Chris Watters' Guide to Growing A Real Estate Team To New Heights

What's up? Real estate team builders. Lars Hedenberg here, founder of Real Estate B School. This is like full circle. I've known Chris Waters, I feel like since I got into real estate in like, for a long time. And I've just, I've always appreciated your heart around just helping others and just seeing your journey and what you've built lately. And you're just super young and like good looking and like you just have it all going on.

Oh, man.

And so we were talking out of Austin. You've got a few markets there in Texas that you've kind of built out. You've done some things and helped some agents, you know, build out in different markets around the country. And so why don't we start out? You know, the podcast is really here to serve folks that, you know, they've achieved a certain level of success in our industry. And it sucks, like selling 50 homes as a solo agent, like, sucks. And there's a right way to build a team, which is the way that you've done it and you've taught like many people how to do it. You've written a book. I want to get into the book as well. So let's, let's couch this conversation around like a few things. First, I want you to tell your story in a few minutes. Kind of tell a little bit about your journey. Then we'll kind of unpack the three things you would teach somebody that want to do this. And so tell us a little bit about your journey. I know you'll, in your core business, you'll, I think collectively you'll do like 5,000 transactions or something last year. So you, you, you played this game of leverage and systems and sustainable and duplication at a high level. So tell us a little bit about yourself and let's get after it.

Yeah. So got started in real estate full time in 2010. You know, I had just got out of a business that failed miserably and I was in massive amount of debt. I started building the business as a solo agent on my girlfriend's red IKEA couch, making prospecting calls and stuff. And you know, I, I wish I, you know, the game changer for me early in my career was Tony Robbins always says you got to like reach a point where you feel so much pain, you finally like, will actually make a change. And so that happened to me very quickly. I was like, hit my head against the wall. And so I got into coaching and that was just a complete game changer for me. I started recognizing that real estate is a Very skills based business. And you know, I wanted to make a lot of money really fast, but you know, I wasn't in the early stages. I wasn't humble and coachable enough to recognize that, you know, I needed to focus on learning how to be great at rapport building and like a market expert and differentiating myself. Like, I kind of, you know, I ultimately kind of discovered early in my career that the road to riches in real estate is a function of how good you are at converting complete strangers into clients. You know, if you just work off your sphere, you'll be in this business 10 to 20 years to just build up enough past clients to have a large enough referral base to make a lot of money. And so I want to do it really fast. And so, you know, I figured out quickly it was the skills you got to develop. And then, you know, I remember, you know, lots of nights coming home at like 9 o' clock at night, 10 o' clock at night, working until 1 o' clock in the morning, putting stuff in the MLS and waking up at 6:00am and you know, I just remember every day, like, especially at nighttime, like walking through the parking garage, going home and I was like, man, you know, like, I don't know how long I can do this. And you know, I had kind of a, I had started building a team in the summer of 2011 and I was still wearing a lot of hats and you know, I was sort of following Gary Keller's book the Million Dollar Real Estate Agent and sort putting some of those pieces in place and you know, started kind of figuring it out. And I think the key things I kind of figured out quickly is, you know, as most people know, there's a lot of venture capital out there throwing money out, you know, to help companies grow. And so, you know, if you want to build your real estate team, the more money you can get access to, the faster you grow. So I put together a vendor program where I started working with other local businesses to help supercharge my lead generation budget. And that was a huge, you know, engine to increase the opportunities I created for my team members. And then the second plate was the, you know, building my talent bench. Like I started having these aha moments when I would hire somebody and like, man, it was like a game changer to my business because they were like so awesome. They capitalized on the opportunities I gave them and I was like, holy cow, I don't have to, you know, worry about missing out on that sign call anymore because they're going to jump on it and convert it. Um, and then, you know, the first thing everybody's heard this is listings are to last. And so in those early stages, I recognize, like, I needed to continue to produce and build up the listing inventory until I had enough opportunities to hand it off to somebody else. So those are the big three plates. Building your listing inventory, your vendor program, and building your talent bench. Those are the three plates you gotta balance. And it is super, super hard. But so worth it. So, so worth it as you start helping other people have success and then you start, you know, creating some freedom and some flexibility for yourself.

