How Christal Johnson Doubled Her Real Estate Production Within 2 Years to Over $50M GCI

All right, so we are in for a treat today. I've got Crystal Johnson and you are out of the D.C. area. I just think it's a big area in D.C. there it is.

You might as well just be one huge area.

So yeah, so this is gonna be awesome. We've been working together for I think it's about three years or so. And I'm excited for you to hear the journey, the story, the struggle, the wins of Crystal and her husband Alan Johnson. So Crystal, why don't you start off just like a minute or two, like just personally what you have going on with the family and how you guys got into real estate. Just give us an overview.

Yeah, so I'll kind of chop this down into some bite sized pieces really quickly. So my name is Crystal Johnson as Lars mentioned, and I actually joined my husband Alan Johnson with his real estate business back in 2015 timeframe and I just left the federal government. I was transitioning from being a contractor and we spoke about a few times before me joined the business. So I decided to join. Allen had already been in real estate for several years. I mean to this point, I think it's now been 18 years he's been in real estate. So he was most certainly a well oil machine. He understood the business, you know, very top notch in terms of his individual performance running a real estate business. You know, when I joined, one thing that I noticed was just the fact that we needed a lot more structure, a little more systems. You know, Alan was a great entrepreneur. He could, you know, do anything for a sustainable period of time. But we knew that it wasn't necessarily set up and structured for the long haul. So we knew that we were going to have to get into coaching right away. When I first joined, I'll be honest with you, I was very skeptical about any coaching. You know, I was with someone for a short period of time. When I first got with the business, Alan really identified pretty quickly that he wasn't going to be the best coach for me to get into the business. So we paired with someone else and at first I just felt that it was a lot of lip service. You know, honestly, there was a coach who was just kind of giving me things in terms of ideology, like this is how the real estate world should work in a perfect world. Just giving me a bunch of just here's the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 inch 8 plan versus actually giving us actionable things that we could take forward to really move the business forward. So my first taste of coaching in the real estate Business was kind of sour just because I didn't feel as though I was given strategic steps that I could actually take and implement to the business to really move us forward and then just to kind of backtrack a little bit. When I first got into the team and I joined the business with my husband, we also knew we needed to do an overhaul of the people that we had on the team with us. And when we were doing that, just to say that it wasn't pretty, it was difficult, it was a big challenge. So here we are, you know, really starting from scratch and then secondarily having me, someone who wasn't necessarily into the day to day operations of a real estate business, joining the team and needing to learn. So, you know, we have our work cut out for you short.

Yeah, we're definitely going to get into that. I think that's one of the coolest thing about your story. Your willingness to, to kind of let go of what you had for something, for something better on the other side. Talk about a little, you know, what did you want to achieve? When we first started working together? And this was back in 2015.

Yeah, yeah.

Towards the end of 2015 and that year. How much volume did the business do in 2015?

In 2015 we had just blown up the team and we did about, man, if I had to go back and think about it, we did just under 32 million in volume that year we first got into business with you. So we were still going full steam ahead and we were moving pretty swiftly.

Yeah. And we'll get into it. But Crystal again mentioned at the end of 2015 you blew the whole thing up.

Yeah, we did.

And you basically, you did keep Alan, which was. We kept Alan and one assistant or one assistant.

Our transaction coordinator. She state.

Yep. So and then that next year, 2016, you went from 32. Did you, did you stay flat?

Yeah, I'm sorry, let me go back a little bit. So in 2016 is when we did the 32 million and 2015, that's when we blew the team up. And we were just beginning to start getting to business with you guys. And Alan was working basically by himself closing deals. And so we did about 80 deals that year for just over about 25 million.

Got it. Okay. Okay, good. And you blew the team up that year. You did 25 million. It was towards the end of that year, right?

Yeah.

So you went into 2016, you went from 20 to 25 to 32 million. When you were in the, when you were in transition with bringing, getting the wrong people off and bringing the right people in. What did you want to achieve when we first started working together? I think it kind of leads into.

