Hey welcome back to team builders. What, if i told you, the person we're going to unpack today and understand, got in the real estate business in 2006 timing is everything became a real estate owner by 2007 interesting choice built that business up eventually left it in 2015 started his own deal and grew From a seal team to one of the biggest team ridges in the country, steve welcome to the show man thanks for having me tom, i'm super pumped to have you so obviously, we've known each other for going on six seven years, you have had extraordinary growth um, But i was doing some research on you. I thought what was interesting is like your double major in biology and economics yeah, so it just makes sense to go into real estate because biology and real estate steve helped me understand that. So i think um.

You know immigrant family, which teaches you you got to hustle um, but the doctor road was the road i was going down. I assumed i mean who else is doing biology right so uh. What happened like where in college did you finally go? Maybe i don't want to do this um when you have uh, i played soccer right so we're doing practice every day. Then i got labs and i just burned myself out so i said hey before i go back to med school.

Let's just do some consulting gigs. So i got into consulting, did a little bit of a work with accenture um had some fun started, making some money and that actually got me into real estate. That sounds more, the you know the econ right, because they're like okay, we want those smart kids to understand. You know the numbers in the world markets and all that stuff.

How did biology help you through all that i think um. The determination like there was just the labs would go on for hours and hours, and so just a lot of practice and a lot of teamwork, actually in those labs of like one guy, might know how to take apart the frog, a different way and he's helping You to learn how you can do it better, so it was interesting when you look back at college and and i'm in this interesting space with college and whether it's the right thing to do. There are so many little lessons through four years that you just don't realize how much they can help you later in life. You know having not gone to college, but watching both my boys go through college and you know when i don't know.

If i want to go to college anymore, i'm like hey, this may be the only time in your life where you can screw around as much as you do right have a ton of fun. Please, don't you know, hurt yourself or anybody else and then get your degree and move on right. So i i i also have mixed emotions, because i think anybody that has to take on that student debt. That is a horrific, horrific amount of debt to get a underwater basket weaving degree.

That gets you absolutely nowhere right so right, so i agree with you, but let's, let's talk about accenture to real estate, so you're out doing consulting at what point did you say to yourself? You know this. Consulting is pretty good. You know monday, through friday, probably benefits you know publicly traded company, i'm gon na go, sell real estate in 2006.. What what were you thinking so making some really really good money? At an early age? And my now wife said hey, you can actually go on a vacation right um, so we went to jamaica and i uh.

I bought a book on uh on sales because i had started investing some real estate and i'm like man. This sounds like a lot of fun and i don't love going to the office every day and being stuck locked in a room from you know: nine to five or nine to nine, whatever yeah, and so i turned her. I said i think i'm gon na go back and quit and she said: okay, you know - and so you know super supportive wife for the whole journey, um yeah, and so i did that - and i knew they would have always taken me back. So it wasn't as big of a risk.

I had no kids, no real debt at the time, a little bit of college but um yeah, so it wasn't a huge risk and then i just loved sales. You know i got out. I had a first year in sales that was um remarkable. I had a lot a lot of fun made a lot of money doing that i'm like this is way better than consulting okay and then the global economic meltdown hit.

So that was like a short window of like wee and then bang yeah, but but your broker came to you to unpack that story. Tell people like we're gon na we're gon na get into a lot of the sausage making of what he does at an extraordinary level, with 120 sales people and 1500 transactions this year, like he's, built a machine, but you got to have context for the backstory to Understand how he got here, yeah, so what happened in 2007? So um, basically i said hey. If i'm going to do this real estate thing, i'm going to go all in like i did with everything. So i went to you know the nar conference.

I went to every conference, i read every book. I bought right all the different um. You know little coaching platforms, you know 500 right and put it into play, yeah put it all into play and um. You know the broker kind of came to me and said: hey.

Can you teach other people how to do whatever you just did in that first year and i said yeah no problem not great when the broker's, like i don't know what i'm doing: yeah yeah you figured out so yeah great real estate, mind, but systems and process Weren't his things, so he said: hey, you know, i've got this opportunity. We can grow uh this this brand and let's partner up so we did yeah, so you become a broker owner at this point. How old are you 25 right so now you're, a co-owner did. Did you know that the global economic meltdown was happening when you were like sure i'll take on half the responsibility financially for everything yeah, we closed like april of 2007 on on the deal where we bought these uh other offices and uh yeah by 2008.

Everything, the world's spinning, did you guys buy at the high oh yeah, okay, oh yeah, okay, yeah the worst possible time, and you know i had never failed at anything up to that point. You know, and i'm like we're this ship's not going down, and so it was just all hands on deck and we made it through some some tough years yeah. Looking back, though um, what did you get from that experience? I think what i learned from that. Actually, who did you become because of that experience um? I think i became a look.

