Building the Real Estate Team of the Future! (w/ Dave Friedman)

Welcome back to the Business Freedom Podcast. This is going to be a fun one. You know, I've known our guest for probably just over five years now, and Dave Friedman is out of Charleston, South Carolina. We were having a conversation about, you know, just the industry and what we see, you know, solo agents and the life that they lead and. Or don't lead. And we talk about teams across the country. We get to mastermind with some of the most successful and some of the least successful teams across the country. And there's a lot of different models out there for building real estate teams. And I believe what you've built, Dave, is something really special. I want to dig into it with you today. It might be helpful for. For everyone to hear kind of not your whole backstory, but, like, what was it like, your first breakout year in terms of production as a solo agent? Let's ground the conversation there. Like, success begets success in this industry, and that is not a life worth living. So let's start out with, like, the year you went from, I think, 30 to 65 transactions. Like, what was it like being a solo agent doing all of that yourself in terms of, you know, we talk a lot about time, money, and stress in real estate, B school, so maybe ground the conversation in that.

Yeah, you know, it's. It was interesting, I think, that you got it. The year that I went from 30, the first year I did 30, second year, did 60 transactions, and towards the end of that year, brought on a buyer agent and an assistant to help, and things were pretty hectic. You know, I didn't really have much contact with my family anymore. You know, I didn't have a much of a personal life. And, you know, it was stressful. I can. I can handle long hours and a lot of work, but it's, it's the, you know, such frequent interaction with the things that happen in real estate with so many different people that you're constantly juggling that. That leads to a ton of stress. And so it was. It was definitely a hectic time. There's. There's absolutely no question about it.

Yeah. So when you look at, you know, that. That year that you had an assistant and you brought on your first buyer's agent and, and what you were putting yourself through and putting. Putting your wife through. Through all of that, and, and you look at the steps you've taken to build what you have today, like, what was the realization, you know, you know, maybe it's. I'm leading you to answer the question, like, what was broken about your business and about the industry that you went out to solve.

You know, the. At that time I thought that. And probably just like anybody else that gets into real estate, the money can be really good and that'll go solve a lot of problems to let us lead this amazing life. But what the reality of it is, and I've learned this in talking to so many different agents that are out there, is, you know, they might go out and make 250, $300,000 and absolutely hate every single second of it. And I couldn't say that's where my life was at the time too. Like, it was not fun. You know, we made a lot of money. It wasn't enjoyable. You know, we weren't able to enjoy it and you know, were we spending it and, you know, increasing our expenses? There's absolutely no question about it. But I was probably happier when I was making $40,000. And it's interesting that I've spoken to so many different agents out there that come to the same place where they finally get out there and crush it and they're just not happy. And they get to a point where they realize that they got into it for the money, but now they realize that there's a lot of other things important in their life that they can't get to at this point, and so they need to pivot. Some people get out of the business, some people burn out and just hit a bad year or two and economically can't make it anymore, don't want to rebuild. So it was definitely an interesting time. Pivotal spot of where I had to decide what direction I wanted to go in.

Yeah, and the same journey that you went through. You know, obviously an agent that would join your team today, they don't need to go through all that pain. I mean, you've sort of built the. Not sort of. You built out this world class real estate team. And it allows agents to focus on the parts of the job, or your administrators, the parts of the job that they're good at. So talk about that a little bit like it's the 20% principle. Talk about why you built what you did, how it's built, and how it allows your agents to focus on the things that they're good at.

Yeah, definitely. We always knew that was our mantra. A team is going to get there quicker and get everybody to their goals faster, and you're going to be much better at just one thing. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the agents, you know, that we have and have had that helped us get to where we are today, because it wasn't an overnight aha moment where we decided that we had to make the lines between everybody, black and white, where they thrive in their own position. There was a time where everybody was prospecting on their team. There was a time when they're handling parts of the closing coordination. And I started to see they were making great money. But some people started to run into those same stresses that I had at that time in my career also. And it was about 2018 where we just said, you know what? Enough is enough. Let's just fix this problem. We recognize what it is. If people wanted to get into real estate and have the freedom of time, money, and stress, we're not really delivering that right now. And we need to. We need to conquer this to make it happen. So it was about that time where we decided to really invest in a bigger and better ISA department and also operations department. And people generally get into real estate because they, again, want the freedom of time, money, and stress. And their idea of work is talking to their friends and family and their past clients and getting referrals from them. And we said, why don't we just get people in the spot on our team where they can do that? And that's gonna be, you know, 20, 30% of their business, where they're going to get 80 to 70 to 80% of their business from our inside sales team, where they don't have to worry about where the next check is coming from. And so we started to move in that direction. And it took us, you know, 2019. We committed to solidifying our foundation. We didn't care about growth. We just wanted to build out these two departments to deliver that promise. And I'm happy to say that we did it. And we're here so super excited about that.