So let's, let's break it down. Let's pretend because you, you've helped many, like, getting into their world and helping them go from a top agent selling 50 homes to doing 3, 400 transactions. And you've done this repeatedly, right? So let's, let's break it down. So let's pretend, you know, let's kind of go a little bit deeper on these three points. And let's pretend you're working with me. Like, I'm the guy that's, you know, at the end of my first full year, so 2008, I sold 44 homes and it sucked. Like, I was, funny enough, I was going upstairs at 10pm and working to like 2am every other night. So I would use every other night to catch up on sleep. And then, you know, had a young kid at the time, and so I can, I can relate to that. So, you know, talk about, like, listings and listings, have babies and focusing on listings and like, getting out of everything else. So, so what advice would you give someone that's like, they're all over the place, they're doing 50 homes, but they're working like 60, 70 hours a week. Let's dive deep on the, like, you got to focus on listings and how would you teach them how to delegate and all of that?

Yeah, so to focus on listings, you need to start buying your time back. And that's where building your talent bench comes. And so your talent bench, for example, could mean hiring a virtual assistant that works for like, five, six bucks an hour to help do some of the data entry work. It could be you hiring a courier to go, like, deliver the flyers or the signs. And like, it's, you know, so funny. I remember, like, being cheap about, like, wanting to hire a courier to deliver signs and lockboxes. And then I started thinking, I was like, how much time does it take to actually, like, install the for sale sign, pick it up, sign writers put in flyers and it was like I totaled up six trips on average, six trips. And I'm like, man, you know, it's like it's not that far to the listing, but, you know, it takes half an hour times six trips. I mean, that's three hours of my time. Like, man, that adds up when you have multiple listings. And so, you know, I started recognizing, you know, my, my dollar per hour worth and paying a courier 25 bucks, totally worth it. So, you know, you can get a virtual assistant. You can outsource courier st up, you can have a photographer. There's lots of transaction coordinators. Nowadays you can just outsource stuff to at 300 bucks a pop or whatever. But you got to focus on your talent bench against people around you to create leverage to buy your time back. And then one of the first key hires, in addition to those folks, is getting somebody on your team that's going to help take the inbound buyer leads. So, for example, those sign calls, by the way, those signed calls, Even today in 2022, those are your hottest converting, you know, fastest converting, one of your fastest converting lead sources there is. Those people have the highest intent to buy. Those are like gold. You know, if you have the right buyer agent trained on how to convert those, they're going to make money. Not to mention also you have organic leads that come in online through your listings. So you want somebody to start taking on those leads. And then you can start bringing in vendors. So mortgage companies, title companies, insurance companies, home warranty companies. There's. There's 23 different vendors that get impacted by the sale of a home. And if you research, you look this up on NAR, I think the average real estate transaction across the US generates about $86,000 in income for the, you know, for the economy. So there's a lot of people that get an impact by home selling. So I have a list of those 23 people. I'll give you guys some. I'll tell you where you can go get it in a minute. But, you know, get those vendors on board to help supercharge your marketing, and then you can hire additional salespeople that'll capitalize on those opportunities. It helps you spend more money marketing your listings. And it starts to snowball. As you focus on building up your team, building up your vendor dollars that are going towards marketing, benefiting you and other local businesses and focusing on building up listings, it starts snowballing and it can grow fast. In 2013, I had to pay taxes on $1 million in adjusted gross income. And at the end of 2013. It was technically the spring of 2014 when I got the IRS, you know, my tax bill. And, man, it was one of those moments where I was like, I felt like I found the gold under the rainbow. I was like, I couldn't freaking believe it. You know, I had my head down, grinding, working. And, you know, I knew we were doing well. The bank account was growing, but, you know, I didn't really look up. I didn't have a CFO at the time, like giving me reports or whatever. You know, I had a bookkeeper, but, like, I was just busy. And so I was. I told myself, my man. I mean, I remember it like it was yesterday. Like, it felt like the damn gold under the rainbow. I was like, I got to tell everybody on planet Earth how to do this. You know, I. I grew up with a single mom. I moved, you know, over a dozen times before I got into middle school. My mom was a super hard worker. I don't want to say I never, like, you know, she. I never was, Like, I never went without a meal. But, you know, like, my mom had a. Had a servant's heart. She was a nurse. You know, she gave up money to help serve other people. And, you know, and so anyways, my mom was amazing, so I don't want to take anything away from her. But, you know, the first, like, you know, 12, 13 years were pretty humbling. We lived in a house, you know, with no air conditioning and 500 square foot house. And so for me to pay a million dollars on in taxes was, like, crazy. I was like, whoa, this is quite. This is crazy, man. I was like, I got to tell everybody. And oddly enough, I had a cousin that was in real estate that I wasn't super close to, but she had been an agent for 10 years, much longer than me. And I called her up and I'm like, lori, I got to show you how to do this. And so it was super cool. In 2014, she was kind of like my first expansion partner, if you will. And she started copy and pasting everything we did. And in her first year, she grew 400%. She went from 25 sales to over 100. And now she's doing hundreds of deals a year. She's number one in her market. And so, you know, and then. And then I was like, man, I think I'm onto something here. And so we got licensed as a franchisor in 2018. I onboarded a franchisee in 2018. Just one. I was like, I'm going to wait and see. How he does. And, you know, I. He, you know, same deal. He was a sales guy and he grew like 400%. I was like, oh, man, we're on it. We're really onto this. And so started launching one new, you know, franchisee per month and, you know, just started. Everybody started taking off.

