Building a GREAT Team! | Podcast | Team | EP. 4

Foreign.

Hey, everybody, Flip and Danny here, co founders of the Freedom Real Estate Group family of companies. And today is podcast number four. Sorry, had to do it, golfer.

Yes. And today this is real talk, right? Which is real talk for real estate investors. And today we're going to be talking about building a high performance team to run five.

And that's five today.

Five. Technically, we have six today, real estate companies. Number six is just information. So, hey, you know, we have lots of great stuff to share with you today. So as usual, we have our bullet point list so that we don't forget anything and we don't go off me. Don't go off on too many tangents. All right? Okay, so we have 10 points that we're going to cover today. The very first one is right person. So you guys hear right person, right seat all the time. I'm going to cover the right person part. So when we first are advertising for a new hire to come and join us, then we, of course we've got a hiring ad out there that typically, if we're hiring somebody from the Philippines, which is typically our virtual team, then we're putting the add on onlinejobs.php. if we're hiring somebody here in the US whether it be virtual or in office, we're using indeed, that's the two methods that we use for hiring. Then they come through kind of the funnel. The hiring funnel. And so one of our team members will send a message because part of the process, once they've reached out to us, is they fill out a behavioral assessment through our predictive index hiring software. And so as they do that, it's kind of one of those steps of how bad do you want this? Are you paying attention or are you just clicking send my resume to 50 people and we're never going to hear from you again and you're going to waste our time. So it's just one of those hurdles that they have to jump through. Once they fill out that first behavioral assessment, which is just like five minutes, really quick and easy, then one of our team members is going to say, hey, Danny, check the PI software. Because we've got a lot of people who have just filled out the assessment for the administrative assistant position. Maybe that's what it is. So I jump in there and I take a look and there's either a heart or a. What are those signs called with the sign with a line down the middle?

Ghostbusters.

Okay, Ghostbusters. So don't use these people, whatever that sign is. So I either hit the heart or I Hit the, you know, no, no, no sign, right. And so then he'll go back in and he'll take a look at all the ones that I hit the heart on. He'll send him assessment number two, which is a cognitive assessment, essentially helping us learn how quickly they can assimilate new information and learn. And we, when we did the hiring ad for this position, we went into this predictive index software and we said we would like an administrative assistant. And then that software says okay, is that job similar to this one? This one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one. You'll choose which one you feel like is most like. They'll give you a analysis of what you would be looking for in that candidate. You can change it and shift it if you want. If you like the analysis of where that person falls in terms of the assessments that we're going to talk about a little bit here today, then you just save it. That's great. That's exactly what I want to see. So what happens is when they take this first behavioral assessment, when they take the second cognitive assessment, what the PI software is essentially doing is giving them a number. So they're rating them based on the administrative assistant profile. I can't talk today. It's this room. Based on that profile, how do they fit? And it scores them. So when we see tension on the first one and a 10 on the second one, we get super excited. Does it mean that they're a perfect fit? Not always. Sometimes I'll jump on a pre screen and I'll just in five minutes quickly realize they're not a culture fit. And I think that's probably the biggest flag that we see in that pre screen. But anyways it allows us to force people to jump through some hurdles to see are you seriously looking for a job? And if so, you're going to take these assessments for us and then we're going to do a 10 minute pre screen after that fact. And we're only going to invite people to a 10 minute pre screen if they rated high. I'm usually, if it's seven and lower, I'm not usually doing a heart. I'm looking for the eight, nines and tens and it'll give a combined score based on the behavioral and the cognitive. So that's really, really nice. And that's how we start things off. It's really helped us avoid looking at a resume that looks really good on paper and then we invite them in because we didn't used to do zoom pre screens but you know that might be one of the positives of COVID because we're all so familiar with like virtual these days that it's eas to now just do a quick 10 minute pre screen. But we used to invite them in and then I'd lock an hour and I'd go meet with them in the conference room. And in five minutes I would know this is not this person's. It's not a fit. But I'm not going to be mean. I'm just not. I am kind of mean sometimes, but I don't want to be mean to somebody coming in for an interview. I just feel rude. So I talk to them a little bit and I try and just shut down the interview as fast as possible as nicely as I can. So it's avoided all of that. Now we're just getting to the point where you get to a 10 minute pre screen and you've already told us. I raised my hand and I'm actually seriously interested because I've jumped through these hoops for you. Now I'm gonna do a 10 minute pre screen. I'm gonna see are you on time? How are you with this technical stuff of this day and age that we all use and you should be familiar with too, because we use it in our company. And then how did you present yourself? Are you wearing a baseball cap? Which I usually am, to be honest, and T shirt and sweats. What does your surroundings look like? There's a lot of things that I'm just looking at just so I can quickly see who they are. And then are there red FL flags and what you're talking to me about? So there's a few things that I'm looking at. And so if they get past that 10 minute pre screen, then we're going to take them, whoever it is, the position that we're hiring, say we're hiring somebody for marketing, then our marketing person is going to then interview them next. And it doesn't even have to be the person at the top of marketing. Marketing right now in our company is blowing up. We have three people on the team. So Caitlin, which I believe that you met recently on a video and maybe the vlog, she's the one that heads it up. So she might be the one doing the next interview. It might be a panel interview. So recently our admin assistant, we just hired somebody and they start on Wednesday. And it was a three person panel interview. So there's three people on the team that I wanted their feedback on. I wanted them to talk to them so that's what happened next. Kind of depends on the role as to who's going into the next interview, but I want as many opinions as possible. The particular admin that we hired, she actually had to go through two pre screens because my first one I was like, by the end, I really liked her. By the end of 10 minutes, I liked her. But at the very first I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I don't know. It's just a no. But by the end I was like, no. And then so I said to Tiffany, one of our team members, our transaction coordinator, I said, will you do a 10 minute pre screen with this person and just tell me what you think? So she did as well. And she ended up liking her too. So they got invited to a panel interview. So that's kind of how we got through that process. So then I just wanted to touch on one more thing. So the right person is so important to us. Turnover is so expensive. Training people is so time intensive, not just for the person coming on, but for us. You know, if Tiffany has to train them, if Caitlin has to train them, if somebody in our team has to train them, including me, it takes me away from that job, my job, what I'm trying to accomplish. And if we do a good, a poor job of getting the right person in, then we have to do it all over again. So this first step is so critical that we've created this series of things to happen and hurdles for them to jump through before they can even get inside our office and a part of our team. And hopefully they end up working out. Doesn't always. It doesn't always. But we're better now than we ever have before.

Yes, we are.

And so I did say hire slow. Fire fast. I just wanted to say that that is typically the mantra, right? Higher. Slow, fire fast. Maybe this does seem slow because we went through so many steps, but I always feel like I'm the opposite. Hire fast. Because we need people all the time. I'm like, we need another person. So I'm like, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. Let's get through these. But I bet you now that I've kind of talked through the whole entire thing, maybe we do actually hire slow. It just seems fast for me because I'm only doing certain parts of it and then I hand it off to somebody else and then suddenly, boom, we're hiring somebody. And fire fast. I always tell my team I'm loyal to a fault. So even though I just really go, I don't Think that person's gonna work? I will just try, try, try, try until I can't try anymore. Because this. Finding those right people and if they're a culture fit well, I'm gonna want to figure out how. How we can keep them and how they can stay a part of this organization and grow with us. And that leads you right into point number two. You're welcome.