I had a college education, smart, kid um, but books weren't, really my thing and i decided you know what i'm gon na have to start to educate myself on on being an owner being a leader in these times. So i really started to dive into books at that time, yeah and so uh learners earners for sure, and to this day you know i'm a big blinkist fan, so i try and get stuff through a little quicker today, but yeah always just trying to take in Information yeah yeah. What does information do for you like when you like? I mean you and i are various i mean this morning - i'm i'm actually re-listening to this audiobook, i'm going back through this one, i'm obsessed with this book um, but i do i listen to short form long form and then i do. If i'm listening the book, i listen to it like 1.75, so i'm getting really fast, totally love going at higher speeds, and i guess what i've learned is you.

You pick up different things at different points in in your life right. You could read a book at 25 and read that book at 35 and it hits you totally different. So it's just you got to constantly dive into this stuff, yeah yeah. So so, let's transition.

It's all of a sudden, it's 2014 and something happens where you say. I think i'm going solo yeah. What? If what happened? I think my partner and i were just going in different directions: um. He was a great mentor, a great real estate, mind and you know just at different phases in our life 20 years apart um, i kind of wanted to go in a different direction, and so we just came to an agreement and um a very fair one for Both of us, where he still let me practice right in the same market, you know and uh i was gon na - go build a seal team.

So we're going to talk about the biggest mistakes that we see. Team ridges team leaders brokers make when it comes to recruiting onboarding and retention, because you've done some some battle tested, sure proof of like hey. This works right because we've made a lot of the mistakes, but but go back to that early days. So you, you know: you're coming off having a large company yep, probably lots of agents, lots of resources and you're, like i'm gon na start small three people in a dusty uh, three family, yeah and - and you started your own brokerage out of the gate.

Yeah right out of the way, let's do that versus just you know, just hang your license, someplace else and not deal with the concept, so i had a franchise and i just felt like uh. You know that was the first eight years of my ownership and i felt like we were just handing them money that they weren't getting um a return. So i said you know what, with that money i can take it and market and so yeah. So um funny start.

I um, i started with one name and uh managed to get myself into a uh, a lawsuit within a couple of months on a name. What happened yeah, so it was a situation where somebody uh we did the research um. I don't feel like they would have won if they took me to uh all the way in court, but it was just. I was going between one name and using my name, which is a tongue twitch twister.

This is a tough one. I had to say it like seven times like steve. You know i've loved you for a long time, but like that's this this yes, so you know, i just felt like when i got the demand letter um to stop using the original name, because i decided not to go with my name yeah and i said you Know what this is a sign. Let's just go with my name, my name um.

I had another family member who was pretty successful in our marketplace, so the name carried some weight yeah. So but it's a full rebrand after you just bought all the signs and the business cards and right yeah right. You know it's interesting, that stuff happens in business and i'm glad you brought it up because you know sometimes we just we think we've got the right idea, but we don't do the research. We don't go to the government files, we don't call our attorney and say: could you check this out and then i'll send your twenty five thousand fifty thousand dollars into branding and you're like oh, i guess we can't use that right, yeah, so i've been guilty of That one blessing in disguise, though, always best thing that could have happened.

So when did when did you get connected with your first coach with us uh just right when i started yeah early yeah? So why i mean you were smart guy, you? I said i'm not doing another coach man, i know it all yeah yeah right come on man, i'm 33. I got this. I got this. I've bought all the coach's stuff.

What's he gon na tell me: um went to an event and uh. It was life-changing event. So what was the event um? I think i went to a sales edge yeah. That was my first yeah yeah experience and i'm like whoa nobody's done it like this yeah yeah.

So you learned what to say: be effective, yeah right, yeah and i hadn't also given a consistent coach. I had bought people's. You know everybody kind of had a book or some program. You were doing training, yeah self training, not like yeah training and coaching very different.

You know yes, you've learned that now, because now you obviously have all these team leaders and they're coaching and training right so correct, um, all right, so we're chatting sort of off camera. You, like a few people that you know the the sort of circle that we run in, went like this. I'm gon na start small or have 200 people and take over the world like, but that was a transition to go from three like walk us through the evolution. If you just said yep from 2016, 17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

22. Help us understand, like you, know the the building blocks. What did you add? First, how many people, let's just kind of go nitty-gritty deep on that for a sec sure i i really like - and this was from from my coach um. We did a three-step approach to get me out of production: okay, but now you're going super advanced when you're already talking getting out of production.

Okay, weren't you producing in 15, 16 17 or you jump right out of production right out of, i would say by 16. I uh well so so 15 is sell as many houses you can man. Oh my god. I just started my own company.

I got to make some money yeah bring in the revenue right bring in the revenue, so sell, sell. Um. I brought uh one or two agents with me and an admin um. Neither one of them were, you know, top producing agents.

It was hey. Let's do this as a team yeah right so yeah. I don't know what we sold that first year, maybe 7 500 houses or something right and all in, but as i'm as i'm working through that and working with the coach to go okay first step of building. This is, let's get you off of buyers right, and i i love this three-step program for anybody looking to build a team, no more buyers.

