[SUMMIT] How Our Teams Create Growth Opportunities with Agents

Lead sources and lead distribution, recruiting funnels and agent avatars. Repeat and referral business threats and opportunities to the real estate team model. The Summit series continues with Renee Funk, Ken Posick, Jenny Weimert and Ben Lobby. Each shares the unique ways their teams are generating opportunities with agents, organic database, social content, ppc, Zillow and beyond. They share what they're most focused on in today's market. They explain how they define and make manage team culture. They look ahead to the future of real estate teams and more. The summit series continues 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.

Lead sources, pros and cons of different lead sources. You're all doing things a little bit differently. I guess we'll kick it off here. You know, we've established that you developed a very strong media presence, essentially via YouTube and other social channels. I assume that's your primary lead source. I assume it's primarily organic, but anything you want to share about your journey over the years of team building with regard to lead sources?

Yeah, I mean, early on it was, hey, come together, we're all going to prospect together. Expires for sale by owner's door, knock. And then I got to realize if I wanted to retain people, I needed to create some sort of source of them to stick around beyond that. And so, yeah, if you're training me.

To do it myself, I'll just go do it myself.

You just go do it yourself. Yeah, but you can hire a coach and accountability partner. You're good to go. So then it became, you know, let's, let's buy Zillow, realtor.com, pay per click, hire ISAs, all this kind of stuff, which became wildly unprofitable. And so I swung back the other way and I was just like, let's figure something else. So we started with content and YouTube became my thing and then it became the website, then short form and media and all that kind of stuff. So we have like 27 different sources of business now and we track everything back to the first source of when they found us. And so yeah, but majority of what we do is content marketing based at this point.

How did it become unprofitable? And have any of you gone down that road? Like, like what was unprofitable? Was it conversion rate? Was it just the increasing cost, like what was it that made it challenging to build around?

I think anything can work. But you know, we were trying to do everything at once. And so it was like Zillow takes time and conversion cycles are longer than I was willing to make it. And so then we try, we're like, let's do radio ads at the same time. And like that takes a really long time. And so I just mistakenly said, I've got some money set aside, let's just spend it. What I should have done is built a pillar and that's and kind of build on it from there, which is now what we've done.

Really good. How about you, Ben?

So we use primarily pay per click advertising through Ylopo as our main lead source. And I would say in reality the more important thing from just the lead source is really like the funnel that occurs and the leads experience after they enter the ecosystem. And that took forever ever to figure out and refine because it's almost different per lead source. So how we engage with a potential seller who's clicking on a cash now offer ad versus how we engage with a buyer in a specific community versus how we engage with an investor who's coming through bigger pockets, how we treat those customers and curtail the content and the follow up for those customers, that's really kind of what took us to the next level is once we had those steps defined.

When you say Ylopo pay per click, I think a lot of people have a sense of what you mean. Some people don't. I assume that it's Google and Meta, like Facebook and Instagram.

Yep. So they have social ads and Google PPC ads and then you can curtail the ads toward certain segments or target audiences, whether it's neighborhoods, zip codes, some demographics depending on the type of the ad.

So what I'm hearing is we can tailor ads with different calls to action, reach different people, target different people and we need to just make sure that we're matching up their experience from there in a unique way. How many different paths would you say you've developed as you started refining it to make sure that it was connecting with people and converting.

We used to have too many and we've narrowed it down. We used to have like 15 and we actually scoped it down because every different path also requires training for the sales team and the sales agents of like, how do you handle this customer? What do you say when you call them because you're saying something different to a potential seller versus an investor.

Are specific agents taking specific Lead types or do you just distribute it across kind of evenly so everyone's trained on all the different.

Yeah, definitely not evenly. Yeah. So we do it based on conversion rate and we also do it based off of their likes and interests because certain people would prefer a specific client type that they can interact with. They know how to handle them and that kind of thing.

How about you, Renee? I heard organic in our repeat referral.

I mentioned earlier that I work together with my husband. I do not take credit for this. I'm just really darn lucky I married. Well. In 2007, Jeffrey Funk created a website, realtyinorlando.com and went into a back room of an apartment we were renting at the time and started building that website by hand. At a time where everyone told him he was crazy, including his wife. Obviously it's one of his forever, I told you so because he was right. A large part of our business as a team over the years since then and to this day is sourced through our website, which is organically positioned. Over the last five years though, our business has branched out as far as sources that are relationship based. We have a lot of agent to agent referrals being notable in the industry and really helping agents stay lean and mean that you do not have to go out and buy leads. It's so easy for agents to come into the industry and hear shiny object. Certainly when you're at a level of a team leader that's built, it's perfectly acceptable to look at all different lead sources. But oftentimes agents hear that of others and think, I need to go do that. I need to do the ppc. When the reality is you don't. When you're aligned with a great team who's focused on building a database, protecting the content that's going out through email campaigns, and really honing in on those relationships, you can build a business lean and mean that lasts for your whole career.

