How Vanguard Properties Scales Autonomy and Psychological Safety | David Chol (Podcast 543)

I'm very entrepreneurial. I've always been in position where I do my own thing. Even in the companies that I worked for, I had a very autonomous position. I'm a bit of a renegade in that way. I don't know that I've ever felt like I've had a boss, per se, and I don't know that I could. The magic of Vanguard is that we really instill near complete autonomy and the people that work here, including our leadership.

Our guest today is David Scholl, CEO and Executive Vice President of Vanguard Properties International, one of the Bay Area's leading residential real estate brokerages. With 17 offices, over 500 agents, and more than 3 billion in annual sales. David is named a 40 under 40 honoree by the San Francisco Business Times. He has led Vanguard through one of the toughest markets in recent memory and not just surviving, but driving its largest growth in a decade. In this episode, David and I talk about the power of giving your team true autonomy, how to uncover the hidden secret weapons that are already inside of your organization, and what it really takes to create psychological safety at scale. We also explore how he balances energy and stability as the integrator behind a visionary CEO and the leadership principles that have helped him steer through both chaos and growth. If you lead teams or aspire to be a second in command, this episode is full of tangible insights you can apply right away. Let's dive in. We are live with David. Welcome to the second in command.

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. You are in San Francisco working with a company that has done really amazing things despite the kind of downturn of the real estate market. So I'm really excited to have you on the show. And when you jumped on, you told me that since reaching out, when we asked if you wanted to be a guest on the show, you've listened to, like, 30 episodes. I was like, wow, that's really, really cool. And we were talking about the. The kind of common pain points that CEOs find where you might think that you're kind of on your own and your position, no one really could understand it and how that is a really common thing for a lot of COOs. So I'm happy to bring you on and hear some of your perspective and your unique but also same, same, but different kind of ways.

Yeah. Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to doing this, and I'm now an avid listener. I hadn't heard of you before, and I certainly have now, and I'm. And whenever I like something, I go in deep. So I think in two weeks I'm 30 podcasts in and counting, so it's been incredibly informative and educational for me as well.

Perfect. Yeah, Maybe one time we'll just like switch you and you can just be the host because you, you probably could do better than you at this point. Well, awesome. Let's go ahead and just kind of start off. Tell us a little bit about Vanguard Properties. What do you do, who do you serve and what makes you guys unique.

In the market or. Yeah. Vanguard Properties. We are in our 40th year now, founded by James Nunemaker, our visionary CEO, co owned by our president, Frank Nolan, and we've been in the bay area for 40 years. We are a residential real estate broker. We do have a small but mighty commercial division as well. We're highly integrated into all things Bay Area. Bay Area real estate. As you know, or may know, real estate affects everything in life and in business, whether it's small businesses or what we do. And brokerage, highly integrated into every market. And so being the largest independent brokerage in the Bay Area is something we have a lot of pride in. We're also the largest LGBT led company in the Bay Area as well. And so we are all things San Francisco and we are all about our people. So we are. We have about 18 offices and we serve the entirety of the Bay Area. We just opened a new office, our first office outside of the state in Miami. We have a long standing office in Palm Springs as well. We have in and around 500 agents and, and we're growing.

Amazing. So no small, no small little company over here. You guys are. There's a lot of people involved.

Well, it's. You know, it's funny because by reference to the rest of the industry, I would say we're small, but as Frank likes to say, we're like Mighty Mouse. We're small but mighty. But in, in all things Bay Area, I think what the company is, is we're definitely a quality over quantity company. And with that comes really quality revenue and profits as well. And, and, and a culture that's really amazing. And so while we've grown, and we're certainly big by an independent brokerage standard. Absolutely. And growing fast. We've really done an amazing job of maintaining a very connected culture. So we still feel small working here.

Yeah, that's the best. Yeah, those kind of like the, the small teams that are making the biggest impact. I mean, it's one of the things that I love is just how can you create lean teams where people are motivated, excited to do their best. And where you have, you know, you could have. I'm told this about sales teams kind of where most of my background comes from. So it's easy to use this as a reference point, but it's better to have two salespeople that are taking home $300,000 a year and absolutely crushing it than having 20 salespeople that are making 50,000 a year. And you've got all this extra complexity and nuance that's happening in the company versus just finding those key players that can really be leveraged a lot. And like you said, culture is a big part of that. So we will talk about it, but I want to hear first, how did you find yourself in this position four years ago?

