Tech & Hiring Decoded in Real Estate w/ Scott Sillari

Welcome to Real Estate Business Builders. I'm your host, Lars Hedenborg, the founder of Real Estate B School. Bottom line, the real estate industry has failed to create a clear path to financial freedom. Traditional brokerages and coaching are designed to keep you running on the transaction treadmill with no exit strategy. While I didn't have any sales, marketing, or business building experience when I got into real estate, I was willing to bet on myself and figure it out because my family was depending. Having served over 5,000 families with their real estate needs, I've made every mistake you could possibly make in this business. Through Real Estate B School, I've helped hundreds of agents and team leaders realize their goal of true time and money, freedom, and living a life without regrets. If you know there's another level of growth inside of you and you want to learn how to build a highly lucrative lifestyle business, then you're in the right place. You won't find any fluff or hype here on this show. Just real world tools, systems and strategies that work. Let's grow together.

All right, what's up, Real Estate Business Builders? We've got a guy on the podcast today that's been in real estate probably for too many years. A decade is when. When we met. And Scott Solari is now the chief guy at Real Sync, which is a piece of tech that solves a lot of problems that agents and teams have and just the disparate dozen technologies that we all use. I'll let you chat about that at the end of our conversation. But, Scott, give us a couple minutes, like a little snapshot of your journey in real estate. And I know there's three things, you know on, on the podcast. You're listening. If you want to learn something about a journey in business or growth or what, what gets in the way of growing a business. And you've, you've sort of thoughtfully put together a few points that you want to share with us today. So give us a quick intro. Sure. And then, then we'll get into it.

Yeah. So as you said, Scott Solari with, with Real Sync. So when I started, Lars, as you know, I started, I had some real estate experience, but the reality is I started working with real estate teams and owners and business owners in 2012 as a partner and executive at Vyral Marketing. And that was a service that did, you know, video marketing, whatnot. But that's where we met. And yeah, man, that, that really got me kind of looking at real estate from a different perspective, not just like working in it as a, as a realtor or as I was an appraiser, but more like working in IT from a business standpoint and learning how businesses needed to function, to be successful, to transact real estate, to hire and to generate leads and to have technology and all the processes and the operations and the admin, all the things that I've, you know, watched you train and all. All these other people in, you know, through the real estate space over the years.

Right.

Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah, man.

So, yeah, so you're definitely qualified. Cause I know you've. You've. Even with viral, you know, getting. Getting someone to do just two things a month was like a monumental, like, how do I. How do I log into this thing? And, you know, all that. All that stuff. So for you to be pitching a tech stack to the industry or a tech solution must come with its own challenges. But unpack the few things you talked about, you know, being true to yourself, the evolution of technology, and then the importance of a team. So let's start with, you know, this. This thought of, you know, being true to yourself as you kind of evolve in your business.

Yeah. So like I was thinking earlier, you know, I really wanted to add a lot of value and kind of teach something to your. To your, you know, your client base here. And the reality is, as I think back, like, one of the biggest things that I know, I struggled with is that you're. You're being pulled and prodded. You're seeing what others are doing, and you're just trying to find your own way as a. As a leader and a business owner, as you, as you continue to grow. And I think one of the biggest things that I've learned is that you just have to be really true to, like, who you are as a person, the values that you try to live by, and also, you know, show. And I think when you, as you're on this journey, which hopefully you're enjoying this journey because it's not easy, you can look back and go, you know what? I made these decisions with the best of my ability and the most knowledge I had that was true to myself. And so I think it allows you then, as you're growing and as you fail forward, to look back and go, you know what? I did the best that I could at that time. I made the best decision that I could at that time. And I stayed true to what I believe in. And I'm not making decisions based on what I'm seeing others do, because the reality is what others are doing may not be the way that you should be making those Decisions, you know, for your business. So I thought, you know, staying true to yourself, staying authentic and, and that goes in as you, like, think about that. When it comes to your relationships with your clients and, you know, buyers and sellers and your database and all the people in your community, you know, that's what you need to be doing too. You need to be showing who you are as a person and being, you know, genuine. Right. Whether it's in, you know, interactions on the phone or face to face or if you're meeting people in the community. But how are, how do you expect to really generate and make a great business if you can't be that person that you want to be internally and externally with those relationships that you're trying to build? So I thought that that was something that I really, you know, I wasn't like that right at the beginning. You kind of have to learn how to be the person that you want to be as you, as you grow within business, you know.

