Chris Heller with (Not So) Common Sense Behind Teams [FUBCON Session]

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.

Chris, to kick this off, what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team?

You said characteristic, not characteristics.

You can give me a couple if you prefer.

Yeah, I think communication is always right at the top. You know, if there has to be really good communication without that, you know, you don't have everyone rowing in the same direction or you know, speaking the same language. So I think that's always one of the top ones. You know, the others that are, you know, right behind that are integrity. You know, there has to be integrity. Not in the, not, you know, in the moral sense, but in, in integrity in the structure, integrity in the process. Integrity in, in the word of the team and the leaders is absolutely important.

Really good. I like the relationship frankly between communication and integrity. I think they're, they're not necessarily two sides of the same coin, but when I hear integrity in this context, I hear the walk is the talk is the walk is the talk. And what we said we were going to do, what the clear expectations that we send as part of clear communication is what is actually being done in earnest. And so that's where some of the consistency is. Is there any variation? Just you built and led a real estate team before we were really talking about the team model. We'll get into that in a minute. You were president and then CEO of Keller Williams. You're president at ojo, so you know much different organizations in terms of leading a successful team. How has that varied for you across those experiences or what's been kind of something that's been trustworthy and reliable for you as kind of a go to mechanism or something.

So I'll answer with the last one first. The things that have always worked is just being who I am and being myself and not trying to be something I'm not. Authenticity is, you know, is a necessity when it comes to leadership. You know, the things that have, that are different, you know, whether it's, you know, we had 160,000 people, you know, at Keller Williams when I was at Loan Depot, you know, we had 7,500. We've, I've had a real estate team for 34 years. You know, all these roles, OJO Labs, you know, the things that different is, you know, the people that you work with in adapting and being able to be effective with different types of people. As a salesperson, as a real estate agent, you know, developing versatility and flexibility is critical to being effective with a wide range of people. And leadership equally as important. So being able to understand, you know, who, who your team members are, who your teammates are, their strengths, their weaknesses, play to their strengths, minimize the weaknesses. And you know, so those things change just because the people change. But as far as leading, I think leading is leading, you know, regardless of where you're at.

Very fair. Let's go to the team that you built. By my understanding, it's just you were making logical decisions about what needed to happen next. We didn't have the language that we've been using, you know, for the past, say 10 to 12 years. Much more consistently between team Team Ridge. Similar. What was going on for you in your business, say, you know, 30 years ago, where you're like, I need to do a structure that there's no clear model for. I'm just doing what intuitively comes to me as someone who wants to build a successful business. Like, take us back to that period.

I learned by watching. I'm very visual. So I was in an office as a brand new agent with 60 or 70 agents and was watching what the agents were doing and a lot of it wasn't making sense. There was, and I don't know if I would have described it this way back then, but when I look back now, there was. There was very little common sense being displayed. So after my first year and I, you know, I, from a transaction standpoint, I did well. I sold 27 homes. I was rookie of the year in San Diego, but I did that working seven days a week, ungodly hours, you know, embarrassing amount of time that I worked and got to the end of the year. And it's like, how am I going to do more? Like, I can't work any harder, I can't work any longer. So it was obvious I had to hire someone to do some of the things I was doing that would free me up to go, you know, sell more homes, which is my goal. So I hired an assistant at the end of that first year, which was unheard of back then. I mean, the agents in the office looked at me like, who do you think you are? Like. And I was, you know, my response would be, well, you've been stuffing envelopes for the last three hours and I'm going to pay someone to do that. And you know, so it was just, for me, it was just common sense, okay, I could pay someone back then $5 an hour to do those tasks that I was doing that weren't the highest and best use. And that's how things evolved. As I kept doing more transactions, I needed more help and would hire more people to do those things. The second person I hired was a showing assistant. And again, that. That phrase didn't exist. That concept didn't exist. But I knew the amount of time it would take to work with a buyer and to be a chauffeur and a door opener. I could have someone else do that. And then when they found the house they wanted, bring them to the doctor, and the doctor will diagnose them and give them the prescription and say, here's what we're going to do. And, you know, that that allowed me to leverage myself and just do a lot more.

