Building Your Real Estate Practice by Vertical with Mike Heddle | Ep 019

For insights into starting, growing and optimizing your real estate team, we're talking with Mike Hettle.

Studied engineering and economics and commerce. So I'm a real data driven mindset and very planned, very thoughtful.

Among his many sales and performance awards is lifetime member of the Royal LePage Award of Excellence, the company's highest award, as well as the a LePage National Realtor of the year which is based on productivity, leadership, engagement with the brand and embodiment of the company's mantra, helping you is what we do.

My mind went to a point creating relationships.

Some have called Mike the doctor of real estate in part because he grew up in a medical family among third generation physicians.

Our heartbeat, the middle of our core value is one giving back.

We were kindly introduced by an earlier guest on the show, Kathleen Black. Thank you so much for talking team Os today, Mike.

That's awesome. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to chat with you today.

Yeah, me too. We're going to kick it off where we always do, which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. When I ask for that, what comes to mind for you?

Yeah, I love this question and I know that you ask it quite commonly and I've watched how some of your guests have been exceptional in their answer and I'm going to say there's a few things I don't know that I can pick one single asset or characteristic. I think it starts in my mind, it starts with effective leadership, whether it's a sports team or the Navy Seals highest performance team. I think it really starts with leadership and that follows with like a clear vision, you know, a mission or understanding of the group or the team, the organization and then of course, you know, values, core values I think need to be aligned, you know, with within the personnel within that team. I put a lot of thought into this question because to me it's not a single single answer. Approach I think, you know, drive and hard work and determination. I've never seen any successful team that doesn't, you know, embrace that, that hard work and desire or drive to win. You know, I think you've got to have strong systems to ensure both efficiency and you know, productivity. We're, we're a small team but we produce, you know, very on a per capita in real estate quite high. So you know, the systems, whether that's a hockey team, as a Canadian, we often think and defer to hockey but you know, showing up for practice and that leads, you know, the next example or the next characteristic characteristic which I think is Accountability, you know, you've got to be accountability to your teammates, accountability, accountable to your, to your leader. And that's kind of the bottom up, but also it's a top down. The leader has to be accountable, you know, to his troops. And maybe we'll talk a little bit about, you know, some of my leadership style, which, which also leads into kind of. I think the last characteristic which I love is culture. I've never seen any winning or exceptional or highly productive team that doesn't have a great culture. And in sports, you often see, you know, the Cinderella story, you know, not the favorite, winning, because you know that that effective team just has such a wonderful culture within it. And, and I'll chat a little bit about how we try to, to handle that culture. I think, you know, to tie all of this together, you know, leadership, we've. I've flipped that leadership organizational chart upside down where I believe that my leadership style is for me to get up every day and make the phone ring for my team and my sales partner. And when I show our organizational charts, I put myself on the bottom. And then I've surrounded myself with a great foundation of administrative and operations and a marketing team. And I think of it similar to that of a B apiary, where we're hardworking and data driven and we help one another, you know, when somebody needs help. And you know that be a pair approach isn't linear, it's three dimensional. And the queen bee is often kind of at the base of that. So long winded answer to, you know, I think what's often perceived as a general question but to be high performance. I don't think there's, in my opinion, there's one attribute or one characteristic.

Really well done. You covered all of the bases. I've heard each one of those answers and certainly everyone has. Some people feel committed to the actual exact question as it's stated, and so they only go to one. But you really painted a very comprehensive picture. And I want to double back into kind of leadership off the top, you know, because you mentioned sports teams or the Navy Seals or a group like that. You know, typically in that case, there's one mission I'd love for you to go one layer deeper. I think culture might speak to some of this. You talked quite a bit about teamwork and supporting one another, your own role as the leader. So I think I'm just curious to hear you speak to in particular the idea that yes, as a real estate team, we may have a collective sales goal, but kind of also at the Same time, what matters most to me is that I'm hitting my goal in service of that bigger goal. So, like, you know, you know, we've certainly seen some athletes kind of go off the end and they're really more concerned about their own statistics than the team results. I could name a couple off the top of my head right now, but you know, obviously when it's clicking, both of those are happening. Like, I feel like I'm succeeding relative to my own goals and my own production and my own, you know, measure of success for myself in service of and aligned with the team. But real estate has that kind of characteristic where it actually is meaningful for you to achieve your own goal.