This, but, yeah, absolutely. I. You know, when we first started working with you, honestly, we just wanted to have our life back. You know, when we first got started, as I mentioned about those transitions and going to the team and making all those adjustments, we were probably working in the business 24 hours out of 24 hours in the day. There was absolutely madness. And it was not necessarily chaos, but it was just no quality of life that we really wanted to have. So we knew that we needed to get into a relationship with a coaching team and a coaching business like B School that would help us kind of gain our life back and get a lot more structure to our environment. So we were going hardcore with hiring and recruiting the right people, and we were able to pick up some great folks, and, you know, the coaching program was able to give us a lot more structure. We had been shooting from our hip. Again, raw talent is a powerful thing, but raw talent only takes you. But so far, and we just realized that without us having the right tools, system structure, from hiring, from accountability, from the stance of just understanding how to really grow a business and not just have a job, that it was going to be critical for us. And we knew that. We found all those things when we got on a call with Lars and we understood what B school was all about.

And let me ask you. We talk a lot about time, money, and stress. Like, it's this equation. Whether you're in real estate or you're in corporate job or, you know, you're giving a good part of your waking hours to a thing, you know, time to generate some level of financial, you know, some money, and then you don't want it to stress you out, especially when you're a husband, wife, you know, business partnership. Right. I mean, it's hard enough to do it at all, let alone do it with the person that you need to sleep next to and you want to, like, at the end of the day. And in 2016, what age are your children now?

Our girls are 8 and 5. So, you know, when we're looking back to that time period, I mean, we had little girls. I mean, you had a toddler in house. I had one just starting, you know, kindergarten. It was most certainly a stressful time in our lives just because we had a lot of transition going on. And then just for me, you know, coming from a background where I was in the same industry with the Same company for 11 years and just diving into something completely different. Now. While I had a solid understanding of real estate in general, Alan and I were investors. So we were business partners in that aspect as well. I have a clue about residential real estate and actually real estate sells from the standpoint of helping clients.

And so as you settled into working in the team 2016, what were the biggest problems that you saw with the business? Because 25 million, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Right? You know, but you just realize that to take it to another level, another level, you need to do it totally differently. But what were the problems you were facing?

You know, the number one problem that we had was that there was a lack of accountability. At that point, people were kind of just coming in when they felt like it. You know, even from us, the leadership team, we weren't necessarily dialed in to a schedule and making sure that we were holding ourselves accountable to performing at the highest level that we could, could. So the number one thing I would say was accountability. Just making sure that we understood exactly, accomplish and hold ourselves and our feet to the fire with every single day. The second thing I would say was just making sure that we identified what our culture was going to be. I remember pretty vividly going to the first intensive with real estate business school and we really talked about culture. And on the plane ride back, Allen and I sat down and we literally wrote out, you know, our core values. We wrote out the mission of the AJ team and we got really clear just about what it is that we wanted our business to represent. And once we did that, I would just tell you, a lot of things just changed in our team. I mean, we were able to really identify talent that were in line with our values. We were very clear about what we wanted to focus on on a day to day basis. You know, just those types of aspects were things that just really help us move forward. So, you know, the first thing I would say is accountability is we really need it. The second thing is just clarity on what it was that we were doing with this business and how we wanted to portray ourselves to the public.

And so let me dig in a little bit in terms of like, what, what was on the line and what did it mean to get things going in the right direction. So you're coming off that 25 million year. You left this stable corporate job. Alan's not doing bad. He's just surrounded himself with people that didn't have structure, accountability. But what did it mean for your, for your family and for your business to get this thing on track?

