Operations Experiments and Investments with Billy Hobbs [Inside The Team]

Welcome to episode two of our eight episode five week series taking you inside the Lawton team. A top 10 team in the United States with over a billion in sales and nearly 2,500 transaction sides in 2023. In episode one, we met George Lawton, the founder of the team. In episode two, here you'll meet Billy Hobbs who in his 20 year real estate career served as a real estate agent, a broker, a real estate team leader, all before joining Georgia's director of operations. Today, Billy serves as chief operating office. And you're going to get a much stronger sense of how this team not only competes but truly differentiates on their ability to operationalize ideas. This culture of testing and experimenting and iterating, of taking learnings and either pulling back and pivoting, or doubling down and really implementing that idea based on what they learn in this experimental approach to everything that they're doing. You'll get more information into their splits and services, breakdown across four levels and including leveling out into teams within teams and how exactly they're doing that, how they're supporting them, what they're delivering those teams. It's a great conversation with COO Billy Hobbs. Check it out right now on real estate team Os. Billy, thank you so much, not just for sitting down with me for this conversation in particular, but for helping put together this whole series. Really excited about it and we're going to start this conversation where we start all of our conversations which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. When I offer that, what comes to mind.

Oh man, I think it's a pursuit of excellence, right. I think it's not settling for, you know, what, what you have today, but always looking to grow and find, you know, that pursuit of being, you know, excellent at what you do, serving the consumer and also, you know, serving your team well. But yeah, I think, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is, yeah, that pursuit of excellence.

And is that something like you coach that or is that like I'm thinking about the size of your organization. It's like I certainly can see that in the people that have emerged as natural leaders in your environment and other environments. But like is this something you seek when you're interviewing people or is that something you can like light up inside someone?

Yeah, I think, I think it's something you try to find out, right? You do everything you can by meeting them enough times, asking the right questions, trying to dive into their previous history. But man, in our experience you just, it's one of those things you gotta get em in and see. Yeah, I think that, you know, for lack of a better way to put it, the proof comes out in the pudding. You get to see how they actually perform. And then, you know, that, that critical thinking, the things that they, they do to actually grow and pursue getting better and continuing to grow the business. Yeah, I. I don't know if you can necessarily teach it. I just think you either it's either innate in you to continue to grow and pursue being the best, or it's not.

Yeah. At risk of holding up where I want to go next, I'm going to ask one more follow up in this zone, which is, you know, the pursuit of excellence. I assume that you all maybe just naturally or maybe intentionally find moments to celebrate evidence of excellence or the outcomes of excellence. Like what do you all do culturally, especially an organization this size, to make sure that everyone sees examples of excellence in action and maybe the results or the benefits of that excellence?

Yeah, I think, you know, we, I look at it two ways. We have our internal staff and then we have our agents. Right. So internally, we, we really operate out of our core values. And so we highlight those core values. We call them acts of awesomes all the time. So every time we get on a meeting, every time we get in any type of, you know, training as far as agent, all staff meetings, employee, all staff meetings, all those type of things, we started out with acts of awesomeness, you know, share with me wins that are happening. Right. And so we highlight that and we usually try to keep it around our core values. And then the other thing we do is when we're, you know, handing out awards or doing those things, we align them with those core values. Right. We want to create common language, common behaviors, common understanding. So we try to do a really good job of making sure that we're actually calling those behaviors out.

Yeah. Really good individual and in group settings and synchronously and asynchronously and.

Yeah, it's good.

So you've been in the industry for a couple of decades. I think you've been an agent, you've been a broker, you've been a coach, you've served in a variety of different roles. Like, take me back to the beginning of your engagement with the Lawton team. Like, what was going on for you and your career at that time and what was kind of exciting about that, as you said. Yeah, that's the direction I'm going next.

Yeah, interesting. I Met George in 2007. We were both agents at ReMax and we got to know each other There I left remax. I did like you said, started my own brokerage, began to try to grow that, and at the end of the day, it proved either not fulfilling, both not fulfilling or profitable at that time. And so I realized it's probably not something that I wanted to. You had to either really push into it, grow it, or just be a small boutique broker, which is fine. But neither thing was anything that I was starting to become passionate about. So I decided to actually start my own team. I had a friend of mine that was working for me at the time, and we decided to partner up, became my business partner. And yeah, we started growing our own team. We got to about 150 transactions. We were doing well. But through that time, I'd always connected with George. We had always, you know, probably a couple times a year, met up and just talked about real estate. You know, what's working for you? What's working for me? As a matter of fact, when we went and started the team, he's the first person I reached out to saying, hey, looking to put this team together. Have any advice? And the one thing about George is extremely collaborative, open book. So met a couple times. He brought me into his office, showed me top to bottom how they ran their, their organization. And yeah, which is, you know, unheard of in this industry. And not only in this industry, like in the same market.

