More Planning For Better Execution with Levi Rodgers | Ep 013

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.

For insights into starting, growing and optimizing your real estate team, we're talking with Levi Rogers. A few fun facts before we get started. He was deployed all over the world as a Special Forces Green Beret. After surviving an IED attack in Afghanistan, he retired from the US army and started a real estate career. Inspired by sound advice he received years earlier from a great realtor, Gary Langdon. His military decorations and professional awards are far too numerous to mention. Thanks for talking Team OS today, Levi.

No, hey, thank you for having me. I'm really excited. I appreciate the great intro and looking forward to being a part of helping somebody along their journey through you guys. So thank you.

Awesome. I appreciate the way that you framed that up too. That's what this is all about is every story is different. There's something to be learned from everyone. I think a lot of people go into, whether it's a podcast or a blog post or a book or a guide or even a conversation or a stage presentation, looking for the magic answer. But there is no magic answer. It's taking things from lots of different people and figuring out how it works for you and your team and your situation.

Absolutely, I agree with that. You know, I think back to my journey and, you know, I pulled things from different operators in the space that made it my own and continuing to do that honestly every day, I think, I think when you mention that, though, sometimes, sometimes the answer is closer to you than you think. You know, we tend to look further and bigger where, you know, sometimes the answer is right, right in front of your face.

Yeah, really good. So it's about paying attention. Okay. Before we get too much farther, because I, I know we could talk all, all day together. I want to start with our standard opener that I've asked. Literally everyone who's been in your seat is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team.

You know, I think back to my journey and I think that adaptability, you know, real estate is like this constant startup environment where you need to have an organizational decision to be adaptable. And you know what I mean by that is if you're afraid of change, something you should fear more is being changed. It's far easier and better to change under your control ahead of being change. And so for us remaining committed to being Adaptive not only to what's happening now, but what can happen in the future. And so we pay a lot of attention to that. So adaptability for our organization, for sure.

I love it. I think so often in these conversations we talk a lot about operating procedures, standards, what do we make consistent, what do we harden, what do we hold people accountable? I know there's a little bit of flexibility in that. Part of it is to the way that we operate and the standards that we set as a group, but then also, also to the things that you need and want to do for yourself. And there's, you know, so there's some flexibility there too. But adaptability, like how do you build that? Is that a cultural component? Do you actually have like some formal standards around adaptability or is it just this thing that you talk about and live out and try to model?

Well, I think a little bit of both. You know, I look back to my. I grew up professionally in the army and as a Green Beret. A lot of what we do is remaining nimble, flexible, adapting to the environment in which we are in. And one day you may find yourself in Central and South America in a semi pervasive environment. The next day you may find yourself in Afghanistan where it's completely non permissive. And so I think, you know, with me being as involved as I am in the company, it's naturally going to be adaptable. I think some of our partners, you know, such as Zillow Group, I mean, Zillow Group is continually looking forward for that next big thing and how to support the customers today, tomorrow, in the future. And so we've just made an organizational choice that we must remain adaptive. Otherwise, you know, people will just be more flexible than us and they'll get the deals, they'll be able to serve the customers that we were just too, how do I say it? Too set in our ways to change for. So yeah, it's a little bit of both for sure.

What did you carry from your military leadership experience into your real estate leadership experience? What really adapted well there and maybe what did you have to change in. I mean, you have one life, but essentially, you know, two, two dramatically different careers within it. What carried over well. And what did you maybe have to adapt in that transition?

I think that, you know, for, for the military, when I think about military leadership, I think about people, you know, and when you lead people in combat, you know, their needs, you know, are first and foremost, I give the example of, you know, when, when you're standing in line at the chow hall or at the when it's time to e know, no leader in the military is going to eat before their troops. And so I've taken that mindset here into real estate leadership. You know, I am. I go to bed and I wake up every morning and say, how am I going to provide opportunities for my people? Whether that be through training or to be through connections or what have you, or accountability? And so for me, people, you know, people is a big part of why our army and our Navy and Marines and just our military force has done so well defending our country because there's a huge focus on the people. And so, yeah, that I think that the biggest challenge for me, you know, was, you know, I sit back and think, you know, we have. When you get into real estate and all, you know, is military and you're in military city, usa, San Antonio, Texas, you're going to attract others like you. And so one of the biggest challenges as I went into leadership, militarily or in real estate, was I was attracting other military leaders as well. And some of the times when they run into situations, these are men and women that would walk in a room in the military and people would stand up, you know, and then now you're in real estate and nobody really cares about you. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, I really don't care who you were then. What can you do for me today? And so transitioning from military culture to civilian culture and helping teach others how to adapt to that has been probably one of the biggest challenges. I as it pertains to your question there.