Oh, God, I'll have to shorten that story because it's kind of long, but it's a serendipitous one that I hold close to my heart. I've been in real estate since I was 17. I started really early, so I've got a lot more experience in the industry than a lot of people more senior than me. But it's something I always knew I wanted to do and be a part of. And I grew up in Louisiana and in the aftermath of Katrina, got started in real estate and I lived in Texas for quite a bit. And my real estate career kind of took me all over from traditional selling to building and developing to real estate, tech and private equity. But to make a very long story short, I was at a, an. An influx in my career in life place where I had had a long, very secure, kind of golden handcuffs type career. But I have a very entrepreneurial spirit and I had been needing freedom for a long time. Um, and not to get too personal, but my, my, I had broken my boyfriend, my dog had died, and I quit my job all in the same month. And I was like, I'm making a change. And my best friend was going on a trip to Tel Aviv and he said, buy a ticket and get out of town. And I did. And six days later I'm in a bar in Tel Aviv and I sit down and order a drink to like stay up through the jet lag. And I sit down to this man who's like, you must be an American. We get to chatting, we kind of hit it all. And then later on his husband comes in and he's like, this is my husband Frank, who is the co owner of Vanguard Properties. And we created a wonderful friendship and small world. Knew some of the same people were both in real estate. Back in the US experiencing similar, serious, similar challenges and successes and. And it was just a serendipitous moment that turned into a friendship, that turned into a business working relationship. So many years later, post pandemic, we had developed a real relationship of trust and we saw so many similarities in what we were doing at the time. I was based out of Texas, and one day Frank and James, the CEO, called and asked if I'd be interested. And honestly, I kind of packed up all my stuff in Texas and I moved to San Francisco and I took the leap of faith and I've been here for almost four years now.

Wow, what a cool story. And I was. I just heard this recently and this is a perfect story in along with this point, which was, you can look back at the end of your life, you'll be able to look back and find those three to five really painful chapters that closed that were just like really big turning points. And at the time, things felt like they were never gonna get better. You had no idea what was next, but it brought you to the next thing. And it wouldn't have been possible without having that really big disruption. And it sounds like that's exactly what happened. And I mean, I can say this in my own journey also. It was like when I found myself at the company that I helped build right before that, it was one of the worst times. It was the worst time of my life thus far. It was so painful. And I love that you just followed the flow of that and built the relationship and it kind of led you to getting that phone call. Why, why do you think that they called you? What was it about you that they were like, we need to call David?

I. It leads to a larger conversation about the culture of the company, actually, in that I've worked in very large companies, I've worked in, worked in startups. This is maybe my first time working in such an intimate, privately held company. But I do consider myself to have a pretty wide experience of different cultures. And a lot of people, a lot of cultures all say the same thing, of, we promote growth, we're here for the employee. You know, this abundance mindset. Everybody's got a mindset they go for and very few have it really imprinted in their DNA. And one of the things that's imprinted in the Vanguard Properties DNA through both James and Frank is the. The kind of trust your gut, move boldly forward and, and have faith in what pans out. And to be honest with you, I don't even know that they had fully considered whether or not they needed a coo. I think they knew that they needed someone in operations to a degree. The company was kind of exploding post pandemic, but I think that they really trusted in me and our relationship. And in a private company such as this, with such a close knit culture, having someone in that position needs to be someone that you trust implicitly. And I think they looked at me and our relationship and they said, we'll figure it out together. And that was, that was really cool. And since I've been there, that, that carries through fully. So I think that's probably really the reason.

What was it like when you first came in in the initial 90 days? Did they give you like a playbook of like, here, here's what we're kind of needing you to do, or was it just like, hey, can you figure out playbook?

