Foreign. If you know someone that's struggling in this market or just feels like it could be another 200678 again, you are gonna love this interview. Especially when you hear how this couple went from zero to 500 transactions. Let me say it to you again: zero to 500 transactions and they're just getting started. So give them context. How many transactions will you do this year and what's the team look like? So people have context before we go to the early days? Sure. Total Team We've got 36 people on the team. We'll close right over 500 units at 210 million. Congratulations, right? That's a big business. Oh yeah, a lot of fun. And for the person listening, we're going to unpack how they got there because this was done really just in the last like two and a half years. Right before Coven, right? So I mean that's remarkable. So take us back to 2006. I'm going to go into real estate I Want to be near family I've got my son right. he must have been at that time. What? Three? Yeah, Three. right? So so you know that's perfect time to go into real estate? That's right, 2007 hits Global Mortgage Meltdown. It was all year your fault Nate It was. What did you do your first year? Seven deals That's actually really good? Yeah, were they REO Were they short sale? Were they the last first time buyers? Yeah. I Strictly. Um, when I got into real estate, all I did was open houses literally every single day from 12 until five o'clock Would you recommend that to people today? Absolutely. Why? um you can build your database, You build relationships with people. It's a really great way to collect information from you. Yes! Nate you were going to say yeah, you know like that's that is how Jamie started was open houses. Everybody in our brokerage thought she was crazy. yeah because she was like I have to make money so she was going and holding open houses during the day. she we still have the sign on one of our doors. she had a little you know like I'll be back at with a time thing on it and she would put that on the go. have lunch or you know go do something real quick and come back to the open house. So she was holding open houses in the middle of the week. Yeah and what you found out was that the people that were coming to those open houses weren't kicking as many tires as the people were coming in on weekends and you built and you were able to capitalize on that. So it was pretty awesome even. I as our husband and I wasn't in with her like in the business at that time, it was like you're just gonna go sit at a house all day. Yeah yeah and she's like yeah and she'd come home and she'd have she'd have a contact. Yeah yeah, it only takes one. NBC and Stephanie you know younger who are like great you know friends of ours. they also I mean they do 400 and 600 open houses a year and they're like you only need one great one. If you get one great one every day and you do it 200 times right, you're gonna win. You're gonna win. Yeah. so so looking back right, what'd you do in 2007 that like that? that was the year you did seven transactions which do an eight because it got really Mucky well it's it's kind of funny because I don't think I'm a dumb person when we preface that I concur you know I didn't pay attention to the world I wasn't listening to everything interesting and so for me I just my whole philosophy has always been keep my head down and the money will come. and so during those years when I look back I just realized I never really looked at the news or listened to anybody. Yeah and a lot of the senior agents that were in the office were all complaining and talking negatively. but I just kept focus and head down. and for me, me every year I seem to double what I was doing the year before. but part of it now knowing what I know now is I didn't let that affect my mindset and I think that was a huge thing back then that contributed to our success. Oh absolutely Do you think that there was something about you know, moving back home starting over I'm you know, I'm assuming you weren't like? Well, since we were sitting on several million dollars in savings, let's move back to Texas and start over right. You got a young son. We were young. You're coming out of the mortgage business, which was an absolute disaster at that time. That's right, was your back against the wall? Did you have to do it? or was it cushy for you? No, we we had to and it's a really funny story that I share. Um, that's probably pertinent today, but we were really broke I thought it was going to be an easy job like probably a lot of people do. she had the mortgage industry crash basically and I'll never forget I was walking into the office and the phone rings. You know the biggest thing in real estate is to answer your phone. Yes, right? and so I answer the phone and the the lady said hey, you came by one of our model homes, you're the grand prize winner and I'm like oh my gosh, this is so exciting and um I said what? I went she said six thousand dollars in gas and I was like what? and she said yes, six thousand dollars. So what we won were six thousand dollars in gas cards. That's awesome which for us when we were super broke at the time was like I don't know. just the cherry on top. That's like a massive Game Changer Especially for a real estate agent. Yeah, that was Huge. Insane. But the the lesson of the whole story was that she said I'm really glad you answered your phone and I said why and she goes. you're the fourth person that I called oh it's like Google local Services right? Exactly right. The fourth person, Well why did you choose us Because you answered the phone Exactly. We'd like to buy a house and no one's responding Yes, right. that's the same thing you know I Can't wait to introduce you guys to my friend Michael Polser who has like 35 000 agents in Europe And he's like answer the phone, answer the phone because in Europe it's just. it's just not as easy right as it is in the US I mean people still don't ask the phone in the US it'd be nice if they did it in Europe they really don't ask the bun if you're from Europe you know what I'm talking about. All right. So so you go from seven to what? 14? 15? Yep, okay and then and you. So in the beginning it was open houses. Did you do anything differently from a marketing lead generation standpoint that reflecting back maybe someone listening right now be like okay, what's you in year two to double? Yeah, so in year two to double I had all that my database from all the open house people and that's all I did was work my database and interesting constantly calling, constantly emailing. I did also kind of lighten up a little bit on open houses, yeah, but I still did them consistently every weekend. Yeah, but then that was in the time where you know like you were literally on your phone making phone calls, you weren't texting like we didn't text message. Yeah, you know I didn't think the texting thing was really going to take off at the time and um, but you were like constantly making calls like and and you would go into the office at like into our home office at night and and make calls and and you constantly picked up the phone. Yeah, that was your life. Sometimes we talk about real estate, sometimes we wouldn't sure, just keep those connections going. You know, we talk about it all the time. you know? David Caldwell and I were just texting. It's like the whole game is Whoever has the most conversations. That's right, it's so true though, right? So so what I hear is in Year Two. You know you had some transactions under your belt, right? You realize there might be a better use of your time making more phone calls, showing