Yeah, the term that I hear there a lot is like plug in. Yes, you could. You could go figure all this out. You could take the missteps, you could figure out that you don't have enough, or you have too many nurturing processes or sequences, or you could just plug into a proven system that works.

Right. And then on the distribution. Right. I think you and I have talked about this in previous podcasts before. Round robin is bs. Round robin is not good for the consumer. So we're more aligned with. What Ben is doing is identifying the passions, the skill set of an agent, and partnering agents up with the type of consumer who's hand raising and saying, this is what I'm looking at. Having a team that is not focused on road warrior type service, which is I can serve everywhere from Miami to Jacksonville, Florida. Perhaps if those two markets are your specialties. God love you though, being an agent who says, but I'll drive far if it's a certain price point. Point probably not going to be an agent. For the Funk collection, we're very focused on hyper local specificity. So if you say you live and work in Windermere and that is your area of passion, then you can deliver a higher level of service to the consumer that is looking for a home in Windermere.

Yeah. Really fair specialization to the degree that it's possible given the size of the team and everything is ideal, obviously. I mean why would anyone, especially at a particular price point that would attract someone to drive two hours away like they're making an even bigger purchase with a more ignorant person?

It happens a lot. I'm sure everyone here would attest to that. It happens a lot that agents will do that.

Yeah.

How about you, Jenny?

So we sold in 130 zip codes last year. So we have road warriors. No, we don't. My answer is going to be complicated, but I think it's important to go back. I was a farmer at the beginning as an agent, you know, you can generate easy, generate enough business for yourself without having to go to paid lead sources and so on. The reason I ended up in The Zillow and realtor.com game is because they came online 2008 ish 910 and gave the consumer the ability to do research now and see data and see other properties. And so I joined them for defense because I had farmed these communities. But now they're not just relying on my newsletter to get real estate information. They're going to Zillow and realtor.com so if they go to 32828 are they going to see my face on the, you know, the same face that they're seeing on the newsletter. And we're like, oh, she is the right choice. So it all started by playing defense. And then I bought into the zip code and it's producing leads and I was like, oh my goodness, this is wonderful. And then all of a sudden we have too many leads. And then we needed an agent. And then we had too many leads. We needed an agent. We're still in that a little bit. Where I think it is important to note that our business is 50% repeat referrals. So it Is not our only pillar. It's not our only game. It feeds the pipeline. It allows us to bring new agents in. It allows agents to go in, get a lead when they're down, and backfill their businesses. The challenge with that model, and it's changed over time. There's been the heyday of zillowandrealtor.com that it was a great return on our investment. You know, the testimonials, People would come and choose us to be sellers because they read our testimonials. And I mean, there was a heyday period there. Now it's changing a bit. Where Zillow and realtor.com want a little more control over our businesses, they want to make sure that, you know, the consumer is being taken care of because they're getting a bad rep because agents aren't answering the phone or, you know, they're not specialized in the area, whatever that may be. So we have to give up a little bit of control in that area. If you're on the lead team, you have to be much more accountable because we have metrics to hit now and you could lose the opportunity. Over time, we have gained the opportunity to become maybe the flex team in the top zip codes in Orlando or the VIP realestaterealtor.com leads. Basically, what just is happening right now, as we speak, these top teams are edging out the small guys. They can't buy those leads anymore. You have to join one of our teams to be able to get those leads. For the most part, you know, that has been earned over time. And we've stayed in business with those companies because there's no better leads. They're bottom of the funnel. They're calling on properties that are actively listed. They do feed the pipeline. For us, it works because we have the repeat referral and retention.

It's building a database and building a book of business for a growing team of agents.

