How The Right Systems Helped Stacie Peterson Build a 7-FIGURE Real Estate Business

All right, so today on the podcast, this is a special treat for me, and you'll realize why here in a little bit. Stacy Peterson in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I think it is not North Dakota, South Dakota. I have known Stacy since 2012 or 2013, just when real estate B school was launching. And she literally called me on a Friday, and I told her, call me back on a Monday when I was starting a coaching program. So she was the first person to trust me at Real estate B school and to help her build her business. And the thing I admire most about Stacy as a business builder. And so on the podcast, we focus on folks that have built businesses that are run on systems. They're run profitably and sustainably. And Stacy went from a solo agent to all the way to exiting production and exiting the business. Totally. So. So, Stacy, take us maybe two or three minutes about sort of like when you got into real estate, how busy you got, how crazy it was. If you throw them all story in there, that's totally cool. Just kind of introduce everyone to you and why they want to pay attention for the podcast.

All right. I started real estate in 2002, actually, and it was my parents had bought houses and flipped them. And real estate wasn't a job because I came from a really small town. And so once I realized real estate was a job, I really thought it would be awesome because I kind of wanted my picture on a billboard, which sounds very egotistical, but I guess, let's be honest, that's what I thought would be cool. And so I kind of got into real estate thinking it's just going to be so much fun. Like, there just can't be anything that wouldn't be amazingly awesome about being a real estate agent. And so I became, of course, just an individual agent. And then two years later, I was part of a team that all we did was share services. So, you know, we shared the assistant and the copier, and one guy kind of really led us and, you know, taught us some things. So we really got deep into, you know, coaching, and that was sort of my first experience to being coached in a business. And then that team just started not working, because when you have five people that are sharing services, we all have ideas on how real estate needs to be done. We weren't buying really any leads. Well, there weren't really leads to buy at that time. But, you know, we were in the real estate booklet together, and that was about it. And so I'm selling, you know, 40 homes on my own, including the year that I was pregnant with our son. So our first baby, he was born in July, and in six months, I had sold 40 homes myself. And so I was just, like, literally busting at every seam. And so I just thought, man, like, I like this team concept, but I don't really know what are other options. Like, can this really work? I can't see, you know, all these chiefs really making something work great, and there was zero leverage. So then in 2011, I started a different team, and that team was structured completely different. And so that team really started to take off pretty well. And then, once again, all the seams were busting. I was absolutely exhausted. I had two kids at the time. My husband was. This is the story that you're referring to. We went on a vacation to the Mall of America, which sounds so lame, but it was, like, the only place we could get to quick enough. And he's like, I want you to take some time off. Like, put the phone away. I'm like, yeah, no problem. Had a listing that hit the market, and it was a really. It's kind of like the market today. It was so. There were so many offers. There was, like, 60 people trying to get into this house at all times. It was. It was complete chaos. And I had a client that decided to buy this house. And so, of course, I'm working three sides of the deal now. I'm the listing agent. I'm the buyer agent, and I got to list these people's property because we can't have a contingent offer all while we're driving to Minneapolis for our vacation. So I promise, once we get there, hey, I won't be on the phone, but just let me work. Like, you're driving. Who cares? The kids are listening to, you know, kids bop or something. Let's just. Let's. Let me just work. It'll be fine. Like, let me work. What do you care? Like, this brings us money. You know, that was always kind of my thing. Like, what do you care? We're doing nothing anyway. Well, we get to the Mall of America, and of course, the deal is not done. My phone's ringing, right? You know, hey, what about Dan? Different questions. And my husband is so understanding, so nice, so supportive, and he had just, like, kind of had it, to be honest, because I was acting just like a complete beep. And so I was standing in the mall, and I answered the phone, and he just looked at me, and here we got these two kids in strollers, and he's like, look, if this means more to you, then you just do that and we're going to go do our own thing. And he just left me standing there with one kid in a stroller. And I was fuming mad. I was like, are you kidding me? Like, I'm working so hard doing all these, you know, I convinced myself that this the way to show success in life is to consistently grind, grind, grind. And then one day, magically all the grind will go away and you'll just feel better and like there will be rainbows and your kids will love you more and the world will just think you are amazing. And this is like my view of success. And so I need to tell the story where my husband is very supportive. He didn't leave me, you know, he just left me kind of standing there. And he hates when I tell that story because he thinks it makes him sound so bad. But really the story is about my perception of success and also how bad it had gotten. So then I sought you out because I watched you build this business from afar because you didn't know me and I didn't know you personally, but I watched you talk about your family and that you really cared about your kids and how they grew up and how, and like the impact you were leaving on your family. And that really was why I wanted to be in real estate. Yes, at first I thought it was this billboard, but really it was about creating this life and experience that I couldn't have. Maybe working 8 to 5 and maybe hitting an income ceiling all the time. And so when I talked to you about coaching, I knew that you weren't just one sided, like, here's how you build a business. Like, good luck, I hope you don't hate your agents. I hope you don't know. It was like, here's how we build a consistent business. Here's how we track, here's how we convert business that comes to you cold, warm or otherwise. Here's how you deliver exactly what you're talking about. And then here's how you scale so you don't burn out and lose your business all the time because you're just like, you've had your wits end. And I had been burnt out like three times. And I was ready to throw in the towel and say, forget it. I have no idea what I'll do. I have a degree. But I don't know if like any of these real estate skills will translate into any other kind of career because people don't really look at you like, oh, you're a realtor, you must be smart and such a good worker. No they think the opposite. They're like, well what do you like? Are you lazy? Do you suck at life? Is that why you became a realtor? So I wasn't sure if I could even do anything different or if I wanted to. I was just completely lost. And that's where the coaching came in and really helped me see a path because I could watch someone else that had done it.

