[Inside The Team] Foundations of a Top-Ten, $1B Team with George Laughton

Here on Real Estate Team os, we do something completely unique for you. Every single week we bring you a different team leader or team operator at different stages of the team building journey, from different markets across North America, at different points in their real estate careers and they share their stories, best practices, hard learned lessons, key insights picked up along the way, key decisions that they had to make and how they made those decisions, all in an effort to help you take the next right step or make the next right decision in your real estate journey. And now we're doing something even more unique. It may never have even been done before. Welcome to Inside the Team, an eight episode series where you will meet the founder, Chief Operating Officer, Vice President of Sales and Operations, Head of Agent, Productivity, Operations Manager, leader of multiple team leaders, two top agents, each of whom is building a team inside this team. The Lawton Team, based in Phoenix, Arizona was kind enough to welcome us into their community to share all of this with you. They are a top 10 team in the United States with over a billion dollars in sales and nearly 2,500 transaction sides last year. We're going to kick this series off with founder George Lawton who was kind enough to share with us how his grandfather inspired him to get into the business and create the foundations for this incredible real estate organization that they've built today. Some of the values behind all of that, a little bit of the past, present and future of this team. Of course, as regards the future, we do talk about the proposed NAR settlement and how the buyer broker agreement is a little bit behind in Arizona and how they're trying to help their agents catch up and get ahead of to prove their value to the market. We talk a bit about coaching, which is one of the most important investments the team makes. Not just how to become a better coach yourself, but how to find the right coach for yourself or for other team members. We talk about a very unique, very nuanced splits and services arrangement that they've created at multiple levels. So as agents progress with the team, they get access to new types of leads, for example, and different commission splits. So we get into all of that and much more, all with a sensitivity to the local, neighborhood based, human to human nature of the business while also trying to leverage technology and innovation to keep the team ahead of the curve. Now my conversation with the founder of the Lawton Team, George Lawton. George, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I so appreciate it. Congratulations on what you've built. Not just what your team has been able to achieve collectively, but the way that you all are going about it, it's like it's a privilege to spend this day with you all. And thank you.

Thank you for having me. The gratitude is mutual and just I'm, I'm grateful that it's usually myself that gets asked to do the podcast. I am grateful that you guys asked the people that are really doing the things and the hard work and are completely obsessed with what they're doing to come in and share as well. So thank you for that.

Yeah. So, so I mean our thought was let's go inside a team. I don't know if it's been done. I haven't. Um, but, but I think this is, you know, we want to get into the reality of the situation. Like how does someone, how does a top 10 team actually operate? And there's no way to do that by talking like you're probably completely dialed into as much as you possibly can be it. But at the scale you all are operating, you can't be dialed into the whole thing.

The information that I take in obviously is it. It. It's somewhat abbreviated as it. As it gets up to me. Right. And so I hope that the people, whether it's, you know, Justin, McClellan, Billy, are getting into some granular aspects of it as it kind of rolls up to me, the, the data probably comes a little bit simpler. And so I say plugged in where I can and knowing I think what is the highest and best use of my time and what to stay focused on becomes. It becomes very much a time blocking and challenging exercise to some. Some weeks. Yeah, but, but yeah, try to stay focused in what. What improves the business and what grows. You know, essentially revenue at the end of the day.

Cool. So you're kicking off this eight episode series. What. What can folks like as you think about these. You already mentioned a few of them. When you think about these team members and you think about the culture you've built, like what can people. As we spend hours with eight different of your team members, including you, like what do you. What do you think people watching or listening will kind of get a sense of? What do you hope they get a sense of? Like what do you kind of. Not that you're.

Well, I, I. What I'm hoping. Just incredible how incredibly valuable a players are. You know, surround yourself with the right people. Like I said, it's showcasing these people that really have helped build this, this, this great system. Always room for improvement. So I'm like, you know, I, I think we have, we do some things really, really Well, I think there's a lot of things that we really, really need to improve upon and we're constantly working to get better and grow in those. And so I'm hoping that people identify that like, hey, how can I find the Billy for my org? How can I find the Julia? How can I find the Justin McClellan? How can I find these people, these top performers? Tiffany, Tony? Right, like what, what is the, what is the traits? What are, what, what do they focus on? That's what I'm hoping they take away from this.

Awesome. Well, let's focus on your story a little bit, but let's start before we kind of back into it. Let's start with where you are today. How would you describe the Lawton team as it stands here in, you know, early mid 2024?

