Doubling Sales Production Again (and Again) with Adrian Quijano [Inside Whissel Realty]

As a brand new real estate agent, Adrian Quijano sold 15 homes. Then he doubled it to 30 the next year. Then he doubled it again to nearly 60. And he's pacing to double it again. Making him the number one agent on the number one team in the market and a top 1% realtor in San Diego. How did he do it? By following the blueprint by in the words of Kyle Whissel, running the play that's called. By joining a team, plugging in and running the play that's called. Why he became a real estate agent despite finding success as a sales professional in IT and cybersecurity. How and why he chose Whissel Realty Group as the place to plug in and start growing his business. Who he looked to for learning and growth early on. How he structures his day around IPAs or income producing activities. How scaling up his own business meant bringing other people around him in addition to all the leverage that the team provides. The three main sources of his continued learning and growth. All that and much more right now with the number one agent on the team, Adrian Quijano. As we conclude our journey inside Whissel Realty right now 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. Adrian, I'm really excited to learn how you wound up in Whissel Realty Group and how you've achieved so much success over the past few years. So welcome to Real Estate Team os.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Ethan.

Cool. I'm going to make you brag up some of your successes by the way. I'm just going to let you know that now, but we're going to start, we're going to start where we always do. Which is what's a must have characteristic of a high performing team?

Yeah, that's a really good question in my opinion. I think I accountability is one of them systems and just having a blueprint for agents to follow that works, right? I think providing a lot of resources for the agents, the systems, the blueprints and sometimes I think providing leads to new agents that are coming in to the team that's really important to get their business up and running, especially for new agents and agents that are not producing. I think that could help them out. So that's in my opinion. I think those are some of the qualities for a Successful team.

Cool. I love that answer in part because I want to go into all four of the zones you covered there. I want to talk to you about some of the systems and processes that have been really helpful to you. I want to talk about accountability because you seem just from my light background research, that you probably have a lot of self accountability, but I'm sure the team environment helps with that a lot too. Talk a little bit about leads and kind of how your mix of opportunities has probably shifted maybe a little bit more to self gen, but how important leads were in the beginning. So we're gonna get into all that, but I would love for you just to kind of give us an intro to, like, what were you doing two, three, four years before becoming a real estate agent? And why did real estate make sense for you?

Yeah. So I did inside sales at a tech company here in San Diego. My job was to acquire new accounts and new CL clients to the company. I sold cybersecurity and technology IT solutions software as a service to businesses. And that's what I did. You know, I was on the phones day in and day out, Monday through Friday, eight hours a day. And then eventually I started my own department and created that department. I was hiring other ISAs, SDRs, BDR, whatever you want to call them.

Yeah, I was much more familiar with the SDR BDR Lake language than isa, but ISA is functionally the same thing.

Yeah, absolutely. So it was B2B sales.

Yep.

And. And a lot of the. The skills and experience that I acquired doing that for a couple years related to real estate, and it really paved the way for. For me going into real estate.

Cool. And what was it like? What was the shift about for you? I mean, cybersecurity isn't like a shrinking industry. It's growing. There's like, I don't need to get into like, the company or any of the dynamics in particular, but for you, like what. What made you say to yourself, I've acquired a great deal of sales skills and I can apply them in a different place. Why real estate to apply? Because everyone needs good salespeople?

Yeah, that's a very interesting question, Ethan. To me personally, I wanted to be my own boss. I remember more than 10 years ago, I read Rich Dad, Poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and a lot of you guys probably read it, and it absolutely changed my mind. And the way I wanted to take my. The way I thought about things. Right. So one day I wanted to be in real estate. But at that time, I was still young and still I wasn't ready. Right. So eventually, a couple years later, I had the opportunity to. To get into real estate. When Covid hit, we were locked down. We were working on that.

Time to get started.

