Suneet Agarwal

So a quick note before we dive into today's episode. If you're trying to grow your business and you're wondering where the real gaps are, we built a free diagnostic tool that we are calling Q20. Give us 10 minutes and you'll get a custom analysis back. No pitch, no call required. Scalingcoach.com/q20. Go there now. Scalingcoach.com/q20. Hey, what if the thing that made you successful is the same What's the thing that's about to break you? We know it's often the thing that's holding you back. It's in the way, right? Sunit Agarwal built Sacramento's number one real estate team, $3 billion in sales, almost all of it from a parking lot panic attack with his pregnant wife next to him. We're going to get into all that in just a minute. Hey everybody, I'm Bill Gallagher, scaling coach and host of the Scaling Up Podcast, over 700 episodes, nearly 700 episodes. Now. You'll find all those more wherever you're getting this right now. Like, subscribe, turn on your notifications, get them every week. Every Wednesday we drop a show and there are guests, authors, entrepreneurs. We got both today. People sharing their journey, their experience, plus some stories about our co— our coaching clients, that kind of thing. You'll find all that and more wherever you're getting it now, but also at scalingcoach.com. At scalingcoach.com, you can also get our Q20 diagnostic where I'll take a look at the possible growth paths for your company, the risks I think that might be involved, uh, do a look at your competition for you and give you some outside perspective on growth path. Scalingcoach.com/q20 is that diagnostic. You'll find that there. Uh, listen, um, go check that out if you want to. Let's get into our guest right now. Um, Sunit Agarwal joins us from Sacramento. Sunit, welcome to the show.

Bill Gallagher, thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to this. Really looking forward to it.

Uh, Ben, CEO of Best Sacramento Homes Group, uh, number one mega team. He's a co-founder of Resyde platform. He did over a billion in sales, $3 billion in career sales, 4,500 homes sold. And he's written a book now, Team Leader Secrets, an Amazon bestseller that we're talking about today in particular. Sunita, You build a team of 6 agents in just a few minutes, walking up to people at Coldwell Banker saying, I've got leads, you close them 50/50, right?

Boom. Yeah. Yeah. So I was in, it was Keller Williams, but same principle.

Oh, got it.

Somebody, uh, you know, same thing. Um, somebody, uh, told me to go buy a portal, like a real estate lead gen portal. And I think I borrowed a couple hundred bucks and then I bought it. Um, and now all of a sudden, you know, there are Google pay-per-click leads. Yeah. And I have all these leads, Bill. I'm all, well, I've never called one of these kind of leads in my life. Like, what do I say? So I made about a day worth of calls. And at that time, you know, like real estate teams were getting more in fashion and I kind of heard about it. I never aspired to start a team. You know, I was happy doing my thing at the time, and, uh, but I stood up at the end of a row of cubicles, man, I'll never forget it. I stood up, I said, hey, I got leads, I'm starting a team, who wants to join? And everybody sitting within ear— within hearing distance raised their hand, and I was all, well, I guess we got to figure this out. And then, you know, later, welcome to leadership.

People want the leads. I need the Glengarry leads, right?

Yes, yes, right.

They're like, if only I had the leads. I think we all think about that at some point or another. Like, I've always been a great person as long as I had good lead flow.

Yeah, exactly. Yes. And, um, you know, I learned then that leads are an easy carrot to dangle, but it can't be the only carrot. Because then people are joining you for leads and they're leaving you for leads. You know, there's just— because you got someone's name and number and a little bit of interest, it really doesn't mean that much more in many cases, especially with the big companies spending, you know, millions and millions of dollars to get those clicks inside of salespeople's, uh, CRMs, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So let me just go a little bit off script here. Agarwals are famous for business.

This is true. Yes.

Yeah. What, and one of the coaches that I coached is Anagarwal, who's done a bang-up job of launching his coaching career. What is it that you learned in your family and in your extended family that has, yeah.