Right then when you build the funnel. So those aren't our only two. We have several others. We have SEO behind us. We have website, we have farms still. We have our databases feeding. So we have a funnel of leads coming in every day from a lot of different sources, which are a huge challenge because you not only have sources that need specific updates and portal updates, and you know, you're counting on your agents to do that, which is challenging. So we have an admin a VA to do portal updates just to play the game. Distributing leads is difficult. It's hard to do. It's not equal. You know, it can't be we work a lot on trust where we teach the agents, you don't have to hoard leads, you don't hoard leads. It's a detriment to your business to have too many leads. Take the leads. If you have a 3, 4A buyers, go work them, you can come back and turn the lead source back on. You know, we also allow them to refer to each other within the team. So if, let's say they're on leads that day or they jumped for a lead or when a lead landed in their lab, somehow if they feel like I'm not a specialist in that area, I'm not a specialist. A short term rental, I'm not a land person, I'm not, you know, they can take the time to build a relationship with a client, convert them and then hand them to another agent on the team for a 10% referral. So essentially they become the ISA in the middle of that. Where, you know, we don't want to penalize them. And if we didn't do that, just human nature is like, that's not mine. I'm just going to ignore that lead. I'm just going to burn it. You know, it's where if they can spend the extra time to convert it and hand it off. We have found that to be successful.

So I hear, like culture and shared accountability is key to, you have to trust.

You're trusting these people with these big relationships too. And so one person could ruin it for all of us. And so it's important that we trust each other. And if they're going out of town, they shouldn't be on a lead shift that week or they shouldn't be down on the Zillow jump balls or whatever it may be. Just turn yourself off and then turn yourself back on when you're ready to take on new buyers.

We started doing that, we call it pausing yourself. And it's actually very alleviating for the agent because they feel like now all of a sudden they don't have to be on, they can actually control what they've got. When I introduced that, which it seemed at the time this was some novel thing, but now I hear a lot of people doing it. It was like, oh, actually the clients are going to get better service. The agent doesn't get overwhelmed. So that's like a really good point.

You know, throughout the years, been to a lot of team trainings and you know, they're like, our agents have to call three hours a day and they have to prospect. And I'm like, what if they have active buyers. I'd rather have them hunting for property, negotiating deals and opening doors or going on listing appointments. Because we, we provide the leads. I don't need them to continue to do that when they already have enough in their hands. Go work those and then when you get one under contract, come back to the well and open the door again. It's worked well for us. It is a beast though. We have some on jump balls. We have some on round Rob. We have some on a lead shift. Whatever comes in during that shift, they have to manage. Half of it's admin because people are calling, they don't know how to open doors on central lock. There's a whole bunch of. It's very complicated. It's super complicated.

Because you're all doing repeat referral business. Obviously tactically it's easy to say yeah, give them a great experience, stay in touch over time. What's something that you have trained your agents to do that is key to either providing such a great experience that repeat and referral is more likely to happen or following up well after the transaction in order to get that in a way that's maybe been earned? Give me a couple ideas on things that you learned in your own process of selling that is now something that your agents are learning to to do such that you can get repeat and referral business.

Ask for the referral.

When, like when do you know that it is okay?

All the time.

When someone says thank you.

Yeah, when someone says thank you, when you've delivered a good service and the customer says thank you, you should be asking for a referral. So hopefully multiple times throughout the transaction and post close.

And how it's asked for is key. Right? Because let's put it out there. Most agents don't like to ask, but that's because in our industry, the industry has trained us all to say, who do you know is looking to buy, sell or invest in real estate? That question is B.S. also, it doesn't work. When was the last time you asked that question you actually got an answer? It's probably few and far between because what is happening in that moment is you're putting the responsibility on the other individual to do your work for you. But rather when you think of we, you know, there's one family in mind that has transacted with the team many, many times. They currently live in Kings Point. They live on a golf course, they property with a sunset view and specifically came to the team on their fourth trade of a property to say, hey, we want to live on a Golf course with a sunset view. Now, when they talk to us and we see them and they say, oh my gosh, the kids have been in the backyard with the sunset view, the question can be, well, fantastic. So glad that you love that. Who else do you know that loves playing golf?

Right.

See, like, getting a referral is going wrong by many agents because they're trying to say, who do you know that's looking to transact when we know that most people don't transact a primary, what now it's getting closer to every 10 years. Why not just ask for a connection to someone else that's similar, who will then be an echo chamber to the great work that you did with them?

Really good.

I love the question, do you have any real estate plans this year that you'd like me to keep in mind while I'm out in my travels? You know, are you going to invest? Are you thinking about a condo on the beach or you thinking about upgrading? Because I may run across a buyer that would love your home or I may run across that perfect listing that you want me to keep in mind for you. Just asking the question, do you have any real estate plans this year? Is an easy question to ask if you're a realtor.

