On A Mission To 70 Agents and Beyond with Team Peterson-Jackson | Ep 068

Less than three years ago, Team Peterson Jackson was a two agent domestic real estate team. Today they're at 74 agents and counting. And all along they've been on a mission to increase African American homeownership rates, to build generational wealth and to create productive and knowledgeable real estate agents. In this conversation, Tawana and Lashawn Peterson Jackson welcome you into their education based approach to expanding their business. How systems and support anchor their value prop their 12 week onboarding process in the mobile app that powers specific agent and client attraction, methods and leadership challenges they faced and overcome along the way. It all started in Facebook groups and home buying seminars in Detroit and now it's expanding to multiple markets. Go inside Team Peterson Jackson with Lashawn and Tawana right now on Real Estate Team os.

No matter where your business is today or where you want to take it, you'll get there faster and more profitably with an operating system. Welcome to Team os, your guide to starting, growing and optimizing real estate team. Here's your host, Ethan Butte.

Team Peterson Jackson, Lashawn Tawana. Welcome to Real Estate Team os.

Thank you so much for having us, Ethan. We are delighted to be here today.

Yeah, I love what you all are doing. I love the energy that you do it with. I'm looking forward to getting into understanding it better myself. But I'm going to start where we always start these conversations which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. When I say that what comes to mind for you all?

Heart. You gotta have heart to be a high performing team. You have to want to be in this for the right reasons.

For me it's culture. You have to have culture.

I mean, I would assume that heart is an important part of your culture. And for you all, has culture been something that has been really, really intentional or has it been something that's just like this is who we are, this is how we carry ourselves. These are the types of people that we've attracted around us and that's the way the culture is carried. Or is it a little bit of both? Like is it intentional or is it just who you are or both?

I believe it's intentional. It's very much a part of how what we started Team Peterson Jackson to achieve and what we're very proud of is our culture and just attracting those to us that believe in it, know it and also want to continue it. So it's just, it all worked out for the good as I like to say.

It started out with Tawana and I, the culture that we had in our personal business. So we wanted to. We wanted the team to emulate that. So we didn't want to lose that. Going from a domestic team to a, you know, standard team. We didn't want to lose that. The culture of what we built. So we definitely made it a part of the team.

Awesome. Well, we'll probably get into. I'm not sure exactly where we're going to go because there's so many directions we. But I think when we start getting into maybe kind of a recruiting, onboarding, training conversation, we'll maybe get a little bit more into how you're filtering some of that out and making sure that you're bringing the right people in so that the business grows in the way that you want it to.

But I would love amazing from food, cooking, clean, all that stuff. So it was great for me, but it was not so great for her. And Tawana is such a giving person, and she's so smart, and she just loves helping people. Like. So we were running, like, a community center out of our house. So I don't care what type of problem you had going on. If a kid needed to go to college, she was there helping somebody go to college. You needed your taxes done. She was helping people with their taxes. She was catering food. It was all kind of stuff going on.

So I said, bartending on the side, in the basement, whatever.

I said, I saw. I said to her one day, I said, you know, have you ever thought about selling real estate? I had my license in the late 90s, and, you know, I chose an IT career over real estate, which is, you know, whole different story. But I said, have you ever thought about selling real estate? I think you'd be an amazing real estate agent. And she said, no, but, you know, she wanted. So she went and got her license, and I just thought it would be something to keep her occupied and busy, you know. But she excelled at it. She got really good. And she said to me, I need you to go get your license again. And I'm like, no, I got a good job over here. You know, I'm great. You know, nobody bothers me. Got my own nice little cubicle in the corner. I get to work from home three days a week. I got a ma. You know, I'm making good money. I have a maid. So she's like, okay. So one day I was riding with her on lunch, and she went to pick up her commission checks, and I was just going through them, and I saw my yearly bonus in one of those commission checks, and I was like, wait a minute, is this my bonus that I worked all year for?

That I worked all year right here in this check?

And I was like, oh, okay, let me get my license. And I went and I went and got my real estate license. And Team Peterson Jackson was born out of there.

Tawana, for you, starting in real estate, like, as a. Here's something you could do.

What.

What was your key to success out of the gate? How were you able to create momentum quickly for yourself such that LaShawn decided, I can't not do this too.