What a good question, Bill. Well, I love talking about this. My parents, my mother and my father, were not business owners. They were very educated. My mom came here like in the '60s, right? She started being a college pro— she had— she was a college professor here in Northern California by the time she was 21, right? So a lot of education, a lot of formal education. I'm the only person who doesn't have a master's in the— in both lines. And my father, like many other Indian people, was an engineer, right? So, um, however, they both had entrepreneurship like driving them, right? Like my mom, she went on to get 3 masters. Like, you know, that's a lot.

Don't be a slacker.

Yeah. Don't be a slacker. Right. She went and got 3 masters and she was a professor in multiple subjects. Um, And my father, he had definite small business aspirations, but he definitely introduced, um, business books and self-development books. And, you know, now as an author, I am a product of the self-development books. I've read them all 100 times, right? Um, he gave me Think and Grow Rich when I was like 12, Bill, and I remember getting that book Yeah, yep. And I remember going to the last page looking for the secret. I was like, okay, what's the secret, right? Um, he gave me Tony Robbins, um, tapes at an impactful early point in my sales career, and it changed everything. So that was the impact that my father had on the entrepreneurial journey that, um, I'm, you know, still, still going down. It's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy.

Yeah. Self-improvement inquiry, right? Looking for answers, better way, right? Not giving up, not settling, not doing just enough, but continually reaching.

Yes, absolutely. And just mindsets, right? And seeing what's truly possible. Uh, I had, you know, like everybody, I had many challenges in my professional career that, you know, uh, prior to getting into real estate, like I had another life that was something that I encountered really challenging times. And those fundamentals and the mindset and what's possible really kept me going.

Mm-hmm. Very many of my clients start their companies with a lot of hard work, a lot of scrappiness, a fair amount of grinding, and then it stops working at some point, right? And, and sometimes it even becomes a problem. In our upcoming book, I've got some stories of people who really screwed up their companies and their lives with trying to overwork instead of letting the team work. You had a whole parking lot panic attack. Talk to us about what happened to you. What was going on in your life? What happened?

Tell—

take us— tell us that story.

Yeah, it's kind of where a lot of things got into context. It was when I was still a solo agent. I hadn't started any kind of team yet, and, um, I was grinding, right? I was just trying to make that next check. And my wife was with me in her seat, and it was February, and our daughter was born March 17th. So around the time of this recording, right, it was just her birthday, um, 10, 10 years ago. She just turned 10. And it was 10 years ago in February where I had no money and we had to go have this baby. And I was worried about having gas to put in my car to get to the hospital when, when the call came. Something that many independent contractors, business people, you know, have to deal with. And at that point, and I don't know if this is in the book or not, but at that point I did my first discovery call with a coach and just the timing was so right.

Yeah.

And that's what got me into, you know, opening the door to being coached formally like that in that same parking lot.

So you're in the parking lot, you're having this anxiety about having the money and all that kind of thing, and then you, you call the coach or you decide to call the coach in the parking lot?

Yeah, we had a scheduled call. Oh, in like 30 minutes. So I was sitting there freaking out, then it just— right before the call. And it wasn't— they weren't related, right? However, they both happened just by kismet on that day.

Your wife was sitting with you in the car?

She was sitting with me, yeah. Well, we had a doctor's appointment or something, and you know, like when that— when you're a realtor, a new one, you might have your girlfriend, spouse hang out with you all day, right? Yeah, yeah. So she was right there pregnant, and I just knew that— like, I knew that something had to change, and it was going to start with me and direction, right? And one of the first things I learned was, you know, great effective time management, which I'm— which I've mastered since. And it was so impactful, really opened the door.

So yeah. How was your wife in that interaction? From, like, how much of it did she see? Were you speaking out loud? Or was she just there and you having that privately in your own head with your pulse racing and you're like, what was, what was that?

Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely like, inside my own head. Right? Like trying to figure it out. I'm a deeply introspective guy, right? And my brain, I think lots of entrepreneurs and high producers, like we're always got like the brain is going, right? And I'm sure in hindsight I was catastrophizing a lot of stuff, which is, you know, natural in that high anxiety kind of state. But yeah, just internally, man, the heart racing and like I remember even like we ended up going to the doctor and told the doctor, like the baby doctor, the, the, the OB, when my wife is pregnant, I was, you know, I think I'm having anxiety, or I think I'm having heart issues, right? It was just anxiety from the looseness of the business and being an upcoming father, right? And that was the motivation that just You're going to have to do this right.

