025 Onboarding and Training As Your Team Differentiators with Nick McLean

No matter where your business is today or where you want to take it, you'll get there faster and more profitably with an operating system. Welcome to Team os, your guide to starting, growing and optimizing real estate team. Here's your host, Ethan Butte.

For insights into starting, growing and optimizing your real estate team, we're Talking with Nick McLean a few fun facts before we get started. He's the owner and CEO of Nick McClain Real Estate Group, a coach to many top teams and leaders, and a co founder of Reside Platform. He was a wildland firefighter with the U.S. forest Service, a competitive mountain bike racer, and one of the youngest pilots to fly 747s. And he's the author of Million Dollar Agent, a book I'd recommend to anyone who appreciates a show like this one. Thanks so much for talking Team OS today, Nick.

I'm so excited to be here.

Awesome. I could honestly do an episode with you on pretty much every chapter of Million Dollar Agent. They're all relevant topics. It's just like it's called Agent in the title, but it's so much about your team journey. So I'm going to try not to be too redundant to the book in this conversation and just tell folks to go pick it up and read it because it's insanely useful. And we'll probably focus Most on chapter 15, I think high performers and operations, in particular training and development. But we're going to start where we always do. Nick, which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. When I ask for that, what comes to mind?

I think the characteristic of a high performing team is in one in which they, the, the people, the leader and the people within the team are in sync with each other and have a rhythm. So you know, there's, there's the concept of velocity, there's direction and there's velocity. It's like, okay, well you could be going or speed, you go really, really fast. You could be making lots of progress. Well, you could be, be covering a lot of ground. But are you making progress? Because you know if you're going in the wrong direction, but you're going really, really fast, you're actually going away from the goal. So I think a team with the leadership gives that direction and when they get into sync and that's with training, that's with the leads, that's with their communication style, that's within the structure, they know where they fit in and how to, how to kind of go up and down the hierarchy if there is one and I like this, you know, that people are like, oh no, we don't have a hierarchy. We're not top down at all. Well, there's top down and bottom up for sure. So I think a high performance team, they take that seriously, you know, they take that really, really seriously. And that's really the focal point.

Yeah, totally fair and like layered up. On top of some of those specifics, I feel like you'd have a lot to say on vision values, by the way, for, for folks who do commit to million dollar age. And I'm talking about chapters three and four here. Beliefs, like the belief system I thought was a really interesting layer. Know a lot of people will have a vision or a mission statement. A lot of folks will state, you know, three to seven core values. But this set of belief statements I thought was having that clarity in what we believe as a group and then essentially recruiting, training and executing and holding people accountable, consistent with that layer of shared beliefs probably adds that like tightening to all these processes.

It really does. And I, for, for the people kind of listening, you know, it kind of goes back to my airline career where I was in Miami, Florida. So I went to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, right out of training, got higher on this Boeing 747 startup airline. Like, I had no business at 25 years old working at a 747 international cargo operator. But I was willing to do what they had an apprenticeship because they were a startup, so they wanted, they wanted cheap labor, right. So they, they went to these schools and got the highest aptitude and test score people to join them. Well, I would happen to be in the top five in my class. So I had an interview here and had this apprenticeship. And I love the idea of an apprenticeship, by the way. And the apprenticeship was this. It was, you're gonna work, you're gonna work in the office in flight dispatch for a year, then you're gonna be a flight engineer for a year, then you're gonna go to a pilot se the 747. And I'm thinking, okay, man, by the time I'm 27, I'll be right seat of 747. Holy cow, I'm willing to do it. So I show up day one, they don't even have their certificate. They don't even have their FAA certificate. They can't even fly. I was like, I thought you were an airline. They're like, no, you're going to help us write the manuals. So for the next year, literally, I sat with the Director of maintenance, the director of operations, the director of training, Dave Mlan, who was the director, he was actually on Air Force One for years. He was my mentor in the director of training realm. Right. And this is where my passion for training comment came in. Right. So over the year, we built these manuals. Now, why do I say all this? Well, we start recruiting. I like in. I like in real estate. We call it recruiting. We start hiring agents. Like, can we call recruiting hiring? You know, can we call it hiring? Yeah, it's headhunting. It's talent acquisition. You know, give it any fuzzy name you want. But it's like telling your agents to prospect. They don't want to call. Don't call it prospecting, call it reaching out to potential clients. You know, like, call it having quality conversations with the people you want to help and change their life and to improve the quality of their life. Right. Call it something else or call it prospecting. I mean, don't hide from the fact. But, right, so we start hiring agents. I mean, sorry, pilots. Well, these pilots are coming from American Airlines, United, United Airlines, you know, US Airways, Atlas, Atlas Air. So they're coming from all of these different cultures, all these different airlines with mission statements, vision statements, core values. Okay, so you think you can put your mission vision on the wall and they're just going to automatically adopt the new one during onboarding? Right. So what they had was something underneath all of it and that, and that was a belief system. This is like, how are we, how do we fly airplanes? How do we conduct ourselves? What is our level of standards and excellence? How do we view the client? Right, Because Boeing already tells you how to fly the 747, but how do we communicate with each other? So I think a belief system, something, it's deeper than the core value. And for instance, one of our belief systems at our team is pilot in command. Okay. The concept is the. That everyone is the pilot in command, so they are 100% accountable and responsible for the outcome. And everyone within the organization has the same belief system. So you actually have this overlapping effect of like, oh, during the transaction or during the process, more than one person is taking on that responsibility as the pilot in command, the ultimate fiduciary or the ultimate decision maker person responsible for it. So that's kind of where it came in, where it's like, okay, we got to indoctrinate these people, these new airline pilots into our company and our culture with a belief, right? And that just happens. And a good way to do it. I learned this From Heath. Heath Evans, friend of John Sheplax. Done. Done some coaching with him. He's a Super bowl champion with the New Orleans Saints. Played for Bill Belichick. They called it mantras. Bill Belichick would call it a mantra. Like, they had these little Patriot way mantras. And those mantras are basically like these belief systems, the things that you say consistently. Like, how often are you at a real estate team or company, and people are constantly repeating the core values down the. You know, they're not. People aren't going down the office just repeating core values, but they repeat mantras. Right. Client for, like, they're repeating this. So I think. I think the core value thing is really important, for sure, and it should guide your hiring and your firing and the way you conduct your business. But on the agent level or the staff level, I think there's a belief system, and those are. Those are comprised of lots of little mantras.

