Welcome to the team builder show where the most successful team leaders share, how to build scale organize and ultimately maximize your sales team results. Hey welcome back to the team builders show today. I've got two great ceos in the office in the studio, uh doug. This is the second time on the show.

Yes, it is welcome back thanks for having me and malcolm welcome to the show man first time honored to be here. Thank you love it man. So obviously you know i'm the only guy without an accent here: tennessee tennessee baby in the house um, but just so so people have contacts malcolm tell them the businesses that you own and for the person that's listening, we're going to talk about. How do you run multiple businesses? That's the topic of discussion today, so malcolm give a little update on who you are, we kind of got a sense of where you're from we know it's chattanooga, he said tennessee, but you own.

Three different businesses tell us about the businesses. Yes, sir, so about six years ago, we got involved with a home inspection company that we started and then, as we grew, we knew that there was the need for ancillary services that we could possibly feed right. We started uh basement and crawl space solutions and then another company that we saw because when you think about sexy businesses, it's a start, you think basement and crawl space definitely get in the crawl space. That's where everybody loves to hang out.

So we've learned there with some things, uh and then we also have elevate home staging and design that's a complimentary to real estate as well. So we were talking off-camera um about sort of the flywheel. So clearly, one of those businesses spits off other ancillary services, which is obviously like for everybody watching like you want to have. What's that, one business that could feed all the other businesses that makes the whole thing spin, which one's the one that feeds the flywheel sure.

So cheddar home inspector was is probably the core yeah. We learned that it does feed business to the basement company right, maybe not always the exact leads we're looking for sure, but uh. It's really the relationships we have with other agents like doug and others that can feed good leads to that. Then we've learned how to get public leads as well and with the staging company.

Also, it's the relationships that create that flywheel, one thousand percent staging in the classic sense of you know empty home or old property. We need to stage it to get. It show ready right for like doug or someone on doug's team, yep and design and airbnb is a big thing in our area. So we do that kind of whole platform as well, love it so and again how many full-time employees between all the businesses about 40 45., all right, so we're going to talk management methodology.

How do you manage multiple businesses? That's multiple p, ls! That's multiple taxes! Multiple leadership, multiple amounts of stress. Yes, all right. If you're, if you're only listening you just you would have heard the huh doug. What about yourself give them a little update on what are the businesses that you own today yep? So we've got you know we got the real estate, brokerage, berkshire, hathaway, j douglas properties, and then we have the edrington team, which is really like running two separate businesses: 100 um.

It really is because we've got the brokerage operational with some other teams on the in the brokerage as well: yep um and then i've got a jv 5050 with a title company, and so we've got north shore title and escrow and um. You know working on some other stuff in the pipeline, nice um, but those are those are the two predominant and then you know malcolm's being humble over here too, but both both start to put together a pretty healthy rental portfolio too bigger than the airbnb stuff haven't Touched it how many, how many airbnbs we probably got? Seven airbnbs, probably 20, something properties other than that nice. Congratulations and where are you at now, um 18 doors, so eighteen doors plus the you know, you know we got. We got our office, which is two large buildings side by side, and then we actually bought another commercial building in a little small town outside of chattanooga recently.

So congratulations playing with it all right, all right! So so really when we start talking about management methodology and how do you manage it's multiple pnls? But it's just it's managing lots of different people right, doing different tasks right and then what's required and all that so we're gon na get in all that stuff and more so title company, real estate team, plus a real estate brokerage plus the rental properties. I'd call that four different businesses yeah right yeah, absolutely so so, let's just start with an easy question: easy, but challenging ready is what's your management methodology, so you know one of the things that i think i learned from you a long time ago is, you know, Passing on you know what you're good at, if you can transfer that skill you're going to be better right and so so uh you know operation replace doug as as we've all heard before. So what does that mean for the person? That's listening to us, no idea! They're, like what do you mean operation, replace doug? Well, you know as a yes, always leaving something right, always leaving something. So the one of the things that i've really enjoyed is is my my inability to to stay in the same place for a period of time.