And so thank you for that. It also made me think about, like, the salesperson, where, you know, whether it's week to week, you know, from a goal setting and delivery standpoint, like week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter, year to year, it's kind of like, you know, what have you done for you lately? Or in the case of an outside real estate where people aren't as independent and they're actually direct employees of what have you done for me lately? You know, the scoreboard resets every, you know, whatever time period you're looking at, and no one's going to stand up for you except maybe at the end of the year, if you, you know, get some award, they'll stand up for you. And then it's like, what did you do this year? What did you do this quarter? So there's a hard reset. I would love for you, for context for the rest of our conversation, to characterize your team, however you'd like, you know, how long have you been running it? You know, market. You already mentioned San Antonio, size, culture, you know, the path into it. Whatever you want to share about the Levi Rogers Real Estate Group, I'd love for you to share that.

I appreciate that. You know, I think that when people think of our company, they think of a couple of things. You know, one Texas, another thing I think of Zillow. Huge partners with Zillow Group since the beginning, since I was an individual agent running around in my truck and you know, again, people, you know, we have right now over just a little over 300 total people, agents and staff combined. We're rapidly growing and scaling our operations throughout Texas and just hyper committed on serving our customers that are out there and making sure that our agents are trained and have the opportunities that they need to continue continue in this industry, especially during these times where it's a little more challenging than what we experienced a couple of years ago.

So very good. So you started as a solo agent? Of course. Like, like I think almost every team leader did. What was that journey like for you? Like, when did you decide I need to bring someone alongside me, maybe a part time assistant or maybe it was a buyer's agent or a showing assistant or something else. Like, what were the earliest stages of this transition from. I'm a real estate agent and I want to do more or build more or whatever. Like, what was that like for you? What was that about?

It's a great story. I'm glad you asked that. So, you know, I, I got into real estate. It was, it was, it was kind of a bl. You know, I just got into real estate because I was inspired to help people as I was helped. And so I didn't know that there was a, you know, you could create a huge business out of this. And you know, so nonetheless, I started to build a name for myself as an individual agent. I was at a ReMax office and they, a great organization, treated me wonderfully while I was there. And you know, people started to see, you know, Levi's name on the leaderboard and started seeing me running in and out of the office. And so I'll never forget one day this lady that was in our office, her name is Michelle Gamo, she came running up to me and she said, hey Levi, you should start a real estate team. My response to her was, what's that? And so it was that instance that Michelle came to me who it's important to note Michelle is team member number one and she's still on our team to this day. And so. And you know, I think that, I think back to that and that's really how it happened, you know, and I just started getting on Google and figuring it out and reaching out to people. You know, there was a gentleman named Ronnie Matthews who had a team in ReMax and at the time and Ronnie, my broker and I reached out to him, he invited me to Houston, spent an entire day with me and just led me down that path to where I could believe that I could do it too. And so that's how it started. No big school or no amazing coach or anything like that. Just reaching out to people.

I love it. That's one of the reasons we started the show is that it seems like coaching is one path or this idea of googling and hoping to get some stitch this to that, to the other thing. And our goal here is to get different people's stories and perspectives and as we said right off the top, pull this from her, pull this from him, be reminded of this from him and you know, be inspired to, to do that by her as part of someone's journey. So I hope, hopefully Michelle, if that were to happen to someone else today, she could point him to the show. But I would love to know like approximate team size and what were kind of like the in staff to agent. Maybe just ballpark is fine. And like what were some of the key inflection points? For example, did you hang around with like, you know, you and a couple support staff and a handful of age for a little while and then you had to like decide, okay, are we going to step on the gas and go? Or some circumstance says, oh, we better step on the gas and go. Like, like what were the. Where are you today? And kind of what were the key kind of phases of or iterations of the team along the way?

Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. That can, that could probably. The response could probably do the whole podcast. But today we're a little over 300 people, about 25 staff members and we're adding about 10 to 15 net increase agents a month. We run a highly accountable program. We're a team. We're operating as a legit team. So there's a high level of accountability. Accountability that happens, that's delivered to the agents via their mentors. We have mentors on the list side and the buy side. We have a full time ISA staff that's here seven days a week from 8am to 8pm to keep our external partners, whether it be Zillow or Whatever other partners that we have out there to keep them happy, there needs to be a high level of accountability, training and reporting that goes on needs to be systemized. It needs to be managed. And so I think one of the things a lot of team leaders fail to realize is that, yeah, I'm going to start a team. Oh, yeah, I'm a great individual agent. But once you take on the responsibility of people and families, well, then, you know, I would move to say that you have to show up to work more, that you have to be involved more, because, you know, my responsibility as the people and families that depend on me, period. We're about to have our Christmas party and I'm gonna look out in the crowd and there's gonna be over 400 people there. And I have to make sure that they know that I am absolutely committed to them as well and actually do it. And so I think along our journey though, and he talked about phases, you know, I started out with team number, number one, Michelle, and that was just Levi. You know, that's back in the day when Zillow would email you at least, you know, and, and so we'd convert it. I had a staff member who would help with the conversations and, and help with compliance and so forth. And we just naturally grew. I think the team was about 10 people. And then I decided to exit and start a ReMax franchise. We had a ReMax franchise titled ReMax Military City. We did that for five years, grew the company to about 25, 30 people. And right when our part with Zillow yielded a huge opportunity, when Zillow offers came about, I was fortunate to have the contract with Zillow offers in San Antonio as well as Austin. We were in a must scale with your partner Zillow type situation. And so that's when we made the organizational decision that we needed to get more people because the volume was just insane. And so. And that's how we did it. And we've been committed to it ever since.