Absolutely. Right seat. But I wanted to touch real quick that turnover that you said that we want to avoid turnover. It's an estimated amount of 80% of that person's salary. So that's a lot of money spending on turnover. So that's why we try to make it as we've got this system down, so that way we can hire slow and make it the right person.

Yes, yes.

So that way they stay.

Thank you for adding that.

So we want to talk about the right seat. So when Danny goes through with the process and actually the team goes through the process for that person coming in, we're like, okay, this person is going to be in the right seat right here. Because we want the person in the right seat doing the right job. We don't want the person that specializes in something over here that's not really working, and they should be over here. We want to make sure that we take their. Their. What we call their superpowers and make sure that we're using their superpowers to the right position in the right seat. With that said being superpowers, they are. Everyone is a superhero. Everyone has kryptonite.

Yes.

Everyone has something that just knocks them down. And so we want to make sure that we can quickly identify that so that way we can steer clear. And Wonder Woman.

Good example.

The one thing that we don't know during the interview process, and we try to get as much of this as possible, but reliability, attention to detail, and how are they going to actually contribute to the company success? We can't figure that out by the interview process. We can figure out. You're going to see what we're going to figure out about a person before they walk in the door. But those are three things that we just. We get some data on how much they're gonna be reliable and their attention to detail, but you really don't see it until they're in the job and working. And so those three things are. Those are. We find that out as we go. And there's been times where we've hired somebody that we said, this is the right seat. This is the right job for them. And they come in and we're like, you're gonna work better over here. And it has happened more than once. And they're thriving in that position. And so it was a great move once they got here. Cause they were right. Fit for the culture and for the company. But what we thought was going to be the right job for them was actually over here. And everyone shifted and adjusted and it worked out perfect. So it's always keeping us on our toes. But those, you know, keeping an eye on everybody right. When they get in the door those first couple of months or weeks to see how they actually work well with others in the culture and just their ability to do the job.

Yeah. And I'm sure we're going to talk about this a little bit down the road, but this also applies to growth. Right. They could be perfect at their job, but we see a growth track for them, and they like the growth. We've talked about it. And from a leadership point of view, everybody's kind of agreed on that growth track. So even though they're perfect, we keep kind of moving them, you know, into other positions and we find the other person that then can. They can train. Right, Right. And take over.

And then there's sometimes, too, where we think that the person's going to grow there. And they're right. They're just perfect. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're like, you could do this. You could. I've done that so many times. You could do this. And they're like, no. Nope. I'm totally good right here.

I'm good.

I have one perfect example, but I'm not gonna share it. It's her personal life, not mine. But yeah, okay, so that was number two. So number three, communication. So we're gonna dive. We've got a whole entire pile of papers that we're gonna dive into during this podcast so that you can really understand what we're talking about in the vlog. Cause we very lightly showed you our door. I call door plaques, nameplates. So we put them on our door. It says Flip Robinson, says Danny Robinson. And then it has our profile. We, because we're so serious about the predictive index software, what it's teaching us, how we're growing, how it's helping, that we're going to kind of. We're really going to dive into it. You're going to hear all about it. You're going to see exactly what we're talking about. So communication, how to communicate best. Predictive Index is our number one method of how we're going to do this. I'm also going to hit on number four during this, their drive and motivation. You're going to see how predictive index really helps us understand how they are motivated, what drives them. And. And then we'll talk about. Before we go into the number five point, we'll talk about weekly one on ones. Just don't let me forget you. Got it. Okay. All right. So predictive index. How does it help with learning how to communicate best with people? What people's drive and motivation are. So the very first thing that we want to show you, and we'll just show you side by side so you can kind of understand the difference. This is my profile. This is Flip's profile in terms of who we are and what our personality is. So what you really want to pay attention to on things like this is when. When somebody drives this far, you know, they're like, pretty much off the chart. Just, you know, hey, know this about that person, because that's a big deal and a big driving and motivating factor for them. I think his goes the exact opposite way. We joke all the time about us being yin and yang because we do everything the opposite. It doesn't matter if we're folding sheets or even the other night we were eating corn and we were joking about whether or not we are eating it the same way because we're just completely opposites in everything that we do. And so it's just a nice balance all the time for us. So on mine, my far, far A that everybody has to pay attention to, pay attention to is Let me drive. So there's four sections that it talks about here. The first one is your dominance. You're either a let me drive person or a let me collaborate person. Flip is a collaborator. I am a venturer. I want to drive. He wants to collaborate. So perfect working match.

Can we all just get along?

Perfect working match there. The next section right here is extraversion. So you've got either let me talk it out, which is not me. I am a let me think it through. Once you give me something, sometimes I'm very, very fast. And I will just know automatically, based on experience and knowledge, exactly what I want to do. Sometimes if it's a complex problem, I need you to walk away and let me just kind of process it. And usually overnight, by the time I wake up the next morning, I will have asked my brain enough questions. Not always quality questions. I'm getting better at that. But I figured out exactly where I stand because I've worked through so many different things. I May, let me think it through. What are you?

I am a. Let me talk it out.

Yeah, shocker.

Exact opposite.

Yeah, yeah. So collaborator. All right, the next one is patience, next column. And so I'm more of a give me variety than give me stability.

You, stability.

And then the last section is formality. I'm almost right in the middle for this, but more on the side of give me flexibility as opposed to give me structure.

And I think ours are both in the same spot.

Whoa. Bam, baby. All right. We both like flexibility. So this is, you know, just gives you a quick glance of who you are. And this is what we put on our name plates right next to the name. So it's very easy for if you know and understand this graph and what it's telling you, it's easy for you to see the ABCD profile just by looking at their door nameplate. All right, so I'm going to pick that up in a second. When we get to another thing, the next thing that we're going to talk about is kind of a summary. It tells you about that person. So when we're hiring people, this is going to tell us a little bit about who they are. So we're both going to read our at work section so your colleagues may perceive you as someone who is naturally. And then under the task oriented section, it says for me, strongly task focused. Quickly notices technical problems and applies technical solutions. Cutting through any personal and emotional issues diagnostically. Has aptitudes to spot trends in data or figure out how complex systems work. Often takes interest in areas that aren't specifically their responsibility. Fiercely independent, analytical, highly critical and creative thinking in action. No need for external validation before action is taken. Private and then under my proactive section says intense proactivity and aggressiveness in driving to reach goals. Actively and boldly challenges the world, business and even areas of others within the business. Strongly independent in putting forth their own ideas which are innovative and original and if implemented, will change the organization. Resourceful and forceful in overcoming obstacles vigorously and directly. Attacks problems, fights back hard when challenged. So that gave a very good summary, in my opinion, of who I am as a person. And if I was reading this about somebody else, that gave me insight that in no way would ever come across in an interview to tell me exactly who they are and what drives and motivates them. So that's mine. Would you like to read yours?

