Welcome to the team builder show where the most successful team leaders share, how to build scale organize and ultimately maximize your sales team results. I'm super fired up. I have two rockstar team leaders with me today, one from huntsville alabama, the other one from chattanooga. So we've got average sales price 300 000, but between the two of them we're talking about 1500 transactions.

Fellas welcome to the show, thanks for having us yeah thanks. Thank you. Well, hold back your enthusiasm boys, so matt curtis give him a little uh give a little rundown on who you are background. How long you've been in the business? Obviously, you're doing a thousand plus transactions and you've been doing that for a while and then doug i'm gon na do the same.

So we have context and then we're gon na get into like the things that really matter to how you've scaled your business so yeah take it away. Matt curtis matt curtis real estate, uh out of huntsville alabama uh. You know: we've i've been a real estate agent for about 12 years now. My background is in computer engineering, which is unique for a real estate agent um been growing the team for about eight years, uh inc 5000 lists five years in a row.

Congratulations number one team: in alabama two years in a row, congrats uh best place to work two years as well. You know, i love that. That's actually my favorite one out of all of them. It's best place to work.

Yes, all right! So doug! Yes, sir, are you pissed just hearing all those accolades yeah yeah, you know when he ended with best place to work like that's on our vision board, for we talked about that right, it's one of our okay. I absolutely love it yeah. So so, given the breakdown, how long in the business, how long have you had the team? How long have you had the brokerage yep yep, so doug edwington, the edmonton team, uh berkshire hathaway, j douglas properties um so been in the business for just across 15 years? Congrats and uh team's been around pretty much the whole time and um been about to sneak up on the fourth year of owning a brokerage. Yes, a whole nother, animal and uh, but um we've been uh.

We've been number one in chattanooga for units for probably at least past six or seven years now, so that's been fun and competitive because there's always someone right at our heels and uh and uh yeah, it's been, it's been a fun ride. You know the whole brokerage thing four years into it. That's that's changing the dynamics of everything, but it's uh. It's all been just great stuff lots to learn so right when you think you got it figured out.

You realize you don't ain't that the truth and that's really why we got connected like he's, been crushing for a long time, but then i do the same thing it's like for me about every three years. I'm like okay, like i need something else right. It doesn't mean i let go of the stuff from the past. Just i just need something else to push the envelope to get me to think differently.

So this show is really about humility. It's about leadership! It's about like no bs honesty about what it takes to run. These monster teams, the good, the bad, the right, the wrong the ugly. So, let's start with that, like what would you guys say individually? Were the top two or three biggest mistakes you made in building your business? The list goes on and on only three ready, i'll give you i'll give you some context, ready, there's people mistakes right, which is culture and training and onboarding, and recruiting and being beholden to people that maybe you didn't want on your team, there's back office and systems And organization mistakes, there's branding and marketing mistakes right, like there's your own personal management mistakes.

So i'm not trying to fill your head with more mistakes but, like you know, just giving you some context like what what are the things that people, because you guys are so successful, but you didn't you weren't, just born like this right. You became this. We became this way because we made mistakes. We learned the lesson.

So what are the big mistakes? And we most we most of us generally love people like you, want to save or fix, or help or support everybody yeah and i'd say that is uh. That's usually a challenge for for leadership, so delegating the right people involved to help you hire versus you. Just wanting to hire everybody you fall in love with you know is, has been really important, but you know or hiring them like. It was a listing appointment right like right, excited yeah, i got them, i got it well, most of them most of us.

You probably team at like shifted from sales to leadership, and so it is really hard to transfer a you've got to convince someone or help them understand where the good path for them to help them, sell their house or work with us and then shift that over To wait a minute, why am i pitching this higher when i should be interviewing this buyer right and see fit in my sandbox? That's a that's that i think that's probably a huge mistake. We make and then and then recognizing that it's an actual real business that has liabilities and and risk and and wins of course too. But you know i mean i i'd say most successful team leaders has the same story. I can reflect now and and recognize that you know when that your number two guy or gal, that you've got with you bounces and surprises you one day and you're like oh, i didn't really have anything in contract to protect me.