What about my best friend, no more buyers right so get yourself a buyer's agent um, so so did that um. So in year two, i think we probably double that business. So maybe we do. You know i don't know 150 200 transactions, something like that.

Yeah um. At the same time, we're getting buyer's agent we're getting um executive assistant, slash transaction coordinator, yep yep, so start to get the admin support. Um then, year year, three is uh, uh, no more listings right so that you just had a whole bunch of people go yeah. Oh, that's where all the money is steve.

How did you oh right so so at what point it it in 2017? How big is the team you you're, you lisa? So many of our friends, doubled, doubled, doubled, doubled transaction and volume year over year, and it was in my mind, combination of adding but also replacing like okay, i'm not doing this anymore. So i'm gon na put three people over there and their combined effectiveness is a little better than what i used to do on my own. But now i'm free yeah to go. Do all this other stuff was that the strategy yeah absolutely and likely.

So you know we we built, and then we also tore it down, of course yeah, of course, what about along the way here when someone hears okay, so he added a couple people and he's able with doubles production right like i think one of the elements is: Okay, so what lead pillars? Did you add what new uh revenue sources did you add, like you know, could you you could only squeeze your past clients and centers of influence so much before they're, like okay steve's calling he probably wants a referral? Okay got it. Yes, what else did you add? 15, 16, 17, 18, along the way as a lead source, yeah so 100, and - and i struggled with the growth right when i would come to some of your events and we got to go bigger and bigger and bigger. I always you know, wanted to make sure if we were going to bring an agent on the team that we could feed them right, and so you know lead. Gen became a really important thing for us um and there's a great evolution in the lead gen which hopefully we'll get into, but so i think we just start with uh, google, pay-per-click and and facebook leads yep right um because those are cheap.

I love that. So we google, today yeah literally just coming out of a miami meeting and people are like. Oh i'm, thirty thousand dollars on this portal and i've got. You know fifteen thousand on this portal, i'm like how much you spent on google 500 a month and i'm like.

Oh and what kind of response are returns you get? Oh, i made 180 000, you you put 6 000 in and you made 180 000.. Maybe you should go to 50 000 a year. You know i mean, like people missed, that one so google was effective. Facebook was effective, but now how many sales people do you have in 2018, so by 2018? My guess is we're probably like 18 to 20 sales agents.

That's a lot of agents yeah, but not for someone like you that had 120 yeah in your franchise account wasn't a big deal um you know, and before i really wanted to scale this. I really wanted to get into the weeds and build out the systems in the process. You know yeah so talk talk about that as we before we get into 19 20 21, where the explosive growth, what are the most important things you had to put in place? That gives - and i'm saying this to the people listening it gives the owner the agents. The tc gives everybody the certainty that we can do more when the flywheel is working right.

But when there's a cog in the wheel and something breaks down, everybody gets a little freaked out. I mean, i think the number one thing that you've got to get off of an agent's plate is is any kind of paperwork right. So the transaction coordinator has to be the first thing, because that's the last thing that you want your agents doing is doing paperwork doing you know, following a transaction from beginning to end, you want them out talking to people right, so anything that we can get off Of off of an agent's plate, and then it was any back end, op stuff that i could get off of my plate. Those are the two you know most important things in my mind is free up my time right, always trying to replace myself whatever role.

I'm doing um and i think it was always like how do you know what to take off your plate and the best advice i ever got um, possibly from the coach here was put in in order everything that you do on a daily basis and then prioritize. What do you actually like to do right so the stuff that you like to do? Don't replace that stuff, the stuff that's at the bottom of the list find somebody to do it. Bingo no bingo, i've seen i mean so many of our clients. What did you do i made up a list of all the stuff that i love to do that creates revenue and all the things i felt like i had to do and if i just got rid of that list to somebody else, because you get way more Effective, probably gon na do it with a bigger smile on their face more enthusiasm, they're gon na they're gon na love it where we're like.

I have to do this so so i wan na highlight that yeah, please. When i first got into this replace myself, my mentality was get them to do it at eighty percent of me right because i thought nobody could do it better than steve yeah right yeah and i've learned 80 of tall order. What i've learned, though, and you just hit on it, is most of these people. Do it better than i ever could have, because we've got the right person for that, i'm trying to be jack of all trades.

You put the right person in that role. They're doing it at 110 of what so i think people got to get comfortable with people can do it better than you at pretty much everything that you do right right! Okay! So let's, let's unpack that um! I know as a ceo like you don't want me doing the accounting. You don't want me doing hr. You don't really want me doing anything except for coaching, creating connecting contributing if you're really paying attention to my skill set.

But i also understand i've got an ego. I've got an opinion. I think i can save that client. I think i can save that deal.

I think i can market that better. I certainly have an opinion on everything. How do we get out of that or or do we? I struggle with it every day? Right, okay, so i'm not alone in this. Yes yeah! You know what i've got a great um, supportive executive team.