Yeah. So mine says responsive. I'm unhurried and deliberate, stable and will do things using the established process. Finds it difficult to change these systems. Dependable Consistent and needs familiar environments and co workers to be most productive. Cooperative, easygoing and agreeable and getting along with others. A focused, uncritical listener who won't rock the boat. People oriented, socially focused. Naturally empathizes with people easily seeing their point of view or understanding their emotions. Positive, non threatening communication. Teaches and shares, often working collaboratively. It's the show with others to help in any capacity. Now I've taken I don't know how many tests in the past and we had so many people tell us, you know, you guys need to get predictive index. And we finally did and you know, we had everyone take the test and, and I'm reading when I got my results or whatever I started reading and see how this is because usually you read it like that's sort of true. What? They're not even close. There has been not one time that I've read any of these reports about me going no, they got that wrong. This is, this is all spot on. It's, it's almost scary spot on. It's just like where are they?

Yeah, you know.

Yes, but it's, it's. And then listening to you read yours.

Yeah, nailed it.

Yeah. Aggressive, critical.

That's me. Yeah, for sure. And there is a one liner too about each person. I'm going to read mine and then let Flip read his but it'll talk about each profile and it gives you a very high level overview. So as a venturer. A venturer is a self starting, self motivating and goal oriented risk taker. Boom. Nails me to a T. Yours, a.

Collaborator is a friendly, understanding, willing and patient team player.

You are so patient, I don't know how you do it. All right, so this is another, this is our management style. We actually highlighted a couple things just to, to talk to you guys about. It talks about strongest behaviors here. And this is also the very front page is three of the graphs like this is your self view, this is your self concept of your view. And then this is a synthesis of the two combined. So I believe this self concept is how I view myself to be. Like if somebody else were going to say Danny is this way, this is what I think they're going to say. So I think that they're actually going to say my A is right where it is, my B is right where it is. But it looks like I'm going to say for C, the driving that maybe I'm not as driving as I really am because that's really the only one that moved there. So that's kind of you know, very interesting. And then talks about strongest behaviors back here and then it gives you a quick summary. I'm going to read the very first paragraph and then I'll see if there's anything else that is important. I'll let you read yours. So in a summary it says Danny is distinctly independent and individualistic person, strong minded and determined. Venturesome will stick their neck out and take responsibility for risks when they believe they are right. The challenge of new problems and new ventures is stimulating and will be responded to with action. They have a lot of confidence in themselves, their own knowledge, ability and decisions. That's my first paragraph. There's three more paragraphs, but we just kind of. We're trying to highlight for you how, how impactful these reports are and how much information they give us just to kind of share how we're going about building this team that is allowing us to grow as fast as we are.

Yeah, I was just seeing if there was anything else on here. This is. It's down. I'm not. I was going to read the first paragraph but it's a lot of what I already read about myself on the other one. But this is interesting. Informal and a little offhand in style. Fairly casual about the exact standards or policies of the company's book or the precise accuracy of the details of their own work. Preferring to delegate details rather freely with loose follow up has the kind of patience required to focus steadily on a consistent process over long periods of time and work which should primarily involve contact and communication with people rather than precise handling or details. While this individual is low key in developing context with people, they're cheerfully persistent in doing so.

So I'm going to read a couple other things because this is. As I learn more and more about myself and read things like this, I can see my interactions within the company coming to light and me understanding how others are seeing me where I think I'm just being straightened to the point I'm a no BSer. You're just gonna get the facts. There's never a point in time where you ever have to go, Danny, what are you thinking? How am I doing? Because I just tell you because I don't want that ambiguity of I think I'm doing okay, am I doing okay? I will just tell you exactly what I think and where you need to work on if you need to work on something. So there was something interesting in here. They will drive hard to get things done their own way and quickly. A self starter that initiates, makes decisions and assumes responsibility for those decisions. Strong competitive drive, ambitious drives, hard to achieve goals. And their sense of urgency and impatience for results will put pressure on others as well as on themselves. So that's a biggie for me. I put a lot of people feel very stressed because I'm pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And I want fast, fast, fast. Not just fast results. I want fast communication. If I ask you a question, I want the answer already. So run and go get it and get it back to me because that's what I like. If I have to wait till tomorrow, I'm getting a little bit anxious. And then when expressing themselves, they are direct, factual, outspoken and frank. Their approach to others is authoritative, telling, and if they encounter resistance or competition, they may be aggressive. Always concerned with timely results. So this is really stuff that I didn't even know myself, how I was coming across to others and the pressure it's putting on people around me because I of who I am and I'm fine with who I am and I will drive, drive, drive, and I will be disappointed in myself. So they feel like they're not doing what they should be doing, but I'm doing always, in my opinion, I'm doing worse than everybody around me is. I'm more critical about me and anybody else that I'm working with. I didn't do good enough. And so when I, when they think they're not doing good enough, I'm like, you know, don't take that wrong. Like, I think I'm doing worse than you are always because I'm just highly critical of my ability to produce results and succeed.

Well, I was just reading the management style here and there's two. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Willing to delegate authority and details. Follow up will be quite friendly and very casual. Manages by walking around trusting that those that have been delegated to have followed through. Gregarious and outgoing, sympathetically interested in and trusting of others. A good listener and a lenient, understanding manager.

You are amazing.

I'm the good cop.

Yes. We were in a meeting just the other day and he literally said he had to save me because I was being frank and it didn't come across right. Even though I was being frank, it was coming across the wrong way and he knew what I was trying to say. So he jumped in, saved my butt and he actually made a joke. Bad cop, good cop. And this person said, okay, I don't want to talk to Danny anymore. Which is fine. Everybody does love talking to you way more than me because I, I'm high pressure, high action. High results, high everything. I'm not easy to work with. And how do you know that about somebody if you don't have something like this? Otherwise you gotta, you gotta hire me and then you gotta learn and it's gonna take you a while to learn. And if there was not a seat for a personality like me, then you might have just hired the wrong person. So knowing things like that on my management profile, most of it was already talked about. Outspoken, authoritative and frank. Quick to voice their own opinion of how things are going. Innovative, problem solver, interested in technical aspects of how things work. Quickly to follow up on delegated tasks. Generally asking more whether it's finished than how it was accomplished. I am big on that. Did it get done? If I get a story, I'm just like, I wanted a yes or no. I didn't need the story. I am moving so fast. I didn't want to hear the story. I just wanted to hear yes or no. If you told me no because of X and here's how I'm fixing that X, it will be done tomorrow. That's all I want. I'm really fast, but I want to know status. I want to know status quick. So these are things that like, man, they're really telling, right? All right, so we're going to go to the next one, which is a personal development chart. The things that we were going to talk about here. Oh was highlighting if somebody goes all the way off the chart somewhere, you know, what is that big needle mover that you need to know about that person? So for me it was let me drive and I believe for you it was the other side. Let me collaborate. Right. So we're both just going to talk about strengths and cautions on this page just for that one only because we can make this like a two hour podcast if we go through everything. So for me, the need to control is dominance. That's that top a section. So I am extremely, I extremely need control. It's also why we have five companies, because I got tired other companies having control over aspects of my business that I said, forget it. We are taking it in house and we're building it on our own because at least then if things go wrong, we can jump in and fix it. We're not going and just getting frustrated at somebody else that is hurting our business because we can't jump in to their company and fix something. So I have a strong need for control. So the strengths of that is drives, change and challenges. Status quo seeks to lead and have an impact. Innovative, self motivated, Able to think big picture. The cautions. May be seen as overly aggressive. May intimidate rather than motivate. That's something I've learned too. I've recently learned that I intimidate and people fear me more than I want and they don't need to. They can say anything to me. But my strong personality and aggressiveness comes off wrong. And it's more intimidating than it should be. I'm working on it and I'm getting better on it because of stuff like this. It's just helping us better, you know, as a team. May have difficulty delegating authority. May appear to be tough minded and directive.

