Hey welcome back to the podcast super excited uh, byron, lazine, nicole white in house. I almost called you the other name. Yes, so we're here at the moji all these cities that i go to that i'm like clearly these were like indian nation cities, because i cannot say it. Yes, i mean this is at least you're on a reservation.

Yes, we are. We really are that's why there is a casino here, because it is indian territory. This is what happens when you put three podcasters together. No longer immediately.

Is there a point to the show? No we're just gon na hang out. Okay, so actually um i've known these guys for a long time and you probably see them at events there's actually a very famous poster when you come to all of our events, it's you and byron like have you seen that it's so funny, though, because i think You're, like he's like, like an animal like he's, really big and like i'm really like. I don't know what the angle of that camera was. He looked like he was like towering things and like it's.

Yes, yeah but you're the one that stood out just for the record, obviously yeah, even though i think i called it, that's why they that's why they use it in marketing. That's exactly right: yeah, okay, so um! So you guys run a really successful. Business is um. One of the topics that we talked about a lot we were actually just just chatting about this off camera was when you're really successful.

The only thing you want is time yeah and when you're not really successful, the only thing you want is to be successful, which means i need more clients, so you two have created this. This sort of journey together, working together building these monster companies um. I want to talk about that, but let's start with the journey, so so nicole. When did you two first meet and sort of form this this business partnership? So it was probably what 2000 and maybe like 16 or 17 um before that 17 is when we started so yeah.

It had to have been 16 because because that's really when i started how social media was in 16., so again just two agents along the shoreline. Here in connecticut um, i was hosting actually so back then in 16, in connecticut the market was like sluggish like it has been until probably now um, and there happened to be like a bunch of houses along the this road in in westbrook, and there were. I would say yeah and again, like probably six: there were like probably 16 homes along this like stretch of road and they weren't selling super storm sandy kind of yeah yeah, and they were they were seasonal and again the market was sluggish. So i decided to host this like brokers open, so i reached out to every single agent.

You know asked them to like throw in 50, so we could give like gift cards to other agents. If they came to visit um, he sent his assistant to come and and and deliver deliver the money and and pick up his balloons like now. I look back and i'm like i'm handing out flipping balloons, but i give balloons whatever so then he emails, probably like four days later, he's like. Thank you so much.

What a great event and like i was actually shocked because i didn't even think he actually went like. I didn't actually know like his physical being. Was there um but from there again? But it wasn't. Oh, he was there or you were there.

He was there. He tried his hand off everything was set up. I showed up yeah, so he had someone set up his house for him because he's got like handlers right that like show up and move around. I feel like i'm his handler at this point.

I was tom's handler. Just five minutes ago, with josh so from there i mean we really just like we stayed in touch for you know it must have been at least like a year or two like i went on his podcast because he was with um another team. I was with another team and then one day we just like it was, i don't even know how it happened, but it turned into like this whole day pretty much like booze fest. Like we started at lunch, then we went bar hopping and like we, we were masterminding yeah yeah, i mean what it was.

I come from the jill uh style of math mastermind, like how did your business partnership yeah, i'm a vodka drinker. So that's fair um, but again we didn't like want the day to end and like by the very end. I remember. Turning and being like you know, if you just like lived closer, i would totally join your team yeah, and that was, and he turned and he's like all right.

Well, let's do it now like nicole's, a great planner with with the event and everything's like getting people together and when she gets to unpack all that by the way when she gets a lot of people together, it's people are really excited to want to be around Her so i kind of kept like you know, hinting to before this mastermind day. You know i kept hinting like hey, we should we should like be working together. We should be working, there's always just like now. You know, nicole, was very much.

I need an office in my town couldn't put together yeah, we were living 45 minutes, couldn't even like process that it was like. Oh yeah town brokerage sign got to have it all working local, yeah, yeah, very much yeah, and but again i mean that was what like six years ago, seven. So like again, my youngest was like three got it, so it was it, but it was. It was also just like yeah, i mean just that was comfort for me yeah.

So so were you recruiting? No, i was i was no. I mean like recruiting. No, i was recruiting her yeah. Yes, that's what i mean correct.

She says no, i didn't feel recruited. I just was having a good time. I was definitely recruiting. I mean i just i'm gon na, but we just had like a good time.

It was yeah again i mean, and i'm sure it's this way in in most states like you know, there's there's sort of what has always been, and you know he was doing what i was sort of doing in a different area of the state, and it was Like fun, it was like fun to like chat about it and hear about it. And yes, i mean i'm a really jealous person too. So, like i needed to sort of like figure out his mind too, because like he was like doing it a little bit better. So, like i was a little jealous, oh, she was crying.

She was having 600 people show up to a party right, but it was when i first met her in person. I was like she makes real impact, so there's leadership ability here right, there's an ability to like get other people on our you know on our team and attract the right type of people. Okay, so breakdown for us 17 is the first year 17 august of 17. We started the team, so what? What does the team look like from say? 2017.

18. 19. 20. 21.