Haven't seen a playbook yet. I, I've, I've certainly made quite a few for myself and then, you know, set them on fire. I know. No, and I think, honestly, I think it's the only reason why working here works for me. I'm very much, I'm very entrepreneurial. I've always been in position where I do my own thing. Even in the companies that I worked for, I had a very autonomous position. And so I'm a bit of a renegade in that way. I don't know that I've ever felt like I've had a boss per se, and I don't know that I could. And I, and I think the magic of Vanguard is that they, we really instill near complete autonomy and the people that work here, including our leadership. And so when I, when I came on board, I think it was, we're so happy to have you here, here's your office. And I think that was it. So I was like, okay, what do I, what do I, okay, so let me, let me dig in. Let's dig into the financials and everything, which at first was like, it was a little unsettling. And I'm like, oh my God, I've changed my career. But then I realized that I, I, I've learned more about myself in this position than I think I have in any other position in my life. And I realized that that's what I really needed anyway. And so I think I have more of a playbook now that I've been able to create for myself, which is, led my career at the company in different seasons, as I like to, to call it. But, but no, no real playbook. But when the, when I started That I moved here in May of 2022. And in, in and around the week before or the week I started was the time that the headlines started hitting, that inflation was on the rise. And then within my first month, interest rate hikes and complete chaos in the industry. So I didn't know all the names of the staff yet or I didn't met everybody yet. And I was having to learn a 40 year old company on the fly, getting to know the people, learning the city. I had not spent a ton of time in San Francisco while also figuring out how to write a ship I hadn't familiarized myself with yet. So I got a real crash course in the company. But it promoted a very, very deep learning. So I think I'm grateful for it now. I think I'm much further along in my position than I ever would have been if that crisis hadn't happened.

You said that in this position you learned more about yourself than anywhere else. What have been some of those main pieces that this role has kind of shown you or led you to discovering God.

I really don't like being told what to do. Oh man, I can be. I think I've gotten better at that part. I think when you have a life of complete autonomy in the workspace, it's, it's hard to transition into a corporate or quasi corporate role. But I, but I think more so it led towards a. When you're trying to build out the playbook for yourself of what this position is and you're juggling two co owners with complimentary but very different personalities and working styles and a workforce much of which has been here for 10, 15, 20 years, really integrated into a company. Our retention is absolutely incredible. People don't really leave and so there's so many different layers to that. So I think that was probably the, the, the quickest learning ramp up I had to do. I'm not sure if that answers your question though. What was your initial question again?

I think I asked, what did you learn about yourself in that?

Oh yeah. Besides, I don't like being told what to do. I'm much better at that now. I think I, I think I realized that what I thought I loved about real estate wasn't what I loved and that I, I grew up with such a very specific mindset. Like you did not want to play Monopoly with me at family game night. Right. Like, it was very serious business for me and I think it's why we stopped playing. Right. So real estate was always what I, what I wanted to do and I always Thought about it in this very tangible way. You buy a home, you sell a home, you buy a portfolio, properties, you maintain. It's the transaction, it's this and that. And even in my other roles that were somewhat non traditional real estate, real estate, tech, it was still very input, output. And what I actually think I had grown weary of when I had that golden Handcuffs job I mentioned earlier was I think I had for the. Not realized it, but I'd become bored with it. I think I'd. I had started early, I'd done a lot and I felt like I had done everything, which is my kryptonite. I have to be actively engaged in things I don't know about. And what Vanguard has taught me is that. And not to sound cliche, but my passion really is in people. I think there's a reason why so many people come to say that later on their careers because I think it's the only thing that sustains long term. It's the only thing that keeps you guessing. It's the only thing that's always challenging. And Vanguard Properties, we've got amazing people and I have a lot of wonderful autonomy to work with, train up, coach, build, and that is limitlessly satisfying for me.

I love what you said about. I've never really thought about this, but people are, there's always challenges with people and that's what kind of keeps it interesting. I think that's why I love management so much, is. Yeah, it's just like constantly new challenges and how do you grow this person and how do you help them with this? And it's been interesting how many companies I've worked with or heard say, like, you know, they brought someone on and they're like, oh, like they get so frustrated with like, why is this person that I hire not doing, you know, what I thought that they would be doing? So cool. Yeah, you didn't, you didn't buy like a software with the xyz. Obvious thing that it's doing, we're, we're dealing with people and people come in all different varieties of ways of thinking and background. And it makes total sense why there would always be challenges. And the moment that you can really just accept that and actually reframe that as a beautiful, exciting part of management, I think it becomes a lot easier for people. And I want to get into that. Which also the thing about the monopoly, I will never invite you to our family reunions. That's Ahab. I wasn't even alive when this happened, but it still comes up. We're like if anyone mentions Monopoly, our whole family's like, no, we're not. There's a rule that they don't play Monopoly anymore because I guess there is like, like actual family issue over a Monopoly king. I wonder how many familiar I have.