So I want to go back to a few things, because before we hit record and you mentioned inbound buyer leads, and then we talked about shiny objects. Like, it's not marketing automation or sexy software or like, everything about our industry. We're just inundated all the time with this bolt on technology for your CRM or this AI thing or this referral deal. And we would have 24. 7 info in the front yard on an ugly yellow and black sign. And people are just amazed that people would actually call that number. It's like you have an app on your phone that gives you all the information, but a ton of people call that 24. 7. So I don't know what you're.

Yeah, we do the same thing, man.

Yeah, it's crazy, but I think. I think people have, like, they want to make it more complicated than it is. So just talk a little bit. As you've grown up these businesses, you know, you take people from 25 to 100 to 300 sides. Talk about shiny object syndrome. My team gave me this. A little squirrel, right? We just tend to chase squirrels in our businesses. So squirrels, they're just distractions all the time in business. So talk about shiny object syndrome. How do you guard yourself against it? How do you coach others to guard themselves against it?

You know, I had somebody I like, got, you know, I went down the rabbit hole of, you know, tech and SEO and all this stuff, and I remember I was like, chatting with Ben Kinney. For anybody that doesn't, or anybody who knows Ben Kinney, he's got a successful team and does really well. Anyways, I remember chatting with Ben Kinney on Facebook messenger. This was back 12 years ago. And I'm like, talking about all this, like, SEO tools and all this stuff. And Ben said to me in the Facebook chat, he's like, dude, the only people that care about all that stuff are the people not making any money. And, like, when he told me that, I was, honestly, I was pissed. Like, I was really mad. I was like, dude, what an asshole. Like, I. I mean, I'm like, I. I was. I was so invested in, like, SEO different, you know, software and all this stuff, and I was pissed off. And then, like, you know, I. I had a Moment of self awareness. I'm like, you know what? The truth is, I'm really not making any money right now. And so that was a big aha for me. It was a very humbling moment. And you know, it's, it's, you know, like I have, what I've, what I've realized is technology is actually a hindrance to your growth in most cases, especially when you're in the early climb. And I, I consider the early climb like up to about 150 deals, like from 0 to 150. I call that the early climb. And in the early climb technology is a hinder. It's like we actually found that the teams we help are more successful if they use literally Excel spreadsheets as checklists or literally pieces of paper. And actually pieces of paper even more effective because it improves communication in the office between like coordinators and the agents. But checklists or like Excel is more effective because you don't have to spend weeks and weeks training people on how to use the damn software. And so time is a sacred resource. And so if you want to scale up fast, reduce the training time it takes to figure out how to use technologies and spend more time learning how to book appointments on the phone and convert people face to face and you know, how to be the market expert, you know, like those are the things that are ultimately going to win you more clients.