What month, just just yeah i mean 17. - i mean we again. 17 was we were late, so you can cross out 17. It was a couple months over but again i was getting sued.

There was like things going on so, but it was fun like he sold. He just said he was getting sued on. The show, like i wasn't gon na bring that up later, like okay. So my last team partner sued me because he you know he was crying about the breakup and i was there - was nothing to sue over because i said, keep all the money.

Yeah keep all the money yeah like i'm, going over, i'm working with yeah the ravisses and nicole and we're building something new yeah, so clean slate on your end, but remember it's always easier to be sure. No, i get it to leave than it is to be left of course, of course, so yeah, okay, so again, i feel like each month was a little different like we really honestly started out the team, as byron would call like he really like again. It was mostly his vision, i was like sure, let's go um like we wanted. Like a ninja team, we wanted like a small group of agents.

We were talking ninja, stuff yeah different than today, yeah like like people. We we that believed in us trusted us and that we trusted in them. Trust was a big thing in 2018, when we started the team, we only wanted people who are going to be really loyal, really committed yeah, and that understood it. You know seal team yeah.

I mean we had both been on teams before and like, and at least for me i mean he was a team leader. I was not at my team and, like you always sort of you doubted, there was like questions and like where's, my money going and like what are they really doing to support me and and again, and that was also part of the reason why we didn't want. Like the team to be our name either, we wanted so much to be about, like our group and our people and like that, each one of them was important to us just as much as like we were to them. So that was my number one rule like was like we're not doing a name well bill bill.

Ravis is like yeah, he said no way just call it byron team. What's wrong with your name, i said: nicole, kill me first of all went into our first meeting with the marketing like division and they and they had all this stuff ready for us, and it was all the byron lazine team. I remember calls like excuse me. I did i was like i haven't eaten yet so this is not a great okay, so you you decide on a name.

You decide on a culture that you want. Yeah right, you decide, you decide some values that you want. We want. You know integrity and we want trust.

We want to be in this together and hard work and let's go committed. Yes, how'd that work out. We started a new agent program, yeah well yeah, 2018, 2009. Yeah 2018..

I mean again this little news. How did that work out? And you said we started a new agent that was like our first big. Oh, it changed it changed. I mean the new agent program was evolved.

No, but the ninja thing changed. I mean we went from four people to all of a sudden. It was like nicole, we need 20. and then we need 20 and then and then it was like an office and then decorate this office and then all right we need to like it was it didn't.

It didn't stay that way very long, right, um again the the turnover at the very beginning. Obviously, you know we probably brought in three and would lose two yes um, and then we started to really i feel like hone honen and that's when the new agent program came in because then we started to hone in on needing to actually like help. People understand, you know how important the culture was and how important the the actual business is. It's not just like hey you walk in and if your phone rings you know, so that was when byron then wanted to start.

The new agent program was because we were wanting these people, but like they don't walk in being a byron and nicole like day one. You know i mean we had been. Obviously, cultivating our businesses, for you, know six seven years at that point: businesses, skills, communication negotiations and then also like, obviously like you know, you know, byron's phone could ring right now and someone wants to list their home. So we also had you know.

You know the residual sort of business coming in and now we were having to get these agents to sort of you know be successful and feel that comfort that we did you know in a very uncomfortable time. Really i mean again, the connecticut real estate market hasn't been stellar, so yeah i mean we. We again i mean again, and i have to give it all to byron, because i just like he'd call me and i'd be like yep like i'm like it's a joke, though i mean we still like. If we get into a fight like in the morning like one of us will like just text, yes like we always like reconfirm like yes, this is what we want.

That's our apology. Yes, we own the domain, like we have now now an ongoing joke, like we have yes in our office like yes, i get it yeah. We are yes, okay, so let me let me write down 2018, how many transactions well you're better than i've erased these low numbers. From my mind completely, i feel like it was around 200 uncomfortable.

No, it wasn't 200 transactions 100. It was. It was over 100. 2015..

Okay, so, let's just say hundred ish: let's go 100-ish. We were pathetic in 2018 yeah that first year i was going to bring that up. Yeah yeah, okay, what's your interest remember that first year we wanted to do 50 million. I was like.

Are you insane? We did, we did 40 million or something like that. 50 million. I'm like are you that would be about right. 100 transactions.

400. 000 sales, price ish. What did you guys do in 2019? It's just like this is like yesterday. That's how new this is twenty.

It doesn't oh, but again we had the pandemic the pandemic. Just you. We lost like what pandemic it's over. We lost the year.

I feel like it just went by like that quick, i would say: i'm lying 2019.. I almost have to work backwards. We should have taken notes: okay, well, what'd, you do. In 2021, we did just over 500 deals.

500 transactions - 186 million - congratulations! What'd! You do in 2020 was that must have been 250.. We've been like doubling. We've been doubling yeah, okay, so 250. yeah and then 2019 was between 100 and 250, so call it a 170 or something okay.

