welcome to the team builder show where the most successful team leaders share how to build scale organize and ultimately maximize your sales team results hey welcome to the team builders show we're gonna unpack a husband and wife team that have literally in the last five years built one two three four five different companies and figure out how they did it and how in the world are they still married and happy this good looking so so galen and sergio welcome to the show super excited to have you guys i love it you flew in from southern california to be here that means the world to me um so first of all can we just unpack so galen callahan top of the morning right like ryan buffini right now is like my people right sergio gonzalez you didn't take the last name but you guys been married for how long for 13 years this year and how many kids five five we have five girls five girls five girls five businesses you have ten children that's how i can pretty much yeah no seriously that's absolutely so the the theme of the show is like the rise of the entrepreneurial agent yeah right so so let's give people some context and background so so galen how long in the business how long in the business is what did you do before all of this came together the last five years so we actually met because i was a realtor i started out in santa monica i got licensed around 2006. yeah so i was selling on the west side malibu yeah he was with countrywide at the time right my office whole countrywide mr mozilla right my office had a lending division so he would service lending side sure a few years later we had a mutual friend he had started his own mortgage company our company had shut down yeah yeah you can hang your license with us yeah um in the mortgage company is this is this how you picked up on girls basically i i she she slept her way to the top all right show's over that's how you do it all right so we officially said there's a seat at the top there it is that's how i got here okay if you're audio only this is definitely one of those moments you want to go maybe i need to go to youtube and check this out yeah okay so serge yeah you uh so give it give us your like your professional background so we can sure so like kind of like get into the weeds yeah so uh like galen said i started off in the mortgage side of the business i was in wholesale uh you know back in you know subprime days companies just kept closing kept closing and i was like you know what i'm tired of being held to someone else's control of what was happening with my destiny i'm over here busting my butt making relationships crushing it and then oh we're closing oh and that's when i say you know what i'm going to start my own mortgage company back then what year was that that was 06 when everything was closing all right so yeah crazy timing one of these one of the niches i found was nobody was fha approved back then so i got that license and then i basically went to all my clients and i'm like oh you don't have that license you don't have that license yeah you need to start working with me right meaning all the lenders were your clients right so you're bringing them over like i got the fha approval right here in california that's yeah so how did you get that uh i applied and uh took you know you gotta apply you gotta go through the steps the processes right you gotta find the people that can help you get uh licensed and i had a great run all the way through 2010 uh and then dodd-frank you know came in and squished everybody yeah so now he's like okay watched a few tom ferry videos i'm like no honey i'm gonna be a realtor starting january first two thousand business okay so at this point how many kids you guys have 2011. we had two i think we were pregnant or i was pregnant with the second one yeah i think we're on number two okay all right so so on number two and you're jumping into rezzy yeah you were you know you were in rezzy so were you like what are you thinking well yeah when he said he was gonna sell houses i mean i just had known him from the mortgage aspect and he was always out visiting clients running around so that i i i hadn't quite been able to picture him making that shift yeah because no i'm gonna do i'm just i'm gonna sell some houses you know honestly like coming from the mortgage side right it was like these realtors are dumb i'm like they don't know how to hold a deal together they don't even know how to read appraisals or a prelim right or any of the we're the ones when the problems happen we're fixing it and then um after i got my license and watched your videos i was like this is a lot harder than oh yeah then i thought you know you're the marketer you're the you know the legion you're the the accountant you're the you're the manager you're the relationship you're everything right when you're on the lender's side you had everybody in-house processes and people and automation yeah that's the beauty of the residential real estate business like it truly is the rich and the rest the people that figure it out yeah kill it and there's a lot of people that never sell any houses right yeah so you clearly figured out so before we get into we want to get into all these unpacking of businesses um so so before all this began when did you start sg associates like when did you go independent like your own brokerage uh in 2015 is when we went independent yeah um so when i became our agent in 2011 that was in santa barbara when we were living in santa barbara yeah and uh i was became rookie of the year there fsbo expired you know whatever whatever it took right um we didn't know anybody there we didn't know anybody no sphere and so and there was like mental blocks i had to get through there