Yeah. You know, it's funny and there, there are, you know, guys that, that, that we know that lead with technology and a little bit of shiny object syndrome. And I'll ask people like you're implementing. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Let's use Salesforce for an example. Salesforce is meant for mid cap companies, like 50 to 500 million and like $100,000. Team leader is looking at a $5 million real estate team that maybe they can justify implementing a larger CRM that they have to customize and spend minimum six figures to customize. But it's that sort of stuff, like you said, that gets people 100% off track in terms of what actually matters. I want to end with one thing before I ask the question about what advice would you give your younger self? But talk about, because I think you see it a lot is people now know that growth is possible in our industry. Scaling up and building a real estate team. It's proven. But people don't want to, what's the expression? People want to play the guitar, but they don't want to learn the chords, you know? Right. So they want to be on stage and Be a rock star in scale, but they don't want to learn the chords. So talk a little bit more about, you know, mastering the skills so that you can get in the trenches with your, with your team. What does that look like? I mean, is it scripts and dialogues and you need to be able to convert at a high level before you even bring the first person into your world or what does it look like?

Yes. I mean, at a very basic level, like, you know, first base is building rapport with somebody, like making a new friend, building trust. You know, you can read lots and lots of books about that. You know, the second thing is the market expertise component. So understanding comps, understanding how to, you know, read a market absorption report and the impact that has on values going up and down and, you know, understanding various neighborhoods and, you know, the intricacies of different houses. Like, you know, that's kind of domino two and the third domino is the differentiation piece. And that's, you know, for example, in the face to face appointment, that's your buyer presentation or your listing presentation, what you're going to do to get the seller a better outcome. So that's really like, what I just described is like kind of like the outside sales function. When you're with people face to face, the next function, you know, that relates to scripts, Scripts more. So is the inside sales function, which is on the phone booking appointments, you know, having a script understanding, objection, handling. There's obviously some objection handling too with, you know, outside sales, you know, people asking about commissions and, you know, I want to hold on to my house until it gets to this value or, you know, I'm interviewing the neighborhood expert and you're not the neighborhood expert. Why should I hire you? You know, a lot of things like, you know, specific to inside sales and outside sales you have to master. Because when you do get to a point of building a team, like, you're going to have to get in the trenches and help your team members have success. You know, I, we have these, we have these things called call jams in our office. And basically the team leads sit by the agents, like a group of like three of them. And they just power dial for like an hour and a half. And, you know, the team lead needs to be able to help them on the fly, overcome objections, help them, you know, tell them, hey, you know, you need to sound more energetic. Energetic. You sound very monotone, you know, so, you know, for you to get to a point where you're building a team, you gotta be able to be that coach. It's Kind of like if you go to the gym and you get a trainer, you know, if you have the trainer, you're obviously going to do more. But, like, let's say your. Your trainer weighs 500 pounds. Like, how likely are you going to be to listen to them and how much credibility are you going to place in them? And so, you know, to be a great team leader, you know, you need to have been in the trenches before you need to be credible. You know, you have to have seen, obviously, prior success, you know, before you can, you know, teach somebody else.

So, real quick, so as you say that, how do you do that now? Have you memorialized all those things? As you're scaling up these individual agents from, you know, 25 to 100, 300 transactions, they're going into the Chris Waters, like, library of sales skills. And so they can see you doing it in real time because you're not. You're. You're like a legend in the hallways, I would imagine, in some of these locations. Like, I've heard of this guy, Chris, but. So how do you memorialize that training where now, you know, it could be executed in, you know, 20 different markets?