Yeah, we spent some. I've, I've been in the business for about 20 years and I'm sure we'll talk about my journey. And, and as team kind of started to form, I think that was a really interesting approach to building an organization, is having a very clear and concise mission. Where are we headed? What's our North Star? And for us, it's to deliver a five star experience when buying, selling or investing in real estate worth telling friends and family about. And that kind of ties into that component that you talked about. It's not just sell 500 homes a year or specialize in luxury real estate. To me, it's, it's putting the client first. And I grew up in a family of physicians. You talked about this, and I sometimes speak to this because it was a pretty unique upbringing like we, like many of us have, unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for me, you know, it was very stable environment, two working professionals. You know, I don't know that I've got any stories about my journey that, you know, are coming up from, you know, real challenges. And you know, that is very, very fortunate. And sometimes that's perceived as perhaps privilege. You know, over the years I've had people come and say, you know, you're just so lucky, you know, to which I kind of respond like, why? And they said, well, your, your father was a, a plastic surgeon and your grandfather was a doctor. And I fail to understand the correlation to being successful in selling real estate with, with that foundation. But, you know, I think it's, it's perception. So, you know, mission is really important. And to kind of come back to your question there, having a clear vision and that North Star, as you start to collect a group of people is vital. Making sure that, you know, when, when challenges present themselves or, you know, when, when there's questions, you know, tougher markets that, that we always go back to what it is that our mission is. And as we went through that, that, that exercise as a team, I think we also pulled something or extracted, like, what are our core values? And I loved this exercise. We did it probably about 15 years ago where collectively all members kind of said like, what does it mean to be a part of Heddle Real estate? And, and we just kind of brainstormed and threw all of these words out onto the wall and, and then I kind of picked them all up and put them together in, in what I felt like five values are. And they're things like, you know, having a strong foundation to tie this into housing. You know, the strong foundation starts with, like, relationships, having strong relationships with one another and with our clients and strong, effective communication, you know, amongst one another and to our clients. I talk about kind of our heartbeat. The middle of our core value is one of giving back. And it kind of reads like we give more than we take in all aspects of our life. It's how we're perceived individually and, and collectively as a team. And I love that as my favorite core value. We do a lot of charitable functions. I always try to lead on the side of generous and to tie this back into that. Upbringing in medicine, I've never saved anybody's life. When there was a phone call in my household at midnight, it wasn't because somebody wanted to buy the house of their dreams or they were in a tough negotiation. It's because a child had been attacked by a dog and their face had been bitten, or somebody's wife was. Was in a bad fire and had third degree burns over all of her entire body, or somebody's husband or father had cut his hand off with a, you know, reciprocating saw. And so they were really, really important life events. And I think I've tried to keep that humility and humbleness in, you know, what we do in terms of selling real estate should be all about, you know, the client journey and the process. And, you know, I'll often say, like, I see a number one on every billboard I drive past. You know, there's a number one realtor in every market, and we're also number one. But I've never saved anybody's life yet. And when I do, because I believe I'm going to have that opportunity, I'm going to be really important, I'm going to be number one to that person. And I think that's kind of helped this, this, I don't know, overarching kind of tone to the way we take selling real estate. So those are those three values. And then at Pinnacle, we get great results and excellence. So back to kind of the point there. As a leader, I think it's really important to have the team have collective visions or a mission, but also to have people amongst the team that align with your core values and that really contributes to culture.

Yeah, I think that sets the expectation before probably even a recruiting conversation should even come up. It's just the norm. Folks that have spoken in similar clarity and passion specifically around values and what drives us in attracting people in general have heard is they don't need to do any recruiting because their reputation being on the other side of all these transactions, it kind of comes off in the experience. And so people know who you are and what you're about. And those conversations don't need to be solicited. They actually come to you. Has that been your experience?

