What i want to get into, i think the thing that um like when you speak at our conferences and other conferences, the the thing that i think people are enamored by the most is like systems and automation and process and you're talking about sort of the frustration Of a lack of a system for your hiring and then the lessons you learn from it and then a better system of process and then, with those tech, enabled people yada, yada right, producing insanely great results right when did whistle realty start how long ago, how long Did you start your own brokerage, 2008., okay, so 2008? So how old were you then uh? I would have been 12 years ago, seven right so 27, starting your own brokerage. I can only imagine what people were saying at that time. Now it's commonplace because we look at even like our friends and team plus, like the average age, is like 32 yeah right running these dj lindsay you i mean there's so many of you um. Let's talk systems and then we'll we're going to jump back into the story.

I think that there's three systems that every listener needs more help with than anything else systems around their lead generation and there could be multiple systems around conversion right, whether it's getting the listing, converting the buyer, getting the appointment, etc. And then i want to talk scaling right because again, you know your expertise as you've matured is scaling and growing a huge enterprise yeah. So so what do you think of the top systems for lead generation and then let's go into them yeah, so i mean it all starts around, what's commonly known as your platform these days yeah, so back in the day you used to have like a website through This company and then a crm through that company and then like a dialer through that kind of like it, was crazy. You had all these different systems different esp yeah.

So now i mean it's all about having a platform. So when we had our big leap year, we actually went from 82 to 242 transactions, which was that same year, where we trimmed the fat focused on younger tech, savvy agents. We also implemented boomtown at that same time. That was when we essentially three x star business that year what year was that that was 2012.

I believe yeah yeah, and that was when we really really had that big yeah. We got it at the end of 11., so 2012 was the big leap year, yeah and boomtown being the complete sweet, the complete it's my website, it's the idx search on my website. It's the crm on the back end of my website, nurturing follow-up telling me who to call when to call them what actions they're taking on the website. It's all of that in a single system where, before we were piecemealing it with 10 different things and i've learned over the years, the more systems you have, the less your team is going to adopt them so like this year, as we head in 2020, is we're Adding no systems we're only consolidating systems and i'm putting pressure on my system providers to actually add more to them so that i don't have to go get another system, and i've learned that most of these guys that are running tech companies.

They want that feedback. Most people are scared to say anything yeah, i'm that guy that's going to tell you hey. You need to add this or this sucks or do more of this or stop doing that um, because these guys all want to build these end-to-end platforms so give people feedback. Don't be afraid to do that if you want something to get better say something we have a rule in my office i'd rather you tell me a thousand things i'm doing wrong than one thing, i'm doing right, bingo cause.

That's the only way i'm going to improve, which is an obsession for me: okay, um, so boom town is our go-to lead generation platform. So number one is platform yeah end-to-end to end single sign-on, everything you need and everyone listening right now. If you just stop right there, like i'm a fan of like you, know, zapier and others that are able to connect everything all together, yeah, but just think about that your business is a patchwork of a bunch of things all connected together versus one app everything. Yes, like there's just power in like we're salesforce in marketo and like those two, even that like right, but they're super connected at their core right.

All right. So platform is number one. What's the number two lead generation system that has to be in place to scale an agent's business, i think a big thing is you've got to have something: that's tracking all of your leads that are coming in, especially if you're running a team. If you don't have something, that's tracking us, the phone calls more than anything yeah.

Your agents are snaking, you, you, probably trust your agents more than you should, because if you have phone calls coming in and you don't have a system to track them, your agents are snaking. You it's happening yeah. I know you think your agents love you and would never go behind your back, and it may not be intentional in case you're, watching this right now and you're a sales person going. I'm not snaking.

My boss, like it, may not be intentional, but you might happen to forget where a lead came from here and there because it came on the phone i did. I thought i knew that person yeah. So so you got ta track. Your phone calls got.

Ta have a phone, but you got ta back up exactly what's the system? Is it yeah, so we use call action, call action's our go-to phone system, big, shout out to jesse who's, just watching this right now, freaking man, i love you jesse yeah, so we use call action every different lead source. We have has a different phone number, so we have one on zillow. We have one on realtor. We have one on google.

