Ep007: How To Make It In The NEW Real Estate Business

Transcript

Welcome to the Connect Practice Track & Grow podcast. Habits, routines, motivations, and mindsets from some of the most successful real estate professionals among us. Check out the show notes at ConnectPracticeTrackGrow.com. This show is brought to you by the Strategic Resource for Real Estate Professionals, creating and coaching business opportunities and strategies that support and add value to the lives of real estate professionals at the StrategicResource.com and by ROOST Real Estate Co., Today’s Real Estate Agent doesn’t follow old rules. She makes new ones. Learn more at careerwithroost.com Hello, fellow real estate professionals. Chris McAllister here. This is a very special podcast because it’s about the operating system we use at ROOST Real Estate Co. to help our real tours generate more leads, book more appointments, earn more referrals, and make more money.

This podcast is an in-depth discussion I recorded with Kristi Linebaugh of 90minutebooks.com about the eight collaboration accelerators and the origin story of Connect Practice Track & Grow. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording this. Welcome to the ultimate real estate agent broker collaboration, How to Thrive and Multiply in the Age of Zillow. I’m Kristi Linebaugh with 90minutebooks and I want to introduce Chris McAllister, who is here with me today to discuss his latest book, The Ultimate Real Estate Agent Broker Collaboration, How to Thrive and Multiply in the Age of Zillow. You start this book off with a pretty provocative question. Are you tired of doing your job and your broker’s job?

Hi, Kristie. It’s great to talk to you today. So thanks for being here and helping me clarify my thoughts about this book. The question, are you tired of doing your job and your broker’s job? I guess to answer that, I start off with there’s two primary principles that I live by. And the first is that relationships are infinitely more valuable than any series or individual transaction. And the second principle I live by is that each of us has a unique ability, and the more time we spend in that unique ability, the happier, the healthier, and the wealthier it will be. My ultimate goal is to focus 100% on the things that I can do better than anybody else and build a team around me who love and excel at the things that I just hate to do or I flat out can’t do as well as they can.

The other point is that technology, it’s really simplified the real estate business or the real estate brokerage business to the point where we really are able to zero in on the activities that add value to the world of real estate and the world at large and support our personal dreams and aspirations. In real estate, Zillow kind of embodies that all-encompassing technology. Real estate agents and brokers used to spend far more time and effort than we do today making sure that the public knew what we had for sale. And with Zillow utilizing the internet, all of that is automatic now. That’s a good part about living in the world we are in with Zillow in it.

But I never want people to make a mistake. Zillow is a predator. Their goal is to make brokers, multiple listing services, and the vast majority of individual agents obsolete. If they can automate a transaction and get paid to do it, they will. If they can obtain capital at a discount and buy a house and then sell it themselves on their own platform for whatever margin they can make, they will. And quite frankly, that’s what they’re doing in many markets today. If you can use your, if they, Zillow can use your hard-won listings as a real estate professional to generate new leads and then sell them back to you, they’ll do that too.

And that in fact is their business model. They’re doing it. And when you think about it in those terms, as real estate agents, we go out, we generate these leads, we get these listings under listing contracts, and we put them on Zillow. Zillow goes out, generates leads of people who want to buy these houses and then they sell them back to us for a monthly fee. And that to me, while it does work, I guess for a lot of real estate agents, I see it as a broken system. So what are we to do? What’s a real estate professional to do? I think one thing worth doing is rethinking the agent broker relationship, the relationship between that broker owner who owns that office, be it an independent or a franchise, and the individual licensed agent or broker.

I think we need to do a far better job of defining what is that value at, what value in the age of Zillow do brokers bring to the table? And brokers at worst, they’re a necessary evil in a lot of instances. A broker that’s regulated by the 50 States is a legal convention that’s designed to protect the public from unscrupulous and or inexperienced agents. And at the end of the day, that’s great. Some of us thrive living in that regulated environment. Some bristle living in that regulated environment. But regardless of how you see it, every agent needs a broker. And quite frankly, every broker needs agents.

So what if there is a win-win in this crazy situation? What if brokers and agents actually started to collaborate or work together to achieve their shared goals? And that’s really what this book is about. So I’ve distilled this idea into the title of this book, the ultimate real estate agent broker collaboration. So that collaboration, my ideal situation is the individual practicing professional, that realtor, they need to be in a situation where they can focus solely on what they do best with the full, defined, and quantified support of the broker and the company that they place their license with. And I’ve been in this business for over 20 years.

I’ve worked with a lot of successful real estate agents. And at the end of the day, there are only three fundamental activities that successful agents focus on. And those three things are successful agents connect, they practice, and they track their business. There is a fourth thing that agents do, but it’s a direct outcome from doing one, two, and three. So when agents connect, practice, and track, the result of that is they grow. And that’s it. There’s nothing else that successful agents focus on. Now, conveniently or coincidentally, depending on how you look at it, there’s only three activities that the most successful real estate brokers focus on.

And what I’ve come to understand is that successful real estate brokers, whether they are franchisees for remacs, Caldwell, whomever, or independent brokers, successful real estate brokers spend their time promoting their agents. They spend their time enhancing their agents’ practice. And they support their agents’ individual businesses. And the really great brokers don’t just leave agent growth to chance. Successful brokers also coach agent growth. And when you look at these activities, so you’ve got the four activities that successful agents focus on to the exclusion of everything else, you’ve got the four activities that successful brokers focus on at the expense of everything else. And those are really four pairs, right?

So these four pairs of activities when they’re synchronized as teamwork, that is the ultimate collaboration. And when agents and brokers work together doing what they do best, they produce incredibly satisfying results. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship between the broker and their responsibilities and activities and the agent and their responsibilities and activities. I like that that they’re symbiotic. So what I’m hearing you say is there are four pairs of activities really that happily coincide together that create the magic kind of. The four pairs are connect and promote, practice, enhance, track, support, grow, and coach. So before we go on… Absolutely right. Yes. As I say, do you want to expand on that just a little bit before we move on to the next?

That’s really what the rest of the book is about. But in a quick preview, if an agent’s primary is to connect, right? If they don’t connect with people, they’re not going to have anybody to work with. So if an agent’s first activity is connect, a broker’s first activity is to help agents promote their connections, right? If a successful agent practices their profession, practices their craft, what can a real estate broker bring to the table that allows the agent to enhance their practice or enhance their craft? What are the tools that broker can provide? Could be culture, could be ideas, could be actual tools. And then as you move down the line, the most successful agents track their activities.

And we’re going to get deeper into that here in a minute, but they track where their business comes from. They track what they do to create new connections. They track everything about their business, including their profit and loss and expenses and so forth. And the corresponding pair of activities to that is what support. And I think this is key. What unique support can they expect from their broker specific to their business that they are very clear on because they’ve been tracking everything they do? And then of course, agents grow as a result of those first three activities and brokers. I think the really exceptional brokers are able to coach towards future growth.

I really, the picture that I see is really hand in glove. The brokers, they’re really almost as that glove to protect and support the hand of the agent. Before we go on, let me tell you a little bit about this recording and the book that goes along with it. If you have a copy of the book, you will see that there is what is called a mindset scorecard at the end of the book. And as we go through each of the four pairs of activities, you can follow along on the scorecard and give yourself a score between one and 12. It’s a pretty cool way of thinking about your thinking and I really think that you’ll get a lot of benefit from it.

