How Dan Jones Quadrupled His Production and Works Less Than 40 Hours Per Week | Real Estate B-School

All right, so we're in for a treat. I've got Dan Jones here and this is sort of a near and dear to my heart story as Dan and I spent some time on the same team together when he first moved to Charlotte. We're in the same market and I got to go to this guy's wedding. And so just a cool story here. Dan, why don't you introduce yourself like a 60 second, where's the team at today? Maybe something about you personally.

Cool. So team is doing extremely well. We're in the recruiting process. That's one of our major rocks of the year is to recruit and build this thing out to 13, 14 strong agents deep. But we are in the same market as Lars and started in the same market, kind of different areas. But take some big steps this year and put some real key piece to the puzzle with sales manager, a couple ISAs, listing coordinator, buyer side, transaction coordinator. And I just feel really confident where we're at, man. And just looking forward to this year in 2020 and putting some even bigger pieces to the puzzle together. But overall we're doing well and just looking for a great 2019.

And where'd you end up 2018 sides volume.

We did roughly 245 transactions. Little bit disappointed with that, but still a fair year. We did a little over 60 million volume wise and looking to get to about over 80 million this year.

And not to jump into coaching mode, but most people that are listening to this would love to do 245 signs in a year. So it's all about perspective. Maybe you missed your goal for that year, but still an amazing year because where'd you start out in 2000? What'd you do in 2015?

2015, 2015. We did end up doing 104 transactions. We were on pace, kind of that low 60, 70, kind of like we did the year before. Before joining B school, we got into triple digits and just been growing from there. But it was positive because I think last year was the first year. Our profit margin, even though we only did 240 transactions, profit margin was the highest ever. And even though the heavy buyer transaction side of the business with lower splits on that side, we still had some really good numbers overall. So I don't want to beat ourselves too up. And on top of that, it was the first year I felt like I was truly, completely, completely separated from the business and did the things in the business that I really wanted to work on. So that's a huge plus for last year though.

Yeah. And give some Context to that. So we had a goal to get you out of production by a certain time. For what reason?

So I wanted to work on the business and be able to have a little bit more of a structured life within real estate and be a proper, true business owner. That in 2015, the spring intensive, my very first intensive, it was more discovering what we're doing, why we're doing it, who we're looking for. And it was really in the fall 2015 is when we did, you know, really distinguish what we really wanted to do. And I decided and spring 2017, I was gonna be out of production. And essentially we put all the pieces into place. Stuff we need to do that in early 2017 and then why do you.

Want to get out of production? Why?

Good question. You know what, I actually don't mind production. I like with people, but there's two different mindsets and it's really growing and owning a business versus being in production and hopping in and out of both, it's. I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it's not fun. And you can't really be a business owner like fully involved in the day to day actions if you're, you know, it's hard to co mingle the two that. I just wanted some structure and to be able to really work on the business and put pieces that are going to keep this on the map, you know, at the very top for years to come. So. And plus I will, you know, I wanted a life like I've worked 60, 70 hours with no ending in sight, you know, doing 60, 70 hours a week, you know, and trying to start a family. I knew that was not sustainable and I wanted to stay in my marriage more than a year or two. So I think that was a very.

Wise decision and that's exactly what I was getting at. So the reason why production is hard.

It'S hard when you want to be.

A good husband and be, you know. You were able to take two months off when Charlotte was born.

Yeah, a little bit more. About two months and change. Yeah, yeah.

So there was this like, you know, this imminent. We knew this human being was coming into the world and that was my motivation to sort of help you build the business in such a way where you had some freedom from it. Let me ask you, going back to when we first started working together, what did you want to achieve back then? Like what were the big sort of concerns and problems you had back then?

