Tim Peirce Went From Burnout to Balance In Just 3 Years...And Today He's Doing 200+ Sides

All right, so today we are in for a treat on Real Estate Team Builders podcast. I've got Tim Pierce, who I've known probably since 2017, I would say, so maybe coming up on five years here pretty soon. And he's in the low country of South Carolina, Hilton Head and Bluffton. And the reason y' all need to pay attention to this story, the journey. Tim, just being a good guy, family guy, built an amazing business, essentially went from zero transactions to, to 200 plus transactions in a four year period, left a kind of dysfunctional relationship that he had in a prior brokerage and launched the Pearce Group, which will do 200 transactions this year. So, Tim, I want you to tell a little bit about your story in terms of, you know, really quick, got into real estate this year, started this team. Didn't work out. It didn't. It wasn't my vision of how I want to build my business. And then let's kind of launch into, you know, the rest of your journey. And in particular we're going to touch on and the theme of this overall story is do not underestimate the power and importance of culture and fun and loving on your team members. So, Tim, give us your background a little bit and we'll get into it.

Yeah. Thanks, Lars. Yeah. No, so it's, it's been, it's been an exciting journey for sure. It's been, you know, in 2017, November 2017. I remember it very, very clearly. It was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done, which was basically burn my previous team to the ground and then just start rebuilding. And you know, I was like, I always joke, I was like Jerry Maguire walking out the door with my fishbowl and like, who's coming with me? And nobody came with me and it was just me. So. So it was a scary time and, you know, made the first couple hires and that. But that first year was a real challenge. And you know, I look back and sometimes I don't really give that enough credit in terms of what we've built. And it's been pretty exciting. You know, we've got 10 agents on the team, we've got three full time employees, we've got a partner agent. It's a good, sustainable business. We're happy, we're having fun. So it's just a lot more fun. It's fun to build a business.

Yeah. You know, it's funny hearing you talk about it now and you know, we were working. I was helping you at that time, consulting into your business. And I remember Some really, and I may have you start with this some, not so much questioning yourself, but just getting in your head. Like it took a lot for you to get out of something that was super successful, quote, unquote, top team, top brokerage in your area and pivot and start over again from scratch and talk about some of the emotion. Around that time, you know, we would have these long. I think we hit the 15 minute mark on voxer several times, just kind of working through some of those emotions. Talk through that because I think that's going to be helpful for someone that's maybe going into this path of maybe, you know, I didn't have experience, you know, managing and leading others and doing the business type things we need to do when we shift from agent into more of this business building mode. But talk about some of those emotions in those early, you know, first 12 to 18 months of doing this.

Yeah, well, a lot of credit to you, Lars, because I mean, I was, I was terrified. I think, you know, terrified is a, is a really good word to use. Extremely stressed out. You know, I had an incredible workload on my plate. I still had leads coming into a database that had, you know, whatever 5,000 leads in it or something like that still, you know, still buying leads. And I was the one fielding all those inquiries. And I mean, I thought my head was going to explode because I actually went from a place where I wasn't killing myself at the previous team. I was still working hard, but then I was really uncomfortable and I just came to the conclusion that, you know, look, if, if I'm, if I'm still doing it this way 10 years down the road and I didn't take a chance to do it right, I would so deeply regret it and I would kick myself and you know, and you helped to push me over that ledge and build the confidence. I would say my confidence at that time was, was at a relatively all time low for a number of reasons. And I just had to push through that and, and, and just know that I could do it. And I was also. Here's the other thing I think that was very different for me was I was willing to fail because my attitude was like, you know what? I'm not going to keep doing it this way. And if, if, if it means that I, I was going for broke, I guess is what I would say. This is either going to work or it's not. And if it doesn't, I'm okay with either outcome. Wasn't really okay with the failing outcome. But, you know, I became okay. And comfortable with the concept of, like, I'm going for broke, so.

And I think. I mean, I think this is worth slowing down on. I see a lot of folks, and it really, really. In any area of our life where we need to get uncomfortable, like, where we have a vision, we know what we want.

Yeah.