You know we get bored easily as entrepreneurs as artists, right right, and so so i've learned that that that i want to actually be able to learn a new skill and pass it on to the next person. So you know just most recently, since i started working with you, we just hired a recruiter, yeah and um, and that is something that has been on my shoulders um from the recruiting standpoint, and you know the bandwidth doesn't allow me to do it well, if i'm Trying to do it all together, so it's like you can only serve so many masters well right, right and generally it should be one, and so when you hear that what what goes through your mind, uh, really same almost mindset about finding the people and then lifting Them up so you talk about the flywheel with home inspections, the majority, actually all of our other businesses, are ran by and haven't given ownership or bought ownership from people in that company. So our goal is to figure out how to do the marketing figure, how to make it profitable figure out how to pay the person to do it and then, if it takes giving them ownership, that's what we should do that way. We can dial back a little bit focus on something else, and then we create a a tribe of happy people.

Yeah happy issue. I mean yeah as much as we're a little crazy but okay, but i want to go back to this doug and for both of you guys, i think the hypothesis of hey i'm going to learn this. I'm going to transfer that skill and then i'm going to empower somebody else to go. Do it, it's been written about a million times, but it's hard.

Oh yeah. I remember i don't know it was a year or two ago your buddy greg schwartz and he came in. He talked about. You know the top reasons why people um stay in a company yeah, wasn't that it and and uh one of them was like the relationship with their direct manager.

Right. I remember that, and so you know, we've really got to lean in hard on um really everybody, but especially whoever, if you're their direct report, no matter where you're at in the company, it's really important. Those relationships are built and, and - and one of the things i remind everybody in my company um is - is focused around. This is just a race for value, and i don't know what i mean by that when i say a race for value.

It's really focused on on you know, at the the day that you are no longer feeling challenged or the day that you think you can do it better than i can yeah right, yep and and and it's not actually the day. You feel that you can do it better than me. It's that you resent me, and you feel that you can do it better than me yeah, that's when things are falling apart and they're, probably gon na leave right, and so so. For me, it's constantly.

How do i add value to this person's life, whether it be a new lead source or whether it be let's focus on a new, a new role? It may just be focused on how to communicate with people at a really high level. That's generally, what we're always talking about is how to communicate, yeah and so focusing on that race for value the moment that i can no longer bring value to them, then they're probably going to leave. So i just let everybody know in our company like at the moment that i'm not adding value. I know i've lost the race and so and it's not that i'm holding anything back at all.

It's got to lean in really really hard right, um, but at the same time we've got to make sure that they're ready for that next challenge. You know and the the you know, i'm not ready for all my next challenges, yeah right and so so sometimes we got to hear it again and again and again, malcolm and i are in town for another event. It's all about leadership and and um there's really one good thing that i took away from this event and um that we're at here now and the and the the conversation was is: where are you tactically winning, but strategically losing yeah unpack that yeah yeah? That's it yeah yeah, it's just where you get a win today, where it's maybe profits in the bank or you make a good hire, but is that higher actually going to be detrimental to your team as a leader? Are you focusing on their whole strategic mission and not just that win today, yeah i'll, give you the most perfect example for real estate teams that, because not everybody should get out of production right yep, but a team leader who is selling 100 houses a year and They're, crushing it and they're the best of the listing presentations they're best and it's 70 of their net profit right right, they're stopped tactically winning, but strategically. If they take a step back, just disconnect themselves from the big picture.

Um, it's not really helping them, reach their long-term goals, right and so um, so that that's a good takeaway. We took this week that that it's made me really rethink in our business like i really need to do a deep dive and figure out. Where are we tactically winning but strategically losing? Because it's not aligned with the goal, but it feels good right now, it's a good! It's a win. It's a daily one! It's a weekly when it helps the numbers, look good this month, yeah, but it could be damaging.