Super, thank you. You're right. I've got so many follow up questions. We could easily go another 45 minutes just on that topic alone and we might double back into some of them. But first, a quick one. You mentioned San Antonio and Austin. How many, like distinct markets are you is your team operating in right now?

So San Antonio, Austin and Killeen. And our Colleen is another military city which is just north of Austin and it's a small, however, it's growing rapidly. Austin, of course, is Austin and then San Antonio. So about 90% of our company though is in San Antonio.

The senior leaders around you, I mean this 25, if I did the math approximately correctly, I heard 25 staff to say, you know, 275 ish agents and I know that number's moving and growing, but obviously you personally need to have, and you mentioned a mentor program which is probably a great way to build some amount of scaled leadership inside that, that agent population. But talk about some of the senior leaders who are around you and how you've maybe taken off some of the hats that you had. You had to wear all the hats, you know, when you were, you know, 10, 20, 30 people. Of course, as you grew and you made this commitment to kind of like step on it and kind of grow with the opportunity that was, that you had created for yourself with a great partner. What types of leaders did you bring around you and was it to kind of like, you know, leverage your, your strengths and to kind of complement your weaknesses?

Yeah, absolutely. So that's a good point. I'm not the most organized fellow in the world and so I'm more of a, you know, action type guy. We'll figure out the paperwork later. And so you know, our president and managing broker, Myra Torres, extremely organized, she handles a lot of the office staff and ensuring Everybody gets paid, etc. Etc. So she runs most of the staff. And we have eight mentors that are led by our joint Director of Buyer Agent Operations, Jason Brooks. He's been with me a long time as well. And so we've got our eight mentors and then we have a listing side mentor and a staff that on the listing staff as well. And so there's a listing coordinator and a listing facilitator as well as a logistics coordinator and all going to play to the listing side transactions and how they happen in our organization. But absolutely staying engaged with the leadership and having consistent meetings. We meet everything Thursday at 11:30. Sometimes those meetings go pretty long. And you know, and staying involved is something that I think that is important for our organization as well. I don't know that at least right now I don't know that I'll ever be able to cut out. You know, I still enjoy, I really enjoy coming to work, you know, and so, you know, there'll be days where I'm jumping on follow up boss and digging in the system and just seeing what I could find to fix, you know, and I feel we have a great culture of accountability here, a great culture of leadership. Our mentors and our broker and they, they, they solve 90% of the problems in an organization, which really allows me to focus on future operations, figuring out how can we position ourselves better than the competition, you know, for what's going to come. Business development is a big thing that I'm doing as well. And you know, I walk that floor, I walk that sales floor every day. I'm out there engaging with the agents to see what I can learn, see what solve. And I think that staying out there and then just being present is also important. And you know, one of the things we do in the military is that, you know, sometimes you have missions that are like direct action missions. You'll go capture or kill a bad guy and you have a set mission that you're supposed to go do. But then other things you would do are what called presence patrols. And a presence patrol is, hey, we know the bad guys are in this area, let's go drive around and see what we could stir up type thing and bringing that mindset to real estate. You know, I walk anywhere in this organization sometimes that is met with open arms and sometimes it's like, oh crap, Levi's coming. You know, and so, you know, but it just depends. And so it's, but it's constantly, we're constantly evolving and constantly learning. I don't get it right every time. And we were just in a session today, we're doing our end of the year planning and you know, I walked out of there with more learns than, than I walked in there with. So just staying engaged, I believe is a key attribute to real estate leadership.