We have one on yelp, because i need to track where my business is. So. What call action i'll do? Is one it'll help me track where the business is coming from and now i can track? What are my conversion rates on those different things? But, more importantly, what i love is that call action integrates with boomtown. So now, when that call comes in and my agent's on the road and the lead comes in, that's a zillow lead, which are very valuable leads that lead comes in, and the agents on the road half the time.

If you don't have a system, your agents may be scribbling, some notes on like the back of a receipt or a gum wrapper or something maybe that lead gets in the crm, probably is not going to get in the crm. What i love with call action is it's automatically importing the lead into boom town, so now they're forced to follow up with that they're going to log everything in there and marked appropriately. Yes, this is a zillow lead. This is a realtor lead.

This came off yelp right, so exactly all right platform tracking, but you said just phone calls, there's more. We need to track. Yes. What else do we need to track? So the next system we use is sisu s-i-s-u.

I love csu, so now we're tracking. What's up brian, these are all ceos that are friends of mine yeah. These are all my boys. I love everybody um, so we use csu to really track what our agents are doing so we're tracking.

You know how many conversations are they having how many appointments are they setting? How many of those appointments are they actually meeting with how many of those are closing like basically tracking your pipeline and what's happening because the lead you know lead conversion process is look at it like a hose and if water's going in the hose, it's not coming Out the other side, why is that happening because there's a kink somewhere in the hose, so by having a system in place? That's tracking all of these different things. You can figure out where that kink is and as a team leader or as an agent. You know where that room for improvement is or if you're, a team leader where the coaching opportunity is so, if we're having conversions but we're not setting appointments, we've got to work on our scripts on the phone yeah if we're setting appointments but they're not showing up. Now we've got to look at.

Are we actually building value around those appointments? Are we getting what i call mercy appointments where they just say sure i'll come in just to get off the phone with you bingo, so they don't have to keep denying you um and then, if you're, going on the appointment, but you're not actually converting it to A closing we got to figure out - and this is something that trips me out - i've been in rooms of out at your stage where two or three thousand people are in the room, and i ask how many of you role play your listing presentation on a weekly Basis and it's a fraction of a percent - it's not even one percent, it's a fraction of a percent which is insane to me because not on your clients, yeah, like with a buddy in the office yeah yeah, which is insane because we go out. We spend all this money to generate these leads and have all these systems. We spend all this time on role play to get these appointments set, and then we show up to the appointment and we shift the bed like what was the point of all these? This other money and all this time, if we don't actually practice the presentation, so we have to track all of those data points. So we know where do we need to improve as an individual agent or where do i need to coach to if i'm a team leader and do you go down to like, i think, you're talking with joe who's, my head of sales and oscar my head of Marketing like we do it, where we're literally like this lead is coming in brian, should get it because of these reasons, this lead is coming in.

Tristan should get it for these reasons like we're, so hyper focused on the type of lead who they are where they are in the world. What are their interests? What are their problems that person's the best expert to talk to them? You guys doing some of that. We're we're more rewarding the people that are putting in the work. Okay, that's what we're focusing on is.

I want the agents, if you're putting in the time to do the role play, calls and to role, play your presentation you're doing all of those activities you're doing the open houses, everything that we're looking for then you're going to get. We work on an agent on duty model or lead shifts floor time, opportunity time, whatever you want to call it. So the agents that are putting in the work to really know the fundamentals of our company are going to be the agents that get the best shifts which get the most leads and create the most opportunity for them. So we tie all of those activities to the lead shifts which there's certain lead shifts like the 4 to 8 pm lead shift on a saturday, probably not the most desirable lead shift, but the 8 a.m to 11 a.m.

Shift on a friday, which includes all the leads that came in thursday night is an amazing shift to happen. So so three pieces of three system advice. One is your platform right and whether that's boom town, which i'm a fan of and i'm an investor in, kv core, there's others that are out there right again end to end being the experience you got to track and measure everything right. So you know call action.