Yeah. So that, that is a perfect sort of, sort of intro to. Because let's be honest, when you came into real estate B school like you were the first one, it wasn't like it wasn't what it is today and in large part what it is today as a result of all the influence and all the work you've done over the years. Because what you didn't mention is that you, you were able to kind of scale out of the business. The business went from 100 transactions to 300 transactions as you completely exited production went down from six to five to four to three to two days a week in, in that business. And so I want to spend a good chunk of time here talking about, because I remember you told me one time that it was you and one administrator the year you sold 222 homes. And so here, like I think among your many superpowers, one of them for sure because it has all these collateral good benefits, you know, agent retention and culture and less stress for everybody when you build out a systems driven business. So let's talk a little bit about what it was like when you were just running and gunning and we were starting to work together and, and then, you know, your mindset. Cause I didn't have the same mindset that you did around systems. You kind of took everything as a client of real estate B school and you made it into binders and folders and you know, worksheets and like. So talk about like how your natural abilities maybe can help others. How can we, you know, help others put systems into their business? But talk about like what it was to get from 100 to 200 to 300 using systems with you out of production.

Yeah. So for me, anytime I look at something that I'm doing, I try to figure out and I'm better at it if it's going to benefit someone else like my team or my clients. I'm not always great with things that benefit myself with systems, but I'm really good at looking at a big picture of what we want to achieve. Here's where we are, this is where we want to go. And I'm good at like staying in curiosity and finding out what's working and what's not and then taking that and sort of developing a plan. Like, I'm very visual, so I'm constantly like mind mapping something out. And so for anybody that's trying to build a system, I would say the most important thing is just staying in curiosity. So like, why isn't it working? Who isn't it working for? Is it that you can't see what's happening or. Or is it that someone's complaining or is it that it's just not working, or is it that you feel out of control? Is everybody following a process? So I think through all these things and then, you know, try to create something. So going from a hundred transactions to 200. What happened was our admin was super busy. She seemed like she was busting at the seams at a hundred deals. And I was like, oh, geez, we, there is no way that we can run a business and have a good profit if I keep adding people to problems. Like, here's a problem. Oh, we need a person. I just, I couldn't afford it and I didn't want to manage more people that way. And so I talked to the admin, you know, and tried to figure out what was happening. And oddly enough, she came to me at this was at 150 transactions actually, and said, I think I can go part time. And I was like, what? You can go part time at 150 transactions? She's like, yeah, I mean, my stuff. Like, I mean, I'm pretty much dialed in here. I think I can do it like 8 to noon. And I was like, well, let me see. So I look and I'm like, yeah, I guess you could. Well, then I looked at my to do list and my to do list was 4 and a half pages. And so that's when the light bulb went on. And I thought, you know what? I've created partial systems here, but nothing's kind of starting to work together. And I think that's a problem for a lot of agents. We might have one piece of a system that works well, and then we might just slash it and start over. And then that starts maybe works, but we've always got these things that are dropping. So you're running really, really fast to the left. And you're like, okay, yep, we got this figured out. All right. Keep these balls in the air. And then we're like, wait, oh my gosh, what about that? Oh, you're right. Run over here. And what happens is we're Constantly juggling. And so what systems do is they really help it run like an automated machine so that I can take people out or personalities out, I guess, and I can just plug people into these things and it, and it's, it's transparent and it becomes seamless and then things start working well. So hopefully that answered it. But for me, going from 100 to 150 was the hardest because I didn't have the systems in place. So that's what was happening. My admin's like, I'm doing nothing. What am I doing all day? And I'm like, I don't even have time to talk to