right sure new area right um and then working through our you know our marriage there at the same time like there was a lot of change happenings like yeah new career new marriage knew this knew that yeah and a couple new babies couple of new babies right that all sounds easy yeah yeah so do you almost have like a nervous tip there like yeah yeah it's like pt right right um but uh and then i got a uh a call from a wholesale lender yeah and they said hey you know what we know you crushed it back in the day yeah you know we'll pay you a stupid amount of money if you come back yeah but you gotta move closer to la yeah and you know i'm cur real estate career is just taking off but i'm grinding yeah right i did 13 houses that first year i'm looking at her i'm looking at the babies and i'm like what's the responsible thing to do what's the safe thing to do what's the you know i got to make sure everybody's good i'm like i can do that in my sleep i used to do that in my sleep from home right and so i took the safe route i took the job we moved closer to westlake and uh crushed the year like i said they would and then a year later they're like oh you guys are making too much money we're going to cut your pay but we want you to do more and i was like i remember why i left this exactly in america congratulations congratulations raise the standard yes so i remember why so at that point that's when i say you know what knowing what i know now yeah having been an agent in santa barbara i'm gonna just bring that skill set to this new area yeah and i already had been in coaching at that time so i just took everything that i learned i was like you know what i think i can just do this on my own at this point yeah right so then it made sense right my own thing correct i had playbooks to run right i had skills i had you know it wasn't like i was a new agent like i was correct back then so correct from there it kind of just took off yeah so so at the peak with sg associates prior to starting actually let's just let's just go you start the new company what was the first ancillary business you started and why the first one was the um escrow so we were looking at so for the people that are listening that are like texas left yeah all right so closing title services title closing services title closing services in california they split them into two different services southern california southern california right because northern california is closing right title escrow to combine exactly so um we were looking at you know the the size of listings that i was doing yep right my average list price at that point was like 2.8 and uh we started off with the dre escrow originally right which means you can only do your own deals you cannot take outside deals uh once we kind of got our feet wet with that we're like you know what maybe we should take this to the next step in getting um license with the with the dbo now it's the dfpi whatever it's like the state it's like the state and um and that kind of made me put back on my wholesale relationship hat right because i had a lot of lender friends a lot of real estate friends and it's like hey if i open this company would you support it like would you give me a shot yeah you know provide good service of course and it kind of just built and took off you know from there and that was that was the first one so that was 2018. okay all right so 2015 you start the new company yeah 2018 you launched your first answer your service um for the context for the people that are listening with audio or video who runs the brokerage who runs escrow and then we'll get at all the other ones we're we're doing to we're doing a little bit of both yeah in both of us are doing a little bit of need well he's doing the majority of the rain making in the real estate company right sure um i i handle all the stuff that he doesn't like i handle compliance i edit files i handle agent problems brokerage problems that kind of thing licensing um for escrow i handle audits employees um and then a little bit of rain making but good yeah operations yeah right i mean that's the okay it's so interesting like if my wife was here she'd be like yeah she'd be hitting me going yeah that's what i do yeah right pretty much we're all organized yeah i'm like what's going on back there this should just be called the keeping it real yeah yeah okay so so it's kind of you know run the back office go out and be the rain maker so you start the escrow company and like how many escrows did you guys close that year how many how many transactions did you close that year uh uh that year that was under the dre deal so that was just over yes the the dre i mean that was like we were only doing 48 deals a year so it wasn't a lot but it was extremely profitable because it was just me and it's like a 5500 transaction fee yeah on top but of course all the work associated with it right of course very important by that because that was in june of 2018 i think the dre and then by december we had been licensed by the dbo right got it so really quick turn yeah so like seven months you're like okay we got to blow this up yeah so so give us context for 2021 um how many real estate transactions did the company do and then how many escrows did you guys close last year so the escrow we did 1200 trans escrows last year uh averaging 5 500 on our sale and roughly 550 on a refi which you know the refi market is turning is gone right now right so you have to pivot you have to make adjustments and start going you either have to get you know you if you had uh 10 loan officers giving you deals now you need 20.