Exactly. I had plenty of time to work on my online courses and get my license. Yeah, it was. I had some savings in the bank. I was pretty successful in cybersecurity. I had my own team. I was working for the vice president of sales, and then his boss was the CEO of the company. So I was pretty high up there in the corporate ladder. However, it was like that burning desire to help people, but also get into real estate. I was so interested in real estate investing in what way to join, what way to be in real estate. Better way to. To. To do it by joining as a. As a realtor. Right. So in B2B cells is. There's a lot of politics. And it was. It wasn't very fulfilling to me. Okay.

Right.

And that's one of the reasons why I got into real estate. Not only to be my own boss, but to help people like me. Veterans active during military and, you know, just helping someone. Something about helping someone get their first house, their dream home, or their forever home is very fulfilling to me.

Cool. So you certainly had a lot of options on the table.

You.

You had the idea of doing it for a while, you built up the skills, you had some savings, you had the opportunity at the onset of COVID and you could have joined any of a variety of organizations. So that's kind of what I'd love to hear from you on before. Like, what was your process of vetting different teams or brokerages? Did you have a preference for either of those models? How many companies did you look at, like, informally, like checking out their websites and social. How many people did you actually, like, formally interview with? What was the process that led you into Whistle Realty Group?

First of all, you have to figure out, like, what do you want, you know, like what your core values are and what are you looking for in a team and then form. For me, I was looking for a company that's moving forward, has a lot of technology, and it all came down to a couple brokerage firms like Keller Williams and exp. So those are like the last two. And then I knew that I wanted to be in a team because the team environment, the resources, the systems, that it's already been in place. And I wanted a team in EXP that provided leads to their new agents. And for being from Guam, and I never grew up here, I don't have a huge sphere here in San Diego and I needed to get my business up and running and getting leads from the team. So I leveraged the team's resources, the training and the leads that they were providing and then eventually my business took off. Awesome.

One quick question before we get into what it means to have your business take off, because I'm just really excited for you. What I hear from a lot of agents is splits. What you just listed was all of the specific benefits that couldn't be provided unless the split allowed that to happen. So you looked at the. This is what the team is offering. I think so many people stop short of committing to join a team when it might be better for them. From a lifestyle perspective, from a production perspective, from a support perspective, they'd be happier and more successful on a team, but they just get hung up on their face at the cost. Without really weighing the benefits, did the cost come into mind at all or like, how do you advise an agent that is thinking that way about the team model in general?

Yeah, I think if you're thinking about the splits, that's already the wrong mentality. Right. Because yeah, you can go on your own, be an independent agent or create your own brokerage firm. But one thing that a lot of, a lot of agents don't realize, there's a lot of costs in the business. Right? Marketing costs, lead gen. You have to hire people. Right. Employees, a stack that's fully integrated, already 100% software systems. You have to literally create the whole system and that's going to cost a lot of money. And I think people don't realize that it's a lot of headache and a lot of money. So to me, having that split with a team was worth it. Right. Because I didn't have to worry about a lot of things. Not only I didn't have to have a big overhead, but also like I had that training, that resources and I thought it was worth joining a team because of that.

Cool. Tell me about the past couple years of production. I think you doubled back to back, which is a nice feat. But like run it down, like just talk about production a little bit just for context for people. I'm not asking him to brag himself up.

Yeah. You know, it always makes me feel uncomfortable when I talk about my numbers.

That's why I wanted to qualify it.

But it's.

But it's important because it's a testament to everything you just said.

Yeah. Yeah. So first year I saw you joined 2021 in June, in that last six months, of the year of 2021, I did 15 transactions. And the following year, 2022, I did 30. And then last year, 2023, I did almost 60. So year after year I doubled. And then this year probably going to double that as well.

So nice.

Good for you.