Yeah, I Mean, I think that's a. That's a good question, Lars. And this, you know, it's one of those questions where, you know, it definitely brings back memories and gets things a little bit more emotional. What really mattered to me was that I think we were at a place where Alan was burning at both ends of the candle, right? Both ends were lit, was melting down all the way to the middle. He wasn't really sure about whether or not he wanted to utilize his real estate sales business as a mechanism for our future financial success for the long haul. He was looking at it from angle of, well, I'll do real estate kind of on a 80% basis, and then I'll spend the rest of my time doing real estate investing. I think this is where we can put most of our energy. And it was a little bit of a smack in the face for me, right, because I felt as though I was leaving a career to join this business. And it was going to be something that we were really going to build together. And I think that once we got clear and we really connected with a coaching program that understood that this wasn't just about us making a lot of money. It was about our family, about how we could really build and grow and how we needed to connect just as individuals. And then as a team, as a family, it just made us understand that we really utilize real estate as not just a beneficial tool to help grow us, but to grow people around us. One of the things that Al and I are very proud of and that we really like to do is develop other people. So we realized that the business that we were going to grow wasn't just about us. It was about the opportunity we were going to create for other families, for other agents who come into our sphere, for the families that we're helping and connecting them with other folks in the community. So, you know, once we got so clear about that, that really put us on the right track just to make sure that, number one, that we were on the same page, that we were after the same things. Then secondarily, just to make sure that we were able to build our desire and our passion of really helping and developing others.

Yeah, that's awesome. And what I want to just say it, but what's one thing that you weren't able to do? You really weren't able to show up authentically in the team that Alan had built. And the way the team is structured today, I mean, you guys are able to show up as yourselves with recommitted, knowing that speed of the leader, speed of the pack. But talk about that shift. Like, what was it like when you stepped into this company? And maybe a little bit toxic environment versus what you guys have now.

Yeah, you know, what I'll say is that I can't say anything bad about any of the people who were here before. We just brought in individuals who weren't necessarily a reflection of who we were and who we wanted to represent. So we knew right from the start, when I joined the team and Alan knew before I got here that that was going to be the difficult part. Just kind of breaking, you know, ties with those individuals and rebuilding to our values that we wanted. And one of the things that, you know, we do now as a team that we could have never done before. It's just really getting clear about our spirituality and our faith. You know, to this day, you know, every single Monday through Friday, our entire team, we do devotion because we know that our faith in God is very important. We were able to connect with people who also are passionate about that. And those who aren't passionate about it, they're okay with it. So it's been just fine. But, you know, the thing that it's done for us as a team is, number one, it's given us a deeper level of connectivity. Knowing that our purpose and our why and why we're in this business every single day is not driven by money. It's driven by our ability to really help people, to bless others and to really live out, you know, you know, our faith and our spirituality in a way that helps support others and grow others. You know, we pray for our clients, and I don't know what their religious background is, and we just ask them, do you mind if I pray for you? If they're going through a difficult time? And guess what? No one has ever told us no. And that is so fulfilling in business because we get to create the environment that we want and the environment that we desire. And I don't think that we would have felt we had the freedom to do that if we didn't get clear about it, you know, through even working with you. Lars, like Lars, has always been extremely upfront about his faith and his spirituality. And I think that's also given us the confidence to kind of take that into our business and knowing that such a huge part of us.

Yeah. And whatever your. I find a lot of business owners, a lot of team leaders, they don't really live out their true selves, whatever that is. They don't live it out of their business because they're afraid of their Team members. You know, even if it's like, man, I was a world class athlete in college and I'm not going to apply that structure and accountability to my business. It's like, you're crazy. You have this like unique thing you could bring into the business world and somehow we get sheepish about those things, whether it's faith or whether it's hard work or so that's really cool. Let's dig into the nitty gritty. The tactics, the tools, the systems. What would you say that the three most impactful tools, systems or strategies that you've worked on with real estate B school?