Big shout out to jesse and then sisu also tracking and measuring everything by agent buy lead source to know what is the roi and you know what are the basically, as you call it the kinks. If you will right in the hose, is there a? Is there a third or fourth system that you think an agent and by the way, all of this relates to a single agent with no assistant right right? This is how they're going to become repeatable and scalable versus you know: rich poor, rich, poor, rich, poor, rich poor. Is there a force you recommend i will so. Let me tie in to the last point.

Yeah right 2020 just kicked off and we sit down with all of our agents and they did 15 deals last year and okay. Well, how many deals do you want to do this year, 30., yeah cool. So last year you set 25 appointments, of which you closed 15 of those. So that means we're going to need to either set 50 appointments or we're going to have to increase your conversion rate.

So tell me how we're going to work on that yeah. But if we don't track all that data, you know we don't know how to coach to that 100. So that's another reason why that's important uh, the fourth piece is a task management system. Thank you.

So much. Thank you very much. Are you on monday? Is still your hot one, we're so hot on monday, right now, i'm super hot. On monday yeah i love monday.com, guys monday is going to change your world, but let's okay, let's take him back to the evolution right.

It is it's like start like i started teaching. You guys, like do doing a done board with like mike vance like a million years ago, and that's how walt disney and they you know they do it still everything visual trello. Yes, trello, you, you know trello, you killed it on that which is like a digital version. Free, yes, might be the right place to start before you get to monday, because correct monday, you've got the mind for my.

You know my ops team. They they eat it up. Asana is another great project management task or you know tool. Yes, so what advice do you have the person? That's like they're super unorganized, but they're really interested right.

Now i wouldn't say monday, no monday is way more of an advanced system and it's something we're scaling to a thousand units this year. So we need something that can scale up massively yeah monday's amazing for that. But if you're somebody, you know, the average agent in in this country is selling five to ten houses a year. Trello is an amazing way to go.

They still have a free version of it and it's just very simple, and it's very visual, which the majority of realtors need visual. Thank you. They need simple and they need visual. So, let's assume that that they get the con describe the concept of trello.

In your words, and then what are maybe the four or five big things that they're going to want to start putting in there yeah, because you went super advanced. You had client interaction, which i would say is not where they want to start correct right. So, given the very basics in the beginning, yeah, so the basics is the do doing and done board um, and we teach this in our masterminds that we do, whether it's it's video ideas, you can have a do doing done board for video ideas like having the Single source to capture every good idea, one place yeah because as realtors you know, our minds are pinballing all over the place. We have a million ideas in our head and because of that, we rarely execute on any of those.

So you have three columns a do. A doing and a done board, your due board could have five million things on it. That's perfectly okay, categorized by the things that matter to you listing marketing, whatever buyer yeah, you can color code them and put what's you know, what's a priority and what's not a priority um, then you have another column, that's a doing column, and this is where most Agents screw up yeah, they have 200 things in their do column and they have like 150 and they're doing like you can't for most agents. It's like three yeah like three is the most things that you should have in your doing column.

Yes, because that's as many things as we could focus on at any given time, if you're a great multitasker, maybe five, but you really got ta focus on a small group of activities as opposed to trying to do everything at once, because you do a little bit Of everything and you never actually complete anything which is a huge problem for realtors. So every time you have an idea, not finishing is a very typical mistake: yeah it is, but then the next component of it is as realtors. We are very visual and we like to see that done board fill up, so we start to get this high of moving things from do to doing to done, and now we start to see all these things and done. We feel good yeah and we want more of it, which is a success thing yeah and most successful people crave that success.

They crave completion. They crave that satisfaction. So, as you start to see things move over to done, you start to get this euphoric high and you want to do more of it. You want to complete more activity, so you get into momentum.

So that's the basic foundation of trello. Then we adapted that for transaction management, so we had it. As there was a pre-list there was active. There was pending, there was sold like we literally would move our transactions visually through.

So each one there was just a little card, but you could just drag and drop and it was very, very easy to do and that worked great when we were doing a smaller volume, but again smaller, like 400 transactions like 200, something yeah, it was great um, But i mean we're on a path now to sell over a thousand houses this year. It's just not scalable for that type of volume. That's right! That's where you graduate something like monday, which is an insane system. Yes, you're going to spend a little bit of money, but it's going to save you so much time and what i love with monday is.