You know, we're, we're originally based sales organization and so real estate is done at the neighborhood level. That's something that we've never lost focus on. And trying to keep that as you scale and grow is probably one of the hardest things to do. Every big company is trying to get grassroots and every grassroots company is trying to scale. And somewhere we're trying to find that beautiful balance of staying very neighborhood specific, very local and, and hire those people and keep our agents working with the people that are in their neighborhoods, that are part of their community that, you know, engage, go to local coffee shop, their kids are in the sports programs in that community, they go to church, they go to school, like all those things. That's who we want to continue to add value to and how we want to continue to expand and so never losing sight of that. And we are in this interesting position as a team where we focus a lot on adding value to our agents, but we never, never lose sight of who the customer really is. And I think that that gets diluted a lot of times as I've, as I talk to big brokerages, big teams and who their clients actually are. You can go to some conventions and conferences and there's nothing ever really talked about sometimes on consumer experience. And so I try to stay, you know, and we try to stay focused on who our clients are. And that's who we are. Right. Is like trying to provide the best experience possible while partnering with amazing agents.

Right, that's great. As someone who hosted over 270 episodes of a show called the Customer Experience Podcast, I love to hear that because, because it is especially in your seat, you know, at the scale or those like immediately adjacent to you in an organization this large, it would Be very easy to say the agent is our customer, but the idea that we're going to delineate between that and keep first things first and, you know, serve the agents in service of the customer keeps you properly aligned, I think.

Yeah, I'd agree. You know, that's continuing to try to make our agents the most efficient and consistent as they possibly can, but then focusing on the consumer experience overall.

Walk us through your personal journey into real estate up to the point where it dawned on you that perhaps I should start a team or. Or did you just wake up one day, you're like, oh, gosh, I guess I have.

Yeah. I don't know if that was like a conscious decision.

Tell us much of that as you. As you want.

Yeah, I'd love to share. So, I mean, I started as a young, like I was in my last year of college, actually my last semester of college. The global Global business management degree. Just one that, you know, I think I randomly selected, really no clear vision on what direction I was going. I was bartending my way through, through college. And my grandfather had worked at what is now Honeywell. He was, it was Allied Signal or something before that. And he had retired at 55, but him and my grandmother bought a number of real estate rental properties and he was able to retire early because of those real estate investments. When I say a number he bought, I think five or six, right. And I just remember watching that as a young, young man and going, that's really cool. He would take me to the rental properties. He was a very handyman. He built, I think the last three homes he lived in, he built them. Something that I definitely do not have the skill set for. So I didn't take that away from him, but, but I did take with a real estate investing and that's what drove me into the business was my first real estate purchase was a rental home at the age of 22. And that's the vehicle that I saw is the best way to build wealth. And as I was working through building my own rental portfolio in my early 20s and still now to this day, I still see it as like, for the average American, for the average consumer, it is by far the best way to build wealth. Right. Even if you're just talking your primary. And maybe it is you buy that primary residence, you hold it, you rent that out and you buy your next primary. Right? And so I've been to many a listing presentation where I talked myself out of a listing because I told the person to hold the asset, hold the asset. It makes the most sense. And so as I was building my own, it became, I think this organic thing where I wanted to share it with more people. There were more people than I could help alone. And so started adding agents under me and around me and sharing and helping them build rental portfolios. And many of them, a couple of them you'll talk to today, have grown great, great businesses and great personal portfolios as well too.

That's awesome. How, how are you generating opportunities to yourself, for yourself such that you needed to bring other people around you like in general. That's the theme. It's. Yeah, I, whether it's I was generating it through SEO or you know, paid search or, you know, I partnered up with somebody and I had all these opportunities. Like generally that's the origin of it. Like what was going on for you where you said I have more opportunities that I've created than I can handle myself.