It's long term can you relate to that absolutely uh? You know i just reflect on management decisions that we've made with specific people and did we make them feel as good as we should have, or did we just make them feel as good as they thought they would in the time and then eventually, like you said, Maybe they go somewhere else or maybe they feel underappreciated and maybe they leave your organization. But as a leader we kind of have to look. This person looks for a x number of dollars a year and you know they're more valuable than that. You got to pay them more right, right, right.

Um. Do you have a process for that with 45 employees, so we're i'm at about 200 plus, you know another 207 coaches. You start before. I look at all the other businesses that i've invested.

In that i take some ownership responsibility for do you pay attention to am i at market with all the people on my team, or does somebody else do that for you? Well, you know we all have learning experiences. So i'd love for you to explain. I mean your process a little better for us, and maybe i mean i mean for us, is - is having our hr team constantly sort of sweeping, whether it's indeed or you know, pay scale or all these there's all these different sites that are out there. That say, you know a person doing this role in this city in this town, low, medium, high right, you know, i mean low and low medium high is, is where the variable comes into play, but, like okay, am, i am i at least at average, or am I below average, and if you're blower, you can start moving people up quickly, so i mean we've been caught in.

You know 19 years in business, where you just realize god that person's been doing a great job over there, and sometimes this is though this is like the hard truth. You've all experienced. This you've got this person over there they're doing great, but they haven't gotten a review in a while nobody's. Given many feedback.

No one said: hey man, you're kicking ass, but like dude. If you did this this and this or here's a career path strategy, here's a the next move for you have you ever thought about going into management like and that's where that's where we find ourselves falling short at times, especially when you're expanding your organization, you got To constantly be thinking the other day, like the greatest thing ever, the president of my company just came in and said you made like 25 people in the like junior management training at the orange county office recently and i'm like that's awesome, you know some of them Are already in management and they wanted a refresher and other people want to get into management, so you also see who's raising their hands, saying i'm looking for more that make sense yeah absolutely, but i want to. I want to go back to the tactically, tactically, winning, but strategically losing yeah or failing, i think, about um. I've been doing a lot of uh study around product market, fit right when you think about all the different business that you own right like.

If you go back to like uh, you know andreessa who's, probably one of the most famous at this would say you have product market fit in your business when there's so much cash coming in there's. So much demand for your business that you can't hire sales people and customer service people and engineers fast enough. Your product is flying off the shelf, that's when you know you have it and i sit back and think man. I've been doing this for 19 years.

I don't know if i have product market fit right and then then they start talking about these examples of the one i wrote is social camp. Do you guys remember social cam? It was like the number one app on uh on the store forever and ever and at a certain point, i'm looking at my team. You guys remember social cam, you guys are so young you, you may have been in high school katie. Maybe it's it's not that old! All right we hear about this.

I remember clearly it was an awesome. Thank you, you're lying, but i'll take it all right, but but the the story of social cam was uh. They became the number one app in the app store right, so technically winning right and at one point it was like one out of every 18 facebook users watched a video on social cam like wow. It doesn't get any better, i'm like you're killing it, but they had no revenue and nobody looked at the app a second time.

It sounds like blockbuster right right, so you so you killed it out of the gate and you're thinking we're winning right because on paper it looks like that. But you didn't have the retention you didn't have the revenue, you didn't, have the user engagement right. So it's just another example of that yeah. I even think on a small level.

Tactically winning, like you know, there's there's. Sometimes you have an employee that you just love them and they're great and, like the tactical win is i have someone that we love? The company loves and they get the job done, but then strategically that person isn't necessarily moving the needle and helping grow the company right, so it could be on an individual level. It could be from, like. I said the team lead situation where you just think you're the month looks good, but it's not helping the long.