Yeah, I think our number one problem was people. So hiring the wrong people, surrounding yourself with the Wrong people, people who shouldn't been in sales, real estate in general, that was probably number one. Number two, after about two to three months in my first intensive with B school and figuring out why I was doing this, who I was trying to impact, why I'm trying to impact, that was kind of a six to 12 month journey around, what are we looking to do here? Why am I looking to do it? And then once we've mapped that out, is putting a game plan. So, okay, I'm going to be in production for X amount of time so I can fix, really work on these things and build a healthy business that's going to thrive. And then finally it's just budget and financing really. It felt like I was selling a lot of houses. I had some agents selling some houses, but the financing portion and the kind of tracking, it just felt like there was a huge gap. Yeah, a lot of money came in, but a lot was going out. And kind of knowing what to spend, how to spend it and when to spend it was probably the three top crucial things that I had to do to really form a business that in my opinion is worth owning. And number two, worth joining. If you were a team member coming onto the team to have that structure and know your team leader was financially stable and you guys weren't going to, you know, we weren't going to sink when the market shifted. But I really like that, you know, especially with the financing having a proper P and L and knowing my numbers of what I needed to spend. So from a financial standpoint, without that you can sell the house you want, but you know, if you're not making money and profitable, you can't grow. So that those are my top three.

Yeah. And you know, I mean, I could probably spend a couple days on it. I want to touch on it lightly. I think it's the big thing that's being revealed across the country by teams that did not set themselves up properly. I'm in some high level masterminds, teams doing anywhere from 2 to 6 million GCI that are losing money. Straight up losing money. And like how does that even happen, you know? And it's, it's because nobody really sat down and decided like, hey, what do I want this thing to look like? You know, where a lot of these teams are chasing growth for growth sake versus like no matter how many homes I sell, I know I'm gonna, I'm building it on the right model and I'm gonna be, you know, I'm gonna be successful. So talk about that a little bit you know, we were. It brings back such warm memories when we used to do our business reviews because Dan and I are in the same market and we used to get together in my office when we were starting to work together, and you'd come in with your orange, with your yellow legal pad and you'd be. I'll be like, let's review your financials. And you take out your legal pad. And I'm like, and. And he'd have them all written. And I'm telling you that is legit. Like if you're willing to write out your. And know your numbers because you actually physically wrote them down where most agents and team leaders just maybe they have a bookkeeper doing them, but they don't even know what's going on. They don't even look at them. So talk about economic model. Knowing your numbers and the shift that you were able to make from when we first started working together to the point now where I hear you talk about your numbers and like, you know, it down to the tenth of a percent where you are with your profit. Talk about that shift.

I think the. I think the obvious one for most people would be just around the idea of what you need to spend to be successful on the marketing side. So starting out and still to this day, you know, we went a lot deeper on our sphere of influence and past clients. But back in 2014, 15, 16, we didn't have a huge sphere of influence base like some people, they run their business, they've been in business for 20, 20 plus years. So we had to do all lead gen and the amount of money that we were spending on lead gen to really generate the amount of business we did was probably three times the amount is what we really needed to be spending. So right off the bat, knowing that where what you need to spend with the amount of sphere of influence for the amount of agents and the amount of volume you're gonna do, right? And then you turn all these things off and then you only have one, maybe two lead sources going at the most. And we only went with one. We simplified everything and we went, you know, all in on, you know, tiger leads at the time. And when we did that, I learned the idea of everyone needs to be on the same page on every single buyer objection, seller objection. In our scripts. And we just practice and pract in practice. We have hundreds of training calls. Actually, I'd like to pull some back up from 2015 all the way to this very day. We still record our training calls for new agents. But you learn that you have to go deep as hell with every single lead because you can't have 50, 60, 70 leads going per agent on a monthly basis. Even yourself. You don't need that many. I think just the discipline around knowing how much I needed to spend and just having faith. That's all I needed to spend. So obviously that, that's coming off this, you know, strictly on the, on your bottom line on your net to saying, okay, if these are the numbers and the parameters I need to be at, I want to shoot for 8 to 9% marketing lead, Gen spend that. If I can do that and everyone on my team can hit 30, 35, 36 buyer transactions by just going deeper and training harder, then we're doing something right. And I think from just grit standpoint, like if you could ask our agents, I'd love to ask them this, actually, I might have you do that. What's one word you would describe on how, how we work on our, with our leads that come into us and it's grit. And we don't, we're relentless. We don't stop. You know, we're texting them, they tell us, no, that's okay, we want to follow back up with you. But when you know there's only a certain amount coming in, that's huge. That's huge. And that's just, you know, the mindset around knowing what you need and going deep as hell. Like with every single lead and opportunity that you have to convert. It's powerful because the agents learn afterwards. Like, wow, I don't need all these leads. I only need to have like 15, 20 true, meaningful, meaningful, deep conversations to get to my 10 to 12 appointments. You know, and if I go deep with those, I can sell five, six houses. Like, that's, you know, so that, that's, I think that's more of a, you know, kind of who I am. But knowing that the finances behind it, believing in it and just acting on it, especially without a huge sphere of influence database that's going to bring me 80, 90 deals a year. I just don't have that even to this day. I mean, we will do 75 deals. That'll be our most this year. We're on pace, maybe a few more. But in 15 and 16, I didn't have that. So to get that from B school immediately, not only did it just offer some financial kind of cushions that, okay, wow, I can breathe and have extra 2, 3, $4,000 a month. It taught my team that we're going crazy deep with our leads and we're recycled Leads. So I think that's the biggest principle I've walked away with from day one that's even carried over until today with what we handle leads in the office.