Yeah.

And if you don't have the belief systems, they're going to emerge, and maybe you grab onto them. Right. Then you put them on the wall and you repeat them.

Yeah. And it's like, at some level, it's the vacuum is there to be filled. And if you don't fill it with beliefs that are important to the core group that we built this thing with, it will be filled with something, and you might as well have something to say about that. I also love this idea of mantras you now have me thinking about. Like, whether it's belief statements or belief systems or mantras, this is the more tangible, teachable aspect of the core values. They're connected. It's another way to express it. But it's the kind of thing you would say every day. Like, when I hear mantras like, oh, yeah, this is the kind of thing we say. This is the verbal expression and kind of the way that we communicate. This is a moment that reflects this core value, as opposed to. As you described, walking around talking about core values. Okay. Normally I would go to, like, your path into your team, but I kind of want to do it in reverse because I want to land on the fact that you joined the MLS the same day that you opened your own doors in a market where you knew literally no one. So I'm going to do it a little bit in reverse. How would you characterize your real estate team today?

My real estate team today is, you know, we've been doing for 11 years. I think we're a veteran, established, preeminent real estate team in our marketplace. You know, kind of going back to 2000. November 2011, when I decided to build a real estate team as a brokerage. I decided to go brokerage firm, independent brokerage, and then do it under the team model. It was new. You know, there was teams around the nation, but they were very few and far between, and they were exclusive to major markets. I can tell you that there were not teams being built in towns of 50,000 people in 2011. That just wasn't a thing. Okay. But because of my background as a wildland firefighter and as a traditional sports athlete, competitor, and an airline pilot, I'm like, I'm not doing this alone. I'm doing this collectively. And I think collectively, we're going to win. And I was always there. I already had a. Always had a burning desire to be a leader. I always wanted to be a leader, you know, and it's just always been in my heart. So I wanted to lead. I didn't want a lot of independent agents just being independent solo practitioners, you know, like independent. I wanted interdependency. I want people collectively working together. So, you know what's funny is, you know, in 2011-12, nobody knew who we were. And I joined the MLS like you said, I joined the MLS the day of my. My sign went up, put my shingle up, I joined the mls. Nobody knew who I was. It was like, you know, it's like that killer who used to hear these stories about Keller Williams. There was a time where no one knew who Gary Keller was. Well, there's definitely. There's a time no one knew who Nick McClain was. In fact, I would put signs in people's yards, for sale signs, and they would take them down because they told me no one recognizes my sign. Literally. I had a client. I told you this story. I had a client go to Home Depot and buy a for sale by owner sign and replace my sign with that. And I drove by and said, what the hell's going on? They wrote my number on the sign. They're like, what? It has your number on it. I was like, okay, right. So I got some work to do. The local newspaper came to me, and he reported that I was the. Of the 17 brokerages in town, I was last in name recognition.

Last.

It was something like 07% of the people in the community know who you are. 0.07. Not even, like, not even a tip. Okay, so you know who. How do I characterize our team now? We are the preeminent. You pull anybody? We're number one in the consumer's mind. Are we number one on the MLS all the time? No, not all the time. There was a time we did 20 market share, one out of every five homes. Right. But, you know, we are that preeminent thing and that it comes from longevity. So anyone listening here, it's like, you need to be playing this long game. That is when you win and you win really, really big. It's like, don't fail, you know, don't go under, survive. There's going to be times in the marketplace where the winner is going to be the one that, that survives it. Right? And just that consistency stringing in those consistencies. And so, yeah, like, I've been on the radio for 11 years straight. I haven't taken one month off of radio. There's been times where did I want to pay 7,000, 10,000 for radio go? You know, maybe I made adjustments, maybe I go down to three. I make deals, you know, but, you know, I gotta stay consistent with that, that brand. And then everything be, be that goes. Be that goes beyond behind the scenes with teamwork, you know, 10, 11 years, we haven't taken one week off from training. There was a time that I did training five days a week for seven years straight. No days off, right? And there's this, like, team win. I want to build a team, but I want to, you know, I don't want to be a leader. I want to build a team and be a team leader, but I don't want the leader on my title. I was like, whoa. I thought that was the goal. See, that was the goal for me. Now, money was the goal. I wanted to make money. But really the meaningfulness of it was the leader part of the title. It wasn't the team part of the title. See, people that want to build a team because that's the ego talking. I want a team because that's an ascension. I want to say I own something. Like, don't get into team because you want that. Go into team because you want the leader side of the title, not the team side of the title. And when you go for the leader side of the title, guess what happens? You get a team. Right. It doesn't work the other way around.