The 20-year goal right. I think, just on that same note and sorry to jump in here is also you got. You got people that are working inside. Your organization and - and i know i'm guilty of this - i don't think, there's a ceo that isn't guilty of this right - that you got people working inside the organization that that haven't either been explained or been able to connect.

The dots of my work helps create this result. You know what i mean so they're, just so busy doing the job. God bless them, but that's on us as leaders, if we don't say like the impact of this podcast, helping one, ceo or one future ceo to realize they need a management methodology and tactically working. But not you know like just that, impacts people absolutely all right.

So, let's go a totally different direction. How do you run all these different businesses? What's your process? Is it like a weekly thing, a monthly thing, a daily thing: do you wake up at three o'clock in the morning and ah yes, all of that uh, so the ones that were more hands-on, we have a weekly meeting or that needs. How do you determine which ones are more hands-on ones that we don't have the management and staff to run the company itself? And now i'm guilty each other home inspector is my baby. I could probably leave completely and be just fine, but you know we can talk about flaws later um, so we usually troll freak lena.

Maybe yes, that's me. Um yeah, so uh. Shame on me for not putting the power in the people that can do it better. Um, but if it's the ones that we're more involved with it's either a weekly meeting or a monthly meeting to go over bigger level decisions, p l s things like that, got it got it.

What about you? Doug uh? It's definitely staying in your lane of what you're good at and then trusting the others around you right. So so you know one of the easiest slam dunks for me has been titled because there's an operational partner right and my job is to feed the beast and and um and and have a culture aspect there as well. You know when we first when we first launched the title company, we had good people, but we didn't have the right culture fit for our company right and so, and i had nothing to do with hiring. I was completely hands-off and very quickly.

I recognized we. We weren't going to have a successful company if it wasn't the right culture fit so um. Really, the only involvement i've had in title was us replacing the whole team you know and that it wasn't like overnight. I was slightly that's really what had to happen.

It absolutely had to happen yeah and um, and those other people like that. You know they found they found great jobs they're better off from it. They've also learned that it's important it's equally as important that they're, because they weren't happy either right. You know culture if you're, not if you're not enjoying the people you're around, it's it's not a good fit, so that was year one we just crossed the fourth year with that title company, and so it's it's doing amazing.

It's doing amazing within the real estate side of things um, you know the i've got a director of operations that manages all of our staff. That's the area that i try to stay out of the most yeah um, because but it's it's it's not my passion and so i'd. Rather i'd rather have someone who does enjoy that right. You know we got a wonderful, deborah ward, our director of operations.

She she's got a relationship with every one of our staff members and, like there's a huge connection, and you know i respect them, they respect me and i help paint a vision as as much as i can. But but i you know instead of coming in and telling them always. This is how we do things. It's more of you guys tell me how we do things and not that i'm coming in there and saying every day.

I need to know what's happening, but it's it's. What are the problems we're having? How can i help this has worked for me on the sales side? This has worked for me. Another part of my life yeah. This might work here.

Do you want to try that and um and uh? You know just some more creativity, mentor, guys it's mentoring versus like dictating right right and then the sales side that i love um. You know we've got uh. We've got two mentors on our team right now, and this is something that we really pride ourselves on, but every agent that comes into our our team has has to go through a full mentorship right. So it's it's system and people - that's really important.

We've got this dialed in really really well, we've been doing it for years, but um when a new agent joins our company, they've got to one go through a certification to earn lead flow and usually takes about 30 days, and it's it's uh in this order. Contract certification, which is which is like the area that everybody doesn't focus on first, they want to dive right to scripts, and then they have no idea what to do. And then you know you're in legal problems right. So we start with hard stuff.

First, not the hard stuff, but the least fun stuff, first right contracts; first yep, then fun scripts, then buyer presentation right and then a few years ago we added on the text certification, just because our world is full of tech now right and then um, but that Mentor meets with that new agent twice a month on zoom, just like a coaching call until they hit their tenth deal and uh it. It um. It's so successful that last year, our per person, productivity, 42 units per person on our team, which is really good in in the industry in our town and um, and you know just just a little bit of research research of the industry. A lot of people are lacking, the proper leadership up front, but part of our hiring process is, is hey.