So so carolina where's carolina, our ops manager, was my executive assistant before nicole and i started working. Where is carolina she's now our obstacle? She knows my passwords, she knows yeah, i mean i need carolyn she's, the boss she's the boss. This is how hard it is to do a podcast with podcasters yeah. You guys know what i'm talking about.

Okay. So let let's break this apart, so you guys put together the seal team. You've got this intention. You've got the value set, that's how we're going to do it, you start doing it and it doesn't work.

What happened hire three. You hire three two leave and then you have this moment. We screw the team, no, let's, let's hire 20 more yes, but we, but something was missing a way to create repeatable success, a way to build agent success. So that was really, i think you know.

So we had these ideas of what we wanted the team to be, but we never actually like specified them. They weren't written down like the like we didn't like now. People know like our standards like they know like they know our, like. Our three we've changed.

Our actual words multiple times, but we never real like we. Never it wasn't until we had like that guilford office, where we then engaged the entire team, we gave them a whole list of words on a sheet of paper and we asked them all to circle. Like brown like dare to lead, this was in the this is probably before pandemic years, so 2019 2018, whatever 2019 yeah, probably 19 yeah. All these words like what does this mean we kind of came up with at that time, hardest working team accountability? You know it was a collection because we were a small team, maybe 12 agents or whatever yeah like circle like you're.

Five, like what words are popping out to you like family, obviously was certain, and why are they popping out yeah? So it was. It was that, but again remember like so was this a value reset like who are we when we're at our best versus who we are like? This is a very classic exercise like what are the words that describe us when we're at our best? What are the words that describe us when we're not at our best avoid that value clarification reset whatever you want to call it, but it gave everybody like a direction because again, we all were again. We were all very like-minded people and we were so excited and, like we had now, these two offices and again but like buyer and i were still very much selling too so like we're, you know you're and we don't have like a manager in the office. So there was no real true, like presence in our like at the time, though we credit to jason ferris, shout out jason.

He was our coach at the time he was our first team plus coach with tom ferry coaching and jason really helped us kind of organize that and put that hardest working. That's what i wanted to get. That was the biggest thing, because we also i mean i think jason actually helped byron, and i because, like he was going and like i was feeling sort of left behind and like where do. I belong in this so again, like that? Yeah jason was huge in that because, like he - and i i remember sitting on the curb outside the office and he's like what are you like, what's going like? Are you a part of this team and i'm like i don't really feel like? I am but like i'm like here like i'm, but i'm here like i'm here, you know we hadn't had roles really defined.

That's what i'm writing down is like it's new agent training which we're going to talk about, but it's really like. How did you go from sort of like this is a really great idea to like having a management methodology, a structure, standard operating procedures? Well, to be honest, i feel like that. Just happened like what, maybe eight months ago, like that, we really honed in on well. We've gotten better for sure last year, but what nicole, when she's, saying in 2019 feeling left behind like yeah lucy who's, been with been with me first agent, i ever hired yeah even before this team lucy like had a defined role.

At that time we had our new agent program and it was it's evolved a lot more today, but we had our new agent program up and running and nicole was kind of like okay well, like lucy's, managing brand new agents, barnes, visionary leading the team. You know, and we didn't even use the word vision until we started you know doing other stuff, but yeah yeah. It was like that weird part where it's like. Okay, well, like i come in on tv and like we would like we'd, have listings together and like nicole, like we're like.

Can you pick a wall color, you know like it was. You know like so, but all the while sales leader house, flipper doing personal sales. Your design business, your charity, business mom of the entire company plus mama 3. It wasn't like you were lacking purpose.

Oh no, i was definitely not lacking. I i was. I was lacking purpose with within the team yeah yeah. So how did you solve for that? Because i think every every person listening right now, if there's, if there's someone listening who's on a team who feels disconnected yeah, they need to hear this and every and every team leader yeah needs to realize that you know, like the the great microsoft study that was Done that was like a third of their workforce was actually understanding the vision in a line which means that two-thirds of, like four hundred thousand people in the world were just kind of doing their thing right right and i always get the the vision and the message And the clarity as to why yeah so like, so what did you do to get in the fold? Yeah i mean, i think i i mean.

I think it all boils down to. One thing is just communication: um, i'm a horrible communicator and byron is like an over communicator and that's also like everyone listening to the podcast would totally disagree right now. No well, i think, but i think when it comes to like when it comes to business 100 like because will will will have arguments and like i shut down and then like he'll re-engage it. So it really boils down to communication.

What was the communication? Was it by you was it? Did you sense like i'm losing her? I got to pull her back in losing me again again. I i feel, like i go back to jason in this in this situation. You know, i think, that he, then you know voiced sort of how i was feeling or - and maybe it wasn't necessarily about the team. I think it was certain people with on the team that weren't working for me um and then that was, i feel like how we then were in my mind.

That's how i remember like we're not working for you or not working like for you energetically, which one no, that like they weren't working like like they just weren't working like they weren't a good fit yeah like a fit energetic. Yes right, yeah! So, like i wasn't you like, we had this incredible team, but i wasn't utilizing any of the resources like. I was telling my team to utilize the resources. I was telling my team to utilize.