Yeah. So on with dominance. I'm very on the other side, collaborative. And so my strengths are understanding and collaborative. Collaborative accepting of others decisions. Supportive management style. Interested in team welfare and development. Now my cautions. This is funny because may shy away from tough conversations. I just could. Here you go. Danny said may have difficulty making unpopular decisions. Again, here you go, Danny. And may be seen as too cautious or not strategic enough. There's one thing that I always tell people. They'll stop me in the hallway and they say, hey, Flip, I got a question for you. They'd ask me the question. I'm like, now you know you're not supposed to be asking me that question. I don't make those decisions.

They're so funny again. Yin and yang.

Yep.

We are just a perfect balance. All right. Anything else on that page? Nope. Okay. The last one here we're going to talk about, at least that we both have, is a management strategy guide. So if flip were my manager, he'd want to print something like this out to understand what's going to drive me, motivate me, what do I need to create a successful boss and employee relationship. So some of the things on here. Strategy is based on how Danny interacts in the workplace. Provide opportunities to broaden her technical knowledge. Didn't say hers is there, but I'm using her because it's me. Recognize the tangible results that she attains rather than soft achievements. That's true. I'm so results oriented. Give her opportunities to figure things out alone. Going back to that, I don't want to talk it out. I want to think it through and solicit their input and feedback, particularly when solving problems. Now there's three sections here. I just decided to read one. Flip, you can read whatever you Actually.

I'm going to read the same ones. How Flip interacts in the workplace. Okay. Give them work that involves frequent contact with other people. Surround them with supportive, encouraging and collaborative managers and peers. Give them FaceTime so they can talk things through and gain, buy in and communicate verbally rather than email or in writing.

So that's me to a T. Yeah, that's so funny. I love it. And it's funnily about the communicate verbally instead of email and writing. I'm such an email person. Leave me alone. Don't come talk to me. Okay, so we did a team thing. This goes to our culture. So we have personal and professional development where, which we're going to go into. But one of the things that we did is as a team, we all created teams within the company that would share who, who they are. Are they a venturer? Are they collaborator? What does that mean about them? So that we could quickly, without reading every single person's profile, we would quickly understand who they were by attending these weekly professional development sessions that we do. So when I had to give mine as a venturer, the one thing that I wanted to share and hear about the profile and about me communicating who I am because it made me laugh, because this is truly me. Bowl in a china shop can be seen as pushy, uncompromising, can be seen as too strong minded and expecting things to be moving way too quickly. I would say everybody says that about me. It's not necessarily something to be proud of. It's just very identifying of who I am. And if you can't see and understand who you are, then there's no way that you can fix it. And so understanding things like this helps me go, hey, this is how you are viewed. This is who you are. Work on being better because you don't want people to fear you. You want people to be motivated by you, inspired by you. So it's really, really helping me then the last thing that I'm gonna go through is I'm gonna put it right here in case you see something that you want to read. It's a relationship guide so you can do this for teams too. So we picked teams. I think there's like five or six people on each team. Whenever we're doing this professional development stuff, our team is. My team is badassets.

Mine's saved by the cell.

So we made names. You know what Bad Assets was supposed to be, but we didn't want to cuss. But then we're like bad Assets. We don't like Bad Assets. But I was like, but it's so funny because you know what we wanted to say anyways, that was our team name. And I like Yours too. So there's been videos created. Like, everybody kind of created a video or did something I don't think our team did, because our team happens to have a bunch of the highlights. People that don't have time for all of this stuff except for five minutes before the meeting. We're gonna go, what are we gonna talk about? And then we run in and we talk about it so that we can participate and be a part of the culture that we're, you know, creating here Anyways, so you can do team ones where you actually see on, like, a chart, a pie chart with the four graphs in there where each team member lies, you know, and if there's a few people that maybe are guardians that are all kind of. They all work together really well and they think, you know, similarly, as opposed to the one outlier way over here. It helps you match up people and put them on the right team and teach each collaborate better and what to watch out for, what the cautions are. And so I did one, because you can do relationships as well if you work one on one with somebody. So I did flip an eye. Okay, so I'm not gonna read them all. I'm just gonna. You pick one. I think we have three categories. Relationship strengths, relationship cautions, relationship tips. So I love you, by the way.

I haven't seen this yet.

Just joking. I don't think it's bad. So it says, compare two people to discover how they work together. So the top one on the relationship strength says Danny can help Flip by supporting their ideas, his ideas, and creating a unified front when communicating Flip's perspective to other stakeholders. Let me know if there's anything else that you want to read up there. You actually pick three. I'm going to read one. I'm going to read the top strength, caution, and tip, and then you can pick what you want to read. Relationship cautions, Danny may dominate the agenda, and flips, ideas or concerns may get overlooked. I do try very, very hard. And he's actually gotten so used to me. Sometimes he'll just like, I'm not done. I haven't. I got something to say here. He'll just make me stop because I'll rush through a conversation, then get ready to leave. And he's like, not done. Actually had some thoughts. And so he's gotten to know me so well, obviously, because we're married and we work together. Top relationship tip. And I don't know that these are in order, but I'm just choosing it to read that way. Danny may be the one who tends to set the agenda. But Danny should make sure to let Flip have their say, pausing to ask Flip for reactions or feedback, as well as giving credit and acknowledging when Flip has a great idea or suggestion.

That reminds me of the. Was it blindside when she says, okay, you're right. And he says, how did that taste coming out of your mouth?

Like vinegar.

Yeah. Let's see. So the relationship strengths. Flip is able to encourage and act as a counterbalance when Danny feels frustrated by their communication. The cautions. Yeah. Danny and Flip can have constructive conversations, but they may avoid formal communication modes, which might mean they do not have good notes or records to which they can refer back.

That's sort of true. I mean, I do carry this notebook with me all the time so that when we. Or my phone. I mean, they're emailing he and I information or something.