You've got to go through this mentorship you're going to earn less money during that time. It's like kind of paying for your your master's, but we only want to hire people that have an interest in becoming a mentor down the road because they hit our long-term strategic goals and it attracts them. They're like wait. A minute there's more than just selling houses.

Yeah and so because you're going to get more to live into right, just like i get bored with things, the agents will get bored with yes and so um. So it's it's again. It's transferring the baton, transferring the skill set so uh. I don't know if that answers the methodology question, but it kind of is all about that.

Yeah. 100. Malcolm. What are you thinking over there? You know i'm just with him just uh the whole got it wanted capacity kind of feel.

If you bring somebody in no matter, if they're a rock star, whether it's some labeled marketing or labeled, recruiting or whatever, if they don't understand the job, that's on us, if they don't want it, then you know they're not going to fit there and if it's an Internal move, they don't have the capacity they're going to be a bad fit anyways, so i mean that's just pretty classic stuff yeah, so just for context, you guys have known each other for how long now uh i was 19., i'm 37 now and still not good. At math, that's right, yeah long time, so it's been a long time. It's been a very long time. Yes, we've been through a lot together.

He he was overseas um as a civilian contractor and finally, you know landed a girl that said come home and then i begged him for two years to get the inspection business. I should have started it myself. You should have. I know i'm kicking myself, yeah you'd love the job, it's super fun, but he's just he's got a guy in place.

That'll do the work. Oh there you go yeah, but he did it and took off and congratulations. I've been crushing it. I mean.

We all know that the stats we like the real estate industry, it's like 87 failure rate - you look at most brokerages. They call them broke urge for a reason. They become richer right, um so that you think about you, know every small business, it's like 90 failure rate after 10 years and some will stay in business, but they don't make any money right, but it just becomes like a job or a tax advantage. For you exactly right, so you clearly move beyond that.

So let's just talk you're like his eyes rolled he's like wait. Have i you're six years, you've got four more years, we'll see we'll do another podcast in four years, so uh biggest mistakes you've made in starting or running multiple businesses. Yeah i weighed on that one yeah i've got plenty, i mean. How long is this show? Seven days, seven days so i mean we got some successful businesses and and in the past, we've invested in non very unsuccessful businesses.

The one thing and you i love it that you're like if we help one ceo out there or one business owner right and i've learned this uh the hard way is. We won't go into business with anybody that doesn't want to work harder than me. That's or smarter than me, and never go into business with anybody that won't put up money to show skin in the game, and we learned that the hard way so there's that yeah. I hope that goes to for somebody.

Yes, yeah so say those three again so either that's beyond work ethic beat me on work ethic or be smarter than me yeah, and that could be like just more experience in the industry in the business spaces. Right, yes, or i mean i'll, ask this guy, like hey, what's up with this this basement and he's like, i don't know i they know how to do this. Yes, right, that's right, and the third would be they have to put money. They have to put skin in the game yeah.

It can't be a you're going to work hard. I'm going to put up the money kind of thing yeah. It just doesn't work, yeah love! It doug same question: what was the question again? Biggest mistakes, uh biggest multiple different, so i've only made this mistake once and we've and we have - i don't want to yeah i mean if you look at it from a theoretical standpoint. It's a mistake.

Lessons not having a proper exit plan when you start something new yeah, yeah um. You know we always got hallelujah. Oh my gosh yeah yeah. Well i mean that you know, especially in real estate.

You know we see, teams, you know the two agent. What did you call it back in the day when you had the four different teams? It was the uh, illegitimate team, the legitimate legitimate team. You know where you know you suck, i suck, let's suck together yeah and that sounded horrible. That's maybe the instagram moment right there.

