Leading and Coaching Alongside (Not From Above) with Michelle Bleach [Inside The Team]

Welcome to the third episode in our first ever Inside the Team series where we take you inside the Lawton team, a top 10 team in the United States over eight episodes and five weeks. In this conversation you'll meet Michelle Bleach. She joined the Lawton team when she returned back to the Phoenix market.

I had actually relocated back to Phoenix from Texas after eight years and when.

I left she actually tripled her average production in her first year with the team. You'll find out how. Then she became an informal trainer and mentor, leading her to become a team leader in one of their multiple regional offices. Then she became the leader of multiple team leaders, becoming the regional team lead over all of the team leaders in those regional offices. They have multiple offices in Phoenix and one in Tucson. So you'll learn about that progression inside the organization. So twice she became a peer to the leader of peers, which is a challenging transition that every team leader faces at some point. So you'll get some insights into that. She, she talks a lot about coaching, how she prefers to be coach, how you can become more coachable yourself, and how to coach others more effectively, including a simple structure for a highly effective coaching conversation. We cover that and a lot more. Here's my conversation with Michelle Bleach. Michelle, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I appreciate it. It's been a pleasure by the way, to spend an entire day with all of your colleagues inside the the Lawton team.

That's wonderful. Thanks for having us.

I would love to start with you where I've started with everyone, which is a must have characteristic of a high perform team. What comes to mind for you?

For me, I'm a very process and procedure person. And I think for any high performing team, if you don't have those things baked out for yourself and your team, I think that's where you really need to focus is getting those pieces down for them so that they have a perfect flow. I mean real estate agents can go a lot of different ways and without having that. I think that's where a lot of agents fail. They just kind of fly by the seat of their pants and don't have a plan.

Yeah, and we'll definitely be getting more into process and procedure, but I guess I'll ask one follow up here anyway because I've got some couple specific ones around that. But like, you know, is this, this is about how it should go and you need to stay within these kind of guidelines. Is it like, you know, letter of the law? Like when you, when you think about process and When I hear procedure, it's like, this is a sketch of how it goes, when it goes.

Well, maybe process and procedure isn't the right word. Maybe it's a roadmap. Okay. Like, there may be different lanes that you take, but you always. It's. It's a. It's a cul de sac, and it brings you back into the main road.

Yeah.

To keep you on the straight and narrow. Like, you may have little deviations, but really, this is the path.

Yeah.

Cool.

Describe your role inside the Lawton team and, like, who are some of your key, you know, connection points? Who do you talk to every day? And who do you talk to every week? And who do you talk to? Like, I'll talk to them every month.

Yeah. So I'm the regional team lead, so I manage the team leaders that are at our five branches, help them with their agent development, their leadership development, productivity in their teams, and those kinds of things. So those are my people that I talk to on a daily basis, are the actual team leaders that are leading those agents in our branches. Also with our leadership group, Billy George, our operations people. Those are the people I'm talking to every day. Cool. Yeah.

And when did this role. How long have you been with the organization and when did this particular role. We need a leader of team leaders. Like, when did that come up?

Sure. I've been with the team since September 2019. I joined as an agent. I was an agent on the team. I was someone who's. I've been in the business 22 years, so I've consistently. I'd always done, like, 10, 12 deals a year, and that was like, my comfort zone. I joined the team, we got the flex program, and it's like, what if you could do twice as many? I was like, okay, I try that. First year, I did 32. So that brought me into leading, doing some training elements, being a field mentor, and then that brought me.

Because of the success in particular.

Yep, Yep. And then that brought me into an opportunity to lead one of our branch teams. And I did that for about a year and a half, two years. And then this role came up. My leader was moving on to something else within our organization, and she'd kind of groomed me a little bit for this. She'd always joked about that, but I thought she was kidding. She wasn't kidding. And so that's. I've taken over as of January this year.

Awesome. How's that transition been for you?

You know, it's been really. It's been great. It's A different side being from a peer to a leader of my peers. Right. So definitely some transition, but I think they're all open to different ways and learning from each other. That's one of our core values, is collaboration, and we do that very well together. And so we're having a lot of success. Cool.

