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 builder show. Today, we've got the legend: the real tall, real estate, king of georgia. What's up brian? How you doing man i'm doing well tom? How are you okay? Can we just get it right out of the way like? Why is the company called real tall real estate? Well, i get every single day.

Do you play basketball? No, i sell real estate lots of real estate and so it kind of became the brand yeah. So for the person that's listening audio only. This is the first time that i've actually been super intimidated in my own podcast, i'm actually reaching down slamming an apple box on the ground and giving myself some extra height, because i have i'm having issues right now, all right, if you're listening audio, only make sure You check it out on youtube, so so brian give people some context how long you've been in the business. Where do you like? Where do you sell houses and then we'll get into the nitty-gritty of what you built? Okay, so a 14-year veteran in the business uh started in new orleans louisiana and then made the transition to atlanta.

Georgia joined a team. I was a buyer's agent for about a year and a half sold 36 deals, my first eight months and said: well, let's do something with this uh started to grow. My brand real tall real estate tell your friends, yeah and uh. I knew more.

People knew my uh, my stature. They were asking about that. They actually remember my name, so it was kind of a fun transition into that last year april um, during the pandemic, i decided that i was going to open a brokerage, so a lot came into play whenever being in coaching for a little over four years. Probably about five almost now um, i was kind of taking your direction through that pandemic, and i saw it inspired by kind of the guidance you were giving people during that very tough time right, and so i knew that i wanted to kind of influence in that Same way a little bit, so it kind of pushed me to that, and here we are a year later 10 licensed agents and we're going to continue to grow brian.

You have um uh, you have such a charm about you, you right like you're, just your energy! First of all, this is really cool to be this tall. I think i'm like six four now right and he's still towering over me. Your energy is infectious. The thing, though, that i get the most just in our like just talking you know off camera here was purpose right, like what i see you, as is a fulfilled leader, because you're helping people can you talk about that for a minute, so i've always kind of I think, because of my stature and being tall, i get of a lot of attention, whether it good or bad yeah, and so i've always been recognized and i think in our world.

We aren't recognized for the things that we kind of do and for me joining a team. I was kind of inspired and given tools and resources and so to get me kind of where i am today so for me, i wanted to kind of almost give back um. I went to school to be a social worker, so in this sense yeah, so it actually kind of works in the same way, because i can counsel people through the process. Yeah there's a lot of anxiety that happens with it, and so i'm still getting to fulfill kind of that journey, but just in a different, more fun way.

Where'd you go to school, so i went to louisiana state university, i'm a new orleans boy and i went to lsu and then graduated and then was going to graduate school. Did that okay hold on so my producer who's. Listening back in california right now, kelsey is like he's seven feet. Tall he's at lsu i'll, give you another seven footer that was at lsu shack.

Somebody had to say to you, hey man, you want to play ball like did you not get hit up you're like no, i want to be a social worker, were they like what that opportunity did present itself um, so at uno university of new orleans i didn't Want to go to a local school, yeah um, and so it's kind of a commuter school. Also, it wasn't not that i wanted to go party at a state school, but um. I did want to get away and have some growth and development without my parents and i went to private school, so i said this is my chance right yeah. So i ended up doing that and i was gon na red shirt, but i got a fraternity and became social chair and the next thing you know i'm hosting parties which i still do today and it's driven me to this business.

So i can actually see that connection. I can see that connection. So, let's so, let's talk about um the model right, so you you make the decision in the middle of a pandemic to start a brokerage. One of the things i was looking at on your personality profile is brian.

Is the kind of guy that's going to consult with a small group of trusted people before he makes a big decision? What was the process you went through to make the decision to start your brokerage who'd you talk to what was it about? First, i started with jesus uh, then no, i talked to my coach better talk to jesus, but you definitely have to have a faith aspect. Thank you very much. Whether you're, faith-based or not. It's fear of faith.

You've got to lean into the process right because if you allow yourself to be in fear based, then you're just going to make poor decisions in my opinion, so i agree so i uh my spouse was the first person i talked to uh. He is actually running our team in the city and he basically was like go for it. He supports everything i do. He knows that i have these dreams and ambitions.