Yeah, I think for us it's. It's training our people that it's not a transactional one time, one and done. It's like, how else can we bring them into our community and stay in front of them with valuable information? And valuable information is not the house that I just sold. It's actual valuable information around the community and the community that they live and what's going on with the schools. And so anytime we can interject that, we do, we do use systems like fellow. So when people are looking for their homes for value, it's like, we don't automatically assume they want a list. It's just like, hey, I noticed you came through looking for your home's value. Just curious, like, have you done anything to your house? So I can kind of narrow that in for you. So get you the, the equity update that you're looking for. Oh, you're looking at selling. Okay, great. So we try to hit them a little. A little bit of content that's relevant and then also keep them real estate forefront as well.

Yeah.

And I also heard they're responding to their actual behavioral cues.

Yeah, yeah.

Not trying to sell them to your point. It's trying to get into curiosity. And being a consultant to. You're the keeper of the information. Because we use Fellow as well. And that's awesome. That's a great solution. However, it's a computer generated assumption of value that has a a massive swing on it, which is amazing for us.

Absolutely. It's a conversation starter.

Yes. We find those computer generated evaluations to be very helpful.

Yeah.

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From a team perspective, how do you keep your agents engaged with your past clients? One of our value propositions is the fact that we have a marketing director. So we will develop develop the program, whatever it is. So maybe it's like we're coming into St. Patrick's Day. We will create the cars, the Popeyes. The agents will go get the scratch off tickets and then they'll drop them off or mail them to their clients. We'll tell them what to do. We provide everything built ready to go. They just have to go do the work. You know, we will write the emails for Homestead reminders and they just have to go make the calls and see send them to the client. We do shared client experience stuff. So a couple weeks ago we did a we rented out movie theaters where each of the agents could choose how many tickets they wanted to purchase for their clients. But together it was easier to do than it would be to have one client party. So basically we just serve it up to them on a platter and then they just have to engage.

We do this, yeah, we do four community events a year and like we do it all for them. It's just like all they have to do is invite their people. So it's Easter event in the park, we have a thousand people show up and the whole thing is like how do we engage our, our clients? Not to just engage with us, but with each other.

Yeah.

And find community. And like one of the things that we found is that like when you move somewhere new, it's actually kind of lonely. And so how do we connect people? Like, oh, you're, you're a mom with kids. They're a mom with kids. You guys should get together or you like theme parks? They like theme parks. Let's get them together. And so we've done a 5k, we've done a brewery tour, we've done a whole bunch of other kind of things to kind of build that community.

Long term leverage, right?

Yeah.

Everyone's talking. We could all give a long list of what we're providing to give the agent leverage. Like social media, buyer, seller guides, events, all of those things. Those are all great reasons why agents should consider joining a team and take that leverage. Run with it.

What role have you carved out for yourself right now? Obviously it's changed a little bit. In our first part of our conversation, we talked about some of the market dynamics and how that's changing things around the business. I'm sure your day to day role, but like the process of building the team is one of you going typically from being a very high performing agent to taking off hats or that's the language I like to use around like, okay, I'm gonna now hand this over to somebody else. I'm gonna take this roll off, I'm gonna take that roll off. And now I'm like in my best role. You all have been doing it long enough that you've taken off a lot of hats and are probably in a role that really suits what you think is your highest value in your organization. Like, what does your role look like today?

CEO? Cmo? Coo? Like, my goal is to hire the COO this year and like actually work my way into cmo. I'd love to have somebody else running the company and just focus in on marketing and content.

Are you still in the field?

I sell like one to two houses.

A month as well that are $15 million.

I mean, sometimes, you know.

Yeah.

Talk about that process of finding a CEO.

We started with our, our network first and I had, I just put it on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and we had hundreds of resumes come in. Now I have a job of actually going through resumes and that kind of thing and so understanding that I'm not the greatest at that. I can hire creatives really well, I can hire agents really well, but I've not ever hired a C level kind of person before. We Hired a recruiter recently and so we've been going through that process trying to find somebody, but I was trying to hire somebody, somebody within the company first and I just didn't see that with who we currently have. So we're going outside.

Cool. What kind of role are you in and, or would you like to be in?

I'm taking a step back into like systems building because that's my strength and that's what I like to do the most. So revisiting like the fundamental structure of our business and operating procedures to see how we can provide a better customer experience through the shifting market. So that's my focus right now.

And are you producing?

Not really, no. Okay.