I didn't have all those pieces in there. They have all my ip and my data everything, and so so i think that was a that's a lesson that that pretty much every successful team leader that i know has been through and if they haven't good for them. Listen and get your ip under control yeah make sure that you document all your processes and make people sign off on those like that's super important, yeah matt. What about you we'll we'll keep jumping around here? So biggest mistakes? Yes, it's where to start! First, i think one thing for covet 19 is i actually put the brakes on instead of accelerating, oh and so you know, we've kind of flatlined and hit that glass ceiling for the last three years, and so we're in the process of breaking everything down and rebuilding That foundation right, so that's going to be what sets us up for 2022 and 2023, but we had to really kind of dig ourselves out of some antiquated systems and processes that aren't going to get us there.

You know what what got you here won't get you there and that's been one of the challenges. So there's a lot to unpack there. So you said the mistake was we hit the brakes, but then you said we're rebuilding kind of re like redoing the structure. So it's like you hit the brakes.

What was the pain that you experienced when you hit the brakes that caused you to say, wait a minute we actually need to rebuild like the foundation. Isn't right, because there's there was a lot in that statement. Yeah i mean why did you stop why'd, you hit the brakes um, you know with coba hitting you know. We we felt like transactions weren't gon na go down, so we were conservative saving up cash, we're reinvesting in marketing we're reinvesting in people um.

So this year we we took up. You know a lot of that cash and reinvested it in new systems, building a new website building out salesforce platform, uh hiring out our marketing team, bringing on an integrator building out that c-suite um. So we are kind of leveling up for about 2022 a year. We talk about it all the time in our community and you've heard this.

It's bricks right, i'm putting the bricks in place. Like you know, lisa gennady said we're going to hire 120 people. I'm, like that's great in 2022, that'll be really great for 2023 right. So am i hearing the same thing and for the listener? Did you hear how quickly he pivoted from i had this pain and here's what we're doing to solve it, which is what i hear all leaders do.

What other mistakes did you make along the way tons of mistakes? You're talking about leadership, you know what i was an engineer. I had to learn how to sell. I learned how to sell. Then i had to learn how to become a leader so um.

You know that was a big mistake early on not having the culture to be able to create that sustainability. Having career paths for team members um, you know, did you lose a lot of people along the way? Oh yeah, we all unless, like unnecessarily lost? Well, you know 86 percent of agents get out of the business in five years, so right part of that is natural attrition, but there's a lot of things that we could have done better yeah. That would have positioned us in a different position right now. So looking back like uh, you know like i'm using this, just as the example of like your disc profile, if you're clearly an engineer right and you're, you know you're, not the hi, let's have some fun and let's go have drinks.

Let's sell real estate. Is this fun right? How did you learn to communicate with all those different people and all those different personality types? Well, you know i'm a nerd um, so i just read. You know. I actually heard that you know if you read an hour a day, listen to podcasts and youtube channels like yours for an hour a day.

You can double your income every two years, and so that's what i did love it. Anything specifically like we talk about whether it's insights or bank or disk one of my favorites is like the five love languages, because the same thing applies to your spouse as it does to your kids as it does to your teammates right, like what's their love language. How did they feel heard and appreciated right, like that was a mistake i made early on, because i was like i'm this way, so everyone should be like this right. You very quickly realize if they're all like you, the whole thing's going to blow up.

Speaking of this, that's one thing that we learned really early on when we're a team of 10 right. You know, hi d, hey we're changing we're pivoting. I can make a decision like that and everybody's like: let's go and well no, because forty percent of people are s's. Oh, oh and they're.

Also there either. You said, they're all high d and i'm like yeah. Let's go, let's go yeah uh. You can't find that maybe because you know ten percent of the population are ds right, so forty percent are s's, so they're still processing and thinking through yeah, and so we really need to figure out how we roll out these new processes, one you know, give them Time to think through it and then give them six seven times the reminders before we actually roll things out, so that that was a big change.

From going from 10 to 20 to 50 plus team members, we had to slow, we like to say we had to slow our s down. Yes, oh i love that. I love that because i think about all fast cars have an s on it. So yeah you got ta slow things down, doug other mistakes, then we're gon na get into like the big sort of insights of how you guys been able to grow so successfully.

You know, i think, not having a career path for people early on on a team on a team. You know, do you think the same thing applies in brokerage, um, yeah yeah? Absolutely absolutely i mean brokerage is, is just uh it's it's a different animal that that if they don't have a career path, they're, just basically saying where's, the next brokerage, i'm gon na go where i can make more money. Or what can i be? An owner of you know same thing with team members. Early on i mean some of some of the best sales people in chattanooga were bartenders that we recruited and started on our team and they're and they're doing great they're, just not with us anymore, right and um, and and at that time, though years ago, we just Didn't have, i couldn't think big enough at the time, yet i hadn't had enough exposure to what it was all about.