Yeah. Talk about one thing that I've seen you do really well is, and I'm sure it's not as bringing people onto the team and managing them is always, it's never an easy thing. But I've really seen you do a really good job of not like having a knee jerk reaction to recruiting. Like, oh, I gotta recruit. You dump five agents and you have like one a year out. Talk about like the process, like what you learned in real estate B school about recruiting. How have you implemented in the team? You know, your growth has been like, you know, it's kind of like the tortoise in the hare. It's been like you're the tortoise. Like no matter what, you're walking in this direction, right. And you've got this armor battle on this shell. Like I don't care what's going on around me, I'm following this model, I'm walking this way. I'm grabbing one thing at a time, you know, not this knee jerk reaction like here, over there, over there. So talk about that with respect to people.

So two different sides to that. One people and then two recruiting. So with people, I forget who it was back in 2015 and 16 because a lot of people always wonder when do I need to bring on an assistant? When do I need to bring on my second assistant Transaction coordinators. And I thought we did really well. Number one, knowing our numbers and what we needed that we did. Gwen was on pace to do roughly 167, 170 transactions by herself, listing buyer, plus you know, a lot of my personal stuff as well. And then we would bring on somebody during the summer. But as we started to grow, I see a lot of people personally start picking, trying to pick up assistance here and there too soon. But this past year we took a big step and we never really, we've never crossed the threshold of 10% until third quarter last year on people spend. So we had an opportunity. One of the young ladies who were on our team who'd sold 30 plus houses for us a year wanted to go over to the transaction coordinator role. So she was either going to do it with us or we were going to go somewhere else. We had just hired a sales manager who actually sells real estate on the team as well earlier in the year and, and we really couldn't afford to have Gwen who's been with us about seven years in that role. You know, literally four people with a full time isa. You know, our people spend even we put our ISA in. Cost of goods sold, our people spent went up. But the crew and the pieces to the puzzle we put together are going to allow us to grow to the 300 to 400 transactions without adding hardly anything else in place with someone who's taken probably about 70, 80% of the sales role from me. So it gives me more time to recruit and work on the business to transaction coordinators who have tons of experience with somebody who's doing outside sales for us and doing some recruiting on that side. But the pieces we put in place last year put us over a threshold on the employee and people spend, but they're pieces that have tons of experience, are going to allow us for growth. And that side of our world is just so dialed in that it's allowed me personally to be able to recruit at a much higher level in 2018. So just to rewind the clock a little bit, over the last few years I've had the mindset of bringing one or two people on kind of the quarter and just, you know, really putting pieces together. The one thing, you know, I would say slowly and kind of in my time because I want to be profitable without growing too fast. So with that, we took it kind of slow. So last year this is something, you know, I personally want to share this story with everyone because it hurt really bad and I want people to learn from. This is we had three people totally leave our team that moved to areas of the country where unfortunately just can't do real estate with us any longer. It wasn't because they were bad people. They didn't like the team. They just had family members sick and whatnot and just had to move. We had to part ways with one young lady who did 50 transactions with us the year before in her first year with our team just for some things that just didn't work out long term with her. So I did not have a full recruiting. I had some ads here and there. I would talk to agents a little bit. But it really put me in a position where we were in contract with a lot of lead gen marketing that we were down solid four agents. And that really pushed me in August of last year to say, you know what, I'm taking over the recruiting. And then by adding the people expense, it's a little bit more expensive. I want to be on a monthly basis to really recruit at a high level. And looking back, the model