There we go that's the name of our next business. This is the unicorn video right but um, but i think i got that quote from you. So i'm gon na i'm gon na i'm gon na blame that one yeah yeah but uh, but you know, but the problem is, is even if that that business takes off and there's not a clear exit plan. It's a problem right so i'd say: that's that's one of the biggest the biggest issues, the other one is especially in a partnership 100 right, because there's no buy sell agreement right somebody else's divorce right and like what are we going to do? Do your kids want? It do they not want it like all that stuff and what's the whole goal anyways, you want to actually have a job for the rest of your life, yeah, yeah yeah and this new term strategically lose and tactically win.

I'm just like it's it's. I just had a light bulb go off in my head. It's you find her when you're starting out and you're smaller. You tend to just think about that.

First year of like succeeding, so you'll hire someone and you'll set up a comp plan. That's based on year. One or year two right, not year, five or ten, and so what you tend to do sometimes is you'll overpay people based on like deals, you know i hear people talk, i pay my tc uh. You know 500 500 transactions.

Well, what happens when you need another? One are you taking, i remember the mortgage company, no, no, the mortgage company um years ago that we do business with they had a processor who was absolutely amazing. Now she's amazing. For us she works for a title company yeah um, so we stole her years later, but um she uh. I remember when the volume was getting so large in that mortgage company that they had to bring another processor, and that was really painful for her, because she was solely paid per deal right and then bringing that other person in greatly impacted her income.

Yes and so not making long-term decisions around comp plans when you bring people in, especially especially on um, fixed yeah, yeah, yeah per transaction or something of that nature um but gosh i mean you know, there's so many so many mistakes we make but yeah. We learn from them all um, and you know i think it was back in november when you challenged me with a 20-year letter, and i mean you challenged everybody what two years ago or so, but like you, did it again to me individually and, and that made Me really take a step back and think like how many, how many things am i doing to fix this year, but it's really going to have an unintended consequence in the years to follow and so um. Just really, i ask myself all the time like you know: what are the unintended consequences that come from this decision, i'm about to make usually around scaling like how's, this gon na work when we're bigger every good ceo has to be able to see around the corner. I'm making this decision, but what's gon na happen over there right it's hard.

It's like jay, abraham 101 he's like good good decision today. What happens in five years the to the example of i'm going to pay you x dollars per transaction? Well, that's great! Until you're! Suddenly scaled so much that you need to bring in another person, another person or four more or ten, more god bless you, because you're growing right and that great, except that person's, now really disappointed unless you said we're gon na do this and here's how it's gon Na work and then we're gon na put three four four. You know: people under you and you're gon na run that entire division right something along those lines, yeah all right, so so lots of good lessons guys we try and keep this at 20 minutes. I have no idea how long we're going i'm guessing yeah.

I just got the okay you're at 30.. So that's good, so we suck at time management here at tom ferry, but we're trying to bring you value so um name of the inspection company. Again chad, nougal home inspector chattanooga home inspector. Is it do you have that like dot com, because that's a really long url it is, do people actually get googling the home inspector in chattanooga, oh yeah, it's a winner.

We typically show at first place how's your google uh business page it's by far better than any of our competitors. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you talked to tom toole today, he's at like 485 reviews and he's like people are just cool they're, just calling and hi hi.

We need you, i think, we're like 800. on reviews. Congratulations, those aren't all five stars, but those are reviews. Well, we found a body in the crawl space.

I can only imagine that business all right. Okay, so so we got that we know you know. We know your business, let's say it again, one more time if they want to follow you guys on instagram yeah, the edwington team and berkshire hathaway jade at those properties in chattanooga, tennessee love, it love it love it well guys, thanks for being on the show, thanks For dropping some insights and as always, uh hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell and give us a comment. Let us know uh other business biz that either the questions you would have asked or other businesses.

You want us to start talking to to help. You grow your business. All right, we'll see you soon. You.