So I remember when people asked me, like, you're. You're in real estate now? Because I was doing everything. Like, she said, I had a lot of hobbies. You're in real estate now. Well, how are you going to get clients? You know, I'm not a native Detroiter like LaShawn is. I'm not far from Detroit. I wasn't born far from Detroit, but it wasn' my thing. I didn't have a whole giant sphere of people. So I said, well, the same kind of way I throw parties. I'm gonna do it on Facebook. And that's what I did. I didn't know about advertising or anything. I did know about going in Facebook groups and talking to people, and Facebook grew my real estate career.

Was there anything about it in particular that let you know early on? Not just, I'm going to be successful at this, but this is something I really want to. Because what you've done, for anyone who's listening on Apple podcasts or Spotify and not watching, you know, you've got a name on the back wall. Like, that's not. That's not a small commitment. Like, what was it in. As you were starting to get momentum besides, you know, the financial success of it? What was it about that experience that, you know, I assume you're going to be doing this for decades to come, and we could do the same conversation with different topics, you know, 20 years from now.

So what. What really made real estate my. My thing, or what I was going to do was a vacation that LaShawn and I took to Portland. We went to visit some friends who had moved out there. And while we were there, we decided we were going to, you know, drive up the coast and go to Seattle and do all the things. As soon as we got to Portland, Oregon, the first thing that hit us in the face was the fact it was so much homelessness, like, right out there. Homelessness in the Midwest looks different, especially in Michigan and the Detroit area. It's different And I tell people that the homelessness here is hidden. We don't see it. So my friends who had moved from Detroit, when they got here, I said, oh, my God, you know, so many people living on the street. And she said, oh, my God, girl, that. That it hurt us when we got here too, because we just weren't used to it when we got to Seattle, saying the same thing. And I remember Uber wasn't that big back then, and Airbnb wasn't that big. It was all new. So we were going to try the Airbnb thing, and we were calling Ubers to get around, and our Uber driver said, oh, you guys are staying on the black side of town. And I was like, oh, really? You know, okay, hey, Uber. But when we got there, Lashawn and I were there for days, and we were the only two black people that were on this side of town that we seen. And it sparked my. I have a master's degree in public administration. So I was like, let me find out what happened here in Seattle. And as I start reading, I realized that Seattle and Portland had to go through what the people at the time said was a necessary evil, which was gentrification. And Detroit had, at the time was coming out of bankruptcy. And I said, oh, my God, Lashawn, this is what's getting ready to happen in Detroit. We have to go let people know that, you know, they have to get themselves together. Right after that, I took my license and I looked. I'm a statistics person, of course, and I looked at the statistics in Detroit, and at the time I was licensed, the homeownership rate for. For African Americans was 36%. And Detroit is a very, very African American type town. And our homeownership rate was so, so low. So that drove the mission, which is of what Team Peterson Jackson is, which is to increase homeownership in our communities, build generational wealth, and also create knowledgeable and productive realtors. I just wanted to do that. And I said, this is what I'm going to do in real estate. I'm going to make a difference. And another statistic that I noticed when I got my license, and I was like, okay, well, how much do agents make? Ran it through Google and it said, from the national association of Realtors. Oh, yeah, the average salary at the time was like 70,000. I said, that sounds good. I said, well, how much do black realtors make? And it said 16,000. I said, Whoa, that's the big gap. That's a big gap. So I'm gonna hit that statistic too. And that just became our mission. We talk about the mission. Everyone on our team knows about the mission of increasing homeownership and building generational wealth. And I love to say that last year in the metro Detroit area, our homeownership rate is now at 46%.

That's awesome. I love the mission there. I love. By the way you sound. My understanding is that the division of labor here is that LaShawn is a bit more of the ops person and you're a bit more of like the top line agent salesperson.

Yes.

And we'll get into maybe a little bit of how that goes, but the way you're speaking about, you sound like a rock solid ops person who wants to get the story behind the story. Very numbers oriented. I love the mission. It sounds like it's probably very education based. My guess. My guess is that absolutely. That is like the core of probably the way that you attract clients and attract agents.