When our son was born, I had a lot of anxiety about— and there were some health events for my wife as the date approached, right, during the pregnancy. And so, I was anxious about the health and things like that, but I wasn't thinking about like, "Oh, it's going to be hard to be a dad," or, "I'm not going to have money," or things like that. I thought about all that as fine. I was worried about this unknown thing, and it felt like Health is fragile and random. Then we had a baby and he was so— he's chill today, but at 28, he was so overwhelming and so hard. And so, a couple of years go by and I'm exhausted being a dad and that kind of thing. And then we are expecting our second child and I went into a panic over that. I went into a panic not about money. I went into panic not about— anything just like personal space and capacity, right? It's—

wow.

And I, uh, about like, oh, my life is over now. Like, me, the individual, like, whatever is over. And I, uh, the most outward visible signs is I went out and I got my pilot's license and I got my scuba certification.

Wow.

It was an early midlife thing, just before my daughter was born, because I'm like, I'm— I— there are things I want for me And I better do them now. So I jammed them in there. And then my daughter was born. She was really easy by comparison to our son at that age, at that stage, like the early birth to toddler. She was much more chill, less high demand than his. It's funny, they have up and down kinds of things, but she was very chill. And I was like, oh, it's fine. And like, but at least then I also, like, I had my pilot's license, my scuba certification. So I've taken them both scuba diving. I've taken them both flying.

That's awesome.

I don't regret that.

Yeah.

So before real estate, you had a downturn, you were doing something else and you lost everything. You had a collapse, you went through a transition. Talk to us. What were you doing? Take us through that whole collapse and the couple of years that—

Yeah. So, so prior to real estate, I helped launch medical cannabis dispensaries here in Northern California, where, you know, we wrote the ordinance for Sacramento, we wrote the tax, we wrote it for Stockton, we lobbied cities. I worked with some of the big guys in your neck of the woods, hired an attorney from Oakland, right, to come and help. And we were the first legally licensed dispensary in Sacramento. And we wrote all the ordinances and the taxes in partnership with, with city hall. We lobbied city hall and they were agreeable. They're still cannabis friendly. And now, now it's totally different anyways, but this was, this was 2007, right? Um, there wasn't any, um, state medicinal besides just that Senate Bill SB 420. It was all medical with doctor's notes, you know, now, now you can call anybody and get whatever you want sent to your house. But, um, pretty much sometimes, yeah, pretty much, right? Um, but back then it was a different landscape. So you could get the weed and the pizza and a six-pack of beer, right? You could have the whole party without leaving your house.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and, you know, throughout that process, um, we were locally— we were locally supported, um, supported by the Senate bill on the state level. But the federal government, it was during a reelection for Barack Obama, and during that time he instructed the U.S. attorneys to go after dispensary owner landlords in this, in any state that had the same kind of guidelines with the medicinal, right? So they did, and my landlord got really scared. We had two landlords and they got scared. We tried to fight it. And doing a fight resulted in a federal seizure raid where they took assets, never pressed any charges because we were a clean business. You know, they, they sometimes, they expect back then to go to someone's house and there's guns and piles of cash and all this, right? I had bank accounts and a legitimate business, right? So yeah, so, um So that kind of left me wrecked because just number one, it's traumatic to have your door rammed in for cannabis, right? So that's a traumatic thing. And then to get, um, assets seized and lose your business, like you're literally starting from zero. So that's, that's what I've been licking my wounds from for a year prior to getting into real estate. So I had that behind me, pushing me. Yeah.

Yeah. So you hung out for a while with that. Like, talk about the doldrums of being in between things and what you did to get through that. Like, what were you doing in that timeframe? And then, and then what is it that got you into real estate? So talk about that.