Yeah. So, I mean, what we've done is we. We built out an online LMS system. It's very similar to, like, what a lot of coaching companies do. And then we have live training Monday through Friday, for example, we're on Zoom sessions, and every single person is making outbound calls on Zoom. And then when somebody answers the phone, we unmute them so we can hear them, and then we give them live feedback. So there's, you know, there's ways to centralize this and, you know, help other people be able to, like, see you doing it live. But there's, there's kind of a rhythm to a team leader's role. You know, it's kind of funny. I remember one of my. Probably my biggest challenges was, like, I didn't really know what my job was supposed to be when I, like, transitioned into, like, running a. A business. And there, there's a rhythm and there's, you know, a list of responsibilities. So, for example, the call JAMS is one of them. You know, spending time on your vendor program is another one. You know, helping your agents from a market expertise perspective. So, like, teaching ongoing, like, just educational stuff specific to the market, whether that's contracts or nuances of different areas. So there's a. There's a rhythm from a. An execution and an education perspective that ideally a team leader is following. The good news is, like, in the early stages, when you're going from like 50 to 1 50, this doesn't have to be very, like, you know, regimented and it doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, you should just totally embrace the chaos. And the most, the thing you can do that's going to be the most effective, it's just getting in the trenches with your agents, like literally sitting next to them and getting them focused on doing the exact same things you did to have success as a salesperson, which is talking to a lot of people on the phone, getting, you know, face to face with people. So that means, you know, you as a team lead, you, like, shadowing people on appointments, you know, helping them, guide them through that process of converting people face to face. Like, those are the, you know, the nuts and bolts in the beginning, when you're embracing the chaos of how you're going to help, you know, your team members find more success, thus increasing the aggregate, you know, of the entire team from a revenue perspective.

Awesome. Awesome. So let's end with this question. So sitting here where I don't know, many, how many homes you've sort of been overseeing or involved in, but 10,000 plus 15. I mean, like a lot of homes, a lot of families served at this point, what advice would you give to yourself, like, knowing what, you know now, not in a regretful kind of way, but what advice would you give to yourself, like, in 2010, coming into real estate?

Yeah, anytime. So, yeah, the thing I would tell myself is at any moment in time, if I thought I was trying to guess or I thought I was trying to figure something out, I was heading in the wrong direction. And what I mean by that is something that kind of dawned on me at a certain point is NAR was formed in 1908. And this industry, this industry has been around a really long time and a lot of people have made a lot of money and figured this out. And there's something I heard on Shark Tank, Damon John said, pioneers get slaughtered and settlers prosper. And so the thing I tell myself is don't try to be all innovative and creative. And a lot of times, for me personally, the reason I wanted to be innovative and creative is because it fed my ego. And instead I needed to focus on just building a solid foundation on proven systems and processes from other people that have already done it. And then after I have a strong foundation and I've got momentum and money in the bank and, you know, some inertia, if you will, then. Then try some innovative things and experiment, but not until You've got a couple years under your belt, you know, using proven systems and processes.

Awesome. That is, that's amazing. I've taken a whole page of, of notes here in our time together. So let's, let's end with, you know, right before we hit record, I was trying to find my copy of your book. And I know you have it there and I know you built out a page where people can go to get it. And I'll say this, there are a lot of, there are a lot of books out there that are written just so someone can say they have a book. This, this was not that kind of book. You can tell that you really, you really legitimately put your heart into it, knowing that others would fail if not for this book. Meaning you try to really lay it out exactly as you would do it now, knowing what you've. Knowing what you know now with all the mistakes that you've made. So what's the easiest way to get a copy of that and connect with you?

Yeah, so you can go to. It's. The website is milliondollarrealestateteam.com. i know it's a mouthful. Million dollar real estate team.com and it's a landing page for the book. You can get a copy of the book for free. It's like five or six bucks for the book. So I give the book away for free. You got to pay shipping. I don't know where you're located. Shipping is like five, six bucks. But you can download the book there. My contact information is in the book. You can buy the book on Amazon. Any proceeds we get from anything we sell because we have the book and we created a couple courses online to help people execute the book. Any of the proceeds go to go to. It's for nonprofits, so we don't keep any of it.

Awesome. Awesome. Hold up the book just so people that are watching on YouTube can see a copy of it. Yes. You cannot miss it. Million dollar real estate team. So if you have a vision for building a million dollar real estate team, that's exactly where you'd want to go. Man. I appreciate it. There's a lot of good stuff in our conversation today. So I would say the only thing from real estate b school's angle is that if you're struggling in your journey. I think my superpower has been like the backbone of a well run real estate team. But if you want to figure out how to sell thousands of homes, you probably would want to go to Chris's stuff. I'm a master at selling 300 homes. To me, that seems to be the sweet spot for a single location real estate team. Appreciate your brother, and much love to you and your family. And if there's anything ever that I can do for you, just let me know.

All right? Great, man. Hey, it's been great being on. Thank you so much for having me.