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. I started with giving home buying seminars was my first step. My father's a pastor, and he said, oh, you got a business? I was like, yeah. He was like, well, what can I do to help? I said, well, you can open up the church on Saturday and let me tell people how to buy a house. And he said, all right, I'll do that. And he did that. And then all of his pastor friends were like, well, come to my church and tell my people how to buy houses. I was like, y' all realize me and lashawn are married, you know, and they're like, we don't care. We just want you. We love that you want to help. And so they opened up the church door. We went to churches and we did home buying seminars. And every time in that home buying seminar, I would sell several homes. And so that is one of the things that our team does. And everyone on the team believes in doing home buying seminars. Now it has grown from churches to community centers. We had one last week that was at our community college. They opened up the doors to have our. A couple of people on the team do a seminar there. Schools with parents and the teachers opening up the door. So it has.

It's one of our.

Oh, yeah, the Boys and Girls Club. So we work with other nonprofits to bring that message out, and we just love doing that.

Right. And if you follow us on social media, especially me, you will see us several times a week with our team and the classes that we give. You know, I run the stories. I, you know, post in us teaching our classes and you know, even our top agents teaching the classes to the newer agents. So I. Education is fabric of who we are, you know, is everything. You know, it comes first for our, our team.

My experience has been that when you teach with, you know, I don't want to inflate it or color it a particular way, but you know, earnestness, sincerity and with the true spirit of service that sales are just a natural consequence. Like I found when I go, even when I'm representing a company, when I go and I have the opportunity to have a stage or a microphone or whatever and I teach something, I'm not selling the product or service and frankly I don't have to. The natural conclusion people draw when you engage them, teach them and you know, light them up, provoke them a little bit, solve some of their problems, answer some of their questions is that they want to talk about buying. Is that, has that been your experience as well, where sales is the natural outcome of you pursuing a personal mission to educate the community?

Absolutely. Like I said that just opening that door, you know, talking about what I do has had so many people pull me to the side and say, well.

You know, the side or like as soon as you get off the stage, you're like questions, questions I didn't want to ask in the Q and A.

Yes, yes, they'll want, they want that. I've had so many team leaders. How can I create a mission based business in my area? And I'm like, well, you know, well what's the mission? Let's start there, let's define it. What do you, what do you guys want to do? Just leading with service has always been near and dear to my heart and it's amazing that we've been able to create a business and also continue to be leading with service and embrace servant leadership with both of Lashawn and I.

Both have so characterize for us today, you know, agents like staff and structure. Like what is Team Peterson Jackson today?

Oh my goodness.

Big. We, we just, Tawana and I, we were very, very hands on and we, we just always felt like that this was our baby. So it was just hard for us to kind of let go a little bit. And through coaching we have found our way. So we have an ops manager, very, very bright young lady. So and she has organizational background, she has all of these certifications, you know, things that we don't have. So she complements us extremely well. We have two. We, we really don't have a title for them. We call them admins, but they are agents and they kind of do everything around here. So they help us out a lot. So we have two of those. We have a transaction coordina and then we have the transaction coordinator. She has her own virtual assistant. And we have two more administrative virtual assistants and then we have a marketing coordinator. So that's our staff right now. We're going to grow it some more.

Yeah, how about on the agent side? Where were you a couple years ago? Where are you today?

So we started our standard team and it took a while because people were like, I want to join your team. And I was like, you see the name? Team Peterson and Jackson. Peterson, Jackson. That's it, you know. So it took me a while to open that up. And she said like Lashan said through coaching culture. They were like, you guys got to have an admin. No, I don't. Yeah, you do. Like Tana, you're doing a hundred deals by yourself a year. No, I don't need anybody. I can do it, you know. And then they said, well, how many are you losing? And I was like, oh, maybe I do need a team, you know. So we started with one agent and it was my cousin. And I, I said, okay, cuz I'm gonna let you. I'm gonna. We're gonna start a team. And I remember telling her in secret, you know, we're gonna start a team. And. And she was like, okay, cool, I'll be back. And then she left, went and got her license and was like, when is this team starting? I was like, I wasn't ready. So she, she came back and she was gonna be our first person on the team. And we notified exp. And my cousin did something to me. I just. I don't know, I wasn't able to forgive yet. And she ended up passing away very. Just suddenly. And I was like, maybe this team wasn't for us, but I had already started. And it amazes like when she, when she left us, we. Our first admin kind of stepped in and was like, hey, I know, I just. And she came to the interview, she had just had a baby. I was like, you bringing the baby to the interview? And she did. And she. We just kept moving from that. And it started with one or two in the end of 2022.