You know, it certainly has. I mean, I think, you know, I'll often say you should, you should hire our team because you trust us, number one, and we're competent, number two, we're really good at what we do. But you know, I guess to that point of having aligned values in a group of people, like imagine a score, a sports team that had, you know, a rotten egg, right? Somebody that doesn't show up for practice. And it's so great that feel they have to contribute. I found myself, you know, running a team directors that were in the team and you can imagine how dangerous or impactful that was on culture. So, you know, I think, I think having fun, it doesn't feel like a job. You hear that often, like enjoy what you do. You know, I love what I do. It doesn't feel like work. My daughters will often say, like, you know, that was work today, what you got to do. You know, it doesn't feel like work a lot of days, but there are other days where certainly it does. It's, you know, high stress, high pace environment. But I think that culture component is really important.

Yeah, absolutely. And I hear you on that. I, I've been in an experience myself where I looked around a meeting that I was in and I was like, gosh, you know, I, I don't know that I feel like I belong here anymore. And part of it, like fun is that fun is the super upside. I think at a, at a minimum, you want this mutual respect, right? Like, we may not like click in like a really highly social way. We may not be best friends or even have that potential. But as there's this mutual respect Like, I have a lot of positive things to say about this person, even if I don't want to, like, go on a ski trip with them. Like, it's like that's where it starts in my experience.

Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, you see when you get to a. And we're not a big team, you know, in terms of staffing and personality.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, Go into that a minute. Like, share a little bit about your team. We've talked a bit about culture, but like size, location, kind of how you're structured.

Yeah, yep. So we're based. I know probably a lot of your audience is North American and perhaps us. So we're based in Canada. And if you look at a map of Canada, you see the Great Lakes and one of those lakes, which. One of our large provinces of Ontario, we're right at the western part of Lake Ontario in a town called Hamilton. So it's a very unique area. It's highly densely populated. We're just outside of Toronto, about an hour outside of Toronto. And we service a large geography, you know, kind of around that western part of Lake Ontario. The team, as it stands today, consists of seven licensed agents, myself included, and three administrators. I call them the A team. So, you know, whether you want to take that as like an all star team, you know, we refer to them as the A team and ones involved or in charge of. Of operations. One coordinates all the administrative functions and then we have a marketing personnel and staff. So, you know, that really, I think is. Is the foundation. We've seen sales partners, you know, come and go over the, over the years. And you know, we do have a good group. A couple of my sales partners, in fact, one of them, Shauna, my senior sales partner, has been with me since the inception of team. And team for me was kind of a byproduct of necessity. I just had too much opportunity on my plate that I recognized I wasn't servicing the clients the way I'd intended or the way I had started in the business. So for me, team was really just a byproduct of necessity, of opportunity. Over the years. I mean, I could, you know, when you're talking about somebody's journey, I could go on and on and on. So interrupt me if I.

Okay, so how about this? What was going on in that moment? Like, what was going on in your business? I assume that it was like a lead gen situation or maybe a partnership had come along. I've heard that story sometimes. But like, what was going on where you had so much in front of you that it was like, I'm starting to let people down and that's not okay for my long term reputation. So I need to bring some people alongside me. So like what was going on in that moment for you and your business where you're like, I need to build something around this to support it or was it even. Next right step, next right step. Oh look, I have a team.