Yeah, that's awesome. And I want to go deeper on one thing you said. And I'm going to read, I'm not going to say who this is from or who it's about, but I'm going to read this. It kind of gets to the thing that you just said about, you know, comparison. And you know, we try to model after people that we think have it together. So this is from a guy that, I know his business really well and he does sells hundreds of homes and he's on the right economic model. But he says, you know, a guy went from 40 agents to 240 agents, some other stuff. But, but then he kept asking, people were like, man, you know, you've collected these agents, you're doing 800 transactions a year. He made $24,000 last year. So he's assembled like a, this sort of brokerage, you know, only making $24,000, literally making $2,000 a month. So you would look at a guy like that and you would think, man, 800 homes in a single year. And literally the agent out there selling four homes a year is taking home more money than that guy with no overhead, no stress. But they're not pretending, you know, to, to. So it's just an interesting thing when you, when you, when you said it, what have you seen, you know, in our industry around like this, this comparison, it's just a trap. You can't win it. There's always someone that has a, you know, that's skinner than you, or their kids are better behaved than you, or their business looks better than you or they're prettier on Instagram. What have you learned in our industry that's very vain, very sort of brand image focused about the comparison trap?

Yeah, I mean, what I've seen over the years, right, is that like, you know, the reality is, is that a lot of real estate agents and teams, they spend a lot of time on Facebook and Instagram and those social media platforms because there's a lot of Facebook groups and a lot of private groups and there is a lot of education there. But also you can find yourself in a trap of like, well, this, this team's doing this much business. Why. Why am I not doing that or what are they doing or how are. You don't really know what. Behind the scenes, Lars, right. Like you. And this goes back to the text you just read. So I think the biggest thing that you can take from that is don't just look at like, like what they're putting on social media. It's like the whole thing. When you see people like on vacation all the time and Instagram, well, it's like, yeah, there's billions of people that live in this world. People go on vacation. But like, if that's all they're posting and that's all you're seeing, then you're like, ah, I should be on vacation too. I should be living like that and living a dream like that. It's like the reality is they're probably working 340 days a year too. But like, they just happened to go on vacation at that time they went on Instagram. So it's the same thing. You have to surround yourself with the right people in the right groups, where you're in actual groups that are authentic and where people want to help each other. And it's not necessarily this comparison thing. It's like, hey, how can I learn one really good thing from that business and one really good thing from that business and then execute on it? See if it works in mine. If it does, great. If it doesn't, that's okay too. It's a learning experience. You move on and you go and try to implement or execute on another good fundamental business idea that's going to allow your business to move forward.

Right?

Yeah, it's really a fundamental business idea. And I would just, I would caution everyone as, as you might fall into this, because we all do from time to time. If you're ever gonna take advice from anyone, I sort of, I jokingly say, you know, like, I want to get a blood sample, I want to talk to your Wife. I want to, like, see your tax returns. You know, I, I really, I want to, like, get a sense of, like, let me meet with your dog to see if you kick your dog every night. You know, because I think there's just stuff that, you know, nobody knows what's going on. So anyway, that's really good. Unpack the next point. And this is something I know you're super passionate about. You know, spending time with viral and helping build. Build that business and what Frank's doing over there. And since, I guess, since 2020, you've been working real sync, which is. Is essentially trying to get in the midst of all these tech issues and kind of connect things together. So talk about the evolution of tech in the last decade in real estate.

Yeah. So, like, you know, when I started with viral, like, I knew nothing about technology. I could barely use a computer. I was awful. Like, Frank used to joke, he was my partner. Like, Scott, I don't want using computer. Just stand there with the phone and, like, I'll put you on the phone, and you just do sales.

Right?

Like, so I think it's, it's. It's significantly evolved. And the reality is, like, technology can help your business. Right? You just need to make sure you understand what tech you're putting into your business and that it can connect and integrate with everything else that you're using, and it becomes more efficient and it automates things right when you like. And a good example of this is, like, when you go on the Amazon, like, think about how easy that process they've made for you. Like, it seems like it was just like, oh, this is just simple to set up. But the reality is there's so much happening, right? But, like, you can literally click, swipe by. It hits your credit card. You get an email into your inbox immediately. It tells you, like, when that's going to arrive and. And then it shows up. And most of the time, it's the right product. Not all the time, but most of the time, like, it's the easiest thing in the world. Like, that is what consumers expect. Lars. So, like, when they get into a real estate transaction and you don't have certain automation set up to where it's like this seamless process that they're used to. Again, they've been. We think about behavior all the time. Like, you don't want to have to change someone's behavior. It's the same thing when you recruit and hire someone. Lars. Like, trying to get an agent to take on new behaviors. It's a very Difficult thing to do. And it's the same when you're selling any product to it, to an agent. You try to get them to do new behaviors. It's not going to work.