I was just focused on like wow. You can make a ton of money just being a salesperson right and um, but but the moment that they don't taste that leadership. They don't have the opportunity to taste the leadership role or a specialty of some sort that they want to focus in. If you don't give them that path, then they'll go try to figure out on their own right versus with us, so so making sure you give them.

Those opportunities, i think are, are really big and, and then i think also so i'm going to i'm going to challenge you on that not not challenge you. I want to go deeper on this, so you know many team plus meetings. We've talked about like tiers right, like you have your tier one, people, your tier two people, your tier three people, your tier four people right. The goal is to have as many net effective sales people as we can right, like they're, productive.

They use the systems, they follow, the culture they're they're about us and so there's things you want to do with your tier ones that are totally different from your tiers three and four, but i think you're talking about something different you're assuming like everybody comes in. Do you maybe help me understand yeah yeah, so i can become a listing agent on your team. I can work to a higher price point. Get different commission splits like like give me like break it down for me, like.

I have no idea what you're talking yeah. So, like a prime example, i think you know our per person productivity this year, something we're really proud of we're at 42 units per person, which is huge, that's bad and um, and so like we have a team of people that are all making six figures. You know they're all they're, all having really good incomes and there's that point with our team, i see usually between six and eighteen months, some people earlier blossomer than others. You know between six and eighteen months.

They start to think. Okay, it's. How can i have my own team, or how can i have my own mini team or or they start in or max? I know the same thing. Oh, we all do right.

They start calculating if i was a solo agent right and but they're just not exposed to necessarily what it cost right and so the ego or the excitement. I don't even want to blame it on ego like you're, just excited like you're you're, a young entrepreneur that thinks you can crush it and you can and you're getting recruiting calls like hey you're on this team at 50 50. You know what it'd be like. If you came to me, i'd put you on 70 and that's like a major increase, but of course - and they always forget like where the leads came from yeah.

They never understand the back and operate like what it costs up. Salesforce for everybody like it's there's. So much cost. Why don't we talk about that? Well, what we do now we do constantly you know and and um having like a a place that a lot of people are probably at that.

Have you know newer teams right now is is they're. Like i created this person, i own this person. You know i i've. I've brought them into this world and you know yes, they think they're mine forever right and that's not the case by any means, and so so, but i i there was one really particular agent he's still on my team he's a great agent one of our top Agents and top team players really just culturally great yeah, but he came to me one day and he says i think i want to start my own team and i just that one statement alone made me feel so good that culturally we're at a place where someone Would actually come to me and say that versus previous years prior, it's like hey here is my form that says i'm no longer with you right, because i've created a plan without you and and so um.

But you know this one individual came to me. I said, and i genuinely was like awesome - this is our first coaching session of you being a team leader, yes and unless you're like about to surprise me, some form out of your backpack here like like, like let's start working on it yeah, and so we went To the white board - and i said, hey draw your team and he drew his team and i said, okay cool now, let's make a p l. On the other side, we put out all the expenses and he he said you know crm and he was like he was like. How much was that again - and i was like well for me since i've been with him for seven years - it's this much yeah for you, it's going to be this much.

You know, and we just went down that list and at the end he said, wait a minute. I'd make more money. Staying on the team than growing then building my own team, and i said i said no, no. I said i said the that version right.

That's a true statement: you either have to think bigger here or you need to think bigger there, but yeah like and and so and he's still on our team today and has a significant role on our team now. Is that marcus? No! That's, not marcus! Okay! Guy named kevin, you know um shout out to, but you know and and kevin's got a very significant role now and and and growing and he challenged me yesterday. He said: hey, hey doug, you know i heard you're thinking about doing this. I'd really would have liked to head that up and i was like well.

I wish you had told me about it. You know and uh and so uh. So, let's figure it out, you know, and so so i think that i think that just making sure that you don't make the same mistakes that we've made here on this podcast of of, like you know, just not creating a culture where they can grow inside your Team, you know, and now you know once a month once a quarter, someone comes to me and says: hey. How do i get into leadership and i'm like? Well? What do you want to do? What positions are available? Well, there's: no real position available.