Yeah, it's because people want to be led. They don't want to be underneath someone. They want to be led.

Yeah, they do. They want. And. And they want direction. I mean, you think about this. I'm about to interview on our podcast, Morgan Housel. He wrote the book Psychology of Money. I've known him for years. He. He sold 4 million copies of psychology Money. His new book, Same as Ever came out. I don't know if you've grabbed this one. Same as Ever. And I have to introduce you to. It'd be awesome for you guys to get on. Do you guys connect? You'd love him. And you know the book, Same as Ever. It's like, what's not going to change? What's not going to change? What's always going to be the same? Well, yeah, people are going to need direction. There's always going to be new agents entering the marketplace. Right. Even experienced agents are going to be making mistakes and are going to want guidance. They're going to want leads, they're going to want systems, they're going to want support. Right. So you, you focus on those things and your team's gonna, your team's gonna have that longevity.

Yeah. Okay. The 11 year journey again, for folks watching or listening, I want to point you to somewhere early on, I forget exactly where it is, but you broke down and I so appreciate you doing this. You broke down agent count, staff count, and staff positions, transaction sides and company revenue year by year, by year from 2012 to 2021. So 6 agents, 1 staff to 40 agents and 7 staff 100 transactions to about 500 transactions. 10x revenue from less than half a million to more than 5 million in revenues. On that what I'd like to turn that into again, I want to detail it and break it all down because people can go get that. But for you, as you're thinking about, I saw some of those jumps, right? You added an isa and then a certain point you added another isa. At some point you added a photographer and videographer. At some point you. I think there was a year where you literally doubled buyer's agents. You know, sometimes you're hiring ahead of plan. I'm thinking about staff positions here. Sometimes you're hiring ahead of plan, sometimes you're not. There's kind of like a agent to staff ratio. I don't know if that ever mattered to you. Like how did you make decisions about when to add fixed costs and positions to the company? And how much of that was you deciding? As a leader, I need to stop doing some of these things or I need to firm up this area of the business because it's not really a strength or interest or passion of mine. My leadership is over here. Talk a little bit about adding some of the fixed costs in building the team.

Yeah, well, that's a really interesting question and I'll tell you why. Because the way I look at the real estate business is like a manufacturing company. I, I think of more of a fact. It's like a factory. You know, you got, you know, you know the sales process, the sales funnel, you got leads, Legion marketing, advertising, lead generation, they come into the funnel and then you got to work the funnel, right? From, from calls, contacts, appoint appointments, set appointments, capped appointments signed and ratified. Then, then execution of that, a conversion to a closing, whether it's a listing or a buyer side. Then, then you got the listing coordination and the buyer, the transaction coordination. And then you have the closing process. Then you have the after sale client experience and retention and referral business. Right? That's the whole spectrum of it. Right. And so you, what you have to think about is where are the bottlenecks and where are the future bottlenecks based on the inputs that I'm doing, the initiative, initiatives I'm doing. So think about this. There's a book called the Goal by Ilya Goldrat. And in that book, it's a great story. What's great about this one? It's like the five dysfunctions of a team, right? Where it's a story, it's great. We can just read this fable, right? And you get this concept of bottlenecks. And bottlenecks are where they really tell you where you need to hire. So increasing the capacity of the process that is not already constrained, that is not the bottleneck is wasting your money. If you have a bottleneck, you need to attack that bottleneck. Well, how do you attack a bottleneck? Right? You can eliminate the bottleneck from happening. So putting something in front of it to make sure that you don't have any defects or mistakes entering there, right? You can exploit it. You can, you can reassign people that do have capacity into that bottleneck and help out, AKA IE or AKA cross train people. Like how many people have agents with extra time on their hands? Like do you do, do you. The question is what's the goal? Is that really. The goal is, you know, like who else can do this at a, who, who on my staff can, can already do this, right? And so cross training people, so we expl, we exploit this bottleneck, then we can, we can reassign people to that bottleneck. We can improve the system, maybe the system or automations or technology or written procedures going to help eliminate that bottleneck or increase the capacity of that. And then because I want flow, I want flow and sometimes Ethan, it is hire somebody. But guess what, I'll tell you this being profitable because you look at my numbers I can tell you the, the P and L was good. It was good the whole time. I'm going to add people last. I'm going to throw people at the problem last in terms of new hires, fixed cost, salaries, expenditures. Right. But at the same time, you know, there's always this dichotomy here. I'm always looking for great talent, you know, and on the op staff side there is amazing people out there that can change your world. I mean, absolutely. Rocket. Right. But you have to be that leader and show them the direction of it. They're not going to create. I haven't really been able to find someone that comes in there that's going to create the system for me. Right. So this belief that you can just hire somebody, they're going to magically know the real estate industry and solve the bottleneck problem. I don't think so. Right. But they can certainly execute really, really well. So that's what I would study. I studied, you know, when I got into the goal in Elia Gold Rat, it got me into the Toyota tps, Toyota production systems. Right. And this stuff will absolutely blow your guys minds and there's a lot of similarities in that. So, so Ethan, I, I didn't, I don't know if I answered your question as much as I had an awareness of where the constraint was. So bottleneck can also be called a constraint. Where are the constraints? And then I had this like toolkit of how do I attack constraint? And that was quality control, quality assurance in front of IT systems and processes and technology reassigning people that have capacity to that bottleneck. Last resort. Higher.