That is a thing my sister would be happy to tell you. All of my, all of my inadequacies on my about in regards to that game. I think, I think at one point I had become like a loan shark and she was in debt. Monopoly money to me. So we, I think we quit around that time.

Oh, hilarious. All right, so when it comes to people, what is your, what's your kind of philosophy or your way of leading people?

I, I, not, not to sound self involved, but I think I'm only really good at doing the things that I are that I think I am. Um, and I think I'm learning to lean into that and evolving that to match people. I think autonomy is what I need, and therefore it's what I help people find. And I think that just also happens to be a really great way to keep people engaged. My goal is always to create an environment around an employee where they have and feel that they have as much autonomy as possible.

How do you do that and make sure that good results are still happening in alignment with the company's vision?

Yeah, it's, I, I, I actually think that it makes it easier when in past leadership positions, I've been at companies that are larger than Vanguard, where I've led more people than I lead now. And it's one of those things. I think it's just, it comes down to human nature. The more you try to control, the more people try to do the opposite. Um, and so having a leadership style that is just letting go doesn't always hack it. So you have to create a culture. And it's not like the whole company culture. Sometimes it's a culture within a department that allows people to feel safe to do the things that they feel are most important. And they have to be in line with company goals, of course. And it is a real art to it, one that I think I love doing. But also I hopefully I'm getting better at every day my product. If people feel free, I find productivity goes up. If people feel free, they inherently feel appreciated. And when they feel appreciated, they feel better about the work they do. And then they just show up to work differently. And so how do I do that? I know each of our employees incredibly well, I think, or as well as I possibly can. I had this saying where I don't hire anyone into the company unless I've eaten with them. And it's almost like 99% true if you work at the company or even like an agent that joined in large part a lot of the company. Where I can, where I can. We've had lunch together at least, and not like a salad for 45 minutes, like maybe a two hour lunch. Earlier you said about, you know, bringing people on sometimes in other companies, I found that, you know, you go through this like multi tiered, 6, 7 interview interview process and you hire this person and you're like, why are they not the person in the interviews? Well, it's like you created an interview structure that they had to adapt to become. And so I think most oftentimes it's not we hired the wrong person, it's that we're the obstacle, we're in the way. And by giving people autonomy, both in the interview process and then when they join the company, I think is the best way to understand exactly who you hired. Um, so the interview process is very unstructured. It's. It's lunch. And then what do you want to know more about if I, if I think that you're a possible man? Well, how about I set you up with this person or this person and then let's talk again after you talk to them. I want to get your thoughts on that. Very organic that way. And it really sets the playing field for our working relationship. They understand the type of leader I'm going to be, which is important because the type of leadership style that I am, but also vanguard is, is not heavy top down. And so I think you can only manage that by allowing people to have their autonomy.

I love the idea of the unstructured interview process. I think being in person, actually having lunch, there's gotta be so much value in that. I've really only ran remote companies and one of the things though that I have found this is such a small thing, but I told my team I was like, stop booking me for zoom interviews. I need to just do them over a phone call because I could go out on a walk and my energy on a walk, on a phone call is very different than when I'm sitting here in this chair. I mean, I wish I could do podcast interviews, walking. I'm quality. Be good because I would. There really is something about that natural energy when, when I am in that natural state. It's wild how much more people I'm like, I get more of an offer, authentic answer than this. Like you said, the button up like who do I need to be for this structured interview flow.

And people tell you a lot, a lot more over pasta bolognese and garlic bread than they will in a conference room. Yeah, there's an ease about it.

How do you go about making people feel safe?

I, I think by being honest about who you are with them. I, I, I don't think that we as humans are actually good at crafting the image we believe people think they, we want them to see. And I think one of the first tests, really good leadership, is throwing that in the trash can. I think people that work with me or for me, they know what they're getting. It's kind of like when you start lying, it's hard to keep them all in a line. Right. You can't remember all the lies you say, so you might as well just tell the truth. I think it's the same thing with how we present ourselves. People feel comfortable if they believe that you're authentic with them and if they believe that you see them as humans living organisms with lives. So I, I, I hope, and I think that many of our employees, especially ones I work most closely with, I, I think they know that they can mess up and we can talk about it and it's not the end of the world. And I also think that they know that if they do well, I will notice. I hope that I make an active effort to show that. So I think those the core tenets of it.