Yeah, I don't know where who came from first. Maybe it was Brian Buffini. But lead generation is like, you know, one of the number one focuses of, of a team leader. And so when you're in production and you're like, okay, even just my sphere network, the network I'm building, maybe I think we were buying some realtor.com leads at that time and it was more than I could handle. But I also realized if I'm going to bring somebody on, I better scale this even more than it is today and continue to invest in lead generation. And so even to this day, that seems to be a primary focus of mine is higher level relationships focusing on lead generation continuing. So that's taken many forms. PPC was, you know, great IDX sites that funnel into a good CRM that can help you filter down to those most likely to transact has been a key component of what we've done. So taking top of funnel PPC leads, top of funnel seller leads and getting them down funnel 2 and then hand them off to the agents. And then I think one of the key components of a good team leader too, besides focusing on lead generation is you got to be a really good coach and you got to know when to take the hat off of being producer and addicted to the transact transaction and wearing a coaching hat. Right. So inevitably my job shifted from showing buyers going to listing presentations and being just a really good coach to these agents. Right.

Yeah, I think a lot of people get stuck there. Essentially we're having the conversation of kind of the messy middle between. I've built something that needs a lot of time and attention outside of My clients, like my agents, need my time. This burgeoning tech stack or these multiple lead sources need my time. And you have all the hats on at some point, and then you just start taking them off in part by bringing the right people around you for you early on, at the dawn of the team or the spark of the team, what were some of the. Maybe things that you didn't enjoy doing or weren't very good at, or maybe it was the right person walked into your life at the right time and you're like, I'm going to bring this person on board. Like, what I want to do is like, help out a team leader who's watching or listening. That was at that point where you were where you're like, I got a lot going on now and I need to put something down. And typically that's through bringing the right person alongside you.

Yeah, I think the first thing that came off my plate was I didn't particularly. And maybe this is like some of my impatience. I don't know. I'm fairly patient, but. But I. Buyers, I think in general, like, you know, the one thing I couldn't scale or figure out how to manage more effectively is windshield time. Like, when you're out there, you're showing 10 houses, you know, 15 houses, and you want to provide a great experience, that takes a right personality type. And maybe it didn't fit my personality type that well. If it's my wife's personality type, really well. Right. And so I was like, all right, babe, you. You gotta get licensed. Because I see I don't seem to have the patience for. For this aspect. I'm. I'm fairly operationally minded. And so while that's kind of where I bend towards is the operation side of it, I also knew that the key component for me is like, I can also wear the coach that really, really well. And so finding that right one that builds good connections with the agents, understands where to spend the time and. And add the most value. I could find a great operations person probably easier than I could find that great sales leader. Right. And so, you know, being that sales leader voice in the. In the face of that has been important as well. But I went. I went and found the operator I think was the next key component for me.

Coaching you've mentioned a couple of times. You also mentioned Brian Buffini. So I assume you've been coached throughout your career and you've been a coach throughout your career. Talk a little about coaching tips for great coaching tips, maybe to find a good coach for yourself. And maybe tips for coaching a growing team.

Yeah, I think I, right now I probably, I think I have two different coach. Tom Ferry is. I coach directly with him, which has been a great blessing for my business. I've coached with a number of them over the years. Bill Hart building champions to operational stuff outside of real estate, you know, we look at EOS systems, these, these different things too. And I kind of go one, there's like this life coach aspect of it. There's the real estate coach and then there's maybe what I'm really, really focused on at the moment. And so it might be transitioning to follow a boss. Right. And I go, okay, I need to dive all in. And right now it this NAR settlement, right. All the content I'm taking in is to help arm my team right now with how to handle those conversations and what our plan forward is on that. And so over the years it's, it's changed. And I think if, you know, it is probably the best portion of my budget that I spend ever. It's the one thing that's probably never going to go away. You know, we, we would cut expenses in many other categories before we would cut it in coaching. I just believe in it so much. And I also think what makes a good coach to your other question there is. You got to be, you got to meet people where they're at. You can't have this recipe that you think is just what everybody needs to do. And you, you use the same recipe for every single one. You got to be this great listener, active listener and understand and identify personality types and what is going to make their business excel. The recipe is different for everybody. Right. And we've done, we personally profile everybody that comes onto the team. And I could say maybe by personality profile I can get a recipe and what, what pillar is going to work best for you of your business, meaning like lead generation or where you need to be spending your time and energy. It. Not everybody's going to be a social media influencer. Right. And so understanding where they need to lean into and pulling that out of them and getting to be the best in that area is key. Is key to being a good coach, I think.

Yeah, really good. I especially appreciate this called like I can get a sense of who they are based on these personality profiles. But you know, even that's, let's just say a disc profile or something. Every person's truly one of a kind. We just know a little bit more about them before we get into it.