I also spoke to my coach, and then i spoke to my colleagues that are in you know florida and texas, and all of these different places, and i said what do you think the majority of them said i was crazy, but uh. You know i have to listen to my internal and that's what drives me yeah. Okay, so you make the decision to start the brokerage. You already had a team.

I did so so what was different? So i think that really i wanted to start building something. A little bit more, so i think when you don't uh start to develop a team, it's really for your sake, whereas the brokerage side of it i now get to help people and that's kind of our model - is to build teams yeah for themselves. So i've had. We throw spaghetti at the wall every day and see what's working and all of that, and so i'm now able to give kind of some of that experience and knowledge back to these agents who are really trying to just go through the motions.

So if i'm clear that the focus of the brokerage is to help people build teams correct, it's completely different, it's the ultimate team ridge. I have a new client, it's agents and it's it's wild to me. So, okay, so talk about that. So you mean you know.

I coach a lot of ceos. I think gino bafari is the ceo of the biggest. You know. Real estate conglomerate home services he's got 90 000 agents.

They did 865 000 transactions last year, like a behemoth right and he says the same thing. The ceos of his of his company-owned stores, those are his clients right and then the agents and then the franchise owners, like those are his clients. Where did that mindset come from because that's not typical in a team brokerage environment? I don't know, i guess from a very early age i was always a leader. I have two brothers and um, i'm the middle child, but i always felt like i was still leading them and helping them make decisions so through kind of adolescence and then going through high school college.

Everything i've just always been that leader, i don't uh, i'm very. I would say i'm meticulous in how i operate, but i also do not let fear hold me back yeah, so i'm always going to try to move the needle just a little bit and growth, whether it be personal or business. So so every uh, every team leader i've interviewed ever not just on this show, has said something to the effect of i had the fear i had to lean in anyway. Right like i had to do it.

So how? How do you work through that fear? Because someone listening right now is maybe they're, not a team right and now maybe now they're going. Oh, should i start a brokerage like you know, like you're you're, pushing people's imagination. What are the steps you go through to get over the fear to do something? Big? First, uh vodka: no i'm just kidding um for me. I think that really just kind of writing it down journaling.

Seeing when i get ideas, not everything i do is going to be implemented or executed, and so first i like to kind of write down in my book, which i call the bible of real estate and kind of think about the process. And then i start looking at other ways that that can be impacted by the way that the business is operating now and then i just kind of tiptoe into it. Until i say you know what let's go for it and there's a moment in my gut. That happens, that just says go for it so, but but you're journaling it you're.

Writing it you're doing the math. I mean you're, a very process, oriented systems person right. Like you look at your personality profile, you can be electrifying, but i can see behind the scenes. What's going on in your brain right right, your profile speaks of like tactical organized systems spreadsheet, so you do all that stuff and then you test and if it's right you go so.

I kind of do both hand in hand, but i definitely have like the internal reflection first, so i think it's important to kind of get yourself aware that, and i also where i'm at today i know is not going to get me where i was so. I just kind of always i like to jump off the cliff in a sense, but at the same time i need to know that there, like you, said earlier that somebody's there with a buoy or something to go ahead just in case all right. So yeah i mean so many of the so many of the ceos that i interview follow this sort of methodology. You know like we do our homework.

We say this is how it's going to be right, we're ready to go, and then we just jump. You have to yeah that's hard for a lot of people. I think it is hard for a lot of people. I don't think people recognize their own value and worth, and i think that that comes from either upbringing or society's terms on what they can be yeah, and so i've never listened to that.

I don't know if it's because i'm taller and i actually get my own fresh air and i can have my own ideas up there. But for me personally i mean i still have drunk monkey and all of that stuff, but i think we're kind of told we have to have that paradigm shift and that's extremely important. I think yeah, so so talk about that paradigm shift. What do you think is the shift that needs to be going through a leader's head today, a team leader's had today an agent's head today a broker's head today.

What is the shift, i think, having noise cancellation headphones is number one because i think anything we're doing right now. We have to have these kind of invisible noise canceling, because there's a lot going on in society in our world and that's great, but when you're looking at your business, this is going to move everybody by default. Right now should be busy and if you're not, you haven't, invested enough in yourself and your business to figure that out, but i think kind of changing being willing to fl. I always say it's not a quick fix.