So I lived with a broken up girlfriend at a house. And I'm pointing it for those of you who are watching because it's down in the same neighborhood. Um, and I had gotten some guard dogs because there I had been, um, we had had some break-ins and people were breaking into my house. So I got a couple guard dogs, right? And, um, and after the— after everything happened with the cannabis, after I lost everything, I moved to like a farmhouse that I thought— that I thought was a teardown. Right up the street here with my dogs. All I had was my dogs, nothing else, and like my car that almost broke down. And what did I do? Like, I didn't know what to do.

You're not married at this point, I'm guessing?

Thank goodness I was single, right? Um, which probably saved my butt was being single and not having any kids yet. You know what I did, Bill, is I, is I did some consulting work for different kinds of businesses with my marketing and, you know, business scale, um, experience I had. And I worked out. I worked out twice a day, right?

And I just—

working out at home, just gym. Um, I learned how to live for about $2,000 a month, right? And, uh, didn't really have any direction. I didn't know what I was going to do. There was a real sense of hopelessness. And, um, one of my former— one of my good friends had just gotten into real estate a year prior, and we had done some business previously. Um, he's all, hey, Sunita, I made a couple hundred grand this year, and you're sitting on your butt like at the gym. I wasn't sitting on my butt. He's like, and you're just working out. Like, what are you going to— what are you going to do with your life? You're 36 or something, right? Um, so let me— come hang out with me. Come to Coldwell Banker. And let me show you. And he did. And that's what got me back in. My first year, I was then Rookie of the Year, which was, I was, oh, well, I guess I know how to do this.

It's funny. So there you are, you're doing something, but you're not doing nothing. You're living, you're figuring out how to live post-smash, post-seizure and break-in. You've got guard dogs. I don't know.

Yeah.

I'm expecting to see a Glock or two somewhere.

Yeah, it was, it was a crazy time.

It's funny 'cause I think, well, I'm not an expert in the industry at all, but it seems like that the legal cannabis industry from dispensaries to cultivation is mostly a bad business. It's so heavily taxed and regulated.

I'm not associated at all. I, yeah. Completely went away. But I still have colleagues who were my attorneys. Yeah. And they tell me though, hey, I think especially in California, maybe overtaxed, which is leading to the black market having back an increase. That's, that's what I hear. I don't follow it. I don't follow it on purpose. Like, I'm not interested anymore, right? Like, I had my— uh, I'm disengaged. Yeah.

Disengaged. Yeah, yeah. You had a guy, you had your connect, and the guy, like, you went there, he went to you, he like took care of you.

Yeah, totally same. Yeah, and the guys would tend to rotate. You'd lose track of someone and find a new one through one of your buddies.

And well, they weren't the most stable people.

Uh, yeah.

So then, um, then you're solo, you're making some money, you're a solo real estate agent, and then you build a team. Talk about why you build a team, what led you to— you mentioned a little bit getting some leads and, and that kind of thing. Talk to us about solo to team lead and why you did that and what you learned.

Yeah, so, you know, after that panic attack with the discovery call with that coaching company, they encouraged me to start a team. And it wasn't enough yet. Their encouragement, it wasn't enough. I was content. Aha. However, Then my daughter was born, like I said, about 10 years ago, and within months I realized that I couldn't work. I didn't think I could work at the same clip that I was as a traditional real estate agent showing houses evenings, weekends, all this. I couldn't do that and spend as much time with my newborn baby as I wanted to, right? Um, so I needed leverage. And I need to scale. So the team, with the encouragement from the coach I had at the time and just reality, once again, timing, right? Kismet. Like, it just made sense.

That was your driver. So you start building the team. Talk to us about what happens. You said you found people who want to be on the, like, you know, people said yes, but then what? Like, how did that go?

What did—

like, how did that develop, right?