We know there's some pain and discomfort and hard work for a period of time to bridge the gap and pivot. What was it about, like, the vision that you saw for the Pearce Group, independent of where you had come from, that gave you enough courage, even if, you know, someone had to come along and sort of, you know, pat you on your back or push you at times or hold you up at times. What was it about the vision? Because I think it all starts with vision, and then you're going to figure everything out. You're going to be uncomfortable. You're going to need to develop new capabilities. But talk about that. I think people lack the slowing down enough to cast a vision for their business, something that's worth building, worth fighting for. So talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. So there's a couple things I'd like to hit on. One in particular is I used to love selling real estate. I loved it. I was good at it. And then it really consumed my life for a long time. I also got very, very sick in the crash and the market crash. Got hospitalized, and it was a pretty, pretty bad situation. I got to a point where I just said, you know what? I'm not doing this anymore. I can't compromise my health. I can remember putting buyers in my car that were close friends of mine that I love dearly. And I was like, I hate this so much, and I will do anything to not do this again. Like, even that. Even friends in the car, I didn't want to do anymore. And I was like, you should not hate what you do like this. Right? And so my attitude was like, all right, I'm either going to go, like, completely get out of the business and change careers altogether, or I'm just going to reinvent myself and build something. My business partner at the time loves selling real estate. Still does. Sells a lot of real estate, and we're still good friends. And both he and I, I can remember we were sitting at a bagel shop across from each other, and I just said, you know, the difference between you and I, I think right now is our vision, and I think you're running a sprint and I'm running a marathon. And that is the primary difference. Like, he is. He is Fine to kill himself until he goes on vacation and his phone doesn't stop ringing and he can't get away from it. But he does love to sell real estate. I had reached that point of, I've had enough. I want a life. I've compromised. I've sacrificed enough with my family. It's time for a change. And that's where we decided to part ways.

Man, that's awesome. I don't think there's a way to do real estate at a high level where there isn't some sort of collateral damage. Like, ending up in a hospital is obviously like God telling you, like, tim, you got to slow down a little bit, you know, But. But I think a lot of times we have. We have strained relationships with spouses and kids, and, you know, we forego taking care of our physical bodies or spiritual. Spiritual walk. So, one, One.

One thing. I want to add this because I think you're going to. You'll. You'll appreciate this. I did shameful things when I was in the business. Like, I can remember leaving my son's birthday party because I got to go show an oceanfront villa. And like, to this day, that makes me sick.

Man. That gave me goosebumps and made me choke up a little bit there. And so just think of that. What is that? As you're listening, what is that for you? Where you're chasing the next deal versus building the business that is sustainable. I love that analogy. Like, I think so many agents are constantly sprinting, and they're not looking at it like, man, how do I do this business for the next, you know, 25 years? And it's. And you can't sprint the whole way. So, so good. And you'll do less than 20% of your team's production this year. I think you said around 16 million of the 92 million. So that's like 16, 17%. So a lot of these teams that are doing the. The level of business that you're doing, it is like the team owner doing a hundred of the 200 deals. You know, a genius with a thousand helpers, and you're. You're not building the business that way. So let's get into, you know, you've. You've built this. This team of agents. Some are new, some are more seasoned. Let's talk about the. When I asked you, like, what could you help others with before we hit the record button, it came really quickly to you. You said, don't underestimate the importance of culture. And then you added fun afterwards. So let's unpack this a little bit and talk about maybe, you know, having the backdrop of your, your other team that, that was not set up in terms of the way you saw the peers group being set up. But talk about culture. What, what, what was it not at the. In the old world and what have you built and some of the systems you put in place and let's kind of unpack it a little bit.

Yeah. So, I mean, when we got into this, the one thing for sure that was really clear that our last team lacked was accountability, structure and systems. You know, as Gary Keller will call it, or I'm not sure Gary Keller called it this, but the glob, you know, it's a bunch of real estate agents kind of glued together by one credit card. And that's what we were right. And you know, so what was interesting about that was as we started to build the new team, that was really our focus was like accountability, structure, systems, and like, those were all the things we were super laser focused on, which is really important. And it's really important to have that good foundation, understanding your financials, all of those things. The one thing we were missing on though was just having fun, like people, people coming to work and liking where they work and being part of a group of people that, you know, you can like and share your struggles with and have some fun with and whatever, do a happy hour together or I mean, we took a max throwing and you know, stuff like that where we can, where we can establish some bonds because ultimately we spend more time working and in the office than we do at home, unfortunately. And we gotta like who we work with and we gotta like what we do. And the other thing is too, what became really apparent to me was it was important to me that they have a work life balance and that we help them with that as well. Because I don't want them to do what I did.