I would say number one was when we were hitting the reset button and we were blowing up our team. One of the things that I know I personally needed clarity on when I joined the business was what does the team structure really look like and what do I need to be able to have and who do I need to be in order to really, you know, grow a group of people to a level of just performance and individual growth? That's necessary. And you know, one of the things that I think I took away first and foremost from real estate B school was helping me understand what that structure should look like and how to really set up that culture. You know, when we blew the team up, we weren't really sure what to do. When we started looking at the finances, I mean, our splits were all over the place. We weren't holding our money accountable. I mean, we had tickets to baseball games and basketball games. And yet we were like, wait a minute, what's our money look like at the end of the day? So with that being said, you know, I think that Lars and all the coaches at B school kind of gave us a smack in the face, like, look, you got a really, number one, the understanding of how you want to run a business and making sure you have a great bottom line. And then secondarily, you got to hold your money accountable. So, you know, just implementing, you know, different scorecards and making sure that we were very clear on our setting a budget and understanding how to follow that and holding our money accountable through all the technology and tools was extremely beneficial for us. That really got us set up on the right track. You know, while I was saying that we were doing 25 million right before we joined B school or right in that first year afterwards, you know, we, our bottom line didn't look that great. You know, getting clear on those items really changed what our bottom line looked like. When I take on what's in the.

Air and let me I want to demystify. When you say culture, I want to demystify it a little bit, because it's really not complicated. But when you see it in the context of, like, you know, we had to leave this culture, and we had to build a new culture, people are like, okay, like. And it's quite simple. You know, it's. You talked about core values. It's right people, right seats. You know, core values is. It's just like, are you who we need on our team? Like, hustle, work hard, you know, embrace accountability and discipline? Those are two of our core values. That if you don't have those, you're literally just. It will be so obvious you don't fit on our team, and you have a set of core values that do the same. And then. Right seat. We invite people onto our team that have never done the thing we need them to do. We just hope they're gonna do it. And we hold them to no structure whatsoever. And it's like, you're not serving them to a next level in their life. So I just want to demystify that a little bit. What's your takeaway on that? Like, you really didn't have it at all in the old company. And then how did you really. How does culture show up every day in your business?

Yeah, I think that. I mean, you're absolutely right, Lars. When people used to say that word, I'd go to conferences, and I hear it posted throughout Culture, culture, culture. And, I mean, even from the corporate standpoint, you know, we had this very dry and, you know, I don't know. I can't even explain. It doesn't even make any sense. You know, it was extremely, like, rigid type of culture and core values that no one really ever lived up to. But when we got into B school and really started, you know, demystifying and really breaking it down for what it really. What it really truly was, we realized that, you know, culture is just who you are and who you want to attract and how you guys all march that same, you know, beat. And for us, it was really about, you know, we're very giving people. So our number one core value is just. And we feel like that can fall into any aspect of your life, whether that be business, whether that be personal, whether it be with your family, will they be the person that you meet on the street? It's just, at the end of the day, if we go into this and we go into our objectives every day with the intention of being a blessing to those people that we're serving, We've already won. That's number one for us. The second thing for us, if you don't show up, you're not going to fit for us, if you don't want to be a master of your craft, at the end of the day, if you say you want to serve people to the highest level and that's what we want to do, then you need to be diving deep into your activities and being an expert at the job that you do by studying the market, understanding the market, speaking to people about the market on a consistent basis. And that is very easy for us. It's very clear if you're not showing up for that, because with our team meetings that we have every week, everyone is ready to come in there and contribute to a high level. And the last one, I would say that, you know, we have five, but the last one I think is probably the most important out of those other two was just being someone who really is committed to being a proactive solution. We found that in the past, the members on our team were most certainly individuals who wanted to receive a lot but didn't want to give. And we knew that that is not what we wanted going forward. We wanted people who were thinkers, who were ready and prepared to give and who were proactive at their approach of making sure that we could all be the best version of ourselves. So again, those are just three things for us in our business. It shows up like a sore thumb if you're not following through on those objectives. And we realize that, you know, as we focus on getting people who have the capacity and the willingness to actually want to do those things, that we could be very successful.

That's awesome. And yeah, so be a blessing, be a master of your craft, be the solution, be a giver like you can get a sense of. And these are things you can interview to say, Crystal, tell me. So give me like 10 examples of how you bless your blessing every day. And it doesn't have to be like you have to like, if you're not a believer, the baptism tank is right there. Like a blessing is like everyone understands it. So it is a total demystifying. I want to dig into the other thing you mentioned was tracking and knowing your numbers and, and agent splits and all that. We call that kind of the economic model. Let's dig into that a little bit. What was it like when you stepped into this business in terms of tracking and financials and scorecards?