Well, I'm curious with this specific piece because I've interviewed now enough people to know that every CEO views this topic very differently. Some COOs are very like, you know, let's be fully authentic, be ourselves, talk about anything. And then some are like, no one's able to be friends with me on Facebook. No one. I don't follow anyone on Instagram. I don't talk about my personal matters. We keep it just, I'm here to support you in your career. What, if any, like, boundaries have you found are important to being authentic and creating that relationship but still keeping it work, focused?

Yeah, I, I'm not a huge social media user. I have it, I definitely used it a lot more when I was younger. And now if you go to it, it's got a lot of vanguard on there. But it's, that is such a large part of my life. You know, I, I keep my social media relatively clean, but I think it reflects the, but I have a pretty orderly life too, or at least I hope I do. I, I don't know. In my business, it's there's difference. Right. I have, I have staff and I have agents and there's. Those are difference1's W2.1 is an independent contractor. And the type of relationships you may or can or cannot have with the two can vary differently. Right. So my independent contractors, my agents, they're really their own businesses working under our umbrella and under our purview. And then of course with staff, it's. It's W2 and their actual employees. So of, of course there are, you know, very logical parameters around what you can and cannot do. Right. But I think when it comes to authentic, I don't know that authenticity has to read across all social media. Um, I gave up trying to my chief marketing officer. We have a good laugh over this. When I first came on board, I didn't know her. And so I like, I blocked. Not that I blocked, but I think I limited on Instagram, everyone in the company's access. Right. So you could only see what's on my wall. You couldn't see a story. And me and her have become quite close ever since then, both in and out of work. And then I think six months ago, she realized that she can't see my stories and like my whole life's been hidden from her on social media. So we had a good laugh about that. But you know what I learned? I learned how to dance that dance. And, and so, yeah, there's certain parameters around there taking social media out of it. You know, you're not, you're not, you're not coming to work talking about everything you're doing in your personal life. But I think in the small side commentary, these, the in the office kind of water cooler talk, long as you're not pretending like life outside of work is as perfect as you want it to be in work, I think you're doing a pretty good job. And yeah, I. It's a delicate dance, I think, but it's something that becomes a little bit more innate over time.

How do you keep people focused on the right objectives along with giving them a lot of freedom?

Mm. I. Well, you know, that's the luxury of being at a private company and a smaller company. Smaller being that, you know, I don't have 2,000 staff members, but I do make an effort to get to know each one of them well. And I'm very in, I'm very in the field. That's something that was instilled in me from my upbringing in real estate and then really nailed down with my CEO who is anti corporate, anti closed door meetings. Get out in the field and I learned to really appreciate that. And so I think that I know our employees very well and I know what they're doing to a certain degree quite well. My layer of leadership, our layer of leadership across the company, I think adheres to this as well. Everyone's very integrated together and I, and I trust that middle tier of leadership to keep me in the loop and I think they do a really good job of that. But being on the field, you get, I'm there. So I'm talking to graphic designer, I'm talking to the assistant sales manager. And so there's a certain level of kind of keeping tabs, but you just kind of absorb everything and then you rely on your middle tier leadership to kind of contextualize that for you.

Great. So you kind of are having one on one conversations with people and then you also have your middle tier that's relaying you information.

Yes. Yeah.

Gotcha. Okay, cool. How, how is that information coming in? Is that on like do you have a one on one meeting cadence with your middle management or do you have reports that you get? What is that process?

Sure. Every week we have an executive team meeting which is the C suite of the company. Um, that's on Wednesdays. We're all together at HQ and we have a solid hour together. Um, other than that with my individual managers or really kind of like my right hand woman Pam, who's my director of agent success. So is everyone's gotta find that second person and yeah, good lord, has she been such a support structure for me. Um, I rely heavily on her to relay to me where we are in the process on certain projects. And I have a another Katie who is our director of marketing and agent services. And on the more visual marketing branding agent experience side, she does the same. We have very fluid communication. There's rarely a day that goes by where I haven't talked to either one of them. If it does, it feels weird to all of us. So constant communication in a fluid way I think is the way I operate.

When you see you're, you're looking or you're hearing people on your team, maybe from like very top all the way to, you know, bottom. If we're looking at like a structure like that, which I hate when saying it in those terms, how do you celebrate people? You said earlier you really tried to appreciate when you notice that someone's winning, what does that look like? Well, well, it starts with the things.