i need 30. so you're going to scale that or start attacking more of that purchase money yeah transaction yeah okay so so what point did you say gosh five daughters two businesses let's start another one we need more yeah right we don't have enough on our plate okay well here you know your question i always go back to the question you always ask and or are you always commenting which is what are you building yeah what are we doing do i want to be the agent that is you know i'm on my last leg and i'm like open house you know like for sales i know you know i'm trying to build a legacy and opportunity for our for our girls that if they want to step into that or there's a cash flow being able to support um you know them and and us you know in our later years i mean that's what it's really for at the end of the day so so give us the and i appreciate that right i mean so many of the we'll get into this later like what's the purpose right like we all work so hard like why are you really doing this right you know what i mean especially you know like i mean i wish i wish my wife was here because like yeah has been a wife dynamic of like you're laying there in bed and you're like hey baby she's like you know what's happening right now in the accounting department well no please don't tell me more yeah and then i just go to her and i'm like tom says we should start this and and she's like i don't know i'm like well i already filed the paperwork yeah i think we should get a rolls royce oh my god run in the garage pretty much don't do that yeah don't do that don't go don't go too super yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so so you got s association it's the real estate company you start uh the escrow company yeah but then you got title and then you got to describe what is 805 life so 805 okay well i'll start with 805 because that's an easy one so 805 life was really good what is 805 for the people that have no idea so 805 is our area code uh there's a lot of um love and it's a really community driven around that um there's a beer i mean they're seeing it on the freeway and i've been there right and and with some of the fires and you know the travesties that have happened there they really were like oh we love the 805 we love it yeah like you know it's like calabasas to like passo yeah and basically beyond right it's a huge chunk of the central coast of california yeah it's a big market yeah and so people really gravitate and they're proud to be associated with them like you know what we're going to incorporate that into into our brand and then we created a charity around that so where we kind of raise funds to then give to other local so i was like okay you know i'll do that too he's coachable and he is coachable and uh and so one of uh the other coaching members who's who's here shout out to uh lee arnold um he uh he helped set that up with me right um because you you say well you need to have a hundred doors i'm like well i don't have a hundred doors how am i gonna make this happen yeah and be profitable right well that was the key there's right there's a number that you get to that makes it makes sense for the employees and the staff and the time and right right yeah and so um he helped me set that up and that's been really profitable i'm just like trying how many more can we do right um and so we have doors uh all in the 805 right so santa barbara lake you know all around um and we do that with just one assistant just i just followed his model yeah so that works so we just kind of keep it we just keep growing and do you find in the property management business do you find that you get listings from that you meet investors from that you also you know like like like that's the other thing that you miss i'm like the early days of property management for me was during like the 2007 8 9 10 my clients in phoenix arizona they're like hey the only stuff that's being bought is these these you know reo companies and i'm like well let's figure out how to get a relationship with them yeah because if they're going to buy them they're going to hold them and someone needs to manage their property management they're like right oh and also running three and four and 500 units and then guess who got the listings when it was time to turn yeah right right so they made money and they would give us their brand new age and say i'm gonna have you manage these properties so now the agents the new agents were making money on rentals right it was it actually became kind of an interesting vehicle yeah you start you once once you have all these little racehorses ready to go you start seeing how they intersect each other right right so the property management yes we've gotten listings from that we're meeting people that are like hey i'm not ready to buy i just kind of want to go test it out a little bit and and uh get a sense so yeah having that relationship already there yeah um and then when if they do need to sell we're doing the escrow yeah right and then we're we're doing the real estate side and then now with the title so it all just kind of gets bundled together yeah so the whole game today is full service right and you could argue the whole game today the whole game for the last two decades has been full service real estate right you know that's the flywheel whoever generates a client then you you basically walk them through every one of those services and as long as you provide all the right services the consumer wins yeah so you look at what zillow's doing now with the super app right and a bunch of people that are like oh like a lot of brokers like big shots like william ravis company like in the northeast like they've been doing this for 35 years right right so so there's a lot a lot to unpack there but i want to get to this so when does it i'm going to