You know you know individuals on the team but, like i wasn't yeah, so you weren't in alignment. I was not isn't that weird when you find yourself in that management role, you're like i'm, telling everybody to do this, but i'm doing that yeah. So how did you come to grips with that and what did you do about it? We moved people around. I mean we then had real conversations.

So did you have a trust issue? That's why you weren't using them or is it a control, freak alina control freak elena at? But i yes, that's how it started. Yes, did you have to text that yes um, and i think, though, that if i trusted them like i trusted myself, i would have been able. I would it's the i can do it at a 9900 and this person can do it in 87.. I'm not willing to give up the 13.

yeah well, but there was, but but again there was so many things that again, because at this point, like three quarters of this team was people that byron had been working with before we joined. So i was like, even though byron - and i you know like started this like i was still like - i was joining that yeah. You were still even though it was a new brand new team yeah. She was a founder, it was, do you remember the conversation we had the other day about the uh from mark you, you work on buying a company for a hundred days, yeah, and then you guys are totally cemented.

We were just in this conversation about acquisitions. It's like you're working together rigorously for a hundred days and the drinks and fun and grinding through you know all this stuff, but then you announce and for them it's day one yeah right, so you had a little the day, one like they had been doing this. For a while, and even though you guys had had this thing like it was day one yeah, it was day you know, 500. and by the way that happened going back to like 2017 2018.

That happened to me early on my number one buyer agent we've been talking about this for whatever three months before it happened right day: 101 yeah, it's like! Oh we're doing this great thing: okay, yeah! I trust you i'm coming with you, but then six months into it was like yeah, i'm out yeah on this deal, and that was like. Oh this growth there's going to be some pain in it, because it was somebody that holidays yeah, a stillover. No, i know that yeah, but i'm like okay for us to get to the next place. We're gon na have to give up some things that we've been accustomed to, that we're really comfortable with right.

Okay, so i'm gon na i'm gon na switch the focus for a second, so byron. You got multiple business owners right, multiple companies that you're running essentially right you, you took full advantage of the 2020 2020 and transitioned your life down to florida, full advantage of a lot of a lot of things, a lot of things right and and the business as We just talked about the numbers, i mean you go back to 170ish, what it was 250 than 500, and what will you do this year? What's that we'll do a thousand transactions and we're on pace right so going from 500 transactions to a thousand transactions? We are tied right now with lisa chanati and i'm looking at you and she's like her little brokerage over there yeah. I love it. That was a mic three minutes and that number will change.

She's gon na buy 37 houses tomorrow yeah. So i i say this because and look again i say sales leader house, flipper doing your own sales design business, the charity, things that you do you guys are incredibly busy. I said it in the very beginning: everyone that's successful, wants more time and everybody that isn't successful wants success, but it means clients and all these other things. So what are you doing now? How are you operating all these businesses and i'm going to come to you and say how are you operating all these projects right, including people, so so unpack that, for us, we've gotten in real alignment in terms of how we're operating in the last - and i think That's probably said eight months earlier, because in those last eight months we are now our weekly meetings look completely different.

We actually have them yeah, yes, so step one. So we were doing a lot of nicole would tell me an issue. I might tell our ops manager carolina it or i might not, but nicole's assuming carolina knows because her and i talk all the time and that that problem's getting solved. But maybe i didn't communicate to her and it never happened or i have a problem at a ten and like he's in another meeting somewhere else.

But i don't know that i'm like. Why are you not answering me and then he gets mad at me because, like you're bothering me but like i'm like this is kind of important lucy doesn't even know what's going on she's in her whole world new agent program, and maybe she needs to know what So this 90 minute communication communication - i mean so you've created a a singular meeting place or a multi-meeting place where everything gets discussed, save that for monday, save that for friday, yeah save that for monday right. So we call it idsing, like oh ids, that we have a group chat. It's called road to a billion and it's ideas.

I like that yeah i like that it's changed. Originally it was road to 50 agents and then it changed to road to 100 agents. Again we're talking within like like six weeks. It keeps like every four days.

It changes. Yeah well, and i don't know which i don't. I don't know what the goal is until, like the the thread name changes and then it you know goes to like, but everybody finds out at once now we need a hundred agents clearly, but one thing's for certain. It's not we're slowing down we're, not slowing down right.

Everything sounds like it accelerated, but was there always a of like you guys, hit number one in the state, so you got that one check right. Are you one of the best places to work yet in the state? No, we got to do that. We got to put in for that. Do you do that? We've done like the local newspaper like uh, i mean there's yeah.

There is the best of these we've done a couple of different shoreline newspaper of the day we're the best of best of luck. We were the best brokerage we're like oops. We were the best brokers because we're not perfect, i'm sure yeah, starting with bill ravis, hey! No, he didn't, he didn't care actually, but people on that side of the state cares. So so you know you josh is the president of our company, we're talking about it yesterday like we're, like we're totally committed to this as he joined and now we're like, but it also could be this now.