Now come back into what you needed. You used the language plugin, which is language I like a lot. I've heard it from a lot of agents and team leaders. Is like exactly what you just said. I could invent all this stuff myself and make some mistakes and figure it out. Long, slow, expensive, or I could just plug in. So you plugged in. What was it about? You mentioned leads before. Feel free to go into any detail there. But also like onboarding, I know there's a mentorship program. Just go into, like, what do you think when you reflect back, what allowed you to be so productive in the, you know, you joined mid year, like in that first year. I think a lot of people, especially in a market like this, with the average price point that you all have, that production that you did in those six months would be very satisfying to a lot of people. What was it about the system, the structure? Just describe in detail what you plugged into that allowed you to just get running.

Yeah. So it's kind of like joining a team is when you said the word plugin, it's kind of like a light bulb. Right. If you don't plug it in, the light doesn't turn on. Right. So that's kind of like being part of a team. When you plug into a team that has the systems, the blueprint and the resources and tools and the leads, like you're going to light up. Right. So for me, one of the things that, that I look for an agent when I want to recruit them to was realty or exp is the three things that I look for is positive attitude, strong work ethic, and coachability or student mentality. Right. So coming into real estate, I wanted to learn and being part of a team. Yes. The splits are not as good as if you wanted to go on your own. In exp, you wanted to be an independent agent. However, the currency is the learning. You're gonna learn and grow, and the more you learn, the more you earn that famous quote. And just to me, it was just delayed gratification, in my opinion. Right. So yes, I'm gonna make less money in the beginning. However, I'm learning a lot. And the more I learn, the more my income is gonna grow, my business is gonna grow. So training is one of them. You Asked me like the specifics. Like, okay, I needed training. So we had a two week bootcamp of learning how to do the business, how to do an open house, how to use follow up boss, your CRM, that's really important. You know, putting all your clients in the CRM, how to write a contract, all that good stuff, all the basics that you need to learn as a new agent. And as long as you're showing up, right for here, it's all about accountability and you showing up. Kyle always says, like, how you show up to anything is how you show up to everything, right? And you showing up to the office, to the meetings, we have expectations. So if you meet those expectations, all the things that you need to do anyways to be a successful agent, you're gonna start getting leads from the team. Like, as long as you're showing up, you're gonna get leads. And as long as you convert those leads, you know your business is gonna just take off. And it's funny because I think of real estate, like when you're starting in real estate, you're brand new or maybe you wanna, you've been in the industry for a long time and you haven't been producing and you wanna change and you wanna join a team. It's kinda like a plane taking off, right? It's gonna require, require a lot of fuel for, for the plane to take off. Like I would say 75 of its fuel is being used and not take off. And then after you take off, it's just gliding, right? And it's not using a lot of fuel. It's kind of like that. The business is like that. So you have to be all in, right? There's a saying, when the student is ready, the teachers appear. So joining a team, you have to have that student mentality. You have to soak in and learn. You have to come in here not to transact, but to learn and just sharpen your skill. When you come in with that right mentality, I think everything else will come because the more you grow, the more your business will grow. Awesome.

Okay. I feel like the two things you said there, among a variety of things you said there, but learning and accountability. And I feel like some of that is structural, it's by design within the team. But I also feel like you just spending this, a day and a half in this office, you know, and seeing who's coming and going, and there's a, you know, a live training in here, a role play yesterday, like I feel like some of it is just part of being part of the organization. Right. So some of it is by design training. We do this every Tuesday, we do this every Thursday, whatever the case may be. We have this two week onboarding, we have a mentorship program, but some of it's informal. Has that been your experience? Just being around other people, building relationships with the other team members and kind of the camaraderie and collaboration that happens just in unstructured, informal conversations in addition to all of the formal training? Yeah.