You can hire somebody in a role they're not going to be in that role. You can't say this is this is fixed yeah. This is going to continue to move about whether it's staff agents your model and it could be based off of market trends, and all of that, so you just have to be flexible enough to understand and recognize those things. I think that's number one yeah also being busy by default right now.

What happens if we start to slow down? Is that the time to put your processes and systems in place, probably not yeah, so yeah, it's uh, there's no doubt like a high sense of flexibility. Is required right, like the i think, the rigid leader today, the two pragmatic two organized leader, probably doesn't scale at the level they want. I actually read something interesting and i'll um for all my friends, listening, steve, murray, right who's, a dear friend and he's you know, talked to all of you team leaders, and so he shared something with me yesterday. He said he did a 10-year case study on the top 750 real estate companies in the u.s in the last 10 years, and he said two interesting things that he identified.

One was, as the number of agents increased in the u.s over the last 10 years. Those brokerages, so if the number of agents went up 10 times, those brokerages only grew on average by three times that interesting and then he said when you look at the number of transactions that were being done again just using this kind of easy math of 10 Right if they, if it grew by 10 times, they grew by three times so he's telling me this and and steve if you're listening right, you know he's sitting at a you know some conference and he's like fairy. What's going on, i'm like what have you learned since i spoke with you last, and this is the first thing he jumps into and i said well, what's the lesson there and he said they forgot how to recruit and drive sales right and but that's the kind Of way, steve talks right like you've seen him, he just goes, they forgot how to recruit and they forgot how to drive sales like - and i said, but what's the real lesson he said all the growth's been in the teams right all the the team ridges, the Teams right people like yourself, so how do you drive sales so we're doing a different approach and it's kind of working for us, not kind of it actually is working for us. Is that when you have teams, since i am trying to hire two teams, a lot of team leads it's it's to build and protect their business yeah.

I think that scaling has a lot to do with teaching them everything that you know not overwhelming them, but also don't say that they're a buyer's agent. I think that is such a limiting belief that sure that we, as as team, leads, sometimes put on individuals, and so i i have conversations and coffees with people constantly that say: oh well, my disc profile doesn't align with being a listing specialist. Well: okay, the disc profile is fantastic. I live my life by it in personal and professional right, but that can't be the only thing so then they get caught up in themselves.

It's context things and then see their personality and the adaptability to other avenues for them. Right, so that's what we're doing right now and we're trying you know: belly-to-belly business is always going to be key but recruiting, and then you know productivity. I think people are so busy. They haven't had time to develop what that looks like for their organization, yeah, and so that's something that we're truly trying to focus on to make sure that we're developing our agents, not just one or the other so right.

So i think of everything like you know, for the people that are listening on audio. I have always this. These insight blocks in front of us, which you know like mine, is, you know, be brief, be bright, be gone right, typical high d right high. I involve me give me the details right, like all blue right show me you care green, but i use this as the example of.

If i'm going to engineer a business, i think through basically the four primary drivers i increase lead generation right, i increase conversion. I increase the size of the team, the workforce capacity and i improve upon the systems right. It's those four things right so tell me your process. So i'm probably more give me the details.

I like to go ahead and kind of. I knew that venture out yeah and then, as we pull these apart. Yes, yes, be brief. Be gone is probably not the top, but it is something i when you give me the details.

I want you to be brief. Don't if it's something that doesn't align, i'm going to hear you out uh show me your care and then involve me because i think that's the process show me you want it. I can't want it for you right so, okay, so so, if you're driving, let's say you find somebody new, do you go personality profile to find the team leader or are these people finding you and saying i want to become a leader so they're? Having conversations with me and that's working for us right now, we are recruiting in a few different avenues: yeah, but having the coffees is really what's kind of giving us the first foot in the door with them, and it's interesting how they're hearing about us? It's actually through their. You know.

I was spoken atlanta uh on panel at sales edge and a couple of people started reaching out and i was like wow. I didn't even know that it would lead to that. I didn't even know i would be in this position to begin with so right, very impressive. So so, when you're interviewing someone and you're thinking this person could be a team leader, is there a profile you're looking for or is it a spark like? What is it that that makes you say this person's got it? I want to know why they want to be a team leader.