What do you want to do and let's create that position yeah if it makes sense right right, of course, of course, if it's got to be a win for everybody the whole, we over me mentality, you know and um, and so sometimes that turns into fruition and Sometimes it's like well, that's not going to work here and it probably isn't going to work somewhere else. So, let's shift and let's let's pivot and figure out, what's going to work within the teams parking on the bench, we'll come back to it later yeah. What about you matt like when you talk about, like you, know, retention, which is really the conversation like? Have you done a similar strategy to sort of level people up and have them retain longer yeah? So there's a couple of things: um, so there's retention or there's a agent productivity and then also listings. Those are the two biggest things that we are caused us to flatline, yeah and so for us.

You know you mentioned over 40 uh units per per agent. We were north of 30 and we were really proud of that number and we really that was the that was the benchmark. That's like the cream described too. You know three sales.

A month we had ever we'd recognize that every single month and what ended up happening was the folks that weren't there, for whatever reason for a life situation, we ended up on unintentionally running them off right, and then we we kept the folks that did but then Eventually, you know, as they start to do 40. 50, 70, 80, even 100 sales a year right they got burnt out or to your point. They started doing math and they're like well. I think i might be able to make a little bit more.

If i try to do it myself and all those things, and so what we found is you know 30, was that sweet spot? If we're going to do 30 sales, you know per agent and so we're actually broadening that net. We want to go to. You know per year advice we only get to 100 agents to do that, we're going to need an army of 15 sales a year producers yeah we're still going to have our 30s in our 50s and our 80s and beyond um. But we need to be able to also celebrate those 15s and have those consistent folks to be able to hit our our big vision.

It's interesting, i know like culture's on your list and i know it's. You know we talk about it all the time right. So let's talk about that like if you're growing and scaling a team, how do you guys recognize the people in your business or or maybe how do you want to in the future state recognize all these different people, because you've got all these incredible people that work With you that are all doing great things at different levels, but but it's very easy to go. Oh my god, there's brian he's, like he's.

My favorite right, like marcus, is like one of your closest friends on the planet right. So it's probably easy, or maybe he gets no love because he's your closest friend, you know what i mean. So how are you and by the way you two are such southern charmers you've not interrupted each other once so, i'm giving you permission to interrupt each other or at least butt in eggs. Well, you mentioned this.

You know so everybody culture means different things to different people right, and so that's one of the things that we do after 90 days. We sit everybody down and say, okay. So what have you liked about our culture for the last 90 days? Right, okay and then after we go through that you know, culture means something different to everybody. You are now in charge of that nice you're.

You know as we get bigger, that culture expands um. So for some it's like a culture crew is being built. Like someone exactly a part of running culture, yeah that's been talked about a lot amongst a lot of leaders yeah so for some people's recognition. So we have that we have the end of the year awards party.

We have a monthly recognition. We call it first monday because people are more likely to open to new ideas. You know the first of the month first monday, all that kind of stuff um. But then you know some people are there for the camaraderie of the family um, and so we have like weekly events.

So this week we had a food truck. We have a food truck once a week. We have a competition. You know some people are athletic like to compete.

We do flying football kickball laser tag, you name it yeah uh. We some people like to eat. We celebrate birthdays, you know birthday, cakes, ice, creams, girls, night guys night once a month sounds so happy yeah i mean matt curtis real estate team is a fun place to work. Yeah we eat we drink.

We hang out yeah yeah. Exactly that's awesome and does do you i mean, do you see appropriate participation based on people's criteria, or does everybody kind of show up and and like how does it work? People show up to the things that attract them? Yeah you've got some people that are you know that ninja that all they want to do is work and and that's cool and then you've got others, and you say it's cool. I think it's important to respect that. Oh yeah for sure i used to get annoyed when me, like man.

We put this huge party on and these key players didn't show up and they're busy selling houses or they're exhausted yeah yeah. Now i've started to learn. It's like you got to respect that right now, because otherwise, if they're feeling pressure you're going to run them off because they're like i didn't want to show up to the dirty santa yeah like i got yelled at i was. I was a top agent and a new construction builder.

I got yelled at one year because i didn't want to go to dirty scene. I want to go, sell home yeah, it's like i'm, never going to be that guy right yeah. So what doug? What about you? How have you um sort of operationalized, community and culture, so you know covid has really like screwed all of culture up for everybody. I think it's very challenging.