you when does it actually make sense for a team to start looking at this stuff you know for us it was really because we don't have a we don't have a huge team you know the brokerage is not large so for us it was okay his his sales are growing he's doing high price points okay what are we going to do with this money right so that was really our turning point was okay we have the funds how do we want to invest this and where right so i think for some teams it's going to be based on units or volumes i think for our case it was really okay what are we going to do with this money we made yeah and how are we going to go make it make more yeah exactly and then it would be hard to argue also because of your relationships and mr social butterfly over here yes don't by the way listen to he's like hi i'm sergio and hence why i have black girls piano tonight so so also do you think some of this was predicated on the fact you've got all these relationships forever that you were able to call and they were like oh you were my wholesale guy yeah now you're calling it saying hey man i got an escrow company you know and like you know you work those relationships totally right we're in a relationship business right we're going to go with people that like us trust us and we'll take our advice right right and know that we're going to take care of them so i think it's the same it was the same approach but you know you have teams that are either buying buildings right they are buying units they're doing all these other things and for me i was like i want more cash flow to you know um grow our lifestyle and also be able to do the things we want to do send our kids to the school that they want to go to i have five girls are you me like do you know how much that's going to cost me yes yes yes right i have two points thank you so i was like i need to make a lot of money right and so i needed to create revenue additional revenue streams was on my list so i literally just talked to treasurer davis about this today yeah she's like i have to do well with my girls my group like i get it yeah okay so let's go a different direction yeah how do you manage all the multiple businesses how do you keep look at you got yes you got five i can't even do it i only got four right look at sure right you got all this stuff that you're juggling how do you manage your time how do you manage your focus what's your management methodology help us understand well i you know i get that question like you have five kids and how do you do it oh yeah oh by the way and five kids yeah six he's the largest child right yes right but i tell people i don't yeah i don't it is not possible there are things you're going to forget there are things you're gonna mess up on and i think having the mindset that you can have it all and do it all is not realistic right so it's really it's really looking at okay what is the most important thing i have to do today well yeah get my kids dressed make sure they make sure they get to the right school um and then i i think it's really just making it rain you know like that's how that's what's going to keep your business going right i'll get sometimes i'll walk in my office why are you in the office well you know i have to catch up on emails or i'm finishing an audit well that that doesn't move the needle right yes those things need to be done so i think he's really stronger at that than i am because i do handle more operations and sometimes that can kind of be a tool you get stuck yeah but that's a huge piece of it is i think something that that i'm really good at is knowing what i'm not good at she's an expert instacarter yes i know i can't grocery shop i instacart it i know that i'm not a great accountant we have great cpas we have great auditors so i think that's been a big piece of it too is finding those key players see i don't know if you listen to my interview with kirsten jordan big shout out to kirsten she's the million dollar listing rock star yeah new york city and she i was like chris how do you do it all yeah how are you super mom three kids married and you're she's like i outsource everything yeah yeah she's like like i don't understand can say i'm not female so there's no like i'm saying what she said on the interview like i'm not that stupid as a guy right like but she was like i just have to yeah she's like you can be a badass woman and run a very successful business yeah and you could be a great mom and you just but but you can't do it alone you can't running the household is another business for sure so ceo of the home yes so you know you got to have the people that help make your life easier like when we come home we don't want to be cleaning the kitchen or doing dishes we want to come and play with the kids we want to do do their homework we want to hear about their day i don't want to have to come and deal with is the laundry done is the laundry you know is is dinner ready like that's not where we want to spend our time yeah so i think once we came into alignment on where we want to spend our time and everything else we can just write a check for at that point yeah and i think that's you know sheckles for time as you said right right time time for money money for time so so how about the management side we got to remind folks we try and keep these shows relatively short but you two are such handbooks very easy to take over like three days how do you like talk about the management team you installed to do all this stuff or or am i looking at the management team well i think there's different components right so we have a legal team yeah you gotta have good attorneys right you gotta have good cpas gotta have good uh hr and so those things we're not involved