Yeah. That's a common challenge for a lot of folks who get, broadly speaking, a promotion to lead a team is like, we were peers yesterday, I am now. On paper, you know, you're superior today. And I think a lot of people struggle with that transition, but there was just mutual respect and relationship, and it was seamless.

Yeah. I'm there to, you know, I'm not there to come over top of them. I'm there to walk beside them and go with them to our common end result. So that's. That's what we've all talked about.

Cool. I want to double back to this language that you used of, you know, I was in my comfort zone, which was a productive, you know, doing a deal every month, all year, been doing it for years. This is good for me. It's the kind of money I want to make. It's the, you know, it's all working for me. And then you mentioned Flex, and you basically tripled your production. Like, what's the correlation in that little zone of things?

It was opportunities, you know, as, you know, most independent agents don't know where their next deal is coming from. Right. It's various things that you have to do to get those deals. Lots of soi, open houses, those kinds of things in the Flex program kind of opened that door to where, yeah, you still do those things, but the opportunities that come with that are phenomenal. I mean, our first year, we, like I said, we were. We were crazy numbers. I mean, we definitely have slowed down a little bit from that. But the fact that we were able to do what we were doing then was just amazing. It was. It opened so many opportunities, and it helped an agent. What it really did was helped an agent build a book of business. I had actually relocated back to Phoenix from Texas after eight years, and when I left, I didn't think I was ever coming back to Arizona, so I'd kind of let all that stuff go. So then I came back to Arizona with no book of business, back into real estate here. And I was like, how am I going to do this? Because all my friends, quite frankly, are realtors and lenders. And I left all my clients go. So it was a great way for me to build a book of Business. And quite frankly, even being a leader for the last four years here, I still have business from that business my first year. That's where a lot of that business is coming from. Repeat referral clients from there.

So I would assume that for you and your role and the people you're supporting and coming alongside this idea of coaching, whether it's flex or whether it's some other form of, you know, partnership that's providing leads at a high volume and a high level, the idea of moving those new relationships that are coming through that partnership into this is now your book of business is probably a constant coaching and training process.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And what does that look like?

It's really helping them not be transactional like so many agents I think are transactional. And really helping them understand that this is your future business. And using examples like we have, and we have a lot of them that are past client, repeat referral, not just me, but on the team in general. And for an agent to be able to use that for the future, and this is just one element of that and helping them understand it's not just continuing to wait for the phone to ring, it's nurturing those relationships, it's having past client events, it's staying in touch with them on a bi weekly or I'm sorry, bi monthly basis. Right. Every couple months or once every six months. Lots of programs out there that they can do. But quite frankly, within follow up boss, there's some activities that allow you to do that, some campaigns and stuff that allow that automation and work for you as well.

Cool. How much of your role or your team leader's role is looking at activity levels in a follow up boss and coaching to what's being done versus how those things are being done?

It's a little bit of both.

Yeah.

Yeah. Especially I mean we also use CCU as well, so that gives us some transparency there too. So that's in their monthly coaching sessions. Their coaching sessions are what are we doing? How are we doing it? And as a team, one of our goals is to help build an efficient agent. What is your experience with that? And helping them realize to use those tools that they have as leverage and helping them understand that. So you have to dig into that and look at that for them.

Cool. I'll tell you, the impression I've had by talking with a number of your team members is that the culture is strong enough that agent adoption of a lot of these things is probably above the norm. You know, would you, would you agree that that's true and what do you think it is about the culture and the way you all implement new things or even keep things you've had for a while active and alive and useful? Like, what is that dynamic?

I think it's. We don't just put it on the shelf and say, you know, we've talked to it, let's forget about it. Like, we can continue to talk to it on a regular basis. I think the dynamic of the structure that we have, we're lucky. You know, my leaders are paid to lead their agents. They're. Yeah, they're producing, but they're just producing to be relevant. They're not, you know, they're salaried leaders. So I think that's different because their main focus is their agents. That's. I just got off the phone with an agent and she's like, she's didn't even realize other income was coming into her in this one way. And she's like, honestly, I do it. I. I care about my agents. Like, I want them to succeed. And I think having those leaders and their core values that they hold to true to themselves helps that as well.