Right.

Our offices were three miles from each other. Right. And so we just continued to, to chat. And so we were coming up on a new year and we're looking at growth and expansion. So I reached out and said, hey, would love to talk to you, like your ideas on what you're doing to expand and grow. And like I said, we were, we were doing okay and we wanted to continue to grow. That, that was starting to become fun. And so we were meeting and he, you know, was sharing everything that he always shares and made mention, hey, I'm, if you know of anybody, I'm looking for this director of operations role. I have a, an ibuyer coming in. I need to expand in certain areas. And so if you know of anybody. And we, we just kept talking about it and more and more, you know, I'm sitting there going, I'm not looking for a job. We're doing okay. I have, you know, there's nothing here that, you know, I'm, I'm pursuing other than trying to grow our own team business. And but as, as we kept talking about it, the more and more I'm like, man, this is speaking to me in a way that that there's something I need to think about. Right. Systems, processes, operational technologies, all the things that he's saying, hey, I need help with. I'm going, gosh, this feels good. And to know George was, you know, just. I always say, like, not only do I love what I do, I love more who I do it with. And so that's what I really enjoy about my job and where I'm at currently. And the more I knew George and if anybody knew, you know, George and a lot and team, his reputation was just one of the nicest guys in the real estate industry. Right. So I had to really start thinking about, like, oh, man, is this something I want to pursue? As we were walking out of that meeting, I had decided, no, I'm going to throw that out there. Hey, I don't know. I'm thinking about this. Maybe we should have further discussions. Well, we had an agent on our team at the time that had left and went over to his team, somebody that he knew, and he goes, you know, what's funny is when I was talking to her, she actually is an employee with Zillow now. Funny thing, but said, hey, I think you need to talk to Billy. That's what she had told George. And I think George, I mean, you'd have to ask him. But, you know, I. I would imagine his thought was, you know, I don't. This is probably not, you know, something he's looking for, you know, I don't know. But anyway, we ended up having the conversation. This went back and forth for about three months because again, you know, he's. He's looking to bring on an employee. I'm not necessarily looking to be an employee, those type of things. And he kind of knew my goals and those type of things. So he called me, it was about three months in, and said, hey, really need to get in this position. Lined out. So I really just kind of need to know, are you in or not? I need to find someone.

Yeah.

And there's just something in my gut that said, hey, you need to take a flyer on this. Let's go. And I'll tell you, best decision I ever made that was six years ago. Came on as director of operations, and we found ourselves deep in the Zillow offers world. And that was when that was really what he was needing help with, is grow and scale that. And so, yeah, we've been. Been at it for six years together. And like I always said, best decision I ever made.

Awesome. One of my followers is going to be, you know, is as you looked At a director of operations now, chief operating officer role, was that just a strength you saw in yourself, but this idea that the other agent knew that, that you were an operational team leader? I guess, yeah, it was just something that was, you know, as you looked at, as you listened to what he was needing. Thinking about yourself, this period of reflection you were describing, I mean, have you always been an operator at heart? Is that always been kind of your strength area?

I think about like when I was a little kid, you know, everyone has their dreams of what it is they want to be. I always had this vision. Yeah, I played sports and everyone has at some point this grandeur idea they're going to make money and a living at playing professional sports. Played baseball through college and realized that that was probably not going to happen. But really what, you know, my dream, like the thing that I always thought about was I could envision myself in a suit, carrying a briefcase in the business world, running, you know, doing business stuff and even on my business stuff back then, you know, business and technology, you know, 30 years ago was a whole lot different obviously than it is today. And so as I started getting in my career, even real estate, you know, I started 21 years ago as an agent and the more I got into real estate, the more I really was gravitated towards the business side of real estate. You know, how we become more efficient, how we use technologies to become more efficient, how we set up systems and procedures to run a business. And you know, if I'm being, you know, truthful, getting people in my car and, and driving them around and listing homes was not the thing that I, you know, truly enjoyed. It always been a bend towards operating business. Even like I said, we started our own team. I had a business partner, he was the sales guy, he was the one that was going to motivate the agents. But I was in a sense in that role on the team, setting up the back end systems, the operations, creating efficiencies. So that was her experience with me too, was like, hey, that's what he does for his own team. I think he would be good here. But yeah, it was, it was always something like the, the idea of helping agents be more efficient, creating a business that's scalable, creating processes that are repeatable and grow, you know, that we can scale with has always been the thing that, that has been, you know, speaks to me, yeah, really good.