Yeah, so like, so people, so people joined and I was being coached, but you know, I learned about— well, you know, my previous business ownership experience, Bill, was owning a dispensary and having people work at the counter and work in the back and all this, right? Uh, now I'm, now I'm leading independent contractors in a in a more professional field, at least at the time. Uh, outward, completely public-facing field. Um, and I learned the difference about personalities in sales. I learned about what motivates versus inspires salespeople. Uh, I realized how you can help people through accountability, right? Um, and there's a lot of people lessons. I understood really quickly that the people move the money, right? Like, in a sales business, there's a— there's skill acquisition, absolutely, but the accountability has to be driving, and people need to be inspired, and I can't motivate anybody. So I me understanding those things about people early on, um, through books and coaching and practical experience, um, it's really allowed me to like focus on the things that move the money, the people. We talked about recruiting, right? Like many leaders of a sales organization, the leaders will say, well, my salespeople should want to make more money every year because I want to make more money every year, right? That's like the natural thing to fall into. But if everybody was so focused on growth, then being a leader wouldn't be such an opportunity, right? People get content, and there's nothing that I'm going to tell anybody that's going to inspire them to want to make more money. That's, that's going to motivate them to make more money. They either want it or they don't. Now I can inspire somebody. Well, how can I inspire somebody? Well, from leading from the front, right? But yeah, so just lots of lessons about people. I think that's where the opportunity is, understanding people.

Have you had particular— are there books or ideas that have— or trainers or people that have stood out for you particularly in in this realm? For like leading others, inspiring, elevating, motivating?

I like Patrick Lencioni for sure.

Uh-huh.

Right. Um, I like—

what's that? He's an East Bay guy. He's Bill Gallagher. Oh, is he? Yeah.

Oh, cool. Um, I didn't know that. Um, and I think like, you know, any of the fundamental books, um, Think and Grow Rich, right? Um, I, I love The Compound Effect. I love Zig Ziglar stuff, right? Like Tony Robbins. Yeah, yeah, Zig is my stuff, dude. Like, I remember driving around with my dad. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah, but I mean, it's really the fundamentals, yeah, right? Like Marcus Aurelius, right? If you want to go back, like, there's, um, it's the fundamentals. Jim Rohn on leadership is great, right?

So yeah, yeah, yeah, those are some classics. Well, you know, it's funny, I had a sales manager once and he taught me some funny lessons that I, I still— and it's the funnier ones that stick with me. One of them was on the motivation. He's like, you want them to produce more? Have them buy a nicer car, buy a house, get their spouse pregnant, get a fancier, like higher lifestyle partner. Like all the things that create pressure for more money is like they, they make a little money. They're good. They get a car they like, and then you step up lifestyle. Yes.

Yes. I mean, here's the thing. This is the reality of the world. Is every day people with poor habits leading to poor health go to the doctor. Yeah, smoke, drug abuse, you know, smoke, drugs, excessive alcohol, excessive weight. Every single day thousands of these people go to the doctor. Yeah, and the doctor says if you do not change your habits, you will die prematurely. Yep. Yet the behavior of most people doesn't change. In fact, it only changes about 20% of the time. If you want to talk about the, the Pareto principle.

Well, because the immediate pleasure of my smoking, drinking, whatever I'm doing outweighs the delayed pain of that suffering of, you know, so motivation.

Yes. Motivation to live longer is not enough for 80% of the people. To change their habits. What the hell am I going to tell somebody, Bill, if that's the truth? They don't even care about living longer. I'm going to get them to make extra calls? Are you out of your mind? Now, what I can do is take somebody down a path of discovery where they can figure out on their own what they need to do to do the thing that they want, not the thing that I want them to do, but what they want. And then with, with accountability, help them get there. Right. That's like the only thing I've seen that works.

Well, I like, I think you're speaking to the same kind of thing, but so he was just like, just get interested in their life and then encourage them to lead a bigger, fuller life. Right. So I talk with them about whatever and I'd be like, okay, well, it's really great. And while I'm sure you are hoping for a better apartment someday, or a or a house of your own or that kind of thing. So you just like, you get interested and curious and related to them as human beings. Then you'd plant a little seed about something, you know, that was the step up or that kind of, that's a pretty cool car. You'll probably like that for the next few months.

Like, yeah, I think some of that.

And then, uh, he does. And then he had other, another one was If you have to talk to them about personal hygiene, it's a lost cause. Like if they don't know to take a shower, you should just get rid of them.

That's funny. That is funny. That is funny. I've never heard that one, but I'm going to keep it.