Yeah, really good. How. Let's double back a little bit into agent to team leader and then leader of team leaders. I want to talk about, like, some of the challenges expected and unexpected and some of the satisfaction you maybe got in these different roles. Like, I've heard the transition from agent to team leader is one of the more difficult ones. Would you observe that's true. If so, why? And in what ways? Maybe was it or wasn't it true for you?

I don't think it was true necessarily for me because I'd kind of. I'd been doing some leadership type stuff even before I got to the leadership role because I was a trainer, I was a field mentor, so I'd had some of that. I do have, you know, a team leader right now that's doing that. She got promoted recently from agent to team leader. I think the challenge is for her because she was within that team, much like we talked about earlier. She went from peer to leader. Right. And really setting the. Helping her set those boundaries with those agents and having the respect of those agents to allow them to allow her to help them get to where they want to go. And we do that through coaching and development within our leadership development programs, really helping them. They can't just come in and say, well, I need to. I need to be held accountable for xyz. You got to earn that. And it's a process. It doesn't just happen Overnight.

Yeah. Talk a little bit about leadership development. You said programs. Is this a formalized process? And talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. We have an internal coach that we use for our leadership programs, and they help. We have one coming up where we're all just. We want to. We want to make sure our leadership group is all on the same page. We all speak the same language. So even something as simple as a reading a common leadership book and breaking it down and how it applies to our individual organizations and how it applies to our individual teams helps us all to be speaking the same language. When I say, you know, get that person to a level three, everyone understands the terminology. So cool.

Now I'm back to the process piece. What I wanted to ask about was accountability is obviously key to success, and there's accountability to the activity and there's accountability to the outcome. Generally, I think if we're accountable to the activity, we can maybe rely on the outcome, assuming that we set up the activity right and we're coaching and training properly. But like, like talk a little bit about that dynamic for people that are struggling with agent accountability. What. How would you guide that?

I think it goes back to what I was actually just saying. It's. You can't just come into a relationship and say, hey, I'm going to hold you accountable for this in two weeks. Right. It's really understanding what their needs and abilities are and coaching to the things that they need to work on and eventually getting them to where you're really in that level where they want to be. They want to succeed as much for you as for themselves. And when you've gotten to that production, accountability, and relationship, that's when you're winning. Because like I said, they want to win for you as much as they do for themselves, and they don't want to let you down, and that's winning.

How did you. I'll just call you a good coach. I feel like you're talking a lot about it. Like you. How did you get turned on to coaching? How did you develop it? Was it by being coached? Was it by studying other people? Was it by just doing it?

I think it's just been doing well. I shouldn't say that it's been within the team. We have lots of. Lots of coaching programs that we coaches that we tend to kind of gravitate. A lot of us coach with similar people so much. Like I was saying before, we all speak the same language. So the fact that someone else in my world, in my need to, need to, need to knows Are coaching with the same people is helpful. So being coached, listening, I'm a listener and I don't like to reinvent the wheel. So if I've heard something that works well, I'm going to emulate that. So that's really where I think I've learned most of my things. Just doing and being coached.

Yeah.

And being open to coaching.

Yeah.

Right. Like I want people to tell me what I'm not doing. Well, please, I want to get better.

Yeah. If you were to sketch, and I know it's different for different people in different circumstances, but if you were to sketch like a good coaching call duration structure, like give some pointers to someone who's like, yeah, I guess I do need to level up my coaching game a little bit.

Sure, absolutely. And we have a coaching structure that most of our leaders follow within. Now again, there's cul de sacs and things that you take based on question one. Question one is give me your mindset between one and ten. And I learned this from one of our coaches. Give me your mindset between 1 and 10. If someone's coming into a coaching session at a 4 or 5, it doesn't matter what else is going on, I'm not going to get anywhere. I need to narrow in on that. Not that we're not all counselors, but sometimes you got to kind of go there. So first of all, starting off with that mindset, understanding that what that person's coming into the coaching call with and then talking about KPIs, we're a big KPI. We monitor, measure everything, especially within our programs. So what's our KPIs? How many conversations do we want to have last month, how many meetings do we want to attend? Do we achieve our goals? And then going into what we're looking at going forward, what's progressing for the next, we want to anticipate for the next, next one and then any problems. Let's, let's, let's satisfy any, give you any problems and let's come up with some solutions so that you can then take that and implement that and then we can talk about it next time. Cool.