If you don’t have the book handy, you can also visit the ultimate collaboration scorecard.com and fill out the scorecard online. This next one is really… The next one is up and running and ready to go. And it’s ready to roll right now. That’s perfect. And jumping right in with really number one, agent fundamental activity, connect. Connecting with clients and future clients. This is really where all business starts. Tell me a little bit about that. That is absolutely true. If you don’t have anybody to work with, if you don’t have anybody to talk to, if you don’t have anybody to show a house to, you don’t have business, right?

If you have no one to work with, you got nothing. You may have a craft. You may know what you’re going to do when you get to work somebody, but you’ve got no opportunity to practice your craft. Real estate is belly to belly. It’s one person, one client at a time. It’s about you and that other person in the moment. These days, it may be in person. It may be on Zoom, but it’s one-on-one. And you know what else? It’s finite. You can’t scale that one-to-one working together in the moment, but that is where the magic happens. I love that if you don’t have a business, it’s almost your own entrepreneur instead of an entrepreneur.

Yeah. That’s very good. I don’t know who said that, but I love it. Entrepreneur. That’s really good. I like that. And so what does this connection kind of look like in the real world? Agents, I don’t even, I think it happens almost unconsciously. Great agents are generally great people, right? They create, they nurture, they leverage relationships, and they stay in touch, right? And the really best among them, they stay in contact, right? They make phone calls. They send personal notes. They may pop by with a gift at the different times of the year. That’s exciting. As you record this, we all like to get gifts, right?

So we’re coming up on St. Patrick’s Day, and we have a lot of agents that will play up the luck of the Irish and buy scratch offs, right? Lottery tickets and put them inside a little card with a note and put them in the mail or maybe drop them off in person or what have you. But they make a connection, right? Whatever they need to do. And then they also amplify that, right? On social media, usually Facebook these days. Now, there’s a common misconception that Facebook somehow is going to generate new connections and so forth, and that doesn’t really happen. What Facebook is great at though is amplifying the existing connections you have in the real world.

And that’s an important distinction that agents need to understand. Social media is critical because it allows you to stay in touch and top of mind with a lot of people, but it doesn’t create connection. Yeah, and I think probably a lot of people pour a lot of wasted effort into that. It’s like fishing in a glass of water. You’re not going to catch many fish, but amplifying what you’re doing really. I like that too of what you’re talking about popping by with a gift and then being able to amplify it on social media. But really, like the concept of you’re going to local areas and buying a package of donuts from your favorite bakery or you’re showing up with a hot coffee from your favorite coffee house.

Really, those local entrepreneurs, the local business owners, those are potential customers as well. They buy houses and things like that. I really like that double layering that you suggest of making those contacts and then sharing it on social media as well. And a lot of times the client will share it on social media and then that has way more power than us sharing it. That’s a way that we can use Cloudlandia to amplify what happens here in the real world and other things, connection being active in the community. And I also think that the really best among us, they make the correct connections from an attitude of gratitude.

Look for reasons to thank somebody for a job well done, regardless of who that is on a day to day basis. So there’s also, I look at this, for each of these activities, right? Connect to Practice Track and Grow, there’s a continuum. And where an agent sees themselves on this continuum sort of reflects their mindset about fundamental activities. So I’m hoping you can help me go through these four stages of the Connect continuum. I love it. Yes. Let’s just jump right in with number one. Your Closings Drive Income and that’s why you go to work in the morning. Transactions are where it’s at for you.

So tell me a little bit about that mindset. This sort of, I’m afraid the majority, how the majority of people in our profession look at the business of real estate and the biggest business of brokerage that it is transaction based. Absolutely. People approach business in one of two ways. They either see the business as a series of transactions that generate immediate income or they see the business as an interconnected set of relationships that continue to grow. And evolve over time. And the folks with that transaction view tend to burn out pretty quickly or get out of the business all together when times get tough, right?

Whereas the people who are far more relationship focused, they tend to thrive and multiply over time. And honestly, in many instances, they do better in a tough market because their client base and the people their clients refer to them, see them as the trusted profession. In the real estate business. And how much more fulfilling and nurturing is that to deal with people that you have a relationship every day versus scrounging around digging for the next transaction? That’s just that’s so satisfying. I think when you think of dealing with people you have relationships with. Yeah. Yeah. And number two, you long to get a get to a point in your career where customers seek you out and you no longer have to pound the pavement.

Yeah. That’s sort of the goal we all want, right? We all want to be so attractive to everybody who’s thinking about buying or selling a house that they come to us first. And while that does happen for the very, very best of us, it takes time to get there. But it’s the again, it takes connection. Absolutely. And number three, you love being out in the community and being seen being visible and available has been your key to success. Yeah, I think taking an active role in being part of the fabric of community is one of the best ways to make connections and ultimately establish and nurture relationships.

You can’t do this alone in your room. You’ve got to be out there with people and being abused being serviced, et cetera. You got to be careful though, right? Because sometimes people get locked into this mindset of being visible for its own sake, right? There’s something, there’s this trend out there for the celebrity realtor. I guess you see it on TV, right? A lot of those HG, home, what does it call it? H, what’s the network called? Home, I can’t remember. I’ll have to fix that. Oh. HGTV. There you go. Home and Garden Television, right? Yeah. There we go. Being visible for being visible sake, being the famous realtor, but you got to be careful.

It’s great, but only if it helps your business and if you learn to ask for referrals, so leverage those relationships by asking for referrals. If you don’t ask for the business, you’re relying on word of mouth and that’s really not a strategy, right? Being out there, being abused is terrific, but you also have to be able to turn that into some referral generating relationships and that’s something that’s the best of us, especially as you move on to number three here on the continuum too. And the other thing, being famous, the celebrity realtor is problematic in its own way, but being available for a lot of agents becomes a problem too.

Too much of a good thing can turn out to not be such a good thing, right? Like any professional, realtor’s have to set boundaries for themselves. And I always go back and I tell my agents, you want to be available 24-7, you want to show that you work harder than anybody else. You are a skilled professional and your doctor or your lawyer isn’t available to you 24 hours a day, seven days a week and they’ve set those proper expectations. You don’t expect that from them, but you as a consummate professional, you have to be setting appropriate expectations for your current and future clients too. Yeah, be careful what you wish for if you to be famous and accessible 24 hours, you just might get it.

That’s right. And if you’ve moved on to number four, you have always known that relationships are really more valuable than transactions and you are always looking for reasons to connect. That’s correct. That is the fundamental activity in a nutshell. You know, if you scored yourself at number four in the continuum, you’re on the path to building a business that’s going to grow and support you your entire career. And so I always like to say based on this, where would you score yourself on the fundamental activity of connects? Yeah, I think that’s the question that our readers and listeners need to ask themselves. Absolutely. And then now we’re moving right along to broker fundamental activity number one, promote.

Tell me a little bit about that. Connecting with current and future clients is where business begins. Then the most important function of a real estate broker is to promote you. The promotion may include personal recognition, public celebrations of your success, but it also includes creating opportunities for you, the agent to make new connections and leverage your existing connections. Your relationships are your relationships. Nobody gave them to you, right? As an agent created, you developed. You nurtured them. You made that happen. And I think great brokers out there, they acknowledge that and they never take that for granted. What does broker promotion look like in real life?