Right.

It's the same thing with the consumer. Their behavior now is everything's on this supercomputer on their phone, and they use applications that are simple to use.

Right.

And it's a simple process and they, you know, and everything's automated. Right. So we've seen this transition from when I started in 2012 where, you know, you're, you're hoping that you can, you know, have a database of people in a CRM and that was like the extent. And maybe get some emails or have an email campaign. We used to use infusionsoft. It was crazy.

Right?

To now where it's like when you meet someone and you put them into your phone, like they should be getting a welcome email. They should be going on to campaigns. There should be texts that are automated. There should be, you know, videos of you coming to them and all sorts of stuff that you literally don't have to do anything. It's just part of the technology stack that you have.

Right. So.

And that's the expectation of the consumer. Awesome.

Yeah, yeah. Any other lessons that you've seen? You know, there are. I just talked to a big producer and couldn't really get even figure out how to get on the phone with me. And you know, she was just crushing it in her market. Like top of her market, top, top team, top agent in her market. How do you, how do you handle some. Something like that? Like from. From a tech standpoint, there, there are folks in our industry, like even what you were saying, I mean, you're naturally gifted in sort of more of a sales in front of people and you just, you don't want to think or deal with the tech. How do you even get into that.

That part of it?

Yeah. So I think, you know, you have to step back. And it's tough, Lars, because if you're doing something that's working really well, it's hard to like step out of that lane and go, well, if I also do this, maybe I'll create a whole nother path that's going to, you know, get my business to take that next step.

Right.

I think you need to. I think it goes back to like what I was going to talk about third, which is hiring people.

Right.

And that, that process of getting superstars. But like, you, you have like when you get to a place and hopefully you have, you know, Good profit. And you're in a position where you can hire and start hiring people that are more internal focused instead of external.

Right.

So every business gets to a point where once you've figured out the sales and the sales processes and hiring sales agents and all the way the transaction flows administratively through the business, then you have to start putting in people that are actually going to facilitate things within the business that are internal focused. And I think that's where you can bring in someone, maybe even from outside industry, but someone that has experience with technology and can come in and look at your systems and look, poke holes in it and figure out, like, what you can do to even level up those salespeople to be more efficient and effective with the leads that you're generating for them and the business that they're generating.

Right.

And I think so they go. They start to go really hand in hand because the more deals you're doing, the more agents you have, the more things are slipping through the cracks as well. Yeah. Awesome.

So let's, let's transition. I want to chat a little bit about, you know, big, big topic, but you mentioned, you know, the challenges with, you know, surrounding yourself with folks and succeeding through others. What are some of the lessons you've learned around, you know, a team and hiring and, and firing and coaching and all of that madness?

Yeah, I mean, you've, You've seen it all. I. Probably way more than I have, Lars, to be honest with you. But, you know, there's so many different philosophies around it, right? Like, you know, higher, higher, slow fire, fast, or, or I've heard the opposite. I mean, the reality is, like, you, man, I. The thing that I heard the other day on. I was watching a podcast or a video, right? But it was a podcast. And then he was talking about some billionaire CEO that he. He talked to, but he's like, you. You know, if you're hiring a superstar right away, right. You. You don't necessarily know if they're not going to be a superstar right away. So it was, it was very like, I was like, wait, that's kind of sounds redundant, but the reality is like, if, if you have any sort of inclination that there is a missing behavior, motivation, or a skill. So those are the three things that you should be looking at when you hire someone, right? You know, you're. Maybe they're going to fit a position by guarantee that that specific part of the triangle is going to rear its head at some point and you're going to have to fire them. So what's what is it worth to hire and train someone to get them up to speed when they're, they're missing a vital part of what you need for that particular position just because you got to fill a seat and have someone doing some work. So may not be worth it. So I've, I've experienced this in hiring people and having to fire them. And it's terrible when you have to fire people, right? I literally had to fire people, two people last week, right. For different circumstances. And you know, I'm not going to go into details about it, but the reality is that was terrible, right? At the same time I could look at it like, all right, well now I, you know, I've freed up some revenue, right, or, or payroll and what am I going to do with it? How am I going to maximize it? What's the, the positive outlook on this potentially for the company? But you have to mitigate the, the, the, the negative tone that, that puts on your culture every time you let people go, especially if they're entrenched in your business, you know, So I think when it comes to like the hiring process, you really need to do your due diligence to spend time interviewing them, having trusted team members interviewing them and take them through the process of like, are they really a good fit for this position and for your business and for your culture? Of course.

