Jeremy Larson with Two Paths for a Top Agent [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.

Jeremy, thank you so much for sitting down with me. Looking forward to hearing your story because I think it's got a lot of doubles in it, like maybe a rock solid baseball game, a lot of doubling and. But we're going to start where I'm starting with everyone, which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team.

Great. So, you know, I really feel there's three must have characteristics or fundamentals for a team. Number one is resources. Number two is support and training. And then number three has got to be some type of opportunity. Whether that comes in leads, online leads, open house opportunities, or access to a database.

Break those down a little bit, like, yeah, talk about how those developed for you. Did you have that vision for all three of those components, like when you started your team? And then we'll kind of get into that story too. But like, how did those emerge for you? Or was it just obvious in, you know, doing your research before starting a team?

Yeah, and doing my own research. And those three are kind of, you know, the three pillars I always go back to like, you know, okay, support. What do we have for support? What we're doing now is much more dynamic than what we were doing 12, 24 months ago. Right. With support and whether that is staff, you know, marketing manager, transaction coordinator, operation manager, lead scientist, whatever the support staff looks like. And then even the tech that we're using, you know, as so much that we're discussing this week here at fubcon as well, you know, the tech stack and everything. It's a really exciting time right now for that.

Yeah.

And so, you know, we're constantly going back to those three. And then when we talk about training, even more. So the training's changing and it's getting deeper, connecting with the client more. Today's client, you know, today's consumer is much more educated and equipped than we've ever seen throughout the history of the real estate market. They can pull out their phone and they can see 50 pictures of the house, they can see a video, they can see what it was purchased for, estimated mortgage payment, insurance, taxes. And so the dialog and the listening, you know, that is required now is different than when it was before. And then, you know, when I, when I say leads, I mean, you know, what is the opportunity that the team is offering for the. For the agent to join the team. And so even so then, now I think we're seeing higher intent leads across a lot of the referral platforms. Whether we're talking about Zillow or even open houses, you know, people are coming up and they're a lot more higher intent right now in this current marketplace that we're in. Yeah.

Talk a little bit about training. I've asked a number of folks about kind of onboarding.

Yeah.

Whether they're bringing on new agents or even experienced agents, they have, you know, unique experiences there. Talk a bit about ongoing training. So like, like how much time are you asking your team members to devote to ongoing training? What does it look like? Is it like a weekly cadence to standard or is it, you know, we're going to do some special events as the opportunity arises? Talk a little bit about how you're doing ongoing training or how you think about it.

Yeah, specifically. I mean, I think it's, you know, I feel like you have to retrain. I also feel like you have to re recruit.

Right. I like both of those very much.

Go on.

Sorry.

Yeah. So you asked about training. So our cadence is twice a week, every other week, it's in person. Keep in mind, we have two offices. And so I'm in a different office each week for those meetings. So they're either in person or it's a zoom. Those take place on a Tuesday in the morning. And that is an announcement. Congratulations. As well as we do a quick round robin check in. What are you working on? Do you have anything that anybody needs to jump on or help you with? And then Thursday, we do what we call our coaching call. And that's all hands on deck, all the agents on deck. If it's not hosted by me, we'll bring in somebody that maybe they teach a contracts class or maybe it's an update on insurance or something that's hyper local to our market. Or it might be, you know, follow up or, you know, we've done stuff on follow up, boss, you know, on our tech stack on those coaching calls as well. And so that's the cadence we use. We don't have, you know, if you're a high producer, you get to skip those. We want everybody in there. Yeah. Because ultimately that is part of the culture of the team, who we are and you know, those top performers, it's important that they're in there because they're, you know, they are leaders of the company and they are who a lot of the team members are looking up to. Be. And wanting to be like. And emulate.

Yeah. I feel like that commitment to the team is one way that we separate a team from a traditional brokerage. You know, a collection of people operating more independently because modeling that behavior matters to the whole team. Participating, probably storytelling, supporting, sometimes even leading. Did they ever lead any of the topics?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, engagement is really, really important on a team. You know, the, the difference between the team and being at a big box brokerage, so to speak, is there's a, there's a lot more going on in the team. There should be, there should be a lot of opportunity, there should be a lot of accountability. And that requires engagement. You know, you really have to plug in to utilize everything that's there.