Really good. You did answer the question. I mean my goal in answer in asking any of these questions isn't to get anything specific. It's to generate ideas for an agent or a team leader or a brokerage owner to think about their own business. And so what you just offered me is something, I'll put it in my own words, something I've identified about myself and other people around me is, you know, so often we buy like, you know, new tools and new tech because it's cool and we're excited about it and, and we never stop to think about like does this actually solve a problem that I have? And so you know, rather than thinking about the hire, the higher is the last thing exactly as you said, which is okay, what's the pain, what's the frustration, what's the bottleneck, what's the constraint? What's slowing us down? What are my agents frustrated by? What's preventing us from getting where we want to go. Let's identify that and then think about solutions. And oh, by the way, it might be hiring someone, but it doesn't have to be. And so, like, that's the unlock that. That you've given someone who's think about, gosh, maybe I need to hire someone. And it's like, no, you need to solve a problem. And that may involve hiring someone.

I can give you lots of examples. Right? So let's say my transaction coordinators getting a little overwhelmed or my listing coordinator is getting overwhelmed. Well, if my listing coordinator is getting overwhelmed, it's probably because I have a lot of listings. Right. But are there times where the listing flow goes down and they're gonna have capacity? Probably. So if you hire another listing coordinator, there's going to be a time in the future where that assistant listing coordinator is going to have nothing to do. Okay. So just be aware of that. So what else is that assistant listing assistant, listening coordinator going to do? And fill in the gap for when it's slow? And that might be answering the phones. That might be putting up science, that may be taking photos. Right. So cross training is really important. See that how I'm thinking about this now. At the same time, I'm going to dive deep into my transaction coordinator and go, okay, right. Let's look at your calendar. Let's look at your time blocking. Right. Let's look at your computer. Oh, my gosh. Your computer. It's four years old. How long does it take? No, this literally happened. Real story. Oh, man. We need to hire a transaction coordinator. She's really slammed. Her computer was four years old. It took 20 minutes to load every day. Her printer. Her printer was across the office. She would go over to print or scan, like, four times a day. Right. So what. What did I do? I attacked that I increased the capacity of the person I already have in place. New computer. Thousand bucks. A lot cheaper than 50,000 a year. Super fast. Oh, you only have one monitor. Oh, two monitors. Increased productivity.

Right.

Oh, lunch. Lunch has been going an hour, hour 10. Right. Oh, so you see what I'm. See what I think you got to think that way as a leader. Right? Well, you really.

What?

You're not really a leader, are you? You're like a manager. You're like a manager.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think for the longest time I was like, man, don't call me a manager. But there's so much power in a. In a high productive management style.

Yeah. Okay. I want to spend a few minutes in onboarding and training. I'm going to read you a couple quotes and then we'll get off and running. I'll turn it into a question, I promise. I'm quoting you from a Facebook post of yours relative to the work that you're doing with the RESIDE team. My core competency is onboarding agents to get agents into production quickly with the right habits and skills that will stand the test of time. Here's one from Million Dollar Agent as I have worked with the top teams in North America, the teams with the highest held standards are always the most profitable. I feel like standards are partly where we were off the the top values and beliefs, but it's also part of the the how behind the what of a process or a system is how I think about that, so I'd love to dwell in this. I'm going to ask you about some very specific tactics you broke down in again, chapter 15, but talk a little bit about onboarding and training as a fundamentally differentiating factor for agent, staff and clients alike. I feel like you can differentiate your business through onboarding and training in a way that affects all the core stakeholders. Do you see it that way? And b like why do you think so?

Yeah, you.