Flip should be receptive to communications from Danny, but Danny should also provide Flip with space and time to think things through alone. I need some alone time.

Yep. So that's predictive index. We knew that was gonna be a big bulk of the podcast because it is so. It's taught us so much, and we utilize this resource like crazy ever since that we got it, and we even thought it was so important that we made it part of our professional development series and had the team, you know, create teams and share, and it was really, really.

I mean, it's fun with Danny and I because, you know, we know each other so well, but when somebody's new coming on board, you can see how they're going to. You can put them at their report next to your report to see how you're going to work together. Because there was one person that was applying for your assistant, and we put it together and it was basically like oil and water. And it was the predictive index almost said, do not hire the person for your assistant. So, I mean, it helps immensely.

Yeah, it really does. So regarding three and four, which is communication, and then number four is driving motivation, we just wanted to touch on weekly one on one. So that's something that we do as a company. Everybody has a supervisor. It might not work perfectly within the accountability chart. So we've got five companies. We've got five. We use lucidchart for our accountability charts, which essentially puts, you know, the hierarchy of how things are from the CEO down to the CEO to the CFO to the operations manager, if there is one in a company, to who you're, you know, over. So there's that. But sometimes those people aren't Necessarily your one on one. Because we work across five companies and sometimes like Tiffany could be in four out of the five companies on hierarchy charts. So we try to make sure that nobody has say more than four one on ones every single week. So we figure that piece out as we go. But the point is that everybody has somebody to meet with on a one on one basis every single week to touch base and say, hey, how are you doing? You know, how's your scorecard looking? Are you meeting your goals? Do you have questions? Do you have needs? How's your personal life? Because we care. This isn't just about work. So you just touch base with that person every single week. This also allows them to do a whole lot of other things. I'm not going to go into it because I don't want to get too far ahead, but you have anything to add there on the weekly one on ones?

No, I think it's great. It's a way for them to, you know, let go, let out something that may be eaten them or whatever or something. I didn't even know that was a problem. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's great.

Yeah. They have a private space to kind of talk through it. Okay, you're on number five.

So then that leads to trust. So one of the things inside of our company is the complete autonomy. We don't micromanage when we, we say, here's how you do your job, here's your training, go, you know, and here's what, what is, what is expected of you and then that's it. We don't, you know, look over their shoulder every day, say, are you getting that done? Did you do that? One thing, you know, we tell them what to do, we expect them to do it and then, and then we leave people alone. That's what they said earlier. So it gives people that ability to feel, you know, like, wow, they really, they trust me, you know, and they're not worried about me. We also do weekly L10s. We've got a few meetings throughout the week. These meetings are run with ids, which is identify, discuss and so solve.

You like solutions solve, doesn't matter, same idea.

And so this helps the company understand everything that's going on. Because with multiple companies there are multiple meetings, but they all need to align. And there is one meeting that really ties a number of our companies together. So that one definitely needs to align.

Yeah, yeah. So it's a department head, meaning what he's talking about. And if you don't know what L10s are. We won't go into them on this podcast, but read Traction. And It's a level 10 meeting. And essentially it's the IDS section is the big section that he's talking about where that's where trust is. You know, you're gonna throw in that problem and you guys are gonna identify it, you're gonna discuss it, and you're gonna solve it. And sometimes that solution is literally saying, we're talking about this again next week. Everybody come with your ideas.

Yep. People Analyzer. This is something that we learned about a little bit over a year ago. And this is. We have a number of different topics, and they get. They. Everyone gets a 1, 2, or a 3. And everyone gets to rate everyone else in the company unless they don't work with that person.

Yes.

They don't have any interaction with that person, but they get to rate everybody. And then we get to see what people think is that we found out this was a little bit over a year ago, that there was one person that everyone. So one's great. Twos. And if there's any threes. Okay, you're. You're going to the principal.

Yeah. The supervisor is having a very hard discussion. If there's a three on airport and.

There was one person, they got a lot of twos. And we're like, what? We didn't even know. And so this, this really helps because it's. It's. I believe it's anonymous.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people say it shouldn't be, and you should be able to have those discussions, but some people are just. They don't want to have. I think your. Your predictive index profile said, I don't like conflict. I don't want to have hard discussions. Right. So some people aren't going to tell you the truth if you force it to be, but if you. If you allow it to be anonymous, well, then you can't. Right.

And we also have that if you're giving a three or two to this.

Person, you have to write notes. Yeah. Why? Yeah. So you can't just go, I don't like flips. I'm giving them a three.

But that's helped out. That's helped out a lot.

It really has really.

It's really shown us because we can't see everything.

We literally ended up letting go of a partner who is getting twos and threes. Like, we're just like, whoa, okay. Yeah. Did not know that. Because we let that person take charge. So it's telling.

And then weekly one on ones which you've already talked about that. Builds in the trust, too. Just meeting with them, spending a half an hour with them. And it's not all about work, you know, it's just, hey, what's going on? How's everything going? Yeah, you know, transparency. We do have quarterly meetings, like most companies do.

Yes.

But we're very transparent. We show everything. We show all of our financials down to the penny, everywhere. There's. We don't hide anything. We want everyone to understand everything because when we say we're doing this because of this, we want them to understand why we're doing it and going, oh, they make so much money, you know, because everyone thinks, you know, the company does. But that's very important that we. That we're transparent. We've also started a thing called First Friday. So the first Friday of every month, Randy Brown, our cfo, he holds a meeting with everybody, and he comes in and he says, all right, what was last month? Was it, grab a box and pack your things? We're packing it up, we're done? Yeah. Or is it a. And he slams on the table and yells, bam.

Scares the crap out of everybody.

Everybody. And there's some levels in between, but he has a good time with it. And it talks about the month prior, like, how well did we do as a company? And it's. And as a company, that's Freedom Real Estate Group. That's all the companies underneath that umbrella. So that's another fun, fun meeting. And, you know, what you put here is, you know, we're all in this together. We do call it the Freedom Real Estate Group Frag is what we call it. Everyone's a frank family. This is our. This is our family. We don't have kids. This is. We built this for. Not just for us, but for them, too, you know, and some of them are now having families, and so now their family's part of our family. So it's. It's. That's how we treat this whole company.

So. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say something about the first Fridays. Do we get to nominate people to be featured? Yeah.

Who was the star for that last month?

Ye. And then there's like a, you know, a development piece in there. Well, Randy will just kind of talk about something that maybe he feels was relevant about the company and something we need to touch on and learn about. So, man, it's just really, really powerful and things like that. They build a lot of trust. Right. Because it doesn't matter what company you're working. Everybody comes together for this First Friday to see how are we doing? You know, we doing good. I hope we get a bam and not a bring a box to work.

And he would, he always gives the, whoever the star is, he gives him a prize, a little, little present or a little. Or whatever. And the one was the Rubik's Cube because they were able to get it always figured out.