Can you give us some examples? I think it’s a lot of different things. Some of it is as fundamental as keeping the real estate brand that you work for fresh, right? So that your personal brand never gets stale. If you have to affiliate with a broker, right, it’s a necessary evil. They better be, first of all, they better be pretty good at it. And the brand that they and you are associated with needs to resonate positively in the minds of the general public, but it has to resonate positively with your client base that you’ve already worked so hard to. I think brokers, great brokers create opportunities for community involvement.

They sponsor different events. It’s different now in the age of COVID. I want to believe that we’re starting to come out of that as we talk here in the winter of 2021. Some of it’s a bit more personal. And again, things we take for granted that every agent should have a personal landing page or a personal website. That’s theirs. It’s got their contact information, anything that goes through that goes straight to them. A perfect world. There’s a personal IDX search bar there so that whatever leads those generate goes straight to the agent. But again, it needs to be within the larger broker database. But that there, which in a lot of situations, I think we take for granted that is an example of brokers promoting agent connections.

Do you think that that… I was going to say real quick, do you think that a lot of times that brokers sit back and get comfortable and they kind of get to continue to create these opportunities for community involvement? And they don’t really keep their eye on the ball of keeping their personal brand fresh and things like that. Do you think that is a red flag for people to be aware of that when they’ve been a broker for a long time, they focus on themselves and forget about their agents? I think that happens. I think that they take their agents for granted. I think that they start to rely on the Zillow business model quite frankly, that they outsource lead generation to the third party, we had Zillow, Realtor.com, etc.

I think I think it’s easy to get comfortable, especially in good times. I think it’s easy to become complacent. The other thing that happens is I think a lot of brokerages feel that they’ll leave the whole agent website, Facebook business page thing up to the agent that they want, if they can do it, if they don’t have to do it. And that’s self-defeating, right? Especially when we’ve established the premise that the best agents are focused on other things, right? They’re focused on promoting, to practicing, tracking and growing. They are not the people that are or even should be the experts on how to build a website.

I think another example of promoting is our client appreciation events. We try to have a couple of events in each office every year where we invite all our clients, the agents invite their clients, and we cater the event or whatever. Every year in the Springfield Dayton area, we go to a pumpkin patch and we invite all of our clients to come. All of our agents are there, of course, greet their clients and everybody gets a free pumpkin and apple cider. We’ve done Mother’s Day open house events, but we try to do something as a company that gives the agents a reason to connect with their clients and invite them over for something quick and easy and a free gift.

We personalize Facebook pages. The best agents really do utilize Facebook to amplify the relationships, but there are licensing laws that govern what happens on Facebook and having a Facebook business page for your personal real estate business is critical. And again, I see that as a broker’s responsibility to set up versus an agent responsibility. One of the other things that I think really helps a lot is this is something that we’ve been doing since we started the company, but every month we create and personalize an item of value for every agent to mail out to their top 150 to 200 people in their database. So what does that do? Even in the midst of the busiest times, let’s say you’ve got agents in springtime and they’re spending all their time getting things closed, right? They’re in the thick of it.

And that’s the time when it’s easy to forget to mail out your item of value, much less due calls, notes and pop-bys. So one of the things that we do as a brokerage to enhance connection is we create and mail that item of value from the agent, personalized for the agent, and we do that every single month. So on these, there’s a behavior continuum for each of these brokers’ activities too. You know, when I always tell agents, brokers to challenge themselves, what you expect from your broker when it comes to promoting your agent’s reflection of mind set about that relationship. Yeah, I’m excited to go through these. Let’s go through the four stages of the great brokers promote continuum one at a time.

We’ll start with one. Your broker has their own book of business to worry about and they don’t have time to promote you. Tell me about that one. Yeah, it happens, right? That’s why this is number one on the continuum. But some real estate brokers quite frankly shouldn’t be brokers at all and they generally be happier and wealthier if they focused on their own practice and stopped dabbling in the brokerage business. I know that sounds harsh. I am a bit passionate about this. If a broker doesn’t have a burning desire to work with agents, they should probably stop pretending. Now, having said that in smaller markets, smaller offices, it may be necessary for the broker to continue to practice and cultivate their own personal book of business.

Otherwise, they’re not going to prosper. But you have to guard against the mere perception of a competing broker, a broker who’s competing for the same pool of clients that their agents are can make it harder to recruit and retain great agents. And that is the downside of being a practicing broker. I’d say there’d be nothing worse than thinking you have a teammate and then finding out you have a competitor. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And let’s look at number two. You are consistent. You are constantly coming up with new ideas to improve your marketing, but you struggle with putting them into practice. Yeah. And again, agents tend not to have time to a marketing plan.

And if they do have time to create it, there’s times when it becomes very hard to execute it. So in a perfect world, it would be your broker’s responsibility to ensure that the firm is able to offer more and more effective marketing strategies that’s tailored to your goals, right? And a fresh in those year after year. And to have multiple individual agents, right, spending their hard earned income on a dozen different strategies or multiple strategies with no support or coordination is a waste of everybody’s talents, efforts and money. If a broker lacks a coordinated marketing and operation strategy, it’s easy for the agents to pick their eye off the ball and I call it succumbing to the shiny object syndrome, right?

Absolutely. So they’re going along and then suddenly they get an unsolicited email in their box. They see something on Facebook or whatever, touting the latest greatest thing that’s going to change your business overnight, whatever. And agents suffering from shiny object syndrome are far more likely to fall for a too good to be true sales pitch and a random email touting a shortcut to success. And again, those things happen and they happen to the best of us, but great brokers, they watch out for that. They plan for that and they’re constantly out in the front and being proactive to make sure it doesn’t happen. And that’s so great too, really, that being the protector role because so much time is wasted on the next shiny object.

Learning that next shiny object and then now you have to implement and the majority of the time you don’t get there, you go on to the next shiny object. So now you’ve got a whole pile of them that you never use, shiny object collector. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And then number three, your broker is a top producer and you feel grateful to be associated with her. That’s all the promotion you need. So tell me a little bit about that one. Again, one and two on this continuum, right? There’s nothing wrong with the broker who is a top producer as long as they continue to have time to promote you, the agent, right?

But you can’t expect to build a professional practice based on a positive association with somebody else. You can’t rely on that forever. It takes intentional effort. And while that halo effect may be beneficial, I would just caution anybody who finds themselves in stage three of this continuum, you’re not going to be vigilant, right? You can’t rely on that halo effect forever. Things change. And my guess is you could use and deserve more promotion than just that. And I would say it would probably be easy for people to fall into that, just being dazzled by the sparkle of the well-known agent and kind of not even realize that they’re falling into that trap.

Yeah, yeah, that’s true too. That’s a place to be, but that place isn’t necessarily stable for the long term. That’s a nice place to visit, but you don’t want to live there. That’s right. And number four, your broker’s primary job is to promote you and help you generate referrals. Your broker works for your future. Yep. And I think that illustrates that mutually supportive symbiotic nature of the promote and connect pair. If you scored yourself in four, I congratulate you on the collaboration that you and your broker have. So way to go. Absolutely. And if you are an agent, where would you score your broker on the fundamental activity of promote?