I'm going to ask for something really big here. But you know, what did the team, what did the Lawton team look like six years ago? When you joined, what does it look like today? And what were some of the, like, just high level big things. I mean, you mentioned the Zillow offers partnership. I assume that that was probably a big part of that early growth phase. But like, what was it? What is it and what were a couple of like the big milestones? Because, you know, You're a top 10 team in the nation.

So.

Yeah, that's not a, that's not a small growth path.

Yeah, I think, you know, when Zillow offers all came on, that's when I entered the, the equation. Right. That was a big beast. And they had launched here in Phoenix. So we were, you know, setting a lot of the operational procedures to do that. We also knew that, you know, we had to expand locally to make sure we had the agent coverage for that as well. So when I joined the team, three employees, about 30 agents, and really one regional location here in the Peoria area. And so as we began to look at what that, you know, the behemoth was coming in, we knew we had to grow. So we had, at the time, George had another business partner. And so we were focused on growing here locally and building our internal staff to match the operational needs. Right. So we eventually got it to 75 internal employees. We were at six regional locations, including California at the time. We got to a little over 200 agents and yeah, that was, we took about two years to get to that point. So real heavy focus on growth to get to support the 200 plus agents operational and also, you know, operationalize the, the Zillow side of the equation. As we all know, we had a pandemic. Things change, those type of things, but we're always trying to find, you know, what is the next evolution of where our real estate's going. So connecting with, you know, REITs, those type of things, other ancillary businesses and then getting more efficient. So currently the team, we're about 235 agents and we have 27 internal staff operationally and we have five regional locations here in the Phoenix metro area. Awesome.

So full coverage of the Valley, really nice growth. Overall efficiency, probably. I'm just imagining your seat, so I'll just make a statement. You can react to it however you want to. I imagine the fun of someone who is operationally minded, efficient, taking things and putting them in play in a big way. To see that play out across a couple of hundred people as opposed to across 10 is probably really satisfying for you. Yeah, I think to see the same idea, much bigger impact.

Absolutely. I think for Me, though, the thing that's really exciting is to see the people internally that have grown internally to be the people to help, you know, operationalize that to, you know, the offices and the staff and to the agents. It is sometimes a little. Little fun to sit back and see how, you know, these things run. Like, you know, everything has its challenges. And I think one of the things that I'm always looking to is to, you know, fiercely improve what we do. And there's always, you know, we do things. Some things really well, and there's some things that we need to get much better at, and that's always going to be the case. And I think the most exciting part is getting a team to buy in, to say, hey, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect, right? This is like, you know, we call it pilots. We. That's the one thing that came out of that Zillow world was, you know, we run a ton of pilots. We try things, right? And so that, to me, is the exciting part of watching this thing grow, is watching the other people kind of grow up into that as well, and being an integral part of how we work and how we grow. And what's more exciting about that growth and scale for me is when these things are now happening and they don't require me to be behind them pushing it, because our staff has understood it. They're looking at the pursuing of excellence and growing, and they're doing it on their own. So that. That, to me, is what I look at and go, oh, wow, that's happening. And I didn't even have to be the one driving that. And they're getting better. It's becoming more efficient, and these agents and our internal staff are doing a phenomenal job with it.

I love it. I love this idea of setting, essentially creating a culture where piloting is a thing you're probably assume. You use that language when you're talking about different projects. Does something that you piloted yourselves, you know, separate from a partnership like a Zillow offers or anything, Any pilots that. That stuck, and you're like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe that that worked out even better than we imagined. Or. And. Or is there a pilot where you're like, you know what? Let's maybe try this for a little while? And you're like, yeah, we got to pull the plug on that thing. Like, anything come to mind in terms of, like, good pilots over the past a couple years? Or pilots where you're just. I mean, every pilot's a good pilot.

Yeah.

Not like there's always learning.