Yeah, we're not making any big decisions off of it. Right. But I can learn a lot and I think what's been interesting over the last few years in personality profiling and everybody that comes onto the team we used to look at like high D high is as the avatar that we wanted that shifted a little bit. Right. The the industry's moving more is and even some scs the people that have really good processes that know how to follow a playbook seem to be the ones that are that are winning. The one thing that's been consistent though in the values aspect, the ones that that continually show up as good producers and show up obsessed in what they do have this strong desire to win and so on the disc profile for instance that would show up as a high economic indicator which most would be think like money motivated and that that's not the case. Like it is just really this strong desire to win and you want and that that's probably one of the things that I want in everybody that joins the team is like undoubtedly like you are obsessed with winning. Right.

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Yeah, I think, you know, we bring in our core values to every conversation. You know, if it's. If it's a quarterly review and one on one, we're constantly assessing new people coming on, if they. If they operate with integrity, if they have this, you know, these strong desires to win. But. But I think it's the. As you're saying, like, it's not do anything to win. And how do you define winning? It's the same thing with, like, growth over my. Over the years, you know, and as you. In seasons of life, winning and growth can mean very different things. And so I thought growth was always increasing my income. Right? And I thought winning was always increasing my income, but it turns out that that's not super fulfilling in the end. And so what has become fulfilling is helping these agents, these team members, even if it's staff, too, that have been able to grow tremendously as humans, as people, and then also build their own wealth. Right. Show them the vehicles and the pathway for growth, and then that goes down to the consumer and the customer as well, too. And so some of the most fulfilling things, and why I'm excited, too, for you to hear things from the team is because, man, it is. You know, that's what excites me at the end of the day, is see the agent that I'll talk about one specifically, but I'll leave his name out. You know, he came to me as a young man with a young family. He had had a checkered pass with DUIs and some other issues, had to get a provisional license, which means basically everything he did was under my supervision. Now, this was six years ago, has been the consistent pillar of integrity, Consistent pillar of doing the right thing for the client. Consistent top producer on the team now. Right? And this was somebody that a lot of people wouldn't have given a chance. And every day I am grateful that he is part of the team. And every day he shares his gratitude with me, too. And I'll tell you that that fuels you more than the Income does. At the end of the day, that's what gets you up in the morning. And so when I think of winning, that's how I define winning. That's how I define growth. As opposed to, you know, did we, did we, you know, 20% increase in our revenue now, I want that too, don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day, that's not the fulfilling component.

Yeah. And it's interesting too, because it's kind of both. And I mean, if you, if you focus so hardcore, like super narrow on 20 growth, 2020 growth, you're probably not going to do the things that actually produce the 20 growth. It's a little bit of, um, because you mentioned it and of course it's top of mind for everyone, even though it's early days and there's a lot to be decided, including just actually settling the situation. Talk a little bit about changes that you see coming to the buyer and buyer's agent relationship. You know, what are you sharing with your team at this point? How are you thinking about it? Is it going to be, we just need to show our value more effectively and we need to do a few things a little bit differently, or is it going to be this fundamental thing that how are you thinking about it right now and how are you talking to the team about it?

Yeah, a few things on that. I think right now what I'm recommending is some tactical patience, people. I think it was Levi Rogers in San Antonio. He told me the saying, if you don't know Levi, amazing agent, episode 13.

For folks who are watching and listening, episode 13 of real estate team os.

Amazing man with an amazing history. He said, don't go on to the half frozen lake in your new ice skates. And so I go, okay, I like that. So tactical patience is key right now. Which means, you know, all my agents are asking like, okay, we need new, we need new forms, we need new buyer broker agreements. We need this, we need that. All of them are super stressed out. And so anytime that there is a challenge or an issue that's causing us a ton of stress, I encourage them to write down what's causing them stress and cross off the things that are out of their control. Right. And so what is in our control? One we can really get good with our scripting, really get good with having these conversations. Arizona is one of those markets that's really behind in getting buyer broker agreements assigned in every transaction. Florida is another one of them. And so. But there are markets out there that have done a really great job. There's, there's my counterparts across the country that have done a really great job of having buyer brokers already integrated into their, into their process. We don't, right? And we've, we've fought it over the years and I don't know why it doesn't exist well in Arizona, but now it has to, right? And so I'm teaching them one, let's have the conversations. How are we gonna, let's, let's practice our scripting. Let's role play every day. Let's get really consistent about asking for buyer broker and defining our value. And then I go, what the hell does defining our value even mean, right? Because I hear a lot of people say, like, you better be really good at articulating your value as a buyer's agent. I go, what does that mean?