What was it like non existent, to be completely honest with you, it was like a spreadsheet that had some numbers on it that weren't consistent. I couldn't really figure out exactly where we pulling this data from. So when I got in, I tried to clean that up as best as possible. So we can really have true numbers. Exactly. To reflect our performance. And then when we came into B school, it was the economic model was so just easy to grasp. It gave you a very clear indication of how you could run the business and run it in such a way that you would be able to see exactly where you were going to fall and how you're going to perform on a daily basis. Not even at the end of the month like before. We're just waiting to the end of the month and seeing how much did we earn and how much did we spend and what does that really look like? And now with the economic model that we've employed for B school, we can see that every day. I have a running tally of what's happening and what's going on in the business, and we can quickly adjust and make changes. The biggest challenge for us, I won't call it, wasn't difficult. It was a challenge, was when we were introduced to the economic model and we started looking at how we were compensating agents, and we realized that we didn't really have a breakdown as related to, you know, the sources of business. And when we got very clear of our sources of business, we realized that we were probably spending a lot more and giving up a lot of commissions, more commissions than we needed to, and that what we could afford to, honestly, at the end of the day, we were finding ourselves not necessarily running a business, but we were kind of running a, you know, I'll just call it like a soup kitchen. Right? We're just handing out leaves and good luck, and I hope they all convert for you and you make money and give me back $10 later. You know, it wasn't that bad, but it felt that way. So once we got the economic model into play, we realized that we were able to really tighten up those numbers, make those financials work for everyone. So, you know, just so everyone's clear, it doesn't mean that when we're looking at commission splits and the financials and things of that nature that, you know, we're looking at the opportunity for us to kind of walk away as, you know, living high on the halt, as they say in the south, right? We looked at it from the angle of how can we make sure that everyone is able to live a lifestyle that they never imagined and that they're all being well compensated, while also of course supporting the business that supports them.

If I could take anything that's ever been said about the funny, like I, I'm almost getting tears in my eyes and I literally have goosebumps. I'm not even joking. I'm getting emotional because what you said right there is most team leaders will never grasp the concept that having an economic model, knowing your numbers, knowing that I can't afford, and it comes back to value based commission splits. Like agent, where is your value in this transaction? I bought the Zillow lead. It's really freaking expensive in the D.C. area just to be able to afford this lead. I cannot pay you 50% on it. I can't even pay you 40% on it. I can pay, you know, whatever the numbers are. And we run our business the same exact way. Our team, it's a hundred percent transparency on our financials with our team. We don't run this model to take advantage of people. We run it so that we're going to be in business three to five years from now. You know, so there's so much goodness in there. Like the economic model is basically. What model are you following? Do you even have a model for what you can afford to pay your agents? What you can afford for marketing, for people, for overhead. You talked about value based commission splits and really breaking down for an agent to understand when it's your sphere and I had nothing to do with it. That's how you get paid. When we set the appointment for you and it's Alan's best friend and Alan doesn't do production anymore, it's obviously paid and they'll understand it because they're like, yeah, I'm cool getting $2,000 for 10 hours work. Like I don't know where else I can get $200. But if you don't have that conversation with them ahead of time, you know, they'll think it's unfair and you're taking advantage of them. And then you talked about lead sourcing, lead sourcing and lead tracking and tracking your return on investment on lead sources. And it's not for everyone what I'm about to say, but it's what has caused our team to 100% turn off any paid home search leads. Because that business of like you Zillow generate the lead and then you sell it to me, it's a losers. Like in the long term it's, you're gonna lose that game. You know, we've helped people in boardroom get rid of $21,000 a month. Of Zillow spend because the team leader was losing hundreds of dollars on each closing. And the agents were like, this is great. I love these leads, you know, so that's so good. And yeah, so, so, so, so good. So talk about the results you've achieved. So we know 25 million. When you stepped into this bees nest, whatever you said it didn't do. Then you did the year where it was Alan really just digging in, figuring out core values. That 2016, you did 32 million. What did 17 and 18 look like? And what did the time, money, stress look like for you and for you and Alan?