Yeah, yeah, they solved quite a few problems to get him to that goal. Yeah, it's really, it's lots of fun. All right. Number six is conflict. So fearing conflict. We talked about this a little bit in the predictive index in that I can be so intimidating or appear to be so intimidating that people fear talking to me about anything. Those weekly one on ones are magic. Right? I now have a right hand and I'll call him right hand to CEO as opposed to, you know, executive assistant, because he's really not an assistant. He is because he handles so much. But he's such a great leader and he's the person that ultimately supervisors can go to and say, hey, this is a problem that we're having with Danny. And then he can bring it to me or even bring it to Flip if he was uncomfortable bringing it to me. And then ultimately Flip can be the bad guy late at night over dinner and abuse or something like that and just say, hey, this kind of came up. And you know, people are this. And I'll have the opportunity to think it through and then, you know, address it so I don't let it happen again. So that conflict issue also helps in the identify, discuss, solve, because it can be brought up on a professional basis with a group of people that are there, that with the sole goal of solving the problem, even if it says brainstorm ideas and come up with them next week, whatever that looks like. So it really helps have an opportunity to get the conflict out without fear of going to the person that's causing the conflict. I guess if. And without fear of being fired, that's something too, that will have meetings. And even recently it was, let's just all agree, nobody's getting fired today. You can say whatever you want. Nobody is getting fired today. And they would actually, they came to me and said, Danny, is that correct? I'm CEO, right? Nobody's getting fired. Said, no, I don't care what you say today, you will not be fired today. And when tough topics came in, they would remind you, remember Danny said at the very beginning of the meeting, nobody's getting fired today. This is the time to talk this through. So having those opportunities and places you can go to, you know, get through conflict is important. All right. And then number seven is commitment to team. So showing your team members that you care about them, that you love them, that you appreciate them, that you want to see them grow. We're going to talk about that a little bit on the very, I think number 10, you're going to hit on it. But we do personal and professional development. It is really, really important to us that you care about your personal and professional development. And even if you've read a million books that you still care, like you're in a different position or you just want to help the company. You're just doing something. So right now we actually did our personal professional development sessions. They happen every Friday at 8:30. It's just 30 minutes. And we're using those teams that we created and every team, everybody this time, instead of reading the same book that we're doing, which we've done in the past, and we'll talk about that in a second, everybody got to choose their own book. Because I told Tina, I said what if we just do choose your own book this time because sometimes like the last book that we read, I wasn't engaged at all. I don't need to read that book. I didn't even actually like the book. I said, so what if we all just got to choose our own? And then it for me, like if there's 30 of us going through this, I just, I read a high level summary of 30 books essentially because I got to hear people share about that book and about what they felt was important to them. And I'm telling you, Cassie did one week and then somebody else this other week that just a book I would never would have read. And I went, I want to read that book now. Or at the very least, I just learned enough that, that Cassie taught me something in that 30 minute session. Like six people got to share their stuff and, and I left that night going, Cassie really taught me something there and that was really, really cool. So that's our commitment to the team. That's also their commitment to us that you are a team member who cares about your own personality and professional development and how you want to grow as a person. Whether it doesn't matter. I think Cassie's book was actually a personal book, not, not necessarily professional. I can't even remember now because somebody last week hit me too and now I can't remember what Cassie did. Me and my memory, it's just horrible. I need to write things down anyways. That commitment to them and their Commitment, honestly, to us also. Dream manager. I don't know if you've read the book, but get the book. If you have a growing team and you want to show your commitment to the team. Team. A dream manager is a role within the company that says, Flip. What would you like to achieve on a personal level? I want to buy my first house. I want to have a million dollars in the bank. You know, you can say whatever you want. I want to go on a trip. I want to have quarterly trips every single year. And my job as a dream manager is to help Flip achieve that goal. So this has nothing to do with work. It could. Literally. It could, but it's really meant to say, I care about you personally, Flip, and I care about you buying that first house. Some of our team members are now buying houses from us before even go to clients. That's part of their dream. They want to have investment properties just like we all do, and so we're helping them do that. So implementing something like that shows our commitment to them on a personal, professional level and that we want to grow together forever if we can, and if it's meant to be. And then a leadership program just helping them understand the path in which they can grow with us. So we have leadership meetings, like, every quarter, and it's usually done by the supervisor. And we talk about, where did you want to go? And did you do the things that you were supposed to do in the last 90 days? What does that look like? And so we have those types of meetings. Literally, I think two weeks ago, in our financials meeting with Randy, we talked about two people that I said, you know, hey. And Randy was the first one to say it. I see this person in five years being right here in this company. If they choose to stay with us, this is where they could be. This is how much they could be making. And I said, you know, the other person, I would love to, like, even talk about that path immediately, because I just love them, and I love their commitment. And what they're doing is this person and you, you know, having that desire to go, here's where you can be. Here's what it looks like. Does it mean they're gonna stay with us forever? Maybe not. Maybe they decide to get married and move to, I don't know, somewhere. And maybe we just go. You can work virtually because we love you, or maybe it just doesn't work out. All of that is okay, but that's our commitment to them. Yeah. So that's number seven. On to number eight. Mr. Flipper.

Accountability.

Yes.

So one of the things that we do that everyone does every week is, is they all create scorecards. Now, everyone's scorecard, they have rocks, they have different goals for different strategies. And so Danny's scorecard is different than everyone's. No one's scorecard is like hers. Same with mine. I don't think anyone has the same scorecard because it's about, what are you doing that week? Or what are you doing each week? It could be over the course of 12 weeks, you're doing the same thing every week. Or it could be, hey, this week, I've got to focus on this. You change your scorecard to reflect that. So that way you see. And then at the end of the week, you're going, all right, how did I do? You know, did I get 100% on this. On this task? Did I get 100% on this task? And everyone has them. And. But again, back to our teams. So then at the. On Monday mornings, everyone turns in their scorecard, and then each team gets the average of those people on that team. And then it's team against team, which team won. And if somebody drops a ball and didn't do their scorecard or didn't fill it in, that's a zero.

Yeah. And then it hurts the whole team. There's a little bit of pressure there.

Yep, exactly. And then there's a, hey, come on, buddy, turn in your scorecard. You're killing me here. So. So. But again, it's weekly accountability, and it's making sure that everyone's staying on top of everything that they're supposed to be doing, and they're not just sitting in their office playing on Facebook or whatever. Again, back to the weekly L10s. Again, it keeps everybody accountable, keeping the companies running together. This is a finely tuned machine. If one thing gets thrown off, it's going to throw the rest of the whole thing off. It's not like one thing can. Can sustain itself. No, it's just gonna. It's gonna drop. Extreme ownership. We read the book by Jocko.

Yes.

And this was about a year, a little bit over a year ago now that we read the book. And. And it was interesting. I always joke about it because everyone read the book. Everyone loved the book. And then I got into an argument with our transaction coordinator. I said, no, it's my fault. And she's like, no, it's my fault. And I'm like, oh, it's my fault. So it gets taken a little extreme. Extreme ownership. But. But everyone has really grasped that. And it's great to hear people go, you know what? That was me. I'm sorry. That was my fault. And I won't let that happen again. I love that. I love it. Instead of somebody going, I don't know, it must have been somebody else, you know, so it's very, very important. Important. But then. And then last. But again, we just talked about the first Fridays again. That's. That's the. Keeps keeping everybody accountable. Here's what this month was.