Right?

And then, and then I see, oh, here's 180 points on what buyer's agents do for you. And I gotta be quite honest, none of it seems like hard or that impressive. It reminds me of my, my 12 year old put together a presentation on why he deserves an iPhone. That's what it reminds me of. And I'm like, guys, if this is what you're saying, that's a, that's a fricking problem, right? And so what, what I think it means is our value and what we've done really good. And what I've said in the past is we've got to insulate our clients from the complexity of this business and show them the simplicity, right? And so just provide a very simplified experience, which meant like insulating them from all the minutia. Well, now we've got to, we gotta define the minutia. I've gotta tell them that my wife left a soccer game, my 12 year old soccer game, the same gun that pitched me on the iPhone left a soccer game on Sunday early. Because there was this client that found the house that they loved, right? They found the house that they loved. She went out, she showed the house to him, sure enough, they wanted to buy the house, right? They wanted to make an offer. What does she do? Well, we're back from the soccer game. She's like, hey, babe, do you, do you know this listing agent? I'm like, I don't. Maybe Tiffany does. Maybe disc it. Like maybe somebody knows this listing agent, right? Have we done a deal with them in the past? Has a property been in escrow before? We go through all these steps to provide like a leg up in the negotiation, right? To find an angle. We're researching the seller. We're doing all these little things that we shield our clients from. And a good buyer's agent. And I think that there's something to be said. Like we're not the key to finding you the property anymore. Like, but we are the difference in getting the property that you want. Like a good buyer's agent knows how to get you what you want. And that is like obsessed strong. That's where that strong desire to win shows up. Like when I know my client really wants something, I know that I am going to work my tail off to make sure that they get what they want. That's what we need to be. That's how we need to articulate our value is those little things that you think don't matter. They matter. They matter because they can't do.

Like.

The buyer's agent's been underappreciated for a number of years. And that's because we haven't articulated that well.

Yeah. And has been the kind of the bane of the industry in general, which is people that aren't serious enough about their job to do a great job every day. I think that kind of waters down the impression of the value as well. It's funny when I think about the little things like the house that my wife and I have been in for like 18 years or something. We're in Colorado Springs. It's south facing and the sun. I know that you've done some business in Colorado. Like the sun is so intense that we don't need to shovel snow. But our neighbors on the other side very often, I mean we do, but not as often as the people who have north facing houses directly across the street. It sits in the shade all day. So the snow just sits there. Like little things like that.

That's. I would have never thought of that had I gone to sell real estate in Colorado Springs.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to worry about that here.

Anyway.

Team model, high level. Like, you opted to, you know, you didn't open a brokerage. You opted to start a team. You brought other agents around you and you're operating as a team now. You have this incredible staff. And not to dehumanize it, but this, this machine that makes everything easier and better for this growing body of agents who are now in multiple offices covering the entire local market and in Tucson as well. Why the team model? Like, when did that occur to you? Did you think about it any other way?

I think brokerage has been part of the conversation before. You know, brokerage, it can Also mean a number of things. We operate, I think the term is team rich. But, but the, you know, we're, we're with a great network right now with my home group. They take care of the things that, that are, are not profitable nor fulfilling. So I let them take care of that. So that's you know, liability components, file processing, commissions processing, things along those lines. And then I look at, you know, I look to us to provide the value in other areas. Our team model has evolved over the years. You know, it starts out as, you know, just you, which was me, my wife, a transaction coordinator and one agent. And then it slowly grows as you have more and more to give. As you have more and more to add, it just continues to organically grow. And you go okay, well maybe 8 to 10 is a really nice spot to be in. Having 8 to 10 you feel like a family. Everything's great, everybody likes everybody. You guys are, you're doing dinners together.

Not a lot of overhead.