There's no doubt about it. So so covetous screwed everything up how well it's it's like half of our team got hired when we were all zoom, oh yeah, right and so so connection has been really challenging in a lot of ways. Um what we have still done, though i mean we had a little break uh during you know when coveted broke, but um march through november, we have a monthly event, that's open to the community, it's great for recruiting it's great, to make sure that our agents can Bring their families nice um, it's really important to get the spouses involved, and so they understand what's going on and and um you know and our past clients. So that's been, that's been our biggest win, but and that's march through november november, like every single month, we get sponsors in from other other vendors and and and our partners and and we throw a huge party - is this at your because you you built sort of Like he has like the location in town like visually, it's beautiful inside and out awesome everything about it.

It's got a rooftop patio and and we've it's a party center, slash real estate office, nice yeah, it's it's! It's a training facility, it's a pretty yeah! Absolutely it's a pretty stellar piece of real estate that we get to leverage. I'm really glad you bought that i am too. I was scared to death. When i heard about purchase, i was like i'm going to buy it yeah.

That's when i was like okay, we're buying this yeah. I was like this is too easy? I don't need. I don't need tom in my in my own town right now and the appreciation. Oh my god.

I missed that deal. That's that's been huge though, but but like, i think i think also what's been really important for us culturally, is making sure that i spend one-on-one time with the people like just connection like really just focus on connection, and not everybody wants that. You know, but i'd say you know, over half of the team i've i've spent a lot of time one-on-one with with their families and with them and and just making sure they know that we care yeah, you know and it makes people comfortable. You know and so um, but i'm still trying to figure it out.

Does it make it harder when they leave oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely and and um. You know i had uh, i feel, like everybody can say this uh, especially around coverton, but you know i had someone really close to me bounce off and leave and like - and i was like god i thought i got past this. I thought i thought i was more calloused than this like this one actually kind of got to me a little bit but um, but you got ta bounce. I mean you, don't have choice, you know you bounce back and and after having enough people leave or you having to let people go yeah um.

You start to recognize the pattern that it does truly always get better yeah. When someone, even if someone was awesome that left you, it forces you to go back in and be like hey, we got to rebuild this department or or this role next next gal up who wants to who wants to be the new number one buddy when number One leaves right always right, yeah, it's so hard. I mean, i think, i'm i don't think callus is the right word, i'm just i'm such a humanist. I tell people all the time, i'm not going to be your last ceo.

All right. Welcome to the team. I'm super glad you're here, do really good work. Be culturally right like be be kind, be good to everybody, i'm not gon na be i just want to be one of your favorites right, because i just i don't like that mentality of.

Like i brought you here, you work for me, you can't go anywhere like you're mine like that's just i know, that's just never resonated, but that's what has created. I mean i've literally stole that and and and that is what makes people come to me and say: hey i'm thinking about leaving. You know right, let's have an honest conversation. I actually had an agent literally in the airport, on the way here today.

Call me and say: hey: i got this great idea and it ends with them, leaving yeah and and i'm like huh, that's. That is an interesting idea. Did you think about this this or this and and you know you started asking questions and he's like cool. I'm gon na think about that and we got a phone call and i'm like there was never a fear of me losing him or him a fear of offending me, and it was just like.

Oh, this is great. The number of times someone said walked into my office and i'm like oh you're, leaving like i know the look on your face and i'm just like okay. Well, here's the thing said what offer like what i'm i usually razzle and say you know if you would have come to me first, i could have counter offered and you would've got more money right and, like i've said that to so am i just like, and It's like just for the record. Do i brian? I love you brian's been with me now for like 90 days, right he's killing on my video team.

I like her right, but i say the same thing like we're: gon na travel, a bunch we're gon na, have all this fun but but like how old are you 23? I'm not going to be the last ceo he works for you with me. There's a pretty good chance he's going to have 10 right or he's going to be a ceo in the next four or five years, which, if you do, i want to invest in the company right. Like that's my other thing with people like you can leave. I just want to invest in whatever you're starting next right.

It's a mindset, so let's go from different direction. Let's talk about branding because both of you done a really good job, branding your businesses. Right now you went business. He went name in business.