and the way I did things in the way, you know, you kind of held our team's hand to do things, it was kind of on the slow side. It was very profitable, but it was a bit on the slower side. Looking back, I wouldn't say I would have jumped too much faster, but I would have been a little bit more consistent on the whole idea of recruiting because we did have good pieces in place to be able to recruit at a higher level than what we did. So I think if you have the pieces in place and you have good systems in place, you can recruit at a higher level than what we did. But in Q4, we did hire, make four killer hires. In Q4, we should be able to make three additional hires in Q1 this year. But with the pieces on the people side has allowed us to do that. Now I feel like we can be a true contender with some of the teams who are doing four or 500 deals. You know, another six, eight, 12 months of really recruiting at a high level. Because now we have training, systematic. It just happens. I can bring somebody in the door tomorrow. And we have two hours here, here, here, and we have manuals, we have training. It's done at a really high level now. So that's kind of, you know, just a snapshot of before and the after, but just with the in between. You know, for anyone who takes the time to listen to this, one thing I would say is you can't stop recruiting. You never know. Someone gets pregnant, someone can't work, has a bad pregnancy. I know my wife did, and she wasn't able to work. Somebody gets hurt, somebody moves out of state, whatever the case is. And, you know, we got caught. You know, we went from 10 really strong agents down to 6 with a marketing spend for probably 9 to 10 agents worth of business. So with that, you just can't stop recruiting. And that's my mindset, just moving forward. And we want to do it at a high level, but the people side has really put us in place to be able to do that.

Awesome. Let's talk about the results. So go. When you think about the year before we started working together, it was you and Gwen, right? Two years in a row of 60 to 65 sides. Is that about right?

Yep.

Think about your. Your time, money, and stress back then. Like, how much time was going to the business? What kind of money, even if it's not specific, like what kind of money then versus now and then. What kind of stress then versus now. Talk about the results in terms of time, money, and stress between Back in the. Before you started with real estate, B school, and to what you're. Where you're at now.

Well, I will say before, before B school, I did not have a proper P and L. Like, I literally had everything written out month by month. And if when I went to my CPA to do my taxes, I would say, hey, this is a ballpark within a hundred bucks, 200 bucks of what I spent on all these things, categorize them, do. Do what you do with them, and go. I don't think the stress came, really, until I joined B school because I didn't realize how poorly I was doing, which is kind of a blessing, because if I would have known how poorly I was really doing, I know when I did my taxes at the end of the year, I kind of saw, you know, in a, you know, snapshot, like, holy shit, that was a lot of work for, you know, kind of that bottom line just didn't look healthy. I think if I would have known that sooner, I would have stressed out, you know, a lot more. But luckily, I didn't have very many bills at the time, you know, to really stress about. But when I did start doing my P and L and understanding how poorly I was doing and how much money I was spending, you know, I did my P and l because 2015 was the first year in B school. You had me do my P and L for 2014 full year. Just go back and have, you know, Laura go back and do everything. And she did. And I think with me in production, I'm embarrassed to say it, but I'll say it. I barely knocked on the door. I think it was 18% bottom line. With me in production, I overspent on everything you could possibly overspend on. And, you know, I had them all on drips and just praying, you know, if I couldn't get in touch with them, somebody would just reach out to me, miraculously, and I overspent a lot of money. But if I would have known how poorly I was doing before B school, I think it would have been a lot more stressful. But that's when I kind of turned the heat on in 2016. I was like, okay, you know, in production, these are my numbers. I know what I'm paying my agents. You know, we adjusted the splits, you know, and kind of saw the bottom line get healthier, healthier, so I could actually step out of production, you know, start working on other things in the business.

