Everything Agents Get Wrong About eXp (And Why We Need to Rethink Our Perceptions Of The Platform)
Lars Hedenborg argues agents misunderstand eXp Realty, which offers eight income streams, healthcare, tech, training, and a revenue-share model like Keller Williams. He moved his family to eXp for the healthcare and has served over 5,000 families there. He asks agents to compare what their current brokerage offers against those benchmarks.
What's up? Welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders. My name is Lars Hedenborg. I'm the founder of Real Estate B School. And if you've listened to the podcast here, you know that my mission is to just expose the truth in the real estate industry in terms of what does real success look like? My journey was one of got really busy as a solo agent and sought out leverage in terms of systems and people in order to scale my real estate business. 5,000 plus families served and all of that and all of the wins and losses and failures that come along with that. The folks as an industry that we put on a pedestal oftentimes have lots of top line sales and revenue and GCI and family served and nobody really talks about bottom line. So our job is to expose the truth and bring about strategies, tactics, tools and systems that you can use to in your real estate business so that you can live a life of true freedom. And if you listen to the last podcast episode, my guest, AJ Maida was super intentional and super focused from his early, like, I think teenage years on putting himself in a situation where he was completely free financially, completely free with his time and completely free with his location. Meaning he could make as much money as he wanted in as little time as possible, in reasonable working hours and not be tied down to a physical location. So AJ went down the path of he owned a painting company and then he got into real estate read, as we all do. We read that. We read the Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller. And Gary Keller will forever have a seat in the hall of fame. So anything I say about AJ's journey with Keller Williams is really meant no disrespect to Keller Williams, uh, only that the platform might be a little outdated at this point. And that's the story that AJ told. So he built an a real estate team and decided to, alongside his real estate team, he decided to explore this little known brokerage called exp. And in those early days, if you were like me, I was just like, you know, do not tell me about exp. Total stiff arm, total closed mind to it. You know, you're telling me this thing is disrupting the industry and you have like 2700 agents in 22 states. I don't, I don't really see it. I don't get it. At this point, EXP is 65,000 plus agents strong and growing rapidly. I think a thousand new agents a week or something crazy. And so there's no trailblazing anymore with exp. And the things that I want to talk about. I want you to go back and listen to AJ's story. It's an awesome journey. I want to talk about three things in particular that I just didn't really understand about the platform that is exp, and this is not an EXP pitch. My. My question, though is if you're not where you want to be financially, could there be a different platform that you could run your real estate business on that might help you achieve financial independence? Financial. Financial freedom, time freedom to get out of the grind of real estate. And that is, if I had to sum it up, the reason why EXP is growing doesn't matter that I joined exp. The reason it's doing its thing and it's growing is that it offers solutions to the real problems as they relate to the real estate agent. And so I'm just going to unpack not the whole story of why I joined EXP and what it looks like and how much residual income, you know, I'm getting at this point and the folks I'm partnered with and how they're building rapidly and how they're getting stuck and how we're switching over to the healthcare we have available to us, and how the tech and the training, the collaboration, how the split and the cap are lower, more aggressive, or more favorable, then I'm not really going to cover all of that. All of that is true. I just want to cover a few things that might have you slow down long enough to get with somebody that you know and respect and just study the model. I was the biggest convert in terms of, like, let's just use my faith, for example. I did not believe in Jesus at one point, and now I am following Jesus. You know, like, I'm, I'm all in. I did not believe in exp and I refused to look at it. I refused to let my guard down, my ego down, to look at it. And now that I'm in, I'm all in because it solves problems that aren't solved in any other platform that is brokerage in the industry. So number one is that EXP is just a brokerage. There are folks that, when they hear the term exp, including myself back in a couple years ago, it's just this visceral reaction, like, okay, you're the seven dozen, like seven dozen times someone's reached out to me in my local market and they're all crappy agents. They're all, you know, they all just want me to join their downline. They all like that sort of thing. EXP is just A brokerage. EXP has chosen the model to grow based on the same model that Keller Williams, the same company that's forever, you know, the top of the top in our industry grew their organization. So they chose seven levels of profit share. They had to do profit share because they have a lot of infrastructure and they have to guard against. They couldn't take anything off the top except Gary, Gary does take a 6% royalty, which is revenue share off the top. Everyone else in the organization gets profit share, which is vastly different. And so EXP modeled the seven levels of revenue share on the seven levels. Right. That's where the similarities end. Agents are excited about EXP because EXP is, is, is a, an awesome brokerage. It provides tech training, the cap, the cut, healthcare stock, you know, five ways to earn stock and revenue share if you choose to participate in it. So that's the way that it's growing. It's already a proven model to grow a real estate brokerage and it's growing twice as fast as REMAX did and twice as fast as Keller Williams did. So like I said in the intro, like we're not trailblazing at this point, like if you've just said no so many times, you don't even know why you said no to exp. You have to just slow down a little bit to consider why am I really saying no to this platform.