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I had an aha moment in my career. Well one it was early on too, where I really because my my relationship with Dave McLean that I looked up to Air Force One at Focus Air Cargo. You know what I realized was Dave McLean had the respect of everybody. I mean every even though he wasn't a pilot on the line, he was the trainer and the teacher and there was something like that level of wisdom and respect. I just wanted that someday Like, I didn't need to be the guy with all the credit and all the awards. I wanted to be the guy that brought the people up. Right. And, and had this like, oh, wow, Nick. Oh, you know, like the guy, the guy that actually helped mentor these people. There's a common thread there. So I'll give you an example too. Like in my marketplace right now, there's probably four other brokerages that have spawned off of my team, like brokerages. And that is what I'm most proud of. Right. But I also saw that, you know, a lot of agents or agencies, they really didn't have a systemized onboarding and training protocol for new agents. Like, you know, you know, who has been a new age, who watching this was a new agent at one time, like everybody. Okay. Who here had the high performing onboarding and training protocol that you could be proud of that set you, you know, set the tone of your career? Right. It just didn't happen. That wasn't my experience. I got hired at a brokerage and it was like, here's your desk. Watch and learn. It was a total tribal. And I was like, oh, this is the opportunity. This is how I'm going to do it. Because if I can take anyone from any industry with an appetite and aptitude to learn and the will to learn and the will to go out and do things with my, if I have a training protocol, oh, that's how I win. Right. And my key metric was like, you know, time to first sale is important, but covet threw that out the window because you could just like not know anything and sell something, which caused another problem. Right. So it used to be like time to first sale, but also time to first sale with procedural discipline if you got lucky. I didn't count that as a time for sale. I counted that as a red flag that we need to go back and fill in the gaps. Because if you skip steps and you close the home, that's going to cost you tons in the future. So just be aware of that. Teams, it's like, oh, I showed one home and they made an offer. Red flag. Oh, right. I didn't do a listing presentation, but they signed, oh, red flag. Right. Because your standards are what you allow them to get away with. So really be cognizant of like when they have great results to go back and make sure they didn't skip, skip steps and also be cognizant of when the results bad. They may have done everything right. Right. And, and so, you know, if you do everything right and it doesn't work, then they're like, why did I go through all that effort? Well, because probabilistically, if you do the right way over time, you're going to win more than you lose, right? Because that's the way real estate is. We, we barely win. It's like 5% conversion rate is like fantastic. Like get on the stage, follow boss is like you are on the panel, you know, or maybe, maybe not. It depends on the lead source. But you know, 10% plus on Zillow leads, you're going to be on stage consistently if you've done it consistently over time. So I just knew that was the way, I just knew that was the way that, that, that's how I'm going to differentiate myself. It wasn't, it wasn't to, you know, have a value proposition for people to join. It was truly to serve, lead and inspire those people and make sure they're in a great position to win. I couldn't, I couldn't be tied to the result. I could just be tied to their, their competency. There's, and so when I'm looking at their standards and team standards throughout the company, it's what do you allow? Like you can say, you can say make 20 calls a day but if, if you're allowing them to make 0 or 1, that's your standard, right? And you could say you train every day and, and you're a training organization first and foremost. But if you, if you, if you're okay with them not showing up. So Ethan, I'll tell you know, for that seven year period, five days a week, text, call, email every agent before the meeting you're going to come, right? The subject, I mean like I got to enroll them. The, the calendar invite didn't say training on it. It was like a headline like I'm marketing and advertising to these agents. How to Increase your sales 2x without having to work more. Right. Learn how to time block so you, you know, so you can make more sales and pick your kids up from school. Right. Like you, my calendar invite was enrolling them. I'm, I'm writing headlines. So, and that's great because I'm, I'm also increasing my, my, my skills and abilities to market to the consumer. Because if I can't get my agents to show up to the meeting, then I'm not very good at marketing. I'm not very good at enrolling or, or showing value. So you know, you think about that now. Team meeting happens. Okay? There's a difference between team meetings and training. But the training happens. Okay, great. Awesome. Who didn't show up? Right? I got somebody taking notes with a Ross, you know, taking attendance, and they give it to me at the end of the meeting on my way home or wherever. Ethan, throughout the day, I'm calling you. Hey, Ethan. Hey. We had that really great meeting today. On time. Blocking man. Ah, I wish you were there. Oh, yeah, sorry about that. I had an appointment. Oh, was that a personal appointment or a professional appointment? Oh, it was personal. Oh, okay. Well, we, we do have a core value. We, we, we, we, we support family health and community, and health is always important. Can you do me a favor next time and let me know in advance? Oh, I'm so sorry about that. You're right. Next. Well, can I count on seeing you tomorrow? Yeah, I'll be there tomorrow. Awesome. I'll see you tomorrow. Right. And this just, that is a stand like that for me. One of our standards is we, we pursue growth and learning. Right? And so we talked about belief systems, but this is how I intertwine my core values, right? I named it. Part of my accountability is naming out my values and our values together. And then I go, okay, well, you know, I can't wait to see you tomorrow. Because our other core value is pursuing growth and learning. And that's the single most important thing we can do. In fact, we only meet together four hours, you know, five hours a week. Right. This is the time that, this is where I can give you the most impact and be available. You know, you know, how many team leaders have got a minute problems? They got the, got a minute problems. Right? Well, that's, you know, the way you get rid of that is because you, you, you have this hour where you get everyone's attention. I know there's a death by meeting for sure. There's a diminishing return and I think the optimal amount of meetings or trainings, but it's probably four for teams. It's probably four hours, three to four hours a week. You could probably go down to two or three if the team leaders just relentlessly prepared and just massive energy and impact and they have an agenda and they stick to it. They start on time, they end on time, and they get out and people take action. Right? And so that's the level of focus and intensity I give to that. So I, over my years, you know, 11 years in the, in the real estate team industry, you know, I have the privilege to have leveraged seventh level leverage and remain productive out of production. And I'm three hours, I'm about Three hours a week, direct in person energy to the team. The rest of the week I'm doing reside platform, tons of reside platform, helping people grow their teams. Just like we're talking about today. I have a property management company. I have a real estate estate arm. I have a real estate hold rental portfolio. Right. I even have a pest company. I have a pest company that I run.

That's vertical integration right there.

If it is vertical integration. Right. Home services. But you, it all comes back to that onboarding and training which gave me the freedom. And then it also came into like really becoming a master of this meeting. Right. And then bringing people into that world, giving them the stage. So. Oh, Susan's gonna. One of my top agents is crushing it in this area of the business. Susan's going to be running that meeting. I'm on the podcast with you right now. Guess what? Christine. And my transaction coordinator is running the meeting. Right. Bringing her forward and get you what attendance is higher, mine or hers. Right. I'm guessing it's going to be pretty dang good right now.

Yeah. Well, people want different faces and different voices. Shout out to Christina for me. Podcast happened today too, by the way.

Okay.