Yeah, I have always, I've not, I've never been a salesperson or a quota carrying salesperson or led a sales team. But I have definitely won in a variety of ways, obvious and non obvious through what I describe as managing by walking around. You know, there's just so much, there's a lot that can happen there and some of it is the presence, you know, just to use that word again. And part of it is like, you know, conversations with people that aren't scheduled. Sometimes it winds up being a question that they have that they maybe wouldn't have raised up and asked. But your presence alone creates the opportunity for it. And sometimes it's just a matter of exposure and learning and like feeling this connectedness. Anyway, you just teed up and you kind of been, you'd given me a couple of inroads. Anyway, a place I really wanted to go with you is your annual planning process, which you've been doing about the same way, probably with iterations and improvements for several years now. As we record this roads. Anyway, a place I really wanted to go with you is your annual planning process, which you've been doing about the same way, probably with iterations and improvements for several years now, as we record this, you know, mid December. You. You already mentioned you've got a Christmas party coming up. You already mentioned, like, Thursday meetings. You just mentioned that you were coming out of some. Some 2024 planning. This is going to release in early 2024. I would love for you to share because I know someone's behind the curve on this. They're like, oh, my gosh, the calendar turned and I need to do my annual planning or. Or people are constantly planning. I would that process when it occurred to you and what about the guts of it or the core of it was so resonant with you in the beginning that you're like, this is our process. Like, what did that click for you? Just share a little bit about that now and we'll go from there.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, one of the things is that, you know, as an army Green Beret, I mean, you know, we get put in a lot of very dangerous situations throughout the world. And so, you know, planning is a very big part of what we do. You know, before execution. I mean, you're spending a lot more time planning than you are actually doing the operation in most cases. And so, you know, so planning has always been something that we do. But I was in a leadership school called Leadership San Antonio, and they had brought in a corporate planner to help facilitate some planning. And it was a demonstration, and I thought it was just the neatest thing in the world. Her job was called a graphic recorder. And so as we were doing the planning, she would, you know, graphically record the whole thing. And I was just so, like, amazed with it because it reminded me of my military time because we would just put whiteboards on the wall or have butcher block paper on the wall and scribble on it. Nothing as pretty as what she was doing. But I was just so shocked to see that that was actual position in corporate America. And so I connected with her and I said, I need to bring you to my company. And so what we do is we hire Caitlin every year. She comes in, we'll do six sessions usually, usually maybe one or two times a week, just depending on how the schedule brings out. And it starts with huge swot analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, where we just go through and figure out what's good, what's bad, what opportunities exist, what threats exist. And sometimes it's hard it's very hard. Now, this, this, this session is, it's something that, I mean, she's there, she's in charge. She's got a little bell to shut people up. I mean, and she, she'll, she'll shut me up because sometimes I, I'll jump in and sometimes I have to leave the room to get to the end state that we're trying to get it. Sometimes it's better if I'm not there. And so she creates the plan. She gets my intent in the beginning and runs with it. And so, you know, right now, you know, real estate's like this big, huge bowl of wet concrete right now. There's a lot of people just swimming around a concrete haphazardly right now. And unfortunately, some people are going to get stuck and they're going to get stuck in bad positions. And, you know, and so right now, in the environment that we are in, real estate, given the effects of the rapid rise in interest rates that we're all feeling, you know, a lot of observation, a lot of planning and preparedness is critical. So, yeah, we do this every year and there's no rules we create. You know, we'll list out all the problems, all the threats, everything that needs to be solved, and we'll prioritize them and then we'll take action on them. And it's a beautiful thing. It helps us decide to transition from REMAX to an independent real estate company. And we actually in our office have a very condensed version of the planning of that year on the wall so that our agents know that we plan, we prepare, we take action. And so, yeah, it's a huge part of what we do. And you have to have the maturity. And so right now, in the environment that we are in, real estate, given the effects of the rapid rise in interest traits that we're all feeling, you know, a lot of observation, a lot of planning and preparedness is critical. So, yeah, we do this every year and there's no rules we create to look in the mirror. I can't ask my people to look in the mirror to solve their problems if we as an organization are not willing to look in a mirror to solve our problems as well.

So, man, a lot there. Okay. I have heard you say before, before, you need to look in the mirror more than you look through the glass. This idea of you pay attention to yourself as opposed to looking out at other people. I also like the glass piece, A, because it works against the mirror, but then B, you know, like the glass.

You know, we'll List out all the problems, all the threats, everything that needs to be solved and we'll prioritize them and then we'll take action on them. And it's a beautiful thing. They help us decide to transition from ReMax to an independent real estate company. And we actually in our office have a very condensed version of the planning of that year.

How's this scenario is one that is one that's always worth a reminder on second, bonus points for committing to leadership school. I love that aspect where you kicked off that you met someone at this leadership school. And I guess where I want to go next to hear a little bit more on is this idea of a third party facilitator very on the wall.

So that our agents know that we plan, we prepare, we take action, action. And so yeah, it's a huge part of what we do. And you have to have the maturity to look in the mirror. I can't ask my people to look in the mirror to solve their problems if we as an organization are not willing to look in a mirror to solve our problems as well.