Yeah, yeah, I'll share kind of the way I, you know, I, I remember this and I tell this cute story from stage that, you know, I got my real estate license like everybody in the province does and they're hungry and they think they're going to go out and make a fortune. And you come into the office and back then, you know, bricks and mortar, you saw a lot of people sitting around, you saw some people just waiting for the phone to ring. And I think it was, I think it was Thanksgiving that my sister and I were visiting my folks is the last time I remember having a nap. But I had a nap one afternoon and my phone rang and this was my first real estate call on the, you know, I jumped out of that nap and on the other end of the line kind of heard somebody say like, is this my kettle? To which I replied, yes, you know, yes it is. How can I help you? And they said, I'm looking to buy a home. And like I just lit up inside like I had no idea what to do next. I scrambled to grab a notepad, only to hear my little sister on the other end of the line burst into laughter and say, get downstairs, butt head, it's time for dinner. Oh no. And I'll never forget that point. It was awful. And I've never gotten her back for it. But she taught me a lesson that no matter how hard I stare at this phone, it's not going to ring right. No matter, you know. So my mind went to a point of creating relationship. And in Hamilton we've got one of the power medical research centers in Canada. Hamilton Health Sciences is one of it's world renowned for attracting top research, fantastic physicians. And because I had the ability to open a door, I sat down with the dean of medicine and said, let me help put a recruitment program in place. I want to help you showcase that Hamilton's not just a steel town. We've got these amazing outlier communities. And that was the first vertical that I put in my practice was the phone started to ring because, you know, I proposed a value proposition that was, that they'd never seen before. Nobody had ever Thought of, of helping attract and landing these recruits and, and it was fun. We had people coming from New Zealand and, and Italy and Germany all over the world, you know, to consider working in Hamilton. And, and they were competing with, attracting these people with, you know, to, versus like Miami or, you know, Australia. And so we had to really showcase, you know, some of the strong value of not only the job opportunity, but the community. So that first vertical was really pivotal, I think in, you know, creating a relationship or a vertical business that just makes the phone ring. And I think the second vertical was, you know, I started to become a higher producer and a builder, a fantastic, very reputable family based builder, third generation builder in Hamilton approached me and said, Mike, I love what you're doing. You know, we'd love to have you help represent us. And I think I was pretty naive. I, you know, I kind of told him like, can you give me a week to think about it? And you know, this poor builder, I think he probably almost fell off his chair thinking like, who the heck is this guy? But I wanted to make sure if I was in that, that I was all in. And I think that was the, the pivotal moment for me to, to know that I had future revenue. You know, I had. We were selling projects that were closing two years, three years out. And, and that gave me the confidence to hire my first, who is now my, my senior sales partner. But, but Shauna, one of my partners that, you know, was right out of university, she, you know, started in an administrative role. So for me, the first hire. And she is exceptional. She is, you know, strong academic background. It wasn't long, you know, before I realized I had to move her into a sales role as well.

So from that path, just for, you know, for someone who is at that stage, no matter how the opportunities have been created, they're trying to decide, you know, I look, I feel like I have a really good growth opportunity in front of me over the next 12 to 24 months. You know, from there you said first hire as admin. You said now you have seven sales folks including, including yourself and three admin.

Yeah.

What, what is that order of. What was the order of sequence? Was it just again, next right step or did you have a plan for like, okay, when we get here, I probably need to turn over the marketing responsibilities or we need to step our marketing game up. Like how did you approach that? And, or how are you advising other people that are maybe, you know, a few steps behind your journey? Because I know you engage and connect with all kinds of Folks, at all stages of your journey.

It's a great question and thank you for putting me on a pedestal to kind of suggest that I know what I'm doing and that I've done it right. And I think that hard work back to some of those original characteristics. I'll share my journey. And I think that I wish I could say I was intentional and methodical and I studied engineering and economics and commerce. So I'm a real data driven mindset and very planned, very thoughtful. But my journey was to start with administrative. Bring on, you know, a couple of sales partners and to the point in which we kind of really stress test that foundation. We put so much pressure on, on that administrator. We got to a point where there was three of us selling and Spencer was processing 140 transactions a year, you know, for only three agents. Like we, she was working at a capacity of 120 or 140%. So, you know, we then moved into marketing. You know, that was kind of the next evolution, finding somebody to handle, you know. And you got to remember 20 years ago, like social media, now that we've got an exceptional social media presence. But you know, social media was, was. Has really come into play. I think as I'll pause there on the growth plan and I'll share a little bit more about these verticals because I think for us, that's exactly where.

We wanted to go next anyway. You already introduced the medical partnership, you already introduced the builder partnership.

Yeah.

Share a couple more of the verticals that you ended up building around.

