039 Operating More Like A Car Dealership with Andrew Duncan

Andrew Duncan is a car guy, so it makes sense that as he's describing his vision for the next five years of the team team richer brokerage, he goes to the car dealership as an example. It's a fantastic metaphor and it's a very provocative idea. I won't attempt to summarize or explain the idea here in this introduction. I'll just say that it has clear benefits to the business, to the agent, and most importantly to the client. And Andrew explains all of that. He also shares key decisions he's made with regard to the leadership changes, marketing changes and buyer agency changes. He's shifting his agents and he's shifting his training. He's shifting his coaching to be more listing based and listing oriented. So you'll get some practical tips on that. This is a fantastic conversation I know you'll enjoy with Andrew Duncan on Real Estate Team os.

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.

Andrew, I'm so excited that we reconnected in person just like a month ago. So excited to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, happy to be here. It's great to see you at Chet Black's event and always learning. Just like all the, all the best team leaders in the game.

I'm still typing out, I think I had 54 pages of handwritten notes and I'm still like, I'm just chipping away at typing them out so I don't like lose them to all time.

Yeah, yeah. I literally keep moving it on my calendar. I have like implementation notes from the event and I'll get to like three or four of them and then I'll move it a week and then I'll get to three or four of them and move it a week. So yeah, I still have a lot of notes to implement as well.

Cool. Opening question. Standard on real estate team OS is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team?

I would say a leader with resiliency. I think the leader has to have resiliency. They have to lead by example. They have to show they're willing to do the work and I also think they have to be willing to change and pivot with the marketplace we're in today.

Yeah, when I hear resilience, I think about like, there's a little bit of a toughness to it and I think that's going to be a theme through this conversation. You've taken your personal real estate business and the team and organization that you've built through a lot of different stuff. So I'm looking forward to getting into that. And I feel like you just foreshadowed where we're going. So with that, just kind of tee us up a little bit on how'd you get into the business? What's your journey been, what's the duration been? And we'll get into some of the details from there.

Yeah, so I started real estate just short of 20 years ago. I got my license while I was working for a. For a Fortune 500 company in sales. I was traveling back and forth to Southern California, and I did that for five years. I became the number one salesperson in the company. But it got to the point where I was hating my job. I was a road warrior. I traveled two weeks a month, and I was at. When I first started the job, it was amazing. I mean, early, you know, early 20s, traveling to LA, like two weeks a month. I mean, who. Who could ask for a better job? But. But it started to wear on me. I got to the point was, you know, I wanted to start a family. I wanted to have, you know, better home life. And so. So I got my real estate license after I started buying rental properties. And my purpose initially for getting the real estate license was just my own personal transactions. I was. I was going to, you know, be my own agent. And. And then the company got bought out. And absolutely everything in the company changed. The compensation changed the. The culture, the structure. And I just knew at that point that it was time for me to do something else. I'd kind of gotten the real estate bug. I was enjoying it. I saw realtors driving nice cars, and I said, you know what? This is. This is what I'm going to do next.

What were the first couple few years like? When did the team model come onto your radar and when and why did you pursue it?

Yeah, so the first year, I sold one house to my parents and literally, like, I gave them part of the commission back because it was a VA loan and the lender made a mistake. So, I mean, it barely should even count. And so I really didn't get started getting traction. I think the first year for me, I'd done well in my prior career, so I had a little bit of a nest egg and I cut my expenses down and I really just absorbed as much information as I could. I went to every free event that I could. I did Every type of free advertising that I could. I hosted open houses, I posted free ads on Craigslist. I did everything free I could and just kind of grind it. And by year two, I started to figure it out. And then year three is when is when the kind of the team concept. My, my ex wife came to work with me and she was really great at operations and, and very analytical and systematized and I was a great salesperson. So we balanced each other well. She would run the back of the house and I ran the front of the house. And that was pretty much, you know, how we grew from there. And we grew through the great rece some years we were growing 50 plus percent a year. And now here we are today. We've been on the real trends top teams list for 15 straight years and over 3 billion in sales.

Awesome. Congratulations on all the success. This idea of partnering with an operator is obviously a key theme that we hear on the show. We'll get into what that looks like today probably. But going to your resilience piece, you mentioned getting through the Great Recession. You know, your team has been much larger than it is today. Talk about some, like the ups and downs. What were some of, like the turning points and kind of what drove some of those.

Yeah, so I think a major turning point for me was early on in my career, I realized I couldn't serve all the people that were raising their hand and I had to figure out a way to help them. I had more customers that wanted to work with me and my company than I could personally keep up with. So. So, you know, my ex, again, Angela, ran the back of the house. She was originally the operations manager and transaction coordinator and did all the details and the numbers. And so as we grew, we staffed up on both sides. We hired more salespeople, we hired more operations people. And ultimately the goal was continuing to provide the best service to both the agent and the customer as we grew and scaled. But it was also about giving myself a better quality of life because I was at the time I was working, you know, 3, 65, 24, 7. You know, people ask, you know, what's your, what was your day off? And it was like Christmas. That was my day. Like what day, what day off do you have? It's like Christmas. And they're like, no, like what day off a week? I was like, oh, you mean I don't have a day off a week?

Yeah, it's Christmas and only if my phone doesn't ring that day.