Yeah, yeah, there's always learnings. And we look at it, you know, that if it's something that we, you know, we run filters through, anything we try to do. Right. Is one, is it to the delight of the consumer at the end of the day, if this wins, does the consumer benefit? And two, does our agent benefit? Like are we providing tools, resources and opportunities for, for these agents? So some of them, a lot of them are wrapped around how do we generate better quality leads and essentially appointments for agents. Right. That's what they want at the end of the day. So there are things on the back end. Whether it's, you know, systems like follow a boss, how do we integrate those things into our business that create greater efficiencies that at the end of the day create a better experience for the consumer and a better experience for the agent. So as you can imagine in that world, right, it could come from an ancillary partner that provides a service, let's just say like you know, a repair service that, you know, helps an agent become more efficient when repairs are requested in a contract to do things more efficiently at a cost, you know, that makes sense to the consumer. And you know, we've, we've pushed things out and some of them, yep, they work and some of them, they don't. And so I think a lot of it is wrapped around the efficiencies of like I said, we brought in follow up boss. Thing we've loved about Fallout boss is the ability to plug into just about everything. You know, we can, we can try something, dump the data in and see if it's working. But yeah, what we learn along the way is really more about consumer and you know, agent behaviors and then what matters most. I think a lot of times when you talk about tech and pilots and all these things, we can get really shiny object and we try to stay away from that because there are a lot of good products out there, but we don't need them all right? And so we need to find the ones that are actually going to just do the job. It's that old, you know, age old question. You know, you've, you guys, you know, especially fall apart. What, what's the best CRM out there? Of course we believe it's follow up boss, but there's that old adage, like it's the one you use, right. And so I've always said, you know, you have two, you have two things. You have a, either a cultural problem or, or actual systems problem. Right. But if I look at the system and nobody's using the system. I have a cultural problem. You know, the culture is not actually buying into using the system. So I can't know if the system is the issue. And so that's what pilots do for us, is I can take a concentrated group of agents or internal staff and I can say, hey, I want you to use this system and I want you to give me all the feedback on it. And then I can determine, is this a cultural issue? Are we just not using it efficiently or is this an actual, you know, system issue where the system isn't working, we need to change it.

Love the call out to the shiny object situation. I mean, the way I think about that is like, we're looking for the right tool for the right job and the pilot is the job to be done. Like, what job are we trying to do here? What problem are we trying to solve? I also love your decision making filter of delight, of customer, delight of agent. And to the agent side, something you all are doing that I think is really cool, that I think would be worth talking about because we've, we've only talked splits and services a couple of times on the show in a really explicit way, but you have a very nuanced. And I think, I don't think you get to 200 plus agents without having a lot of thought and care in this. But that structure of, you know, levels of performance and the different benefits to agents along that path. Talk about that at whatever level of detail you'd like to.

Yeah, I think we had to solve a couple, you know, issues that were coming up. One is, you know, as you grow a team, splits always come up, right? Especially an agent that comes on and is starting to be productive. You know, there's always that split conversation at some level. So we wanted to answer that. And then we also knew that, you know, people in general, it's human nature to want a pathway. And we started to realize they want that pathway and if we don't help them create that pathway, they're going to create it and we're most likely not going to be in the equation. Right. And so how do we also keep them and retain them? And so, you know, internally it was this idea around what we call our agent journey, which is, you know, four levels of, you know, in a sense, commission structures along with benefits that come with each one of those levels. So you're level one through level four, all based on the amount of production that you do. From a volume and transactional standpoint, we use both. It's not a cut and dry method just because, you know, at the end of the day, someone could sell, you know, three, you know, $5 million homes and put them into a certain production level, but they really only did three homes, right? So we want to value that because some of the benefits that we unlock have to do with being able to have, you know, be an experienced agent, perform at that high level. Whether it's bringing in ISA support, whether it's getting more marketing support, whatever it is that we bring to the table for the agent level, want to make sure that they can utilize that and maximize it. So, so we started out with that. How do we create, you know, a clear pathway for an agent to grow on the team and know that, hey, if you want a different split, if you want more, you know, income, because that's always the fine line, right? We have to be able to generate enough income as a team to be able to do what we want to do, which is, you know, continue to be at the forefront of what real estate is. And that takes, like, I mean, you heard at one point, 75 staff, that takes, you know, that takes money. We have to be able to do that. But the agent also, we want to make sure the agent is making a good living. Like, at the end of the day, our goal is to make sure that the agent is happy and they're making a good living and that they're investing in their future. Right? And so we got to find that balance. What does that look like? And so we felt like the Agent Journey was creating that. We came out again, ran a pilot, ran our first version, and it was good, but we, we asked for agent feedback, like, hey, what about this is good and what about this isn't good? There was some split, you know, hey, I would like to see the split a little different. And we heard them, we made slight adjustments, but a lot of it was around the production levels of like, hey, you know, maybe if we adjust some of these production levels to meet the needs of the commission splits, and then, you know, what we unlock. And so then we came up with Agent Journey 2.0. And I will tell you so far what that's done. And we're actually in the midst of Agent Journey 3.0 because, you know, the market shifts, production shifts, things happen. And so we're constantly mindful of those things and how we can better provide a pathway for an agent to continue to grow. And then the second part of that was, at some level, you know, an agent gets productive and says, hey, I want to. I Want to create my own team. And so we had to. Now we took that and said, okay, we're going to go to the team journey. We're create this team level to give you an opportunity. And again, we want to provide a delta or an opportunity for them to as a team leader to grow agents under them but also make it financially beneficial to them as well. So we make some adjustments there again, provide different benefits on the team to be able to leverage and use as a team leader and grow the team. And so, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't stop all agents from leaving. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't eliminate that problem. But it has essentially eliminated the split question because it's clearly laid out, they know what it is. But it has been a huge, has had a huge impact in our retention. Our retention tripled when we did that. Again we're, it's the nature of the beast. We're always going to have attrition. Right. But it has helped us in that. And so we're constantly mindful of what the next iteration is of that. And I think, you know, part of that is again, agents want, they want to build wealth, they want to build longevity. So the things we're thinking on today is how do we create an environment that is something that, that is sustainable long term and doesn't necessarily depend on them selling a house.