Both those two things are ultimately leading us in a singular direction. It's just that we're taking path a or path b, so him saying 50 agents. Now it's 100. Now it's a billion.

It was probably always like. We just want to keep stretching to keep growing yeah, but go back to things. So every monday you guys are meeting, tell us. What's in the meeting, give us the meeting agenda.

Give us yes understand what you want. Well, no, you can go ahead. I mean we follow eos, so we started doing that. So we have like a.

I guess. We call her like a coach, an eos coach she's, an implementer and we've worked with our tom ferry coach on like okay yeah. What makes sense, what doesn't? How long do you keep it, so we did like a full like nine to five, like doors were locked and we started like ripping everything apart within the business. What was working, what wasn't, what are roles, what are people responsible for and just like everything was finally getting written down, yeah and again, and it's because even at that point too, like my number, one thing was like what is like.

Where do i stand like? I want to walk out of this, knowing where i stand and where everyone else stands. So it exposed some other leaders - oh yeah, of course so from so, but what's the monday meeting so from there so again give them the money meeting or i'm going to have to pick it up so monday. We meet every day. It starts at 1205 and it runs until 1 35.

So it's an hour and a half, but again it's you know what is it nicole? We spend five minutes on a segway, so we talk about you know. Each of us have to give a positive from our our business and then our personal yeah, and then we go through um, again sort of uh what it's called like a score card. Oh, we do the headlines yeah, i'm sorry we do headlines like what's what's happened like if someone has graduated new agent program or someone's laughs or like these, are on boarders like like the headlines, yep kind of the primary dashboard, here's the numbers that matters yeah the Most well, that's our scorecard. So we go through that, like you know, are all of our agents on board to hit the standard like in terms of under contracts during a road for the month, yeah yep, because we do have a standard there, um and then we look at retention.

Is you know, have, have we been in touch with all of our agents? Are they happy? Are they not? Are they? You know being responsive, all that and then um we then we, then we do our to-do list, oh yeah, and then it goes into the then. We have 60 minutes of all that crap there. Somebody brought up on a thursday, it's like put it into the l-10 meeting right yeah, and then we do to-do's again then cascading messages who's going to deliver the message to who a lot of times it's caroline. At the very end we grade ourselves.

How do we feel? How do we feel about this? I always give us a zero. They always are like a seven or eight. No he's never hit a zero. I mean it's usually like a two two yeah, i'm like a freaking two yeah.

So so one of the things we we observe a lot is the uh, the more ambitious you are, the more dissatisfied you are. We talked about on the plane last night, it's like that's like that is or at dinner right, like it's, a symptom right like oh you're, never satisfied, you're, gon na be really successful right. It's just the way it is so so, but from here our ops manager. Now has used this format with the admin team, with the recruiter, with our what we call scr the isa team yep, and so it's all broken down where she's running these mini meetings, funneling back into the leadership meeting, which is nicole, i uh caroline and lucy yeah.

We even have an agent advisory board and we use the same yeah same formula so everybody's in the same meeting standard and i'm on the one trying to kill is the lack of calms, the forgetfulness or back channeling and all the things that happen. When you know like, i thought he said, and did we agree on this? Well, i don't think that's right, like yeah get it all in one spot, yeah hammer it out yeah what did uh greg, greg, schwartz, tomo say the other day. He said it's velocity. Yes, right we're able to move a lot faster over the last six to 12 months for sure than we ever have, and so it's no surprise that the numbers right are following.

So let's unpack two things um. Actually, i want to come to you first, how do you keep it all together, her head's a skeleton? Well, i know i'm that's obvious right and i say that with love you, you probably have more talent in your thumb than most people will have in a lifetime. Like you know what i mean, she just oozes all this talent and possibility. How do you keep yourself together, like three kids, how many 100 sales people? I appreciate that i mean like keep it all going.

Actually, you know took my hoodie off today. No, i don't know i mean, but i don't know any different like i. The moment that i have nothing to do is like when i like. So again, we were talking about time.

If you gave me more time, i would just fill the time right. Yeah i mean i would just it would be something new or something different or yeah. I i i i don't know. Byron always makes i do start using.

I did start using a calendar before before i met byron. It was like. I never used a calendar, it was, i knew it. I got a little jill biggs in here.

Do you see that i knew my wife same thing? I knew it was. I knew what i had to do on tuesday, like my head is broken up into days and and then weeks and then months and like they all fit in and she doesn't miss appointments because i'm like where are you keeping this? I don't miss anything. I don't know, is it all up here, it's everything is up there. I i i i'm so impressed and my husband will do it all the time because, like like we'll be watching something or somebody will say something and then i'll like from there like my head, goes and then i'll go and he's like.

Can you just? I need to know how you got there like. How did you get from like wrapping paper to like an addition like on our house and like it's just and then it's yeah, that's how it's always been so you're super visual, obviously right because even you're drawing it out. I am visual, i'm i'm like you too, though, like i don't. I can't make anything on like i'm.