Yeah, I mean, and literally back then there were Times where people would be like, hey, I want to see a house and it's late on Christmas day. I mean, there is no question I showed homes on Christmas day. Way back in the day, my work ethic was just, I wanted to get to a certain level. I had. I was certainly financially and freedom motivated. And so the bumps along the road were, you know, kind of first off replacing myself because I had to get comfortable with someone not being me. And they weren't going to perform quite at my level, but they were. But if I hired them and trained them close enough that I could scale myself so that I could work on things in the business or on the business instead of in the business to find more ways to grow the company versus just being a great salesperson. So over the years, there's been this constant kind of me stepping in and out of roles where the company needed me, depending on the market, depending on how successful the company was performing. So we're in one of those now where the company hasn't performed up to my expectations. And I've had to say, okay, let me really dive deep into this, which I've done for the last 30 days, and figure out what it is that we're not doing and then make those necessary changes. Because, you know, I am someone completely comfortable with change. Most people that operate that are more operators that are more day to day, people are completely opposed to it, they're against it. So I had to come in and kind of blow some things up to get the change needed to pivot the organization based on all the changes that are going on right now. But other pivots were short sales and foreclosures. Obviously we see some of that starting to come back now, which my experience is coming in handy. We had a client walk in last week for a short sale. And then of course, we had hedge fund stuff back in seven, eight years ago, we had these hedge funds coming to our market that were buying thousands of homes a year and we built out a division to help them. And then that business went away and we had to replace it with retail clients. So there's always been a little bit of a. A pivot every few years depending on what's happening with the market. Think now the pivot is going, you know, not necessarily abandoning the buyer side of the business, because I don't want to, I don't want to say that, but pivoting resources to be way more focused on the listing side because you make more on a listing, you, you have more control, leverage, and there's less barrier to being compensated. Your agents already trained how to present. So if you're going to train them to present and they have the opportunity to earn more as a listing agent, then why pivot every good salesperson I can over to the listing side? So that's a pivot I'm going through now.

Really good. I think we'll get into a little bit more detail on that. Cause I know you're like hands on, really figuring out how to push through whatever this next season is yourself, but I don't want to miss this really quickly because of the way that you got into the business and the way that you grew your business and your particular role in it, which is a very common one so far. You know, 60 plus episodes into this show, which is I was selling tons of homes, I created a ton of opportunity, I couldn't handle it all. So we started bringing people around us. First agents, then people to support the operations. Probably some fits and starts throughout all of that. But what I want to key in and hear a little bit more from you on in this moment is I stepped into roles as the company needed it. I stepped out of those roles when probably when I could leverage it effectively. Variety of things would drive that result.

Or, or to elaborate on that, or because the market was so hot and maybe I was a little lazy, you know, like, I'll own that. Like, you know, there were definitely times where it was just printing money and sales were happening like crazy. And I was like, ah, you know, I don't have to do this right now. Everything's going great. And unfortunately that mistake for me has led to like, you know, things that we used to do to a 10 out of 10, we're doing to a 7 out of 10 now. So there's little gaps that instead of an agent being trained by me, they're being trained by someone that was trained by me, that was then that person trained someone else. And like that 10 level step that you did got cut down because stuff got lost in translation and there wasn't enough accountability or enforceability to make sure that the full process was taught. So that's what I'm finding too. And so certainly accept responsibility for everything that happens in the company. And one of those actions that led to me making changes was just me not being as locked in as I needed, needed to be great.

And you actually just kind of teased the question I was meandering my way toward, which is a personality type like yours isn't necessarily the best person to train someone because you have high expectations. You're probably operated super high speed, you know, you know exactly what you're doing and maybe you don't have the patience. And I'm not projecting on you personally, but onto the personality type.

It's true.

So talk, give, give folks a couple of tips who identify with you from the way that you work and your work ethic and your past experience and your expectations for yourself, the desires to grow your business. A couple tips for how to maybe slow down and get a little bit patient so you can train people to successfully take over the pieces of business. I'm sure that was a learning process for you over the past seven years.

And I think, and I think for me, the other side of that, so, so I don't have patience. And so I relate it to, you know, I know you're a sports fan, so I relate it to, you know. And again, no hate on Michael Jordan. He's the goat basketball player in my opinion. But as an owner and an executive, he had an expectation as a player where he would come in and try and teach people when they didn't have his work ethic. It was a problem for him. He had a hard time leading people from that standpoint. So, so, you know, what he needed was people kind of in between him and the players that wouldn't feed him, you know, BS basically. And I think that's where ultimately every organization succeeds, is that the person at the top has core competencies that they're excellent at. And the more they get away from those, the more their business stops mirroring them and the less successful it is. And so for me, knowing what my core competencies are, my core competency is not training an agent, a brand new agent from scratch to production. However, the person that leans in and becomes productive and has the right habits, I can take them to another level so I know what I'm good at and what I'm not. And I think I just have to put the right people around me so that agents get the right training, coaching clients get the service. But then I'm able to insert myself where needed to be able to take people to another level. But similarly, like Michael Jordan would probably be a really great coach and instructor for that player. Like a, like a Kobe Bryant or like a Dwayne Wade or like a LeBron that really has that high ceiling. But for anyone that's just there, like fourth guy off the bench, he's probably going to come off like a jerk.

I would love for you before we dive into what your role looks like and kind of some of the things you're working on and why you're working on them and where you want to go over the Next just say 24, 48 months. I don't know how far out you, you plan, I don't how far out anyone can.

My goal right now is I have a 12 month plan.

But yeah, great, so we'll get into that. But I'd love for you, you know, as a bridge into that, characterize your team as it is today, however you like, size, market structure, culture, give us like a snapshot of what you've got today and, and then we'll move forward from there.