So the idea of teams within teams, it absolutely makes sense from a, you want to grow your business, we want you to grow your business with us. And we're going to, we're now like reorganizing ourselves a little bit or designing plans that allow you to clearly see what that looks like with us. What are for folks who haven't gone down that road yet. Maybe they're not big enough or maybe they don't know quite the right way to do it. What have you learned so far, like how many teams are inside your team? And by the way, we're going to feature. Thank you for connecting me with a couple of your team leaders that we're going to include in this series. But what did you learn the good way and the hard way in this teams within teams scenario?

Yeah, I think we have about seven that are currently teams within the team. The unique thing is each team leader is their own dynamic team leader. I think you'll see today with Tiffany, very energetic, very vibrant, is a follow up monster. Just really wants to make sure the consumer is served and is followed up with and there's not a lead that drops in her system. Where Then you have Tony, who's. We're a lot alike. We actually, he's very operationally minded, but, man, he serves as agents and helps them grow and really has a passion to make sure that they're winning. Right. So a lot of that, what we've learned is it does come down to that dynamic team leader and what is it that they value? And so how do we continue to, you know, develop this in a way that speaks to all of them? Right. I think at some level, you know, why is it that they stay? Well, one is, you know, again, agents want a way to grow their team. So, you know, leads are part of it. Right. So we can help provide them the structure and leverage our relationships and the way that we can generate leads to give them the space that they need to grow their team. From a recruiting standpoint, right. We're. We're open to say, hey, if they come to us, we have a recruiter and recruiting agents, and they come to us, hey, I'm looking for three more agents. We have no problem, you know, helping them and supporting them in recruiting and growing their team. So we try to look at the things that internally that we have struggled with to grow and that we feel like we're doing a better job at and pass that down to them, give them that opportunity. Because again, I'll go back to it, you know, if you don't give them that pathway and the support, they're going to do it on their own anyway, and you just won't be a part of it. And we just don't think that that's the best way, you know, for this to happen. You know, they've invested in the team, we've invested into them. And at the end of the day, we do really want them to win. So the best way that we can do that is to continue to develop that and find better ways to make them more efficient, but also that they grow their team and, you know, at the end of the day, grow their wealth and their business the way they want.

I can imagine how challenging it must be. You can take this however you like. You can take wherever you want. But, like, I'm thinking about, like, meeting cadence and communication. How do we keep everyone feeling like now, because you have, you know, subcultures within the broader culture. You know, the two that you mentioned already came up within the culture, so they're already going to reflect that at some level. But how do you keep everyone on the same page, like, culturally, so that you feel like a. It's. It's the lawton team. Like, how do we keep a team feeling? And how do we announce, you know, subtle changes or the second iteration, like, what is the meeting cadence? What is the communication process like? George, draw a little picture of that for us.