So often I think if someone, for example, if someone's transitioning to say an EOS type model for like a regular cadence for their meetings or that type of a thing, they'll bring in a facilitator and it's probably to learn the process, learn the language, figure out how to take what they read in the book or watched in some videos and bring it into their office and then they're off and running. I think it's super powerful for several reasons. You mentioned to bring in a third party, especially someone who's now doing it for the fifth or sixth year in a row with you where she knows a lot there. Okay. I have heard you say before, you need to look in the mirror. Enough about the personalities and the market and where we've been in but has enough distance more than you look through the glass. This idea if you pay attention to yourself as opposed to looking out at other people. I also like the glass piece. A, because it works against the mirror, but then B, you know, like the glass to come in and say, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna break up. The normal flow of this houses scenario is one that is one that's always worth a reminder on set up and Levi, no like I know you want to take control of this conversation, but I'm ringing the bell on you this time. Bonus points for committing to LEV Leadership School. I love that aspect where you kicked off that you met someone at this leadership School. And, and I guess where I want to go next to hear a little bit more on is this idea of a third party facilitator. Very often, I think if someone, for example, if someone's transitioning to say, an EOS type model for like, talk about the benefit of having this person who's got like, you know, a foot and a half outside the organization and a foot, half a foot inside the organization. I don't know if that ratio is right, but, you know, talk about of having a third party facilitator, especially for like a regular cadence for their meetings or that type of a thing. They'll bring in a facilitator and it's probably to learn the process, learn the language, figure out how to take what they read in the book or watched in some videos and bring it into their office and then they're off and running. I think it's super powerful for several reasons. You mentioned to bring in a third party, this process.

Well, you know, like, like, I'll break it down in an analogy that we all understand, understand. And you know, every real estate transaction, if there's a loan, there's an appraiser.

Especially someone who's now doing it for the fifth or sixth year in a row with you, where she knows enough about the personalities and the market and where we've been, but has enough distance to come in and say, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna break up the normal flow of this stuff. And Levi, know, like, I know you want to take control of this conversation, but I'm ringing the bell on you this time. Talk about the benefit of having this person who's got like, you know, a foot and a half outside the organization and a foot, half a foot inside the organization. I don't know if that ratio is right. But you know, talk about the benefit of having a third party facilitator, especially.

For that appraiser really doesn't care about anybody in that transaction other than committing to his or her obligation to whatever state they operate in and the rules that they are governed by and they provide their opinion of value and without fear of getting in any kind of trouble or anything. And the phrases are usually right.

And it's this process.

Well, you know, like, like I'll break it down an analogy that we all know that's a hard fact to, to face. And so, you know, for us to bring in somebody that is a understand, you know, every real estate transaction, if there's a loan, there's an appraiser, professional trainer, a Professional planner. And somebody does this. I mean the company she works for, she, she designs like most of the roads in Texas. I mean, like it's, you know, that's their, that their, their company. You know, this isn't some small C player, you know, this, this like that appraiser really doesn't care about anybody in a transaction other than committing. She's legit at what she does. And so for us to let bravado or machoness get in the way of mission, that would be irresponsible. So, yeah, no, it's a huge advantage to have somebody that has different lenses than real estate lenses come in there and facilitate some of the most important decisions that you'll make governing your organization. And you know, we don't always get it right, but we've got a pretty damn good track record and this is a big part of the process.

Yeah, it's great. I would love for you to double back onto the visual nature of this too. You already mentioned one benefit of, you know, in a pivotal year, you now have this piece that you can share with other people. I also, I mean my imagination of this, or perhaps you gave it, gave me this image, is that it's like, it's like, it's large, it's like an eight, eight foot, you know, kind of visual representation. So like actively working through that is super powerful because I would assume that, you know, after the process is done and you have kind of a finished piece, it's something that people can refer back to all of the time, especially because of again, leading by man, leading by walking around, other people walking around. It's like a constant present reminder. I think there's something really powerful about the visual reminder too.

Yeah, absolutely. At the end of the day, if we, if we look at real estate agents, I mean, you know, nothing. I love our community, but oftentimes we try to fight culture in real estate leadership and I'm like, hey, let's build systems around it. You know, if you look at the avatar of most real estate professionals, you know, hey, they're, they're into real estate because of the flexibility, adaptability that real estate industry provides to them. They want to make as much money as fast as possible, help as many people as fast as possible, and then have a great life, you know, and so if I, if I put like all the information listed out in some printed paragraph type paper on the wall, nobody would ever read it or look at it. And so, you know, and so I just need to go where the people are. And I think that, you know, graphic representations of stuff really, really helps me, you know, and so, you know, it seems to work with our, our company as well and then also gives you something to source back to as well. And the people that were in that planning room that helped us plan through the transition from ReMax to independent company to independent company, I mean, I'll see them over there oftentimes when I'm walking the floor just looking at it, you know, they can, they, they see those sticky suggestions that they put there in 2020 that have become a reality today. It's really cool.