I everything's i'm still a pen and paper girl, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, i mean i. I would do much better if i had 80 or adhd, which one i'm neither am i i don't know. I don't know, okay, hmm, because no but like so. I have lots and lots of.

I mean myself slightly greg. You mentioned right. So a lot of the most talented people - i know yeah have these super powers, but almost every one of them has a little adhd. A little add right like it's hard for them to sit still in one place right.

They got seven thousand things going on and somehow they can magically remember every single one of them yeah right, but you have the rare talent that you actually can stay on time. That's impressive! I mean. Do i stay on time for the most part yeah i mean. I'm usually, she hasn't missed appointments.

If it's no, i don't miss an appointment, but i, but i again i if you were to ask my family or any like i'm, i'm usually about 10 minutes behind, but that's also because in my mind, everything takes 10 minutes to get there. Oh she's, one of those yeah josh, my lovely wife. If we're supposed to leave in 45 minutes yeah in 46 minutes, she starts getting ready yeah, i mean because everything just everything everything takes 10 minutes. Sorry, if you're listening so yeah i mean so that's that's.

Everything takes 10 minutes, so that's everything in my mind, like i always have 10 minutes like 10 minutes yeah. I love it though. Okay, so i'm gon na go totally different direction. Um, you guys started a podcast right and it's multiple.

Now, right i mean you got the radio show, you got the podcast walk us walk us through the content calendar as it stands today the content calendar. We need jill here. First thing: we need to do jill for the content calendar. Our gel uh, the radio show, is super local yep, that's fm radio.

That's every sink goes saturday. 11 to noon the agents are armed with us being. The only team in the state that can offer that we want to be like tom has taught us. The only team that can offer x, y and z so listings and open houses and then we're doing obviously local economy, local market data.

Some of the data that you shared with everybody today we're sharing that kind of data. You know localized to connecticut market right our podcast. The real word is episode: 2, 15, 16, 15.. Okay and we've done that today, 2015, so weekly show weekly, show every tuesday four years yup four years since 2017..

Um and i mean we started with that greg higgs. Stop zillow, i mean our first show so it so again. We were literally like it was like week one and he was like nicole we're going to do a podcast, and i was like i've. Never i had never done one.

I knew i had been on his with his old partner and i did 175 episodes of that and i was just sort of like. Oh, this is fine and he's like, but i want it to be news and i'm like not fine, i'm like i don't do politics and i don't do news like those are two things that i need to stay so far away from. So i was like how about i'm like because we're again, i'm like we kind of we like grew up like 90s, like the real were like the real world like, oh, my god, we got ta, do like the real word like i'll. Do like i'll.

Do that like, let's do something fun where it's just like it's real estate but real world. Let's give the real word: we had fun with it. Then we'll go back to the content calendar because we want to stay on time. I got my list yeah and so the first episode we talked about this stop zillow, greg hague thing yeah, you know greg, that's good, brilliant, he's doing 72, so that catapulted us it catapulted us take our first vacation together at like we were only like, like we Were only like six weeks married at that point and we were like vacationing, it was people are gon na, actually think we're not married by the way yeah.

I know it's the number one question: he challenges us to a facebook debate. Yeah facebook live debate yeah because we brought up to stop zillow and why we thought he had no chance of stopping zillow, which you know clearly didn't happen. So at the end of the debate he's like i want to fly you guys to my stop. Zillow party out here in arizona, i said, deal first class tickets.

He goes deal yeah. So then his assistant calls the next week. She's like these first glass tickets are a lot. I said.

I know that's why greg's paying for that exactly she goes. No. We can't do that. It's going to eat up all his amex points.

I said. Oh that's right. Well then, we're not coming yeah yeah. Then they did it.

They did the first credit to them. Yeah they did, they worked so we went out there and that kind of just kicked off the momentum of that we were, i think, on inman since uh the very beginning, or that was all yeah that was all yeah yeah yeah yeah. How did that happen? How did that impact i mean so? But radio? Then then, four years now the new show yeah, we've done a bunch of thing, help impact more reach. Yes, oh the podcast.

For sure i mean we have some unbelievable. I mean i did dry january this past january and i think you've got people well, but i haven't, but i have, but i have melanie sending me a crown telling me i'm a queen because, like like it's like and she's like crying over a cocktail, i couldn't Do it well, i want a cocktail with her now but, like i love that you know he loves the content, i'm like! Oh, like agents, you know agent awareness so recruiting yeah, yeah retention. All of that uh has come from from the real world, and then we do a lot of seasonal shows locally nicole, and i did a couple seasons and maybe we'll do season three. This summer we are doing season.

Three. We are okay, uh hold the mayo yeah, which is a you know, lobster lobster roll review. I remember doing that. The pizza like uh, like el presidente, yeah, i mean when that was the panda when covert broke out yeah.

