The Good, Bad and Ugly of Leading The People In Your World

Welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders podcast. Lars Hiddenborg here, founder of Real Estate B School, and we're going to chat about our conversation with Chris Waters. Let me check my notes here. He was responsible for 5,000 transactions, not in his career last year. And his business model is crazy. He's got three locations in Texas that will do about a thousand transactions, which is awesome. And then he's got another 18 or so folks that have kind of adopted his systems, and he's helped them build 18 locations that are responsible for 4,000 transactions. So 5,000 transactions total. And Chris tells his story in such a humble way, but there's one thing I want to pick up on, and we didn't really get a chance to dig into it. And this is mostly me and my journey in leadership and management that I'm going to go through. And I say that because I'm going to talk about the good, mostly the bad and the ugly, about leading people. One of the things Chris, he kind of opened up three plates that you need to sort of manage in order to scale a business. One was go all in on listings. Two is building your talent bench. And then he talked about a vendor program, and then the team leader, rhythm and responsibility. So we're going to dive a little bit deeper into really what I've. What I've failed in, in terms of my, my leadership and my management capabilities, and they've developed and rapidly improved over the last two, three, five years or so. But, man, have I made a lot of mistakes. And the goal today is to help you avoid the mistakes that I've made. And so we're calling this the good, bad and ugly of leading people. And number one, you know, when I was preparing for this, the first thing that came to mind is the people that you allow into your world. And it's patterns versus potential. And we. Me, let me talk about me so I can make this very personal to me. So there's no, there's no denying that I'm talking about my failures. And not generically. We have a tendency to look, and it's not a bad thing. We look for the potential in people, right? So if I'm sitting down to interview somebody to allow them to come into my world and help me build out this. This amazing business, you know, we take them at face value. So we'll. We'll be sitting with a, you know, someone who has their real estate license and they're ready to go and they want a position on our team, and we'll ask them like, hey, so you you're, you're willing to do the activities necessary to, to succeed at, at, at a high level on our team, right? And we'll lay them out and they'll say, yeah, of course I'm totally, totally willing to do that. But then we won't ask them like, hey, hey, give me three examples where you had to lead, generate or whatever, right? We don't look for actual patterns of having done a similar thing or having the skill set to be able to do the things that we've done, or sitting in an office for three, four hours at a time or, you know, some of these basic requirements that, you know, we have to have folks that are willing, in the sales position specifically that are willing to have conversations, be on the phone. And we don't ever really figure out if this person can do that. And this is me. I'll stop saying we. And so there was a sermon by my pastor, Steven Furtick, Elevation Church, where he talked about he was giving relationship advice. And I remember the sermon series was called the Power of Potential. But if you go to YouTube and you look up Steven Furtick, F U R T I C K relationship advice, there's a one minute video, you will get a kick out of it, where he is talking to the women in the room about men and he is talking about patterns versus potential. I remember hearing this sermon live and something clicked in me and it forever changed the way that I look at, you know, bringing someone onto our team and identifying real talent, but someone that can hang in our core values, two of our core values for all the years we were doing what we were doing. Number one is we hustle and work hard. And number two is we brace accountability and discipline. And those are easy to say that you can hustle and work hard and you'll embrace accountability and discipline. But then the reality is they have no patterns of ever having done so for any significant period of time, Right? And so in this little one minute clip, Steven Furtick talks to the woman. He says, you know, ladies, you know, you want to believe that this man has all this potential, yet his patterns indicate otherwise. He's in debt, he lives with his parents, he, you know, he's addicted to porn. He's, you know, he rattles off like five things, like obvious red lights that should be having the, you know, the woman running away. Yet we want to see the potential in someone so we see past those things and then we're with someone or, you know, we're with, in a marriage where there are all these issues that, you know, could have been identified ahead of time or where we bring someone onto our team, where we could have identified these patterns, these inherent patterns ahead of time. The person that you're interviewing, whether for an admin position or a sales position, they're not going to come into your world and all of a sudden be a different person. So your job in the interview process is to identify their mo, their mode of operation, modus operandi. Right. How they actually show up in the world, what their triggers are, if they're a hard worker or not, if they can hang in an environment where there's accountability and discipline or not, if they have a positive attitude or not. Right. These things are actual