Yeah, it is really cool. I would love for you because you solo it. Agent, agent, leading a team inside a ReMax team. You, you got a franchise, then you went independent. I think a lot of people who are. I want to share two stages here and I'd love for you to give some advice to this person, the agent who's thinking about starting a team and trying to figure out, do I do this inside the brokerage I'm in or do I need to go somewhere else to do this? That's one big bucket. The other bucket is that team leader who's thinking about their future and trying to figure out, figure out, should I be, you know, a franchisee and open a brokerage or should I go independent and essentially open a team ridge, like an independent team merge? So start with the solo agent. How might they think about kind of the dynamics? Can I do what I want to do here? What should they look for? What should they ask? What should they ask themselves? What should they ask the people around them? Like, any advice for that person thinking about, like, I want to do more, I think it looks like a team. I don't know if I can do it here or not.

That's a, that's a tough question because every, every brokerage has, you know, advantages and disadvantages, right? You could be with a huge big box brokerage that gives you advantages and disadvantages that a small independent may not, or vice versa. I think just really take a deep dive into what it is that you want. If you're looking at growing a team in the next year to five people may just stay where you're at. Maybe you go in and look at what kind of financial structure and the brokerage will still offer you with the 5 people, 10 people, 15, 20 people. I would really take a huge dive into your business planning and make sure that you have the financial resources to support people and live with your commitments before you commit that you're going to pay for this or Pay for that or pay for this. Make sure that you understand that, because once you do it, it's hard to, to take it back. You can't say, hey, I'm going to pay for everybody's MLS fees and then realize that that was a bad financial decision and change it. And so I would really spend 90% of your time building a solid plan to execute, at least on the launch. But then also, don't be afraid of launching either. Opportunities come and go so fast in real estate, and so we lost a couple opportunities in my journey just because I didn't move fast enough to. So it's a happy balance, but you can never have enough money either to help you get where you need to go. I think one mistake that I made when I launched the ReMax franchise is I took all the cash that I saved up as an individual agent and I spent it to launch a ReMax franchise. And I had nice tables and chairs and things of that nature. Of course, the franchise fees and so forth, that came along with that. But then I didn't have any operations, additional capital left and, and it kind of slowed my growth for a while and it kept me in production where I should have took a really super low interest loan and it would allowed me to focus my cash in places where cash was required. And so that was something that I learned along that way as well.

What were you saving that for? Were you, Were you saving that money as a solo agent because you had this vision, or. Or are you just a financially prudent person and you're considering of any kind, or were you saving it knowing you were going to invest in your own business?

Yeah, so twofold, you know, I don't, I don't particularly like to go blow money on dumb stuff. You know, I grew up very poor. I never thought that I would have what I have today. So everything's a blessing. But, you know, once I stepped into real estate leadership, once I got, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 people on the team, that's when I knew I didn't want to stop. And so the answer is both, to be honest with you. And so my military retirement also allowed me the flexibility to take additional risk that maybe some others didn't have. You know, I've been very fortunate to. I don't have to worry about my medical bills and, you know, I have a consistent military income coming in. And then just to say, while we're, while I'm talking about that, the military treated me very well upon exit at a phenomenal transition in terms of from the government's responsibilities. To me, don't buy the hype. When you hear about servicemen and women today not having opportunities. There's plenty of opportunities out there for us, so really good.

And for folks listening who want to hear more about Levi's story, the best recording I heard of it was on the Black Rifle podcast. So I'll link that up in these show notes. It's a full conversation. It's very specific about that experience. Experience and something you just shared there about like, you know, don't. Don't believe the, you know, hype or mistruths or whatever, you know, when people start selling this, like, because was super powerful. And I guess. I guess now just to compel people to maybe give a look to the YouTube description or the podcast description to see that link to make time for it, I think you were talking about the millions of dollars that were spent to. To save your life and bring you to healing as fast as possible. And it's just a super powerful story. So, like, I hear you on that 100%.

Thank you.

Yeah. ReMax versus Independent. Like, how did that decision go for you? Like, how did you weigh it? I mean, it's not purely financial, but it is financial. Like, how did you weigh that out for yourself and in your team and what other voices were in that, by the way? I mean, I didn't even ask you that. Like, in these planning sessions, who all. What voices are you really looking to include in those conversations, especially when it's consequential as that?