you. I'm so busy. I'm like, too busy, right? Busy. And then 150 to 220 with one admin, honestly was way smoother because from 150 it was like, okay, let's get these systems figured out. And I do, I think most people do well not starting from scratch and trying to reinvent the wheel and create your own. Like take something that someone's done. Like, Lars, what you had done, like these folders, I could look at it and I had to print it out because like I said, I'm just visual. So I waste a lot of paper. But I can see it and I can see it from start to finish. And then I can say, okay, this works for me. Oh, this doesn't. Or I don't have this size of team yet. So this is under construction, but this stuff is now going to solve these problems. And then at 220 transactions, we hired a listing coordinator to really help. But our one admin went all the way to 300 transactions, helping with closings, marketing team meetings, database marketing. And the listing coordinator actually handled, you know, like front desk stuff and, and listings and some agent stuff. But, you know, it was really taking the time to go deep on those systems to help that first admin do really well. So then we could just pull apart some things and say, you know what, we could use more attention on listing coordination. All right, let's build that even a little stronger. And now we can put a person to it.

Yeah, so, so give, give us an idea. When you talk about systems and you talk about closing coordination, so closing coordination, you know, is, is sort of a, of a, of a beast. But talk about the different components of the systems, like, you know, checklists and emails and, you know, yeah, whatever it might be scripts that your client care people are using. Talk about like some elements of the system so people can wrap their heads.

Around what you're okay, yeah, so we'll just use closing coordination for an example. There's a checklist and your check. So before everybody goes like all nuts, like, well, what kind of checklist? Or where do you put it or what do you do? Honestly, it doesn't even matter. I can tell you what I did. I used Top Producer forever, and people hated Top Producer and I didn't love it either, but I just went deep and committed to it. So commit to whatever you're using. Whatever you're using, even if it's a spreadsheet, I promise you can make this work. So everything was written out in a checklist in timeline. So like, you know, prior to offer being accepted, offer accepted, and even included in that was what had to happen for the client, what had to happen for the agent, what had to happen for our team as a company. So I'll refer to our team as the company because I didn't own a brokerage or anything. So those three elements. So the checklist was broken down into timeline and who it was for and who it had to be completed by. So for instance, let's just say it was title insurance. Okay, so title insurance is like the big header. And then the agent has to be notified that title insurance was ordered. We have to check with the lender. Did you order it or do we need to. Then the admin make sure we have a copy of it, sends it to the client, gets a client notification. Client, did you read it or not? Don't care if you do, but you know, we checked it over. Agent, did you check it over? Then boom, that then triggers the next. So I'm big on triggers. Like it's got to trigger the next thing and tagging whoever has to be, you know, a part of it. So each system that I create generally involves those same things. It's going to trigger something else. It involves a person that has like a deadline for that and it involves the actual task and then who else needs to be involved in it.

And what did. So the journey from it sounds like 100 to 150, 150 to 220 to 300. What did that do for you personally as the team owner? Like having a backstage that systems driven, what does it do for the team owner?

It gives me complete, like a complete view into what's happening. So I know at all times without having to go, hey, is this closing working? Hey, agent, is this happening? Hey, how many things are we actually going to do? Like, there's always with every system, there's some type of tracking component so we know if it's working or not, or a dashboard or whatever it might be. And that allowed me as a team owner, for that stress to go from 100 of all these balls in the air to now just. No, I'm just over here making sure everything's rolling from afar. Because everybody knows what their job is. They know when it has to be done. They know what the expectations are. Everybody's got a great communication flow because of a system. And so that as a, as an owner of any business, I don't know, I mean, that just makes me happy. I'm. I don't know what else would.