That just reminds me occasionally a nice little nudge of. Can you get out of our way? Please right! You know and what's working for us right now is a list. So if i go to a conference i'm gon na, i used to just come back, especially from yours, because it was r d, rip off and duplicate. That's right! I'd come back with a hundred things and go all right, we're doing it all tomorrow.

You know it was bad right. It was really bad. Like please steve, no more time for your conferences, please yeah! He clearly just got back from a conference conference. Everybody hi.

It was a tom france i like that yeah, so so so now we just dump it in a list right right and we go at what pace? Can you guys get this done? This would be a priority for me. What's a priority for you guys and just get on the same page of what can we really accomplish in the next week month quarter and what's got ta? Wait that you that's exactly it it's like. What can we do this week? That we think is urgent? That will make a difference. That'll either solve an immediate problem or it'll, create revenue and solve.

We want more listings send out that mailer. Everyone in tom's community is saying it's working right now: okay, let's get that out versus. Can we add this into our next quarterly meeting and see where it fits yeah? What what time, what resources, what people, what might have to stop happening? If we're going to add this one - and you start thinking about your business - that way at your size, we have to otherwise we're the disruptors yeah of the business and and the the waterfall is so we're getting it right at the executive level. But now we're working on how, when we make a change to the organization, how do we roll that out yeah, because even there we're trying to roll stuff out too fast? You know with the size that we're at we've got to take some time and right.

Hey here is our process for change, rollout yeah, so we're working on that. So so, if we were to fast forward to today and because i really want to get into this sort of mistakes around recruiting and onboarding and onboarding, specifically, because i think you've got a for the person listening, whether you're going on board one sales person or 400 Sales people, what steve is doing with his team, is on point but first give people contact. So today we have 120 sales people, yep, four locations, four regions, yep, okay, so four regions and and give us the just the management structure of a region sure. So, within those regions, you've got your team leader, so just think of each region.

Like anybody, who's running a team, you get a team leader, yeah um, but here's where it gets a little bit different. We have a full-time coach. I love it right so that person is out of production, yeah and they're there to support the agency. Like a sales manager deal doctor, we call it coach, because coach is way: sexier yep yeah, they they um, they run the script, calls for that region, yep um.

They will help the the sales leader, maybe with some accountability. If an agent is struggling, maybe they can pull somebody aside and help them on something specific good um. They run the trainings in that region, obviously yeah, and then they are taking over after the first six transactions. I believe it is so under that coach.

If you're, if you've done less than six transactions, you have a mentor and that person is hand holding you through those first six deals so mentor on. First, six deals yep i mean this is a very classic real estate brokerage play, but you're doing it in a team ridge, environment right. So i love it. So so what would like? A typical team leader earn versus a coach earn versus a mentor earn? So i think you're going to go it's going to be depending on the size of these teams right.

So the way that we've done like each of these roles was they were all in production at first yeah right, so our sales leaders um we're trying to get to about 50 60 agents per region. Where, then, we believe that those sales leaders can come out, but right now they are leading their region team leader and just like a typical team, they're still doing a few deals right. We try and keep them on the listing side. So it's a less uh um time intensive, yep, uh and our coaches were still in production, and but now we pulled them out, so you know you should be making you know with because you're getting overrides those the sales leader and the coach are getting overrides and Everybody in your organization, so the bigger it grows.

You know these should be six-figure positions right right and i think the key on these roles, too, is when we're small. We brought everybody in and they're everybody's an agent when you get a little bit bigger. Now we can really look and say: hey, you know what tom's not the best agent but man. He really cares right, he'd be a great coach.

He'd be great on those script. Calls so and everybody doesn't make a great leader or a great coach. So just kind of feel your people out and have a career path for people. Have you so career pathing is so key, and i think it's it's when i was going through all of your stuff, i'm like career path, career path, career path like when you give people a future to live into.

They live into it with you versus at another brokerage, yes um, but let's go back to you so so they're comp they're making good money. How are you identifying them like? So a lot of people will do this they'll go like well. You know. I really like hector over there and tyrese is awesome.

Terry, do you want to go into sales management sure, and then you never think like has he ever managed anything ever in his life? But you know he's a really good deal doctor and he's a nice guy and he's the one i'm closest to in the office so i'll make him the manager. You know what what's the right approach, i think the right approach is, they start doing the role when they're not getting paid for it. I'm telling you some people will just naturally start to do some things and they're like wow. They've they've got it.

They want to do it, yeah um, let's compensate them for it. Yeah and we've had a bunch of different things, kind of come out of that for sure yeah. So so look to see what people's tendencies are when they're not getting paid. It's like.

Who does everybody? Go to when you're, not there yeah right like that. That might just be your next, like junior manager, sales team, leader et cetera, or you know, i think most teams today are using some sort of internal communication right, yeah who's, the person that always responds yeah. When there's one of the agents has a question, the person that always responds probably make a good coach yeah. Do you guys use slack for that? We actually use um, google, so we're all in workspace.