You know, like in those days I was running a sales team for a company and I had, I don't know, 10 salespeople, not a big sales team, you know? Sure. And, and I was probably 24, something like that. So I'm 24, right? Young team. And, and, and most of the people working for— not all of them, but a few of the people working for me are older than me. So he's like trying to talk to me, and, you know, I want to explain to them like how to pitch or whatever. He's like, no, we got to deal with the motivation and the personal habits and the step-up thinking. Years later, I learned something that, uh, I believe is a Zig Ziglar thing. And I found it really helpful for me and for some of my clients, but not as many as I would like. And maybe you've encountered this one too. It's the Be, Do, Have. Okay. The Be, Do, Have. And the Be, Do, Have says— a lot of people have it backwards. They think that when they have $1 million or $100 million or $1 billion or whatever it is, then they will finally do things and they'll be a certain way. And Zig Ziglar is like, you got to flip it around. You got to imagine yourself being a certain way and then you'll do certain things and then you'll have different results. And I, I have applied it in many areas of my life, but one of them that stood out when I first— I learned it probably, well, more than 10 years earlier, but I didn't really apply it yet until I found myself with 2 kids and struggling businesses and, um, some real fitness issues, right? I'm, I'm like fat and I'm worried about my health and I got cholesterol issues and I'm on the couch and I can't like whatever. And so I, I do the exercise at the direction of my coach at the time. And I'm like, well, I have about 40 pounds too many, right? I have bad fitness. I have a gym. I have a personal trainer. Uh, I have a fancy gym membership and includes things like massage and a private locker and laundry service. I had executive, you know, I had the upscale thing and yet I don't go. Like I call in. So what am I doing? I, I ha— I have the personal trainer. I have the gym membership. I have these things. I also have the, the, the weight line, the, the waistline and the extra pounds, that kind of thing. And I am The doing or not doing is I'm calling my trainer, um, like a little bit before and saying, hey, I got a thing, I can't get there. And so I'm paying him not to work out. Like, I'm like, I'll pay your fee anyway, like, uh, but I won't be there. And then I go in my car and I drive through McDonald's or KFC and I get the supersized meal. And then I take it back to my desk and I keep working through things. So I have stress and now I'm eating shit and I'm not working out. And so, and then, and then I, and then I'm, I'm worried, right, about my health. So I'm being defeated and I'm being a loser, right? And I am, uh, and, and really, if I'm honest, my sort of unconscious view that, that appeared to me in a few minutes is, well, look, I don't have the DNA that those super fit people do, the great athletes.

Yeah, the story. You're telling yourself an old story.

And so really my goal here is just to live long enough to see my kids grow. And that was kind of heartbreaking, right? Because it was so sad. It's so defeatist, right? That is as much like, eventually I'm going to have a heart attack, so I just want to delay it long enough and be less pathetic, right? And let's not even get into the the impacts of my relationship, my self-esteem, right? Oh, absolutely, yes. So, what would I do if I had the DNA? What if I had the DNA? What if I had the fitness? What if I had a different waistline, a different scale reading, right? All of that kind of thing. Well, I would do really cool things. I would do extraordinary things if I was like that. I'd be out there on the Marina Green, like living large. Like I'd be active and I'd be alive. I'd be inspired. I'd be out there like in the sunshine and, and living my best life, uh, with the view of the Golden Gate Bridge. And, um, and then I realized, oh, with whatever DNA I have, I could be active, alive, and inspired.

Yes. Good.