Yeah.

You know, was this a. You know, put your stuff in the. In the cardboard box and hit the road Jack, you know, or what? What was this month? And keeping everybody constantly moving forward. The better goal of the entire company.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. All right, so number nine is results. We're going to go back to autonomy here because we don't babysit people. So literally, you stay in our company because you achieve results in some way or another. You may have some areas of weaknesses. In fact, we just hired an assistant for one of our team members because he just needed the help in order to do a lot of the administrative stuff that was taking so much of his time where he could be focused on his superpower in order to help the team as a larger whole. So if you're hitting. If you're meeting results and you're helping move the needle. Needle for the company, you stay. We're not babysitting. We're not looking over your shoulder. We're not checking your computer to go, what. What did he get done today? We don't care. Did you move the needle in the area that your role is specifically focused on? So that's one and then weekly one on ones. Obviously, we're talking about it there. Our scorecards. That's a fast way to look at results about how you're doing. Going back to the higher, slow, fire, fast mantra. I'm not really, really good at it, but the more we talked about it during. At the beginning podcast, maybe I actually am okay with it. I'm just not into. In all the pieces. So we are going through all the right steps. I just feel like we hire fast because I'm in a few sections of it. And then First Fridays, same thing. I think a lot of what we do as a company is all working around these 10 points and ties in together. So results are a big deal for us, and that's how you get to stay here.

Then number 10 is leaders. Creating leaders and following the vision of the company. You know, we want to constantly make sure personal and professional development is something that we talk about every week. We want to make sure that we're constantly giving them more and more to. To be able to chew on. I mean, there's. There's one of our guys who's, you know, from the Philippines, and he came on. He was. Even though he was a rock star right from the get go, and now he's one of the supervisors, advisors.

Yep.

And so. And he's like, I'm not going anywhere for the next 30 years. I'm with you guys, you know, and that's great. And we want that, you know, and so it's. But it's creating leaders within the organization and making sure that they have the same. The same thoughts, the same vision that we have as a company. And then that brings up who do who does Flip and Danny learn from who does flip and Danny try. Who are we trying to model and who do we hire to help our business growth and to help us lead the company. And so I'll let you take this over.

Yeah. And this might tie into our commitment to the team. Right. What are we doing as leaders to help the rest of the team? So we just wrote down a few things. We're in a mastermind group. We talk all the time about how we hire a coach for everything that we do. There's nothing in my entire lifetime that I have done that I didn't hire somebody to help me learn. I just. It's a foundational principle that I grew up on, and we continue it to this day. So now instead of. Not necessarily coaches, masterminds, I feel like, are so powerful because it's a network of people all trying to achieve and go to the same place. And they're people who spent their hard earned money and invested in that group. And we all help each other. And so that's one of our favorites. We have a network of a players because of that mastermind group. Who not how. If you've not read that book again, you can see that we are all about personal and professional development. We talk about books all the time. And what we're reading. And you should read it. And here it is. Because we believe in that and we want our team to believe in that too. That's how we've grown to be. Where we are today is constant input of great ideas that make us think and grow and think bigger. So who not how is a book that we read recently, and it really meant something to me in terms of that's it. That is the piece that we have been missing. I think we started in real estate Saying we want to work with. And we even partnered with some people very early on. We want to work with people just like us, and we want to build that company together. Together. Because I don't want it to just be me and you. That's a lot of work to get where we are today. I want another me and you and I want another me and you, and we're all together. We're going to hire, we're going to train, we're going to figure out the superpowers amongst us, and we're going to build this company. It didn't turn out to work. I mean, it's a long road, right? Like back when we started. We started in 2008, we probably thought through that idea maybe in 2009 and started trying. And we just. We found some right people that just. Just they weren't a perfect fit. I mean, very early on, I will say Tina Howard, if anybody doesn't, haven't met her yet, she's our COO now. She's one of the people that we found early on we couldn't gain the momentum we wanted to create, you know, to keep that going forever. But she is with us. There was a small part in time when we started that we didn't know her, and then we knew her and worked with her for a long time. And then another small window where we didn't work with her. She had transitioned to another company. And then I was, like, looking for something, and I went, tina, why don't I know she's with this other company? Well, and we got her back. It is the bottom line. But we always had this idea of wanting to grow. So long story short is we got to where we are today. And when I read who not how, I suddenly went. That's. That's what we wanted to do from the very, very beginning. So how powerful is that to not try and figure out how to make it work? Just find out the whole can who. Who can make happen and take it off your plate. And I suddenly realized that it was already in the making. We had found a who in our business that was now handling our finances, handling some business development for us. If you don't know who we were talking about, then you haven't been listening to us. It's Randy Brown, cfo. I would say he was one of our first who's beyond the Flip Danny Tina trio that have been working together for so very, very, very long found him. He really took our business to a new level because we are getting the data that we needed and Some of the wisdom that he had from building his own businesses and being an entrepreneur himself and being familiar with real estate that, you know, it was just a whoo, okay, I need more of this guy in this company. And so we always said, you're never, you can't leave. You can't leave us ever. And he gets to do whatever he wants to do. But we always say we're going to steal hours of his time, as many hours as we can, forever and ever and ever. So he helps us in so many ways. He was our very first who we referred, we were referred another who into the business. And he is the head of Bulldog Renovations now. And one of the things that he says that I just, it makes my heart go pitter patter is I am sorry that problem landed on your plate. I go, why? I'm here to help. And he said, because I'm your who? Because we had this conversation about the who, not how he's. I'm your who. I'm the person that makes sure that stuff like that never gets to you. I take care of it. You never have to worry about Bulldog Renovations. I've got you. And I'm just like, oh, who, not how. There it is. And we got referred to another person who just stepped into Cash flow houses. And I see that, I see the writing on the wall that he's going to be that person too. It's going to be exactly the same way. And then I was just referred another person who might step into one of our other companies, maybe help lead in all of our, our companies. But that is so very, very powerful once you grasp the concept, to stop figuring it out yourself, find the person who can lead it, take it off your plate so that you are better as a whole. And it goes back to when we started and what we wanted to do in the first place is grow a company with amazing freaking people. People who are smarter than I am and smarter than you are, who can take us to a new, whole new level because of their wisdom and experience and knowledge and all these other areas. Like, I could just cry thinking about it. I love these people. I love what's going on on right now. So that's something that we're doing to help take our commitment of growing the companies. EOS implementers. If you don't know what EOS is, Entrepreneurial operating system go back to traction. We just talked about that. There's why the heck eos, there's Rocket Fuel. There's like a series of books by Gino Wickman. I think it is that. And we just hired somebody. So we've been self implementing for a very long time. We hired somebody just to come in and kick us in the tush and just say, hey, you veered off this way and you veered off this way. You need to tighten it up and really get us back on track across five companies. So we recently hired them, they're running our weekly L10s now, our department head meeting every single week. And we had a one day session with one of the guys and we're having a two day session with another guy on June 1st and 2nd. So really, really powerful. We hired a marketing consultant. He's coming in for, we'll spend six, I think six months with him, but he's coming in for brand day at the end of day the month. So again, our commitment to our company and our success, we have company coaches. We, in our acquisitions company, we hired yet another person that is they're running a really high volume wholesaling business. And we are essentially just saying, we're just gonna model what you're doing and we're just gonna do everything that you're doing because we're doing okay, but we can do better. And so we found somebody who is doing amazing and we want to be them. And so those are the A players. Right? You keep surrounding yourself with those kinds of people. I mean, you have nowhere to go but up. And man, I'm in love with where we're going today. So company culture is the last half of this leader section in eos. One of the things that he said when he was here just to spend a day with us, he said the CEO, the people at the top, the owners of the company, they're the ones that are responsible for the culture of a company. And so that, that said a lot because I was like, well, we have been doing that. We even created a culture committee, literally created a fun committee, culture committee that said, hey, you guys are the ones interacting with each other. What do you guys want to do? What's fun? What's motivating? What's like, how can we make this the greatest place to work for? And with. We actually don't use the word for. We say with you work with us, not for us. We never want the mentality that you work for us. We are growing this to do right by the people that we're growing it with. So I'm gonna let you touch on company culture.