Yeah. Now, what does your week look like now? What kind of stress? You have different kinds of stress now. But what, how have you adjusted things? Time, money and stress wise?

Well, one of the things I did that, you know, you suggested because the one thing I dislike about real estate is the financial side and seeing that much money go out on a monthly basis. I mean, there for a time it was 20 grand, there was 40 grand, and now we're knocking the door of 60, 70, depending on the month, on a monthly basis. That for the stress portion. Some of the best advice that, you know, you gave me was to save up 5, 6 months in reserves and don't touch it, don't even look at it, put it in a savings account so you know it's there. So the stress level went from like an 8, 9 on a monthly basis. On the financing side, it's like a two, you know, so even this past year, knowing I was going to be paying a sales manager, no one, I was going to be paying, you know, couple extra on the people side, we had reserves to do it. I didn't have the stress that I would have, you know, two, three years ago. As for my current week, my goal every week is 35 hours. Some weeks I work more, some weeks I work less. I spend a little bit of time, you know, helping B school do a few things. But in general, I spend most of my time just recruiting and then training with the agents. And kind of the few things I want to be doing is kind of how I chosen to structure my week.

Yeah, that's awesome. When we first got it, got started together, what were some of the objections you had to starting with real estate B school? Like, I almost didn't join because I.

Almost didn't join because I saw a price tag and I thought it was substantial. But I knew that my bottom line, I had just done my taxes because I joined in March 2015, I always do my taxes early February and I got my taxes back. Holy shit. That's not good. So I didn't care what I had to pay. I just knew I had to get better because not only financially, but I never saw an end game. I did not see any sort of end game without some direction and guidance from B school that I almost did not join. B school, you know, it had to be only the price tag, but that was only for a minute because I knew my current situation and if I really wanted to get better, you need help. So that. That's the only thing that would ever hold me back.

Yeah. What about what's been your favorite part of real estate B school? What do you love most about It.

I love the intensives. I really, really like going to the intensives, meeting people, learning about other people's businesses, what their struggles are, what their failures are. Because I like to learn from people's failures and I like to share my failures with people. So hopefully people can learn from what I've done well, what I've done poorly at. And it's just, it really feels like an open community for folks to share the good, the bad and the ugly about their businesses. And I haven't been involved with too many coaching. I've attended some webinars and things like that over the years. And it seems like everyone's just, you know, glorifies like how many houses they sold, houses they sold. But no one ever really talks about that bottom line and how, you know, how profitable they were. And with this community, you know, everyone, if they don't know already where their weak points are, they want to get better, to understand and to continue to grow around running a profitable business versus I sold 150 houses, but you know, you don't have a pot to piss in type deal. So that's my favorite part of B school, Just the openness and just the killer community.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's. I don't know if it's, it's just human nature in general or if it's the real estate industry specifically that we tend not to really share the truth. You know, it's. I mean, I know a $6 million real estate team that lost money in 2018. I know 2 million dollar real estate team that lost money in 2015 and everything in between. And nobody really shares, like, you know, they just talk about their top line, like how many homes they've sold. No, you never talk to their wife to see if their wife likes them, if they kick their dog, if their blood work came back okay, you know, if they're watching porn, you know, like, who knows about what these people's true lives are like? And I feel like in real estate B school we leave with the truth, like just come as you are and we're gonna get you through it. So who would you recommend real Estate B School to? And why?