Yeah, I mean, we are still trying to figure that out, if I'm being honest, because as we grow and we have different, you know, iterations of leaders, you know, understanding that communication cascade is huge. You know, we've. We've fallen on our face a few times with how we do that and how we roll those things out. But I feel like we're getting better at culture is probably the hardest thing to maintain. You know, we, you know, we're sitting here in our, you know, Peoria location, are, you know, we have an office down in Tucson that's over two hours away. Right. So how do you make them feel like they're still part of, you know, the team? I also think that, you know, one of the things that we've seen is that when we have a really good dynamic leader at one of these regional locations, they're going to build their own subculture. Right. It's key that they feel they have to have some sort of relational connection to the team. Right. And at some point, you realize it all can't just be George. Right. Like, although it's the George Lawton team, George, you know, is not going to be the 1 connector to every agent. So we need to have multiple opportunities, multiple connection points. Right? So that starts with our regional team lead, the one who, you know, is a W2 employee who is responsible for that branch. And, you know, our hope is that they're creating, which I think we have a really good dynamic group of leaders, and that's what they're doing. So that's one way that we've learned that's been helpful is create that dynamic leader or find that dynamic leader, I should say, that can build that culture internally and connect them to that branch specifically. Then we have our regional team meetings. We have them each quarter in person, and we try to mix it up as location because we know some people in the East Valley are not going to come to the West Valley. So we want to make sure that we're doing that in both locations. So trying to connect those. And then we have our awards banquet that we try to bring everybody to celebrate what everybody's doing in those cultures. A ton of emails, a ton of, you know, loom videos George just implemented last year. And we feel like it's becoming a real good connection point. He sends out a monthly Message, which in a sense is a blog for him about, hey, here's where the team's at here. Some things that are happening in the industry. Here's how we view these things, and here's some insight of where we're going. Right. Trying to keep the whole connected to how we're growing as a team. So it's continuing to grow and iterate and we're continuing to learn. But right now that's, that's what we've found is working. But man, we can get a whole lot better at it.

Yeah, well, it's a lot. I mean there's so like no matter what channel you use or even in person. Yeah, you mentioned, by the way, the Valley is really big for anyone who just familiar with Phoenix, like end to end, there's a reason you have like multiple offices in one town. But you know, no matter the channel, it's really still hard to get people's attention, especially when there are clients trying to get everyone's attention. So I can imagine a constant iterative process. Let's talk about your zone inside this organization and kind of how it's grown. I mean, you, one of the people you're kind enough to introduce me to, who I'll be talking with for this series, recently joined the team as a VP of Sales and operations. Talk about like the operations side of the business and maybe what was it early on and how has that grown? And what I'm really looking for here is advice for someone who aspires to be on some, some similar type of growth. I want to get to 100 agents. I want to get 250 agents. I want to get to 200 agents, whatever that may be. No matter how long that growth path is from an operations investment side of things, I think that's a constant tension, especially because there's a natural ebb and flow to the, to the top line revenue. So managing the expenses and investments throughout that and you know, operations, I'm generalizing and it's probably not fair, it's probably coming from ignorance. But like, you know, in general those are a lot more fixed than variable costs on average. And so it's hard to make those commitments. Like how has that journey gone for you inside this organization and kind of what is the past, present, future of the operations piece of the business? I think it's one of your differentiators.

Yeah, I think early on we've always had this mindset. You know, growth is always the pathway and we're not afraid to invest in growth. And a lot of times that means operational support and people, right. We kind of operate under this mindset, like let's get an individual to do it and work it out and then we can look at technologies and offshore support and all the things that will make it more efficient and cost effective. But that comes. I'll go back to the pilot scenario, right. You know, one of the ways we get there is we always try things and that takes people, right? And so we're not afraid to invest in that way. I think that's really one of the things that, you know, differentiates us a little bit is that we're not, we sometimes it's probably not the best business practice, right. Is that, you know, a lot of times you want to lead with revenue, which is definitely the case. But sometimes we're, we're willing to lead with the expense of operational support, understanding where we're trying to go. And so, you know, that's where kind of the journey started was, you know, for instance, when, when we knew we had Zillow offers coming and we knew that we had to operationalize this thing, but we didn't know how quick this was going to scale, when we were going to exactly need the amount of people we needed. We just started hiring before the revenue even came in, right. We had a pretty good idea and feeling it was going to come in. But at the end of the day we weren't afraid to go out there and hire somebody. And we'd say, hey, they might have to sit around a little bit, but we get them hired, we get them trained, we get them in. And what we found is we didn't have a whole lot of people sitting around, right. And so we probably, that's probably where, you know, we have, we've looked at it maybe a little differently, is that we're not afraid to have that one to two extra staff because again, let's go back to what we're trying to accomplish, right? Whatever we're trying to accomplish to the delight of the consumer, to the delight of the agent. And so sometimes that just takes people. But we're again, we're going to, we're going to constantly iterate that we're going to look at ways we can use technology, offshore support things to make us more efficient, keep that bottom line where it needs to be. But we're not, you know, we're not all. We're also not operating at this, we have to operate at this bottom line because it's a long term game. That's the other thing for us too, right. We're not looking to make the best living today. We're looking to in 10, 15 years, you know, be set up to make sure that the agents are building their wealth. We're in the best position as a business to grow and sustain the ever changing market. I mean, we're in the midst of a, you know, probably another shift coming up. Right. In 21 years, it seems like every three years there's a major shift in the industry. So we want to be prepared for that. So to us that comes from leading with making sure we have good people ready to make that change.