If you happen to be a broker owner or a manager listening to this, where would you score yourself? I think that’s part of the honesty of it, right? That we’re able to score ourselves. Yeah. Step one is always when you’re self-reflecting and you’ve got to tell the truth. Absolutely. Absolutely. And a friend of mine would always say, lie to yourself, don’t lie to me. I think a lot of us fall into the lying to ourselves and not realizing it. And agent fundamental activity number two, practice. Let’s dive into that. Great agents see their work as a practice. So practice refers to the conduct, work itself, the craft that you create in your particular occupation.

Right? So as a licensed real estate agent and accredited realtor, you are an active member of the real estate profession. And we don’t want to lose sight of the fact that helping people buy and sell houses is a profession. And great real estate agents, the best of the best, they practice and improve over time just great artists or athletes do, right? Or doctors, lawyers, other professionals, the best of the best, they intentionally look for or practicing and finding ways to improve over time. So how you choose to see yourself and how you choose to practice your profession, those are the same choices that doctors, lawyers and other professionals make.

And what does practice look like in real life? I think actually the act of helping others buy and sell houses is a craft, right? The skill or the craft of being able to coach a first time home buyer through their first home, that is part of a practice, right? That’s something that you intentionally work at and get better at over time. And practice is in the moment, right? It’s in and of the moment. It’s the doing the work. It’s the performance. It’s the actual listing, signing contracts, educating, negotiating, wrangling the title company, managing expectations. There’s a billion things that agents do that they don’t even think about that all go into a conscious practicing and an improvement of the craft.

Great agents, they have prepared presentations, right? Whether they prepared them or they adapted from somebody else or whatever that they use without fail, every single time they meet a new buyer and seller, over time they learn what works and they learn how to tailor what works to the individual that they’re working with in the moment. A lot of great agents, they rehearse, right? They rehearse their presentations before their performance and they review and they look for ways to improve afterwards. It’s not unlike football team watching the game tapes, right? Absolutely. After the game to see what went wrong and where they can get better. Great agents practicing their craft leave nothing to chance.

They treat every client with the same high level of skill and dedication. You know what? They do that regardless of whether it’s a million dollar transaction or a $50,000 transaction. They are professionals. They could care less about how big that dollar sale is going to be. It’s about being the best practicing professional they can be. That really goes back to what we talked about earlier, the relationship. If you’re focused on the relationship, it’s going to be easier for you to treat the $50,000 transaction the same way as you would treat the million dollar transaction because it’s about the person and the relationship and not the dollar signs.

Yep, that is exactly right. We’ve set up another scorecard continuum for this part of the book as well. Where you see yourself on the practice continuum is going to reflect your mindset. Let’s dive into that. Number one, your clients don’t care how you get the job done as long as they get to the closing table. Tell me about that. Again, the first one on the continuum in all of these is really a transaction mindset, right? I once met a mortgage broker who said, we don’t close late. We don’t close ugly. To her, closing ugly meant last minute scrambles and a stressful experience that could have been avoided.

I see people score themselves in the continuum. They’re not thinking that way. Their attitude is the deed gets signed, they get a check all as well. Professionals, they almost never close ugly. Sure, there’s things that happen that might put a kink in the process or whatever, but they work through it. More often than not, they make it look effortless because they’re constantly learning from their past experience and improving their processes. They’re intentional, right? Intentionality, that’s the big word here. The means to the closing are just as important as the closing, the closing itself. I think we can all agree that it’s easier to refer somebody after a stress freak closing than it is to refer an agent after an ugly closing.

That’s right. You’ve worked all this time and now you blow it at the last minute and leave the client with an ugly taste in their mouth. That is a horrible way to get a referral. Exactly. Then number two, you look to successful agents in your office to model the way, but they see you as competition. There’s a lot of offices out there that really have a kind of a culture of competition. Other offices, they start or at least grow into a culture of collaboration that sells them a middle ground. It’s either the, it’s every agent for themselves and they’re competing against each other and they don’t want to share or the agents are working together and they want, and they know that succeeding together is going to be better for everybody.

It’s really a scarcity mindset versus an abundant mindset. And scarcity and competition go hand in hand just as abundance and collaboration go hand in hand. Everybody has to go out and make a living, right? Everybody has to do their job, et cetera. But I want our offices and I think the best offices out there are filled with mutually supportive professionals with more business opportunities than they can handle quite frankly. It’s that attitude of abundance that says there’s more than enough business for all of us. There’s no reason for me to try to tear you down so I can get yours. And that really kind of, that would be the ultimate how to lose agents checklist of letting your agents feel like you’re keeping the secret method to yourself.

You’re not there for their abundance and their growth that you’re, you’ve got a secret way of doing things and you’re going to help them a little bit but you’re really not going to expose the ultimate way to grow. There’s nothing, I think, worse than having that distrust or that insecurity. Yeah. And I think the very best brokers out there, they thrive on seeing their agents succeed. That’s what’s the most, they get better over time. That’s what’s satisfying to them about their jobs. That’s fantastic. And number three, you’ve been doing things your way and have been successful for a long time. You don’t see the need to change things now.

Yeah. So here at stage three of the practice continuum, we find realtors who are doing really well but maybe a little too well. So again, the danger here is that success breeds complacency. Business is changing so quickly. We can’t be complacent about anything. And the world is changing so fast, real estate, it’s even changing faster than like the bigger world around us. It’s nuts. The changes in the market, the way we practice, how COVID has played into that, it’s a whole other book. But suffice it to say that if you don’t face your business with a clear-eyed and open attitude, you do run the risk of being left behind.

And would you say that’s a pretty common experience that people who are very successful have? I think that, yes, it is common. But what I find sad is people work so hard to get to that place on the continuum where things are going so well. And then what happens is they start to play defense. Right? I’m more concerned with losing what they have, losing what they’ve invested in, what they’ve built at the expense of looking ahead to the future, talking to their clients and really getting an understanding of what future client needs are going to be. The risk in stage three is that you’re just relying on what has worked up until now and that you lose sight of the skills that you’re going to need, the capabilities that you’re going to need to develop to continue to do well two, three, four, five, ten years from now.

That’s excellent because it really points at their ability to continue to prosper just being open to that mindset of not working in fear of losing what they have. I like that. Number four, you are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to delight your clients and create raving fans. I think that’s the promised land, right? That is, right? And again, it’s not enough just to get the job done. This is a relationship business and without the support of your past clients, you’re never going to achieve the success that I think we all aspire to. So we’ll ask, how would you score on the fundamental activity of practice?

And that’s what I love, that we’re able to score ourselves here in development all the way through. And now let’s move to broker fundamental activity number two, Enhanced. We have a responsibility as realtors to continually enhance the profession of real estate in the eyes of the public, right? That’s what the mission of being a realtor or the realtor organization and a national associate of realtor is. But I think we should have even greater expectations for our broker owners and managers in this regard, right? I feel like that our profession is being devalued daily by less than professional and in some instances unscrupulous licensees. And like I said, Zillow isn’t helping either.

Zillow’s business model requires that the public sees all agents as being alike and interchangeable. And that’s killing a lot of agents and it’s damaging the profession. So one way to fight this, these really real threats is for real estate brokers to consciously and continuously find ways to enhance their agents’ professional practice. We have to get better at what we do. What was successful, successful, acceptable yesterday is not going to be successful tomorrow. So we brokers, at the end of the day, we have to lead. We have to be leaders in this profession. And what does a broker enhancing practice really look like? On a basic level, brokers and agents, brokers and managers, I’m sorry, need to model the way for their agents.