Yeah. And when you look at, you know, most. And when you mentioned ISA department and you mentioned it after. But just so for anyone that doesn't know, it's inside sales associates. So as a salesperson, you know, there's the inside work, which is like, you know, getting on the phone and generating opportunities to meet with people outside of the office, which is outside sales associates. So isa, osa, just in case you don't know the lingo when you look at, you know, and I see this across the country, you know, most real estate teams are a loose collection of agents. And I want you to comment on that and then also comment a little bit on when you look at your team and the culture that you built and the culture committee and some of the things that you're doing that are unique even in the circles that we run in. Talk about that, talk about a lot of the real estate teams that are, they just don't have it figured out yet. And then what's different about dft?

I think related to culture. Culture to us is everything. It is part of the foundation of our team. And so we're surrounded by a lot of like minded people and that really, really enjoy being around each other and working with each other. And so, you know, they're excited about that, I'm excited about that, and we're very cautious to preserve that. You know, we have a culture committee on our team that meets weekly with me and we just discuss how things are going with the people on our team, their lives, their families, and whether they're truly enjoying what's going on, if there's any challenges that we need to overcome or any bad apples. And so we've created this ideal environment for people to thrive where there's great positive energy and just like a simple framework for them to. Just enough framework for them to come in and be successful, but then again also have a lot of freedom to schedule out their lives on a weekly basis the way that they want to. So part of what people love about our culture is we give really inspiring, empowering and dynamic life changing solutions to just living well. So for us it's not just about selling real estate, it's about how can we help you change your life for the better and the people around you. So constantly coaching on eliminating stress, leading a level 10 life and all the seven Fs of fitness, faith, family, fun, future friends. That way we can train people on how to choose their own reactions and controlling their own life and it'll lead to just bringing them joy and happiness. And so that's what our culture is all about.

Yeah, and I touched on it before, you know, traditional success. So the caution I have for someone in your market, an agent in your market hearing this, I think there's a lot of like misconceptions about real estate teams, you know, like, and it may be because a lot of them are true, but what I see with your team is a little bit different. You know, you built something like your clients are important, your buyers or sellers are important. Though the thing is built to serve your, your team members, you know, and so maybe talk a little bit about, you know, what, what does it look like, what are the opportunities look like on your team? You know, I mean, can you plug in and work 40 hours a week and still get the 70% of your business from your inside sales team. Can you, you know, work 60 hours a week and increase your income? And what does it look like to be part of the team?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you bring up the first part of what you just said is we look at our business in two different facets. Our clients are incredibly important to us, and we want to deliver, like, a very systematic customer experience that people love. But we also look at the agents on our team as our customers, too. We almost have, like, two sets of clients and customers. And so this is more about, you know, our team and the agents on it. So it's really built around us just finding the right people that will gel with our culture and really want to be successful. So we believe in giving our team members the autonomy to, again, work within our framework to be really, really successful. And so what that looks like is they come into the office for about two hours a week, and they receive some really valuable coaching and training and team meetings and. And so. And throughout the week, they'll also get on the phone with us and have some check in meetings to assist with accountability and coaching. And everybody on our team is working, you know, 40 hours a week, maybe 50 hours a week. The more time you put into it, the more money you can make. There's no question about that. But working between 40 and 50 hours a week, you know, people on our team are making 80,000 to $300,000 in sales, so they're making a great living working a modest amount, and they have the leverage around them also to where they can truly take time off. The highest earner on our team, probably in sales, probably takes more vacations than I do. I think he's out of town at least once a month for almost a week. And so, you know, everyone talks about what days they want to take off. So they're able to take off two days a week and not be interfered with client phone calls at the time if they don't want to. If they don't mind taking those, they can. But they can literally unplug and not have to deal with the minutiae of what's going on in the transactions at the time, or worry about the fact that they're not prospecting, because when they come back, they have the confidence and trust that their clients are being taken very, very, very well care of. And they're gonna have more appointments on the calendar when they get back.

Yeah, and I don't know if we can go deeper on that. That is something that A top agent, you know, like you making back in the day when you were doing the 60 transactions most that year you were solo, you. You only made 250 to 300. Only. It's a lot of money. But you were working, you were miserable. And so now an agent on your team can crush it financially and they don't have to endure the stress and they can have support from their team. And there's not like, that's not a traditional team environment like most agents on a team cannot unplug. They're taking their business with them on vacation. Yeah, the glory, it's not. You know what I mean? So anyway, I just want to slow down there for a second because that's. That's not a normal thing. Like, someone's gonna hear that and not really get that. Like, wait, you have an agent on your team making multiple six figures, and they take 10 over 10 trips a year. And so that. That's pretty cool. I didn't. I guess I didn't know that normally, you know, a lot of real estate team leaders are just looking to. And maybe this is going to be a question for you. Lot of real estate team leaders are looking for relief for themselves. Just like, help me build this freaking team so I can have a life. And granted for you, there was a little bit of that. More of it, and 99% of it was like, how can I build this thing so others don't have to endure what I endured? Talk about your heart. Of all the guys across the country that, that I know, I mean, you have a heart of. Of service for your people. Talk about that a little bit. Maybe I just said all of it, but comment on that. Like, what. Where does that.