We're all team members.

Yes, we are all team members. That's right.

Yeah. So one of the first Things we do is a flex schedule. We're not people that stand at the front door at 8 o' clock going, it was late. Because we know, I mean there's Caitlyn, she's here till 5:30, 6 o' clock every day and she's here right at 8 o'. Clock, you know, and it's.

I know one morning started trailing in at 8, 10. It is rare that I'm at the front. I was like, Caitlyn, just kidding, by the way.

Yeah, we don't, we, it's something we don't, we don't monitor that at all. You're going to wait. So here's your schedule. You know, if you come in late, work late, you know, you want to work, you want to get off work early, come in early. It's, it's just get your job done that's most important.

Yeah. We even leave. Most of all of us, it's like a ghost town around this office around Friday at threes. Three o' clock at three. Yeah, People just, they work the extra hours knowing that they're going to take off early on Friday. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt.

No, no, you're fine. Leaders. Creating leaders again. Helping people move up and grow again. Like I talked about our guy Cheese, you know, from the Philippines.

Yeah.

He's now one of our supervisors in the company.

Shout out.

Running. Yeah, Running things smoothly. So it's again creating, creating leaders inside of the company. We do a lot of fun when, and the fun is, is not just the people here in the office, it's all of the VA's. Tina's, Tina is also virtual, Emma's virtual. So we do have some even virtual here in the United States. But then all of our VAs. So we try to, we try to include them in all the, everything that we do. If we do a party in the office, we make sure that the camera's on and the zoom's on. So that way they can, they can be there a part of the event. We do a taco Tuesday that started many years ago, but now we do once one month we're actually at the Mexican restaurant and we actually do tacos. But then the other ones we do a happy hour on Zoom. So every, everyone's included. All the VAs are there as well. We do lots of holiday funds like Christmas party, pumpkin party. I'm, I'm afraid of the pumpkin decorating this year because it's gotten pretty intense. But we do lots of other little contests. And then of course, if you have not seen make sure you check out our Friday funnies with Betty. Those have gotten pretty big, too.

Yes.

You know, but we make sure that, you know, everyone's taken care of. You know, we always have. Have sodas or whatever they drink in the fridge, so that way they don't need to worry about that, especially during the summer. We always make sure we got Snickers ice cream bars. There's always bowls of candy out at the front. You know, we got couches, we have library books, we get ping pong table, a foosball game, you know, a golf video game. We want to make sure that, you know, we don't want anyone going, ah, so boring to work there. You know, we want. We want it to be fine. We don't want it to be a draw drag to go to work. In fact, you know, my philosophy is, I get to go to work, I get to do this. And so that's what we want them to think and we want them to feel.

Yeah. And I will say that the team has really kind of picked up and taken the torch, even though it's a lot of our ideas and thought processes behind what can get created. You know, I think Tiffany was the cfo, chief funnel officer for the longest time, and I think that she may have given the torch somebody or that's maybe when we started talking about, let's make this a committee of people to help with this, because we really want to improve our culture and we want your guys's ideas coming to the table. And so that's when I think that that was so that there's a regular meeting where they talk about that. And, you know, Betty, you talked about her, and I was just like, man, heart of the office. Everybody says she is the heart of the office. She creates a lot of that culture through just things that she does for people and just helping them, making sure everybody in the family is okay. I don't know how many people call her Mama Betty, but it's a really fantastic thing. Caitlin one time brought roses, I think, to every single person with a little, you know, car that just said something, and it was just really nice. Like, they are creating a culture that we couldn't even do on our own. So that's the type of people that we want to. We hire and groom and care for and all that other stuff. It's pretty freaking fantastic.

Yeah. So we're making sure that we have the willingness to invest in the team and listen to their ideas. And also another idea we read recently, because most of the company is actually, well, it's almost half and half now, most of the companies in the United States, but all of our virtual assistants, they're all from the Philippines. And we always have holidays here in the United States. And so we're talking about celebrating one of the holidays from the Philippines. So that way we celebrate with them. Yes, but the most important thing is work hard, play hard. The old mantra from I don't know how when that first came out, but it's very tried and true here in the office because we do work very hard. But we also, when we're done, we like to have fun.

That's right. Love it. So the last thing that we have here, I think this is the longest podcast that we've ever done.

I think we're working on three hours here.

You can tell our team means the world to us. It's a passion for us. It's our why. Leaders creating leaders, working with people that we love working with. We always say, a players don't want to work with other B players. The people B players weed themselves out of our company. Honestly, they can't keep up. And so I actually wrote this little line to end things with so non A players weed themselves out because the rest of us appear to have unrealistic expectations. But the reality is that not everyone wants to play at our level. And the only way to do what we're doing in terms of growth is reward those who do want to play this level and keep them motivated to keep on growing and getting better. So that's our belief and passion for and how we've gotten where we are today and how we continue to hope that we can scale this somehow. And I think through our team, that's how it happens because they continue the culture and they help promote it. Because Flip and I can't touch everybody. The more we grow, we even leave the office now, like, we stop working 30 to 60 minutes early to try and get around everybody's office, say, hi, how are you? How can I help? Because it's hard to talk to everybody anymore. So we try to make these extra efforts to show people that we care. And that's why we wanted to do a podcast about this. And it's probably going to be the only one that is ever this long. So Flippy going to close us out.

Yes. Again, thank you so much for joining us on podcast number four. We hope you enjoyed the podcast. And again, this is Real Talk.

It's our Real Talk podcast, which is real talk for real estate investors. We always like to end these things with Invest Smart, Live happy. Bye, everybody.

Bye.