Yeah. So let's see. I think in 17, we did 52 million. 18, we took a little bit of a step back and we did about 47 million. But let's kind of talk about what's more important with that. So the year we did, 52 million, great year. Of course, we can all cheer and say, rah, rah, rah. But we also know that that was still a year where we were growing, expanding, and still trying to get our, you know, our feet underneath us, so to speak. It was a great year. I can't take anything away from that success. We worked really hard. We got some great new just blood on the team that were really ready to fall into the core values, who were very much a master of their craft practice solutions, really hungry, driven. They really went after it. And so we had a great year. You know, still we're trying to strike a good balance with work and family life. You know, anytime you're growing a business, it's never going to be perfect. It's one of those things where you're going to have to put some time in, but the time is a little bit different. You know, instead of Alan, you know, spending, you know, you know, 80 hours a week, you know, doing sales, you know, he was spending 80 hours a week doing half as many sales, but coaching and building business. Right. So it was just a changing how his time was being spent so he could really continue to focus on growing the business and myself as well. And then as we looked into 2018, you know, we had a couple of challenges in terms of just staffing. We had a couple of team members who were relocating out of the area. So that wasn't fun at all because they were great, great fits to our team, and we definitely still miss them. And then we had to, you know, get back on the recruiting training. And so one of the things I'll tell you is that, you know, Lars has told us every year since We've been in business with him that you can never stop recruiting. We weren't the best listeners, to be honest with you. And this is where I would tell you that swag coaching is always necessary. So even if you feel as though you are meeting your mark and you are doing great and you are having these great strides and you had your best year ever, it can all start trickling back if you didn't really follow the plan. And I think that's what we discovered in 2018 is the fact that since we hadn't been recruiting because we were so focused on growing productivity, that we really missed. We missed it. You know, we missed the bus when it came to the fact that we had people leave and we didn't have anyone on the bench to replace them. So we spent a lot of time in the back end of 2018. And you looked at our financial picture, you would most certainly see the fact that we ramped all the way up through the summer, and then we started coming right on down at the end of the year. And a lot of that was driven by the fact that we had to shift focus and have our, you know, our eyes glued on recruiting. So with that being said, one of the things that I will never do again is stop recruiting. We'll always make sure we keep our hiring process on so that we can continue to grow and build a team and not have to go through what we did in this past year of trying to get the right talent in place again.

Yeah. And I'll say a few comments on there because you jumped on yourself as, like, explaining why you didn't grow year after year after year after year. And growth is measured in so many different ways. And I know you and Alan personally, and I know that you guys are playing a long, not only the eternal, you know, like, that part of your beliefs, but you're playing a long game in business. And so when you're playing a long game in business, the growth for growth sake and the frustration, and maybe you were frustrated, but you're not so focused. Like, this year doesn't have to be the year we go from 52 to 75. And so maybe if that feels like that for you, I just give you permission to. It's okay to not grow as long as you're like, I'm leaving this year with the most solid 80% automated recruiting system that I could ever have. Right. And. And I. We made that mistake last year. This is my 11th year in business. You know, we let the recruiting simmer, you know, go from a Like, it's really producing to like a little bit below a simmer. And now we're having to like resurrect it because we need to hire people again. So it's just human nature. But I'll say that I think that, I think the third thing. You mentioned culture, you mentioned economic model. I think your third thing is probably, that's one thing for you guys is just recruiting and surrounding yourself with talent. And the fact that that's a whole talk about recruiting and how, I mean, you've heard me talk about how I've messed it up, but what, what can you share about recruiting with everybody that you've done really well?