I think by the time we took our team photos, it was eight of us.

Eight. And now today is probably at 74.

Wow.

But the vast was about 40 of them being babies. We call them our baby agents. Baby agents. They are within, they are licensed within the last year.

One of the things I love about Doing the show. And one of the things I love about the industry is you can literally build your organization however you want. You can build your business however you want. You don't even need an organization, Tawana. You could have just said, no, I don't need an admin, and just kept doing what you're doing. Like, that's. You do however you want. All right, so I've certainly heard a number of people who really prefer bringing brand new agents onto the team. Obviously, that's the direction you've gone. What is it about that process and when did you realize that that was a sweet spot for you? All that, like, this is going to be our best way to go forward.

One thing I love about new agents is the fact that you get to mold them kind of the way you want them to be. So with all of the training and all of the education, all of the pieces that Taw and I have gotten from our travels and all the workshops, seminars, conventions, everything that we've been to, we put together and like, we've learned from the best. So we put together a really good system. And it's kind of hard to push that system down on experienced agents. They, you know, they have pre. They come with preconceived notions and ideas, and then they have a lot of hindrance on what they think that this business could be or what it. Or what it is. So with new agents, you don't have that. So we get to fill them up with everything that we know and they're more open and accepting to it. So we have had a lot of success with new agents, and we have had some experienced agents to come and join our team. And, you know, so. And we have had some success with them as well, but with new agents, you know, like I said, they're an open book and we get to help them write their story. So.

And as I think as a new agent, you come into the business at least. When I came into the business, I looked around and I was talking to other agents. They're like, oh, yeah, if you sell about six a year, that'll be great. But if a new agent comes in and I let them know, no, well, you can do a hundred a year. They're like, okay, that's what they know. We're gonna do 100 a year, we're gonna do 50 a year. So we tell our team in the meeting, like, this is a high volume team. We're in the metro Detroit area. So in the city of Detroit, the average sales price is only $90,000. So if you want to make money, if you want to be successful, you got to sell a lot of houses to be successful. And so the. The grind that they come in, the. The drive that they come in, I love that. I love that. And even when we have an agent that does have had, you know, been in the business for a little while, and they said, hey, I want to come over to you guys. I'm like, okay, you got to drop that. That. You can only do 20 a year. That's the first thing out the window. We have agents that do that in a quarter. So, come on, you know, so, yeah.

How much of that. You know, one of the things we talk about when we talk about training is the balance of skill and will, right? So you have. You can train the skills you want all day long, and you can design systems that allow agents to, you know, be in more conversations more often, because they don't need to worry about all these other things that, you know, the team has designed solutions around. You know, whereas if they were a solo agent, they would literally need to figure out how to do all the things, which is probably a limiting factor for some experienced agents as well. You know, they think they can only do X because they have to do all this other stuff that you have maybe designed solutions for for the agents on your team. So there's a skill piece, like, we need to be able to know how to have these. All these different types of conversations, and we need to know how to do all these different things. But then on the other side, there's the will, which is the, you know, the mindset to be open that I've been, you know, I've averaged 20 in the first six years of my career. I need to open myself up to the idea that I could do 40. And part of that is maybe skill. Some of it is the leverage that I was talking about kind of behind skill there. But some of it is the will as well. Like, how do you balance skill and will as you're kind of either taking molding. I'm just using your hand signal in your language, Lashonda. Like molding new agents or even welcoming experienced agents that are a sufficient culture fit that you would welcome them into the organization as well? Like, how do you balance those two things to open someone's mind up to, you know, increasing their production 50 or even 100%.

So the thing that I tell them, I. I can teach you all. I can give you the skills, I can give you the system. I can give all of that to you, but you have to Come with the grit. And we talk about that in Detroit a lot. You know, our team almost made it, and they, they, our football team almost made it to the Super Bowl. You know, there's a lot of good.