That is, I want to go deeper on probably three things that you said. But I want to touch on that last thing that you said. Most teams are like, the team owner might figure out a way to get off the transaction treadmill, but they do it by having like 10 treadmills running. So it's like, okay, I'm off the treadmill. And I'll be honest, I mean, this is the way I built my team in the early. The people on my team were there to serve me, not for me to serve them. So I learned the hard way through some broken relationships, and I've since mended some of those relationships and I've Learned the hard way. But talk about that part, because I don't see that on a lot of teams where the team owner is really serving and leading their team members, and they don't want them to end up with broken families or commitments that they go back on with their kids or that sort of thing. So unpack that practically. How do you do that as a team owner?

Yeah, so I would. I mean, we've had agents in our office in tears. Lars, you know, just talking about how they're really having a tough time balancing work life. Like, they want to be successful, and, you know, they. But. But then, you know, they're such great culture fits, and they're like, look, I just don't want to fail the team. I don't want to let the team down and things like that. And that's where we come to them and say, listen, you know what? We love you, man. Like, you are just a wonderful person. You hustle. Like, we know you're working hard, and our goal is to help you in any way that we can. Like, an agent came to me in our market at one point and was like, you know, I'm thinking about building a team. And I'm like, oh, yeah? Why? Why do you want to build a team? She was like, well, you know, because I want to make money from agents, you know, that work for me. I'm like, that will fail in an epic way. If that is your attitude. I said, you need to change your mindset. It's not about that. Like, it and it. And you have to believe it at your core. That, like, and it has to be fulfilling for you that when you bring agents on, like, you want to see them crush their goals, you want to change their lives, you want to help them, you know, learn to balance work life in a. In a much more effective way. Teach them how to set boundaries. I mean, all of those things are. They're rewarding to me. I. That, you know, when I talked about before, you know, sort of reinventing myself, like, this is. This has been fulfilling for me, you know, whereas putting people in my car and going on appointments wasn't fulfilling to me anymore. So I just had to change. And that's really what was a big deal. And surround yourself by people that buy into that concept and want to continue to grow an organization and have systems around, hey, we're doing a quarterly team culture event. Make it fun. And the other thing is, too, when you do those things, it really shines a light on your superstars and the people that, you know, love Being on the team and want to help you grow.

Yeah. And it's interesting hearing you say that. You know, a traditional team is more like the way you had it set up in, you know, with, with your, your business partner in terms of like the team owner doing a ton of production, not wanting to do the production. But the business is set up on the wrong economic model. There's no accountability and structure in place. And then the agents on that team don't get the love because the team, team owner has no margin. It's kind of like take any, any business person and put too much stress and too many hours on them and then they come home and they kick their dog. You know, it's like, I can't help it, right. The dog is there and it needs to be kicked because I'm in a bad mood. It's kind of like a traditional team is set up where the team owner is so overwhelmed that they're going to kick their agents, you know, whatever that looks like. They're not going to love on them, they're not going to have time for them. And so pick one thing. Where does this come out? I hear the team events, but how do you get into. Is there like a quarterly meeting you have with your agents where you have an open conversation? Are there, you know, a couple times a month you're sitting down with your agents and just like unload on me, tell me, tell me what's going good or maybe not so good. In your personal life and your business, what is the structure of the most important mechanism you have in place with your agents to, to make sure that you're really on top of where they're at in terms of their work life balance?

Well, even though that this is, you know, not exactly the right time or place for this to happen. But you know, we do, we do one on ones. We were doing those weekly and we're backing that down because it was a little bit much. So we're probably going to be doing, you know, once every, every two weeks. Right. And those one on ones should generally be 15 minutes and it should be pretty quick and business orient. However, I think the change there is because we really do want those meetings to be not an emotional event session and all of those things. We want that to be business oriented. But as the team leader, I think what I'm shifting to is, okay, it's time to pick up the phone, call one of my agents and be like, hey, let's go grab drinks, let's go grab lunch, breakfast, whatever, and just sit down and be like, what's going on? You know, what can I help you with? Simple as that. I mean, it's, it's really as simple as that.