Yeah, our recruiting journey has been quite the bumpy road, to be honest with you. When we first started, it was most certainly, oh, you know, this person introduces a friend of a friend to us and say, oh, we think they'd be great at cells. And we talk to them and have a conversation with them about sales. Didn't think about their track record, didn't really think about what they really had. We just want to know if we like them. You know, they seem nice and personable and they'd be a great fit to the team. And that's how we recruited. Fast forward to today, and our recruiting system is completely different. You know, at the end of the day, number one, everyone has to be a culture fit. Right? There is no, there's no way around not being a culture fit. Like, you have to be a culture fit before you can even have the conversation about whether or not you can join the team. Right. So that's the beginning part of the recruiting process. And then the secondary part is, do you have a track record that has proven your performance? We're still getting there. To be honest with you. It's such a journey, you know, it's hard sometimes recruiting individuals who come with, you know, all the skills and all the boxes checked off. And so we have some that we're going to have to develop and we are taking that risk. But our target is to really go after individuals who have a proven track record, who show that they have demonstrated success in sales in the past. And we're recruiting for administrative again, who administrated success on being able to function in a high level, high powered, high productivity type of environment. We have our system set up so that we're constantly recruiting. So we use a system that is posting our ads for us on a daily basis and refreshing those ads on a regular basis twice a week. I'm looking at all applicants and all Candidates that are coming in, reviewing resumes, reviewing their assessments, choosing who we want to move forward. Once a month we're having a meet and greet. During that meet and greet and these are all processes that we took from B school. So, you know, rip off and duplicate. I will most certainly attest to that.

R and D for sure. Rip off and duplicate.

Rip off and duplicate. I can attest to the fact that I did not come with any of these ideas. They are not original. And then, you know, the meet and greet gives us an opportunity again to see whether or not that culture fit is there and decide to move them on. And from there it's like a nine step process. And you know, it's nine steps that take quite a bit of time. But we know that on the other end of that, the folks who are committed, who are passionate, who are actually the right fit for the job, they're going to stick through it and we've been able to have some good success.

Yeah. And that right there, I mean, getting set up on the right culture, the right financial model and then having the right way to harness talent, I mean, that's the entire business right there. And then there's all the challenges with onboarding them, which we won't get into, which perennially, you know, we all have those challenges. Let's shift gears a little bit. Talk to me about, you know, objections. When we first started having conversations about coaching, you know, what were the objections or the thoughts in your mind? Like, I almost didn't join Ira. I really didn't believe what Lars was saying. You know, what were you thinking in terms of objections at the time?

You know, to be completely honest with you, I was very open at the time because I knew where we were and I knew that we couldn't stay there. I was very clear on the fact that at the end of the day we needed to make changes. So I did come into the coaching program eyes wide open, especially once I had the one on one coaching call with you and understood that you were going to give us extremely actionable steps to take to move the business forward versus the old coaching that we've had. But if I had to say any objection, I think the first one was more of heartburn when we really started talking about financials and really having to reveal our financials and making sure that we were comfortable doing that. I think a lot of time and many small businesses that we like to hide behind screens, so to speak, you know, we don't like to open ourselves up or any type of negative feedback or Draw any negative attention that we perceive to be negative to ourselves. So the biggest part, I think, was the challenge was just getting clear about the fact that we had to be an open book and that we had to be able to show what we were doing well and really, really show the things that we weren't doing well and where we were vulnerable and we needed help. I think that was one of the biggest challenges. If any objection. If I had to talk it from. Speak to it from Alan's point of view, I would say that when we talked about commissions and changing commissions, Alan thought that was the craziest thing ever, that there was no way that we were going to be able to retain or keep talent because it just. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. But once we really went through it, I mean, today he probably wouldn't even admit that that's how he felt about it. Like, no, of course. I always thought that made sense.

That's awesome. What's been your favorite part of real estate? B school.

Oh, man. I would say my favorite part is just the community. You know, there are so many just talented people in this group. I mean, just highly intelligent, very talented, willing to share, very open and honest. You know, the community is probably the best aspect of it. You know, it's very hard in this business to get people who are honest and who are willing to be vulnerable. You know, we go to all these huge events all the time, and everyone wants to talk about, you know, their numbers and the productivity that they did, but they never want you to peer behind that curtain. Like I said, they don't want to show you the bottom line because they know that they found out. Right. Or what they perceived and found out that they're a fraud or something like that. And the truth is that they would probably all benefit from being a part of a community like this because they would grow and they would understand how to run a business more effectively, and they would understand how they could keep more of their earnings versus spending it on these, you know, erroneous lead sources that are just costing so much money. So if anything, I think it's a community, and I think it's having the ability to really communicate with people on a very vulnerable level. And we know that we're all in it to be successful, and there's no shame. There's no shame at all. We can just kind of all move forward together and kind of help us grow our businesses.