I don't have to integrate 5 or 10 systems together, like it accomplishes what i like. I don't need zapier with monday, because it has all of the automations and integrations and everything built into it. So slack yeah, it's an amazing amazing system. So we love monday, we're running like with our zillow offers business.

We have it where we have to do evaluation on these properties and then we go through an acquisitions call and we acquire a property. Then we gets rehab, we move it to resale like we have boards for all of these and we're able to manage all different types of things in there. It's not just a do doing done like we can manage, i think, we're up to like 10 or 15 different boards in there, and each department of my company has their own board and it's super super visual and, like here's an example like this, i know you Guys will geek out on as realtors. I could just go and change a transaction to active and as soon as i do that an email automatically fires off to my photographer says hey, i need photos of this property.

Here's the photos i need. I need them by this day: here's how to get access and another email is going to fire off to my sign company, say hey. I need a sign installed at this property. I want this right or this right or this rider and then another email is going to fire off to my transaction coordinator, so they can create it into sky slope, but all of that stuff happens just by changing a status like that is sick because that's saving.

So much time so yes you're, going to spend a little bit of money on a good system like it, but the automations that are built in are sick. The time savers and the reality is, you can take your daughter, you can take your wife, you guys can go on family vacations, which i see you doing. You know whether it's boarding with your buddies recently on instagram or wherever else you're going, and you can run everything like i talk about from my phone. Yes, everything from the phone know every detail of the business and that my friends is very empowering.

Yes, all right. Any other, because we're about to go into conversion yeah right is there any uh, so we got let's just go through platform tracking of phone calls critical right using call action seesu for tracking every data point. You know sort of leading and lagging indicators of transactions by lead source and by agent trello for your project management having that single source place to capture everything and, if you're more advanced, if you're a ceo of one of my bigger companies, obviously you can look at Monday.Com any other, is there a fifth you'd put on there. Siri siri is your best friend all right as a realtor.

You forget all the time when you're out, like i was out at dinner with one of my agents: who's totally a forgetful guy yeah, and we were talking about going to an event together and i was like watch this he's like. I always forget about these things. Like i need to follow up - and it's like watch this say - hey siri remind me to call kyle about the conference tomorrow at 9. Well guess: what's now gon na happen tomorrow at 9am, siri's gon na bug him like hey, call kyle about the conference like that, is your best friend like if you're a realtor, you forget all the time.

Siri is amazing. Use it just remind me about this at this time on this date, and siri will remind you and then she's going to keep it up at the top of your notifications until you actually do it like it's a simple tool that all of us are touching. Hundreds of times a day and nobody's using it, okay, i'm just i'm just acknowledging your team and my team right now coming from the guy who was, i was like: why are you on like an android phone? Do you remember when you were like you were like so anti-apple brian? Am i right? Do you remember these days, so it just that makes me happy just to hear them. Okay, let's go to conversion, yes, systems for conversion, yeah, so systems for conversion.

Our biggest thing right now is running an agent on duty model, so one of the problems that i believe there's really four problems that occur. Most agents right now are running a like a shark tank type of lead distribution. We're talking about teams in advance. Here, yes, and so what happens? Is a lead comes in and you're sending the lead to everybody on your team first person who answers that call gets that lead, there's a ton of problems with that.

First, let's just say, a lead comes in right now, while we're recording this podcast. Am i gon na stop the podcast to grab that lead? No, no, but some people are doing that they're out at dinner, with their wife and they're like oh babe, there's a lead coming in. I got ta grab it. They jump up from the table yeah and piss their wife off yeah, and now they go run in the hallway and now somebody's asking about 123 main street, which they have no idea.

What the hell 123 main street is. Yet the consumer has researched 123 main street for 20 minutes. They know the entire listing history of prices on it. They know the schools, they know the crime rates they've seen every picture they've somehow found the old pictures.

They found the damn owner on facebook and they know that they just got married and have two kids and he was in the military. Like your consumer knows that yep and here you're, dumb asses standing in a hallway you're, putting your phone on speaker and you're trying to pull it up as quick as you can to try to get the details of this property. And you just look like a complete, complete, dumbass and you're not going to convert that lead, and i know if you're, listening or you're watching you've all done this. Yes, people on teams, everybody is guilty of that.