Are they being a team leader because they're burnt out and don't want to get in the car with any uh with their clients anymore, because that's not the passion yeah yeah, so i try to do a little self-discovery with them. I need to know their why i need to know who's involved in that. Why yeah? So if you have a spouse, are they a part of this journey? How you know either rewarding? Is it for them or detrimental to what's going on in the in the process, and so i just do a deeper dive with them and then align their disc with it, and i say this is these: are your strengths? These are the weaknesses we do a swot and then we go from there. So so you look at companies like side right, like they're, doing things like this, where they're saying okay, you're an existing team but you're probably running it, maybe not the level that you want.

We'll control the back end right, like i think it's a really smart smart move. Obviously they raised a ton of capital to do this is not a i'm, not an investor. It's not a shameless promotion. Just acknowledging someone that's doing something unique in the industry.

Is that kind of the model for you or is it different like how does how does the mechanics of the money work so they actually it's it's treated as a brokerage, but we bring them on um. Our caps are based off of my time to be able to help coach them up yeah. Also, the conversations i do once a month with all of their agents. I think it's very important to hear from somebody besides the team lead, because if you have a leader, that's telling you something seven days a week, you need a fresh perspective yeah, and so then they go.

Oh that's right. I love coming to the conferences because i always see a team lead. They go. Oh, i want to introduce you to my new isa and they say brian.

What do you think about this, and i know they're setting me up and they're like, of course i was like this - is what he's saying like it's basically just reiterating it because it does work and so um, that's kind of part of our value proposition, and then We also have the resources on the backend and that's something we're even actually thinking about starting to create, va uh like start interviewing the va's, so we can just start passing them off to teams. So that's something that we're going to kind of work on. For the rest of this year, so i think it would be helpful because right now, especially with the time - that's just another value proposition for us big time, big time. So it's a traditional financial cap model, so you got ta, have a lot of teams to make this thing work right right and then do you have ancillary services mortgage, closing services, title etc? So we don't have that yet, but that is on the you know.

It's got to be on the road now the car is running, we're not out the parking lot yet. So that's what i kind of like to say. Okay, we've seen some success already and we're really appreciative of it. Yeah um some developers have been reaching out too.

So that's an avenue that we're looking at as well. Well anything like that that you can run through kind of your quasi relocation company. Take a 35 referral fee 40 referral fee i've. I can't say the name of the ceo that i coach, but we're we've been driving with it with a 1200 agent company to be at 30 percent of all business.

We control, so we run it through relocation. It's a it's. A referral fee model right. It's a massive profit center and we're giving to agents that are usually only working their past clients in sphere and, as that goes rich, poor, rich, poor, rich poor, we're able to go put them in the middle and give them a few extra deals.

So they're, richer. Yep, if that makes sense, so is that, like is that in the framework for you? Are you thinking about lead generation from the standpoint of helping them grow as well, so yeah subsidizing what they already have to help create and build a little bit more capital? A little more more confidence yeah in that process, so i think that that's key we're actually doing that in investing on those things, because now we've got the capital to assist them with kind of getting themselves together and it's paying off. So it just gives that level of confidence which i think is really key in this, so people have a hard time self-discovering, why their big? Why is you know not evoking emotion so because they get they get weirded out, in my opinion, that, oh you know i shouldn't i shouldn't be responsible, for this is what i think people live their life through so yeah, so um, let's go a totally different direction. How do you run multiple locations very interesting, so we're in the hiring process, so the market that we're in so i started out in the heart of atlanta.

I was a single agent doing my deals and then we built a team that could service. You know we serve metro atlanta and then we ended up with. I purchased a property in the north georgia, mountains through a developer, and that process was less than uh what we would deliver. So i had a conversation and it really was.

It was a process with all and it's still, except for the lender yeah and we were having conversations like this - can be better and all of that, and so through that process and on our on our side, they actually decided that they would do it with us. So we just picked up a development up there, and so we have a listing agent up there. That's handling all of those deals. He has the relationship with the developer and so real tall real estate is living tall in the mountains.

All right all right, isn't it interesting how we you know we go do deals or i'm like i, i can walk into a restaurant and my brain goes. I can make this better right. This service sucks. This experience could be you know i i i sense.

You have that same thing, like everywhere, you go you're like uh that that photo needs to be corrected. Is that ocd or is that, like just an obsession around building ocd, it takes a lot of uh credit for it, but it's also. I just have a passion for building things. Uh.