I think that's something that, as I speak with other top performance teams or individual agents, it's something that we've done very uniquely and I'm very proud of because it makes our phone ring off the hook. We don't buy any leads. We inbound, I don't know, about 120 to 140 organic leads a month. And these are through, like referral partners. So number one was a physician's new medical community. They spoke the same language. I knew what they were looking for when the lifestyle that they grew up. The second was the builder component, which was vital because back then I thought you're either a resale agent or you're selling a new home sales agent. And I think we're one of the first in our marketplace to really cross the threshold on both and do both really, really well. The third relationship that we built was, you know, the hockey analogy. Much like, like Wayne Grexy always found himself to be at the right place at the right time. You Know, but he would, he would, as a lad, he would draw where the pot went on the ice. And I think he probably developed some muscle memory or at least subconscious memory as to where to be. And I, I would translate that. You know, that was kind of our same. It didn't fall in my lap. I found myself in the right place at the right time through a lot of hard work and we developed a relationship with what's now become Canada's largest real estate investment network. They have about 300,000 active members. You know, they subscribe to be a part of this membership. But I can remember back in those days we had rooms of 60 investors. We would spend three days at workshops teaching people how to invest in real estate and specifically about, you know, how to win in the Hamilton market. And that vertical just really, really took off. It represents about a third of what we do today. So we do about 300 transactions a year and a third of them or 100 of them are involved in income producing investment real estate, primarily multi residential. So that's a vertical I think we should come back to because I think I can add a lot of value surrounding how we grew that tier because.

It'S the kind of thing most people could probably do in their market.

I think, you know, there's, that's one is, is most people can probably incorporate it, you know, that vertical into their practice. Number two is the best from a business standpoint. You know, if I do my job really well and I sell you your dream home, I might not see it for 15 or 20 years. Yeah. But if I do a job really well and sell you a great revenue producing or income property, you could be back. We have some clients next month. That's right. Bang on. So that it's a lot of work condensed but you get a lot more, you know, not even turnover, acquisition or you know, over a long lifespan you get some disposition of those assets. So that's, that's a great vertical that, you know, we've really become known nationally as, as, you know, one of the, I guess forefront teams that take a consultant's approach around, around, you know, advising. And I want to talk about. Let's come back to that. Okay. Yeah.

To that vertical end of the language of consulting and advising. I think I, that's super important. More vertical. More vertical.

Yep, yep. It was in 2015, I guess it was. I was so busy in the practice. I had Sean as an administrator and one other sales partner and, and my broker came to me and said like, congratulations, you've made it your Your, you know, top 1% of more vertical.

More vertical.