I think there's a saying, success leaves clues. Right. And you're the average of your five closest colleagues or friends. Right. So when you're surrounded by top producers and you talk to them, you build those relationships, you start to act like them, you start to do the things that they're doing. Right. As long as you're coachable and you're building relationship and surrounding yourself with other agents that are producing, you're gonna start producing like them, you know, at least 20% of their production. Like when I first started, I remember I looked up the top four in the company, right. I called them the core four. And they were always consistently at the top. So I wanted to be at the top. So the best way to do that is be around them and ask them a lot of questions, learn from them. And that's one of the things I really love about Whistle Realty is because like we have a. One of the core values that we have is come from contribution and we love to share tips and tricks and we share everything to each other. For me, I share a lot of the things that I'm doing in the team and vice versa. And that's how I was able to learn and grow in the business is because. By association. By association, yeah, definitely. To answer your question, being surrounded by like minded people that are hungry, that are producing, that have a positive attitude about the market, real estate, you can start to, you know, grow with them as well.

Cool. I'd love to hear how your mix of opportunities or leads has maybe shifted over the three years or so that you've been here. I assume in the beginning it was a lot of company provided online leads. And I know that you all are very intentional about open houses and building real relationships in person. I assume that was probably a lot of your initial opportunity pool, but obviously you've helped a lot of families and that probably has led to a lot of. Probably more referral business than repeat business just because of how tight this time window is. But talk about how that's shifted for you over time and maybe how company.

Training has supported that in the beginning, I started in the team gen, right? Like team leads. That's how I was able to do business is by getting the leads from the team. Heavy on the team. Team leads. I did a lot of open house as well. I did about two to three open house every weekend. I was doing door knocking, I was circle dialing. I was calling it a pond. It's a list of leads that we have in the company.

It's another ICE team benefit.

Yeah, 100% because we have that 30 plus thousand. I don't know how, how much leads that we have right now because it's been a while since I caught in the pond. So in the beginning, I relied on the team, generated leads, and then eventually I started getting, you know, referrals from my past clients. You know, I was working the open house leads that I have, and eventually, like my business took off with softgen leads, you know, like clients that are, you know, reaching out to me and, you know, my social media, online presence and my sphere started to contact me. In the beginning, nobody wanted to work with me. My family members, yeah, I mean, they know who I am, all my flaws. Don't get me wrong, like, I made a lot of mistakes when I first started. However, nobody, people were just watching me from afar. They're like, hey, you know, congrats on your new journey. But, you know, I'll go to family, family events and they'll tell me, yeah, you're doing something new again. Like you're jumping into a new industry. Like, what are you doing? Like you're quitting the job full time. I mean, there was, you know, hey, they had good intentions, but they didn't realize that, you know, like, I felt like, you know, they didn't believe in me internally. Like I could, I can feel it. Right. And that's how it is. Right. Family wants you to be, they want.

To, they want you to be safe and protected. Yeah. This is like you're taking a risk here, going out on your own 100%.

Because I can, you know, because being in real estate is a very hard industry. Right. There's a lot of turnovers. And to answer your question, the shift is when? Probably my second year. That's when I started to, to get more referrals from my past clients. Because when you're, when you're doing, when you're helping a lot of people like that, and you do them right, you do, you, you take care of them, you have their best interests, they're gonna remember that. So you take care of your clients. They're gonna take care of you. So I get a lot of referrals from my past clients, my military members, you know. Cause it's such a tight group. Yeah. So eventually a lot of my business right now is self generated leads and just referral based business.

Cool. I feel like you have a lot of natural bias of action toward income producing activities. I feel like you're probably very self aware of that. How do you structure your day?

Yeah, I call, I. Funny thing that you said that income producing activity. I call them IPAs. Okay. Yeah. IPAs. Right. Not the beer. Yeah, it's IPAs.

Although San Diego is famous for those two.

Yeah. 100. I used to drink a lot of beer, but not anymore. Yeah, same when I was in Marines. You like beer too?

I did.

Yeah. You did.

I was like, I'm done with that.