You know, definitely our trusted leadership, our trusted agents. One of the things I stole from Zillow Group is Zillow Group has an agent advisory board, which I've been blessed to be on for quite a while. And. And I created an agent advisory board at my company. So we have our leadership team, but we also have an agent advisory board, which hits all kinds of different perspectives as well. And so I want to make sure anytime I bring people into planning like this, there's certainly another NDA that gets signed individually to that just to protect the discussions for all. But if you could restate the question, I got a little off track on there.

Yeah. How did you weigh independent versus reMax?

Yeah. So for me, you know, given, you know, some of the partners that were aligned with Zillow Group being one of them, you know, for us, it was. It was all about being able to move with the velocity and keep up with our partners. At the time Zillow offers was going on, there was a tremendous amount of changes happening. In the marketplace. And unfortunately, given the constraints at the time, REMAX treated me very well. I don't want this to be like, like a REMAX is bad type thing. But at the time, and given the circumstances we were in, the constraints of the finance of the franchise model couldn't move as fast as what our partners and the market was moving. So we needed to, we needed to move. And you know, at the end of the day, our largest source of business was needing us to do this, this and this. And the franchise model prevented us for doing like 75% of that. We had to move.

And that was revealed through a SWOT analysis. I'm sure some of that was there. Like you maybe had seen a couple of those pieces and someone else was feeling it a different way. You'd probably had some of those conversations ongoing. But was there anything in that annual planning process that just unlocked it, like, okay, it's clearer than ever. This is what we need to do, let's do it. Or. Or was the planning more like this is an inevitability, let's plan how we're doing, going to do it.

A little bit of both. And so one of the things I learned in the military is that we always try to, you know, understand what the commander's intent and you know, in essence, me. But you know, for this we knew we needed to make some changes. Certainly part of it on the courses of action that we were considering was remaining with with ReMax and seeing if they would make some changes, etc. Etc. Et cetera. And then also we looked at the cost of growth, of where we needed to get in terms of agent count and how much that would cost in the REMAX model and what I could do with that capital outside of the REMAX model. And so ultimately, you know, moving at a velocity in which our partners moved was one of them. But there was also some financial considerations as well. And at the end of the day, the most important thing is decision authority. Last with me, you know, we certainly have our broker, but, you know, I feel that I can action things quicker than I could if I was at a brokerage or if I was, you know, at a franchise. And so because they, they rightfully so, have to, you know, have rules and constraints in place.

You're doing a lot of recruiting or someone on your team is doing a lot of recruiting, or you and someone else on your team are doing a lot of recruiting together. What is your kind of high level on your side? Like what is your recruiting philosophy or recruiting approach besides what I Assume is probably something like always be recruiting. And then on the other side, as you start engaging with people, what are some of the, what are some of the myths or misperceptions that maybe a solo agent has about the team model and how do you speak to that? Essentially I'm just asking for like, what are some of the objections you get? I want to see if those kind of like round up with some of them that I've heard.

Yeah, you know, I think that most problems in real estate are solved to more people, you know. And you know, one of the challenges that team leads have is, okay, I'm going to partner with lead aggregator X. You know, I'm going to spend all this money for these leads. I'm going to spend all this money to create the appointments. But now do you have enough people to service that shared customer or not? You know, and so I think recruiting people and training people is really how we have evolved, you know, and you know, I just, I've seen it to where, when we were growing to where I was creating more opportunities than I have people to serve them. And so that was our journey. And so we've just been hyper focused on getting as many people as possible. Now there's an interview process for sure. I'll leave that up to our mentors and our broker or managing broker has a process that she does as well to make sure that we're getting the right agent, you know, and, and that's that. But if you haven't committed a crime and you're, you're legal and you're willing to be coachable, like we probably want you, you know, and because I believe in people and you know, I've seen countless people come in here that may have not succeeded in another brokerage for whatever reason and their lives changed. And so like I want to, I want to recruit people and you know, and just go from there. And so I don't buy into this concept to where you have to have sold like 500 gazillion homes in order to be on my team type stuff. Excuse me. And you know, I think that everybody deserves an opportunity if they're willing to put in the work. And so I mean like, I give you countless stories of people that have come here and done well and some of them moved on, some of them moved on to start their own teams, which is, which is a beautiful thing, you know, It's a beautiful thing. So it's, you know, in every day is a learning with every, every new agent, every new person that we encounter. I Learn, I get to learn something. So I meet every single person that joins our company. So every onboarding on Fridays, usually about 11am and I'll go and have a conversation with the onboarding class. And it's something that's a huge importance, importance to me.