Not a lot of overhead. Yes. You don't need significant office space. You don't need all these things. And so why, why take the plunge further? Well, we had more to give, right. And so I, I often say like we haven't won yet. So, so it's this, this consistent growth and, and, and continuing to add people that, that are like minded and want to continue to grow. And so the next step for us was well maybe it's 50, maybe it's 50 is where we want to be. And, and really when you start modeling out the economics, that's kind of the next spot. So if you go from 8 to 10, you're really not going to make much more money until you get to, to 50 agents, right? You may make a little bit more and you go okay, well what do I have to do lead generation side? What do I have to do tech stack? What do I have to do staff wise and space wise to get to that? And then you go okay, well we're here. Are you content? Like I feel like we got more to give. So, so it's to the next level after that. And then you know, as you, as you find that this, this model of you know, 20 to 25 agents by remember real estate being hyperlocal. You go okay, well this is very duplicatable. If we go to this zip code or this part and Phoenix is an amazing market where you know there's well we haven't been in the last year or two but you know, it's a hundred thousand transactions in a year where you can Expand locally and, and still not take up a significant market share. Right. Like, there's still a lot of room to grow here. And so that's been an awesome part of being part of the Phoenix market. Incredibly competitive, but, but we like that too. So. But the evolution of the team from that when we said, okay, well you know, we can, we can have these, you know, pods of 2025 with a team leader, that's very duplicatable. What's next? And I looked at like, why were people leaving our team? And that's often where we go. It's like, okay, why are agents leaving? Like we have this attrition that, that seems outside of the norm. And then I always flip the question. I go, why do people stay? Right. That's so much better place to go to first. You want to get really clear with yourself on like why people leave. Be able to take feedback really, really well. I'm always super curious when somebody leaves. I'm like, well what is it? Be raw with me. I love raw. And taking that feedback and then why do people stay? And so, so that led to the evolution of the levels of agents. So level one through four and it was really about creating a growth path for agents. How do we, I think that that's something that a lot of teams don't put together well is like this is step one, this is step two, this is step two, step four and this is how you grow with me for the next 20 years. If you don't create a growth path for them, they're going to create their own and you're probably not going to be in it. Right. And so, and that's where teams within a team did, I think 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I'd have teams within a team. No, but it's possible and it's what some of my team members wanted. And I'm like, I think, I think we can actually make this work where it's a win, win and they're good, amazing, like minded team members that deserve to win together. Right. And so I think we, we, you know, that's where we go and that's how we created the models. So it's been great to watch them grow and understand that they can continue to grow with us.

It's awesome. I'd love for you to go one step deeper on the levels and how that, and how teams kind of, I assume is that like level 5 or like is that like, I assume the whole process has been iterative. I assume that it was partly agent informed. I'm sure. Some of it was intuitive to you as you, as you and some of the folks around you thought about like, here's the problem and opportunity, how do we address it? So I'm sure some of that was. Did you go outside the organization, see what other people are doing? Like, just talk a little bit about how this all came together?

Yeah, it, once again, it was kind of, we think a lot along line like tech companies do, where there's, you know, V1 and then beta and all of this. And so we're thinking on things. And I'm getting a lot of feedback from agents. I interviewed a bunch that left and started their own team. It was like this mass exodus of what we would call now, which is level three agent, which would be a great producer, 35 to 45 transactions a year, doing really good business. Eventually you help them build this book of business. And then they started doing this value versus cost equation in their head. Is the value there for what this is costing me? My phone is ringing now, George, like, I don't know if I need as many as your leads as I once did. And you go, that's fair, I understand that. But like we built all this together. I thought, right, like, stay with me, don't go now. We're just, we're actually like, we, we worked hard to get there and they work incredibly hard to get there. And so that was, I think that was the first point where I go, we've got to create something different. And that's where the stages came in. And so with that level one being the lowest, level four, and then after you hit level four, you can go teams within a team. Not everybody desires to build a team. They think they do. But when you go, okay, here's what you need to do and here's what you need to know, and here's how you wear a coach's hat and here's how you do all this. They go, maybe I like production better. But with each level comes an unlocking of opportunities. So there's just like the levels, there's, there's levels of leads too. And so the hierarchy of leads, you go, well, as you unlock levels, you get maybe higher intent leads, you get seller leads, you get higher price point leads, which has proven to be the, the best carrot that we've had is like luxury and luxury seller. That's, that's the gold standard in, in lead hire lead hierarchy. And then we look at like, okay, can we, can we adjust commission splits? Is that something that, that makes sense economically as they build their book of business. Why did people leave? Well, I'll tell you, a lot of times they left when they had a really high dollar, like three or four high dollar. What would now be considered sphere or part of their network listings coming, right? And so they've got a few listings coming up and they go, and George, like, I really don't know if the value is there for what it's going to cost me on these now perceived sphere listings. And I'm like, okay, we got to figure something out. So there's a change in sphere splits as I move up. And then we also lean really heavily into, like, how can we help them operationally? More like, as you grow, what operational help do you need? I'll say that that one was probably the hardest one to figure out, where you create all of this operational lift and then it doesn't get used a lot. And so I would say if you do anything, don't start there, because I'm still. We're like on V7 of operational help and I still haven't figured it out. You think it's ISAs, but what becomes tough is for that to become quantifiable. Like, is this actually. Are we seeing the ROI here? Does it make sense? Is this increasing retention? What is it doing? And it really is tough to tell sometimes.