Yes. Seems to me what's so compelling about the team model, and it's also kind of the way that we're talking about it and seeing it now, is as soon as you have enough tasks that you need to off source or offload to somebody else, you create a new role for it. And that seems obvious now, but it wasn't then. I can imagine I'd be like, I smiled and laughed at your. You know, just the. The way people looked at you when you hired an assistant in an office of 60 people. I can imagine how countercultural is the first word.

Well, yeah. And also imagine being one of the youngest people in the office and hiring an assistant. Like, do you think you are the president? And it's funny now I am a president of a company. But. But, you know, it was just. It was just common sense, though. It was like, why is everyone not doing this?

Yeah.

And it didn't take long before, you know, the concept of teams and people starting to do that and people having assistance so they could sell more homes. I think what drove it was there was a very strong desire and a burning desire to do more and achieve more, and the only way to do that was through leverage.

Mm. Talk about the progression that you've seen over the past few decades, perhaps even including your time at Keller Williams, where teams and expansion were, you know, very, very common language. How did this evolve? Because we're talking about this was unorthodox at the time, and people looked at you sideways and thought, who do you think you are? No one would look at you that way, or your kin. You know, the younger version of you today, new agent in office, you know, hot out of the gate as rookie of the year. No one would think twice about that. So how did this become normalized? What was kind of that pace of change? Like, what are maybe a couple of inflection points along that journey that turned it more toward normal, acceptable, common standard, to the point where we've named this show about it?

Yeah, there's a couple things. So in the early days, you know, things. There weren't YouTube. YouTube didn't exist, so you didn't have a chance to go see that. So the only way that you could really learn what others were doing would to be either to visit them, physically go and shadow them, or to attend a big conference where they were being featured. And early on, you saw these agents at these conferences that would be on stage sharing about their business and, you know, hearing about their staff, hearing about the people that helped them, hearing about the team that they had put together. And I think that was like the. Really the beginning of it, you know, because then that started to get out to all of that large number of agents. And then several years later, you know, 1983, 84, when Gary Keller wrote the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, which was really a blueprint for building a team and what the different levels of a team would look like. And as that book became more popular over the next several years, that. That really cemented the concept and the idea and really gave a structure to what this was that, you know, for a lot of agents seemed like a mystery. Like, how is. Wait a minute. How is this guy selling 150 homes a year? I. I'm selling 20, and I don't have any time left. And, you know, and then that sort of evolved, and people saw, okay, well, this is how they're doing it.

Yeah. How. How would you advise someone who's thinking about starting a team in this environment as we record this late 20, 23. So it could include market conditions, or it could include things that transcend all market conditions.

Yeah.

What are a couple you would share with someone who's like, is this something I should be thinking about and doing myself?

I've gone back and forth on this. So it's a really good question. Early on, I would have said, hey, until your business is big enough and profitable enough, you know, and you've grown it the right way, you shouldn't do that. I think it's okay to do that if that's not the case. Like, there's another path you can take, and that is you can build from scratch. You still should be focused on profitability. You still should be focused on making sure that your revenue exceeds your expenses. So. So you're doing Things that are additive. Otherwise you're going to spend a lot of money and be in the hole that you have to dig out of. So I think you can start with, hey, I'm going to build a team. I don't have a lot of business going on, but I'm going to build this team to create more business. That's a little different structure than someone who's already doing a lot of business says, hey, I want to get bigger or do more, and I'm going to add these pieces that allow me to do that. When you're just building the team from scratch, you want to make sure that the people you're adding to the team are bringing in business because, you know, you don't have that established business the other and or making sure that you have a source of leads that that team can convert to then, you know, turn into revenue and company, you know, company dollar for the team. Those are the things that you need to have. There's all the other things, right? Systems, processes, training, education, a good culture. Those are all table stakes and need to have those. But either need to have people that are bringing in business or you need to have a source of business that you can convert or source of prospects or leads that you can convert into business.

Yeah, it's the driver of all of it. The story that I hear most often, and I heard it with you too, is I have more opportunity than I can actually develop myself. I better go find out how to manage that situation. So it really does start with the business itself, especially as you take on more responsibility financially and even personally, like you're now. Someone's entrusting you now with their own livelihood at some level, depending on the position, of course. I feel like in general there are tens of Thousands, if not 100,000 or more agents operating solo inside a brokerage. Average to above average leadership in that brokerage, decent resources, but they're trying to be successful doing more things than they could possibly be good at. That's one of the things that's really compelling to me about the team model. Speak to an agent who maybe for commission concerns, split concerns, or you know, pride concerns, they don't. They're not necessarily open to joining a team. I feel like there are a lot of people who would be better off in that model. And there's some points of resistance. A, do you agree with this general observation and B, what would you maybe share with that person?