You're doing a great job. Just keep going. You're actually good at probably a better job than I could.

Yeah.

You know, the, the when I, you know, when I got to the point where I was making enough money, where it didn't. The money wasn't the driver anymore or important. It was more about. For me, it's more personally about creating just remarkable experiences, and I just really enjoy chasing those. And for our team, it's, you know, our passion is to create limitless opportunities and create a better life for people. And, you know, so one thing that we look at on our team is the fact that we recognize not everybody wants to come in and fill a sales role and just sell a lot of homes. And some people, like, really, really like that. And that's awesome. And some people really, really like the idea of being an expert in their field, making a really good living, but also contributing to help build the business. And so we look at it as, like, I look at it as part of my job to continue to create openings for people to be able to, you know, fulfill their needs and wants and their desires on our team to continue to grow. So, you know, if they start becoming attracted to leadership opportunities or investment opportunities or whatever it may be, it's our goal to make sure that we're creating those openings fast enough for them too. You know, speaking of the guy that's, you know, Brett is his name, who takes a lot of trips. He's also a mentor on our team. So he gets the enjoyment of coaching people and mentoring people. And he just absolutely loves, you know, he's transformed into, you know, chasing commission checks to wanting to have a more purposeful life around helping other people. And so he's making an amazing living. And at the same time, he's really enjoying transferring his skills and knowledge to other people and coaching people and mentoring people and, you know, moving into leadership with us. And. And so, yeah, our goal is to just continue to create those opportunities to make people feel like, and actually do create things within our team to help us grow bigger. So they're a big part of it with us.

Yeah. And it's interesting. I mean, you've had a 10x growth in your business in five years and really, you know, I still think you're afflicted by just like we're all afflicted by not being able to turn it off for you though. And I see this in. You're fast and furious, building the business so that your people have opportunity within it. And I've seen that, like over the last few years as you've elevated, you've created these voids behind you where when you went add a production into the sales manager that somebody had to step up and take over the production you were doing. When you went from sales manager to more CEO, someone had to. One of your producers had to step up and. And now you've made another step up and someone has stepped up into the true GM type type role. So it's just, it's just worth commenting on that. You know, there are a lot of business owners out there that are really, you know, they're just interested in getting theirs. And it's not about creating opportunity for others.

Yeah, I think that, you know, they'll either have the scarcity mindset, you know, or not think that somebody can do it as well as they can, or maybe think that they don't need to give up all the extra cash to be able to create an opening for somebody. And I love it. You know, I've had people challenge me and ask, why would I want to move from like a COO to more of a CEO and pay somebody? And, like, why not? You know, I know that I'll get back all kinds of time to invest where I can grow the team even bigger and faster, create an opening for somebody else to continue to grow and probably take the team, you know, places bigger and faster, and we'll all have a lot of. A lot more fun doing it. They don't have to go anywhere else to make it happen. And I just think that you spend so much time investing into people that are around you that it's just selfish to not create those openings for them to continue to grow into. And then it gives you the opportunity to continue to invest in them, too.

Yeah, anything as we close up here, anything that we should have covered that we didn't cover about really the maybe. Yeah, this I didn't cover or I didn't ask a question. You know, most teams, and my team was this way at one point, and I'm sure yours was, too. It's like, you're hired and then good luck. Like, I'm going to train you in an afternoon, and it's like, good luck. And a lot of teams or even some of the bigger teams are like that. Like, there's no real, like, training process. What does that look like on your team?