They also need to take an active interest in the businesses of the agents they serve. Every great agent tends to have a niche that they’ve identified and cultivated over time. Brokers need to be aware of those niches that their agents have and help them exploit those niches, right? Help them mine them for more and more opportunity. Brokers also, they need to be able to add value to agents at every single skill level, right? A great broker can add value to a new licensee. They can add value to a seasoned producer and add value to that super goal-oriented team leader that wants to build a brokerage within a brokerage.

They have to be able to enhance the practice of agents at every single skill level. And brokers, obviously, agents are independent contractors. They need to empower their independent contractors and they need to stay out of their way, right? Let them run their business within a business, so to speak. However, where I would caution brokers is empowerment cannot and does not equal abandonment, right? Absolutely. It’s a collaboration. We’re in this together. The practical things, practical enhancement to an agent’s practice might be personalized buyer and seller listing presentation branded with the agent and the office. So presentations, different brochures, PDFs, handout, takeaways, books. One of the things that our agents use a lot with their sellers is something we call the home enhancement checklist.

It’s a small thing, but it’s an easy way to work with somebody who wants to sell their house and have those hard conversations about what needs to be done to the house to make it saleable. So presentations we may not want to have with the seller because we’re afraid we’re going to insult them. But it’s a practical way that the brokerage can help create tools that again enhance the agent’s practice. And there’s a lot of different places that we try to do this and if anybody really wants to dig in and check out our website blog, they’ll probably see other examples of how we aspire at least, if not every day hit the mark, but how we aspire to help our agents practice.

And I think that is so insightful because it’s really what you expect from your broker when it comes to their ability to enhance and add value to your practice says a lot about what you’re paying for. That’s it. You said it. So let’s go through the four stages of the great broker’s enhanced continuum one at a time. Let’s just jump right in. Number one, your broker believes that realtors are independent contractors and therefore on their own in the industry. Yeah, this is just a different approach to the business than I have. Yes, realtors are independent contractors. Yes, they get paid by commission, but that doesn’t mean they should be on their own unless that is truly what they want and what they signed up for. There’s a lot of these 100% commission companies out there these days. The broker, I don’t know how the brokers make any money, but the broker makes money on monthly or annual fees, and they tend to give them a little bit of a little bit of a chancellery income because they’re agents to use the house title company or the mortgage company.

In any case, these 100% companies, they take a hands-off approach to the agents and those agents are generally okay with that, at least the ones who know what they signed up for. Agents who dabble in the business, part-timers, let’s say, they tend to gravitate to these brokerages because they just want to keep as much money as they can on the few sales sides of me. On the other side, theoretically these firms can be good homes for real estate teams who really do operate as a brokerage within a brokerage. Some good-sized teams out there that the team leader does everything that we’re talking about here in this book that a great brokerage should do. The downside of that potential benefit though is there’s still not much financial incentive for the broker to be involved, but I guess it’s offset by the freedom that they experience being in a place that’s completely hands-off.

Once in a while those folks, they do really well but, man, they are few and far between. I just don’t see any success really lasting and I think because they promote that transaction mindset, they tend to have a revolving door of people getting in and getting out of the business because, again, when you’re in Stage 1, it really is about the transaction and it’s about the money. It almost feels like wind them up and let them go, but the thing is you don’t know where they’re going to end up. That’s exactly right. Yeah, and I don’t understand the business model and the part of the broker because legally as a real estate broker, you’re taking on a tremendous amount of responsibility and legal liability for limited upside.

I don’t see this mod or even the mindset that you’re independent contractor on your own. I see this as lose for the broker and lose for the agent and again, like I said, I’m a bit passionate about this and it’s the antithesis of how I and the company that we put together approaches the business. And I like the fact too that if someone is scoring themselves in Number 1, they can move to Number 2 and Number 2, your broker has little time for the top producers in the office because they are constantly recruiting to make their quota. Yeah, I’m afraid this isn’t really an improvement is it?

I can’t speak for all franchises out there but I can speak for my time as the RE/MAX franchisee and I learned so much from RE/MAX and it was a great experience but and again, maybe it’s changed but as a franchisee I was able to negotiate a head count goal that I had to agree to meet for each of the five years that I was in the franchise agreement and at the time I had to write a check to RE/MAX for $241 for every agent who was on my broker’s license every month so if I had said at the end of 2019, I was going to have 20 agents then every month I would pay 20 times $241 Wow. Where that got tricky was I may not be able to find 20 agents that see the real estate business as I see it right? Downside is RE/MAX had the option to bill its franchisees to quota whether they had recruited that number of agents or not so what happens especially when times get tough some brokers are forced to lower their standards for who they would want to bring into the company and they would bring on licensees that they normally would not have brought in an effort to meet their quota in hopes that they would sell something throughout the year and that would offset some of the outlay to RE/MAX. Now again, I’m not here to badmouth RE/MAX. RE/MAX is an incredible company and I’ve learned so much from them but as a broker especially in a smaller market or when you’re just getting started your goal and it’s not just RE/MAX, it’s other companies as well, you keep recruiting top of mind so that you can keep the lights on and that doesn’t help agent development.

And really if you’re in stage two there’s zero time for coaching because you’re constantly trying to make sure you’ve covered all your bases you can’t coach your players or your agents. Yeah, you’re right we’re only human as much as we may want to do all the things that we aspire to do and be the leaders we aspire to be sometimes quota comes first and if you’re in number two and you want to get out of there as fast as you can you go on to number three your broker is a great example of how a professional practices practices their craft your broker is a terrific realtor and models the way for you I love that.