So much good stuff in there. I want to plus up a couple small things that were in there. I don't want anyone to miss it. First of all, you have a back button. Whether you're listening in your podcast app or you're watching on the YouTube app, you have a back button for a reason. It's so you can hear the same thing twice and really absorb it. But one is this idea that the second or third exception is the rule is the new standard. Right. Like you let it fly once. We're going to talk about it. You let it fly two or three times. That's the new rule. Period. And you can't. No one can afford that because it's difficult to bring it back again. The other, the other one is your headline writing idea. And what I want to plus up on that is this idea that if you just put a bunch of training blocks on the calendar, it's going to be as boring for you as it is for them. And it's. And it's going to fall apart if instead you think about it from a headline perspective. What's in it for them? Why are we doing this? Is you use the word agenda too. Like, and not just an agenda, that's a template. An agenda that has a clear purpose and outcome. And you also talked about people taking action. That's the ultimate outcome. Here is you Want to influence and impact the way they think about something and ultimately, ultimately be motivated to act and to act in accordance with the rules, standards, values. And so when you're clear on what the outcome is for the people who are showing up, a, you're going to get a lot more out of it in the long term, and B, you're going to get a lot more people showing up in addition to what we just shared, which is the idea of giving opportunities to other people to get their legs under them, to find their voice. This is why you're creating future leaders and why you've probably trained, what, about half of your market at this point?

Well, I. I've trained a lot of the agents in there, and I. So proud of it, too. When I found, you know, I was like, I had. Aha. I called my. My aunt. She's 88 years old. She's turning 88, and she's been in Anchorage. She's a real estate broker in Anchorage. She's retired now. She retired like four years ago at 84. But I called her up and I was so proud. I was like, aunt Barb, you won't believe it. Like, you know, 21% of the market are people that I mentored or trained in some capacity or something along those lines. She said, oh, that's pretty good. She goes, at one time, I had 40% of all of the top agents in Anchorage I had trained. I'm like, oh, it's in my blood. It's in my blood. So that's really.

Well, it gives you a goal. Like, like, I don't know how that impacted you in the moment, but, like, it's. I imagine someone with your personality type, like, sets that as kind of like a soft background goal. Consciously or subconsciously, like, I need to train more of my market.

Well, you know, you know, I work closely with John Sheplak, right? And if you look at, at, you know, if you look at his tree, his coaching and team leader tree, it's almost like the Belichick or the Bill Parcell's coaching tree. It's like all of these different coaches. I said, go. A lot of teams are like, you know, I want to increase retention. You know, I want to figure out a way to keep them forever, right? It's like, okay, you're gonna try a lot of things to make that happen, and they're probably going to fail and cost you dearly. One example, commission splits. You're going to go down this path over time and think that your comp plan is going to Solve your retention problem. Well, I'm here to tell you teams because of your overhead and your investment in the organization and productivity, you're always going to have a lower split than other people because of your investments. It just, the numbers just don't make sense. So that's a race to the bottom, right? So if you have these and there's different models, you got to know what model you're in. You got to know what race you're in. I learned that back to Morgan House. And Morgan Housel talks about investing and he goes, never take advice, real and like investing advice from somebody without knowing what their game they're playing. Some investors are playing the short game. Some play, some are playing though the index fund. I'm going to retire at 70 games game. Some people are playing the, the stock picking game, right? So they might be telling you you need to be buying this stock. But they're, they're day traders, you know, and you're, you're, you're doing a 401k, right? So you play your game, know what game you're playing and play that and stick to that, you know. And I think that's really, really important. Now is, is compensation important? Yeah, I think about it all the time. I think incentives are super important. 100% and I think money is part of that incentive process. 100% and you got to think about that. We at the reside, we spend a lot of time with our, our leaders fine tuning their comp plan, but also in a way that's sustainable because you know, if you don't think your people want a place that's going to be still running in 10 years, right. You think they're going to want a hundred percent split knowing that the business is going to fail in two years? No, they don't want that. Like there's, they're okay with you re making money and reinvesting it in the company for sure. I mean I learned that as a pilot there was always this Maslow's hierarchy of fear that I'm not in a safe. I want to choose an airline that's going to be safe. I'm willing to take less money knowing that this airline makes money year and year and year. Southwest airline at the time was like the gold standard. I want to work at Southwest even though they don't have the highest pay scales because they've made a profit every year, year and year out, you know, and, and you know, over time, guess what? Southwest pilots are became paid really, really well. So you know, they're, you Know, having this like transparency into your fiscal responsibility is, I think, as a leader is really important too, because then that builds trust. It's like, okay, you know, trust. There's a little bit of trust here that I'm going to be a good steward of the profit. So right now we might not be profitable. There's going to be times where we're highly profitable. But I'm going to be making decisions for the longevity of the company. And if, if you're making decisions out of the. At the short term gain your short term gain, other things like that, they'll see it. That's a retention problem. There was for the longest time I drove, you know, I got a 2010 Prius. I still have it. Still a company car. Right. And that's what I. That was my. That's my daily driver. You know, it's kind of like that Jeff Bezos working on the desk that's made out of, you know, working on that door and things like that. Right. Keeping that frugality. You know, there was a. There's this frugality virtue, I would say that is something people need to tie into. So, you know, just be careful what you see online on. You see top team leaders or top people this or that. You know, just what they're showing you isn't necessarily what their. Their fiscal responsibility and. And their frugality behind the scenes. Right. Wealth is what you don't see, not what you do see. Right. So there's ways to play that. Now, I'm not saying don't buy fancy things because I think, I think you can. You know, you could totally have a designer this, designer that, and really showcase yourself in your marketplace. Right. But you also want to showcase to your team some frugality.