Generally speaking, yes, I agree. That being said, not everyone should be or is suited to be on a team.

Correct.

But I think there's a lot of people that are. Then the next component is, is it the right team? So if we say, hey, you'd be better off on a team, that may not be true for that person. A more accurate statement would be, hey, you'd be better off on the right team. So being on a team that fits their needs, their strengths, their desires, if opportunity is important, and being on a team that creates opportunities for them, if culture is important, being on a team where there's a strong cultural fit, if training and support is the thing, being on a team that really offers that. Not all teams offer all those things or not all the teams are created or built equally. But for that agent who's struggling, the concept of being on a team really encompasses two or three things that are primary. One is being able to do more transactions than you're doing. Yes, you're going to end up with a smaller amount of the commission, because when you're an individual agent, you're getting all of it. When you're on a team, you're getting part of it. But it's not the commissions you earn on transactions. It's really the number of transactions you do. And at the end of the day, you know what puts more money in your pocket. Is it doing 30 or 40 transactions on a team or 10 transactions as an individual agent. So that's one. The other is time. As an individual agent, you're doing all the jobs. The buck stops with you 24, 7. You're the one that has to deal with whatever's happening around a team. In most teams, you're going to have structures and people in place that you're not having to do 100% of the tasks. You're not playing 100% of the roles. And you're not the one that has to deal with all the things that come up. There's other people that have those specialties to do that. So being able to specialize or focus on a smaller set of the activities and then being able to do more than you're able to do on your own are the reasons why, for many agents, a team is the best way to go.

Yeah, really good. I hear a it needs to be a cultural match at some level, but then also needs to have this functional match where you have the things that are going to complement my strengths and weaknesses in a way that's going to allow me to do more business in general. Share with us what you're doing at ojo. How are you partnering with broker owners, team leaders, to help Them do some of the things we've been talking about.

Yeah. As someone who owns a team and has for 34 years and, you know, at heart is a real estate agent, we, we, we believe in the role of a real estate agent and a role of a team. So our view has always been, hey, how can we, how can we partner with, you know, agents and teams at the highest possible level that would be mutually beneficial? So we have a program called Ojo Pro plus where we partner with teams at a very deep level. These teams are getting exclusive introductions of buyers and sellers that come to us from movoto.com, which is the portal that we own and operate, the fifth largest portal by traffic in the country. And those teams we work closely with to make sure that they're successful, because that's the only way we're successful based on the model that we have with them in many other parts of the country and many other parts of the markets. We also have individual agents that we partner with at the Ojo select network, where, you know, where, again, we're making introductions of buyers and sellers that, that need help or that want to talk to an agent or want to see a specific property. We're not just selling leads. We're not just throwing people over the fence and saying, hey, I hope it works like we are. We are working with the agents and provide a lot of coaching, training opportunities for them to get better in all aspects of their business. But certainly with the introductions that we're providing them with.

Nice. Is there a matchmaking component to it? I mean, you said we're not just selling leads, we're also providing training. I would also imagine that there's an opportunity to improve kind of the matchmaking dynamic in it.

Yeah, the matchmaking dynamic comes from understanding the consumer at the highest level you can and their needs and wants, and then understanding the agents and their strengths in areas of coverage and types of properties and price ranges, and then making sure that we're doing everything we can to provide a good match and minimizing the chances of we're making a mismatch. And over time, we get better at that because we learn more. And that's always the goal. A better experience for the consumer and a better experience for the agent means that everyone's going to have a better experience. And that's where you get the results that you're looking for.

Yeah, the smartest people in the room, very often in rooms like the place that we are today, are looking sometimes to remove the human from the process. I Think there are places for machines and systems and things. It's part of our leverage. But we haven't seen any of them be monstrously successful. The way that you've described what you're doing at OJO like you are, the agent has a role to play. Why do you think the agent has been under attack a little bit from some of these models? And why haven't any of them really gotten the traction that I think some people would have expected by now?