Whatever I got, I could do that. What would I do if I had that? And then I thought, I do something amazing. I don't, but I don't know what it is yet. But the next day I'm thinking about that. And the next day I heard this woman talking about running her first marathon. Uh, and she's talking about running it and she's training now and she's passed like a 13-mile distance. So maybe she would run 18 by that point or so. So she's getting really close to her first marathon. And I look at her and I think privately, well, she's fatter than me. And, and she looks less like athletic than me, but she's running a flipping marathon, and that sounds a little painful to me. So I'm like, I need to do something like that, something out— it sounded so outrageous. Now it sounds— lots of people run marathons, but at the time, as a guy who weighed more and couldn't get off the couch, and I was like, that's so amazing. And I'm like, oh, I should do something like outrageous, not just go to the gym a little bit more, but I should do something outrageous. But I don't want to run a marathon because it sounds sounds a little painful. So I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to run a triathlon. And I, and I decided in that moment, and then I told people in the next moment, I think I'm going to run a triathlon. Except I didn't know what that was. It just, I knew it wasn't a marathon. It was like a distance event of some kind. It sounded a little more, I literally, I knew there was a bike involved, you know, like, and I, It sounded less painful. So I, so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna run a triathlon. I told people, and then I looked up, you know, Googled what's a triathlon and what's involved and how do I do that? And then I realized, oh, I gave up on swimming in the 7th grade cuz I was so pathetic and I didn't know how to swim like properly, um, like for speed and that kind of thing. So I'm like, how do I, but I said now to people that I'm gonna run a triathlon and I'm active, alive, and inspired. So I commit to running a triathlon. I register in a triathlon. I find a triathlon coach and a swim coach. And I start working out every day and I quit my gym membership.

Wow.

But I went on to working about 13 hours a week for 11 years. And I did 45 triathlons and a few marathons.

45? Bill, that's a lot.

And I lost, I lost those pounds and I look pretty good today. I'm 61 years old now. And I look better than I did at when I started that journey, you know, like, so 45 triathlons, right? That's that be, do, have kind of thing, right? So that's an old Zig Ziglar thing.

That's a powerful story.

I find that really useful. Like, if you had those things, what would, how would you be then? And, and what would you do with that? Right. And we could actually flip that around and start looking at where the, the, like, active, alive, and inspired was the question. Quality that I most admire beyond having the DNA, beyond having the fitness, right? And that actually shifted my view of the present. Then I needed to commit to something and work on it. But, but, and that just was like, I said, I'm going to do it. I declared it publicly. That creates accountability, right? I tell a lot of people, now you have some natural accountability. Yes. Yes.

That's such a great story, man.

Commit. Thanks for sharing that. Right. Yeah. There's like, uh, there's like 45 finisher medals and stuff over there in the corner of the office. And that, yeah, I never, I never had any chance of being in the top 10. I was never good at it.

It's about completing it, isn't it?

Yeah, it's just about doing it and about setting my own personal goals and the next one and the next one, the next one.

Do you ever do any there in the Bay there or what?

Oh yeah, the one I probably did the most, about 7 times I did this Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. That's what I was gonna ask. And you bike all around the city and you run along the beach and up and down the sand ladder, and it's a pretty grueling non-standard event, uh, but it's stunningly beautiful, right? And then you look at it and you're like, I'm a master of all that.

I can swim in Yes, I was in the city last weekend on St. Patrick's Day and it was beautiful. Yeah.

Oh yeah, I went out to go wing surfing on St. Patrick's Day and it—

oh yeah, we went to a concert at the Warfield. That was a good time.

Yeah. All right, well, we've covered a lot of interesting things here, um, and, uh, let's, let's tackle one more kind— well, maybe two more little things as we wrap up, but Um, let's talk about recruiting and building the— so bringing the people in and then the culture that keeps them there.

Yeah. So bringing people in, uh, if you want to grow your business, you must have more people work for you, right? So you do, you do— I mean, sales business, right? Not, um, not if you own a store or a restaurant, don't hire unnecessarily, right? Or some kind of, uh, right, right, right, right. Well, but we hire 1099 contractors. Um, there is still cost. Yes, there is still cost.

Yeah.

Um, but, um, so recruiting should be seen as one of the major levers of growth, right? And you must all— it's, it's, it's lead gen. Like, you need to generate leads, you need to market. Uh, it's a less conventional kind of marketing funnel compared to buying and selling houses. Right? Uh, because there's licensing that's involved. Uh, so, um, you must be talking to people if you want to recruit licensed agents. So you need to make calls, you need to be good at organic and paid marketing, you know how to send the emails, you know, stuff that, stuff that we both tell, tell people to do. And then you have to have a frictionless process to get people in, and you have to get them productive in a 1099 environment as fast as possible, right? Like, every day that people don't get the opportunity to do business is one day they're closer to walking out the door, right? Um, so culture, you know, like, there's a, there's a, um, there's a quote that I learned from somebody, like, is eagles don't want to hang around turkeys.