more houses, whatever it may be. Did you add any other lead generation in Year two? open Houses being the first and then yeah, what else? I I Think one of the the big game changes for Jamie and and it shows like where she is now it. that was like the the seed to it was was relo in in your approach to relo. So I think that's worth sharing that story. um very short story. um but I was sitting in the office I'll never forget all these you know seasoned agents walk over and they're like Jamie we're all about to leave. They're about to raise the referral fee for relocation. Yeah so they're going from 25 I think to 32.5 yeah and I kind of look at the lady and she's like come with us we're going to another brokerage and you weren't on reload I wasn't on reload yet but I looked at her and I probably should have kept this to myself. but I said it out loud and I said actually what I'm gonna go do is ask the manager for all your reload business and they all left and I became the reload person for the office and Chaos there is opportunity. Yeah, yes, that was a really that was an astute move on your part. Yeah and even you know back then, like paying 32 or you know, like 25 has been the standard in the industry forever, right? reload's not like 42 percent. So so how many transactions came from Rilo at that moment? probably about 75 of them. Wow. but I had a different perspective on them because yes, you are doing a Reload fee. Yes, you're doing all those reports. It's like Zillow flax or RBC or Op City or an agent agent referral like it is what it is. Yeah, but my goal was assigning the yard yep which created more opportunities for buyers and people calling me. So my name and branding kind of got out from that point. Yes, and that was. that was kind of my whole outlook on it still to this day. I Do relo I I Embrace it because I Just know for me, my goal is not that transaction, it's all the transactions and and you would even back then you would You know people would wave your flag and talk about how awesome you were. You were as an agent and you would be like that's great. Do you know anybody that needs my service like you literally were saying that before right before coaching like it was like who do you know that needs me Yeah and so the referral business from the reload like it was, it was just and it. It just showed how open-minded you were to it. When a lot of agents are like I'm not giving up my split you know and it's like right and back then I bet you weren't on like the more traditional splits that we see today. Across the Universe Canada you know, 85, 88, 90 Right back then I'm guessing you're on like 60 55 and then they're taking it right then. Yeah, 32.5 and you're like oh okay, but it wasn't about that deal Janelle Garrenson was on the podcast uh, about a month and a half ago said the same thing in the early days of her career I don't know if it actually made the show, but she said I took reload because I would take this client out I'd go sell them a house they were relocating in. they worked for, you know, name the company. but I knew they were going to leave in two years, right? So I was going to get the listing on the other side. yeah and I was going to get any one of their other friends that they knew I'd introduce them to people inside the community I'd get them like really connected. she's like that's just a good thing to do in general. It's the same reason why she says I take first-time buyers out today. like after, you know, 20 plus years. So I still take them out because I want to remind myself of how awesome it is to hand somebody their keys. That's right, whether it's reload or whatever, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so at what point in your career we kind of went 0.708 at what point did you go I got this? Um, well last week? No, maybe yeah. I don't know I haven't heard it say yeah, it's not quite that um I Remember, a couple years later I finally became number one in our office and that was one of my goals was to speak number one and we beat out or I beat out this lady that had been number one forever. Yes! and at the awards ceremony she said you did a really great job, but you'll never do it again. Oh and God love her I just told the story the other day because yeah, because I don't know if she was serious or if she was being nice, right? but I kind of think now she was being serious Yes, but that was my catapult. So after that year I tripled basically what I was doing and you're like I'll show you yeah, I'll buy five more houses. whatever it takes, whatever it takes. Yeah, you came home pissed. Yeah, Do you remember at the summit when we talked about like I was like okay, synthesize What do all these extraordinary people have in common? And the number one thing was Uber Competitive? Yeah, right. How important is that to you Like to whether it's to be number one or to just be your best and then what? What advice would you give to someone that maybe just isn't as competitive? Maybe they've lost a couple times and they took it personally. What advice do you have for those people? For me? I don't know if it's competitive. it's the no ceiling. Yeah, right. and like I thrive and I feel like we build our business on no ceiling. Yeah, so when what does that mean? Yeah, yeah, when agents come to me and say hey, I'm not quite feeling this, can I do this? it's like yes, let me help you succeed with whatever you want to do. There is zero ceiling yes and I and I was in an industry beforehand that I just felt like I couldn't grow. Yeah and I think that's like just not not a good thing for me. So I think that's part of my competitiveness is that I want to be better every day? Where did that come from though? Um I don't know where that came from I I Really don't Were your parents competitive? Did you play competitive sports? Did you win the spelling bee when you were four? Like I feel like we're about to do an uh, an Oprah podcast? So go ahead. no I just got out the tissue box. No. I didn't come from a really great background. so I think that was maybe part of it that I was just a scratching claw for everything. Yeah and I just remember looking at people in my life saying I don't want to be like you Yeah, that's the one thing I know. so maybe that's what kind of flipped me over for sure being who I am today. Yeah I don't I don't go ahead no. I was gonna say you've always been tunnel visioned in in the goal right? like that's always in In like she was saying earlier like she she didn't used to watch the the news you know and it was keep keep your head down and just move straight. We didn't really celebrate a lot and um and because it was, there was a goal here. When we were getting close to that, she'd already moved the goal further. you know and it. and it's that competitiveness. and and I think it's just staying tunnel visioned and and moving forward and and coming from like the best thing for Jamie and I Think like you're saying to your your uh, your sphere now is this: Market This Market is going to create some incredible agents right? and that market created Jamie As an incredible agent, there's no doubt about it because if you have to succeed then you've got to learn how to succeed in a in a challenging Market Yeah, but I think I agree a thousand percent. I Think what's important for the listener right now is you know sometimes when you see someone like you two and you're like oh they're just so successful Well of course they are because you know they moved from Chicago They had great jobs, they came here, they started over. She's social but most of the best people we know have