Yeah. Really good. Take me to the moment of shifting from solo agent to. I'm starting to bring some people alongside me.

Yeah.

And character, the solo agent. Experience however you like, but take us to that moment.

Yeah, I mean, I, I, when I was a solo agent, a full time agent, absolutely loved, was great. But I'm one of, you know, maybe I'm sick in the head, but I love leadership, I love coaching, I love leading, I love being in that position. You know, I get, you know, we were joking earlier. You know, I get just as excited as somebody else on the team getting in contract versus myself. And so that's where my, my passion is. And so that's, you know, that's the path that I went down and that's why I did it. But there's definitely a messy middle that we get in. Right. And so that first year, you know, 30% of the sales were me. And the second year is when I really ripped the band aid off.

I'm sorry, 30%. How many agents?

I think we had about seven.

Okay. Yeah, definitely, Definitely overweight.

Yeah, yeah. But like, you know, of the 100 million we did in production our first year as a team, 30 of that camera, you know, 30 of that came from me. And so that's hard to walk away from.

Yeah.

You know, and that was a scary moment. A mentor of mine put me in front of a room and he's like, hey, man, if you're serious about going where you want to go, here's what you're going to have to do. And you got to make that commitment right now. And since then I haven't looked back. And so, you know, I think that that's that messy middle. Right. That's where it gets messy is if you're still working with your clients, you can Carry a handful of agents probably on your back as a team, but as that team grows, I mean, you can't truly, you know, you, you can't really focus on the team to the best of your ability when you're, when you're having to deal with a lot of clients. That's just my opinion. Others may have a different opinion, but that's the way I look at it.

Yeah, it's, it's being able to support the agents more effectively so that your time's not split. And it's, it's probably really hard. It's probably hard in both of those situations. You know, being a, you know, delivering 30, 40% of, of sales while also being responsible for supporting, answering questions, recruiting, etc. On the agent side. But then it's also equally challenging to make that shift for you. I mean, besides, like, where is that, where is that sales production going to come from if I'm not doing it? Any other, like, fears or missteps or things that you, in hindsight, you're like, oh, man, glad I did it that way. Like in that shift out of production, what went well? What went poorly?

Yeah. I think that you need to set, you know, my advice would be set a number like, okay, when we have this many people on the team, I'm going to need to cut back or completely cut out doing personal production because something magical happens when you pull out of production and you tie 100% of your success to the success of others. Right. Something magical happens. You start realizing who's really on board, who's really using the systems, who's really plugging into the CRM, who's really doing the work and who's not. And you gain instant clarity on who you want on the team. And so I learned real quick when I did that, like, okay, this isn't the avatar. Some of the, you know, a certain person is not the avatar for the team. I know exactly the avatar that we want on the team now. I know exactly what it looks like. It's kind of an interdependent personality. Not too independent, independent, not too dependent, but they're independent on. On the team and on, on the environment that we've created.

Yeah. How do you. Very specific question, because I understand this interdependent, like it. Finding that balance. Is it. Are you doing like personality profiles or anything? Like, is there anything that can probe interdependence and reveal it with some degree? It's always, it's always a little bit of a guess when you, when you bring someone on, but how do you suss that out a little bit in advance to. Or is it even more obviously cultural when you're trying to. When you and the agent are trying to figure out, is this a good situation for both of us?

Yeah, we're always trying, you know, the interview process, it doesn't start with me. Right. They go through an interview with our ops manager, and we try to meet them in two. In two different places in the office, so we can see how they are around other agents and then in a coffee shop, because you can see how they treat servers or people around them. Yeah. You know, and that's important. And sometimes you can pick up on things there. And so we want to see if they're coachable.

Right.