So a productivity based culture goal is to sell 450 homes in the next 12 months. We've been as high as 900 and as low as 350, you know, in, in different markets. The, as far as the size, we're in the mid-30s now and including staff agents, you know, staff and agents been as high as in the mid-50s. So we're definitely less on agent count today because again, it's, you know, really focused on being more lean and mean right now. If something doesn't make a positive or. And when I was in growth mode, I would spend money and not necessarily hold it accountable because I was all about growing. And now I'm, now I'm more in a, I'm still in growth mode but I'm definitely holding the money more accountable to a return. And if something doesn't make a return, I cut it. Similarly, if an agent doesn't perform, I give them less opportunity. So I would also say that, you know, so from a team perspective, I'm kind of in between like the 100 person, you know, mega, mega team where, where it almost operates like a brokerage and then a SEAL team. I'm kind of, you know, like I have friends that operate like 12 person teams that do massive amounts of business. So I'm kind of in between those two models right now and also doing a little bit of personal production on the high end like our customers that are, you know, $2 million plus buyers and sellers. For me, I've just learned through the years that we convert those at a really low percentage. And it's because so many of them want to work with me, they want to work with the guy. And, and so I've just realized and built out a revenue pillar where, where I'm not afraid to go out and rub elbows with, with wealthy, wealthy people such as myself. You know, I, I can talk that talk that some of my agents can't.

Necessarily talk about being in the middle, you know, on this show, as someone who has not built a real estate team, but has talked with, but it's.

Helped build a lot of real estate teams. You didn't build it, but you. You've assisted a lot. Yeah, yeah.

You know, this spot that you're in is a really interesting one. I mean, the way that I describe it in pretty simple terms to people that don't know this in and out, like you and the folks that we were with at that mastermind several weeks ago, is, you know, you've got these small teams that start with, you know, one or two agents alongside you. Then you start building out the OP side, and it kind of peaks at that Navy SEAL team. We've got a core group of highly productive agents, a really lean operations function that serves them, and it's generally, through most markets, pretty profitable. And then on the far other end, as you already said, mega teams, that the profit margin is much thinner, but you make it up on volume.

Right.

But in between those two, a lot of people get stuck. And I've talked with people who are like, they start going to where you are now, and then they double back to, like, that SEAL team. But then I've also heard about, like, yeah, well, the SEAL team. You lose two or three people, and all of a sudden 30% of your production is gone.

Correct.

So then they want to push through.

It really depends. Like I said, I think a lot of it goes back to the team leaders, you know, core competencies, what they're good at, what they enjoy. But secondarily, over a long period of time, like I said, I've had to insert myself. I've been at the. You know, I was at the seventh level for more than a decade, where I might have been in my office, you know, 8 to 12 hours a week at most. I had other businesses. I still have many of those other businesses. I'm an investor. I own a lot of property. So. So I have all of those things going on. But I think that this market really woke me up to say this. The agents need me. They. They need a. They need a higher level of accountability. They need a better salesperson coaching them. They need someone who has sold in a challenging market like so few of my agents have, because a lot of them have only known this, you know, crazy, you know, built. My coach, Bill Pipes, calls it. He calls it unicorns jumping over rainbow. Unicorns jumping over rainbows while pooping Skittles. Except he doesn't say poop. So I'll keep it PG13. That was fantasy land. Right. And so a lot of agents only know fantasy land and they've got to, you know, you either have to coach those agents to a new mindset of a different market, or you have to find people that are willing to do what it takes today to succeed. Because anyone that succeeded the last few years and hadn't been in a bad market, a lot of them have really bad habits.

By the way, if anyone is watching and listening, they want a lot more on that topic. I'm going to point you to episode nine with Daniel Dixon. We called it Be the Lighthouse, which is a phrase you did pick up from John Cheplak. But it really speaks to a lot of this, like getting back hands on and getting back hands in. So for you, when we chatted, you were talking about some changes in leadership, some changes in the way that you're thinking about marketing. You already referred to ROI and being a bit more aggressive about, you know, what's going on and making each dollar more accountable. And then of course, over top of all of this, we have changes in buyer broker agreements and things in that zone. So in whatever you order, you prefer, kind of break down some of what you're working on. Why did this area need change and what does that change look like?

Yeah, so I think number one, we'll talk about the buyer agency change. So the change that I'm making is just moving more of my agents to be listing based. Um, we'd always had it where agents were buyer agents or seller agents. And, and unfortunately I just don't think that serves us anymore at the level that we need to when we know that we're going to see some, you know, some downward compression on buyer agency commission revenue. There's no question that, that a consumer isn't used to signing a buyer broker agreement. From a, from a market standpoint, there's no question the media has put some downward pressure on buyer agency commission with how they've portrayed the changes coming. And so for me, I have thousands and thousands of seller. And why, if I make more per seller and so does my agent, based on what we charge and what our splits are, why should I not move more resources over there to a less barrier of entry so that, that's ultimately what I'm doing now is moving more resources to the seller side, you know, and then secondarily the why the business needed, you know, my insertion, I would say some of it was my own desire to change things quickly because I felt like the change I was attempting to get into organization was just too slow. The day to day leader I felt like was a barrier and resistant to change and wanted to kind of keep things the way they'd always been. And it wasn't working anymore. So, so, so I knew it was necessary for, for that change because I knew that's what I knew me back in a day to day seat would move the needle more than had been me, than it had been moved and it would move it quicker. You know, I felt like we just. The changes that I wanted to implement in January were just struggling along and wasn't enough oomph behind this needs to happen now. You know, the urgency wasn't there and so that was an instantaneous move that had to be made then. I think the other thing for me was just I've spent a month in the office every day, nine to five and just it's the feedback and the communication I had with agents and hearing what was working and what wasn't working, hearing what they needed and knowing where those gaps were. And again it just prompted me to say I have to jump back in. They're not getting what they need and I want to serve them at a higher level. And for me, when I go back to the profit like I talked about, I've won all the awards, I've got the trophies, I've been on top 10 lists and top five lists and frankly I just don't give a shit about them anymore. I just don't. I'm at the point in my career where I'm not going to take one of those trophies to my grave with me. I need to run as profitable as a business as I can. And I've always been very profit focused and paid attention to my P and L and looked at numbers and measured roi. But I'm even more so today and I think again I don't care about having the biggest, largest team. I don't care about doing so many transactions. If so many of my friends who we share P Ls and I look at it and I see them having all this extra expense and operating and all this and then making less money than me. To me I'd much rather have a lean mean business that makes me more profit than, than the ego of, of the ranking. So, so I, that's, that's part of you know, some of our, our compression in terms of number of units is, you know, we're doing business that just isn't profitable when you're paying out 35% referral fees on a 2% buy side commission there's just. That just isn't good business. So. So just making business decisions.