What a great transition. I saw them meet a great broker who was not an accomplished agent it’s a minimum expectation for any broker whether they’re practicing as a sales person full time now or not at some point they learned how to be a great agent if you don’t learn how to be a great agent you’re never going to be able to help other agents I think practicing professionals like those reading this book are listening to this conversation they flat out deserve more and the agent again the agent and the broker have responsibilities to each other to create a collaboration where everybody wins that is above and beyond simply setting a good example or modeling the way really I love that stage three is a minimum expectation I would say I love the way that we can see the progression in really the mentality and kind of the feel of it too number four your broker is constantly looking for ways to raise the level of professionalism of every realtor in their office tell me a little bit about that I’d like to think that this goes without saying but I’m going to say it anyway a great real estate broker should be able to enhance the practice of every agent they work with regardless of their level of experience so they have to be able to raise the level of professionalism of every agent in the office and repeating myself but I think it bears repeating we as brokers need to be able to enhance agents practices new licensees experienced practitioners or sales team leaders it’s that simple and if you are an agent where would you score your broker on the fundamental activity of enhance if you happen to be a broker owner or manager listening to this where would you score yourself that brings us to the next one agent fundamental activity number three track tell me about that I subscribe to the theory that what gets measured improves right if you don’t measure something it doesn’t improve I think it’s a universal truth great agents track their transactions they track their income they track their expenses they know if they’re profitable or not but they also track what Dean Jackson talks about one of my favorite real estate coaches their return on relationship they literally know the percentage of their business that comes directly from the relationships in their database and they know where every single transaction comes from and I call those success metrics great agents also track and again this is another thing I learned from Dean is they’re listing multiplier index or what we call LMI right for listing multiplier index every listing you take has the potential to generate opportunities for new connections right back to one being intentional about leveraging these connections results in new relationships in your database in additional transactions down the line tracking this number helps great agents stay focused and keep score so that hello my is a great way to challenge yourself to see more business where quite frankly other realtors might miss that opportunity great agents record a multitude of information about their clients in their database that’s part of tracking they know when their clients birthdays are the names of their kids interests whatever and again a lot of people are just that way they connect with people that remember things that naturally but the very best for sales professionals among us realtors and otherwise they document that they’re very intentional about it it’s in their database a really big difference between great and average agents is the great agents track they’re working by referral activity so it’s not just enough to sporadically randomly do calls notes and pop-bys and the great agents track every call they make every note they write every pop buy get hand deliver and every new potential referral partner they meet goes into their CRM or customer relationship manager and an agent doesn’t have one of those that’s probably the first piece of advice I would give them to get signed up for one or just use an Excel spreadsheet quite frankly and that sounds so great but what does track look like can you make this real for us and so CRM customer relationship managers there’s a bunch of them out there some like sales force right are incredibly complicated those right those are hard to really get traction on especially when you’re a single agent or newer but I still recommend that you invest in something I recommend you invest in something real estate specific the top producer is still out there that’s actually the platform I started with is a new agent 21 years ago go go agent is a great one referral maker by the Fainian company those are three outstanding systems and all of them have great training and support built in as part of their packages but that is the best tool and the best advice I can give anybody to get started on that tracking mindset but our company at ROOST Real Estate company we provide all of our agents with a subscription referral maker by the Fainian company at no extra charge we give it to everybody and then we our market leaders coach them on how to use it and then of course within referral maker there’s all sorts of training and videos and help and so forth but the brokerage pays for this because that’s how much we believe in tracking so referral maker allows our agents to track the relationships, build the business building activities, transactions and even profitability so again if you don’t have a CRM in place now get one on the other hand a simple notebook will do the trick to get you started or an Excel spreadsheet just put the information in the spreadsheet everybody gets some columns and you fill in the columns for everybody you know but tracking that’s what tracking looks like that’s what it feels like that’s where you got to start and there’s a lot of tools out there that you can subscribe to that’ll do an incredible job for you if you use them yeah I was going to say that’s your key to get started even if it’s old school pen and paper and use them let’s go through the four stages of the track continuum one at a time so number one you don’t believe tracking the key metrics of your business is worth the effort and it changes nothing people out there that refuse to do this so I get that but you score yourself in stage one I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’ve yet to experience any real success satisfaction in the real estate industry yet so I’m going to give you the benefit of it out there but I’m telling you tracking your progress and keeping score is fundamental to your future growth and development I thought to say let’s just go ahead and move right to step two you’re keeping track of everything you do you’re just not sure you’re doing the right things now here’s the situation where that continuum is obvious right stage two is a vast improvement over stage one the the act of tracking your activity allows you to see patterns that will naturally lead to new conclusions ideas goals and that goal of improvement over time if you think you’re employing a losing strategy that whatever you’re doing isn’t working the answer is probably going to be in the data right so your data will help you cut your losses promptly and move on to the next idea and you can lose a lot you can learn a lot from a losing strategy right but the things that don’t work I think have always taught me far more than things that work out of the box again if you’re not tracking your activity you run the risk of beautifully executing a losing strategy for so long that it actually harms your business so track everything you do but be open minded when looking back and reflecting on and analyzing what you’ve done and what worked and what didn’t work I like that this will play on a quarter heard one time it’s win by losing just make sure you lose fast yeah that’s right you’re either earning or you’re learning right there you go I like that and then number three you have a great feel for your business and know instinctively where you need to work harder yeah there are some great agents out there that have so much accumulated knowledge and experience that they work from instinct right they just work from their gut everything’s in their heads they’re the consummate professionals and they make it all look effortless but please know that for those people they’re years and years of accumulated knowledge and experience ups and downs that got them through stage one stage two and into stage three and it took intentional effort over time and this is you and you’re in stage three congratulations I know what it took for you to get here and you should enjoy it absolutely and then number four you track everything you do including your lead generation activities your relationships your transactions your productivity and your profitability that again is the promised lands yep and the people that do that they are the ones that make it look easy so I want to kind of digress for a second here and talk about this idea that there are really four stages in a real-tourist career right you start off as a licensee you move on to being an agent you move on to being a professional and then potentially you move on to being a business owner right so you start out as a licensee you’ve got nothing to do nobody to do it with you get a couple of clients you represent them you become an agent you get better and better over time and you grow to be a professional and then eventually you decide that you’re going to be a business owner and you’re going to create a business that’s going to work for you and each of those four stages is characterized by the mastery of one of these activities that we’re talking about right you think about it new licensees they connect they have to connect it’s what they do they have to focus on connection with somebody to the exclusion of everything else because at this stage they have nobody to practice with they can’t afford to be distracted so if you’re a new licensee get out there and make some friends connect talk to your family build that database agents right the next stage they connect and practice so they’ve made their connections and now they have something to do so their practice has started professionals it’s a stack right the professionals are connecting practicing and tracking their activities professionals not only make those connections and practice they track and they get better over time the business owners it’s not a lot of people that kind of graduate from being a professional to be a business owner but they not only connect practice and track they grow and as we’re going to see here as we go forward in the book that growth is a natural result of connected practicing and tracking and really here’s the power question how would you score yourself on tracking your business and we have broker fundamental activity number three support we all want to be heroes to the people we serve but being a hero isn’t necessarily enough to build a scalable sustainable business to do that to move on from having a job so to speak you’ve got to learn to operate as a business owner so on a basic level your broker helps you become a business owner let’s go back on a basic level your broker supports your business because they in their role have taken on the overhead of operating an office and they share the expense of operating an office amongst multiple agents not just you and many times you as a hero you still need help advice or just an experienced professional will talk things through with both of those things that emotional support that very real physical support of an office the financial support of having a business that you can rely on those are all examples of how brokers support their agents and one of the best things about being a real tour and I think all of us who are successful most of us want to be in business for ourselves just not by ourselves and fortunately history offers that reality but support is some of the things that are obvious and some of the things that are a bit more intangible I think that’s such a great insight being in business for ourselves but not by ourselves what does broker support for your business look like in the real world unfortunate to have some real tours that have been with me for a long time and they’ve become really great at tracking their business and tracking their referral generating activities and they are at the point where they are asking me for specific support that’s tailored to where they are right sometimes you’ve got to learn to figure out what support do you need or what different support will you need in the future to hit those goals that you have for yourself 3 or 5 years now in the line so it’s an interesting thing that if you’re an agent tracking your business you’re probably going to have pretty specific demands of your broker I would hope your broker is able to step up and satisfy and great brokers they have a team they have a staff in place they mentor new agents they assist agents with everyday tasks they provide leadership to all agents again regardless of experience or income level some of the things and again this is pretty boring it goes without saying but I suggest every agent look for a broker who at least provides a CRM a relationship manager you should have an office phone number unless you choose to you should be getting an office 365 suite or Google has a product whatever but you should always have access to word, excel, etc showing service, descriptions dot loop and a lot of that stuff we take for granted but in a lot of instances agents are paying for that now or they’re expected to pay for it and they’re not so again let’s even go back to the physical space very few agents actually use a private office