Right.

But the biggest thing that I always look for, and this is something that, you know, you want to put every new employee on a 90 day, like, period of like, hey, like I, I'll fire you anytime within 90 days if, like, if you're not exceeding the expectation that I'm putting in front of you, right. You're on a probation period and I'm always just paying attention. And you can, you can identify it virtually just as much as you can one to one. I, I, Our whole company is virtual. We've been virtual prior to Covid I. All my employees are all over the country and we run an amazing business when it comes to that, doing it virtually. But you can identify whether or not someone's got the right motivation, behavior and skills for the particular position. Those are always the things that I'm thinking about constantly in every communication, engagement with an employee. Are they living up to the expectations of the position and of the company that I've set forth from the day they started and or exceeding them and, and if they're not, where are they falling short and does it become a pattern within a particular area of that, that triangle that I'm always paying Attention to.

Yeah, that's awesome. And to your point, you know, and we have the same sort of viewpoint, you know, it's. You're earning your spot on the roster 30 days at a time for 90 days, and it's not going to get better. Somebody shows up the first week or, you know, we've had someone show up, like, it's clear, like you have to be here at, at this time on your first day. And they just stroll in and they think it's real estate, it's casual, and it's like there was no uncertainty. Like, you're just not on the team.

You know, it's only. How did you handle that? Did you just walk them out at lunch or what?

No, they're just out at that moment.

Yeah.

You know, and we've had people that know that, you know, like two days in a row, they, you know, because, because we knew I didn't always run it that way, but, but we knew that to be successful in real estate, you have to have some sort of standard for your life. You know, you, you're not, you're not going to succeed at the level you're telling us you want to unless you do the things that we, we are asking you to do. And it's not, we don't get like overly emotional about it or sad about it. You didn't, you didn't make the team. You know, it's like, it's a sports analogy. There's 200 players, you know, opting for that 62 player roster. I think in the NFL, whatever, whatever it is, right. There's a crazy amount of guys that come in, you know, to, to try out, you know, six, seven, eight guys deep for two, you know, two positions, you know, on the field or whatever. So same.

And there's always someone better. There is. And so like, the one thing that you'll know if you have a real superstar is if they really level up your business and like alleviate things that you have to do and then like, grow the business in places that you wouldn't think that you could grow it. Like, they innovate as well. Like, that's how you know you really got a superstar. Everyone else, there's someone else that maybe can probably do the position better. So it's like, don't get in your own head thinking like, oh, no, this is the best it could be for this particular position. The reality is that there's, there's so many people out there that are hungry and motivated that want to come in and, and show that they could Be successful, you know, and, and going back to what you said, it's like, it's the iceberg effect too. Like, you know, people put on a show during interviews and some, especially if you're hiring salespeople, like, they're good at selling, they could be good at selling you to get them in the door.

Right?

But then if they don't have the fundamental behavior traits of like, I'm gonna show up on time, I'm gonna hold myself accountable and some of those things, which some salespeople don't, then you're, you know, then you, you have to make quick decisions like you did Lars, you know.

Yeah.

Awesome. Awesome.

So what's the, what's the one thing to shift gears? And now I'll have you talk about how to get, get started with Real Sync. What's the one no brainer application of Real Sync? I, I think I know what you're going to say, but I'll let you say it. Somebody can come in, hook it up and like instantly, instantly they're like, holy cow, how did I not, how did I not see this? Or how was I missing this?

Yeah. So, dude, I would, I would say the one. And you're right, I just mentioned it. Is our Google contacts or basically it's like your phone connected to your CRM, right? So why it's a no brainer one you can get, it's really cheap, you can start for free even on it. But like you come in and the value it gives you a couple options as a team owner. You can migrate all the contacts from all your agents on your team out of their Gmail into your CRM during the setup process.