I hear a lot of intuition in that. Educated guesses, educated bets and feels like it's been working out pretty well for you, which then validates your instinct about like this we should be doing these things. What I heard in your last go, there is perhaps a reference to, to changes around buyer commissions and the buyer agent, buyer relationship. How are you all thinking about that? Like high level. I mean you get into that because it's so, it's still so early in all of this news. We have no idea how it's going to play out. But like how are you all thinking about it and talking about it internally?

Yeah, I think that's, that's exactly it. Right. I think one is the news. We had to think like what, what is the agent experiencing right now? Right. And the agent is hearing the news and they're experiencing, oh, I might be losing some money here and how do I continue to grow my business and do everything? We've just been talking about when the news I'm hearing in these headlines are saying, oh, no more buyer commissions or you know, seller can no longer pay commissions. Oh, you know, buyer agency's going away, all this stuff. So the first thing we did is, you know, get all our agents on a, on a zoom and say, hey, this is early. So our view right now is it's early. Right. We understand the settlement, we understand what they're proposing, but we also understand that it doesn't change what we've been trying to do. Right. Is go back to it. I keep saying it to the delight of the consumer. Right. So what are you doing? How are you sharpening your skills? How are you becoming the best agent that a consumer wants to interact with and is willing to compensate you to do that regardless of the minutiae of how the back end processes go to get there? Right. We again, the real estate industry has seen all kinds of shifts. Right. I remember I'll use the cfpb. When that thing came out, I Mean, we weren't going to close deals in 60 days and homes were going to take forever to close and sell back end processes go to get there. Right. We again, the real estate industry has seen all kinds of shifts. Right. I remember I'll use the CFPB when that thing came out, I mean, we weren't going to close deals in 60 days and homes were going to take forever to close and sell. We're still closing homes in, you know, 10, 15 days. Right. So I think, I think the industry's resilient and so our message has been, hey, don't read the headlines but sharpen your skills. Understand what agency is. And we've been preaching this message knowing that these things, you know, we're in the works anyway. Right?

Yeah.

It's just continuing to say, hey, how can we be better? How can we serve the consumer better in the end, you know, we'll get through it.

Yeah, yeah. Really good. The team model. So you were a solo agent, you were a broker, you started a team. Before joining this team, you helped facilitate the growth of teams with inside the team. Past, present, future of the team model. Like what's interesting about it, what is actually different about it, like cut through some of like the, I feel like there's maybe a little bit of hype around it or something. Like what's real and what's compelling about it for you? And why is it truly different than the way we were operating, you know, 30, 40 years ago?

Yeah, this term, you know, people call us a team Ridge. You know, essentially we operate as a brokerage without being the broker. And so, you know, those things are going to cost. I remember five, six years ago, it probably was that, you know, that was the big push, maybe even before that, that, hey, teams are going to become the thing. And we've seen that. And some teams end up turning into their own brokers and, you know, they're essentially operating as a team, as a broker as well. So I think really what it comes down to is how are you serving the agent? Right. What does the agent need to create a successful business? And I think, you know, the old brokerage model per se was, hey, you need a place to hang your license and you need, you know, some connection to branding and some support to, you know, do your business from a, you know, regulation standpoint. But outside of that, you know, yeah, they have these group trainings, but there's no real individual focus on how an agent can go from selling no real estate to growing sustainable business. And I think that's where Teams began to come in and provide that. You know, part of it was back in the day when the Rainmaker was making. You know, they had so many transactions coming in, they had to grow to support that, which. Which I think is true to some level. But if you're looking to grow and scale, at the end of the day, what you really have to do is provide support to an agent so that they can grow their business. And I think that's where the compelling argument for teams comes, is the focus on creating the systems and processes for the individual agent to truly grow their business and then give them the support and the culture behind that so they feel like they're part of something that's bigger than who they are. Right. And that's the way we've always viewed that. Right. We, yeah, we have two core focuses we operate under, which is simplifying your next move and elevating the experience. And so it's focusing on those two core focuses throughout the process and looking at it from the individual agent perspective, the consumer perspective, and our internal staff. And I think if we do that, we're serving the agent in a way that, as a team, provides what they need and what they want to grow their business. So I think it's going to continue to iterate. We're constantly looking at ways to say that we've never thought, hey, you know, we're a certain size. Should we just become our own broker? Yeah, of course we've thought of that, but we always go back to. To what end? And does this give us better levers to serve the agent consumer better? And to this point, it just hasn't. So we're going to continue to operate, you know, in the, you know, foreseeable future this way, but we'll continue to expand and grow it the best we can.