Yeah. And in the last, like, three minutes, you've said vulnerable four times. And I think it's like a hundred percent of like the challenge, I think just society in general, but real estate specifically because it's where we play. We just see guys and girls that are, they put on this like suit of armor and like you know, yeah, we did, you know, whatever, however many transactions. But nobody knows if they made money, if they're suffering on the inside, if their stress level, if they're not present with their spouse. I mean I interviewed two guys that to the top guys in our industry and they both have lost marriages, you know, and it's like what kind of success is that, you know, really. And there's no, I mean there's no shame, right? We all get in positions where and hopefully and they've learned from it. But it's like I don't want that to be the thing that catapults you into, you know, now you're going to be focusing on yourself. And so let me ask you, who would you recommend real estate B school to and why?

Man, that's a great question. When I think back on it and even from where we are today, I would recommend it for anyone who is running even an individual business who's looking towards going towards a team or has a small team who's doing anywhere from 50 to 100 transactions a year and they really want to catapult that to another level. I also would recommend it to individuals who won't balance in their coaching program. And what I mean by that is, you know, kind of taking back on what Lars just mentioned was the fact that, you know, this program is not just about, you know, running successful estate business. While that is probably, you know, a good chunk of it and that's the part that's probably important to people who are out there looking. The part I think is more important is that, you know, there's such a strong emphasis on your personal well being, on your family's well being, on your ability to just be a well rounded individual who happens to be a successful business owner. You know, if you're someone who is just kind of struggling to get a grant on things, who just need clarity in their business, who need to figure out how do I just bite down chunks, you know, chunk down these sizes of how I need to move this business forward on a day to day basis, this is a program for you. It's going to be able to help you gain that clarity that you want. It's going to be able to help you put your life into counterbalance. Because I don't believe in balance, but it's a counterbalance where you know you're being able to fulfill your obligations to your family, to your spouse, to your loved ones, well, as be successful at running your business. So if you're looking for someone or a program that's going to help you to achieve all of those things, then this is certainly the place for you.

Yeah. And I appreciate that. And the only thing I'll add is, yeah, it is the, just the real part of business. Like let's just look at the stuff that it's not perfect. Let's just put it on the table. You know, it's gonna hurt for just a little bit. Let's just put it out there and talk about it. But it's, it's. And I like what you said about the community. I think it's something that is completely rare. I've been in other coaching programs in and out of the real estate industry. I'm in a similar to. It's actually called Boardroom. It's where I got the name for the level that you're in. I'm in that with another coaching company and we've just broken into a little bit of authenticity and vulnerability in that group with an exercise. But it took, you know, a good two or three years to get there. So if you've achieved traditional success and the equation doesn't make sense, right. You're spending too much time in the business, there's too much stress, maybe the money's good, but you're sacrificing other areas of your life. It's time to just go to realestatebschool.com and the first step, the only step, is a business growth strategy session. It's obvious there on the website what that step looks like. And you know what Crystal shared today is there was a lot of short term pain around doing what Kristen and Alan had to do. They did it because they only get one shot at life. Right. We are only here physically on earth for a period of time. Their children are still young where they could pivot and build this business in a way where they could serve their family, they could serve each other differently, they could serve their community. So if this story hits you in the same way that it hit me, it almost brought me to tears. When Crystal's talking about freaking numbers, I'm like, oh, it's so great. So go to realestatepeacechool.com Crystal, thank you for your time. I know you're a busy woman and we appreciate you and I just respect you and Alan more than I possibly could tell you. So I just appreciate you guys. Thank you so much.

Anytime, Lars. Appreciate you. All right, Sam.