Yeah. That you're investing in them. I mean, that's. You teed up. You covered a lot of ground there, but you teed up. Kind of a zone I wanted to go to before we called it a session together again. I could do an episode on literally every single chapter of the book. And for folks watching or listening, there's a great chapter dedicated to compensation in different ways to do comp plans, different ways to provide financial incentives with a full acknowledgment that different people are motivated in lots of different ways. And so the game that you're playing playing needs to be clear in your own head. It needs to be built into the way that you're doing things. It needs to be communicated to people that you're bringing into the organization. And some people are going to want to play it. Some people aren't. And you do not need to contort your plan or conform to someone else's expectations. You got to know the game you're playing so that you get pulled off track. Also, again, great chapter on training and onboarding. The first 30 days training four days a week, 40 minute sessions, accountability groups, detailed breakdowns of class outlines and how to market and promote them. In part for recruiting. Whether you choose to call it recruiting or not. But where I wanted to go with you, Nick, before we called a session. You chose an independent team, Ridge, when it was your own choice. You're looking at the market today and you have opted to help other folks build teams. Speak to the team model at a high level. Why was this obvious to you even though it Wasn't common in 2011? What excites you about it for other folks? In particular against the path that most people would have taken 15 or 20 years ago, which is the traditional brokerage model. Like what's going on in the market? How long has it been going on? Like what are you seeing that makes you excited and has you committing your personal time and energy now that you have this, you know, sustainable business that you've built to helping other people build something similar, but in particular as a team or a team? Ridge.

Yeah, yeah. So when I started my team there were no teams. So we were diff by purely being a team. We differentiated ourselves in the marketplace. You know, we really didn't have a competition in the team space. And over the years the industry has become more and more team oriented because of the advantages they have when, when properly run, when properly run with good leadership and systems and process and you know, recruiting, everything like that. And they though teams enjoyed great margins, they that could convert leads. But now there's more and more teams, right? And some people are building teams from scratch. Like, like there's David Smith that reside built a team his first year in the industry. You know, anything's up to 20 agents. Now you go running into year two. Like that was kind of unheard of before one, there was regulatory compliance. Some states or provinces didn't even allow you to have that. You know, you had to have the firm's name on there and there's all these kind of trying to figure that out. But I think the industry has adopted it, right? Obviously with Zillow and everything like that. They're, they've embraced it, they've seen the power of it. So because teams have done so well, more people are doing teams. So where I see Things going is brokerage models have adapted where their comp plans and the way their structures are supporting the team. Where it was more like a, a square peg in a round hole. Now you can join certain brokerages and there's a square peg with a square hole for your square peg. That wasn't available to me. So I went independent because I had a, I had to go my own path. Would I do the same thing again? No. With all of these different, different options? Unlikely. It's unlikely. It is. It really is. I would probably pick a brokerage that has a square hole and then I would probably find a consulting coaching company that, that is designed to help me and that's why I'm so excited about what I'm doing now is because we see that, we see brokerages, whether you go independent or with a brokerage that support teams, we see lead generation plat platforms and CRMs that are built for teams and that what we think isn't going to change is they need coaching and cons and guidance and kind of the topics we talked about today and implementing those things into place and putting the leader on the team, you know, working on the team side of your, your title and the leader side of your title and putting those pieces in place. That's what I'm most excited about because teams are going to continue to dominate, I think the competition. Because of the competition. You're going to see teams fail though. Just like we used to say. You know what people say about agents right now 50% of agents don't sell anything. Okay, well I do. Do you see where we're going with this? There's going to be a future in which we say 50% of teams don't sell less than 20 homes a year or 50% of teams don't make money. The truth will get out, right? Pareto principal is going to come in like there's a, there's a natural order of things. But the top 20% of teams are going to always going to crush it. Just like we say in real estate, the top 20% of agents are always going to crush it. It There's a future coming. And I think you're, I think your team leaders already know this. Right? It's no longer being a team is being the best team and, and the most competitive team and the, the tightest team, the leanest team, the most agile team, you know. And I can tell you this, when I started my company in 2012, people said if you were to start over how, you know what if you could take me back to 2012. What, what steps did you take? Well, I talk about in my book book but I also hired a coach consultant day one. In fact I hired a coach three months before I opened my doors. I did consult a business coach. You know, how do I set up my office, how do I set up my business license, how do I do this stuff? Right. Like I truly believe in the consulting side of it to collapse time and get you to where you want to go quicker. And so 11 years later that's where I'm at.

Agree with you on, on teams in general. It's one of the reasons we're doing this show is to share some of the good, bad and ugly. I agree with you that this jumpstart that anyone can give themselves. You said collapsing time. That's one thing. It's also you're paying up front so you can afford, you can avoid these insanely expensive mistakes in the future and then you're building a solid foundation that you can keep building on. If you want to build something that's four or five or 40 stories tall, you need to have a rock solid foundation and you can't figure that out when you're, when you're built to floor six that the foundation's going to give because you're going to lose a lot more in the process anyway. Nick, what is your very favorite team to root for besides your own real estate team or the reside team or what is the best team you've ever been a part of?

I root for every reside team. I love Preston guidance team and incident's team and anyone John helps out too. So you know it's really, it's really fun. What's really fun is to be able to like root for people in your industry to succeed versus you know, within your marketplace. There's this almost like us versus them thing, you know and that's cool for competition and energy and getting you fired up. But there's also this abundance like truly heart forward thing that I like love seeing people succeed and win. I'm like oh man, that's so great. Like I, you know it's like we talk about haters but there's actually a lot of people that high performers that they will really celebrate you, you know and I love that. The reason my wild and firefighter days were were my the best team is because it was a 20 person crew. There was a, there was a crew boss, crew leader, there was a squad boss that reported to that person. So Ross and Jason and then there was 20 people broken up into five squads or teams within that team. With those five, there was a team leader. And so you draw. You jump into this and you're like, oh, man, I see the path. I see the path. I also know where I fit in, and I love knowing that. I love knowing where I fit in. I love knowing where the person was on my left, where the person was on my right, where I went for questions. Right. I love that chain of command. And for a lot of people, that's. People are going to join a team because they want to be on a team. They're not going to join a team because they're not a team player. So. So you just know back to knowing what game you're playing, right? Know that the agents that want to play that game are going to join you, and the agents that don't want to play that game are not going to join you. All right? And we talk about organizational charts and structure there, and it's important.