Yeah, man, there's a lot in there. I guess I'll jump to just a.

Double back and one last thing, one last pivot. So really important, this is the, this is the conspiracy theory. Is theorist in me going to come out and not politically because I don't talk politics? I mean, from a real estate perspective, I have a hard time believing that NAR and MLS in five years are going to exist in the framework that they exist now. I think we're going to see some transformational change to how real estate brokerages operate. And I think the people that are going to be most successful in real estate the next few years are going to have an investment business. They're going to have a flip of business. They're going to take kind of think of like a car dealership, take houses in on trade, buy the house so that they can buy another. I think they have to monetize the seller side of the business as much as they can. And I think agents that don't have a solution to say how can I, you know, I make way more when I renovate and resell a property than I do on a commission, so how can I do more of that? Has been a major goal of mine, which has also caused some of my sales numbers to drop. But then I'm making more money because I'm doing more of that. So I think every smart real estate team leader, if they put all their eggs in the hat of real estate commission and real EST commissions continue to get pressed down and they don't build out an investment business either for rentals or for fix and flip renovations or wholesaling. They're le. They're leaving a lot on the table. So for me, my business sacrifices some in units and kind of vanity of awards because I've taken some of those resources and said if I make $50,000 on a flip and it's essentially and I have the capital and it's some of the same work except hiring out some contractors and managing them, why not do more of that? So that's another pivot that I think a lot of team leaders need to look at right now that I was ahead of that. A lot of them, if they don't do that again, there's going to continue to be a downward pressure on commissions.

Really good. I hear three particular things in there, so I'm just going to say them and then feel free to react or correct. 1. We need more about that last piece that you offered there. One, we need more seller solutions and you are going to benefit by having a tool like this in your pocket. Two, I think this also falls into the category of you used the word pillar earlier and I think that's one we can all understand and relate to. So I'll use that one too, which is we need to diversify the way that we're monetizing our time and our attention and our skillset. And this is another pillar we can have. And then the third one is more of an operational thing, is that it does change. The reason I think a lot of people won't get into this perhaps is that it changes financial management. It changes timing of cash, cash in and cash out. But for those like you who have the capital. Yeah, I've done it for a long.

Time before I did that. But I do think there are ways you can find investors to do that for you. You know, you can either, you know, again, there's people out there that will loan you money if you can show them that there's a path to profit and you've done some or secondly, you know, offer a solution where you're just bringing those homes to another investor. You know, you, you advertise a cash offer or a trade in program but you have someone else fund it. I mean, look, look, it's, it's, you know, I've said this and, and I'll say it again. I would be highly surprised if real estate this top real estate teams on the selling side of the business don't operate more like car dealerships in five years than they do the present iteration of a real estate team. Simply from the trade in, buyout, instant cash type which consum. Consumers want the convenience of that. Just like why consumers? You know, I'm a big car guy, it's one of my passions. You know, there are plenty of consumers that take their car and trade it in and they take a hit. If they, if they'd have sold it themselves and spent the time, energy and effort, they'd have put more money in their pocket. But there's a convenience factor associated with it. And, and that's where I think the same thing applies on, on the selling side. If you're not monetizing that and finding those diamonds in the rough every once in a while where you can have a huge bump in revenue. It isn't necessarily revenue to the team, it's another entity, but it's still personal income.

So you've, you've had for some period of time a. Essentially I'm Going to get it maybe a little bit wrong, so feel free to steer it in. But like a. Your home sold in 14 years, you're an instant cash.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you've already got, you've already got some toes in this water. The thing I'm particularly interested in, besides anything you want to share about that, when did it start? Why is how does this change the way that agents on your team are trained to have some of those early conversations with sellers, potential sellers, and, or any buyers that are. That also have a home to sell?