these crazy backgrounds. Yeah, that that brought them to this point where they finally found something that like they can sink their teeth into and maximize their potential. All that sounds like cliche and motivational, but it's true. Yeah, it's like okay I barely got out of high school but I can study people and then I can become a business coach right? like I had a horrible you know situation and then I realized with this I can be unlimited I can do whatever and then I can help everybody else around me and how that makes you feel gives you the juice every single day, right? So back to the question. when did you think you actually got it I have an answer for that I don't know that that we've actually got it or made it like for me at least I don't know that we're yeah Jamie hasn't high-fived yet? Yeah, you know, like and which is frustrating as a husband? Yes, and as a partner, it's like, uh, here we go. You know, like it's We're close to getting to this goal. So here she goes. the Whiteboard Yeah, the whiteboards are raced and we're moving on. Three white boys. Yeah, Okay, so so we got some context for the early days. Let's talk about um, at what point did the two of you say to each other? Okay, we only got 24 hours a day. We only got seven days a week. We're together on this. We need to build this thing called team I have that answer tell me it's not a proud moment. Um It Was Fear of 2013. yeah 2013. I Was on my way to the hospital about to have our second baby and I was dealing with an offer deal that was about to bust through. Told the agent Baby Bus through and deal Buster Yes I told the agent I said hey, let me I have an appointment. let me call you back in a minute literally on the way I Remember this moment I have an appointment, hang up the phone, have the baby. uh before we even go to the waiting room, you know where you get your room and settle in. I'm calling the agent back to finish the deal and as I'm sitting there with the baby just realizing and I had done I think that year I did 130 deals with just me and Nate yeah no assistant, no anything. So we we were working a lot I was like this cannot be right yeah like this is not. how did you have time today? Get a baby in there? Yeah you keep jumping around dude. but I just remember that was not a good moment. but why was it not a good moment? Um because there's just more to life than work and we were I was grinding and my brain was so full of clients and here this is a little baby. how am I gonna bring him and make him as great as our other son? they were 10 years apart. we were starting all over again with the babies so it was just an important moment that I was like I've just we've got to make a decision on this. So what did you say to yourself I said we need help that's what I said we need help Yeah, so we did. We did get a nanny to help us um, we were working pretty much from home at that point but then I also had a neighbor who was a client and I said hey, can you go get your real estate license I need help and she did so in the beginning. Did you have a guide? Did you have like did you go online? did you read a book? no I need help I need help I'm really looking back now I really wish that we would have had you and or or a coach anybody anybody at that point to help us? Yeah yeah. so Nate what was it like bringing on your first teammate and what role did neighbor take on? So tell me it wasn't another sales person because you didn't need any more sales? No it. she literally she she's our families are very close um and she was four four houses down. She cut hair, uh she was a great stay-at-home mom. She cut hair from her house and uh and and she was kind of at a Crossroads you know she would confide in Jamie about being a Crossroads so that's you know it all. Kind of was a perfect storm for her and for us and so Jamie's like go get real estate license. Um I Can I can throw some deals at you really quick. but handling transactions or handling clients, clients, clients with a salesperson, you didn't need any more deals. Well, no, you just needed a hand off. Yes. One of my biggest problems though is I don't say no. Yeah, it's a good and bad thing, right? It's helped me along the way. But same thing with clients if you called and said I need to buy or sell a house. Okay, no problem. you were number 30 for the month. Yeah, right. Yeah. So I needed help with that and so there was Zero training. We laugh about it. Now she's still with us. Um, she's our top producer. But it's like the Zero training just jumped in. And we still laugh about it today. Because isn't it amazing how former hairdressers, nurses, teachers, bartenders, waitresses, waiters become unbelievable real estate agents, right? Absolutely. It's like you can multitask if you can handle 30 kids in a classroom. You can handle two escorts. They can talk right? Yeah, and they can come well. bartenders like. So hey man says exactly exactly. Um Okay So you hire another sales person, you got a little more time. What was the next hire we I want to preface we didn't get more time. Yeah, Jamie it didn't work the way we had it on paper. Yeah, where it was going to relieve. It was like oh, we have her doing this and Jamie's still going Full Throttle on her 100 plus deals right? a year and um, so we brought on another one. Yep, another sales person, another sales agent to handle the exercise. Okay, when did you finally say wait a minute because now you're selling What? 140 homes, 150 homes? Yeah, you're using the company transaction. Yeah. Solution: Okay, so so you have a TC well not who's doing your listing launches. We all are we are. I was doing them all Nate was helping me do them all so we didn't have a transaction coordinator or anybody. We did it backwards. who puts the lock box on Nate did yeah, who puts the sign up I was the field guy. Okay, who puts the the extra flyers in the Box me Nate I did everything really expensive Nate I know so you you were boy Friday Oh, absolutely with and not on the payroll. Thanks! Okay, so context right. so you had help. you were leveraging your extraordinary husband. Yes, what was that like for you? Like you're coming from the mortgage business laying all these deals and now you're like doing everything right. Jack of all, Yeah, no it. it was great. Like it really was. Um, it's very, uh, corny. I It was awesome to see her succeed and at the time I was going to take a sabbatical right and figure out what I wanted to do. So I jumped into I'm gonna do your listings for you and I'm a pretty wordy guy. yeah and so I nailed a couple of captions and and all that and then it was. we're not going to pay a sign company, you know that doesn't make sense yeah. I'll go do it Yeah and so I did like all of that I wasn't I wasn't the TC I didn't deal with clients I did a couple of like final walk-throughs um Jamie really was like hands on with other clients and it I did all that that field work if you will. Yeah and so it was easy to do though. like I saw the success and I saw where we were going and then when we started adding the agents it was awesome and it was the the second agent I think where we were like okay we need some more back end. Yeah yeah so what did you do early on the back end side? who did you hire first? what was that first role? uh it was Jen basically so Jen was our she was a teacher yeah past client yeah and we were sitting at the closing table and um I said hey Jen I really need somebody to help me with doing the paperwork? Yeah, she's a she's a two-time client let's Oh yeah, yes so she I said if you know anybody let me know and sure enough I got a call maybe a week later and she said I want to do it So she came on part-time during the summer school was out and then she's been with us ever since and she's had lots of different roles. So I know it's been fun I know Yeah, so what happened when you brought Jen in what happened to the business? Give it like give us context. this is 15. 