Yeah, I'm sure that journey got you very clear on, or a lot more clear constantly on, what value are we really providing and how do they understand it? This is where I think a lot of any business falls down. Sometimes it's like, tell them what you're gonna do, do it. And then you think it's done, but you forget to remind them that you did it and you're still doing it. We're still here, we're still adding this value. I imagine as someone, you know, this scenario you offered here with, you know, I've got three, like, really great listings coming on soon. Maybe I'll just take them off and, you know, keep my side of it. This, this, all the stuff underneath and what it does take, especially someone that's come up inside, whether it's your team or someone else's that's operating well, they maybe have no idea the value of all the things that you're providing and they have no idea what it's going to take to replicate any level of that service on their own and what that's going to mean. Not in gci, kind of who cares what they're actually going to take home? They can lose sight of that. Are you all doing any of that education or did that maybe come unearthed as you were doing some of this discovery for yourselves on how to solve the problem?

Yeah, I think it's. That's been an ongoing challenge and something that we follow EOS model, which is quarterly rocks. We have these quarterly goals in a focus and one of those retention pieces is in articulating the value. But the way that we see that and then we go down, okay, this is the goal, this is a strategy and these are the tactics within it. The tactic for that this quarter is like the first 90 days. And so how do we make it much better for our agents to understand the value in their first 90 days with the team? So instead of trying to go retro and get everybody like, okay, let's make sure that we dump all this thing, all this content on them that we've been providing the value that we add, we need to drip that continuously. And that comes in like team meetings and, and a way that I like to drip value is through acts of awesomeness. So every meeting starts out with an act of awesomeness. And so we try to highlight the things that we're trying to focus on. Right. And some of those are within how the team provides value. Outside of that, the first 90 days is how we see like let's get this right from the beginning and making sure that we have a really good foundations course, a really good orientation, a really good onboarding experience and that should lead to retention. Right. If you, if you bring them on the right way, we're like minded. They know what they're getting into, they know the value of what your team provides. They're likely to stay longer, we think. Right. And so there's obviously plenty of use cases out there in the corporate world that show us that. And so we needed to get better at that.

Yeah. I appreciate your multiple references throughout this conversation to going outside the industry to look for inspiration, information and modeling. Really smart. As you think about where you are now from, you know, the, the earliest days and you think about going forward, what are some of the key kind of partnerships or you know, big decisions that you've made along the way or opportunities that have come along again in terms of getting to where you are now and, or as you look to the future, like what, what, what kind of partnerships are you most excited about? And that could be, you know, within your tech stack. It could be anywhere.

I mean, yeah, I, with, with the mission of staying like consumer centric, making the most efficient and consistent agents on the planet that provide that great experience. A lot of that is answered through technology. And so that's who we look to. That's where you know, the, the focus and my intrigue comes. And so that's who we'd like to try to partner with at a higher level. And that comes with. And that's why we, I mean we're Phoenix is test kitchen market where we test a lot of different things, a lot of different pilot programs and we love every minute of it. Sometimes that's why operational lift. We are probably more operationally heavy than your average team. But I think to stay as a, to be a durable business, I see that as innovation and that if there's not a portion of your budget allocated to innovation, then you're probably going to get left behind or I'm going to beat you there and I'm going to take my unfair share of it. Right. And so that's my hope is like through those, those investments once again with the mindset of not having one yet, that we're going to continue to reinvest in those things. And so partnerships with companies like Follow a Boss and doing different pilot programs and testing different things to having full stack developers, you know, at our beck and call to help us figure out how to make it super simple for an agent not to have to update the CRM every single time. Right. If all these phone calls are recorded, AI can summarize the phone call, give you the bullet points from, can probably do some of the action items from the phone call on your behalf and then it can also give you some, maybe some coaching points on that. Right. And so, so all those things are within the realm of possibility today. Today.