Yes, so there's two problems. Wait! It's two more! I know keep going, i know you love lists, i do so. The next two problems is that lead comes in and i'm like. I don't want to stop this podcast, but i see there's a good lead, so i'm just going to pretend to accept it.

Bingo and i'll just all follow up with it after yeah. Well, we know speed's a lead right. We did a talk at tom x a few years ago, like if you're not following up within five minutes, which is based off an old ass mit study. If you did that on today, if mit did a new study, i would argue it's five seconds if you're waiting till an hour later, like that opportunity's gone, especially because a lot of these systems are sending the leads out to three four five agents: bingo, if you're, Following up an hour later, they've already they've moved on yeah um.

So that's the third problem. The fourth problem is you do what you're supposed to yeah i stay here, i'm focused on the podcast or i'm focused on dinner, with my wife and i'm like yeah. That's a million dollar la jolla lead, but i'm here at dinner with my wife, i'm just gon na let somebody else have it well. The problem that creates is that the good agents are always in appointments right, whether they're at a conference learning whether they're meeting with a buyer, a seller or whatever playing with their daughter, no leads yet the dumbass who's sitting at the office playing on facebook all day.

Watching cat videos is getting every single lead that comes in and he can't convert to save his life yeah. So there's four problems that are created with the traditional shark tank method. So we went to an agent on duty model which again ties into sisu where we're tracking their activities and then the agents who are completing those activities get to pick shifts. So what happens now? Is you have a shift for three hours during the weekdays four hours on the weekends and every lead that comes in during that time period is coming to you so now, you're sitting at a desk two monitors in front of you.

Somebody asked about one two. Three main street: you can pull it up in a split second, you actually have that data. You can have a somewhat educated conversation now. You can't put 20 minutes of research into it, but at least you can be educated, as opposed to being in the hallway of the restaurant on speakerphone at least you're saying the same thing.

The consumer sees right and then so hold on, though i want to. I want to slow this down because we're going super advanced on on some very strategic things for teams and we're gon na i'm gon na i'm in a couple of minutes, i'm gon na say what about for the individual agent, but not yet. Okay, when we were meeting earlier, we were talking about um sort of this uh. It's like the illusion of choice, right like if you do these things, then you get it.

So what do your agents have to do to earn the premium spots to get the best leads? Okay, four times a week, you've got to get on a huddle which is a 15 minute zoom at 8 15.. Then you get on a 30 minute role play call at 8 30.. We use uber conference. If you don't have uber conference, if you're running a team, especially uber conference, is great, because what it'll do is not just wait for your agents to call into the system.

It'll actually call out to your agents yeah, which is sick, because they forget all the time well magically. Now, at 8 30, every single one of their phones is ringing yeah, with the title roleplay calling it, which is really cool um, and then the expectations are going to power hour from 9 to 11.. So they need to do those four days a week. Why? Four? Because i actually want my agents to take a day off during the week.

So that's four times a week three times a month, they're going to come to our office meeting they're going to come to our in-person role play, which is where we role play. Buyer presentations listing presentations, all of that and three open houses a month and then they're going to get on one tom ferry coaching call a month and now the key. These are all expectations. These are not requirements.

Yeah um, very especially here in california, five in california, yeah expectations um. So there's no requirement to do these things, but you can tie incentives to activities, but you cannot tie employment to activities so correct. You don't require these things, but you expect them yes, yeah. So so they do x amount of those and then they get the opportunity to have the premium.

The glengarry leads. Yes, is that right, correct and and how long have you been writing this play? Uh it's been almost a year now and it's definitely improved. It's made a huge improvement and there's less bitching um, which is a big part of running a team. Is that, yes, your top performers are like i'm not getting any leads.

There's no reason for me to be on the team because i don't get any leads yeah, because numbnuts over here is on facebook. All day is getting every lead that comes in yeah, because you know i'm actually available yeah, because now my good agents who naturally do all of those activities now they're getting lead, shifts they're getting all the leads, they're converting them, which they convert at a higher ratio And actually i make more money yeah, that's what it's all about! Yeah.