So I assume you're hiring new agents, people from other industries. Are you also hiring some experienced agents or no?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. What's interesting about the market did is we're getting a lot more experienced agents into the team ecosystem. You know, honestly, you know, a lot of team leads out there. They feel the pressure of existing agents with their own books of business don't want to come to a team because it may be compensation structure or maybe some limitations in what they could do individually as a brand. This is where that adaptability and flexibility comes into play. Because the independent brokerage, if I need to shift, I can shift, you know, and so I think that, you know, so that becomes important there. But we're starting to see because of the market, agents that maybe did 15 deals last year are struggling to do five this year. And so now they're looking towards teams, you know, because we have the systems in place to make the phone ring, to set that appointment, to coach to where the market is today, where it's going. You know, I'm partnered with Zillow. I have the unique competitive advantage to learn from Zillow often. And so, you know, I share that with our people, you know, and so, yeah, we're starting to see more experienced agents come into the team across the board. My friends that are large team owners as well, they're starting to see that too.

So that's awesome. One conversation we've had on this show. If anyone watching or listening really enjoyed what Levi shared there. I talk quite a bit with Chris Lindahl up in the Twin Cities area on a similar theme and topic, like the power of the team, especially in this market and how it's attracting all kinds of folks. Levi, this is awesome. I got a bunch more follow up questions, but I don't have a bunch more time so I would love to to have you share with us. I've got a few fun quick questions and you can pick one or the other. One of them is what is your very favorite team besides the Levi Rogers real estate group? Or what is the best team you've ever been on?

Okay. All right. So you know, I'll do one one in real estate. My favorite real estate team, aside from ours, you know, of course I'm biased. Would be the Dahl team. Out of St. Louis, Missouri. My dahun, that man runs, it runs a great organization, has taught me a lot along this journey. And so it's definitely my favorite real estate team. Aside from mine in terms of sports teams. You know, I'm a Spurs fan. You know, I've, you know, I wasn't a Spurs fan, but I really love the culture of the San Antonio Spurs. I love the sport, the support that the city of San Antonio provides. The spurs and the spurs, when I was coming out of the hospital and they found out that this young Laker fan was just wounded very badly in Afghanistan, they put me on the Lakers bench and I thought that was a phenomenal gesture and that was the moment I became a Spurs fan. So, yeah, I'm a lifelong show spruce fan.

Beautiful and just a top shelf organization. Really good call. Out. What is. I feel like you're going to go with the second question on this one. What is one of your most frivolous purchases? Or what's a cheapskate habit you hold on to even though you probably don't need to?

Oh, wow, my most frivolous purchase. I would think it's probably a ranch, you know, although it's a great real estate investment. My, my son and I became obsessed with hunting and so I bought a ranch, which was a great real estate investment. It's just, you know, sometimes, you know, I look back to that and I'm like, wow, I can't believe I spent that much money on dirt. But yeah, and in terms of a cheapskate, you know, I monitor the damn electric in the H Vac for our office from my phone. You know, I'm sure the staff probably drives them nuts if it's too hot outside or too whatever. Like, hey, Levi, can you turn the air down? So, yeah, I guess I'm a cheapskate there for sure.

That's awesome. What does it look like for you to either learn, grow and develop or rest, relax and recharge? What are you doing when you're doing one of those two things?

Yeah, if I'm rest, relaxing and recharging, I'm out at the ranch. I'm out there just working. I put myself in an environment where the cell phone's not working and I'm just out there usually with my youngest son, Owen. And we're just out there in nature just doing our thing, you know, sometimes hunting, sometimes running around on ATVs or sometimes just, just doing the work that the ranch requires. And I really love it out there. And my people around me have told Me, when I come back, I'm like, it's just a more. It's a different person every time I come back from the ranch. So, yeah, going to the ranch sounding.

Less and less frivolous as you go between family time, allowing you to really, like, unwind and relax and the real estate investment, that's great. I love it. Levi, for folks who've made it here, we're almost. We're over 45 minutes. They may want to learn more about you, about what you're doing with your team. Where would you send people that want to learn more about you and your real estate business?

Yeah, you can just follow me on Facebook or hit me up on Facebook. You know, it's just on my personal Facebook. And then, you know, we have a website, lrgrealty.com you can go there, but I'm pretty easy to find on the Internet and just reach out. I'm very involved. You can call our office and be happy to set an appointment and talk with anybody. You know, I wouldn't have what I have today without the kindness and generosity of people. And oftentimes those people are complete strangers until I met them. And so absolutely 100% willing to help anybody out if they have any questions along their side journey as well.

Beautiful. I appreciate your philosophy and generosity, just kind of keeping it all going. You're fantastic. I wish you continued success. I'm gonna have you back for some of the zones we didn't cover, but I really enjoy this conversation so much. And again, for folks watching or listening, it's Rogers with a D in it. Rogers and links are right down below wherever you're watching or listening. Levi, I hope you have a great rest of your day and a great rest of the calendar year and a wonderful holiday season.

No, absolutely. Ethan, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity and hope you have an amazing rest of your there as well.

Thanks so much.

All right, bye. Bye.

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