I would assume that part of your role is collecting some of the maybe themes or trends in problems or opportunities and rolling those up to the, to, you know, the higher level leadership conversation that results in maybe looking for a new piece of technology or implementing a new system or a process. Talk about that feedback loop from what's actually happening out in all the different offices to how we're making decisions at the Centralized organization for everyone's benefit.

Yeah, absolutely. My team leaders are the boots on the ground. Right. The agents are out there, they're talking to their agents, they're deal doctoring all kinds of every day with different scenarios. So. So they're really hearing what's going on. We have a weekly meeting. We meet every week as team leaders. We talk about problems that are happening, what's common, things that maybe we can solve. Is this kind of one offs? Do we need to make some pivots, make some changes? And then as a leadership group, we meet either weekly with some people and bi weekly with others in order to bring those issues up. We have a working document that we all work off of. Everyone's free to add a subject to that as they come up and then we work through those on as a group.

Cool. What is success for you defined by or look like? Is it just a roll up of the performance of the teams? Is it like. Yeah, I mean, how do you define success for yourself and. Or how do you define success with specifically within the context of the organization? Like, how do you know your role is delivering its mission?

I think for me, I'm a very numbers driven person. So it's numbers for me. I'm not going to lie, it's numbers. But the conversations that I'm having, like, you can achieve numbers, but are you happy with that? Like, is that really what drove you to. You know, a lot of times it's the conversation, it's the activities, it's the relationships that create the ultimate success within the team. And I want to make sure that those people are happy with the successes that they're having as well. And that makes me happy.

Yeah, that's really nice. I like this. Coming alongside other people as the driver.

Is you can't lead from the top, you gotta lead from the side.

Yeah. You've been in a number of different kind of brands and brokerages over the years. What's different about the Lawton team in your experience?

I think I've never been. I've always been part of some type of team for the most part, and I've never been with a team that has such innovation. I think that we're not afraid. George isn't afraid to try something new, fire some bullets, see what sticks, and hey, if it doesn't work, let's try something else. Right. So we're constantly changing and evolving to really help that agent elevate the buyer's experience, the client's experience as well as the agent. What are we doing to improve that agent experience and create the most efficient agents possible. And I forgot your second question. I'm sorry.

Oh, that's ok.

I lost track. Yeah. No, no. Oh. Within the team. Yes. So I think innovation and then quite frankly, when I joined the team five years ago, I never dreamed of being where I'm at today. So the fact that they see that within the people that they surround themselves with is fantastic. A lot of teams would go outside for a role like this.

Yeah. How do you decide when to. Because you know, it's a big market plus you have Tucson.

Yes.

How do you decide when to do things in person and when to do things, you know, remotely or by phone?

Yeah, we try to do from an efficiency standpoint. We don't want to disrupt the agent's activities too much. We got a lot of things going this month. But as we got to say, is this going to add value to their business? Right. Is it worth them coming across town? Phoenix is a very large city, so for some people it's an hour drive or more to get to a location for a meeting. So we want to make sure that if we're choosing to do it in person, it's going to add value in person. We do because of our culture. We are a big family as well. So we have 200 some agents. We, we want to get together, we want to have that culture. So we do things at least once a quarter altogether as a whole team. Individual teams meet on a weekly basis. So they have their cultures within their branches. And then depending on agent levels we'll meet, we might bring them together exclusively for a level 3, 4 agent event. And so they like to be together for different things as well.

So have you encountered the level system as kind of iterated and dialed in in any other organizations you've been in?

Nope.

Okay, good. Because it felt unique to me and I'm like, babe, I'm just not talking to enough people or the right people.

Yeah, no, it was.

I think it's really nuanced. I'd love your like your take on it.