Yeah, how about, how about your agents, you know, in. Inside the System, if you know their experience and agent retention.

Yeah. So, you know, for the agents, it took a lot of things that they aren't great at off of their plate, and then they don't have to check up on it either, because they know it's happening because they understand the system or they can see it from the dashboard or the tracker or whatever it might be. So for them, it allowed them to do what they do best, which means they're going to be happy. So now instead of managing angry agents, I got to manage agents that were, you know, they were happy. They loved what they were doing. And that in turn created retention. Great retention. Like, our agents stayed a long time, and if they didn't, for some reason, they would come to us and say, you know, I realize that I'm not willing to commit what you guys give. Like, you guys give a lot and you expect a lot, but I'm just not willing to do that. Instead of, oh, my gosh, you guys expect all this stuff. You give nothing back. You don't care about us. Like, it was never that kind of conversation. And the fallout rate was small. And here's another point about systems. We had an onboarding program for our team that actually you helped create and that, that onboarding helped brand new agents go from zero to six transactions in 90 days. And the amazing part of that was, again, it was a system that we could plug people into. As long as they were the right fit willing to do it and show up, we could show them a path to hitting four to six deals in 90 days. And that average was probably closer to four, but we had one at six. And so that's amazing because prior to that, our agents, you know, by month four, they're like, am I ever going to sell a house? Like, you know, I need to eat. And I'm like, yeah, gosh, sorry. I mean, we have these other. Are you doing this? Are you doing that? No. Now it was. Hey, here's our checklist. Let's go through it. You know, where are you at? We're with you. I do it. You talk about this all the time. I do it. We do it. You do it. And so that, that's a system too, you know, it's just keeping. It's just, it's just where you're able to see what's happening and you don't have to guess anymore. You don't have to get upset, you don't have to wonder if something's working.

You know, how about our, you know, in your personal experience building a real estate team, you know, systems driven, high client experience team, but also probably more than a hundred high level teams that you've sort of architect and consulted and coached into. Are there any sort of obvious hidden or missed opportunities from a system standpoint? Like, you know, most of the time you see a team not doing closing gifts or. Not that. I'm a huge fan of that. But checklists or now we use trello. Like, are there any obvious two or three things that you say, yeah, this, this and this. You know, communication during contract to closing, like, what are the missing obvious things that you've seen over the years?

You know, one thing that is so funny to me, but I didn't believe it at first either, was communicating with the client every week, same time. So it sounds crazy, like we want to automate everything and I'm the first one to like try to automate everything I can. But client communication is different. And so I see that with a lot of teams or a lot of people even that are struggling is they're trying to automate that process. Well, I sent them an email and said, you know, the market didn't do anything. Sorry, you didn't have any showings. See you next, you know, next time I talk to you. And then the client's pinging them on Saturday night, right? And then they're like, ugh, this client's such a bother. We've all done it. But when you have. So for us, every Tuesday we did team meetings in the morning. The afternoon was client communication, so the admin would have everything ready to go. And Tuesday afternoon all we did was call our active clients and under contract. So as a listing agent, I had to do that until I wasn't in listings. And my listing agents did that. Buyer agents, whatever. The clients knew that we would call them every Tuesday and if they didn't answer, that's okay. But they could count on it. So they'd start sending emails and saying, hey, when you call me on Tuesday, don't know if I'll pick up or not. But can you answer these questions? You bet. Or now you can send bombbombs right. Every Tuesday, whatever you want. But that's one big missing thing is client communication one on one because the relationship is built with you. There's just some things you can't automate. Another thing with teams I think is that agent accountability has to be hard and it has to be like you have to be mad about it. Like somebody's always mad. The agent's either mad or you're mad. No, agent accountability is, is again setting expectations out front and agreeing upon them. If you can't agree, then you're not going to be able to do anything to hold them accountable if you guys are not in agreement. So I think that expectation versus agreement in agent accountability helps those conversations be much better than somebody's upset or you know, or I got to, I got to take away their leads, I got to take away this. You. That may be a consequence that you've created. But does everybody know that and what are the expectations? So I think that's another one.