Anyone, first of all, I'll get specific on that here, you know, but anyone who wants to come up with some sort of game plan or structure, both short term and long term, that says I really want to own a business, not run in the business and around the business, and never have anything substantial that people really want to be a part of and really to have a true healthy Business. Anyone who looks himself in the mirror like I did in 2014 and 15, and said, I'm doing all this work and is it really worth the time that I'm putting in for what I'm being paid, and the answer was no. So the ideal person, in my opinion, is someone who's probably right around, you know, 40, 30, 50 transactions themselves. They might have a buyer agent. They have a good assistant who really wants to build something to move forward. So I know with us, we were right around 60, 65 deals, you know, mostly myself with one agent, you know, kind of just handing off deals, too, to help out. But with us, we were in the process. Right before B school, we had four or five agents who, you know, were hired that were all total bad fits for the team that it would have been nice to have joined, you know, because we probably would have hit right around 100 that year, but it was a cluster. So it had been nice to have joined B school before making all those hires and making all those mistakes. So anyone kind of looking to build a team who kind of has, you know, the GCI coming in, 300,000 GCI at least maybe a little bit more, who has the volume, who can teach other people, and who just really wants to grow something and, you know, put the time and do the heavy lifting in to build something out? Right? That's. That's who I'd recommend B school to.

Yeah, it's really good. And it's been. Just been cool. You know, we actually got to know each other through. Well, were you a client? No. You lived in Corey's house?

You are.

You're a friend of Corey? Yes. The guy that does. Does my AV work in my house, was a really good friend, played soccer with Dan. So it's just strange web of how you just get to know people and brother, I don't. I know there's not a coincidence to any of it. I just have a lot of love and respect for the business you're building and the family you're building and just the guy who you are and now how you, you know, I know time is valuable for you, and the fact that you give back to our community is really meaningful as well. So, you know, if you're listening to this and watching this, and there's part of Dan's story that's like. Especially the part where he said it really well, you know, like, you're putting in all this time. It's really stressful, and at the end, well, if only once a year, you realize that, holy cow, that wasn't as profitable as I thought it was. Then you definitely, like, that's like just the huge red flag that goes up. You know, the only way we could get started in a relationship is just by jumping on a business strategy session. We call it a business growth strategy session. Just go to realestatebschool.com and, and it's literally the only thing you can do there, a bunch of free resources and tools. But just jump on for a conversation about where your business is today, where you'd like it to be in the future, and then what that gap looks like and what's holding you back. Dan, any final words to somebody that is at that point you were at, you know, the 60 units and it's like scratching your head if it's worth it. What advice would you have?

Get help, number one. Because more than likely you could get there on your own. And I remember telling you this, Lars. It's like, I know I could get to 300 deals. It's just not going to look pretty and it's going to be very painful and it's probably going to take me double, if not triple the amount of time trying to do it on my own versus in a healthy business and being profitable that we all need someone to coach us to get to certain places. And it gives me chills to think about it because I remember having in 2015, I forget the exercise and what you called it, but it was basically 10 year plan on where you want to be in 10 years financially and we're ahead of where we want to be. And I want to be done, I want it to be done in 10 years and we're on pace to be done by 2023 with the rentals that we need to bring in plenty, plenty of income for the rest of our lives that, you know, I could never imagine having, number one, those sort of thoughts, plans and guidance to do that. And when I told you I was going to be out of production, not just to say I was out of production in early 2017, it was to have a plan and a bottom line healthy enough to do that. And I knew what I wanted to look like before I stepped out. We did it and just build on it from there. But before then I, I mean my goals were just, oh, I just want to sell 50 houses and I want to give 20 or 30 away to my agents and hopefully they'll close another 20. Those are my goals. I mean this B school is put on the map for me. Long term goals and you know, for the most part, minus our units. Last year, our volume was there and our net profit was actually better, much better than anticipated. That that's the only goal we haven't hit, but we'll make up for it this year. But in regards, just to time, freedom away from the business, 100% B schools, given that, and you know, I'm always going to be, you know, truly grateful for, for that.

Yeah. That's awesome. Well, you heard it. I mean, these are this is Dan's life and what he's built. So if the story resonated with you, just go to real estate B school dot com. And if you haven't figured out yet, the B stands for business. We are business coaches to the real estate industry. So real estatebschoolgood. Com, thanks again, Dan, and we'll talk to you guys soon. Thanks.