four years now.

So how do you like Mexico over Canada?

I like the weather.

Oh, that's true.

And the beach maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah, because I think I've got my dog that the big 80 pound lab noodle.

Oh, wow.

So she's fun to bring down to the beach.

And it's so close to our house.

I can walk there in 10 minutes.

Oh, yeah.

They love the water and stuff.

Canada is nice.

I'm going to be seeing here a few months.

Okay.

I'm a big rush fan.

Oh, in the place.

Yeah.

They're going to be doing the big tour there without the Neil Peart.

And I'm a big trailer park boys fan.

So I love.

I love Canada.

Canada.

We're in rush play at them.

The rush is opening at it's in LA.

I think it's June or May.

May June.

June 7th at the end is they're opening at the forum.

I think it is the only forum.

I have to check my tickets.

I have three sets of tickets that week through three different shows.

And then they're going to tour over the world.

And I think they just announced they're going to do South America.

So they'll probably come see you and Europe.

Yeah.

You might be 2027.

But yeah.

I just hope to make it through the tour.

I mean, these boys have been doing all their lives.

They were both 70 and arthritis and all this stuff that comes the whole day.

So.

I mean, it just won't, but I've been a lot of rush concerts.

And I'm just so happy to see him.

I blew off the last couple of concerts because I thought I just wasn't.

I don't know.

I was in in a good place going to see them or something.

I don't know.

I was having trouble with their last few albums too.

And.

And I thought there would be a big final show.

I mean, new Neil was wearing down.

I was like, yeah, they're.

They'll announce a final show.

And I mean, this is the final tour, man.

We're getting tool for the shit.

And to have them admit me miss the last.

I would have been at the last concert because I was living in California at the time.

I believe it was the LA forum or the Angel Stadium in Orange County.

And so it was just, it was, you know, for 10 years, I've been just going.

Kicking myself, going, please, it just do one more.

I hope you booked us well.

And you continue to work with these real estate agents because you got a lot of money.

You can make off these agents.

I don't know what they're doing because there's a lot of them.

And it shows.

I just want to help at the end of the day.

And.

Yeah.

That gap and show the need.

Everybody's happy.

It's a win.

And that's.

When win.

So thank you Scott for coming to show.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks for.

Thanks for.

Thanks for honest for tuning in.

Ornip is book where we find books are sold folks.

Construction intelligence for realtors.

How to speak the builders language and represent clients.

With confidence out December 16th, 2025.

You can find links on the Christmas show.

Begin to each other folks.

Stay safe.

We'll see you guys next.

You've been listening to the most amazing intelligence podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life.

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Alright Scott, we got in the can.

Great job.