6 Is this two years after your son was born three years after he was born four years after. it was probably two and a half three years after he was born. Um, it just kind of. yeah. It just kind of gave us a lot of clarity that we did need help on the paperwork. And it was funny enough, it allowed me to do more deals because she was doing the paperwork now of course. Yeah, of course. which had I known that a couple of years ago, I would have made that you know, hold that trigger a long time ago. But whenever you start in that position and you think okay now I've got to pay a salary I think that first salary is very scary for people. yeah, um, to make that jump, it's it's why were you afraid of it. You had to have been making we were making hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think it's it became that I was responsible for her. That's exactly yeah. and I care about my people a whole lot. And I wake up thinking about them all the time and so now I had somebody I had to not not worry about yes, but worry about will you take a salary and you you only think of the annual salary Yeah, how am I gonna pay that? No. I just got to pay the next two weeks, next two weeks. That's right, Yeah, in the next two weeks and then the next two weeks. So so someone is listening right now who is so relating to the two of you and he or she is struggling because their their real estate's like grapes, right? Nothing. Nothing a bunch, right? Nothing. Nothing a bunch. And whether they're in a bunch or nothing, they know that it's not sustainable. Right, As you experience, it's not sustainable. How what would you say to that person right now to get them over the fence to hire a part-time virtual assistant to call their neighbor who needs a part-time job and say come help me with my paperwork or my transactions Or help me with my marketing or whatever it may be that that next layer of help? What do you say to that person? I would say pick up the phone and do it or swipe the card, pull the trigger because what that does is it creates consistency and it gets you off their real estate roller coaster because you're able to focus on what you do best and you've got somebody to do all the other stuff that kind of takes you away from the phone calls and the prospecting and marketing and all of that, the money making stuff. Yeah, but Jamie I'm afraid because you know, you know. didn't you see that we're only forecasting 4.7 million sales and interest rates are going to be at nine and I'm afraid and the world's gonna fall apart and we're all going to die. And you want me to hire someone? Yes, Like that's the stuff that goes through people. Yeah, they don't always say I want to die. but we know we're six moves from deaf and dying in every decision, right? So yeah, you know, hire an assistant. Oh my. God Die yeah. What do you say to that person? I I Really Say that. Help them get over the fear I Say that to treat this like a business, right? If you're really passionate about real estate and wanting to succeed, then you need to use your highest and best use of time. And that's probably building the relationship talking to the client. So do yourself a favor and swipe the card and hire that person because that will keep your focus on prospecting and moving forward then sitting back and worrying about paperwork because you're paying somebody to do that. It's part time, right? Right when Jen first started she was literally Jamie's assistant. Yeah, you know in what was like really eye-opening was how much she relieved and she was only part-time You know at summertime she was. She had you know, kids and and she was a teacher so she was just dabbling like let's see if this works. that's right and even in that context she she relieves so much of Jamie's workload and and did all the stuff that needed to be done well Jamie didn't need to do it though. Yeah and and so it relieved her Jamie's mind of that And that's really when Jamie's mind started going yeah I think it's it's the small brain versus the big brain thinking like choose the big brain thinking yeah, yeah, it's like it's like The Reptilian Brain which is oh my God we're gonna die yeah oh my God if I walk outside a sabertooth Tiger's gonna eat me yeah versus what's possible Yeah, have a little faith in yourself and a little confidence and pull the trigger. Yeah yeah, we were so nervous I'm sorry, no go no, we were so nervous about taking like Jen had she was a teacher she you know had a 401k. you know we weren't offering any of that and and so it was the most nerve-wracking thing from the business point of view to say um, okay, we're gonna do this like we were. We stayed up like thinking about it like we had Jen in her in our hands right? We were responsible for it. In in that was the small brain thinking it's like go big like pull the trigger like we should have pulled the trigger two years ago like I I shouldn't have come on we should have pulled the trigger for some somebody like that. yeah earlier I was listening to something uh this morning about um like if you like growing I forget what the vegetable was, it was like maybe a pumpkin and like this example was like you put a pumpkin inside it'll only grow to the size of the jar right? Michael In fourth grade when there was a snake in his class he came home and he said Dad we should get a snake and I was like mine. he goes well I want to test like if we if we let it loose in the house they say that the snake only grows the size of the cage and I was like oh no what if it eat your brother yeah awesome but like I knew he was like I want to test to see how big I can get. That's like exposure right? It's all. It's pushing the boundaries As you're saying like the sort of Limitless thinking yeah, how does somebody go from constrained thinking you know, low ARCA perspective thinking to thinking this way I Think educating yourself I think and I think a big part of it is your mindset and what you do every morning to start your day I Really feel like if you start on a schedule, a routine, whatever it is that you need to do to make to just believe in yourself I think that's a big step for people and I think that's sometimes hard to do, especially when you listen to all the negative stuff that's going on in the world and everything about the market. It's like you know, tone all that out. believe in yourself, look at yourself in the mirror and do what you need to do to grow on a daily basis and push yourself. But I think for me that we talk about it at our house. that's a big brain thought. like we are talking constantly about what's your big brain thought today, you know. But just not having any limits. There shouldn't be any limits, right? Why are there limits right? right? right? Yeah, Not letting the obstacles and the challenges that are part of the the process stop you Or like paralyze you right? And that's again, that's a Jamie strength. It's like okay, how do we get around this? How do we fix this I need to be there now right? Yeah, right? But that that thinking comes from somewhere right? Like that's not a college course, right? That's not a high school course that's a got your ass kicked a couple. That's a survival course, right? That's the survival like that's you know coming from the streets coming from a hardship right? that you're like, well, if I want to eat Yeah! I'm telling everybody today like this is a Predator Market right? Like this is the Lioness market, right? Wake up in the morning, take care of your family, Kill something. Bring it back to your kids. Yeah, you didn't kill anything. No one cares. Go back out kill again. Yeah, right. Which people are like? Well, yeah. and I'm like, uh, you know it's aggressive not having money. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's really aggressive. Like let's see how long I can go without money like that's aggressive in real estate. Yeah, to me, aggressive is not making phone calls. Okay, let's transition. So here we are today: I Don't know what day today is? Whatever, it's sometime in November It's his birthday today. No way it is. Yes, I'm not saying it on the podcast. So today you have how many people in the business? 36 total, 36 total, over 500 transactions. We were talking uh, earlier. I got a text from DC that showed me your three primary goals for 2023. walk us through. We should put this up on the screen. By the way, walk us through. Why three goals? Why those three goals? And let's talk about what we feel we have to do to make those goals a reality because there's some. There's some big ass goals in here. Yeah, Huge. So so why why only three goals? Um, well um. the big reason is so that I don't drive everybody crazy. That's number one because I'm notorious for walking into a room after I've talked to you or David Caldwell and said I've got seven great new ideas. Let's start. Yeah, um, so that's number one, but hold on. Yeah, why is that a problem As a leader, Why is that a problem? I didn't think it was a problem, but now I know it's a problem. Okay, but now you know it. Yeah, So for the people that are looking at what, who is he looking at off camera, it's the people that say this is a problem. It's a problem. Because why? Because they haven't finished the stuff you talked about last week before exactly and we only have so much time and capacity. Yeah, and I have um, I have some like my whole leadership team or unicorns, right? And so the minute I give them a project, they're on it. Yeah, and they may say that's not a good one or whatever and we talk about it and either scratch it or do it. but they do it so they don't say no either, right? So that's a problem because we never really got anything fully done. That's the key. So the person listening. Do you hear that If you have too many goals, if you have too many things you're trying to accomplish in your business, there's the 10 10 things I want to do in my business. I'm like it's one, two, three too many. Yep, you get Beyond three. It's too many. Whether you read four disciplines of execution, you re-measure what matters. You need traction you'll be managing by Harold Janine Everyone says the same thing. one, two, or three goals Max right? So so how do you think this is going to play out in 2023 with your team? It's gonna be awesome. They have a permission to tell you to shut up and no, yeah, oh yeah, all the time. Okay, this is being recorded, yeah all the time they they have zero problem with that. And so the role this coming up here is. if it doesn't affect the three goals, it gets put on another board for the next year, right? Um, so good idea. Yeah, not this year. that's right. And so it's been very clear to marketing, to finance to sales to Ops everybody that if it doesn't affect what we're trying to do for this 2023, then we're not doing it. Okay, so tell us what the three goals are for this year increase or we're supposed to hire 48 agents. Okay, that's number one. So so how many net effective agents will you have at the end of the year if you have how many today? Now we have 26 today. Okay, so 26 hiring 48, How many will be net affected by the end of the year Because we, for the person listening I keep saying net effective. Like how many are actually going to sell houses right? How many will actually be with us, right? Because you'll hire some people that didn't work out that told you they wanted to make phone calls and do open houses and take leads and go sell houses. Yeah, until they did. until they didn't Yeah, so our our goal is 50 to 55 net effective agents. Okay, so 50 to 55 net effective agents and you own? The Brokerage right? No, no, we're with Compass. Yeah, Yeah. I Just want to clarify. yeah, On a team on a team, Where do they all sit? Well? Um, they don't. They see him. Yes. so it's all fun. It's the end of commercial real estate. Yeah, some commercial broker right now. Like no, no spaces. Okay, so one is higher. 48 get to 50 to 55 net effective. What's number? What's the number two goal? Um, lists 500 homes this year. Okay, that's a big number. It is a big number. How many listings did we have sell this year? 170 ish. Okay, so 170. If so for the listener, should we unpack How we're going to make that happen? I Think we should. What's number three is to increase profit up to 35. Okay, so increase owner discretionary income AKA profit to 35. Okay, pre-tax I'm assuming Yes, Yes. And then you pay your taxes. Okay, good. so let's let's unpack first. How to go from 170 listings to 500? And it's just great that my next coaching session is with Lisa Channel? Oh fun And we're having the same conversation. so I'll take some notes and we'll we'll maybe we'll do that. call together. Yes. Okay, why don't we even say call? We live on Zoom All right. so how are you gonna go? Give us some examples. and if you two want to jump in and add flour to this, how are we going to go from having 170 listings sold to 500.?

well we've got a couple. Let me pull up my board. Oh, we've got a couple of of different avenues that we're going to look at this year. I know I'm putting you on the spot. Yeah, no can I please look at the board. Yeah, no, it's good. The first one is is Director of Sales Gen. We are diving into our database. Okay, so one is how big is the database? Uh, 18 000. So we're going to focus on the 18 000 people in our database and cultivate a higher percentage of listing referrals. And referrals. And referrals. And referrals? Correct, that's number one. Okay, Um, with that, she's gonna. you know we're talking about role playing, having more conversations, having more meaningful conversations with people, and just getting our agents aware that they're going to have to switch that mindset that they were in six months ago, which I think we're doing a pretty good job at right now? Absolutely. Um, number two is marketing. Uh, part of our listing plan is to make sure that for every listing that we do get, we get two deals from that. so that's one of them also. Yeah, and then we're gonna big shout out to Eileen Rivera the Queen of Take One listing. get two more deals every time. So the one for two? plan. Yep, and then we have a different campaigns that we're going to be running. So one of the campaigns that we're looking at is the over 65. So trying to Target sellers that are over 65 that need a downsize. so I know why you're doing that. Why are you doing that? I'm doing it because in our area, there's a really great opportunity I believe for people that are over 65 that need to move down. Yes, there's so many grandparents and a smaller house. Oh yeah, absolutely yeah. yeah. Get out of the two-story get into a ranch. Yeah right. They've got so much equity in their property and so I'm going to remind. The Listener So if you if you look at the U.S or wherever you are in the world, look at your own demographic of Ages We just talked about this on a live show. The single biggest demographic today is obviously