My entire life has been progress, not perfection. I i own that, so it makes me kind of feel calm and comfortable in certain zones and so really trying to build something grow. Something better be better we're seeing a lot of people right now that are just we do our scale of desperation versus determination. So, every day we do a mindset, check and go.

Are we desperate to get the deal done? Are we determined to get it done better right? You know what are the new things that we can be implementing. So that's one thing: every single day we talk about that as the agents. The team leads everyone, so i i love it. How short is the shortest person on your team uh? It would probably be valerie she's, our director of growth and development, and she went to a closing for me and somebody walked in and goes you're not tall, and it really is.

Living tall is a mindset and it's you know i look back to my parents, uh my parents and my grandparents, my grandfather, you know he used to say you. Do you clean it up? He always put his best foot forward and so doing it with pride like. If, even if it's not right, you still make it better yeah, so that just was instilled in me. So that's kind of our mentality but yeah she's, like five three okay katie come here.

Just just just for fun, we just got to get this on camera katie. How how katie you've been on the show two and three before five, two and three quarters i'm just noticing. Just the difference is it's very real, but probably still living tall. So, oh, she is huge in stature.

She goes out on that. She crushes social, okay, so wrapping this up um, let's put a bow on it with uh. I want to know first biggest mistakes to avoid for the builders out there um listening to other people. Besides your gut, that would probably be the one thing: aligning agents that don't align with your culture and probably not doing it sooner so you're, probably sitting on the fence and this actually, this market's, probably the one to do it in because there you know there is A little room for error there, and so probably starting you know when you can and believing in yourself but yeah.

We call them corrections. So yeah, don't call them mistakes. We call them corrections right. Lessons learned right.

Lessons learned along the way i mean every ceo. I talked to like we were like how did you get good? I got punched in the face seven thousand times and i learned how to you know dodge and weave and get back on my front feet versus on my back feet like that's just the way. It is right, so i get it second question. Um tech stack, quick, sip of water, strategic pause.

What are you wanting to know? What do you use um? So we have for our like crm and everything like that. So we use sierra interactive. Okay, that's our crm! We have dot loop for our compliance, we haven't uh, haven't added it, but we're going to be doing csu, nice so and track and measure yeah, and that's basically it so how about transaction management? What about uh, because dot loop will do a lot of that? We're running all of that through there right now, as we scale we're actually going to be adding to that too so cool, so we're baby, stepping we're watching the p l, so i hired a whole new group to start doing all of that this year i had A great support system for that, but i that's another thing: align yourselves with uh with vendors that are actually in your entrepreneurial growth mindset. You as a baby agent is not going to be the same lender attorney because they may not want to grow and that can only hinder your progress.

So that's, i think, that's key. That was one of the things i know we talked about like that alignment of the people that are with you right, not just your teammates, but all your partners like for me salesforce, is so much of how we operate our business if we're not aligned with them. They're going a different direction, we're in trouble right, so, even even like your tech providers, you've got to be in alignment with right. I love it.

I love it all right, so closing thoughts for the people out there. What's what's your? I mean you've shared a lot of funny nuggets and great insights and enthusiasm. What would you say is kind of you know, closing thoughts for people listening. You know what you're capable of doing anything, i'm not reinventing the wheel.

I don't think all these ceos are reinventing the wheel. I think it's really important to dive into what you really want and what your purpose is and go for it. You know take the leap if you're doing a brokerage, because you're tired of selling might not be the right avenue, but just believe in yourself and then surround yourself with people that are going to support you so even showing up. Today i was getting text messages from friends that i know in this ecosystem.

My family, like everything, and it just surround yourself with the people that matter and that will make you matter, because i think that that's important. I agree i agree well so that was a mic drop all right, so hey you heard it here first, this is. The team builder show we're talking to excellent team builders that are trying to help all of us unpack how they do what they do so make sure you like subscribe, hit that notification button all that fun stuff brian. If they want to follow you on instagram, they want to connect with you what's the best way for them to reach you real tall, realtor or real tall real estate.

My personal is real tall realtor. If you have questions and then real tall real estate of real estate goes to the company outstanding man, i appreciate that all right. We thank you. So much make sure you give us some comments down below and make sure you follow this guy definitely on instagram, because he is a character all right, we're out you.