We use chat, okay, good good and it's all the same yeah. Just it's just another form of easy, fast communication. Are you guys, because you're in four regions yep so so break connecticut, yeah? Two in mass one? In florida you got it where's the florida sarasota, okay, so sarasota, two in mass, like north and south, east and west, central and west, okay, central and west, and then, where in connecticut, hartford, okay, perfect right, so tons of opportunity leads being generated in all. Yes, four team leaders - yep.

Maybe we need to back up because i want to get into onboarding the mistakes, because there's so much there's so much there to unpack um you've got you you've got a ceo. You've got a director of recruiting. You got a director of agent development agent developing basically what about marketing uh hired outside okay yep, so we've got a cmo uh that is outside the media, company right, yeah, no separate, separate, okay and separate. So - and you know this is an interesting thing for people because you're like well, i can't afford all these people right right most of these, whether it's coo cmo cfo, you can go fractional now yeah.

I never realized yes right. So we have full-time c-o-o, but we have a part-time fractional cfo and a fractional cmo. It's perfect yeah! So so look into that. If you're like, i can't afford all these people right, yep right, it's no different from like uh my buddies over picasso.

Let's, let's take a 5 million dollar house just buy one eight of it yeah right like so it's the same thing. Take it 250, our salary, maybe just take one eighth of it right and have somebody there thinking who has all that experience working with you? Okay, so let's go back to um again, mistakes that you see, team leaders and brokers makes mistakes that you've made and then let's go through literally your onboarding process in detail. Sure, because i think people are going to take a lot of notes right now. Those that have made the mistakes, myself included, are getting a lot of value out of this, so talk to us about, let's just go right into onboarding, sure sure, so i i think you know, we've always cam come from the approach that, if we're going to give These guys leads, we've got to go heavy on the training, okay, because i think early on, we had plenty of leads coming in and nobody full-time training.

Oh just just put a question in in chat or just ask right instead of front loading, some training, um and so look. It was an expense that i i originally was like man. I don't know. If i can afford this yeah, i don't think you can afford.

Not to spend the money up front on the training if you're, if you're getting leads for your team, so um, it's pretty extensive, so in our training actually starts before they're, even a part of our brokerage um. So what we realize, at least in in the areas that we are operating, there's been a delay in uh getting licenses yeah right, so we're bringing them into our ecosystem. What does that look like access to our script? Calls access to our. We have like a thursday training, so you can come in and look at that we do a a deep dive, two hours on fridays, that you are playing in the crm, so we're actually doing live dialing with one of our top prospectors.

So you can kind of watch them do it, and then we have a 6 30 a.m. Call that i'm on, which is you know we might listen to a tom ferry show we might do a motivational video, but then we spend the last 20 minutes or so just deal. What happened yesterday in real estate and now case study deal doctoring. You know education yeah, so we might have 30 40 agents up at 6 30 in the morning trying to just get better.

You know, we've got this mentality, you got to do at least 100 deals before you kind of know. What's going on right, so how do i get 100 deals worth of knowledge into your head as fast as possible so and again - and this is happening with people that are maybe they've taken their exam? Have they committed to you or is this a part of your they've got a comment learned yeah? Okay, so they've got to commit to us. So i've taken my exam, i'm i'm committed yep, i'm in, but i'm still waiting for my license and if that takes three months four months, five months, whatever it is, you're baking them along yeah and look - i mean the toughest part about starting in real estate - is You're not going to get money for 90 days right. So how do we try and get the money as fast as possible right so get them trained up? You know early while they're waiting, contract trading um, not pre-licensed.

I think all that starts once you actually got your license, got it yep, so so walk us through the onboarding experience so yeah. So welcome to roby holmes. Sure, i'm in so i'll give it to you at a high level and then we can kind of break it down. So our our director of asian training really went with this uh space theme.

Okay, so we have. Our entire training platform is called agent launch. Okay, launch got right, yep, so first part is liftoff right. Obviously i love it so so liftoff is that pre-licensed scenario where you can get access to some of our training start to feel our culture too.

I think that's. The other thing you'll notice about people is how they're interacting on some of these calls, so we're getting a feel for who these people are before they're, even there and they're getting a feel for who we are we're not going to be a great fit for everybody. Yeah, so that so that's liftoff um, then you get your license you're going to go through uh orientation right, so it's like a one day make sure all your systems are set up, and everything like that do you guys do that internally? Is that done by the coach, the mentor, the sales trainer or the director of training? Actually so it gets that's her first kind of interaction with every agent that comes through our door and i'm assuming this is remote, because you're in three states yeah some of it's uh remote. Some of them are obviously at the headquarters that she's at okay.