Right.
I'm, I'm working with folks that have scaled considerably their residual income from nothing to five figures a month in less than a year through this platform. So you've just got to slow down and realize it's just a brokerage. You're going to be able to sell homes even if you never do revenue share, anything like that. The reason it's growing is because it's based on revenue share. And that's an attractive opportunity for some. But it's just a brokerage. You can just come over and take advantage of the tech, the training, the healthcare and the favorable cap and cut.
Right.
And the collaboration and all of the making real estate fun again and the energy and the passion that we have. And so that's number one. Number two is that there are actually eight ways to get paid at exp. I'm not going to go through the entire presentation of the eight ways. Revenue share is just one of the ways. I think EXP gets such a bad rap because everyone is coming at every one of their agent friends with like Rev Share, Rev share, Rev share, Rev share. Coming to my downline, coming to my downline, right? So it comes off as this mlme. Now not all multi level marketing companies are cheesy, quote unquote. It comes off as a little MLME when the person that's presenting this platform to someone doesn't know that there are a whole lot of other income earning opportunities that we have at exp. Most every other brokerage has one way to earn income and that's through your commission check. You go out and sell a home, you pay your cap, your cut to your broker and then they tell you good job, here's your, your piece. And then you need to go out and sell another home. And we just have a whole bunch of different ways the stock, the revenue share, their dividends through our mortgage company and obviously commissions and express offers and there's just all these different ways. So again, reach out to someone, could be me if you think I do a good job explaining the model to you. But just realize that just because someone comes at you a little hot on the revenue share side doesn't mean the whole model is not worth investigating. It just means that that person's excited about that one thing. I find that folks come into EXP and they're excited about something different.
Right?
Health care. In our industry, a third of agents have no health care at all for their families. I just moved my entire family over to EXP's health care plan on September 1st because we had sort of this Medicare catastrophic health and covered nothing and it wasn't all that cheap. We got 10 times better coverage for the same price with exp. So that's a life changer for most. Another third of agents have healthcare, but they're, they're going direct to like a Blue Cross Blue Shield and they're able to save hundreds, even a thousand plus dollars per month bringing their families into EXP Healthcare. So just know there's way more to EXP than the rev share and that's like the leading sort of charge with folks. And it does turn some, some folks off, including me. It was like the thing that I thought EXP was. I'm like it's an mlm. I'm not, I'm just not interested. And I was very, very not, not confused. I was just, I was super closed off to off to it and I had no idea what the platform was really built on. Number three, I think this is the third and maybe the biggest reason why folks would say no to the EXP platform is that it's really hard for anyone but real estate agents in particular. I feel like it's really hard for us to look out into the future and even consider that it's not going to, it's not going to end well. Like selling these homes year in and year out on the wrong platform. It's hard for us to think 3, 5, 7, 10 years out and think like, hey, this is not going to lead to me being financially free in my 60s or 70s. This is not going to lead to me being able to step off of this treadmill and have some time freedom and to be able to relax and not being wrapped up in transactions and working evenings and weekends. There's going to be no bucket of stock or residual income at the end of this current path I'm on. We, we want to believe that where we are right now and what we're doing with our business and our life, we're in a good place. We want to believe that. Why else would we be where we are right now? So we have some comfort around that. And I would just ask you to ask yourself like, are you being offered health care? You know, do you get high quality tech included as part of the investment you're making in your broker? You know, are you on a super competitive cap and cut in relation to the value that you're getting? You know, are you getting trained by the best agents in your brokerage and they're giving away their best stuff for no reason whatsoever? Does your brokerage offer health care? Does your brokerage give you stock in the company not only one way for stock but five ways for stock? And does your brokerage get compensate you if you bring your friends into the brokerage year over year?