the Millennials 21 to or 22 to 42. they're now selling their first house right? Which is you know they've had that second kid or that third kid or they're having their first. They're like okay, we need more space, but the biggest demographic to pay attention to is the Baby Boomers from like what is it 65 to I'm going to screw this up to 80 or whatever the number is but they have more real estate and they have more Equity than anybody else any any other demographic. so that is a huge opportunity. So you're going to do a demographic Farm of 65 year olds with two-story houses with two-story houses 65 years I Think we'll focus on two story, but I think we'll probably broaden it over to yeah, just yeah. But yeah, this is good because we're having a coaching session right now. Yeah, exactly yeah. The the twos that you you had said somewhere in in about the two-story like you know, 65 and at the time like we literally just moved my mom from a two-story house that she like the carpet upstairs is brand new. she lived in that thing for 15 years. Yeah and and we put her in a ranch yeah you know and and so in that knowing that and just gone through that personally it was like Aha and so targeting those people, that and they they have more Equity How many? how many um, did you use like remain your MLS or just you know, shout out to remind or whatever data mining solution you have associated with your MLS to pull up the stats. Do you have a research query on 65 or 75 year olds with no equity in two-story houses? Yep, Remind. Yeah. How many did you get? Um, gosh, we got about 22 I Won't say 22 000 in the whole Houston area. not just Katie though we went broad. So yeah. So if you narrowed the focus assuming you're going to narrow the Focus right? right? test on a smaller Focus Yeah, produce results and then go broader. So 22 000? that's big quite a bit. Yeah, with no, um, with no mortgage that was with no mortgage? Wow, yeah, that's a Huge. That was a huge area. Yeah, right. that's A. And then do you know all of the uh, 65 and older communities that they might move to? Yes, we've got them all flagged, right? Okay, good. and you're making inroads there relationships there. We've got a brand new one actually opening up in our area that we've become. you know? Absolutely Yeah, Yeah, just some of our old relationships have gone over there, right? And so right. We've got a great connection there too. So yeah, yeah, it's like my clients in the Northeast I Just say them like if you're doing a demographic Farm Just like six postcards a year of. like a picture of a beach in Florida Yeah, right. Yeah, just start in November yeah and finish around March Yeah, exactly. This could be you, right? Some toes over and over again. Okay, so campaigns like demographic farming? What else? Um I think the other one that we're tackling that we're looking into with our lender is people that are in forbearance. Yes, so for us, um, we're kind of in the test stages small. It's going to be a small list if you're talking about like you know from the pandemic, right? Yeah, Still, it's going to be a list nonetheless. Absolutely. And I think it's somewhere we could also help. where they they take the equity that's out of their property. They don't lose it. They don't tear up their credit right for us. I think that's a really positive way for us to give back and help I Love it. Yeah, it's like a it's like the opposite of a short sale. Yeah as much. Equity Yeah, exactly. so so that's a great one kind of marketed on that Avenue Okay so forbearance right? What else what I was thinking about? um are other kind of program that we're looking at is our Legacy program which if we talked to you guys about but just helping the community that's retiring or leaving the real estate industry I Really feel a need to give back to those agents that have given so much to our community? we created a program to where they come to us, we co-market with them. but as we co-market with them that we also you know work their database right? Yeah, which they're not working really exactly. Yeah, such a smart idea, but they do get residual income from it and it's our way of giving back. So I'm looking at this board and you have all these initiatives I think what's important for the listener right now to think about is we're talking to a husband and wife team that start in 06. Did open houses, did open houses in Relo, made a lot of phone calls double their business again, but then an epiphany like I'm having a baby I can't do this anymore. Brought another sales person which I still think is insane but I knew that's probably what happened. Then you finally get Jen it starts to change and now we're talking about going from 500 transactions to listing 500 homes in a year. What what is she gonna do when you only list 393. yeah. like my favorite thing I don't know I was like yeah, we're gonna have to calm her down. Yeah and and but it sucks making money right? Like it we've gotten, we've still increased and we got very close to our goal. Yeah, Jamie's going to know exactly why we didn't hit the goal in 2024 is going to be a lot brighter because of it. Yeah, because it is a math equation. Yeah right it is. How much Direct Mail How much phone calls? How many open houses? How much of x to Y right? like Lisa and I are talking about some some Google testable I'll tell you about you know off camera. Sorry, it's a really you'll hear about it later. Um, but we're getting a one percent conversion on sellers. Yeah, right with a specific type of AD And if you're getting one percent conversion and you're 11 weeks into the campaign, you're already getting one percent conversion and your CAC is like 1250 bucks. I'm like wow. 100 000 a month? Yeah, immediately. Yeah. Attack. But so how much of this is testing? And how do you? How do you do the test? How much time do you take with the test before you go? Good hypothesis, bad execution, or good hypothesis? Good execution. But it just didn't work. You know, not every infomercial television deal works. Yeah, not every show works. Not every marketing campaign works. Yeah, how do you guys run it? I I Think our one of our marketing focuses is making sure that stuff is trackable and and being able to track it and make the tweaks. The small tweaks. That will change it. We had a billboard. um I Don't know if this is off topic or not. We had a billboard that we just had words on like we're awesome right? Something like that and we changed it. Took all these words off and just said Real Estate redefine put Jamie's incredibly beautiful picture up there and um, black and white. slick and all of a sudden people were like, hey, just got a new billboard. We had a freaking billboard for, you know, So it's that. We learned from that in like you gotta tweet quick yes I think it's also too in real estate and I'm I was guilty of it. um is you do spend money. You do run different campaigns, but if you don't measure them right and trade track them then what's the point of doing it right and so. But but as a new agent or as a new team leader even I did things like that where I'm like what? Why am I doing this like what's the point of this? Why am I spending money on this? If I can't even track it to see what's happening with it, you don't know if it works. So I think before you spend money or do anything like that, have your system in place and figure out how you're going to track it to see if it works. I was looking at the Legacy tax conversation which is like QR codes on everything yeah QR codes on everything yeah, goes on everything and the person listening it's the it's how do you