Yeah, no, I've never seen that before. I mean it is ultimately production driven. Right. But it's not just about the splits necessarily. It's about the other opportunities that the levels unlock. Our level three, four agents get different benefits or opportunities than our one twos. Right. So. And it gives an agent a journey. It gives them a path. We call it our agent journey. It gives them a path to achievement. And then once they. Depending on what their individual goals are, you know, as a level four Agent if they decide they want to start creating their own team. We have a team journey path that they can take. So it's one of the more unique things I've ever seen. My predecessor and leadership created that, so I love it.

Yeah. How is this something that I see it when you have a path laid out and this isn't exclusive to real estate. I've been in and heard about a lot of other organizations where it's like, yeah, I had to leave because I just didn't know, you know, what was next for me. I didn't see a path forward. It's that blended with, you know, my direct supervisor, which doesn't necessarily apply as well in real estate, although it kind of does. Are the reasons people end up leaving. I am, and I've just been talking with other folks about this. It's obviously great for retention, but I also feel like it's a great recruiting tool.

Absolutely.

And it allows people to kind of pick their own. Some people love to be in like a game scenario where they're. And other people are like, you know, two's good for me.

And it's kind of a. They like to be in the club. Right. And so when I said we have those level three, four, we'll call them three, four masterminds, they like to be in another room with threes and fours, it's like an achievement, you know. So cool.

Teams within the team. For your team leaders, how new is that to them?

Within the team itself? It's not new. We've had sub teams for a long time. Normally they've been. They exist kind of on the peripheral. They're part of everything, but they don't necessarily, you know, attached to a branch specifically. We just started implementing that actually with some of our newer teams that have joined or been created as we've elevated agents through their journey. Now they're level fours. Now they've decided to create a team. They want to start bringing on agents. So we've kept that within the branches. So I was actually just having this conversation just 20 minutes ago before we sat down here today. They're working through that. It's something different for them. Every leader has a little bit different experience. So we've got some great tools and coaching programs for them to coach those agents through. Bringing on teams, bringing on agents. Number one, understanding why do they want to create a team? What's their reason? Is it just for revenue generating? Is it just to get help with their business? What are we really trying to accomplish here? And then that takes us down A path.

Cool. So I think, I think I got this square now. The teams that have been created within the Lawton team were outside of the branches. But now we're at this point of figuring out how the teams can operate inside the branches under these team, under the branch team leaders. Got it.

So that they have a connection to the rest of the team. We have our original teams, those are kind of like our OG legacy guys. But these new people, they didn't necessarily have that connection. So they've already got the connection. Let's just build on that.

Your sales philosophy, that's a great question.

I think it's. I don't know if I'm going to answer this question correctly or not. It is really listening and much like my coaching meeting the client where they're at, like, I'm not, I'm not going to sell anybody anything. I'm going to listen and take them down the path that is best suited for them, not necessarily for me. I don't know if that really answers your question.

Yeah, it does. I just, as I was reading some, some description of your work and your career and your approach, I, I appreciated your sales philosophy. I just wanted to hear you speak to it. Advice for. We talked a little bit. You just shared a little bit. For an agent thinking about starting a team, like, and it really is. Why. Yes, that's the first question. But what about agents who are, who have not yet joined a team? What do you think they're missing out on? And what do you think holds them back from giving more serious consideration to joining a team?

I think a lot of times it's what am I giving away? It's that, it's that mindset of, well, I don't necessarily need a team. I can do all these things myself. Why would I, you know, why would I, quite frankly, why would I give those splits away? Right? It splits. It always comes down to that. Just because they haven't recognized what a value a team is. Like I said, I've always been a part of a team, so I've always understood that. And not every team is a fit for everybody. We do run a very systematic, regulated and when I say regulated, I mean monitor and measure with KPIs. That's not for everybody. Right. And you have to have the right mindset coming into that. So I think really evaluating what you're looking for in a team and just like, just like building a team, what are you looking for in a team and finding the right fit for you. It may be a mega team. It May not. Maybe it's just you want someone to be able to call rather than just your broker. Or is it someone that I want them to hold me accountable on a weekly basis, you know, or is it more opportunities? You know, for a lot of people, especially in today's world, it's opportunities. Yeah. And maybe a team like this is something that you want to consider.