Yeah. And I would say how it started was just me talking to people that do it and then looking at, you know, how they profit and then realizing I could bolt that on. And then two more and more of the entities that offer a cash offer on a, on a more national scale moving into my market and competing as an advertiser because I'm a mass media advertiser. I've been on radio, TV and billboards. And so, so I realized I needed to have an offering. And my offering couldn't necessarily compete with them in some neighborhoods. But I realized what they don't buy, there's a lot of product that they won't buy that I'll buy. The stuff that needs extra work or the, or the, the quick closing or the, you know, there's just stuff. There's neighborhoods, there's. There's product they won't buy. So, so there's that. That's kind of how it, how it really started. And then secondarily, how I train the agents is that they have to be really skilled at vetting out and ensuring the client is a viable cash offer. Perspective. If you say, hey, it looks like you're looking to sell your home, realistically, what do you think it could sell for? And they say 500. And I'm like, well, if someone walked in with a briefcase of cash, what would that number need to be? If they say 500, they're not a cash offer person. They're a traditional seller. There has to be some motivation between what they think it's worth and kind of a wholesale price for that cash offer to work, because we're not, you know, if I can park my money in an account that makes 5% and I don't have to do anything, just sit there and, you know, live. There has to be a much greater return than that for me to put capital into a flip because I'm taking risk. I've got to go through all these steps. So the consumer, the seller has to understand that. Look I would be, I would happily be your convenience and be your cash and get you out. But certainly there's gotta be a return on investment or else I'm not gonna put up my capital. It sounds like you need to sell your home traditionally. Now there are instances where the person says, you know, I've got a $500,000 house, but I just want out. I'll take 400. Those are the ones where it's okay. Now let's have a conversation because they understand it. They know that the investor has to make a profit or else why would the investor put up money to lose money? They're not doing that. So you have to have a conversation with the seller and then vet out their motivation. And then over time their motivation could change. They could get to the point where they put it on the market, it hasn't moved, and they say, okay, I'll look at a cash offer now. So the fact that you have it in your toolbox will, will find the motivated. Whether they're motivated initially or motivated over time you'll be able to pick up deals and then those deals compound because not only do you buy them, but you turn around and list them. So that's an extra sign in er, that's an extra sale, that's more buyer leads. So, so you become, you know, you're, you know, it's a self fulfilling prophecy because not only are you profiting on the flip, then you're feeding your agents and you're giving your agents more opportunity.

So good. And I mean, one small detail that came to mind there right at the end, is that not only is it more signs in the yard and more inventory and more, just more market presence. I would assume that if you're doing a pretty good job flipping these places, the photos are better than average in that neighborhood or that zip code. It's a better looking house.

Correct. You're improving a neighborhood. And we have sellers that will come back to us after we fix up the property and just rave and be like, that looks amazing. I'm so happy you guys did that. You drove the values up in the neighborhood. You've, you know, we had one not long ago that we bought in the 500 range. We put about 100 or so into it and ended up selling it close to 800. We made a great profit. But the home before we got on it was an eyesore. Everyone in the neighborhood hated it. We improved that neighborhood, we improved values in that neighborhood. And, and the people around in that neighborhood notice that and appreciate it. So you're solving and you're solving a problem for someone.

Yeah. How important is that guarantee? I just want to double back for folks like the reason they want Andrew. Besides that he can relate to them in a different way. High net worth individuals selling very high end properties. There is that factor, but the other factor is you already mentioned it. Radio, TV, billboards, Tampa Bay Lightning, which anyone watching on YouTube can see. USF bulls. You know, it's, you're the guy, right. You're the face of the thing. You're the name of the thing. And so there's some of that allure too. So what I want to stitch together here is how important is that guaranteed offer? If you're doing essentially kind of impression based marketing right there, it's really hard to say were those radio ads effective? You can through phone numbers and things. But like how important is that guaranteed offer to advertising and marketing like that?

Yeah, I think if you're a marketer you have to have a call to action. You've got to have something to compel people. And, and for me that's what has worked for me. You know, I've had a lot of people help me with it through the years. You know, I was, I was a member of a bunch of different groups. I had a media agent that helped me get started in IT and, and ultimately otherwise you're just kind of one of many other realtors generating leads saying I can sell your home for top dollar. So you've got to differentiate yourself. And we do a lot up with the marketing. We're on the lightning. I do these goofy fun billboards, we do tv and I'm certainly not spending as much on media today as I did maybe a year or two ago because there aren't as many transactions. And then secondarily, you know, market changes, equity positions, there's just not enough available sellers whereas the cost per impression doesn't drop. It's really expensive to do media, so you have to. And we're in a political market. So frankly like in my market my ads are just going to get bumped and I'm going to get gouged too much. So Robert Palmer, who's the founder of lpt, built an enormous mortgage company and he was spending upwards of a million dollars a month on media in Florida, which was at my peak, I might have been a fifth of that. And so he's cut all of his and he basically said until the pendulum swings and either media prices drop so I can get a lower cost per impression or there's a lot more transactions out there, aka interest rates drop enough to knock enough of those 2 and 3% interest rate sellers off the market. It just doesn't make as much sense. But I've done it for so many years that even on stations that we're not presently advertising on, we still get leads from it every day.

That's the net effect. And it's one of the reasons that ROI is so hard. Like where does it fit in the attribution piece and what is the lingering effect of it? It's funny, I was, for anyone who's watching on YouTube, you can see that I'm recording in a different space. I'm living and working from my dad's house and I was helping him with something that he wants done and I was looking for sources for a particular service he needs. And as soon as I was like, this seems to be the one with the most reviews and a good solid set of ratings. And I read some of the reviews, seems pretty good and he's saying they're jingle and I don't know the last time he heard it, but that's the effect. Whether it's a jingle or something else, it lives and it adds something to the. I need to make a decision. Who am I going to go with in a highly competitive space? So follow up question on media, anyone. Anyone watching or listening certainly hear the idea that especially if you're in a market where there's a lot of political spending, there being markets where there's a lot more than others, of course that's going to drive it up. But like let's say transactions come back up a little bit, we're kind of like washed back out into a more normal competitive environment. When does it make sense to do mass media or who does it make sense for?