That are non production. You know, when I came into the company, like we didn't even have A system for re remembering people's birthdays. You know, it's like. But not, not that people didn't feel special and appreciated James and Frank for the longest time. Have this amazing ability to somehow be everywhere all at once. Right. But we've grown bigger than that. So certain systems in place really help. Right. Understanding anniversaries, knowing when birthdays are. But you said systems for staying in.

Touch, for celebrating someone's win. If you hear that someone, maybe you don't have direct app like you're not directly talking to every day.

Yeah.

If you're someone is like winning in some department, are you just like sending them a message or do you guys.

Oh, it's a phone call. It's a phone call. I, I. Anybody that I know is how to win will get a call from me. Or if I see them in the office, I go. Right. Or I take them to lunch or something. I also have this. I have a routine that I do. I call 15 people a day. So if I'm in the car going office to office, if I'm in the car and I'm besides listening to this podcast, I'm listening to music, then I need to stop listening music. I need to call someone. And so whether it's people I bring into the company or someone we hired recently or someone I know who's been doing well or not well, call. And it's not like I'm calling about this, hey, how are you doing? How's your day going? Tell me about everything that's not work. And then you find a way to weave other things in the conversation. And sometimes it's a quick call, sometimes it turns into a much longer call. But 15 calls a day.

Yeah. How do you do 15? I feel like any call I do, it's like a minimum of 30 minutes because I get so weak. Yeah. What. How do you, how do you do 15 a day on top of all the other things? I guess one maybe important question specifically is for me, I always, like, I have struggled to end the call if I feel like someone's really enjoying the conversation. How do you end it? So you can do 15 calls in a day?

Uh, oh, God. I'm from the south too, so I can talk to a wall. The paint peels off, so it's harder for me to end it than for this. Um, you know, I, I start my mornings early, and I know some of the people that also start their mornings early and like receiving a call during, during certain time frames. Um, so sometimes I call them at the time that I know that they connect best. Um, other than that, it, it really, it started off as just like me just thinking I need to randomly call people with no real agenda. And then it just kind of evolved into a time blocking thing. So I have different reminders in my calendar or if I know what my trip looks like. If I'm going to three offices in a day, I've got an hour of drive time easily. So I know in that 30 minute drive or that 15 minute drive, I can get at least one call done. When you're in the car, it's great because you can say, I'm on the road, I was thinking about you. And then when you make it to your destination, the call is over. Right. Or, you know, if I'm up against a meeting, I say at the beginning of call, like somewhere in the news, you know, I think you learn different ways to do that, but it is one of those things I really do. There's very few days that I, that I don't hit my number. And sometimes, you know, if it's, if it's a little bit late, I might text them and say, hey, I meant to call you today. I'm not sure if now is still a good time or I'll catch you tomorrow. But yeah, it's. Sometimes it's hard. Yeah.

Are these just team members and like people that you're working with or is it like 15 people are also in your personal life?

No. God, I probably should do personal life.

Okay. So no, it's work.

It's all work. So it's, it's employees and agents.

Okay. For a CEO who's listening and you know, there's a lot of CEOs who are not as extroverted as maybe you or I. And the idea of getting on 15 holes a day, there is someone listening right now that's like, oh my God, I would never, you know, like I want to kind of say behind the scenes and talk to my team at a couple of meetings. What about that has been so important that you actually have a number and you stick to it every day? Like what, what is the tangible outcome of that?

Two categories to that. Now that I do it, I can't imagine not doing it because I feel disconnected. I don't think you re the amount of connection you build to just the people or what's going on in the company once you start doing this, at least in my experience, I feel weird on the days I don't. I feel disconnected. So I think it helps me have a better understanding of where Everyone is sitting for them. I notice a lot more engagement. People not doing the work because they have to do the work, but because they, they want to. And I'm not solely responsible. That's my 15 calls a day. It's ingrained in our culture. But one of the things I noticed coming into the company, and this is not just Vanguard, this is every company I've ever been a part of. There's so many people that get. Fall through the cracks that have so much more capability than we realize. You hire for one position, they get caught in the upward trajectory track or the flatline track, and then you forget about the spark that they brought you when you first hired them, or they were first hired. Or maybe you come into a company and people pre exist you and you don't even know what that spark was. You just know them as this person in accounting or something. Right. I think this keeps that spark alive because we're evolving and ever changing. And at Vanguard, we are very, very proud and appreciative and respectful of the level of tenure we have, not only amongst agents, but amongst staff. And that means that people to stay for a lifetime or for a very long time, you. They have to be able to evolve. And you can't know how to facilitate that unless you know them.