Yeah, good nod to there, to the squadron model, which we did not talk about in this conversation, but we could, could. Maybe we will in the future. What is one of your most frivolous purchases, Nick, call back to earlier in the conversation, or what is a cheap skate habit you've held on to for years Besides driving a 2010 Prius?

Oh, frivolous purchase. Oh, mountain bike racing. 100%. Like, I have an unlimited budget on that. Unlimited budget, right. So, you know, $9,000 racing bikes, $10,000 racing bikes. I don't think twice. You know, it's funny, it's worth more than my 2010 Prius is my mountain bike, you know, And I'll get any. Any gear possible. If it. If it shaves off one second on my time, I'm like, okay, here's my card.

Yeah.

You know, new shifter that's one gram lighter. It's wild, right? But at the same time, I spent so much time and energy on that bike, and I get so much reward from it. You know, we talked about that. Off air is like, this is where I. That space. I ride my bike about 10 to 12 hours a week, and that's where I get that space and distance away, where the ideas come, and I just absolutely love it. So that's my most frivolous thing, you know, And. And business, though, is where I gamble. I love. I love risk and return. I love asymmetric. You know, I, you know, I'll drop 10, 11, 15, 20, 30 grand on marketing or something. Right, Right. If I think I have a distinct advantage to get it back, you know, I Buy properties at auction, cash site unseen. County courthouse, Right. You know, and. And the people are at the auction. Bl. I'm at the county courthouse steps. And these people are like, kind of feeling you out. They're like, have you seen the property? I'm like, no. Like, really? You haven't even seen the property? No, I didn't even drive by it, but I kind of know, like, this risk reward, even if I haven't seen it, you know, I know exactly where it's sitting. I know it could be in this condition, and I'm not. And I. I don't have fear, and I'm. I'm really composed, and I just love that. I love that. So that's kind of a cheapskate thing. Is the county. To answer your question, going to the county courthouse, buying homes, cash, sight unseen, is kind of a frugality thing, right? Because I know these are wholesales. I know these are. These are at the below market rates. Now, can they be a little hairy and a little scary? And you get in there and you find out, right, you got to do it. Evictions. You got to do this. There's trash. You know, I just did a trash out that was $11,000. Like, yeah, it wasn't in great condition, but, you know, I love that. So that's my frugality. That's my. That's my cheapskate thing is like going after those. Those county courthouse type stuff.

It's awesome.

Like Storage Wars.

Yeah, totally. Last one. What does it look like for you to learn, grow and develop? Or what does it look like for you to rest, relax, and recharge? What are you doing in either one of those motions?

Yeah, that. I mean, that's. That's mountain bike riding. Riding my bike. Podcasts. I'll listen to your podcast. I'll listen to all these podcasts and learn there. And audiobooks. I probably go through about 65 audiobooks a year easy. Plus all this other stuff. You know, when you ride your bike 2,500 miles, you can plow through a lot, a lot of audio. Relax. My daughter, my wife. Make sure I'm there for breakfast. Make sure I'm there for dinner and present. Help out with homework, tennis lessons. All this stuff. That's really my. That's how I relax. Awesome.

How far do you think. Random question. At risk of keeping you too long, at what grade do you think homework will time you out? In what subject? Like, when are you like, listen, sweetheart, you're on your own here. Or is that not going to happen? You're just in for it.

I thought about that because I was like, okay, well, maybe I'll take it with her, you know? You know, maybe I'll go to ap. Maybe I'll go to college, community college. And when I reach that probably algebra has been so long, you know, probably algebra, right. Yeah.

Algebra two, trigonometry is like where it's off, like I'm out.

Yeah, I probably forgot more than you forgot at all. But yeah, pretty soon, I mean, she's six years old and I think it's gonna come by nine. By nine. Yeah. Very good.

Okay. If someone has spent almost an hour with us, a thank you so much for watching or listening. We bring this to you to help you make the right next step or to make the next right decision for you and your business. Someone may want to learn more about you, connect with you, learn more about the different kinds of work that you're doing. Where would you send people to follow up on this, Nick?

Yeah, well, you can, you can find me online. Nick McLean re is usually my, my handle on Instagram and, and Facebook. Nick McLean. McLean. You know, my DJ name is McLean if that helps you out. And you know you can find my book Million Dollar Agent on Amazon is. I published it it through Kindle Direct Publishing. So that's the only way you can find it. There's also an audible version of it and I think the find find me there and then just reach out to me, you know, when you need me. Obviously the reside platform, you can go there if you want to learn more about our programs and our consulting company and what we provide as part of that system. If you really want to ramp up your, your, your team or you want to build it from scratch. So awesome.

Everything Nick just mentioned is linked up below. If you're listening to Apple podcasts or Spotify, it's down below in the the description. If you're watching or listening on the website, it's down below on the page. If you're watching on YouTube, go to the See More or whatever that link is called that opens up the description. All this stuff is linked right down below. Nick, you're awesome. I appreciate you. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I appreciate you spending this time with me.

I appreciate you. This was really, really fun.

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