Left full time production. January 2021. You and I have chatted before on Team OS that it's a redefined version of what production can look like. So Jeff and I have about 10 to 20 top level, top advocate customers we keep in our database. But other than that, we're non compete team leaders. We don't take production credit in the MLS for our team members and we're here solely to help lift them as the team continues to climb from a current moment. Role as a team leader, you have to be malleable and under the hood is where I am right now. Support coaching training is key because we are literally looking at everything and saying pretend you knew nothing and start on day one regardless of how long you've been in the industry. But going under the hood and making sure that every email, every text, every single day system, every process is, is calibrated to what it's going to take moving forward is key. And whether you're a consumer or an agent, partnering with agents in the industry who have seen multiple seasons is critical. If you are with somebody that is an agent who just received their license, you better be darn sure that agent is partnered up with someone who's been around for many, many years to tolerate and navigate and help them thrive through, through what the industry is doing right now.

So is that a formal or semi formal like mentorship program?

Like are you pairing people up through the onboarding process? There is an eligibility phased approach. Right. Agents have tracks. So to I think everyone on the panel's point is a newer rising up agent is not going to be paired up with a consumer who is, you know, seeking a true experienced agent. And if it is an agent that's rising up, they're going to be partnered together with an agent who knows how to serve that moment. And sometimes that even over the last couple of months has been with Jeff or myself.

You both mentioned systems and like, like revisiting them. Is it because they worked for a season and we're in a different season so I need to revisit it or is it. I was so busy in 2021, I knew I wanted to fix this thing, but now I have a little bit more mental space for it. Like what systems or processes are you looking, looking at and why Action plans.

Is big Action plans. And I've mentioned it a couple times about emails, text. Every word that is being used right now matters because there's a sea of sameness that's going on with agents where agents, whether they're using ChatGPT or they're just using some old language in the industry, it's not going to cut it. So looking at everything going on in our action Plans is key.

We're building a talent acquisition funnel is the big thing. How are we going to acquire agents and more and better staff and what that process is like? So really having it documented out and having it break down step by step.

How about you, Jenny? Like what role are you in today and. Or are you looking to change or evolve it in any way?

Yeah, that's a loaded question because am I going to go play pickleball or am I going to ramp back up and build something? Yeah, no, I think that, I mean, that's a real question. I'm too young. I gotta get to 55 so I can be the homecoming queen of the 55 and older community. But besides that, I am team mom, you know, so I very much in tune with what the agents are doing. If you read the book Rocket Fuel, I'm kind of the innovator and then Emily is sort of the implementer. So together, you know, we're, we're constantly looking at how to improve things, you know, what are we missing, what do we need to add, what do we need to fix? So we're in the weeds a little bit on the systems firefighter. You know, I help the agents solve problems in transactions and help them price when they get stuck. Call sellers, call brokers, that type of thing. And teach. I just, you know, I teach and coach.

You mentioned like a, like a recruiting funnel, both for staff and for agencies. Do you all have like a formal system for that already?

I mean, yes. We've got our careers page that goes right into our CRM and it gets tagged as if they were a lead. And then it goes over to either our director of growth or my assistant, depending on what we're looking to Hire and then there's a follow up system and process for each person.

Yes, Careers page as well. And though the funnel approach is going to depend on the avatar. So for example, I do a career event once a month which is on zoom and it allows those who are raising their hand to come into a group like setting and learn about the opportunity. Those that are at a level where they want a one on one, they can automatically come through and schedule with me personally. But really creating a few different pathways for agents has been key. Not everybody wants to meet one on one. Not everybody wants to have a zoom, not everybody wants to have a phone call. So providing different opportunities based on the agent's preferences is the way that we found success.

I approach recruiting sort of how I approach my business. From the beginning. I always wanted to be a marketing agent where people called us, where we didn't have to call them. I'm not a prospector. I don't even know how to teach prospecting. We do things on purpose to put out information about our team kind of so that the community feels our culture. They get a feel for what we do, how we feel about the clients. And so. So it's more of an attraction model than a prospecting model. But we do have the career page as well.

So for anyone who heard that Jenny is not a prospector, you need to go back to the first part of the conversation here. Talking about dragging a wagon.

Yeah, that's right.

I don't know if we call that prospecting, but that's like.

That's out there.

That's out there.

Yeah. Nicole calling the scripting.

No, no, no.

But prospecting, that was marketing to me because I was doing the neighborhood, the newsletter, meeting people. That was marketing to me.

Was she which any mentioned though as well in terms of like putting stuff online with successes from your team. That's probably the best and biggest way that we get people that want to join us is when I take one person a month on my team and like tell a story about them, not how great we are now. It's a literally this person on our team crushes it. They're a mom of two and yet they're still able to sell five houses a month. And like here's how they've done it. That makes sense. Phone ring every time.