So, let's talk about maybe the three best moves you made in creating a brand, an identity, something that people want to belong to or join or call and say: hi come list, my house in your market. What were the three best branding moves so for for me, two and then number three is in the works. When we went to billboards. You know mass media billboards, radio, that's when we went from 250 to 400 to 600 to 700 800 000..

Uh number two is reviews okay, but hold on man. There's there's a lot to unpack. Just in here like three, i mean how much but no but okay, so just think of it. So so help me understand like how many billboards did you start with x? Did you go a and then add, b and then go to c, and when did you notice the lift like someone's gon na, listen and go hey? I was listening that matt curtis guy, like i'm gon na get 50 billboards.

Does it work like that? It doesn't it laugh. Every agent in town thinks oh matt's doing billboards. That's all i need to do. That's it.

That's the recipe, that's the formula um. What billboards do is it lifts all the other ships? You know if you can just break even on billboards. You're now going to convert more referrals, more web leads right, yada, yada, yada yada. It's it's brand presence right they're, like i see that guy everybody.

I see that guy everywhere then, when they see an ad they're online and they're doing a search who's that guy again yeah so for any marketing idea. We say you know fire a bullet before you fire a cannonball, the whole yeah yeah um, so we tested it. We tested, i believe, with 10 billboards. Initially um saw a huge growth off of it, and so we just continue to level up and we're starting to see kind of that saturation for our market, so we're trying to figure out.

Okay at what point is it diminishing returns? I think we're pretty much there. Yeah, but we're north of 50 boards right now and are they digital where you can change them up all the time? Are they fixed or a combination, yeah combination, yeah yeah, and which do you do you track and measure like? Do you want to know more about this? Absolutely right like dj. Is that, like you guys so dj and lindsey like they were talking, they're, like? Oh, my god, like i'm, i'm running this ad to test. I'm trying this ad the test to see what gets the best response.

Oh yeah! So, if somebody's listening right now and they're like there's like seven billboards in my town total, what do you think i'm gon na to invest to get those seven and what have you learned in terms of what works and what doesn't well, that all depends on the Market, you know it's cpm, how many impressions you're going to get so you know pricing's going to be different in dallas than it is in 100 um. So what we do is we look at a couple things is we we track the number of people that call in that sell with us buy with us that say, hey i came in off of the billboard yeah. We know that there's other people going to the website and other things, but do you have a drop down menu on the website? How'd you hear about us uh. We do not because it or is it in like a landing.

We want to simplify that as quick. You know we don't want to touch it um, but on the billboard side, so you know, as the sales of elite start to go down, we know our message is getting stale and old, which is typically 90 to 180 days. Is about that cycle interesting? The other thing that we've done is we had. We did a google map, we plot every single billboard, every single cell, so we can start to see the uh efficiency and what's interesting, interesting and then obviously um.

So you said radio too. So do you have you're on radio show or you're running radio ads radio ads uh sponsor uh, we're kind of weaning off of that a little bit and leveling up more uh youtube yeah? Were you doing the uh? The same thing: everybody else a bit like uh like paul rushforth up in ottawa, ontario, canada right separate deals or whatever. But, like you know, it's like you know: if your home doesn't sell 90 days, we'll buy it right, which was really great when the market wasn't on fire and now it's like yeah, so we change up our messages, yeah um! So now it's our instant offer program which actually is believe it or not. I was listening to a stat, it's like one in 20 people, you know, are distressed sellers there's always going to be one in 20 that are hoarders or you know, are embarrassed to put their home on the market right.

So there's always going to be that market um and one third, you know. Basically you know the whole steve murray. You told me this. Two-Thirds of the market is referrals.

Past clients, one-third is marketing based. So if one-third is marking base and five percent are orders, we're going after one out of six of those with that message, and it's really resonating. So when you get those calls, are you buying them? Are you referring to a a builder partner like how does that transaction? What we've been doing is we've got a flipping company that we've done some flips and then i'm buying as well. Right now, i'm trying to increase that volume to not only satisfy my personal buying needs, but then also my agents and my team's buying needs.

I love that um satisfying my personal buying needs everything about that. Just sounds fantastic! Okay, so that's why you're in real estate right, it's not you got ta get. The money is not worth anything. You got ta put in an asset that actually appreciates 100.

Okay, i'm gon na come back to you on number three. So number one was billboards. Number two is radio reviews: okay, you crush reviews and you crush google - also oh yeah yeah. So so i'm gon na come back to you on reviews.