Let me, let me slow you down on that one because I think there's, it's worth going a little bit deeper on that. So you're saying that agent accountability as a system. So like look at the system. Do we both agree on the system? Like it's not me being an a hole. It's like this is a system that we built that we both agree on is going to get the best results and it's going to help you achieve at a high level. So talk a little bit about like a few components of an agent achievement or an agent accountability system.

Sure. So yeah, so exactly what you're saying, like the expectations have to be laid out and you, I think you also, if you want an agreement from someone, you also have to show them like these are the results you can expect and if they have maybe, maybe they're a little more detailed personality than you and they need to know a little more details about it. Like well where did you get this number? That's where you know, utilizing your network like coaching or your agent network where you can get some numbers if you don't have your own. So putting together that system is going to, for us was going to included like how many calls they needed to make but not I should not calls in the sense of I honestly, I honestly didn't care how many dials they made. I didn't care because to me, the dials weren't the thing. The thing was, are they having a conversation with someone about real estate, like a true conversation? And so that's part of the expectation. And it was so many conversations. I need you to have this many conversations for the day. Okay, then. Secondly, part of our agent accountability was we're going to do it together. We came together. It's more fun, feed off of each other's energy. You know, if someone's having a bad day, you can kind of pick them up. We always have these things in the office. We're like throwing stuff at people all the time, like stuffed animals or like, you know, they're trying to be serious. And you, like, throw some candy over their computer, like, whatever it is, right? You got to have fun. So don't make it a grind. It's like telling your kids, oh, hey, I'm gonna. I want you to clean up your room. And then you go in there and you're like, this sucks. This is dirty. You're horrible. Do you even know how to fold? And so, like, if you do that with agent accountability, like, did you even make enough calls? What are you saying? I could have closed 17 of these. When you're, you know, if you do that same thing and you make it a bad experience, no one's signing up for that gig. So that's part of, like, what we talked about too. And then lastly, I guess part of our agent accountability system was just, are you closing enough deals at the end of the month? So here's our expectations, and if you are off track, we'd ask it all the time. We'd know daily if they were off track, and if they were off track three days in a row, then we would just have a quick conversation with them. Hey, what do you need from me to get back on track? How's it going? What can we do? Hey, I know everybody has a bad week. Are you just having a bad week? What do you need? I don't need anything. I know what to do. Great. I'll look for it tomorrow. I'll look for your numbers to improve tomorrow. Great. You know, and I'm not saying that we didn't have to have some difficult conversations, but they were easier because we didn't ignore it for two months and then come in guns a blazing. It was, you know, consistent. And again, I could see it with the tracking.

Awesome. Any other. I think I cut you off. You were going to talk about another system or thing that you see with teams when you get in and kind of tear their businesses apart.

I don't remember what it was. I'm sure I could think of one. But, you know, with teams, I think it's that a lot of the, A lot of teams that are doing great think they aren't doing great. And I think they think they aren't doing great because one thing is off. So all of a sudden they get a closed mindset that everything's wrong. You know, sky is falling. When really, you know, it's, it's. Let's just isolate the situation and find out what it is. And then let's, let's keep asking why. Ok, so what's happening? Why? But why is that happening? And then why is that happening? Right, so we're going to go deep on it to find the root and not just band Aid, everything. I think our teams a lot of times have a lot of band aids going on and that's just like a recipe for disaster. We got to get to the root. Is it a person, is it a system, is it a process? Like, what do we have that's missing the mark? Let's find the root and then the skies are going to open. It's going to create great results.

Yeah, it's almost like that analogy with how does it go? Like your, your engine seizes because. Yeah, you know, it's like, well, why did it happen? Because my engine seized. Like, well, why? Because I didn't change the oil. Why didn't you change the oil? Because I didn't. You know, so you can, you can keep going. Issue is that you're, you know, you're too busy and you didn't. Whatever. So to, to get the root cause. All right, that's awesome. So here's kind of a final, actually two, two final questions. So having done the whole journey yourself, you know, so real estate B school, we teach six stages of growth, you know, from start all the way to own. And you actually did like level seven, which is like literally, you know, don't own. We don't have a level seven, which is don't own. Successfully sold your business for a seven figure valuation, which is really rare, never done in your market, never really done anywhere. Nobody can ever sell a real estate team because it isn't systems driven. So your ability to do that is, speaks, speaks volumes. So I'm going to ask you two questions. The first one is, so you went from solo agent to building a team the wrong way to starting in the Right way to going from 100 to 150 to 220 to 300 and all of that, and then going from seven to six to two days a week, and then helping with the real estate B school and growing that company and. And all of it. What advice would you give somebody who knows they want to build a team and. But they haven't quite started yet. Maybe they have, like, one administrator and they're still working both sides and they think they should get a buyer agent and, you know, they're sort of just starting out. What it's kind of like. What would Stacy of today tell herself back when she was, you know, nine months pregnant and just had sold 40 homes in six months? What advice would you give yourself back then?