drag and measure Yeah right? Like I just did a webinar and I'm like and if you want more information you want to download as good as here's a QR code and I talk about it. I give them and I know they're just going click click click. But just like consumers are doing it right, don't put it on a billboard. You don't want people driving going. Yes, right. That could be bad. So so you're testing, You're tracking and measuring and then making good decisions from there. That's good. That's right. Yeah, so so let's unpack. First of all, thank you. And anyway, we can go deeper and deeper. But I think I think for you listening. Right now. you get they've got a plan. They've got a team. They're working on it. It's up in visual. We're going to track and measure everything. How in the world are the two of you going to hire 40 and I Know it's not the two of you, but it's the team. How are you going to hire 48 people in one year? How does that? How does that work? I Know real estate brokerages, They can't hire 48 people in a year. There's a manager listening right now like you have my attention. A team is going to hire 48 people. Yes, on lesser splits than a traditional real estate company. I'm sorry. tell me more about that. Well, um, personally, I believe that we have to give value to the person that we're interviewing right and I really feel when I When I got out of production this past year, my whole Focus became the agents and running the business. So for me, um everything that I do and say and the decisions I make are based on on the agents. Um so for us with recruiting, we do not recruit people or hire people that aren't serious about doing real estate. We want people to have a passion. We want people to have that grit. We turn a lot of people away actually and instead of turning them away, we say go get some experience and then come back and see us right? Um, so so for us, it's just really important to make sure we have that right, hire and to stay on track with the Kpis making the phone calls but also showing the person in front of us the value that our team gives them. yes and I Do believe. One of our biggest strengths is that we care about the whole person, not just about your goal for the the month. So we give people we have financial advisors, come in, we have holistic doctors come in. We want the person the whole person to succeed. Yeah, so I I think that's part of our value proposition. but I'm very strong I feel very strong about our value proposition too. I get that. So then what about the Tactical side? Because if you're turning people away, one would argue you need to probably 4X that number in terms of interviews exactly I Mean just knowing recruiting in real estate for 30 years it could be even 5x the 48. I Already know it's gonna be like 250 right? 250 and you talk to you? Yeah, yes, which means how many actual touch points do you need to have 250 people raise their hands? Are these all unlicensed Getting licensed? Are these people in licensing school and you're marketing to them? Or they just got their license and you're now you know targeting that? I Mean where are they coming from? Well, resources? Yeah, we're Crystal Clear not Avatar right? Like we have an avatar. Our recruiting director knows what we want and she's very passionate. Why do you have an avatar? Because I want her to make sure that when she's interviewing somebody that they fit into our culture. but also the agent that does very well in our team. And typically the agents that do very well in our team are agents that have been in the business a year to year and a half that have done like six to twelve deals but can't quite figure it out. When they come into our system and plug and play there, they tend to do really really well. Yes and so and I think for a brand new agent, we may run a little too quick for brand new agents, so that's why we say go get some experience and then come back. But anyways. Um, we I we treat recruiting just like we would treat a buyer or seller lead. We've got different pillars, right? and so he's got marketing exactly. Yeah, and so when you kind of put it that way, it makes sense. We we talked to our vendors. our vendors always know we're looking for great people. Agent referrals we ask agents. we do surveys every transaction we do of course social media marketing. Um, you guys tag me in everything. Everything. Yes, Yes everything. Yes. Um so I think if you treat, we've gotten a couple of Agents from that. Yeah, that's good. good. Please don't tag me. But I think if you, if you treat recruiting like you would treat your buyer and seller leads and you treat that part of a very systematic pillar system with campaigns. and yes, it works well. Now the key to it all though is also having a really great reputation and treating your people nice and doing the right thing. Yeah, so who's the single throat to choke on recruiting who's ultimately accountable for it? Um, Director of Sales. Okay, yeah, I'm actually terrible at recruiting. They took me off of it because you would just talk people into joining. No. I would. if you told me a story I'd be like okay, yeah I can help you Oh exactly yeah, that's that's me. So they were like I need help I can help that. Don't worry, you have no money. You're about to die I can help you. Let's go. That's right. Yes, that was me. Okay, all right. so we unpacked a lot on this show. I'm I'm really first of all for the person listening right now. If they wanted to reach out to you guys and ask you a question, can they? Oh absolutely 100 Yeah, how do they reach out to you Okay Jamie at the Jamie McMartin Group.com Okay, yep, say it again. Jamie at the Jamie Mcmartingroup.com Okay, cool, what about on Instagram do you answer Instagram Facebook YouTube all that good stuff Yeah I had uh I had my buddy Jim on here is talking about you I did like a billion billion this year's run a team forever and he's like sure yeah like you know, yeah you could DM me on this or he had like 500 phone calls He was like okay yeah but it was great because now he's like literally like because he talks about I think you met him he does. He goes out and says let's go find every lot that isn't maximized at yield so it's a it's a you know R7 with a single family resonance on it. He's like let's go buy that and then we'll build seven houses. Now we've got seven listings. We don't have an inventory problem anymore. Yeah and people are like how do you do that? How do you do that? So get ready. Yes! because I'm ready. They're hearing the story of brand new wage in straight into the worst economy real estate's probably ever seen. right into you know, getting where you're at today which is absolutely bananas and where you're going. So the three big goals again are um 48 agents hired list 500 houses and then 35 profit. So what are you going to do differently to optimize profitability? Well, the first thing that we did was kind of look at all of our platforms. Little things like that. Just looking at our platforms to see all the reoccurring expenses. Yeah, Does anybody use this exactly? Yes. What is this for? Can we do something else differently? Does it work for us? We have three platforms. They all do the same thing exactly. Yeah, Which one does everybody use And that's what it's hard when they're like, Well, we like this one. We like this one. We like that one. Well, we're going to get rid of two of them. Yeah, we just did the same thing in my companies. It makes sense. So so finding the waste? What else? Well, I'm gonna argue that the first thing you did is you declared a goal. We did. Yeah. and the moment you declare