That's good. I had the chance to deliver a presentation on how agents can find the right team or brokerage and how teams and brokerages can find the right agents to fit essentially an agent avatar type of conversation. One of the gaps I Specifically talked about closing was that like, turn it into it, like at the end of all these steps, turn it into a promise statement. We're designed for blank headline of an avatar with at least two or three proof of efficacy statements behind that. Let me tell you about one of them. So and so and so and so. Like, so, like that's it. I mean, it's just evidence of our claims.

Yeah.

How much of the market is affecting your production and how much can you just plain out muscle the market? Like a lot of people say, like, well, the market conditions don't matter. You know, I can grow 50% if I just do the right things and I just muscle my way through it. I think the reality is somewhere in the middle. I've heard people like, you know, I can do whatever the heck I want. And then there are other people that of course are a little bit more, I don't know, victims of the situation in their own minds. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I'd love for you to talk about that, however you're experiencing that right now.

I've said so much.

I've always, I feel like we can muscle our way through it. Are we affected by the market? Yes. As far as units go, we were down last year, but volume held and volume was up. So we can fix this with more agents and a higher conversion rate and getting more on purpose about our leads and pulling in our budget. It may not look like it and top line numbers, but bottom line, we're fine. Even when the market went to, I mean, in 2007, I was selling $18,000 condos for 2% and I'm like, throw it in the boat, throw it in the boat.

I had three of those.

I triple my volume that year, but you just muscle through it. So yes, I do believe we can muscle through it because we, we know what we're doing.

Well, that speaks to experience and seeing many different seasons in the industry and in the markets. Right. Say the same is this is opportunity. If there's a narrative or negativity going on in a direction, the agents who will thrive are the ones that are going to literally ignore it and go the opposite direction, period. What do we see in 2025 as a team? We see incredible opportunity, unfortunately, because there are a lot of people who are in their own head and there are some who won't acknowledge it may not be as rosy as it was the last few unicorn years, but it's absolutely possible. One of the more. And this may be more tactical, but if we look Specifically in database. Right now what we're seeing as a team is we categorize hot, warm nurture. However, abc, however you categorize in our database it's hot, warm nurture we're seeing even though we use warm, which is a three to six month timeline likelihood, almost no client is an actual warm stage. With more curiosity, what we're doing with that warm stage as agents is we are leaning in to find out are they a nurture or are they a hot. It is like a fence. So that is a skill set agents are going back to rediscover is how do you go into curiosity with the people in your database and say, well you, you once articulated the following, but now let's go a little deeper and find out how specific that timeline is. And we're finding that that has been a great sort.

I think you just have to be focused in a season like this, especially when now there's so much more noise in the world and in our market. And so maintaining that focus and deciding what you're going to focus on makes a big difference on whether you're going to grow or you're going to retract. And it's so much easier to be distracted than it was five years ago.

Stay in your lane. Right? Know what you're good at and stay there.

That's good. Yeah, for us I feel like as long as there's home selling, we're going to try to take market share. And so like I think that yeah, it's harder today than it was but and it's also different. And so like last year when the commission conversation was coming out, I was like, you know what, if things really get effed up, we need to be very listing based. And so we're super buyer based right now in terms of the content and like the call to actions and the moors that we have. Like let's, let's shift to listings. And so we started putting out more listing based content and that started bringing in more listings but then listings are taking longer. And so it's all these new skill sets and we're just constantly looking at like what's actually working. Let's lean into that. Okay, now that's not working as great. Let's, let's shift. We have a test bucket where we're like, hey, let's try some stuff that maybe we don't know if it's going to work and that's okay. But yeah, we like I'm in the full mindset that like every year we're going to Grow and so far, so good.

So you can. It's a little both, but mostly adapt for the season, stick to the plan, revise plans as necessary, keep going and repel any.

Yeah, buts. Yeah, yeah, but is going to be key to. You're not agile and you're not open to be coachable.

Yeah. And that's your. Your mindset piece of, like, what are we focusing on? The other one I wanted to go to was culture. And, you know, obviously you refer to rocket fuel or, you know, traction or whatever. Like, whether you're doing that formally or not, certainly one of the steps is being very clear on your vision, your mission, your purpose, your values, etc. Some people are very formal about that, and other people, it's more of a vibe, you know, and let's protect it. This person, this person supports it, this person doesn't. Where are you on the scale of like? This is super fundamentally important. We've heard both on this show. More to the like. It's super important and it's been key to our success. But I've also had, you know, on the other end, you know, it's just a thing, you know, we're here to do business. We do it a consistent way. You know, we've got some standards you would identify. I mean, you're just going to identify culture regardless. I mean, I would argue that cultural exercises are like branding exercises. You're trying to influence it, but it's ultimately up to your agents to carry the culture. The agents do carry the culture. Just like our consumers define the brand, all we can do is seek to influence the way that they would define or think about or talk about the brand. You know, I don't know whether it's a scale of 1 to 10 or whatever, but, like, you know, culture. How formal and important has it been to you?