anymore but at a minimum you should expect your broker to maintain an office that you’re proud to visit that you’re proud to bring clients to where when you walk in the copiers work the scanner works the internet’s on and honestly there better be coffee right that’s the live blood so that I think is really what brokers support for your business looks like really what you expect from your broker when it comes to supporting your business reflects your mindset about the relationship would you say literally so again we’ve got a scorecard for broker support so run through that absolutely and let’s start off with number one you expect very little from your broker but that’s fair because your broker expects very little from you I know I I know I sound like a broken record but the broker business in the age of Zillow has become transactional and I get the allure of a business model but Zillow and all that but it comes with the expense of support and coaching which are critical to anybody’s success I think that those 100% shops where it’s hands off I just think it’s a bad place for agents who want to forge a long and profitable career brokers in stage one expect very little because they get very little it’s a numbers game for them the more agents they have on their license the more likely they are to get something from them I hate to keep going back to remax but remax was the pioneer right they started the 100% commission concept back in the 70s but their original business model their plan was to run a real estate office just like doctors and lawyers do a group of professionals professional agents would get together to work on their personal books of business while sharing overhead so this allowed them to own their businesses because they were responsible for their costs those agents that remax in the beginning on 100% commission were responsible for both sides of the ledger and remax was known for only inviting the best the best to join because they were the only ones confident enough in their ability to make the business model so what would happen is let’s say that there’s 10 agents and it costs $10,000 a month to keep the doors open that means every agent would get a bill from the broker every month for $1,000 to cover their share of the office and that’s what doctors who get together do do business together do they share the expense because it’s cheaper for 10 people to work together in one office than 10 people to work together in 10 different offices but this whole idea of 100% commission started with a valid business plan and it’s morphed into something that honestly mathematically I don’t understand right so the idea back in the 70s it sounds a little quaint today but the original vision is almost unrecognizable right there’s brokerages anywhere offering 100% commission schemes to anybody with a license but again on the positive few of these operators pretend to be offering any specific support but the minus side few of these operators are offering any specific support so they expect nothing and you should need it you get less yeah and number two your brokerage has a revolving door through which a parade of new licensees go in and out every month now this is a common complaint I hear from great agents all the time these are career-oriented professionals they’re usually at some of the larger offices maybe there’s a recruiting quota maybe there’s not but usually there is right so the pressure to make the recruiting quota or just to keep the lights on is so great that simply maintaining headcount is the business model now the percentage of agents who fail their first year is a big number especially in some of the larger offices where there’s more of a transaction mindset the relationship mindset instead of supporting each agent towards their individual goals something that’s going to be win-win for the agent win for the brokerage the focus is on the brokerage perspective is simply bringing in more agents some make it some don’t but that’s where the revolving door comes in that’s really the thing too that this points at the power of coaching and being a leader of these new people coming in being expected to swim in the deep end when they don’t even have water wings have never even been in the shallow end that would just increase the parade of them in and out they don’t know how to swim yet yeah that’s true and if you’re wanting to move to number three you’re proud of your sales but once you maxed out on your split your broker lost interest in you that’s probably pretty common yeah what does it mean to be a multi-million dollar producer agents put that on their business card billboards all the time the way the realtors calculated it’s about 40,000 a year or so on average and I’m sorry but I think there’s easier ways to make 40,000 a year than being a real type personally want to see every agent gross at least 100 grand a year I think 100 grand even in 2021 is real money but the needs of an agent getting from zero to 40 a year are different than the agent moving from 40 to 100 or the agent moving from 100k to 500k and brokers need to be able to support agents at every stage of the career and be compensated for doing so when the brokers are not compensated when you know there’s a cap on a split and are maxed out and the brokers getting nothing else from that agent for the rest of the year it’s natural I’m not saying it’s right but it’s natural that they lose interest at top producer and go back to recruiting agents who actually are paying money into the business when they have a closing I think the system is a bit broken and I do think it’s in need of an overhaul and that takes us to number four your broker actively supports you at every stage of your career that’s the best yeah and I think I said it like six times now but it takes me back to our previous point we have to support agents at every stage of their career and if you are an agent where would you score your broker on the fundamental activity support if you happen to be a broker owner or manager listening to this would you score yourself and now we are agent fundamental activity number four grow tell me about that any agent yes any agent focused on the three fundamental activities of connect practice and track they will create a business for themselves and it will be scalable and it will be sustainable if they do those three things they can’t help it it’s just going to happen so whether you see yourself as a business owner or not and you are you’re going to create a successful business if you do those three things and that is the essence of growth right you will enjoy a business not just build it you’re going to enjoy a business that continues to get stronger and consistently more profitable over time I love that that is so wonderful so really what’s the big picture here what can an agent look forward to I think you can look forward to owning a successful business that gives you the space to achieve both your personal and professional goals right growth allows you to always be able to envision look forward to and realize a bigger future for yourself and for your family as well growth isn’t just about your real estate business growth encompasses all areas of your life and when you intentionally focus every day on connecting practicing and tracking your intentions become actions right your actions become habits and it’s those daily habits that just naturally resolve and grow I love that so let’s talk a little bit more about the growth continuum where you see yourself in on this continuum really reflect your mindset about a bigger future is that correct yes for me everything’s about a bigger future right all of our agent so let’s go through these here absolutely number one you’re in the real estate business for the money and you see it as a way to make a living no question to some degree anything we any work we choose to do has to be about the money right we have to have food with our meals so pretend like we’re going to go out there and do this just for the fun of it or out of the goodness of our hearts that’s not realistic but the real magic happens when your means of making a living also is your purpose right your purpose in life when those two things are aligned that’s a wonderful thing personally my purpose is helping real estate agents and brokers realize bigger futures for themselves and their loved one that’s what my purpose is that’s what I try to focus on every single day and I feel incredibly privileged that I’m able to make a living acting out my purpose and then once you’re making a living you can move to number two you want more out of life than you’re experiencing today there has to be a better way to make a living a lot of agents see themselves in stage two right now it’s not an easy time to be a realtor in winter 2021 there’s far more buyers than sellers there’s multiple offers there’s escalation clauses people are making great offers on houses and getting out bid by other buyers it’s tough and I have to be honest with myself and my agents and everybody else right now in this moment there probably are easier ways to make a living especially for a newer agent so a lot of people a lot of us see ourselves in stage two right now but there’s nothing wrong with wanting more but again we’ve got to be intentional about making the changes we need to make to create that bigger future for ourselves and practically that’s probably figuring out how to create your own markets creating your own listing inventory and so forth and that’s a hard thing for an agent to do on their own that’s all the more reason for that positive and proactive agent broker collaboration to work together to solve those big challenges so you again you don’t feel like you’re in business by yourself you’re in business for yourself but with with backup and then we move to number three you feel that helping others is its own reward the work is your purpose I like that I like that step forward tell me a little bit about that I think being the hero to others is its own reward just makes it feels great right but like in stage one you can take that attitude to extremes right if you if it comes at the expense of taking care of yourself and your family financially and otherwise you’re going to be a little used to your clients being a hero is terrific but you have to be a hero from a position of personal strength I like the way that you looked at that at both ends of the spectrum I think a lot of people can fall into that going too far on the other end of the stick number four you know that connecting practicing and tracking your activity over time is the best path to personal growth and achieving your goals I like the way that sounds yeah so this sort of slums up the whole thing we’ve been talking about that connecting practicing tracking results and growth growth is the fuel that fires your desire for a bigger future growth keeps it fun right keeps it interesting it’s entertaining it’s satisfying it’s confidence building it’s the secret sauce that makes a long and profitable and useful real estate career possible and you could even go so far to tell you lead a life of significance and hopefully ultimately lead a legacy and now the million dollar question how would you score yourself on your commitment to personal and professional growth and that takes us to broker fundamental activity number four coach we’ve talked a little bit about this but I’m excited to jump in here up the station great brokers are partners in their agent success invested in their agents personal growth and development they coach their agents to higher and higher performance over time and the most successful broker agent relationships really are collaborations in shared success and what is coaching really as far as towards that bigger future look like not practically a person to and again I can really much only speak for our company right this right now but but our company our local market leaders and our agents success coordinators are all the Indian company certified mentors and we they actually put on and mentor the the Fini pathway to mastery and 100 days to greatness programs multiple times throughout the year but that is coaching and training it’s very basic and fundamental level and I will tell you that there is no reason for me as a real estate broker to ever pretend that I can create a training program as good as what Brian the Fini and his company have done over time it’s simply the best of the business so we make that available to all of our folks we also have a coaching tool that’s called agent coach thyself and we use that to help professionals our folks our realtors stay focused throughout the changing seasons of our business and when you speak of seasons speaking of seasonality we’ve got this idea called the rhythm of our business right and it’s a philosophy that tends to guide us throughout the year for when it’s time to be all in the business right spring everybody’s out there wanting to buy himself and when it’s time to be working on the business so when things flow down and then you’ve got some success and some data that it’s time to start analyzing and start thinking about the next year and then of course as you move into the gratitude season basically after Halloween and through the first of the year where that part of the year you’re focused on saying thank you and showing appreciation and gratitude but everything that we do it’s designed to help everybody build a bigger future for themselves and what you expect from your broker when it comes to coaching you towards your bigger future says everything about your attitude toward that healthy and profitable collaboration.