questions and just getting to know somebody. And a lot of times we want to overthink the recruiting process. So that's number one. Number two, and I just mentioned it in one of the core values is accountability. You know, it is the single most thing outside of getting actual talent to come on the team. The next biggest challenge that I see with team leaders is accountability. And there are definite ways to do accountability. And I'm going to go through a couple ideas and things that I've done wrong. The backdrop though is your mindset around accountability and specifically that accountability is love. Very little, just look at your own journey in business and life. Very little has been achieved at a really high level without accountability. Like, I just think of my, my. Yeah, let's, let's take the example of me not having been a runner deciding to run a marathon. I decided with a buddy of mine, John Wyan, and we made the commitment to do it together. We printed out a 16 week training program. It was run six days a week and only one day of rest. We committed to doing it and we were accountable. We would run, I think on Wednesday mornings and Saturday mornings together and then the other four days apart. And we made that commitment. We were accountable to each other. And unless you're setting big goals and you're bringing some form of accountability into your life, the chances are that you're successful are really, really low. And so as a team leader, you know, you're the coach for the people that are sort of in your world. And if you don't view it as that, you're missing the entire opportunity to challenge people in your world to step up to another level. And accountability is love. And there are certain things, you know, that, that we do to make it easier on ourselves as leaders. Number one is to set clear expectations. You need to know or the person that you're holding accountable or you're engaging in a relationship of accountability, they need to that their job. High level includes these five, you know, responsibilities. So for an agent, it could be new business development, three hours a day, follow up one hour a day, you know, making consultations to buyers and sellers, maintaining your database according to our lead management policy and whatever number five is. Right. But if you have clear responsibilities outlined, then the person knows that as long as you get their permission to enter into this relationship of accountability, they know what the game is. Right. And there's not this, you know, sort of undefined relationship. So that's the first thing that comes to mind in terms of accountability. The second thing I just mentioned is actually getting permission to hold someone accountable or enter into. I say it like that, but accountability is not something you do to someone, it's something you do with or for someone. And so I have to catch myself when I say you hold someone accountable, they're agreeing to that relationship. But I would say my last thought around accountability is that they have to understand the value of accountability and the value of being in your world is that you're willing to love them enough to challenge them to a certain standard and to challenge them to live a higher. To live at a higher level in business and in life, and they'll never not respect you for that. Meaning even if they spend two or three years in your world and you, you know, you held them to a standard that maybe they hadn't been held to before, they'll always remember you for that and they'll always love and respect you for it. So that's number two. The last one is the hardest one. And I've talked about it before here on the podcast. This is where I made my biggest mistakes in leading others generally. I'm not a regretful person. I generally kind of just keep charging forward and I have amnesia a lot of times about the things I've done wrong, but not this one. And it's bringing people into your world to serve you versus you serving them. So being served rather than you serve. And it's this whole, you know, servant leadership and what is it truly, you know, in the first part of my journey, I'll kind of make a little bit of an excuse for myself, but I'll just set the stage for what it would. It looked like when I brought in my first administrator and we had a good relationship, I don't feel like I think it was mutually beneficial. It was more with the agents that I brought on. But the year, my first full year in real estate, I've sold 44 homes and I was losing my mind. I brought in a part time assistant, Tia Wilson. She stepped up into a full time assistant. I think I started her at $14 an hour. She demanded, not demanded, she just told me she was going to charge me 20 bucks an hour and go full time. I'm like, totally, let's do it. And later that year, 2000, no, I guess in 2009, my second full year. Late in the year, I hired my first buyer agent and it kind of continued from there. But there was this backdrop. I mean, I provided opportunity they could plug into a system where they can make more money in less time with less stress. There. All of that stuff was there. So I don't want to sort of be negative on what, what was built and how we ran the team, but there was this sense of they were there and this is, this sounds really bad and I know others go through this. I was so stressed. I was living in such a chaotic world. I was working, you know, 50 hours a week as a real estate agent and 20 to 30 hours a week as a leader, manager and builder of systems, working 10pm to 2am some nights. And it was kind of crazy for 12 to 18 months in there and then just having this feeling of like, hey, not in a totally dictator