Yep, totally. What about in terms of building people earlier, before we jumped on, you mentioned that something that you really enjoy is building people. What do you do to build your team? Do you have a process for that? Is it just kind of come through naturally? What does that look like?

Probably a little bit of both. Um, you know, part of the, part of the process is, is the calls. Right. I realized that I need to know more people better. Um, a lot of the times it is identifying when I have the thought. Um, so the organic side is. I just had a conversation with this admin. I didn't know she'd been with us for 12 years. That's incredible for someone in an administrative position. I didn't know that she, she was a former architect. And this and this and this. And then it's like, what else do I not know? And why are they working the front desk? You know, and it's one thing to think those things and it makes you feel good in the moment, but you gotta take action and then that's when the processes come through. Right. So you don't always have the serendipitous organic interaction that sparks a feeling. Sometimes it's looking at the spreadsheet of employees understanding where they sit and their history with the company and then asking them, you know, I mean, you can't ask something that you can't deliver on, right. If you ask someone, would you like to be this one day? You have to be able to deliver that. Right? So there, there's a process behind that. But one of the first, first people in the company that I kind of took that approach to was Pam Rufino, who's now my director of agent success. And when I came on board, wow, was she an underutilized asset? I. I didn't know. She'd been a GM at our competitor for years before and she was in this quasi non roadmap job where she was healthy, where she could, but so beneath her skill set. And the more I dug in, the more amazing it was, but also the more she let me where I was at every step of the way. And I'm the type of person, if you're doing that, you can have anything you want. I mean, theoretically, I can't give it the big, but like, you know, I will go, I will do anything I can for you. And you know, for promotions later. She's the director and operator of a new division we built in the company, which was focused exclusively at bringing talent up. We built out this agent success department where we went to every single front desk admin, asked them if they had ambitions, learned about them, and then created a training, a skillset training and competency program to train them, test them, and then give them eventual promotion where they took a more integrated approach to or. And we actually evolve their job so we no longer have admins, we have agent success managers, and we have an agent success department. And it's become a real driving force in the company now.

The idea of going and finding more about people's background even after you hire, is something I really want to double click on because this was something. It took me a while also to really realize that that was kind of like missing something. And we started to do two different ways that we would kind of do what you were just mentioning. Oh, we've got balloons.

I don't.

I still don't know why sometimes like that happens on Zoom. There's like random balloons. Um, I don't know what word that was, but anyways. Yeah. For anyone that is listening, there was just a bunch of balloons on our screen, but lost our train of thought. Oh, yes. Okay. So when we would onboard people, I would have them fill out this form of like things that they liked, hobbies that they were into, and then to give like, even after they've been Hired, I asked them to share, give us a couple paragraphs about things that you've done, things that you've experienced in life and business. That way we had like a whole, like a one place where everyone in the team, even if you were in a different department, you could look up somebody and see if they had any other skills and something that you might be thinking of them for if you're wanting to move them into a different department. And then the other thing that we did was on monthly, all hands on decks meetings, we would share what worked well, what didn't work, and then what we're doing in the next month and some core initiatives. And something I started to say was, if anyone's listening and you're in a role that is not in part to what we're working on, but you have some skill that we don't know about, message me after. And it was really cool to see how many people, you know, if we wanted to start doing video content at events, people would be like, oh, I ran a video business for 10 years. What? I had no idea. People live so many lives and we can pin them into a tiny box and, you know, not be able to give them even like the full scope of what they could really do in the company. So, yes, wanted to double click on that. And also for anyone that's listening, kind of the flip side of that is if you've got people who maybe don't have as much experience in leadership or management, Cameron has a course called Invest in your leaders that is phenomenal about really being able to teach them the different types of skills and management and productivity systems to kind of get them up where you need them to be. So we're, we are kind of getting close to time here. But one of the things that I want to talk about is, I know it went so fast. Oh my God, so fast is some of the harder parts because before we jumped on, you know, we were saying that there's so many podcasts and events for CEOs and founders, but the COO sometimes gets a little bit lost in the, in the shadows and there's not as many resources and it can feel kind of lonely. Is one of the things that you mentioned, not really knowing where to go to. What else have you found to be some of the hard realities of your type of position?