Sports going on in Detroit right now. By the way, as a lifelong Detroit sports fan, like, there were some hard years across all those sports.

Yes, very hard years. But one thing you can't deny about the Detroit players is they have the grit to continue, like, losing the entire season and still being able to come back. Like, oh, yeah, that was just a, you know, that was just. We were just building. You know, we still have the grit to keep going. So you. We can't teach the hustle, but I can give you the skills to enhance the hustle that you have. So those, when you come over, you're going to be around hustlers. You're going to be around people who have that grit. It's, it's. Some of. It's going to naturally rub off. But, and, but we have had some people that. It just, they couldn't. It was too much for them. It's too much pressure to be around.

Yeah. And for, for me, I had. They have to, we run on eos. So you have to want it, you have to get it, and you have to have the capacity to do it. That's the only three things that I ask for my agents. I can give you the rest, but you have to want it.

Where are you finding these newer agents? Are you talking to people at schools or. I mean, I'm guessing that some percent, I don't know what percent, maybe went to one of your seminars and then ended up getting licensed and wanted to join you because of this. That's pretty rapid growth to get to 70 ish agents in that time window. Where are you finding these folks?

They find us.

Okay.

I do very little advertising. I did try once, I did try to like, run an ad, you know, and nothing really came of it. And, But I, I can put up videos of us, of my team, and I will get two agents from that video. So they find us people. We get referred agents. Like, people refer clients. Like, oh, you should go see my realtor. If it's a new agent that get their license, the community tells them, you need to go see lashawn and Tawana. You know, so they send agents to us. We, like I said, we don't, we don't run ads. They, they come to us. Yeah, we don't. I don't talk to schools because most of the schools, the local schools, have their own brokerages associated with them. So we. They don't let, you know, other people in, so. But they come to us so off social media and through word of mouth. So I interview at least about five agents a week.

In general, how would you describe your value prop? Like when you're having those five conversations, as you're trying to figure out, are they going to be a good fit here, do we want them as a member of the team and as they're trying to figure out, is Team Peterson Jackson the place where I'm going to learn and grow and become my best self. However, I see myself growing in this industry and growing, growing as a professional. What is the value prop or kind of, what's the nature of that conversation? Like, what is in it for an agent with you all?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

Essentially, I'm asking like a business model question too, you know, like, like how, how have you designed this thing to be fruitful for everyone involved?

So what we do is what I tell most people is that we are going to provide you what it took me three years in the industry to realize that I need, which is that we have the transaction coordination for them. We have the admins, we have the marketing coordinator. We provide the classes to train you and Lashawn and I train ourselves in those classes. We give you mentorship. Our team has a coach that comes in and you can have private coaching with the coach. We have a lot of friends at EXP who would love to teach, you know, oh my God, I love your team. I follow them on social media and I want to, I want to pour into this person. They'll look at our team interacting on social media and call and say, hey, I want to come meet people. I want to come over and check your team out. Austin Chevron drove up from Ohio and was like, I need to come see your team. I was like, thanks, Austin, that was really nice of you. So we gave them, we created an app to put all of our onboard training in. We provide them a CRM solution. We have integrated Ylopo in and offer them that. So everything. When you think, okay, I'm going to get some business and then the next step is going to be this. The team has built those steps in so you get them from day one. So now we can concentrate on building that hustle up, getting that sphere of influence going for you and just making you the best version of what you want to be in your business.

This, we have a 12 week guided onboarding program and you have to complete that program as a new agent before you can get any team leads. We can't, we won't talk about team leads until that onboarding program is complete. I. That's one thing. Leads, we have them by the boatload, but they are not a part of our value proposition because if they join you for leads, they're going to leave you for leads. Education and training is our value proposition and our systems. So those. That, that is what we lead with. Agents stay because once they get into productivity, yes, we have leads. You know, we're a Zillow flex team. You know, we have, you know, all the. So they find us people, we get referred agents. Like, people refer clients like, oh, you should go see my Realtor. If it's a new agent that get their license, the community tells them, you need to go see Lashawn and Tawana. You know, so they send agents to us. We, like I said, we don't. We don't run ads. They. They come to us. Yeah, we don't. I don't talk to schools because most of the schools, the local schools have their own brokerages associated with them. So we, they don't let, you know, other people come in. So. But they come to us. So off social media and through word of mouth. So I interview at least about five agents a week.