Right.

That's one feature. And you can control it by filters on like which ones you want to go in. The second thing is once the integration is set up, like you're out and about, you meet someone, you add a contact to your phone, it instantly goes into your CRM. Now if you've, you know, most of the CRMs, LARS now have some sort of automation or welcome email when you add a new lead or you, you should have that set up at least, right? Because you, the reality is like if you're meeting someone, you're not getting in your CRM and you forget and then you don't put them in for a week, they forgot about the conversation you had. You kind of forgot about it, right? So it needs to happen really quickly. So that's the no brainer, honestly. And then we have a ton of other obviously integrations on our platform that we can help you set up, of course, but the reality is that one is very seamless and easy and it's just working in the background when you're using your phone. Because most of us have set up like if you use Google, and we're going to have this for Microsoft soon as well with Office365. But when you use your Gmail and you like set up that app or set up Gmail on your phone, like it asks you at the beginning when you're setting up your phone, like if you want to have it syncing to your contacts in your phone and if you said allow, then it's already set up. But we also have articles on how to do that if you didn't allow it early initially. But dude, it's real seamless because it's just, again, it allows you to be using your phone and then getting people into your CRM. And that's simple.

Yeah. And so, so I want you to talk for just a minute on how, how powerful just this one thing could be given the context of viral. And I even remember, you know, you actually made the calls for people on their Qlik reports. Right. So it was probably very painful, but.

You still proved it was funny, man. It was fun though.

Yeah.

There's lots of business there. So, so in the context of that, like there's business in what you just talked about and it's, it's a, it's a low barrier. But just talk about that for a second. Like, you know, the people you know are happy to help you. You're just not letting them into your world and sending out newsletters and just doing the video marketing or that sort of stuff. But it starts with, you know, getting them into your database.

Yeah. So it starts with like you're using your phone all the time. You're on your phone all the time. Add you, when you add a person, whatever way you add them in your phone, it gets them into the CRM, right. Then you have some sort of welcome campaign or automation, hopefully some sort of task for phone call, follow up with that person.

Right.

And then additionally, like it's a timestamp and you're having a note or something where it goes like, you know what you talk to, right. You know what you talked about within that particular conversation. But you know, there's other things you can do from there. When we talk about viral, we have integration with, you know, my Emma, which is what Vyral uses, or some sort of newsletter solution, Mailchimp or mail or whatever. So then you can send that new lead into that email marketing system. So then they're getting your marketing and then you can get data back from their engagement into your CRM on that contact record and see what they're engaging in. They're engaging in, you know, buyer, seller type links or what have you. But like the, the value goes back to as, as you always say, like the, the sales and the follow up.

Right.

Like you're, when you're meeting these people, obviously, like if they're ready to buy, they're going to tell you or do something.

Right.

But most of them aren't and they just need to be communicated with and shown value and connect with you. When you talk about being authentic, hopefully your marketing isn't just some canned thing that it actually has some authenticity of who you are as a person in there, whether you're writing the content or someone else is writing it for you or you're doing videos or whatever to show like who you are as a person.

Right?

So you can connect with them hopefully like that's happening. And then as you see them and they get engaged and they're in your, you know, you're in your sphere now, you have the right then to follow up because you've been providing value to have a conversation with them. So you got to earn that.

Right?

And I think earning that is. Let's get them into your system so you don't forget about them because a lot of times you're busy and you forget. Yeah, awesome, awesome, awesome.

What's the easiest way to get connected with RealSync?

So, yeah, scottalsync.com and that's s, Y, N, C, H. The. The C was $10,000 for the domain, so we said no, so we added the H. So, Scott, @realsync.com or just go to realsync.com and you can schedule a consult with us and we'll talk you through your tech and see if we can help you figure it all out. Yeah, man.

All right, guys, head over there. If you need anything on the real estate front, in terms of growing and scaling, I'd say just grab a copy of the book. Go to Scale or die book dot com. All right, brother, be good. Appreciate you.

Thanks, Lars. Appreciate you, man.

Later.

Thanks for listening. Would you please take a minute to share the show with other agents who may be struggling? And if you love the podcast, please leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. And make sure you visit ScaleOrDiebook.com to get a free copy of my book. It's a nuts and bolts guide to building a real estate business that gives you true time and money freedom so that you can live your life without regrets. Thanks again and see you on the next episode.

Sam.