Yeah, no, me too. Yeah. So IPAs. 80% of my activity is our IPAs. Every single day till this day. Even the amount of business that I'm doing right now, I always have that 80, 20 rule. 80% of my activity are IPAs. So that's talking to clients, being in front of them, cold calling, you know, following ups. Those are the activities that I'm doing right now. And then 20% are admin work. But again like my business is a little bit different from it was or a lot more different now I have four assistants. You know, everything is being delegated right now. Admin work, my circle dialing. And I have a co listing agent and I have a showing agent, also personal assistant. So all my listings, my job is to go out there and find the new clients being in front of them, get the listing agreement sign, you know, get their offer accepted for my buyers. Everything else has been delegated. You know, managing the listings go, going, going to the, to the house and making sure the lockbox is working. If I can't be in two places at once for showings and have multiple buyers are looking, I have a showing agent can show property, multiple properties in Murrieta and then I could be here in San Diego. Showing properties. It's just leveraging my time Right. In my resources as well. So just scaling the business. I wouldn't be able to do 5 to 10 transaction a month if I didn't scale my business and bring in the right people in my business. I almost have like a small little mini Whistle Realty. Group within Whistle Realty.

Yeah. Team within a team.

Yeah, 100% and Kyle allows me to, to do that.

Cool. And that's where, that's where I wanted to go as soon as you kind of open that door up is how much of what you have structured today, let's just call it your team. How much of that was intuitive to you? How much of that did you learn just by talking with other high performing agents within the organization? And how much of it is directly supported or even provided by the team itself? Like I would assume that you. Maybe this occurred to you at some point or it was recommended to you either by a of piece here or by Kyle or someone else. Like, how did this structure that you have now come to be?

It's a combination of a lot of things. Kyle's advice, like he's my direct mentor now, right. And just duplicating what Kyle has done for West Royalty in a smaller scale and then also like past experience that I have because I have that experience in cybersecurity, security and building a small little team there in my tech background and you know, marine background. Right. So a combination of my experience in. With Kyle and, and what, what I see in West Royalty. Whistle Realty provides a lot of things, right? A lot of resources and tools and systems. The things that they don't provide. You know, for someone like me, I had to almost create something because no one's doing it like me. Because like I. My business took off super fast. It took a lot of hard work. Don't get me wrong.

I have no confusion about that.

Sacrifices and trials and tribulations, right? A lot of, you know, hours and no's and rejections failing forward. But where, where my business is right now, I had to learn how to scale it with Kyle, with Whistle Realty and with other agents outside of Whistle Realty that are top producers that's been in the business for a long time and are consistently top producers from other brokerage firm. Because I, I look at the list like, oh wow, you know, like I look up to them like, okay, when you get to the top. So 2022, I did the most transaction in my second year. And then last year I was, you know, most transacting. Also most gross commission income and volume, right. And eventually I was like, okay, well when, when I'm trying to take it to the next level, who do I go to? I go to Kyle and then other producing agents that are outside of Westeroty because there's no one above me, right? So I have to like look for other resources and tools. Okay, what are they doing differently? How can I get my business? Because since I'm at the top, how can I get my business to the Next level, right? Like these guys. And so learning from them. And okay, this person is doing it this way. This. This other agent is doing this way. She has an assistant. She got two assistants. She got three. Okay, what are those assistants doing? What type of systems they've created in their business? So to answer your question, is a combination of a lot of things, Kyle, with Realty and other agents that are outside of my. My sphere.

Awesome. I love this active pursuit of how other people are doing it. Like, you have this natural curiosity toward. Okay, I know there's. I know I can do more.

How.

How can I do that? Let me go find. Tell me if this is about how it went. You know, I have these people that are immediately available to me, and I'm learning from them all the time, and we're actively in conversation, so some of these seeds or ideas are being planted. But I'm also actively going out to other top producers to learn how they're doing it. And you're not saying, oh, okay, that's how she does it. That's how I'm gonna do it. You're taking all this input and making it your own. Like, there's no single playbook for success. You can literally do this however you want.