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It's everything for us. We train culture, we preach culture, we teach it. Like we remind them constantly of the power of the team. So we have a couple of things that we do on our team. One, we're we merge, right? So we call ourselves we mates and that sticks. But that doesn't just mean, you know, it's not just a fun word. Actually, we mate stands for something in our world and it's we never I. And then the M stands for masters of our craft. We want experts. A is accountable for our actions. We're going to say when we do something wrong, if we do and fess up to it. T is teachable spirits, E is elevate others. So we're going to take care of each other and take care of our partners and take care of our co brokers. We live by those standards and we remind the agents constantly that that is what we want a we mate to stand for. Which is kind of funny because I'll get calls from, you know, friends out in the industry and they'll be like, I just dealt with one of your agents, you and she wasn't being a very good we mate. And I'm like, oh gosh. So okay, what's going on? So that's important to us and we will have bad days, but you know, if we elevate each other and we assume the best in each other, we can get through those. And then we also have something called Ubuntu. Ubuntu means I am because we are. And so on our team, if somebody's helping each other or they, they supported each other in one way or another, they'll be like, hashtag Ubuntu. And that just reminds everybody that we are stronger together, we are building this brand together, that we are winning because somebody else won last week from the team.

I love that. Yeah, I'll go next.

Culture.

So culture, I think for us it's everything as well. Like it's who, it's what we hire to, it's if we decide to stay in business with you or not. For us, we do feel like we're undergoing this kind of like we said for the longest time, we're a family and, and we have family get togethers, we go to dinners together. But like, I want that family atmosphere. But we're really not a family because, like, I'm stuck with crazy uncle. Maybe I don't want to. Right. So we're shifting into more of an elite team. And I've heard this said a couple times online and we've kind of adopted it. So for us, sometimes we're. We're trying to hire to that elite kind of team. Are you an elite team member that you're going to stick around? We'll keep veterans. Even if you slow down, it's okay. Like, we'll put you on the veterans contract and you'll hang out. But like, for us, like, we're trying to build that super bowl winning team and that's what our culture is about.

Like formal value statements and things.

Just that hungry, humble career, curious and smart. And if you're going to stick around, that's. You got to exemplify all four.

Cool.

We, we started with a saying in the beginning when we launched the team, which was my. Is like my personal mantra, which is like to constantly evolve, so we constantly want to grow and get better at our craft. And so we've gone through that as like the leading source for the first two, two and a half years. And then more recently, it's more so where I'm reevaluating that to see how can we more formalize different aspects of our culture so that we can use them in our standards for recruiting and attracting new talent. So we're kind of going through that transition period of really defining, you know, what our values are when it comes.

To the service we provide in the community. There's a North Star and it's what's best for the customer. That question alone has been at the forefront even before the team existed, when it was just Jeff and I. And then you get into the next layer is, okay, well, we're a bunch of team leaders sitting here and it's important to say, well, what's best for the agent experience so that the agent has the ability to put focus on what's best for the customer. A lot of years, a part of our model was to, you know, be very heavy on metrics around phone calls. And I found as a team leader, it almost put us in a position where we were, you know, not. Not a whip, but you feel like you're whipping. Like, was it enough calls? What enough calls? Let's look at the leaderboard.

Right?

And actually it was at Fubcon in 2023, as a speaker at Fubcon, I stood in front of that room of what, 2,000 team leaders and I made a proclamation that I was never going to ask another real estate agent to make a phone call again. Because that type of metric within a culture of a team, number one, feels like table stakes. If you're in this team, a part of the culture is we're here to grow, thrive, serve the community. So standing in that room saying I'm never going to ask an agent to make a phone call again and this is why big move. Still stand by that though, when we look at culture each year, asking the agents, what does culture mean to you? I'm a team leader. It's not my position to say we have good culture. Just like I don't put on social media or put out into a marketing message that we're a trusted team. The consumer chooses if we're trusted, the agent chooses if and what culture means to them. So just like vision and other things we've talked about here today is having that reset gut check every single year is what does it mean to you to make sure this culture of what we're building is important and it's happening in the way you want it to. That in itself defines the culture that continues to be on the team.

I love that the ad there of like you can go out and tell the market how much integrity you and your team members have, but the more you declare it, the less sincere or even honest it feels. This is why we use the word experience, agent experience or customer experience or consumer experience. They're things you demonstrate and they feel, then they think it and then hopefully they say it and behave in accordance.