So it's like tech, onboarding, here's your you know. Here's access to the crm training on the crm, yep yep, we'll start to give them well after orientation. That's usually on a friday and the following week is what we call boost, got it okay. So that's our one week intensive okay, trying to get you on all the core stuff that you need to to do a deal so so i'm a big fan of total immersion training in a one-week intensive is just that.

But most of them don't remember everything. True. So what happens afterwards? They go into orbit. Ah right, wait! I'm now in outer space - and i don't know what i'm doing - i'm scared.

I love it. So we boost you, we give it all. But right you can't exactly you can't retain it all yeah! It's you got to learn and do learn and do learn and do right. So orbit is a and i don't know how many modules she has built out, but we've got our training, uh uh learning system.

What lms do you guys use? Oh wait. It actually doesn't really. It doesn't really chalk, it's not one of the common ones. We use.

No, we use the same thing internally. All of our coaches are on it. Okay, yeah love, it great love, it yup. So she so that's like uh, um.

You've got 60 days to basically complete that training and there, and the nice thing about that is we can put some tests in there right, so you can't just go through it and we'll know whether you actually are uh. You know learning throughout through these text markers along the way tests. The other thing that we've we've thrown in you know - and i think every agency would do this - is you got to put your database together right away right, so we used to hand out this document of like uh the memory jogger? Yes, the memory javascript other tom ferry tools so we'd give that out and um think that okay, they built the best database possible and agents. Would you know we were looking back at some of our agents.

They'd have a 15 person database 20 person database. So we actually took it off their plate. Um. You spend a few hours with one of our virtual assistants and we built out your database for you.

So how do you do that so you're going to give that virtual assistant login to your email, your social media, we're going to get everything out of your phone, we're going to get it into a spreadsheet they're going to get rid of the duplicates for you? You know really build out your database for you that is so yeah valuable. Oh my god, it's unbelievable! So people are like. I just don't know anybody and then i'll say you're like oh. You have like 325 people, you actually yeah.

Yes, yeah wow so phoned a spreadsheet direct by a va. Do you get some pushback from the agents? Like i don't know, i don't want people to have access to all my stuff, absolutely yeah um. What do you guys say you're not in the growth mindset, then yeah right. So if you're gon na, if you're gon na be on this team, you got ta come from a growth mindset.

So not only are you giving us access to all that stuff um, but we're gon na communicate for on behalf of the team, it's going to come from you to your database yeah, because what do we know? Agents won't. Do it right. So, let's just do it for them! Well, they're they're, like you know, all the studies show the first 90 days of any new career you're completely overwhelmed right. In this case, you're learning new contracts.

You got to learn how to think like a real estate agent. I don't have a paycheck coming in right stress. You have all that stuff going on and then you're like hey now get your database organized right right. So it goes back to your early thought.

Our job is to remove all the obstacles yeah, so they can just go be with people and we're like man. I know this isn't right and so yeah we took a deep dive and - and we built it for him now so smart great great change for us. What else happens in orbit like so you got this, you know days of training right check-ins like is it? Is it trainings on what to say? Is it training on contracts like what what happens during this time period? All across the board time i mean she has built out just an unbelievable training modules for you name, it we've got it and anytime. So we we use zendesk as our kind of repository yeah.

Okay, so anytime, somebody asks a question and we can't say it's in zendesk yeah. We got to build on an article right. So right, you know, so we train our coaches. If it's not in there build an article.

So we want you to turn to an agent and say: hey, there's an article on this. Go read that and if you still don't understand it come back to me. Yeah and those are the type of people that we're looking for, is those that want to learn, of course, so you know if they're like. Oh, can you just tell me the answer? No, i want you to get all of it.

Yeah right so read the information and you know it, but what do you do i mean we have? What is it like? Uh, you got four minimum modalities of how people get information, so so what? If i'm not good with reading i'm better with video or i'm better auditorily, what do you guys do then? So that's her final piece um to the space theme, which is access. So access is your core uh trainings. It happens every other week and it just is on repeat right: every single quarter. So that's your buyer presentation listing presentation how to run an open house how to negotiate offers right.

Um repair requests stuff like that, so that and that's live yeah or if you're in another region, then you zoom in so so. What's the success rate we, you know, i talk to brokers all the time and they're like i've, got the best new agent training program on the planet. I'm like what's your success rate? Well, my per person productivity. My company is six michael, now they're a traditional brokerage, not a lead generation based team ridge right, so i'm not knocking them, because if you get to six and your sales price is 750 000, you have core services you're, actually making a lot of money.

You're, not a broker um, but the failure rate is really high, really high, yeah and we're. You know what we're trying to be a little bit more aggressive um than we were probably in the past um. We were willing to keep some people on if they kind of just fit the culture yeah and now we're trying to say look it's not just about culture like these leads are expensive and i guess at the end of the day, if i give the lead to You and you don't close it and i give it to johnny and johnny can close it. It's unfair to johnny to keep giving you leads 100.