kind of being an a hole kind of way. But they really, there was this underlying tone that they were there to serve me. And it came to a head when I had an ending in 2016 with an agent where we were both in tears, where he said to me, like, I feel like it was never enough. Like you were never satisfied with the amount of homes I was selling, you know, and it came from. That was the most painful conversation, but it came from. And he was right. Like there was always like, look at what I'm doing for you. But not a true heart of service. There's a really good book, the Way of the Shepherd. Phenomenal. Probably one of my favorite leadership books because it drives home what's required to tend over a flock of sheep or a group of people. And it's just so, so good. I highly recommend it. The Way of the Shepherd. And it really, really outlines what a true servant leader does, like actually what they do on a day to day basis. How they get to know their people, how they get to push their people to do what they need to do in the business without it coming off or without it being anything but, you know, in a loving sort of way. But it also goes, goes through tough conversations that you need to have with people. And what those look like and how you can do those conversations in love. And so, I mean, that's what I have in terms of good, bad, ugly, of leading people. You know, when I look back on my journey and I look at where things went well and where things didn't go well, the relationships along the way and how I treated those relationships, that's the only thing I think I would have changed, is that I would have slowed down quite a bit and just got to know more people that came into my world and not take it for granted that they pivoted whatever they were doing to join my real estate team or my coaching company. And even when I say my, it's ours, right? The business has to ultimately become not a part of you. And this mindset of the business is here to fulfill, fulfill this mission. But when I look back at all of that, I wish I just would have slowed down more. And I view people now like, how can I really deeply impact this person versus where do they fit into the system I built and moving the business forward? And so there's not. It's not bad to think of it that way. The thing I would have layered on top of that is just more love and really getting to know my people and how they're struggling and, you know, how their struggles are truly impacting their ability, you know, maybe to show up in a way that I think they should show up. There's always some. I mean, everyone is always going through stuff, right? And so just slowing down to find out where people are at and how I can truly serve them. And there may be times where the best way I can serve them is to release them from the team, but it would come from a spot of actually knowing what's going on and deeply caring about that person versus them, just sort of fulfilling, you know, their role or their responsibilities, filling a seat on the team versus like, hey, we're going to do this together. Life is hard. Business, real estate is harder. And if we're going to do this, we have to have an agreement that you're okay with accountability, you're okay with these roles and responsibilities, and I'm going to love you through some difficult accountability conversations. And I'm also going to coach you and push you, and I'm just going to love you as a human being in terms of just like, where you're struggling, when you're struggling, I'm going to be here for you. I'm not going to be able to solve everything for you. And some things you might need to just push through. But I'm going to be here for you as a coach and as a mentor and as a brother or sister in Christ. Whatever your relationship is with your team, you have got to show up that way consistently. So that is what I have got for you guys. If you want to talk about what it might look like to not only grow and scale your real estate business, but to do it in a way where you can plug into a platform that I've been building over the last 16 months which would give you access to additional wealth pillars to healthcare, to lead gen to tech, to training and get free access to all the tools and systems in Real Estate B school and six other live trainings every week without investing a single dollar in any of it. Go over to partner with Lars.com that's partner with Lars.com on that site you can talk, you can learn exactly what I've been building at EXP. It's Real Estate B School powered by EXP Realty and this is not the EXP Show. I've resisted EXP for many, many years, but in September 2020 I have not come out and really talked about it on the podcast here, but it's worth a conversation because most people I find out, really don't understand the platform and they're missing out on an opportunity which I consider to be the most disruptive thing we've seen in our industry in the last 30 years or so and something that you do not want to miss. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. This is not something that you want to miss out on and partner with me directly. I'm directly going to help you in your real estate business to grow and scale it without you having to invest in coaching. And then we can work on the additional pillar of getting you a ton of stock but then also building out residual income through agent attraction and revenue share. And also you can plug into our healthcare I'm in the healthcare program with exp and I'm saving $10,000 this year over comparable program going direct to a health insurance company. So partnerwithlars.com and we'll see you guys over there and we'll see you on the next episode.