we just went and go find the best people to do that so that we're left with either making it rain and culture in the office right you know do you like the coffee that we have you know you want the snacks you got right the number one complaint about the real estate office is he doesn't have snacks and escrow we're overflowing with snacks for sure so it's but it's a big part of the culture at escrow no i i know if you're eating you walk in the car you walk in a good bank a good bank always has great cookies right right it's just automatic you don't have cookies i can't bank it yeah right yeah i think we you know through trial and error too our escrow officers and our escrow managers have just been incredible incredible people to work with incredible support have taught us things we didn't know right we're sure neither one of us are escrow officers and i i think that's been advantageous for us because we look at it from a broker perspective we know what gets you yelled at as an agent with your clients right or why is the lender upset but putting those escrow officers in place we have um we have actually an all-male escrow office which is highly unusual i don't think i've ever heard that ever i know but i always make it all male it's women-owned so everything's under control so we know at least it's run well yeah okay so so being mindful of time if we recapped here um the the vision was i want to build something for my family yeah it still is yeah right and if you want to build some of your family and do it with your spouse you got to have shared vision yeah right even when the vision is guess what i came home with today yes an escrow company honey how do you feel about but but that that clearly shows the yin and yang of of your partnership and how you guys work together right you've been able to make this happen um and then it was just ancillary services one at a time um and the one that we could probably do an entire show on is just 805 life right yeah but it's also wrapped in this charity right like all of this is about doing good being good and then clearly hiring the right people yes is that a fair that's that is huge that's the most important thing is hiring the right people because the wrong people can certainly get in trouble and cause damage because i think a lot of people oh that's risky right uh starting a brokerage is risky starting property management is risky starting escrow is risky titles risky life is risky right married is risky yeah right baby's risky and the baby's risky you know so i've been on the freeway in dallas welcome to nascar it's called the 75 yeah so i think um you know you just have to yeah commit so if somebody wanted to reach out to you guys and connect and say okay tell me more about this and how'd you do it i mean you got you know you've been in the community for a long time our ecosystem you guys share a lot what's the best way where do they find you on instagram or something like that yeah you can read definitely reach out to me on instagram sergio805 sergio gonzalez at 805. um and then galen she's on uh on instagram she's on instagram i love it i love it so guys you know we're unpacking uh really the entrepreneurial journey here so i want to thank you guys both for just coming on the show and i know we try you know we try and do these like short sound bites get people fired up but but today was good for people to really sit back and listen and say it can't be done yep that's the case like what i love about doing these interviews with these crazy entrepreneurs is it just shows over and over again it can't be done yeah different walks of life different background different experiences but but fundamentally the same belief which like i can do it yeah and i think most importantly is that all of the um the how-to is all right here in the ecosystem right right the escrow jessie rodriguez sitting next to him at uh i think it was elite retreat yep and he was looking at a spreadsheet i'm like what are you doing over there dude and he's like oh so i'm looking at my escrow uh transactions i'm like oh what is that what does that look like how much do you make it's like oh look at this and i was like oh like tom tell me to do that i'm like yeah all right went home i was like we're starting escrow coming right doctor said jesse did it yeah honey that's what we're doing yeah so like everybody who you need is right here community and i think right here in the community and the culture that you you've created has really um allowed everybody to you know a rising tide raises the ship so yeah thank you man i appreciate that thank you guys for being a part of it so hashtag the ecosystem yes there was remember the elite retreat they're like if he says ecosystem one more time we all have to take a drink it's all about you guys let's go right that was like 2017 and we were everybody was just like going crazy growth yeah that's what it's about but it's been so i mean it really is exactly what you said it's it's every everybody in the ecosystem is willing to help yeah and whether that's supporting your business whether that's answering questions everybody's in it together and there's always a really great resource yeah yeah i appreciate it all right so we're out make sure you follow these guys and and listen always like subscribe share hit that notification button let us know what you want to hear more and they will be on the youtube channel somewhere answering questions so if you're on youtube or on podcasts however you're listening to this make sure you hit them up and say what about this what about that what about keep keep keep digging at them and by the way they're super fun all right so we're out we'll see you guys soon you.