You know, another reason that I looked at it was I had some structural things I needed to improve my business. I didn't want to dump more leads on some of the presentation, training and process stuff that needed fixed. So for me it's like fix that or improve that as I step back in and then crank that back up. Because don't get me wrong, I still do advertise on media. Like I'm, I'm just not spending what I used to. I'm on multiple radio stations, I still have the lightning deal. Like what? I'm still out there a lot, just not out there as aggressively because the market just doesn't warrant it it. And, and so what I would say is that, that I think if you're going to do it, you've got to have a system, you've got to have a process. Look, it's no secret. I was in Rate for a decade and I give a lot of props to Matt Wagner. Matt, you know, when I was a, when I was a, you know, an agent starting out with media and I'm not with RAID any longer, I, I have my own media agent and, and I do local, you know, buys and, and, and I'm not as I don't use the personalities for endorsements anymore, which is a lot of what Rate does. And for me it just got to the point where I needed to be the personality. I was already kind of celebritized. I was on billboards and TV and radio and I didn't need the celebrity endorsement anymore. I didn't need that extra cost, which was my decision. That's worked out great for me. But when I was a new agent and no one knew who I was, when I didn't have a marketing budget to buy a lightning sponsorship or put my face on billboards all over Tampa, them I needed those endorsers to kind of make a splash and legitimize me. So if you're, if you're new to advertising on radio or tv, you know, I, I, I tell people all the time, if you're new or thinking about it, definitely look at Rate. The second thing is that, and look, Matt's a friend. Like I, I still root for him. I know his RAID agent in Tampa, I'm friends with him, I'm in a mastermind group with him. I definitely am more of an abundance person now than I might have been a decade ago in terms of, of my mentality towards things that help me get to where I am. Because you have perspective, right? Over time you're like, man, I'm really glad I did that. If I didn't do that for a decade, there's no way I'm at where I'm at. I wouldn't have the business I have. But kind of going back to that is you have to have systems and processes and you have to have help. I started on one radio station and within about a month I was overwhelmed with leads. I was getting calls from people and stuff that I just couldn't keep up with with my normal day to day stuff, stuff. So I think you've got to have a system, you got to have a CRM, you've got to have some stat, you got to have a little bit of leverage. If you're just an individual agent, you decide to start running radio ads, you're you're, you're going to suffer in response time. You're going to, you're going to fail. You've got to have some systemization. You've got to have a, you've got to have a successful business and structure already. Before you sprinkle that on it, let's.

Go to the leadership side or organizational and leadership side of things. Like how would you characterize your role today and what is kind of the core leadership team or structure of your organization as it is?

Yeah, so, so I have a, so I have a remote cfo that's someone I know and trust financially. I have an operations manager that manages the staff. And you know, is. Was my former broker. When I was still a broker, she was employed as my broker. But now that I'm, now that I'm with LPT and not the broker, she's really still helps with compliance and working with LPT on stuff. I have a director of onboarding and recruiting and then I did have a sales president and now I'm the sales president. It's like the old, the, the, the Tom Hanks movie. I'm the captain now. And, and I stepped back into that seat. Whereas before I was the CEO and I was operating at a seventh level, the. And the business was succeeding. And, and when it got to the point where the business wasn't achieving the success that I expected out of it, it. And that change that I know needed to happen in the business didn't happen and didn't happen the way I needed. Then I said I have to step back into this role because I did it for 14 years prior to hiring people, leveraging myself out. So that's essentially where I am now. So if you kind of know Gary Keller's MREA book, he talks about the seven levels. So I spent probably a decade at the seventh level. Now I would say I'm in between the fifth and the sixth level. Even though I have enough money to not have to ever work again. It's not necessarily about that. It's more about helping people, kind of doing what I'm good at and getting passionate out of it, helping my agents succeed at a higher level, serving the client at a higher level. Because again, like I said, while I want profit, it isn't profit because I need money in my pocket. It's profit so I can reinvest in them and reinvest in the business. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you answered one side of the question I wanted to follow up with, which is I know there are some Things that are very satisfying about doing it. Because I know there's some personality types that are like fifth or sixth level. Why do that? Especially with the idea that you don't need the money.

I'll be honest, I was kind of bored. Truthfully, I was kind of bored. I was feeling a lack of purpose. I felt like I didn't have enough. This is my baby. 20 years into this, and it's named after me and, and it's my baby. So when it wasn't achieving the success that I expected, I had to do something about was eating at my soul. It was just like I knew what needed to be done. I couldn't get it done unless I stepped back in. It just wasn't happening the way it needed to happen. And so I think that for me, I hate losing more than I love winning, truthfully. And so I just, to me. And again, the company's been profitable, it's successful, but it wasn't operating the way it need to. And frankly, like I said, I, I was a little bored. And I knew the market changes, I knew my agents needed more with more from me and with me, and I knew the market changes were going to warrant that. So that's, that's another reason I, I, I felt like I needed more of my purpose and, and I needed to, to grind a little bit more because the, you know, the, the process is where the fun is. You know, I think back to some of the most fun times in my real estate career, and it wasn't when I was making millions of dollars and buying cars and I got all that stuff. But the fun was like, you got 27 listings from a client. You got to figure out how to get them. It was, you have this problem or you're changing brokerages, or you're opening up with this new marketing thing, or the fun was in the grind.

This is the role that you're probably most familiar with and is the most natural to you. Probably even more natural than CEO, arguably.

Yeah.

Just based on your history as a highly successful salesperson.

Yeah.