I know exactly what I'd say. I would say it's okay to ask for help, whether that's through a coach, whether that's through leveraging yourself by getting some more help. Maybe it's requiring more of other people on your team, like lenders or sometimes we take on the job of everybody. And so I would say ask for help sooner than you think you need it, because you almost need to be prepared for the next stage. You don't want to hit these stages because you're going to bounce back. You're going to come and bounce back. So get help sooner, whatever that might be like. Investing in yourself or others so you can get help sooner would be my advice.

Awesome. And I definitely don't want to make this the EXP show, but anyone that is on the podcast that has achieved at the highest levels, you know, so you've. You've kind of done it all. You've. You've ascended the whole. The whole thing. And you pivoted into exp in September. I think it was September, timeframe of 2020. So almost a year in, and you're doing great. You've built multiple hundred people in your organization and rev shares flowing. But let me ask you the question. So why did you join exp? Like, what would have been the reason for Top of the Game for you to come into exp?

Yeah, so I didn't. I wasn't looking for anything. And I think a lot of people would say that. But, you know, what I didn't realize was missing and made me look, once I took a look, it made me look further was I was kind of looking for something to be exciting and fun and collaborative and part of this, like, movement. And I really found that with. With exp. And then when I dug in, I realized all the things they were offering just as a company and at these different organizations and all of the training and the tools and agent health care. I couldn't even believe agent healthcare and then getting paid multiple ways for doing what we already do, which is sell real estate or talk real estate. I mean, I, I just, there wasn't a reason to say no. It just made so much sense and it gives me so much excitement and happiness to share it with other agents that are maybe, maybe something's just missing and they didn't know what. It was just like me. I didn't know. I didn't know what was missing, but I knew. I just. Something was kind of tugging like, I don't know, I just, I needed something to help fulfill me. And when I looked at it and joined, it's really what happened. And it's just so fun to see agents and you know, in having fun and getting great results and a company helping them build their business versus competing against them. And it's collaborative and the benefits are great. I just think it's an amazing opportunity.

Awesome. I'm going to put you on spot a little bit. So how many agents do you have on your team, Your local real estate team? The most number of agents.

Most number of agents in my local real estate team, probably 12 would have been the most, including me, including admin.

And how many people have you personally brought into EXP?

17.

And how many people in your overall organization with EXP?

230.

So 200. So now you have the opportunity to really, when we talk about like this analogy with like, you know, we're, we're the shepherd over our real estate teams. Now you have the opportunity to shepherd and impact like hundreds of agents. And so for me, that is just awesome to see you just do this and you know, to have earned the right to step into that position. So what's the best? So here's the thing. I want to give everyone an opportunity to reach out to Stacy to talk about building a real estate team or to talk about exp. Or to talk about how to get her. I saw your Facebook live the other day about how she could do a whole coaching program on how to get your kids to do everything around your house. Yeah, one of those three things. Build a real estate team, join exp. Or get your kids to do literally everything around the house. And you were like, little evil.

I know.

What's the best way to get in touch with you?

Yeah, the best way is to just look me up on the Internet, which is Stacy Peterson work and my name is spelled S T A C I E and Peterson is P E T E R S O N work.

Awesome. Stacy, appreciate you and just what you've done over the years and your team and your family at B school and now how you're just lighting it on fire with exp. So much love to you and if anyone's at their point in the journey where they want to take a closer look, I would still reach out to Stacy to ask about real estate B school. She was the first client. She has done every position in the company, most of them, some of them all at the same time and she's still involved in our world and she just crushes it for us. And we specialize in really specifically helping you build a sustainable business through systems and people and do it the right way on the right economic model. So much love to all of you for listening and we'll talk to you guys soon.