Right.
I'm paid referral fees from every agent that I've influenced to come over to exp. That's all rev share is, it's simply referral fees. And so ask yourself, like, are you, what is your broker? Another question. Is your broker or anyone in your brokerage really showing you how to build passive income and really taking a personal interest in your business, showing you how to sell more homes and in less time and get rid of the stress?
Right?
Like truly really helping you Most aren't. That's why these coaching companies, the Tom and Mike and Brian Buffini and all these massive coaching companies, they're all brokerage agnostic because the brokerages aren't solving that problem. Even Keller Williams that they claim to be a coaching centric brokerage, their coaching company is a separate business. You don't get coaching with Keller Williams included in the cap that you pay or the royalty that you pay to kwri. So it's Just a different model. So once you've kind of, you're comfortable in your current situation, ask yourself some questions like, do I have that? Do I have that? Do I have that? Then ask yourself the question, if things continue the way they are, how's it going to turn out three to five years from now? Or a better question based on where I was three years ago relative to where I am today, did I achieve my plan, my financial plans? Am I really crushing my financial goals? Am I building residual income? The only thing that is taught to us is that you need to accumulate real estate. So we're like, okay, well you know, investment probably is 250 grand in my market. I need 20% down, so I need to save 50,000. It might take two to three years to save 50,000. And then, okay, so every two to three years you're going to buy an investment property and then 15, 20, 25 years after you accumulate or you buy each of those properties, they might cash flow enough for you. Like just do the math on it and it may not work out the way that you think it may work out. And then the final question is that based on that line of questioning, like, okay, life is good now, what's not so great about your current brokerage? Be honest with yourself relative to what EXP and this platform is what will it look like in the future if you just keep selling homes on the current platform? And then ask yourself, could it be possible that this platform that EXP has built is going to help me achieve my financial goals quicker? And there's going to be a level of collaboration and training and tech that might allow me to increase my production significantly along the way. So that's my encouragement is for you to just look at it this. I am not an EXP all over everyone kind of guy. I know you should be studying the model, but you still need to figure out a way to sell a lot of real estate and not give away your life in the process. The reason I'm even in the platform that is exp. If you go to realestatebschool.com and you look on our homepage, I'm actually going to pull it up right now and I'll read it for you. Go to realestatebschool.com this is where I'm going to send you anywhere here in a second. Realestatebschool.com and you can see, just scroll down a little bit. And there's three things. Number one, I help people scale their real estate businesses. That's my first and foremost, obsession to do it in a way where you can achieve time and money freedom, that's number two on the website, so that you can have greater purpose and impact. That's been the mission of Real Estate B School and my personal passion for eight years since I started Real Estate B School. I didn't start it to create this stage where I can, you know, do a podcast and do a YouTube channel. And I'm a super introverted person. And so for me to finally come around to evaluate this platform exp and really understand it and really slow down and just stack it against all the brokerages and the independents and the real true value proposition that exists in our industry, I couldn't unsee it. They say once you see it, you can't unsee it. And I would imagine if you slowed down to study it, you would come to the same conclusion. And who you partner with matters. It matters quite a bit. So my ask is this, if you want to just study it with me, I'm not even going to try to sell you on it or I'm not going to try to attract you into our world. If you just want to study it with me, go to partnerwithrebs.com that's partnerwithrebs.com you'll just get some information on how to take a next step and book into my calendar directly. There's not going to be a hard sell. I don't need you to come to exp. I believe that once you study it, you will determine that you need to switch from the current platform that you're on, which it probably isn't going to lead to a big pile of stock. It's probably not going to lead to residual income. You're probably paying more than you need to, so you're losing cash flow on a regular basis. You're probably not getting health care, so you're probably putting your family at risk or you're paying too much for health care and you're probably not getting the tech, you're not getting the training you need to be super successful and scale your real estate business without going and paying for private coaching or productivity coaching in your brokerage.
Right?
So that's the ask is just go to partnerwithrebs.com that's partner with rebs.com and just book in for a 30 minute conversation with me. I'm not going to sell you on it. You have my word on that. I'm going to get to know you, where you are in your business and if I could possibly help you scale your business and also scale your wealth. So take a look and we'll see you over there. Be good.