Oh, where to start? Hard realities of the position. Something I at times lose track of is I'm not the CEO. That's important, you know, and I, I do everything in my life from extreme ownership. If I Can't have autonomy and ownership. If I fall flat, I'm out. You know, I'm, I'm. That's not it. And one of the things that Vanguard provided me is, is feeling like you are. Have a real stake in the company, real ownership. Um, it's a feeling unlike I've had anything in any other job except for the business that I owned myself in the past. Um, and then with that comes a lot of passion. And I am very passionate about the things I, I care about. And there's been quite a few times where I had to be like, David, does it matter? You know, this guy has been. And Frank, they've been doing this for 40, 20, 40 years. And this is a company that has a lot of history that predates you. And maybe you're existing in the company as it is, but they have a longer scope of vision than you probably could ever have and within the company. And so take a step back, re. Harness that passion and put it towards what you can control. That has been. That was. Was a real challenge for me. And so that, that, that's the. That one takes the top, for sure. Yeah, I think that's every. I think that that's the bulk of it. That's. That's because it, it permeates everything that you do, you know, and how you instruct staff and how you deliver what is ultimately their vision with your translation. Because sometimes there's vision and then how it translates to staff, and sometimes those are slightly, somewhat different talking points. Right. You know, James is just. He's this very magnanimous, bigger than life type of guy and, and who is very exacting. And Frank is the, the. He's kind of like the lovey dovey soul side of the two of them together. Make a dynamic duo. But it can also split you in two trying to kind of serve both. And so oftentimes it's translating both ways in which they speak in a way that translates down to the employee at the lowest rung of the company, for lack of a better terminology. And then sometimes you have to retranslate that back to yourself so that you're speaking to them in their language again. And I think that's a really important part of the job.

How do you, how do you do that? Like, for someone who's listening and they may be feeling that same kind of constraint around not being able to. Like someone on their team isn't picking up on the importance of the vision and the way that the CEO is so lit up and excited about how do you translate that in a way to those people in so many different personalities.

You gotta find what matters to them and connect it to the core initiative. People are going to relate to an objective or a vision in very different ways. And if you think that people are all going to understand what you're saying and the passion behind what you're saying, you're like 10% will. There are so many different perspectives to take on this. And so it comes down to that very visceral, on the ground type of leadership I think at least I'm lucky to be able to do at a company like this, where you have to know your employees intimately enough to understand how to translate it to them. So how I talk about the vision or a goal or whatever to the age of success department is going to be different than how I do it to my sales managers who are going to pick it apart and say, oh, well, these are my experiences here, you know, and you've got to find a way to aggregate thousands of opinions on it in a way that is really digestible. Um, so you can't. You can't paint with a broad brush.

Yeah, that makes sense. On the. On the flip side of that, just to kind of round us out here, what are you most excited about in the next six months? It could be personally in business, maybe both. Yeah.

Gosh. The first three years at the company was such a whirlwind with the markets and changes. And, you know, the first year and a half was riding the ship and trying to determine where the markets were going. And there's everything outside of just the markets is just seemingly chaos for years. And then we got to the company to a place where it was, you know, stabilized and looking towards the future. And then myself and my teams led this unexpected growth. So we went from chaos management to jumping into growth, but also growth in a downtime. So we were very counter what the rest of the market was doing. And then now, especially since January, it's contextualizing the last three and a half years and then putting and really kind of rewriting a new playbook. And that playbook's really exciting because the company has changed time like crucible. Times like this is when companies change integrally in such a meaningful way, or they can. And I'm so happy to be at a company that had that openness to. Because we're positioned for so much success. So for the next six months, it is. Let's try to rein in all the things we can do and then put them in layers of importance and then really target and go at it. We've got such a great team. We're organized, we're, you know, form fitted for the future. And this industry is on, on the trajectory for the up and up. But being in San Francisco and the core of AI development and all these technological advances that will directly influence or are already directly influencing our business the next six months is how do we categorize and organize the growth. And I can't wait to see where we are a year from now.

I love just seeing your passion, your eyes literally like sparkling. You are just so genuinely passionate and I, it makes sense why they would want someone like you on their team to be leading this out. So I'm really looking forward to hearing an update on that. And in the meantime, just want to thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom with all of our listeners today. And if anyone wants to reach out to you, where's the best place for them to do that?

Davidanguardproperties.com Perfect.

Thanks, David, so much for your time.

Thank you so much for having me. Truly an honor. This is wonderful.