So, so just making time for those, those encounters and just asking a simple question, what can I help you with? Sounds so stupid, but I'm writing it down every. No, it doesn't sound stupid.

No, I thought that was profound, Lars.

It is, it is. You know, it sounds so basic, yet I wonder if you were to survey, you know, team leaders at the 150 to 300 deal mark. You know, how many times have you asked your agent agents this question in the last 90 days? What can I help you with? I bet you not a lot of team leaders are asking that question. So that's really, really good. Let's get into some more. You know, when we, before we hit record, we talked a little bit about kind of your attitude towards your team members, and you actually quoted. I don't know who it was you quoted, but in terms of taking care of your people. And then, you know, yeah, I'll throw.

Out the quote and it's paraphrased. I don't even know if I have it right. But I think either way, the understanding is there. So I think it's Richard Branson, and he said that it's not your customer first, it's employee first. If your employees are happy and they are fulfilled in their, in their work and what they do every day, your customer is going to be happy. And it's such a simple concept. Right? You know, I mean, if you got, if you got agents that are just grinding away and killing themselves and not having any fun, then, I mean, how's that going to be perceived by, by the customer when they get together?

Yeah, it's. And it's the same thing that drove you to the point where you could be looking at $2 million beachfront homes with your friends of yours in the car, and you're not, and you're miserable.

I'm like, man.

So it's the same thing with your agents. Like, if they're not in a good place, they're not going to take care of. Because now you've committed to the only production you do, and it's only by necessity our listings, essentially. So if, if a $2 million best friend of yours is buying, it's most likely going to be with one of your agents. And if they're, you know, up to here boiling and stress and losing at home, and they're not going to take care of your clients and the quote I just, I googled it is clients do not come first, employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients, which is really, really good. Talk a little bit about, you know, what's next, what's the next phase of growth for you? You know, you're going to achieve 200 sides at this point. Where do you see the business three years from now? And knowing what you do now, what are the two or three things that you need to focus on to achieve the growth that you're looking to achieve?

Well, I can tell you what our goal is for 2022. We have not laid out our three year goal. I think I have a pretty good vision of what that's going to look like. But 2022, the goal is 350 sales. And part of the planning around that is to get a sales manager in place, have me 100% out of production, which I could be now, but there's a number of reasons why, you know, I'm still, still doing some sales, you know, to, to get a sales manager in place. The other model that we're following pretty closely is our agents that are hitting three sales a month. We hire a partner agent for them. And that partner agent is not a showing assistant, a partner agent, which is somebody that can do their job. They can, you know, take a client in a buyer consultation, negotiate contracts, show homes, do all of those things and help them build their business so that we can essentially build out many teams within the team and as we continue to do that, that will propel their growth and then we've got to continue to recruit. So our goal in 2022 is to get to a total of 20 agents on the team. The partner agent model will drive a lot of that growth. I believe. I believe that you can hire and find considerably better talent that way because you're paying a salary and you can find people from other professional backgrounds where oftentimes when you're searching for commission only salespeople. That's a. It's harder to find talent. It's out there, but it's harder to find.

And what are your biggest, you know, as you make the shift to add more people. Any concerns with the culture or safeguarding the culture?

Yes, I think, you know, what I've heard from some other teams is that have grown very fast is that the agents start to get really concerned about the growth being too fast and you know, with that sort of scarcity mindset that, you know, agents naturally are going to have is, you know, there's less opportunity for me now. Right. So making sure that we, you know, are checking the pulse on that regularly and making sure that everybody feels like they've got a, you know, that they're valued and they've got a great place on the team and that they're going to be part of growth and benefit from it.

So talk a little bit about, I think, even just the mindset. So you had a very specific goal of, you know, building a business that. Where you could sort of pour into your agent, your team members, the agents that are on your team, and to do it in a way where you had the right economic model set up and you can sort of step back from. From production and you're out of buyers. You're, you know, essentially, you could be out of production now. But what was it, you know, to go from that, like, super. I forget what word you use. When you first left that other team, launched your own team, you were. You were scared for lack of terrified.