What was surprisingly challenging to you and what are you doing? Like, what's a good week or a good month look like? I assume it's a lot of like, inspection and inspection and coaching and accountability and these types of things.

Yep. It's a, it's a daily huddle with my top agents. It's a leading, a weekly meeting. I have four training classes I do every single week, which are buyer agent presentation, listing agent presentation or listing agent certification, current listing agent presentation improvement, and then I have a wildcard where we do a bunch of different stuff. I lead our team meeting every week. I'm in the office 9 to 5, Monday through Friday with the exception of if I have a client, if I have a high end client that I'm going to work with. The other thing I would say is I still do manage a lot of this processes with the flip business. I think I have eight or nine homes right now that I own under different phases of renovation that are being renovated to resell. And then I, I own a title company and, and I do some coaching. And then of course with lpt I recruit agents nationally so I wear a bunch of different hats. But, but every day for me it's, it's scheduled, it's structured. I live by my schedule. I'm, I'm in the office 9 to 4, 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. I will say that I have gotten to the point in my life where I do not work weekends. In, in rare circumstances will I, will I work on weekends. I might check a little bit of email or deal with an emergency. But if I am going to grind and I do have enough money to not run out, weekends are mine and so I do take them off.

Good for you. It's super helpful and I would argue necessary, but I've never been as aggressive or accomplished as you.

Yeah, I've gone through burnout. I've gone through burnout numerous times over 20 years and a lot of the time the burnout is I did, I didn't take a Sabbath, I didn't take a day off, I didn't relax, I didn't chill. And right now I'm not gonna like. I made a commitment to my coach that while I've kind of stepped back into this role, I'm not, I'm not taking any time off, I'm not vacationing until September. So I'm, you know, kind of ju. Just to set that example and that tone for people that I'm there for them and that I'm here too, doing the work alongside them.

That's great. Kind of two questions in one. Here you've talked a little bit about the future of the brokerage and it's a very compelling vision. I'm glad you introduced it when you did because I think it structured this conversation up really nicely. But what do you think is the future of the real estate team? What role will it play in, let's just say sales production in general. And do you agree with kind of a background theme? And of course I have a very Biased sample of. Because I'm talking to real estate team leaders. Do you also agree that more agents could should join real estate teams as part of that future? So just talk about the future from a brokerage team solo agent perspective.

I think a lot of coaches have said this and I think you're seeing a transformational change right now where teams are going to lead the way with professional, professional training and coaching. And you know, the reality is that a team that has a brand and has built a database and does a lot of marketing, when the buyer agent side of the table is compressed and when the cost per lead continues to go up with all the companies that sell leads to us, the reality is, is that you can't compete from an advertising and lead gen perspective with somebody who has, you know, a 20 year PhD in marketing and lead generation. So I think teams are going to grow more dramatically over the next few years. I think, you know, in fact it's one of the things that excited me about LPT and Robert Palmer is because he wants to be the place for top teams. He's building a business that's kind of geared around that, that and, and so the, for me there are so many agents that would make more money on a team and have a better quality of life. I think they're unfortunately real estate. And I mean this is coming from the guy with his face on billboards. It's very ego driven. And there are a lot of real estate agents that care more about their face on that sign and, and the split they get to tell their friends they're on than the money they bring home to their family. You know, I'm on 100% split. You did three freaking deals last year. You should have worked at Walmart. You know, like so I think that there is a, almost like a, I think there's almost a glorification of teams that's kind of underway with coaches and different people propping them up that I think there's going to be a movement of pretty good agents that just get good enough at business and math to realize that they're not making more than their friends that are on teams that don't have all that cost, expense and risk. Risk. So I, I think teams are going to grow and I also think that as the business evolves to more of a listing based business and eventually see a bleed off of agents, the agents that want to be listing agents that really have focused only on the buy side, they're going to want to go to places that have listing presence and listing training and the hope is that great companies like mine can then keep those people after they train them as listing agents instead of losing them. But ultimately they need to go somewhere where they can become a great listing agent. And we're seeing a lot of that right now. I'm getting, I'm getting contact from people that do, you know, 15, 20 transactions a year that normally wouldn't join a team. They're saying, you know, my business is all buyer business. I need to go somewhere where I can learn to list.

You nailed the things that obviously everyone who's in this has experienced, which is it's either ego or, you know, I don't want to conform as well as the split. But more on a superficial level than a real, like, cost benefit analysis you mentioned. Let's train folks on listings and then figure out how to keep them. In my observation, there are kind of two key buckets to keeping that person who doesn't functionally need you but wants to stay because of two things, financial and cultural. Financial being you've come up with an, an appropriate arrangement for someone of their caliber and experience that it still makes sense for them to grow with you financially. And then it's also, culture is just like, I like it around here. I like what, I like who I'm with.

I enjoy going on cruises. You guys do fun, happy hours like.

Other really good players, challenged.

And I think also accountability. I think there are a lot of people that frankly in real estate don't really want to work and, or like me, get to a place in their life where they're like, okay, now's the time when I need to step back in and grind more because I enjoy it. And. Or there's some sort of financial motivation that happens in their life where they decide to crank it up and go on a team where they know they're probably going to be held accountable more so than what they've been when they're on their own and they're playing what I call fapolito and they're, they're watching reality TV all day and, you know, jamming in Netflix shows and making two calls a day. You know, that's not going to cut it on most real estate teams if you're going to be successful. But you can get away with that at home because you don't have anyone telling you, you know, what you need to be doing.