Yep, yep. It was in 2015, I guess it was. I was so busy in the practice. I had Sean as an administrator and one other sales partner and, and my broker came to me and said like, congratulations, you've made it your, your, you know, top 1% of, of realtors in the country. To which, you know, my reply was great, like do I get a cash prize? Like I didn't care. I, you know, I'd never saved somebody's life. And he said no, you get invited to this retail treat and up until that point in my career I spent zero time networking, zero time, you know, speaking or giving back aside from helping other agents out within realtors in the country. To which, you know, my reply was great, like do I get a cash prize? Like I didn't care. I, you know, I've never saved somebody's life. And he said no, you get invited to this within the brokerage. And Royal LePage, which is the country's largest real estate brokerage from a staffing personnel standpoint has really kind of attracted this, this amazing group of individuals through, you know, their top 1% club or their chairman's club. And every year they Invite the top 1 percenters to a retreat and, and that this particular and up until that point in my career I'd spent zero time networking. Year the retreat was in Italy and you know, so I was at a point your time, you know, speaking or giving back aside from helping other agents out within, within the brokerage. And Royal LePage which is the country's largest real estate brokerage from a staffing personnel standpoint has really kind of attracted this, this amazing group of individuals through, you know, their top 1% club or their chairman's club. And my career where you know, I, I hadn't seen anybody in my marketplace that I thought was doing an exceptional job on, on team. It was a lot of ego driven team all about the team leader. Every year they Invite the top 1 percenters to a retreat and this particular so I decided that I was going to get out of my comfort zone. Year the retreat was in Italy and you know, so I was at a point in my career where, you know, I hadn't seen anybody in my marketplace that I thought was doing in hop on a plane and land in Italy with 100 strangers. I exceptional job on team. It was a lot of ego driven team all about the team leader never met and that was a pivotal point in my practice. So I decided that I was going to get out of my comfort zone. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if I was going to expect ego. I didn't know if I was going to expect any mind share. My hope was that I could model some, you know, some best practices that some of these hop on a plane and land in Italy with a hundred strangers I'd never met. And that was a pivotal point in my practice because I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if I was going to expect ego. I didn't know if I was going to expect any mind share. My hope was that I could model some best practices that some of these other top teams or top individuals were were utilizing within their practice. And that was like that moment to get on that flight was game changer. It was like, you know, you hear the analogies of kind of like if you have a 1% shift in your direction, like five years, 10 years out, that was like a 10% shift. That moment like just other top teams or top individuals were utilizing within their practice. And that was like that moment to get on that flight was game changer. It was like, you know, you hear the analogies of kind of like if you have a 1% shift in your direction like five years, 10 years out, that was like a 10% shift that moment like just from the mind share. And I like people, I get along with people. I began to, you know, network with these other powerhouses and that created the fourth vertical which was a huge referral based system. So across the country, you know, the top 1% refer to the top 1% within kind of our region near from the mindshare and I like people, I get along with people. I began to, you know, network with these other powerhouses and that created the fourth vertical which was a huge referral based system. So across the country, you know, the top 1% refer to the top 1% within kind of our region near Toronto, which is the largest city in the country. We see this migrating trends, everybody's sprawling out of Toronto and we're about an hour outside of Toronto. And the recent trends over the last decade we've seen is people driving until they qualify and being referred out of Toronto. And 80% of the chairmans, the top 1 percenters reside in Toronto which is the largest city in the country. We see this migrating trends, everybody's sprawling out of Toronto and we're about an hour outside of Toronto. And the recent trends over the last decade we've seen is people driving until they qualify and being referred out of Toronto So again, I wish I could say I was strategic. I wish I could say that my intent was to go and meet all of these people and rub shoulders. That wasn't any of it. I just knew I was in a place. And 80% of this retail, the chairmans, the top 1 percenters reside in Toronto, where, you know, I wanted to see what some of the, the effective brokers were doing. And one of the unique things, I think within this company, everybody's willing to share. You know, we give one another our playbooks on, you know, how we're doing certain things, whether it's hiring or firing. And that's really kind of unique and also neat. So again, I wish I could say it was strategic. I wish I could say that my intent was to go and meet all these people and rub shoulders. That wasn't any of it. I just knew I was in a place where, you know, I wanted to see what some of the effective brokers were doing. So that fourth vertical there is referrals we spend about. And one of the unique things, I think within this company, everybody's willing to share, I don't know. Last year we spent about $300,000 and referral fees. So you won't drive through the city of Hamilton and see any billboards or what I would call EGO Inc. We, we, you know, we give one another our playbooks on, you know, how we're doing certain things, whether it's hiring or firing. And that's really kind of unique and also neat. So that fourth vertical there is, is referrals we, we spend about, I don't know. Last year we spent about 30, $300,000 in referral fees. So you won't drive through this, hey, you know, this operational cost or marketing cost in the form of a referral, which, if Hamilton didn't see any billboards or what I would call EGO Inc. We pay, you know, this operational cost or marketing cost in the form of a referral, which is also a variable cost. I'll take that variable cost any day of the week over a fixed card cost of, you know, maybe billboards or whatever other strategy you might look at.

So it's. The four verticals are your primary verticals.

Yeah, well, the fourth I would call, like center of influence resale business, you know, kind of what we all do. What we all do. So those, those four pillars or four verticals, you know, have really created, you know, I would call it a unique business certainly within our area, you know, and they're able to keep marketing costs down, you know, we certainly, you know, do some other unique stuff and I think it's probably worth coming back to that investment component because.

Absolutely it is. Yeah, please.