But so what do you got? Well, i got a mirror reviews. I mean we jumped on the zillow review train when it first came out when everybody's, like i'm kind of scared, to put a review out there, because what, if i get a bad one right and um you know before, i think before. I think everybody actually knew what zillow was that we already had a thousand reviews on zillow, that's so good, and - and it was so every consumer that looked now zilla's changed that game a little bit, and so that's that's not as effective as it once was. It's good for um.

When you meet someone and they're trying to confirm your success like it's killer, then right yeah have you migrated to google to the google? Oh absolutely they were the highest we're the highest reviewed, and then we jumped on the the gls train and that's been our most profitable. Lead source honestly generate more leads, which is pretty much there's nothing. You can do other than just hope. Right, yeah! Well, google logo services ads for the people that are wondering what gls is um, but i'll tell you so you know tomorrow we'll discuss this.

There's a lot of people spending way more money than you could possibly imagine on google ads that are killing it right now and again, no referral fees right right or, if you run it through your traditional model of referral fee, just hire higher net profit to the Team leader right right, so there's a lot to play with there so you're saying early on in reviews and then migrating to whatever is the appropriate channel right, you're, saying reviews. Also, then i'm going to come back to you. So what did you do differently or better? You know talking about reviews. Yeah sounds like the same things.

We were number one in the state on google and zillow as well. Um be careful with zillow um. You know my personal experience is they took the reviews down yeah because yeah we all panicked that day. I remember that yeah that was like one of my most popular videos: oh no! No, they actually took them down.

But that's that's another thing: yeah be careful with zillow yeah um, but google is crushing it for us yeah. So how many reviews on google uh a little over 1700. see that's just monster right, like people like the google local services ads uh. Excuse me just google.

No, i i want to keep calling it gmb, but they changed the name again. So now it's google business, something whatever it's called that page um that kills. So it's free. So you were mentioning youtube ads, but i'm going to bounce to you first.

What else are you doing on a branding standpoint? What else is really working to have people walk in your door? Recognize you, you know, say: hey. We want to do business with you guys, because you guys get a lot of inbound yeah. We do it's, and you know i. This is an area that we need to grow tremendously on.

So i can't say here too darn horn that we're just crushing it from a branding perspective, but um, you know, have making sure you get the marketing department, that's pushing out the social media constantly and making sure that you're, including your agents and tagging them. So they share it. You know so there's a little bit of uh uh organic by design that you got ta push out through social media really hard for the consumer side. Um one of the one of the best things, though speaking of building branding also internally within the industry, is, i think, is big time equally important, if not more important, especially in a market that we're in now.

You know i mean people love doing deals with us, because we don't we we try to do the deal for them on their side, um and and then um. You know, uh we're about to jump back on track, we're having a whole marketing. You know flip of personnel and everything - and i'm excited to be here in your new office with all this stuff, because i'm going to snap pictures and just send it to them and say this is what we got to do, because the best thing that i ever Did was about a year run where i did. The j douglas show right when we opened the broker job right and one of the one of my favorite recruiting stories is a gal that called me one time and said: hey, i'm thinking about joining your team, and i said okay tell me a little bit about Where you're at, what's going on, she says well, i'm at competitor number three in chattanooga right now and we just we're on show number seven and we've been watching it for the past seven weeks in our training like a competitor and i was like and i'm like, You're, making me feel really good right now, like a very successful team, not a nobody's name, a very successful team - and i was just like wow - that's that's pretty awesome, and so so you know it was a recruiting.

It was a recruiting game that we played, but but just i'll talk to agents and they just say man. I just got the most respect for you. Yeah and i haven't had the pleasure to meet him. Yet you know and uh, and it's usually from you know, a show that floated around or a conversation that came from it or whatever it may be.

So i think it's equally as important to brand yourself internally, yes um in the industry. Yes, yes, i agree. So what was your number three? So number three is youtube, and i want to talk to you a little bit more about that because that's our next play um, but yeah jason's here right now, he's he's probably outside he's, not texting me. I know that's good um.

So you know two to three cents per you: it's not going to be this cheap you're talking, okay, so running ads on youtube. We talked about at the summit this year and it's like people are paying attention, but i'll tell you, there's there's two distinct camps. There is the we create content that is so purely effective, organic, a ak. You know the seo side of it is so good that if you run ads against it, sometimes it'll actually have a negative effect right right versus the.