Yeah, that was part of our, you know, solidifying the foundation mantra for an entire year. Part of it was our training. You know, we used to have people come in and train as inside sales agents and, you know, finally move into a different position. When we hire now, we hire people directly into the position that they're going to thrive in. And I'll give you a great example is we hired a guy on our team, his name is Chris, and he was in hr, had nothing to do with real estate, wanted to get into real estate, and he was able to come into real estate, and in his first year, he's able to take 10 to 12 listings a month. And this is a guy with zero sales experience. Zero real estate experience. And. And, you know, I don't know that he's done any of his own, like, referral or SOI deals. I don't think he has. And that's fine. You know, this is, like, where he's thriving, and I'm sure that will come over time, but it's a good Opportunity for people like that, that have zero experience. And it's also a fantastic opportunity where, you know, I'm talking to agents right now that have been in the business 30 years that are asking to come on our team. They're literally saying, like, I've shown them our model. And they say, like, where do I need, like, I want to move my career here? Because the way I've been doing it is just, I don't think I can do it for another 30 years. You know, I mean, I'll talk to people that have been doing it for four years and don't want to do it for another four years the way they're doing it. So it's a unique opportunity where people can come in with no experience or tons of experience. And literally the way we train now is even if you have zero experience, we'll bring you in. And we train for 30 days. And after that you're gonna start going out and speaking to clients and. Right. To find contracts. And we have super realistic expectations where within three months on our team, you're taking seven listings a month. And it's easy for them. They have the systems and tools and training to make it happen.

That's awesome. And so I guess I'll close with this. You know. You know, there's, there's a lot of agents in every market. You know, in our market, I think there's 16,000 agents. I think in your market with 8 or 10,000 agents, how many agents you have in Charleston?

I think it's about, Yeah, I think it's about that. Probably like 7,000.

So, you know, if you're listening to this, part of this is just to highlight someone that's done a really good job building a business that has multiple constituents, you know, buyers, sellers, ownership, and also, most importantly, the team. But if you're, if you're so lucky to be in Dave's market and you're an agent that's struggling, you know, it's definitely worth a conversation, you know, just to see what a really well run business looks like. And I don't. I think your process is confidential and it's more like a coaching session to meet with you than to meet with your team. I would highly recommend if you're in, you know, the Charleston market, if you're not in the Charleston market, then, you know, I don't know what to tell you. I just wanted to get you on here to talk about what a really well run real estate team looks like and why you did what you did and the success you've had. And the 10x growth in numbers is great. And I would say the opportunity. I won't share some of the specifics. I'm thinking of one story in particular of one agent's life who you. I mean, there couldn't have been a more dramatic shift in where he was to where he is now. You know, making literally zero dollars in a really bad situation to making multiple six figures a few years later. And so you have story after story of how you're impacting folks, and it doesn't mean you need to be at your bottom. To join Dave's team, he'll take, you know, great salespeople that are at the top of their game too.

There's. There's literally, you know, they're like one agent in particular. She was at the top of our board in our MLS about eight years ago. She was in the top 10. And one quick thing, one thing that I looked at, it was probably three years ago, I noticed that, you know, over the last six, seven years, the top five and 10 people in our MLS, they just keep rotating. Like nobody really stays at the top. And I took out a spreadsheet and I put their names year over year to see who the top 10 people were and what their transactions were. And it seems like 80 to 100, maybe 110 deals will get them up to the top in the top 10. And they only stay there for a year or two and then they slowly start to slide down. And I actually called several of them to ask what happened, and they all said the same thing. They said, it's just, it's really tough to hire people, train them and build a team. And I just. Out of the hundred deals, I was doing 85, and I had four other agents with me that were doing 15 and two admin. And, you know, they just said, I just, I was giving up so much money to try to build this team. I was giving up too much time for my family. It was impacting everything around me, like, so stressed out the entire time. And their net take home was like 250, you know, and all of them just said, you know, I just. It wasn't a life worth living doing that. And so they just scaled back. And a lot of them even got out of real estate. But the cool thing that I feel like we can offer is you can come in, you can make multiple six figures and have a total life by design and the freedom of money, freedom of stress, and freedom of time.

Yeah. And it's worth mentioning, you know, that many teams because they're not systems based, they don't have right fit people. You know, it's just a loose thing. The team leaders have to remain in production to have a chance at making any money. And you've been out of production for how long now?

No, since 2016.

Yeah. So a non competing team leader is important as well. I mean if you're on a team where your team leader is producing, you better believe they're gonna get all the opportunity. Every single appointment generated on your team. You won't go out to a 2 or 3 or 4 million dollar. You won't take any listing at this point. You know, so that it goes without saying that the opportunity is for your team, not for you to cherry pick like a lot of team leaders do.

Yeah. And it's not even trying to cherry pick a deal. It's even cherry picking the opportunity for advancement. You know, it's my job to continue to get out of their way.

Yeah. Alright brother. Well, you keep doing what you're doing and like I said, if you're in Charleston and you're not, the time, money, stress equation is all whacked for you. And you, and you love real estate. I will say that, you know, if you've got a license and you love real estate, you're just not figuring the pieces out. You've got to reach out to. What's the best way for someone to reach out to, to your group?

Hey, go to Dave friedmancoaching.com and you can see all kinds of great stuff about our website and about us. And you can get in touch with me from there too.

Yeah. Awesome. All right brother, be good.

All right. Thank you.