goal, people like you achieve it. For the person listening, it's I Remember Earl Nightingale Saying you know it's not. It's not achieving the goal. it's setting the goal. The moment you set the goal, things start to. You know, Providence starts to move right. Everything starts to happen. So set the goal, reduce the waste. What else? How often are you tracking and measuring profitability? Well, that's something that we we haven't always been great at to be honest because everything just came in right, money came in, and so the last two years we've really been hyper focused on making sure that we look at numbers every day. Nate's in charge of all the finance so he's always telling us Yes, we call him the no guy. So yeah, we know more often. Yeah, yeah, so it's not known. It depends who's asking me. Yeah, yeah, yes exactly. but just just being hyper aware of what money is coming in and then also what's going out, right? Yeah right? I think it's being mindful of too. You got to look at you've got fixed expenses and variable expenses? Absolutely. And and you know can I Can I Can I find the waste in the fix like I'm going through the same thing with my company I'm like look, even though we're growing and we're profitable, like there's no doubt that we're going into a different Market There's no doubt we're going to a different economy and even though we're gonna hire way more people, we're going to technically increase a lot of our expenses. I'm like let's cut seven percent of our fixed cost. How can we do it? You know we got all that extra space could be sublease the space right? Like like I'm looking at every possible scenario and when you when you Empower people to look at that stuff, they find the waste. They find the waste. Absolutely. Then you got to look at your variable stuff and it's like this is why Marketing to me is our largest variable cost. So it's okay. How am I going to track a measure? How am I going to really optimize it? Nothing goes out without a CTA or a way to track a measure If I'm just going to set it out, just light the money on fire. Exactly. It's getting rigorous around that. Yeah, and that's when you start going Okay, wait. but having a monthly accountability around? Where are we at profit to plan and and everyone listening knows you're not going to get to 35 percent like the first month. It could be like 18 the first month and then the next month you have more closings, right? So you know, in real estate it's like grapes, right? Even at your level doing a gazillion deals, it's a bunch. A bunch. a bunch. a bunch shorter, maybe in the first quarter, a lot, in the second quarter, maybe less than the third, and a ton in the fourth. You know the seasonality of your business. Um, but where is the accountability on money? The accountability is is is tracking. You know, and knowing what our goal is? Are we on track for the goal? And how does that affect the the budget compared to the actual spend? Right in? In all four of those go together, both squeezing every result. Every lead we don't follow up on, every phone call we don't answer negatively impacts our Revenue. It negatively impacts our profit. All the all the money's in follow-up right? right? We say these things but like it really becomes real when you're like wow. We just closed seven transactions that we generated last year from Realtor.com or Homelite or whoever it may be and now we're getting paid on that. There is no more costs associated to it. That's a profitable you know I mean like if I was looking at it that way. So I hope the person listening really gets that. But I wanted to add like um I when you were talking. It made me think of right before covid or right when covet happened and we just started with Doug Actually at that time and one of the things that Doug told me is you do want to watch your spending, but you don't want to cut the things that are making you money Bingo And so for us, um, we are constantly being reminded or reminding each other. Okay, is that a money making Avenue for US Health Center versus profit center right? Don't cut the profits. Don't be rigorous. Yeah, but most people will, right? It's easy to go to the the most. You know the largest cost of of your budget and say we got to get rid of this. You know, 33 000 lead Source right? Yeah, Lead Source is bringing you in 120 000 a month. Yeah, you know why are you cutting it? You spend a dollar and you make three or four. I mean in the Universal Business my buddy Ken Like he's like if you spend a dollar and you make a buck, 50.

you should be spending 50 million dollars a month. Yeah yeah, that buck 50 that's 50 cents adds up really big right selling anything. But yeah, in real estate it could really be Spend a dollar, Make seven, Spend an hour. Maybe five. Seven dollars. make eight. email. It's like spend an army 44. that's right, right? So but it's understanding the numbers, tracking, measuring the numbers. Um, what? What's do you guys use? CSU CTE Excel spreadsheet Abacus Yeah. Abacus Yeah, that'd be great Abacus Okay, all right so I feel like I've asked you guys a ton of questions? This has been super valuable. Um Jamie Mcmartingroup.com the Jamie at the Jamie Mcmartingray.com Yeah, I was doing that wrong. so thank you for correcting me. So we got it out there again. All right. So as we wrap any closing thoughts: any any predictions for 2023, Anything you want to just share with a person listening right now? Good. Does she do that all the time? Yeah. You go ahead. Yeah, yeah. I'll piggyback off of you. Yeah, 2023 is like it's going to be incredible. right? Like the the market slowed down and we collectively we're We're excited. Like it was. It's a nervous right? It's not a fear. Yeah, it's interesting. Yes. and it's It's like this. we are about to get better. Holy like we're sorry. Um, we're about to get better like we can. We're going. We're going to dig into who we are. We're going to dig into growth and instead of slowing down, it's it's all gas. no breaks. I Love it. I Love it. That's a UT reference by the way. That's right. Yeah, let's go. That's right. Closing thoughts: Jeremy No I think um for the people out there right now that are nervous I I Say dig in to yourself. Get some confidence. Call me. I'm happy to talk to people. uh, but surround yourself with positive people that can impact your life in a positive way. and and don't have a ceiling? Don't listen to the media, don't listen to all the hype, and um, and keep that. just keep that open mindset. I think I Think it's going to take a lot of hard work though, so it's there's no doubt about it. Yeah, but treat it like a business. This is a business. It's a great business, right? I Agree I Agree. Millions and millions and millions of dollars in commissions. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, Well, thank you guys so much for being on the show. This has been super great I hope you you listen to this three or four times and I would certainly encourage you if you if you know someone who's feeling kind of oh this Market I would send in this right. Super inspiring but very tactical. Very thoughtful about how they grew and what they did and what they added and then going through that last part was bananas. um and then for you, just think about, what are you taking away from this, what's the action you're going to take? And as always, if you're whatever platform you already have to like subscribe, Hit the notification button. all that stuff to make sure you always get this in your inbox. So thank you so much for being you keep kicking ass and we'll see on the next podcast. Take care Foreign.