Right.

And I don't think there's many teams that are investing in that in those types of ideas. The good ones are, the great ones are, but not the majority.

It's awesome. You triggered one more question for me. I was going to say thank you and I will and I have and thank you. But before I let you, I want to tie back like you mentioned, real estate is local. You know, it's local and it's person to person, it's street to street, it's neighborhood to neighborhood. And then here, you know, as we're kind of wrapping this idea of I think the language was the most consistent and efficient agents on the planet, which I love that as kind of a mission statement, like that's where we're going and tech being part of the way to get there. I mean it's begging. I would love to hear you just speak out. This is still a human to human business. This is like the last mile of everything. No matter whether it's the agent side and how they're supported and empowered, whether it's. You mentioned earlier, the job isn't to help find the right properties for people. Maybe some, you know, stuff that they can't find, maybe on a, on a standard website or something, but that's not a thing anymore. It's what is the most valuable part of an agent in the foreseeable future of this industry. Specifically, what I'm asking is what's the human side of this business? Because we want to take, you know, you just listed out ways we can take take problems off the agent's plate and give it to technology. And we can look at ways to push information that's in the systems back to the agent to empower and equip them. Like, just speak to the magic of the human to human moment that makes this industry what it is.

You nailed it with the last mile. Like, we can't. Technology can't solve that. Right. That takes human to human interaction and that's the highest and best use of our agents. Time is being face to face with consumers, with clients, at properties showing homes, at presentations, at community events. Right. Like, you have to see yourself as. That's part of the job too. Right. And the ones that understand that, the ones that I can help make their business more efficient and allow them to be at more appointments, that's not ever scalable through technology. Never will a buyer be okay with, oh, here's Tiffany Gobster, our best agent virtually to walk you through what it means to buy this home.

Right.

Like, it just, it's not. They're not going to walk through the property that way. Maybe someday, but today we know that the best, highest and best use of their time is getting face to face. They own the relationship and they build that, that network of loyal, loyal customers. I would love to say that, like, people continue to work with us because of the Latin team. People continue to work with us because we have amazing agents. Right. And that's the kind of people that I want to surround myself with.

Yeah. And you've surrounded yourself with many of them. Thank you for sitting down with me. Above all, thank you for welcoming us inside the Lawton team. It's like a bit of pleasure to immerse ourselves in it and I'm excited for people to check out the entire series here. Before I let you you go though, I always wrap with pairs of questions and you can answer one or the other.

Okay.

And so for you, the one I Just kind of randomly selected. Among the three that I typically ask folks, is, what is one of your most frivolous purchases? Or what's a cheapskate habit that you hold on to even though you probably don't need to.

Oh, geez. And.

Or what would your wife say to any of these? Either of these questions.

Let's see. I think frivolous purchase would probably. And one that I still beat myself up on was a golf simulator. I got myself a Christmas present, but I'll admit, it was in my. So it's like sim in a box from Costco. I'd had it in my shopping cart for like a year, and they ran some sort of special which was like 30% off. So I feel like I saved us money in the long run. That's why I told my wife, I feel like we saved us money and then cheapskate. Thing is, I hate subscription stuff to an extent. Like, I'm constantly looking at our subscriptions and going, like, do we even use this app? Do we even use this? Like, is anybody on this? What's been going on here? And so I'm constantly shutting things down. And like, I figure, like, purging once a year to all those things, like, just shut down the credit card and see if my wife comes to me and says, like, hey, what happened to our Hulu account? I'm like, I don't know.

It's so fun. My mind immediately went to TV when you mentioned subscriptions because it was like, let's just kill this $80 cable bill and spend 92 on 18 different services.

Yeah, that's what. So purge by shutting off the credit card, seeing if. If your family comes to you and goes like, hey, what's going on with this? I'm like, oh, I guess we do use it. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny.

And by the way, I feel like a lot more brokers and. Or agents and or team leaders could probably benefit from doing a similar exercise.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Losing the My amex card a year and a half ago was probably one of the best things that happened to us because we had to resign up for everything. So, yes. Perfect. What you think, man? I appreciate it.

Yeah, I appreciate it, too. Continued success to you all. Thanks for spending this time with me, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

You too, man. Appreciate you. Thanks for checking out this episode of Team OS.

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