That's a big part of it. And so one. I'll tell you this, one thing I love doing is after I interview someone, I'll say, okay, I'm going to leave you with one action item. I want you to send me a selfie video in the next 24 hours of what you like about the team or the organization, why you think this is a good opportunity, and why you think you're a good fit for it. And I'll tell you what, it's funny because I've left with people, I'm like, oh, man, this person's going to be great. And then they just couldn't get over the. They couldn't do the video. They just. They couldn't come down to that level. And then others that do the video have turned out to be fantastic. And think about it after an interview. Right. You got to humble yourself a little bit. Say, hey, I see the opportunity, I see what's here, and I'm ready for it. You know, I'm the right fit. And so that's been a nice strategy that's kind of helped us get a good read.

Yeah, awesome. I mentioned some doubling kind of playfully off the top, but it's a. It's an incredible achievement. I'd love for you to kind of break that down a little bit, and then we'll kind of talk about some of the how behind it.

Behind doubling in production.

Yeah, yeah. Just share a little bit of kind of how the past few years went with the team growth and the sales growth.

Yeah. So 2029, 2018, about 9 million in personal product. Really frustrated with that. Not. Not that there's anything wrong with that number, but I was just really frustrated with that. And so I put myself in a different environment as far as where I was hanging my license, who I surrounded myself with and just opened myself up to strategies from people that were in the field doing the work. And the following year I was, I was able to triple my business and do about 30 million as a solo agent. And I really wanted to be one of the top performing solo agents in our local market so I could build a team. That was the star I was chasing was not to be the top agent, but it's like, you know, I'm not going to be able to earn people's respect and lead them if I haven't done this, you know, masterfully myself. And so that was really the drive to do that. And then our first year as a team, we did 100 million. Then we were able to double that the following year and hit 200 million. And so yeah, it's been, it's been, it's been fun.

Nice. How what has the ratio of agent to sales production gone for you? Do you feel good about that ratio?

Yeah, if you want to get specific, last year we averaged seven transactions per agent. That was, that was on board. That, that's, that's a. Well above the average for our market. Yeah, yeah. So that, that's a good number. We're, you know, there's too much wear and tear if somebody is not performing on the team. It's too much wear on the staff, the office, the training, the retraining. And so, you know, you've really got to approach real estate in general. You just gotta dive in head first. You know, this, this industry time and time and time again rewards those that are bold, that just go for it.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah. Talk a little bit about structure. How have you thought about and what have you learned over the past few years on, you know, obviously there's the, the opportunities lever that says, well we, we could support or maybe we even need to add an agent or two or three. And then as we have transactions and as we have agents and we need more administration, I assume profitability is in the constant management of those three things. You know, you can maybe get ahead of yourself one way or the other. So talk a little bit about the structure of the admin side of the business and how you've kind of built that coinciding with agent and sales growth.

Yeah. You know, this is a great question because I think a lot of us team leaders get ourselves in trouble sometimes we grow too fast and you bring a lot of agents on and you're not prepared for that, you're not ready for that. And so I think it's important to always try to stay one Step of ahead of your business. You know, one of my favorite quotes is don't hire. Hire for where you're going, not where you're at.

Right.

And so if you believe in that, you're going to take the risk on the staff and hire the staff, the support that you need for where you're going. And so everybody's different as far as, you know, support staff and how many agents. But it is definitely something that we've really, really got to be careful with. I've been very fortunate with my operations staff. Even the people that aren't here on the team anymore, part of the company, they were all amazing. And so I've been fortunate with those hires to get people that are really all in and see the vision and they want to be there and, and they understand that the agents are the lead singers of the band and, you know, on the. On the operations staff or the backup singers.

Yeah.

You know, and we're happy to be the backup singers. We want to be backup singers and we want to cheer them on and let them be the face. And so we've been fortunate with who we brought on board and that's always a balance that we have to look at. But I think it's smarter to err on the side and be more conservative and bring on the staff. Because if someone has a bad experience on the team, the first 60 days or the first 30 days, you know, all studies have shown the first 30 days at a new job is going to dictate the work ethic and kind of the cadence of how, how things move forward in that working relationship. And so I think onboarding and support and really getting expectations across those first 30 days are imperative.