Yeah, yeah, you can. You can def. As long as you have that student mentality. Right. Like, for me, my biggest fear was hitting a ceiling. But part of it, too, is like, being at the top is. Is lonely and. And. And it's. And sometimes when you're at the top and you hit that milestone, you lose a lot of that motivation. In fact, you know, motivation is great, but for me, I prioritize because it's consistency. Right. In my business, I didn't want to be at the top. And then eventually, you know, you know, go back to second or third or fourth and fifth, you know, because losing motivation. So I had to find another type of motivation, another person to chase almost. And. And. And that was my.

The greats have sometimes even manufactured, fractured someone to chase because it's so necessary.

Yeah, I had to. I'm like, okay, well, I'm here now. Okay, who am I supposed to chase now? Who am I? I have to find that inspiration again. Right? So when you're doing the amount of volume and transaction in this business here in San Diego, you run into the same people over and over again. And I built those relationship over time with top producer, right? And I look up to them. I get inspired by them. So in the beginning, I got inspired by the core fours, right? I call them the. The Core fours. The top four.

Yeah.

And then, and, and I always like, okay, well, I, I gotta climb myself. I'm super competitive. But I also, you know, I have so much respect for them and I'm so grateful for those people that, that helped me when I first started. It's not the destination that I'm really excited about is the journey and the person that I become in the process. That's what I'm really excited about, is that learning and that how can I be better every single day? And that's something that I'm very, very, very consciously aware of. Like, okay, well, my level of income in the business will never surpass my level of personal development. So I always want to ask a lot of questions and learn from other people or listen to podcasts or read books and how to become better.

Awesome. Spoken like a lifelong learner. And you actually just answered my final question for you, which is what does it look like for you when you're investing time in resting, relaxing and recharging? Or what does it look like for you when you're investing time and learning, growing and developing?

Till this day, I still work anywhere between 8 to 12 hours a day. I probably take, not like a day off. I take like hours off or half a day off. And I have the freedom, like, you know, I'm my own, you know, boss, and I have the freedom. If I wanted to take one day off or two weeks off, one, One week off, I can. I. But I choose to, to do what I do every single day is to like, help other people with their real estate journey. And that's one of the things that I'm very passionate about. I love what I do. And I. It sounds so cliche, right? Like, I love what I do, but I truly mean that. I really do love what I do. And because of that, I don't feel like I'm working. Like, part of, part of my journey in real estate is like helping other people, but also it helps me to be better as a person, you know, as, as a better son, as a better brother. You know, I see real estate as a personal development journey because the more, the more you conquer those fears inside, those demons inside, the more you're able to help other people with their fears, with their doubts, with their curiosity. Like, you can help them with their journey in real estate. And that's what I'm passionate about, is building long term wealth. And, and to answer your question, like, you know, I, I go to church every Sunday. Like, I'm a believer and, and then that's one of the things that, that I'm. That's important to me. It's my faith. It's believing in, you know, believing in him, God, Jesus Christ. And just things are going to work out, you know, just trust in him. And that's how I run my business is Christian based, you know, principles. And sometimes it doesn't work out, but I keep moving forward because I know, I believe that it's going to work out. And if I keep doing my business and running my business that way everything else would fall into place. Because I have faith and I have belief that it's going to work out. Even though there's so many problems and issues and I'm not getting the results that I want. But because I'm faithful. Right. We have a saying in, we have our model in, in, in Marines in the Marine Corps, Semper Fidelis. Always faithful. And that's something that's embodied and, and that's something that I do in my free time to refresh. I work out, I spend time with family, friends, I spend time with my dogs, my partner and, and just have those relationships. Yeah. So did I answer your question? Yeah.

Yeah. You gave me a lot there. It's a wonderful place to call this a conversation. I wish you continued success in the end of this year and in the start of 2025. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I'm so glad you found a great place here at Whissel and you've achieved so much in this time. And just speaking to your mindset and your habits and your approach, it makes sense why some of the success has been generated by you.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited. Thank you.

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