I was like i'm not staying in my house. I don't care what the rules are yeah. I was in connecticut the only person on the road i felt like during those days. It was fun and i was going seeing all my friends yep who own restaurants, yeah and i'm like.

Listen if we're all going down we're going down together, yeah here's my credit card, i'm gon na give give me 550 gift cards, i'm going to give them all away this weekend on the radio show i'm going to have you on the radio show yeah. I did a facebook video every single day, i'm like i'm just going old school yeah, going right back to my personal profile on facebook, yes, and i'm letting everybody know instead of sitting at home and crying if you've got money in your bank account. Let's support these small businesses if you've got a little bit of a savings, if you've got an essay, i'm not telling you to go bankrupt or something like that. But if you can do it, let's roll and from there we started, then the gift card project nicole, started the gift card project.

So then we started getting people to send like if they had like to send us gift cards right. What did we end up raising on that uh about thirty thousand dollars in gift cards, and then what we were doing is we were then donating them to either like people that needed the gift cards or um. We were also giving them to all like the nurses and doctors that were at the hospitals too, so where's the attention right, and we did that, obviously to give back and make an impact right, but the attention at that time i had been doing the gift card Thing on the radio and nicole's like whoa, there's something bigger here that we can really do to help make an impact we were talking about the other day, where's the attention going to be over the next six months in the world. It's going to be on these midterms and all this stuff.

So, are you advertising in your local market, on the political radio show where people are tuning in to where's the attention locally, that you can capitalize on in the moment, create a show create a season around that? Yes, how do you feel about um? I go back to like sharon like a million years ago. We would talk about like take anything out of the news and we can create a headline and then create a piece of content around it. Yeah shawn's been brilliant. Have you done any of that? Yeah? All the time i mean i do know like russia, ukraine yeah, i think one of the one of the easy ones right now i keep telling people is like if you're not doing a show like, can you buy a home in new canyon with crypto? You know fill in the blank, your city with crypto, yes right or how to buy you know, will an nft get you a home today.

In you know, newcastle i mean the real world does a lot of that with the headlines in the industry. Obviously, but we try to tread lightly, though you try to tread lightly, nicole dresses, i do i like you, i just like to because i'm i just try. I just like to tread lightly. I love it.

What does that mean like? I don't want anyone to ever know like who we voted. For i don't know, i don't mean that i don't. I don't mean we're not stopping ukraine but, like you know not like not if we like putin or not, but we'll talk about how it will affect we'll talk about how it affects how it will affect real estate like keep it on. Yes, what i'm talking about exactly? Yes? Yes, yes, you don't want to tread lightly on that you want to attract right.

Hey is inflation good for real estate, yes, or no right right are interest rates rising. Is that going to impact the number of transactions that are done in 22? 345.? I'm sure. Let's look at the data, you got to speak to the fear in the marketplace, because the newspapers are writing headlines every day and they're fearing they're in their fears. But you can you can reframe it if there's a wall street journal headline that when you type in real estate or real estate in your local whatever, and you go over to the news category so that whatever's trending at the moment populates to the top there's a Wall street journal article at the top that headline there's a lot of people clicking on that headline: oh yeah, and there it's because it was well written it hit at the moment, and so you want to take that headline and use it to your advantage.

You guys watch what jeremy knight does down in texas. I do yeah right, so jeremy literally just has like the screenshot of the article. You know superimposed behind him, big, shout out to jeremy knight, and so many others like jason's, now helping a lot of people operationalize around this and uh, and it's beautiful because he's just like he, he basically jeremy, i'm going to disclose some numbers here. He made seven figures last year: selling houses with no advertising and and basically his marketing is youtube videos, social videos.

I love it. Educating people. Did you read this about the austin marketplace? Did you know the impact that tesla's new you know super center is gon na? Have here yeah, do you know what happens when amazon opens up like he's just he's just being the real estate news, as it relates to everything happening in austin, and i even some brilliant strengths, and i even tell our agents sometimes too, because obviously not everyone feels Comfortable, actually being so direct with their opinions on that are not opinions, but you know obviously facts on that too, i mean, because i even tell like you know, be the be the answer for like paint color like be the person that tells like where you like, The electrician or the plumber like be the resource. I think what you're really saying is be yourself because he's being himself yeah, you're being yourself because you're like design like she went right to all of her.

She knows 20 different gray, colors. That all look the same to me. She sent me grays for my house here in connecticut and she's, like which one you pick sale, sandy gray, double gray, and then i said it too she's like no really. I trust she's, like i trust you.

I was like neither one of you, okay, but but now you're we're calling for something. I think it's important on content is like i. I try and talk about things or interview, people right that are aligned with the things that i want to get out there right. So you you're passionate about design yeah.

You have a design show. You have this whole thing. You've done on facebook, which talk about that as well. Right he's talking about what he's passionate about what makes what you guys do great! It's like when i interview people, it's the combination of the two right right.