So, like a players want to be around other a players yeah, so we're just trying to level up the bench. We literally just had uh chris mercel from top grading at the miami event yesterday and like the whole theme, is a players, a players only. How do you get dave? So you said that that was my big smile yeah. So access is that ongoing training, but but steve in the last 24 months, and you could really argue you could really argue almost the last 48 months.

How you represent a buyer today is so different from what it was in 17 or 18 right. It's so intense. Today i was looking at the numbers yesterday: it's 348 000 homes for sale right now in the us and we're in april in the spring market, when there's typically, 1.25 million, yeah, right and and interest rates have gone up and and and and and and right so Have you guys modified the training at all? Are you doing more? Are you finding with your existing people that are not a part of this onboarding that you've got to do way more sales training around getting offers accepted? Taking more listings yeah? It's it's just constantly evolving and i think you know one of the areas that we really struggle is with an experienced agent who maybe hasn't been through a market cycle and they're like oh, you know, and they're and they're selling 50 homes a year and killing it And think they're and then we're like yeah. We need you to go through all this and training and they're like no.

No, i know all that. No, you don't like you know so. Yeah i mean we have a full-time person dedicated to making sure our training is the latest and the greatest you know. So it's always evolving.

We're always updating articles right, um, so yeah, it's the training is a beast yeah. I i listen. I agree i agree. So, what's the success rate you say zero to six through this, then they go from having a mentor to being working with the sales uh, the sales team leader and the coach.

So if you bring in 10 agents yep how fast do they get zero to six? So how many actually get there so we're trying to get you a deal in your first 30 days? That's the goal right and now we're doing 30. 60. 90 day reviews yeah. So i think we're probably waiting too long to start to hold agents accountable, uh and i think you'll you'll notice like if the agent's activities aren't strong in that you know by the day 60.

You know we've got to have a hey. Are you sure you want to do this conversation yeah? You know because we just haven't seen many people change. You know. If that's, okay, that's a key distinction.

They don't get it, they don't get it, they don't get it yeah. So but i think some we have learned that some people, like you said, learn a different way. They might prospect a different way. You know some people spend more time on the phones.

You know because - and this was a good learning lesson for me - is we used to give leads to everybody across the board equally and then say call them call them. You know, buy or die play yeah. You know 10 days buy or die um. I haven't heard that phrase in a while, yes yeah, but it it just doesn't work that way for everybody and we've also really started to transition into a um kind of an appointment team instead of a lead team.

So what we're realizing is that the agents even the best prospectors they can't nurture the long-term client. So we really don't want to be hand in leads. We want to be handing appointments, so you know the isa team has become a critical part of what we're building. So if, if the, if the buyer's not ready to go in the next 90 days, let's put them back into a nurture right right and you go figure out who's.

Your next five that are gon na buy something. But this goes back to your your fundamental philosophy of i'm gon na keep removing things from the agent's responsibility. Go on appointments, sell houses right just just do that function, we'll take care of the rest, it's laughable! What we were asking agents to do when we first started the team yeah it was. It was pretty bad, so so back to the question, so you bring in 10 new agents.

How many i would assume, not all of them. No four, okay, three four are going to make it yeah. You know, but the nice thing about our system is very rarely do we have to say: hey you're off yeah they're, going to weed themselves out because we're holding them accountable. Now right we weren't, we weren't doing a good enough job at the accountability, yeah and i think early on.

You know tough conversations or tough conversations, yeah and i think making our our team leaders understand we've given these agents every opportunity. I really believe that in my heart we are giving them the best opportunity and it's just the business, isn't for everybody, it's right. They got in. They thought this was something else.

Maybe they saw it on. One of these television shows, but the reality is it's a grind. It's every day right, it's systems, it's process and the most successful are just willing to do the mundane over and over and over. That's it look at mike drop right, but the problem is most people.

Don't like, we literally spent uh two days in miami, and i keep references just you know with a bunch of great clients like steve and and it all boiled down to the ones that were able to scale the fastest and retain the growth systems and process yeah. It wasn't energy, it wasn't mindset, it wasn't positive, it was just systems and process. I kept adding in what needed to be done to maintain the flywheel to keep it moving to keep the whole thing growing. So so, let's talk about mistakes.

You've made like reflecting back on because this is where you guys are out today with this sort of space theme yep. What was the single biggest mistake you made early on in your onboarding processes? Training wasn't strong enough for sure asking you know. I mean it wasn't as bad as you know what i think. A lot of brokerage do is like hey, here's a desk and here's a business card.

It wasn't that bad but yeah. It was nowhere near you're on your phone. Okay, here's your desk! Here's your phone! Good luck! If you're on your own, yes, um underestimating how important um the languages you know. So you know we listen to all of their calls now yeah um and even if you're in script training, you know what you do live could be different.

So right they get scored on those so kind of listening to that making sure they're actually saying the right things um, definitely expecting too much follow-up yeah to think that a human being is is going to be able to follow up forever with a lead. No chance. No well, especially when they have so much inbound coming in it's just very easy to go. The next one will be a now buyer right right.