I create a piece of content that is purely designed to generate business, and i just plow money after it right and and both those work right. You just got to pay attention to it. It just you know, yeah exactly. I came out of our video mastermind last week, which people were just bonkers over yeah, so yeah.

So right now we're focusing on the ads. The long tail is like we just shot a pros and cons yeah. You know moving to huntsville videos, yeah, so that'll be the organic play that'll just last forever. Yep, you should check out um jeremy knight, jeremy knight is one of our clients uh down in austin, and he is just a hundred thousand dollars a month in gci from his youtube channel.

Oh nice, all organic all, organic unfrickin, believable big, shout out to jeremy and the most likable guy on the planet like you just you guys would just eat them up. Okay, so we've covered a lot of ground here. What's the i mean, i'm asking you guys. Two last questions i want to know so everybody thinks the next three years are pretty much going to be more of the same.

So what is the most important initiative or two that you have for your business over the next two to three years to really capitalize on the market? I mean it's, it's it's uh growth. All day long i mean it's taken advantage of what we've built and scaling that, and so you know, the the conversation in your organization seems to be more about recruiters, left and right. You know we're hearing that a lot and so so definitely definitely recruiting. But but i think the the initiative that i'm most excited about is you know uh from our coaching calls wrapped around.

You know best place to work in chattanooga, tennessee right, you know and and uh uh when we googled it. I don't know if we're on call together or not, but it was like it was best place to work in chattanooga tennessee, google search showed lululemon and i was like huh yeah. You know like there's 25 part-time employees and like two full-time managers, i'm assuming and like and then the second one is unum, which is like a massive insurance company and i'm like okay. So this is untapped because you're like i can beat this yeah.

Well, that's that's! It that's that's the intent right, and so your team members wear yoga pants to work. Apparently yeah we're just buying yoga pants i'll, give you guys a fun benchmark, so uh big, shout out to uh re max of portugal. Manuel and beatrice are the number one employer in the country. Oh wow number two is microsoft like they're like they crush like they are huge, and you know portugal's, this tiny little.

You know eight million person country right like and but they are just they said we're going to be the biggest company in the country like how insane is that big shout out i mean they are just they're, two unbelievable human beings and brian in business, so growth Taking advantage of it and being the best place to work, you've already achieved best place to work. What are you thinking about? What's going to be the most important initiative for you matt in the next two to three years, because the market's going to be like this for a while right. So we just rolled out our mc academy, so went from one week to a full 30-day training class. Yeah and that's producing huge dividends agents are really coming out.

Are they confident writing their first contracts? Really clean deals, you're talking about like like a new agent training program, but it's the matt curtis sales academy right right, but yeah. It's like a full 30-day yeah. So i can't get it anywhere else, so continue to perfect that and then also along. You know coupling that with our recruiting system now so we're you know next year, we'll start bringing eight to ten new agents per month.

Good um, on top of that, is just buying a lot of real estate. Um yep, now we're doing that. Yeah real estate went up nine a year right for the entire decade right well and we've even been pushing uh for the past two years, because i got on this train of you know: let's buy real estate and i've started pushing all my team to buy. Like half of our team on rental property, i'm like so proud of that literally half of the team owns rental, property and um, and so that's that's a goal life-changing move as a leader um, i'm all over like all these younglings here, i'm like in dallas, like You all need to be buying real estate, man like like whatever it takes.

Okay, so yeah three of my staff are even under contract right now to buy houses. You know like it's we're having to figure out policies now to figure out okay, when a staff member wants to buy a house, how do we? How do we handle this because it can get money right? There's all these different things right, but it's a great thing. It's a good challenge. It's a great challenge fellas! This has been super fun.

We're gon na have to do this again, but there's a lot for people to unpack here. So, thank you guys for being on the show and thanks just for doing what you guys do like just so. Thank you so much for just saying, humility and right all the things that that matter to me like, as leaders like you guys, are just nailing it. So, yes and you're welcome on the introduction.

Absolutely all right, hey! Thank you! So much for listening, you're watching and uh hey follow these guys wherever you find them on social media where, where do they actually find you? It's not under jay douglas it's under doug edwardington? Okay and then matt curtis, if you're driving through huntsville, it's that guy, the one you see on the 50 billboards everywhere, keep up the good work brother, all right, we're out. Thanks guys, you.