It's probably on one of those Successory posters or something.

Yeah, right, that one's like at the back of the rack, right? Um, yeah, but eagles don't want to hang around with turkeys. When you're in a 1099 type of environment with culture, the culture is dictated by the people who are on the W-2 payments because they actually come in every day because they have to. Right? So that they're the holders of the culture. So they should be collaborative and giving and be seen as a steward to helping the salespeople get, get more of what needs to happen. Yeah.

Yeah. Certain people being more important to the culture. Any specific elements of culture that you use or like to use? Moments in time, structures?

Culture is such like a buzzword, or at least it was, especially prior to COVID. I feel like people quit talking about culture when more people went, started working from home. Um, but at the same time, like, a great culture happens when a lot of people are working around each other. Post-COVID California, me and you are both working from home, right? I have a beautiful office. I haven't been there in 3 weeks. I don't know about you. Um, But, um, but as the employees are the stewards because they have to show up, how do you have culture around people who don't have to be anywhere? And it's funny because it comes back into spending time together. If you want to increase the culture in your sales organization, do an activity offsite. I don't care if you go like axe throwing or get a happy hour with some potato skins and mini pizzas at the local cafe, right? At the local bar. And, you know, let the relationships build in this post-COVID type of environment to really see what you can do with culture.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's really valuable. I think about like it's those offsite activities, but it's also the activities in your office, the way you celebrate birthdays, the way you greet people in the morning, the way you run meetings. The decorations you throw up, the things you celebrate, the awards you give out, like all of that stuff, your culture, right?

Well, like, like for us, like we use Slack, free version. So religiously, I'm very proud of using the free version of Slack for 7 years, Bill. Maybe somebody who works there listens to this, I'll get an upgrade email. But, but You know, like, what are you doing in the group messaging as people get further and further geographically away from each other inside an independent contractor type of environment, right?

Yeah. Yeah. One of our teams did that really well. They would, they would call out their quarterly themes or rally cries all the time. And one quarter it was about the chief rainmaker for the company. So they would do hashtag KKS. Yeah, every time they did something, it'd be #KKS, and that would tie into something they were talking about. They just did something that helped that in some way. #KKS, keep Kevin selling.

Yes, love it. Exactly. That is so great.

How do you get this— this quarterly theme is all just about Kevin? No, it's about everybody. Kevin's the one doing the selling, but we all have to make sure Kevin keeps selling. What are the things that we do that help him sell, or get or get in the way of him selling, let's focus on that. That's what we do to keep him like, you know, pulling together, you know?

Love it. Yes, absolutely. Let's keep the salespeople selling. Absolutely.

Yes. Well, we've talked about a lot of great things today. teamleadersecrets.com is the book. Go check out, go buy a copy, go check it out. teamleadersecrets.com.

Thanks.

Uh, Suneet Agarwal, thank you so much for joining us from Sunny, warm. It's probably hot as hell there today in Sacramento.

It's 90. Yes, it's 90.

Can you believe it? Can you believe it's winter, right?

It's winter.

Spring doesn't start for a week. Still winter.

Yes.

Terrible ski season.

That's what I heard, yes.

Terrible ski season. But anyway, we live in interesting— by the time this airs, we'll be deep into spring. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks to Wanda and Anna for producing our show and getting it out every week. Thanks to my friend and mentor Vern Harnish, who created the whole Scaling Up framework. That's the heart of our work. And if you want more from us, our workshop, that Q20 assessment, or any of that, scalingcoach.com is a place to go. Or if you want to send a referral my way. So all that and more at scalingcoach.com. Thanks again for watching, for listening. Until next time, keep scaling. Thanks again for listening. I'm writing a book now called Busy Is Broken. If this episode resonated with you, you'll probably enjoy the book too. It's coming September of 2026. To follow along, go to busyisbroken.com. That's busyisbroken.com.