So we're really trying to talk to that person later yeah yeah train on now just make a connection yeah right. It's another human: it's not a lead, it's another human being try and make a connection with them, and if they're going to buy in 30 days, 60 days or 90, you keep them yeah. If there's something else, let's educate them and help them for wherever they're going to be two years from today, bingo. So, let's, let's finish with uh commission mistakes and where you're at today, because and i want to just press everybody - the real estate industry churns at two percent every month, you're with me, like that's a number, you can google it's it's fast, it's just meaning like they Leave the industry, and then i remind people everybody's being recruited, all the time, you're we're.

We continue to recruit our own to stay with us and keep moving forward right and we're recruiting new people into the business every single day and all of your people right now, as you're watching this tom tool said recently, if you're going after new agents, 30 of Them leave, they said just they leave, because they they didn't work out, they couldn't sell a house or they did really well and they no longer saw the value and they leave. So we have to always be doing this, but one of the solutions is to career path. Yes with our commissions, so so tell us the the different models, you've done sure and then tell us the model you're at now. So you know we we started with the, and this is a tough one, because i think a lot of people are on this.

I just i don't think it's the right way to go, but we started with there's a different split on your personal there's. A different split when the team gives it to you right and the tracking, and all of that was just it - was really really difficult. Yeah um, you know, and i think, when we made that decision, um we're changing, agents are changing and we lost some agents. You know, but i think you know having there's just one split now: you can level up on your split, but having the you know, personal deal versus team deal, i think, is a mistake.

The only uh the only sort of good thing i've seen around that model that there's a few things i've seen, but one in particular is um steve if they're not in the crm they're, not in your sphere, yeah right because they're, like you know they meet him In an open house and think well, he became my friend yeah. You mean you at the open house of the listing that we took that we let you go work. The open house, yeah yeah, that that's our that's our lead right! They're, like oh, oh and then in your contracts, a sphere lead is, and everything else is ours, real definition right like real, like and getting them to understand like there is a like. We spend a lot of money on marketing advertising, so you can just go.

Do what you want to do is just go, sell houses so just that that clear distinction, but i agree confusion of splits also the illusion of choice. Oh my god! If that one's a better commission split for me, i'm just spend all my time there yeah and then i'm not taking care of the ones that we're spending money on right right. So you went from that model to all 50 50. yeah, and that was kind of the thing.

I think that was kind of the trend, and i think a lot of people are probably still there. It's just everything's on a 50 50. right right, no right or wrong. Just your experience, right yeah, but the reality of that is, as you uh excel.

As you train. As you learn you, you don't put as much of a burden on our support staff. Um right you're able to close at a better conversion rate, and i do believe that you deserve a higher split. So that was our that's kind of the evolution of where we are today.

So did you go incremental based on volume based on transactions, or did you like? What did you do lifetime deals right because that gives us an idea of what does that mean? So how many deals have you done so your your first 12 deals with us you're less than a 50. you're in a 45 percent, we're going to have to spend more time we're paying the mentor we're paying a trainer there's a lot of time and energy yeah. After 12, until 50 you're in a 50 50. yeah, once you've done 50 or more you're at a 55.

And then, if you go over a hundred, you can go to 60. all right, and then we give some loyalty bonuses for time on the team and four. So that's a five percent uh boost after five years and then, if you want to take on a leadership role, we'll give you another five percent boost. So you know - and it doesn't have to be exactly those things, but i think something there's a but there's a career pathing element.

I think the most important thing is okay, so i'm not just here forever right. I can go from here to here people it's white belt, yellow belt, green belt, blue belt, stripe, stripe stripe, you know, like people want to see that progression yeah. So so what have you found? How long ago did you implement this and what have you found? So i think we probably did this. I would say 18 months ago now so we've been on this for a while um we're not losing top producers, we're creating a path matter of fact.

I think we're creating a system - that's even better, for some of these top producers right. So we talk about these personal deals right. We want to grow your personal sphere right. We want to help you to generate those deals, so we're creating the sphere for you.

We do you know, events and giveaways every month, so you have something to send out to your sphere. We have a past client concierge who's, calling that sphere um. These are deals that are great for you to have. We will continue to help you to grow.

It um and and then as you're, getting better at converting. I want to give those top people more opportunities, so i just want to outpace whatever you can potentially bring from your sphere. I want to make sure i'm outpacing that in leads so our top people as we build this thing out, we'll get more opportunities yeah. So i i don't know it's like more opportunities and they convert higher.

So you, you know you're making you're making money on the deals, even though, even though their splits are different. What about what about? If it's a classic 35 referral fee deal? What happens, then we're splitting that with the agents? You know - and i know a lot of teams uh the agent eats the whole thing, we're splitting it. Okay, um, which i think is a fair way to do it right right and then very quickly. Do you have any other core services that get impacted like?.