In general, how would you describe your value prop? Like, when you're having those five conversations, as you're trying to figure out, are they going to be a good fit here? Do we want them as a member of the team and as they're trying to figure out is Team Peterson Jackson, the place where I'm going to, you know, learn and grow and become my best self. However, I see myself growing in this industry and growing as a professional. What is the value proper kind of. What's the nature of that conversation? Like, what is in it for an agent with you all?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

Essentially, I'm asking like a business model question too. You know, like, like how. How have you designed this thing to be fruitful for everyone involved?

So what we do is what I tell most people is that we're going to provide you what it took me three years in the industry to realize that I needed, which is that we have the transaction coordination for them. We have the admins, we have the marketing coordinator. We provide the classes to train you and Lashawn and I train ourselves in those classes. We give you mentorship. Our team has a coach that comes in and you can have private coaching with the coach. We have a Lot of friends at EXP who would love to teach, you know, oh my God, I love your team. I follow them on social media and I want to, I want to pour into this person. They'll, they'll look at our team interacting on social media and call and say, hey, I want to come meet people. I want to come over and check your team out. Austin Chevron drove up from Ohio and was like, I need to come see your team. I was like, thanks, Austin, that was really nice of you. You know, so we gave them, we created an app to put all of our onboard training in. We provide them a CRM solution. We have integrated Ylopo in and offer them that. So everything. When you think, okay, I'm going to get some business and then the next step is going to be this, the team has built those steps in so you get them from day one. So now we can concentrate on building that hustle up, getting that sphere of influence going for you and just making you the best version of what you want to be in your business.

This, we have a 12 week guided onboarding program and you have to complete that program as a new agent before you can get any team leads. We can't, we won't talk about team leads until that onboarding program is complete. I, that's one thing. Leads, we have them by the boatload, but they are not a part of our value proposition because if they join you for leads, they're going to leave you for leads. Education and training is our value proposition and our systems. So those that, that is what we lead with. Agents stay because once they get into productivity, yes, we have leads. You know, we're a Zillow flex team. You know, we have, you know, all the pay per clicks. We have all that stuff. We have leads flying in. So yeah, you're going to get that. But initially we start off with the onboarding training and systems. So that is, that's our value prop right there. And it's all our onboarding. Like Tawana said, we have an app and it tells you step by step by step by step and everything is there. The training, the videos, everything is there. And then we have where the agents can come in once a week and get help with anything that they need. It's like an open. What if we were in high school, they would call it study hall. Remember study hall?

Oh, absolutely, I do.

I was like, so we have agent study hall once a week where you can just come in and get help with anything. Tawana and myself were in there. Our two agent admins are there, our ops manager is there. Everybody's there to help you. There's no dumb questions. I don't care how many times we've taught it. We'll teach you again at study hall. So you know, that is one of our major values of being on this team. But you know, we also have our mass, our weekly mastermind which we bring in training and we bring in guests and things like that. But besides that, you know, if you don't learn here, it's because you don't want it or you can't get it or you don't have the capacity to do it.

Yeah, really, really good. I appreciate especially the idea that yes, we have as many leads as you're going to need to start building your book of business. But that's not why you're coming here. No, no, in part because that, that is one of the more transactional dynamics. I mean it's required. I mean if you, if you had no leads, it would be really difficult to get someone to say like listen, come on in, like, well I can sign up maybe for a trade. It's having all those different pieces together as well as this process for bringing in. So something I'm hearing and as I'm, I try to do, my mind is doing all kinds of things. When I'm in the middle of this conversation, I'm actively listening so I don't miss an opportunity to ask a good follow up question reflecting your thoughts back. So I understand them clearly and that you feel heard. But at the same time I'm also thinking a little bit on behalf of a viewer, viewer or a listener of the conversation. And so where I am in that zone right now in my head is okay, so we've got this team that's got 70 plus agents, they're a Zillow Flex partner, they've got an app to help support their 12 week onboarding program. They've got this staff. But I also heard that, you know, not that long ago it was one of these two people became like.