Talk a little bit about what you would share with an agent who is approximately in the shoes that you were in at, you know, somewhere in that 9 to 30 million range or whatever, it is appropriate for their market.

Right.

You know, someone who's producing well, they find themselves like, how am I going to grow? Like, I'm exhausted and I want to do more, but I know I physically can't do it. A few tips from your own journey. Like, for someone who's thinking about, I want to bring some people alongside me, I have the opportunity to do it, I have the business to do it. You know, whether it's hiring sequence or roles from your own experience or any other advice you'd have for that person.

Yeah, great question. I really feel there's two paths to take. One is to hire support staff to support what you're already doing. Right. And so if I'm a successful agent and I want to be a mega agent and do more business, then maybe I need a licensed assistant that's going to help me show homes. Right. And so if you're showing 15 to 20 homes a week consistently, you should look at hiring a buyer's agent, a licensed assistant that can help you show those homes after you've created those relationships. A showing partner is what we would call that, you know, or someone on the back end to help out with all the paperwork and the transactions. And so if someone looking to build a team, you know, that that first hire should be one or two people that are on the team, you know, then they've got to look at hiring someone on the operations side, somewhat of an operations manager, to help with implementation and overseeing everything that comes along with that. But then we get into the, the psychology of going from solo agent to being a team leader. Right. And so it's not for everybody. Right, right. Some of the best athletes didn't turn out to be great coaches. Right. And so some of them have trained.

I have like three in mind, as you say.

Yeah, I know, me too. I was going to say a couple, but. And then you have players, you know, Coach Kerr on the Golden State warriors, that have turned out to be amazing coaches. Right. And so that's really a mindset and you have to really want it. You have to be passionate about that. I've got friends that love sales, love real estate sales want nothing. They don't want to deal with other people, they don't want to deal with a team. They want to run their business, and that's absolutely the perfect decision for them. And then I'm on that other category where I'm, you know, I'm passionate and fired up about helping others achieve their goals and get to where they want to go with their real estate career. And so team lead is where my passion is. So I think we've got to look at that passion and that's what that person needs to lean into.

Yeah, really good. How about advice for a solo agent who's wondering, would I be better off, whether from a lifestyle or a production perspective, joining a team, Questions for that person or advice for that person?

Yeah, so we look at this when we're interviewing agents all the time. Right. And for some, being a solo agent is absolutely the best decision. And for others, joining a team is absolutely the best decision. Um, and, and here's how you make that decision. Are you wanting to be a part time, you know, is real estate Your side gig, you know, or it's just a side thing that you do a couple hours a week. Well, then you definitely do not want to be on a team. But if that is part time, then solo agent, you have a lot of freedom, right? Freedom is number one to you than solo agent. Because what happens when you join a traditional team is it's like joining a workout class or a workout community or group, right? Like Orange Theory or something. And so you've got a coach, you've got a trainer, you've got people showing up at the same time. And we're all doing this and we're doing it this way. There's opportunity and there's accountability and you've got to implement. You've got to take action. And it's a whole nother world nowadays, right? It really is. And so if you're looking to go full time and really, you know, get your career rocking, get in front of as many people as you can, let them know you're a realtor and stay in touch with them and help them get across the finish line. A team is definitely the path to take. There's. There's no question about it. It's tested. It's clear. It's the path to take.

It's awesome. Great advice. This has been awesome. Jeremy, I appreciate you. Congratulations on your success. Continued success to you as you build the team. Before I let you go, I would love to know either your favorite team to root for besides your own real estate team, or the best team you've ever been on besides your own real estate team.

So favorite team, as in my favorite team that exists in real estate?

No. Any.

Any team? Any sports team?

Any.

All time or who I root for? Well, right now my. My favorite sports team is the San Francisco Giants.

Okay.

So all Bay area teams. San Francisco 49ers, Giants, Warriors. Yeah. So cool.

Awesome. Thanks so much.

All right. Awesome. Thank you so much. Enjoyed it.

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