So i think for the for the person listening you're watching it's like what what do you get excited about? Well, that's the most important because i again, i think i remember, even in the first year of real estate, i would go to open houses right, like everyone said, it was 2010. right, do open houses, open houses like and i didn't even have a fault like there Was none of this? I think i had a maybe a blackberry um, but i remember i was so worried about selling the house, like i'm at this open house and supposed to sell the house to sell the house, and i would grill the agent to make sure i know everything yeah. I'm gon na sell this house. Yeah sell this house, but but it wasn't even my house's cell yeah, i wasn't the listing agent and i remember it took um.

It took almost probably nine months where, like i clicked and i'm like, oh my god, i'm not supposed to be selling the house like i'm supposed to be selling me like and immediately. It was like my business flourished, because now i was connecting we were talking about. Kids, like it wasn't even about the house anymore and yeah, i mean that's, and i think that i mean that. Obviously everyone knows what byron loves i mean.

Hopefully everyone knows what i love and it's tyrone loves dogs. Yeah. From that i love. I love you guys.

Maybe a little bit more yeah, but you might want to edit that you said something about the combination dog lover's, no longer sending you referrals, jeremy knight, because you just brought him up earlier. He wears a t-shirt with a big cartoon dog and he always tags me in it every time he does it on instagram stories. I love it. I love you, jeremy, okay, so well you i just want to drop in on something yes, you're talking about.

The combination of nobody's ever accomplished anything great on their own right and you've got to get around the right people. Maybe that means you're you're fitting into a team you're leading a team you're building a team. Whatever you've got to get around the right people - and you know to nicole's point of like figuring out - i got ta, sell myself, there's a story of nicole coming in second place before we started working together on the new development ins - oh yeah, on 66 high street. So we did a new development that we picked up in literally the end of seven we weren't even together, yet we were like searching for like a place to rent, we sold out 60 70 million over a course of three.

You know three, four years of this new development project broke every single record in connecticut for condos, for new haven county outside of you know, greenwich and stuff top ten of every single sale right price per square foot. All of it, nicole, came in second place. The first time she pitched it not having the right team behind her, not right fully selling, probably herself she had the relationship with the developer yeah. Once we were just literally looking at, we were looking for.

We were looking for office space, so i again, i know him my husband coached his son in la crosse like right, i mean he. I bought homes with him. I just wasn't on this development, but i reached out i'm like hey like i know you just bought this this house across the street from my house. It was literally across the street from my house, and i was like.

Can we i want to? Can i check it out, i have a client that wants to rent it and we show up yeah, so we both show up and - and you can tell like the like, the gears were turning he's like what are you guys doing together? He knew me just like he watches him from instagram he's like what are you guys doing together the power of content and then putting the right team together her and i, and from that meeting, he's like you guys, are like you're you're joining it out by the Way he's like our my my contract with my current agent, expires on december 1st. This was maybe like october, he's like how about we meet next week and we sign. We want to sign you. First of all, he goes.

I was taking these sales in-house, but if you guys are working together i'll give you the contract, it's the yen and the yang yeah yeah. He saw the that's the lighting in the match. He saw the fire. I love it.

Okay. Last question, being mindful of time: you guys have scaled this business he's changing his mind all the time, but it's clearly going the right direction. Um. I asked you how you manage it all.

That's fascinating! I still love it because it's just all inside your head and somehow you just pull it out. Do you wake up at like two o'clock in the morning and just go? Ah, i wake up and then i step for a few hours and then i go back to bed yeah. I had a feeling i had a feeling like i pass out at nine i'm up at midnight and i fall asleep again at two. Yes, that's my day, you guys have killed it on team building.

You've killed it on agent count, you've killed it on success. I mean you're number one in the state. The only thing we didn't get back to that i want to close on is agent training, new atm training yeah? What does that mean new agent training? Why does it exist? It's a 30 closing commitment. Why it exists is because we only surround ourselves with full-time professionals.

Right, yes, people that are hungry, committed and accountable right when we we recruit to those three. We talk about those three every single time we meet with the agents every time nicole, does a one-on-one with the experience agents, and so, if you're going to come on our team in respect to the consumer and in respect to everybody on the team you're going to Go through our new agent program for 30 closings now i don't get out of it until i've closed 30 deals. Now you can you can. If you want to put skin in the game your hard earned money.

You can buy yourself down to 20 for 300 a month. Most of our agents actually do that. Most of them do interesting. So when you're halfway through the program and the ones that do that always accelerate through faster right and they get onto the other side, which is the experience agent group which nicole manages where your split will go up on your sphere and all of that kind of Stuff, so whether you're on the 30 deal plan or the 20 year plan, when you're halfway through you, go now to our advanced advanced new agent program.

So in the program new agent first half monday, through thursday, nine to noon no excuses, nine to nine thirty role, play 9 30 till 11 you're. Following up on all your leads you're getting basically fub to zero yeah follow-up buzz for us could be boomtown for other. Whatever you're getting all of your, you know leads to be zeroed out, you followed up and you and you guys are giving them leads, plus they maybe they had their existing sphere or is that so you're either hitting your standard and you're turned on for zillow flex.