Yep.

Terrified. Yeah. So what mindset shift or, you know, was it just keep leaning in and just sort of take one step a day? What allowed you to go from terrified? And, like, all the production had to be done by you because that. That's all there was at that time when you made the shift to now, like, you're so clear on, you know, succeeding through others.

We started to have some wins, and I would say probably the first biggest win was first couple of good hires, you know, that were like. Yeah, it was kind of funny because it was like, you know, they were totally bought into it. And I'm like, I'm not sure I am yet. And so the people around you that help you, help you do it, I mean, you cannot do this on your own. You got to find the right people that are going to help you. And then all of a sudden, I was, you know, I feed off that energy. And so all of a sudden, everybody coming together and working towards one unified goal. And that was. That was really what got me over it. I'm the kind of person, I've got to be around people, you know, I can't. I can't be. I can't be the Lone Ranger. And that really fed me.

Yeah. And I remember and it's sort of maybe. And I don't know if this agent is still. Still with you. I remember being impressed with your wanting to bring your people into, like, the tools and systems and structure and accountability and the vision where most team owners are, like, they go to an event and they come back and like, okay, we're doing this and you guys are going to love it. Where it was important for you to make sure your team members actually knew where you were charging so they would be bought in. Did you sort of learn that the hard way from the old team or what, what, what, what made you want to get buy in?

I just, I needed their help, right? So I felt like the best way to get their help is to, you know, invest in them and don't operate out of fear like they're going to go build it. In fact, quite the opposite really happened is people were like, man, you're spending a lot of money and investing a tremendous amount of time building a team. Like, I thought I wanted to build a team, but I really don't because, you know, I got a pretty good life here. Like, this is pretty good. And I think very few people want to do what we do from a team building standpoint. I knew that that was the only way to continue to, to reinforce what we were doing and get some buy in and also some contribution.

Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, let's end with this question. So what advice would you give someone who is either thinking of building a team so they're top agent, they're busy, they're not getting to their leads, they're justifiably at a position where they could build a team or someone who has started to build a team, but maybe it's not quite the right way. There's no accountability, structure, systems or culture. What advice would you give someone that's in the early stages of the journey that you've, you've gone down here?

The first thing you got to do is really a lot of soul searching and determine what you want. Like, if you're going to, if you're like my business partner, my former business partner, and you love selling real estate and the grind and all of those things? I do think there's probably a model for that. Surround yourself with a bunch of employees and, you know, support you. But I think really, you really got to ask yourself, like, what do you want? Like, I knew for me, I wanted to build a business, I wanted to get out of production, I needed to make a big change to do that. And I, and I'm 100% confident that it is a lot easier to build something from scratch than it is to, you know, completely rework a team or anything for that matter. And so, like, if we tried to unravel what we did on my previous team and say we're putting all these new things in place and it would blow up. So, like, you have to want it so badly that you're willing to go through that first year of pain and just start building it. Because to me, Lars, you know, what I did was as, you know, I went to another team, you know, close to our market, and I went to go look at their team. This guy was younger than me. He had been doing it at the time. I think he. I think he was about where we are now, like, four years into the business or something like that. And he built this, like, incredibly successful team. And I was like, man, I got to do this now. I have to do this now if I want to. If I want to take control of some change in my life. So you got to just make the decision. You got to rip the band aid off. You got to do it. You got to it. It's hard. It's not easy.

Yeah, that's awesome, man. That's really, really good. And I appreciate you just sharing from your heart and the truth of, you know, this journey is not for everybody. You know, not everybody earns the right to be able to surround themselves with others. And, you know, the one thing I've learned in my journey is, like, it's a massive responsibility to invite people into your world. You know, like, looking at all. All how we're 100,000 in GCI to, you know, exiting production and then becoming the owner of the business and all the strategic questions you would want to ask yourself. So go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com and pick up that free report. Tim, my brother, I appreciate you. If there's anything I can ever do for you, you let me know. And this will serve many, many folks here in their journey to business ownership. So I thank you.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Lars.

All right, talk soon, brother.

Okay.