Chris this is such great stuff I’m ready to jump into the four stages of the coach continuum. Let’s start off with number one your broker is consumed with getting through the month he has no time for what might be possible wow that’s a big one. Brokers have their own set of problems in the ages below independent from the age sadly keeping the doors open is often one of them it’s hard to have a bigger future for yourself much less anybody else when you’re in survival mode. Wow and you’re in that frantic I think we’ve all been through that desperation mode kills creativity or inspiration I’ve found in my life anyway.

Yeah I hate having my back against the wall I don’t do well that way Absolutely and so we want to get out of there quick and start moving up the ladder. Number two would be your broker is a wonderful human being but lacks the vision required for a bigger future for themselves much less yours. On the coach continuum this is better than a score in stage one but it still leaves you the agent at a disadvantage we brokers have to add value regardless of the current challenges. Really becoming the instead of me focus really in having to move towards looking at the agent and what they can do if they’re wanting to do go into step three you are appropriately challenged and happy with your business and your current status in the community. You don’t need anything else from your broker tell me about that one. This isn’t a bad place right and I have if you scored yourself here I applaud your your success and your self-reliant attitude and orientation but like almost everything we’ve talked about today in stage three it’s great but the danger is becoming complacent and if you don’t continue to grow you will eventually stagnate and your career will suffer so congratulations on where you are I know what it took to get there but please be aware that this business is changing on a daily basis and you’ve got to look ahead and you’ve got to improve your capabilities and how you’re going to serve your clients in the future.

That is such an interesting way that you word that appropriately challenged what does that really mean and can we talk about that for a little bit. Yeah so getting better at anything is a challenge right there’s a certain degree of discomfort it’s sort of spot right. Absolutely you’ve got to be kind of critical right you have to be able to see the good and acknowledge them you have to see the mistakes and acknowledge them. The great coaches know how to motivate their agents by challenging them to improve in specific ways so let’s face it if you don’t feel challenged especially in this business environment you’re not sufficiently engaged right you’re just not trying. So some of us challenge ourselves more than any broker ever could. I’m like that I think I’m harder on myself than anybody else ever could be and that’s not always healthy either. But a great coach helps us stay on a middle path where we remain aware of our opportunities to improve but we also maintain a healthy gratitude and appreciation for how far we’ve come.

Thank you for diving into that a little bit deeper because that’s something I have never really thought about before that’s super helpful I love it. Number four your broker coaches and encourages you to imagine and realize a bigger future for yourself and your family. That’s tremendous. Tell me a little bit about that. That is the book right so in this conversation a great coach inspires us. Great coaches lay out a path they light the way and they help us become the very best versions of ourselves. In our discussion in Fundamental Activity 3 Track I shared my view of the four stages in a great agents career right they start as a licensee they progress to being an agent and a professional business owner there’s a four stage progression or transformation to in a brokers career as well and it goes like this. So newly new real estate brokers that begin as a newly minted entrepreneur right that’s stage one entrepreneur and they hire their first assistant or the first team member and they suddenly they have become a manager and then they recruit their first agent and suddenly they become a leader and over time they become a coach and I think we can all agree that the best agents among us we hate being managed right nobody that’s why we became realtors and independent contractors we don’t want to be managed right.

We respect consistent leadership but where we really thrive is on the coaching that’s tailored to our unique situation and this is why I believe that coaching is the most important fundamental activity of a great broker owner can engage in and consistently become better at overtime. And here’s the big question how would you score your broker on helping you realize a bigger future for yourself and if you’re a broker owner or manager where would you score yourself and this is a lot of great information I have absolutely enjoyed it do you have any final thoughts for us that you’d like to share yeah end of the day Christy it’s really a simple idea connect practice track and grow we kind of complement the complicate things when we stray outside of those lanes and then once we complicate things our businesses suffer and eventually our lives start to go off the rails a bit and closing my advice to anybody who’s gotten this far in the book or this conversation stay focused stay in the pocket be the professional you are and if you do this I guarantee your future will always be bigger than your past.

And what to do next now that you’re clear on the four fundamental pairs of activities that guarantee a mutually beneficial and profitable broker agent collaboration agents have a choice you can stay on the path you’re on right or you have the choice you can explore a new way forward if you like the things that we’ve talked about today we’d love you to check out our company ROOST Real Estate if you’re an agent we’d love to talk to you if you’re a broker owner or a successful agent interested in ownership or potentially a franchise we’d love to talk to you about that as well so there’s a couple of things you can download a worksheet that we put together called AMI-DU for an upgrade right so this worksheet helps you evaluate your current relationship with your broker and that’s at www.due-due number four do4upgrade.com you can also go through this scorecard that we’ve just taken you through online which is a different way of thinking about your thinking and you can do that at www.ultimatecollaborationscorecard.com and if you really want to go deep you can send an email to me chris at ROOSTRealEstateCo.com and just put learn more in the subject line and let’s just book a zoom call and talk about where you are where you want to be and I’ll share that agent coached I self tool with you so Christy thank you so much for this I really enjoyed it and I truly appreciate your help and your interest and your collaboration absolutely this has been just tremendous I have thoroughly enjoyed it and I have learned a lot thank you Chris and there we have it thanks for listening in if you want to continue the conversation go to www.ConnectPracticeTrackGrow.com that’s ConnectPracticeTrackGrow.com where we have additional information about the podcast archived episodes and an option you can select to be a guest on the show we’d love to hear from you so that’s it we’ll be back next time with another episode of the connect practice track and grow podcast