Yeah. And I've heard a lot of that. Especially of course, over the past, you know, 12 to 18 months or so, agents who are in an organization that has a lead source like a Zillow Flex, you know, those agents that had migrated off and we're doing the vast majority of their business out of their own database are now like, well, can I tap back into this source again a little bit? Because it's quieter than it was before. So there's like, there's a little bit of a risk mitigation in it as well.

And you don't, when you join a team, you know, one of the things, quite frankly, that I always, I didn't have to invest in all of the Google pay per clicks and the this and the that. I didn't have to invest any of my money. The other person did. And I was just collecting off of what that was. So I was happy to pay whatever that split was in order to get those opportunities that I didn't have to, I didn't have to take the risk. Von, I'm very risk averse. So I didn't want to do that. It was not something I ever wanted to do. So being parts of teams that already do that and they're taking on the risk was advantageous to me.

Yeah, I mean, you're going to pay for it one way or the other. Unless it's a natural skill to you. I mean, we certainly all, you and I could each name a handful of people who are amazing at social and they actually know how to turn it into business.

Absolutely.

People that are amazing at writing, marketing, messaging and can turn it into pay per click campaigns that they can turn profitably if that's their personal passion. But for the vast majority of us, like we could get maybe good at some of these things. We're not necessarily good at all. We just want to like plug in and start connecting with people.

And that was my, that's my superpower is just plugging in and connecting. I didn't want to do any of those other things.

Yeah.

And I didn't want the investment in it. So why not just have someone else do that for me?

Yeah. Well, what is Next for you in this role, like, what are you excited about? Are you working on implementing anything in particular? Or, like, what's your vision for the next 12 to 24 months in support of these regional team leads?

I think we've had some transition, so we've got a couple new ones on the team as well. So it's really creating our own. We all previously, yeah, we were a TL team, but we didn't really collaborate too much. So really collaborating to help our agents get through the changes that are coming, I think is super important for us. And, you know, my leadership team has vast different experiences in life and in real estate in general, and they've all got great things to offer and really collaborating on how we're going to do that and creating those process and procedures that maybe we hadn't had in the leadership role. We've got it nailed down in the agent role, but we were kind of lax in the leadership part. So that's what my role has come into play for.

Really good. When these newer team leaders to the organization, what are you looking for in that role? Like, if someone's imagining. I mean, not necessarily could I be a regional team lead in the Lawton team? But as they're thinking about that type of a role, what are some of the characteristics that you see as indicating likelihood of future success?

Sure. I think number one is listening. Like, checking the ego at the door, I think is big. You know, we've all had successes, but it's really, how can I help? Like, just coming from someone who comes from that service mindset, and you can tell who they are and what their goals are for themselves about how that's going to transition to their agents, having the ability to have those hard conversations, we gotta have some rough ones sometimes, right? Even if it's, you know, just on a daily basis, getting them through that and what the. How the agent, how the leader is going to respond to those and coach to the agents, I think those are the things we're looking for. Cool.

This has been an absolute pleasure, Michelle. I appreciate you so much. I love the role that you're in, and I like this next step of doing what you've done for agents. Now for these regional team leads, I wish you success in that journey. And before I let you go, one pair of questions and you can answer one or the other or both if you really, really want to.

Okay.

What is your very favorite team to root for besides the Lawton team? Or what is the best team you've ever been a member of, besides the Lawton team.

The best. I'm not a sports person, so I can't say that I'm rooting for anyone. I think the best team I've ever been a part of. The first broker that I joined when I got into the business, it was a family business and they took care of everybody, taught me so much. And he's still one of my mentors today. That was 22 years ago.

That's awesome. And he's still operating this.

He's retired, but the company still operates here in Phoenix. Yep. Cool.

That's awesome. We can only wish to have that great of a start in our career. And I'm sure there's someone inside and adjacent to or directly involved in the work that you're doing that will look back on their experience today, 22 years from now and say the same thing.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for checking out this episode of Team OS.

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