All right, so two separate questions. I think agents have been under attack as a whole because they mostly deserve it as a whole. Look at great agents provide a great experience. And if you ever talk to a buyer or seller who had a top notch agent, they will tell you, hey, we couldn't, this wouldn't have happened without Ethan. He was, we, you know, he went above and beyond or every time there was an issue, he was two steps ahead. And that's the great agent. Like that. Out of all the agents out there, the great agents make up a very small percentage of them. Now there's a lot of good agents that are on their way to becoming great. And you know, a lot of times they provide a great experience and that's great. But the vast majority are middle of the road or even less. And those are the consumers that go, yeah, or they just flat out won't like the, no, we don't think the agent did a good job. They weren't, they're very, you know, we could never get a hold of them. They weren't very responsive. They didn't understand this. They messed this up, they messed that up. So when a lot of people have that type of experience, they go, hey, there must be a better way. There must be a way, you know, do we need these people? And I think that's part of the, part of the issue. So it's been self inflicted as far as the, you know, the role of the agent. When you or I as a consumer are making a big decision and, you know, it's a big ticket item, it's an important decision. It impacts every aspect of our life financially, it's, it's, you know, very impactful and it's largely emotional. Right? The, the, I can't tell you how many times I saw people, you know, make a decision to buy or decide when to sell based on emotions, not logics or facts. And you know, being able to effectively, you know, I'm looking for another word other than handle, but be, be able to effectively handle someone who's going through an emotional experience is is really valuable and important. And the agents that do that, well, you know, I have clients that really effectively handle someone who's going through an emotional experience is. Is really valuable and important. And the agents that do that, well, you know, have clients that rave about them. And. And the ones that don't, you know, don't have those clients, don't have good experience. And those clients are the ones that next time they're looking to buy or sell, we'll look at alternative methods to be able to do it. And there are and will be continue to be more and more alternative methods. That's why it's like it's incumbent on the agents to keep upping their game. And by upping their game specifically, I mean meeting and exceeding the expectations that you and I have and everyone else does as consumers.

Yeah, it is. I mean, disappointment is exclusively a function of expectation. And a lot of people have disappointed a lot of other people. What do you think the future of this model is? Will we have more agents starting or joining teams? Will we have more teams in the future? If so, why? If not, why not?

I think it's going to be increasingly more difficult for an individual agent to do a meaningful amount of business on their own, Partly because of technology, partly because of consumer behavior, which is influenced more than anything by technology and technology advances and the amount of options and platforms and alternatives that a consumer has. There's just going to be a smaller pool for that individual agent to try to fish out of. As far as the evolution of teams, I think we're going to start to see right now there's all types and sizes and everything else. I think we'll start to see that take more shape. I think in the future you'll see very small, nimble, profitable teams that do a great job with a niche type of business. And then you'll see large, highly structured, highly productive teams. All the other ones that either aren't a finish, aren't, excuse me, aren't, don't have great processes, don't have great structures, aren't economically viable, won't make it through. And so that just means there's opportunities for the ones that understand what they need to do to make it through.

Yeah, really good. And that validates, you know, I'm on a mission here to kind of explore these ideas from people who've been in these seats, in these rooms, in these organizations and have much more intimate knowledge than I do. And it's been a joy to be able to have these conversations. I've had that middle. That Big middle described as a black hole before. But that's where profitability disappears and it may never return unless you get to that other side that you described kind of at scale. This has been awesome. I really appreciate you spending this time with me. Chris, before I let you go, I would love, for you, in the spirit of teams, to share with us either your favorite team besides the OJO team, or the best team that you've ever been a member of.

Because my actually. Okay, so ojo, thankfully, is one of the best teams I've ever been on. And I can say that, you know, wholeheartedly. So any type of team, like, yep, I played. I played hockey as an adult, and I was on a team with my brother, another set of brothers who we were friends with, some other friends and then some other guys that were just real good hockey players and that team. I got so much joy and fulfillment out of being on that team and skating with those guys. There was no judgment. There was no. It was just everyone, you know, focus on the mission and pulling for each other and helping each other. And it was just a great chemistry. And that was. That was so fun, you know, to practice with them several times a week and then have our games on Sunday or Sunday night and do that. So that was. When I look back, that's probably one of the best teams, best team experiences that I've had.

Awesome. What a joy. I appreciate you sharing that and I appreciate you spending this time with us. You're fantastic, and I wish you continued success.

Thank you. Appreciate being here with Ethan.

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