Because you're so instrumental in helping me organize these conversations. I would love for you, because this is going to be, I think, the second in the series and we've got several more coming. Give a little forecast to what people are going to. Who are they going to meet? What are they going to learn? You also already referenced a couple of those folks, but, like, what are you excited for people to learn by our going inside the team with you all?

Yeah, I'm excited to celebrate the people that never get celebrated. I won't say never, but internally we celebrate them, but outwardly, you know, it's usually George and I, you know, sometimes get the opportunity to have these conversations, but the others don't. Right. And they're really the Ones who actually make this thing work. Right. I get way more credit for how our team grows and expands these days than I should get because it truly is. You're going to meet Julia next. I think she really is the catalyst of how we've taken. Like I said, she started out internally as a transaction coordinator. I'll let her tell the story. But at the end of the day she has been integral just in simply getting follow up boss launched and how our agents use that system. So I'm excited for you to hear about how she thinks about things and how that works internally for us. You're going to meet the guy who runs essentially all of our lead generation platforms heavily into Flex. Former teacher, his name is Justin. Just a dynamic personality. You just can't help but love the guy and you know, really cares about the agents, you know, growing their business and really just a dynamic guy. And then Michelle, I'm excited for you to see, you know, and celebrate Michelle, who's our regional team lead who started, you know, as she was one of those that created that culture, that subculture and was, was doing a phenomenal job and has leveled up in the company and continue to do that. I'm, I'm excited for those people. And then, you know, Elise coming in, you know, new vp, like you mentioned, a new VP Ops, this sales and you know, what was, what was her thought process and making those decisions and I love hearing all that. And from their perspective, I think I know, right? So to me that's what's exciting is to, to be able to look back on the questions you're going to ask. But I also think it's going to be a huge value to the, to the person watching it because they're in the trenches, right? They're the ones actually doing it. And to hear their perspective on how they're leading agents, how they're growing, you know, operations, how they're looking at how we efficiently operate and function with leads and, and then looking at how it actually gets down to the agent and team level. Like you're going to talk to agents. Like we can stand up here and say that we do a phenomenal job, right? But is that true? So I'm excited that you're actually going to hear the people that experience what we're trying to do and hear their perspective and their, their view on it. So that, that's what's exciting to me.

Awesome. I'm excited about it too. I really appreciate all your help with this. I appreciate your time in this conversation before I let you Go. I usually close with three pairs of questions and people can answer one or the other. I've just kind of randomly selected one for each of you.

So.

So with you, what is your very favorite team to root for? Or what is the best team you've ever been a member of? Besides, this is all besides the law.

Oh, okay. I'll. So I mentioned I played. I played baseball through college. I was a sophomore in high school, and I was the youngest guy on the team by far. And we probably were probably one of the least talented teams that I'd ever played on, but we were a true team and we went the furthest that I'd ever been in the state playoffs. And it was because we had a group of guys on that team that it didn't matter what was going on off the field. As a matter of fact, I found out years later that a couple of those guys didn't even get along. But I never knew it. And we found a way to bond together and actually do something beyond what we even thought we could do because we just. We created this team environment and we trusted each other. And I always look back on that as, you know, how do I duplicate that internally? But yeah, that's probably the best team as far as a team goes. Outside of real estate I've ever been on is just a bunch of guys that got on a field, had fun together and trusted each other and we had a good time and it turned out to be successful.

Awesome. What a joy. Thank you so much, Billy. Appreciate you. And this was a joy for me.

Yeah, thanks, Ethan. I appreciate you coming in. And like I said, I'm just excited to see what the rest the of to the staff and agents too. It's going to be fun.

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