That's it. And I think, you know, as I think we've used this term in this conversation, as the industry continues to professionalize due to a variety of forces, the type of personality that would thrive in that structure and wants and needs that accountability, knows that and is willing to react to it and receive it appropriately. That's where the production is going to come from. Okay, what is your very favorite team to root for besides the Duncan duo or what is the best team you've ever been a member of?

Obviously the Lightning, but I'm not going to use that one because that's an easy one. I mean I'm wearing their hat today. I've been with them for 10 years, like sponsoring them so. So it's kind of like I'm a part of their team, which is awesome because they won two Stanley Cups and they're a winning team. And we've certainly worked with players and lots of the fans, coaches, you know, just been a great thing for us. But, but. And a lot of great things for our brand. But I think that's an unfair answer because I'm biased. So I would say my favorite team to root for in sports would be the Golden State Warriors. And it's a really odd thing but I played college baske and I'm a three point shooter. So when they kind of evolved the game and turned into this rocket launching team, I just became an instant fan of of them even before they were winning. Just seeing them jack threes because that's what how I like to play basketball. So. So I'm a fan of theirs. I've always also been a Lakers fan. You know, I was a big Kobe and Shaq fan way back in the day. That's when I was traveling to la. Like I mentioned earlier in the interview. That's kind of when I got exposed to them and I actually played against Kobe in a basketball which was, which is also a co. So it would be those two. I'm a basketball junkie so I watch a ton of basketball. So it's always, you know, my favorite sports teams are going to be basketball.

Frivolous purchase or cheapskate habit. Give me one of your most frivolous purchases or a cheapskate habit that you hold onto even though you probably don't need to.

Cheapskate habit. I still search for a coupon code when I'm going to make an expensive purchase online. I just, I don't like to, I don't like to waste money. There are a couple things I spend a lot of money on. Cars, if you follow me. You're going to see that I have a McLaren and a Ferrari and probably a bunch of dumb purchases there. But they're things that I Enjoy. And I'm passionate about, because I love cars. But, but from a, from a frugal standpoint, like if I'm going to buy something online, I will search for a coupon code. So even today, can I afford to not to?

What's the bottom threshold? We talking like, we talking a hundred bucks, we talking a thousand bucks, we talking 50 bucks.

Couple hundred. If I'm gonna spend a couple hundred bucks, I'll search for a coupon code.

Love it. Okay, final one here. What does it look like for you, Andrew, to invest your time in learning, growing and developing or what does it look like for you to invest your time in resting, relaxing and recharging? What are you doing when you're going in one of those directions?

Yeah, so I mentioned, I mentioned both of those and I think I spent probably too much time a few years back relaxing, resting, so, so now I'm kind of in grind mode. But I take weekends off. As far as self education, I have a goal going into every year of going to six educational events and, and I think that my goal in doing that is so that I can bring things back to my agents, but I can learn. But I can also get with and mastermind and hang around better players. You know, people that are operating and I can learn from them or as I've done, go into business with some of them, you know, so I, I have, you know, multiple team leaders across the country where I'm an investor in something with them or you know, where we've into business together. So for me, you know, I think collaboration happens at the top, so building more of those relationships. And I had a goal of going to 6 and I've already done that. So I've already hit the six this year. Probably going to end up doubling it on and going to another handful of them before the end of the year. But I think it's super important that you do that, that you constantly focus on never ending improvement.

I love it. I especially appreciate your, this isn't just about connecting and learning and being able to make a phone call or shoot a message whenever I have a question, but also actually turning it into joint ventures at some level or participating in whatever.

I mean literally there are at least probably seven, eight team leaders across the country that I've gone into business with, that I have done business things with or brought business ideas to them. We help train and coach each other. So there's a relationship build that's there, that's a value add when they decide to buy a vacation home here or when they decide to launch a tech company. I've got investments in some of those. So I think getting around those people, you learn of opportunities. I mean, I'll give you an example. That kind of started me down that path. And so I've been with Boomtown for a very long time. And initially in the early days of Boomtown, had an investment opportunity to invest in our company and I turned it down and I should not have have. And now I just go open with opportunity to learn about new tools and learn about the different, different things that are out there. But that was something that opened my eyes to my influence and my, my, my ability in the real estate space, not just to use tools, but to have a say in, in, in how they perform and how they grow. And I think that's something I paid attention to over the years. And so while I'm not as happy of a Boomtown customer today day simply because of some of the things that they've had happen recently, I was with them for a long time and certainly looked at them in the early days as a, you know, integral part of my growth.

If someone has gotten to this point in the conversation, Andrew, they may want to learn more about you, your business, how you're doing some of your stuff, or even connect with you on social. Like, where are some spots you'd send people who have gotten this far into the conversation?

Yeah, so at, at the Duncan duo, pretty much all the socials, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. My personal Instagram is the Andrew Duncan Duncan. I'm Andrew Duncan with the check mark on Facebook. And then I, I did launch, you know, as part of my move to lpt, I built a website that's around agent education and it's at Do Over Movement. And it's, it's, you know, obviously a spin on the Dunkin duo and the duo and kind of helping agents avoid do overs or kind of be in the middle of one. Like I'm in now and it's D U O v e r movement.com, a lot of educational videos on there and tips for agents to be successful.

Great. All that stuff is linked up right down below. So whether you're watching in YouTube or you're watching or listening@realestateteam os.com or you've got this in your ears and you've got Spotify or Apple podcasts open, there's a description down below. All that stuff is linked up. Andrew, I appreciate you so much.

Awesome. Thanks, Ethan.

Continued success to you.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks for checking out this episode of Team os. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up@@realestateteamos.com.