Yeah. One of the big kind of growth, growth moments in the career going from, I don't know, 50 or 60 units a year to, to 200 units a year. You know, my, my, my partner, my senior partner, Sean and I would spend weekends, every, probably about nine weekends a year speaking to the country's largest investment network and teaching people how to invest and what to look for, you know, when analyzing cash flowing properties. And not a get rich quick like what I would call a consultant's approach, much like what I would expect my financial advisor to give me is the same approach that we take on, you know, assisting people in building generational wealth through real estate. And after about the third or fourth year of, you know, really kind of being involved in this network and growing the practice and I find that during holiday season my mind gets quite creative. I came up with the idea of delivering an opportunity on a silver platter. And I'm going to use an analogy that was shared with me that I loved. If I had you into my home and we were sitting in my den and I said to you, do you feel like a chocolate cookie? I've got one of those tubes in the fridge and, and I could go put some cookies in the oven for us, you'd likely say, no, Mike, don't worry about it. But if I walked into the room with a fresh smell of a warm chocolate chip cookie on a plate, you'd probably find it pretty irresistible. And we took that analogy and we adopted it into what we call now is our weekly deal of the week. So each week we put out to a large database. We're probably up to about 15 or 16,000 organic. Like these aren't, you know, we didn't acquire them. They've been either referred or in front of them. We put out the best investment properties in the markets that we represent, Hamilton, Brantford and St. Catharines. And we break down the Performa in a real easy language that doesn't use terminology like our industry does, like cap rates and payback periods and all this stuff that's way over everybody's head. We break it down simply to how, you know, how is this investment performing.

So it's essentially this is the upfront, this is the monthly, and this is the monthly return.

Yeah, we break it down into kind of what I call the four fundamentals. So, you know, cash flow, like, you know, on the equity investment, 20% down plus closing costs, how much is that property yielding in cash flow? So that's, that's, you know, fundamental number one. Fundamental number two is principal recapture. So how much principal is being paid down by a tenant? And then fundamental number three or four are appreciation. And we can get that from one of two ways, either forcing some appreciation, renovating, putting in a kitchen, adding another unit, or passive appreciation, appreciation over the long term. And I was quite excited about the concept and we started rolling it out and we went through a period of 22 weeks in a row. We sold that property on Friday when we put it out to our database. And Sean and I knew we were onto something golden. And I still speak about this mechanism today because we probably have the largest database within the country. We actually often share it with other Realtors in other markets because I would say don't reinvent the wheel. Don't go out and try and figure out how to do it on your own. Subscribe to our deal of the week. It's free. And model what we've done and take a snippet of it and incorporate that into your practice. And a couple of real key components that we've had success with anyways are consistency, like it's got to go out every single Friday no matter what. So when I speak to it, I've spoken about it in some agent circles and I'll have somebody raise their hand and say, like, Mike, I've been getting that for five years and I love it. And you know, they might just be watching our market. It could be a market intelligence tool, but it really, I think, is one of the most, I don't. One of the strongest value propositions that we put, you know, to prospective clients and certainly to our clients. And, and I'm going to just throw it out there because I know you've got a big subscribership like model what I'm doing. If you go to www.dotw.ca dealoftheweek CA, we're in Canada. Just subscribe to it and incorporate that into your practice. It's one of the easiest things that you can do that delivers exceptional value to a client base.

It's fantastic. I just think about, I assume there are a number of realtors who might even want to invest in your market from afar.

Yeah, it was actually quite exciting because as we get to Toronto or Epicenter, one of the country's, you know, mega markets or the mega market in the country, there were many properties that weren't cash flowing or good investment properties. And we started to take that Vertical to a point of I go around to top teams and have them pull their high net worth individuals and we'd speak about what's going on in kind of the economy and you know, how just an hour down the road there are great investment properties and you don't have to invest in Nicaragua or, you know, or Panama to get great investment opportunities in real estate. There are some just an hour down the 401. And we created these real strong referral partnerships. And in fact, I wish I was on the reciprocal, the other end of the referral. I remind people, like that five minute phone call is the best yield or ROI in this business. If I can refer a client out to you and yield a 25% referral fee, that's the best use of my time, you know, not receiving. And, and so, you know, we love paying that referral fee. We have clients that rely on it as a residual. We always protect, you know, the source of where that business came from. So it's something that's been really exciting to see how it's grown. And I guess we got such a head start almost 15 years ago with doing this that I have no fear that, you know, even if you're a competitor in my marketplace, you'll never catch me. You know, I've got such a head start on you that you'd never catch up to us. So that's part of the reason we lead with so much value and just say like, copy it, you know, mirror it, mimic it, incorporate it into your practice. I think is a really important, you know, piece of treating this practice as a consultant.

Yeah, really good. Okay. Stepping back out on verticals a little bit. Essentially my question is, do your sales team members or your sales partners, do they specialize by vertical? And I want to ask it with an.