And it can be in testimonials, it can be in the testimony of the consumer and the agent. It's not something that comes from a team leader to be proclamated.

Yeah, future of the team model. Obviously they've been emergent over the past 30 years. They've been on a rapid come up the past eight to 12. Will that momentum continue? Will it be a bigger like, you know, I think most of us would agree that it'd be very difficult for a new agent to enter the business into a traditional brokerage without some of the support that a team provides. But like what do you think is, is the future of the team model in general? You can take it any direction you want.

I think we're going to see more consolidation. Like we're already getting teams that are either not profitable or just kind of tired and just unsure that are reaching out. Can we merge with you? Can we join you? And I think that teams are just going to continue to get bigger and take more market share. And I agree with you. Like the individual agent's going to lose out just because it's just how do you keep up with juggernauts that are just kind of built their own thing? So that's where I see it going.

So you think like a proper mid market enterprise that has 2,000 agents dominating a region?

I don't see why not.

Okay, well it already exists. I'm just wondering that's going to be more normal.

Yeah, I mean I look at like and I think the team bridge model is actually probably the most profitable and the most dangerous to disrupt a lot of the other stuff that's going on because it's either you have a lot of lower end producers and there's a ton of them, or you've got really great services and culture and like I think market share that you can dominate. And I think that that's actually the model that's going to be really interesting to watch.

Yeah, but then you, you know, then you're. And you're a broker, you know, getting sued all the time.

So that's not fun.

Well, I mean I think that's the.

Biggest hurdle for a lot of folks, you know, when they look at the like, should I go independent? I think the brokerage piece itself is the biggest. Like you've been at it for how long now?

It's 2016.

Okay.

So 10 years basically.

How, how real is that?

If people ask me that all the.

Time, I'm very curious, Jenny.

People ask me all the time.

Me too.

Yeah, Yeah. I would say if to do it again, I would do it again. But we left Keller Williams. We had 45, age 45 of us at the time. So we just picked up and we opened a brokerage and it was successful because we had enough people. The reality is though, when you leave that environment, you know, if we don't have somebody to cover an open house, we don't have somebody to cover an open house. Like I can't stick my head out the door and like recruit from the other KW agents or the exp agents that are out in that brokerage. That was a piece that we missed. The other thing is we are virtually invisible to the new agents. So the new agents are going to, you know about the exps, the Coldwell bankers, the remaxes. Brand new agents, don't know who weamer group realty is. Experienced agents in the market know us and will be attracted to us and it's easier to recruit. But the new agents we're, we're like invisible to them. So recruiting is difficult. And if you're a small team, it is hard to have a big enough value proposition to be able to grow a brokerage. Your value proposition is built over time and shared leverage and shared experiences. I wouldn't open a brokerage unless I was just going to be a mom and pop. Just me and maybe one or two people, or I'm coming with a large group already. I wouldn't do it. Trying to grow a brokerage from scratch. No way. I think we're going to see a lot of consolidation just because of all of the lawsuits and nobody wants to write those big checks. But I don't know.

Here we are, Jenny, out there we are.

We're not big enough yet. If we keep growing, it's going to.

We could be future of teams, future of teams or team ridges.

The first thing I think of with that question is the need for the industry so NAR especially to step up and recognize what a team actually is and what it means not just to the industry, but to the consumer. Teams have revolutionized the service level that consumers receive. Teams are making it possible to help agents lift them up. Right. And say, don't worry, you're not experienced yet. Come with me. Instead of being out alone. It's a shame that NAR hasn't picked up to create some real space where teams can have true identification within the membership, that the MLS still have such discrepancies there. So maybe it's a wish list. But I do wish that our realtor boards and our NAR association would come together and say, we recognize the power of a team. Teams will continue to thrive. The teams that are smart and focused on, you know, we've touched a little on profitability. Profitability needs to start the moment someone has a real estate license. Not enough people will tell a new agent, turn off the shiny object syndrome, put your blinders on and just go forward. So those kind of conversations are not happening as frequently enough, early enough, but they do happen within teams. And that's why you see teams continuing to grow and help other agents grow.

It's interesting when you say nars. I mean, it's almost punitive when you look at. It is when you look at, oh, you're a team. Oh, like this is. We're revolutionizing what we're doing in 2025.

If that.

If that topic came up even five years ago. Right. And certainly 10 years ago. But why is it that in 2025 we don't have true space within the MLS to have an organization to actually have space around another underbelly with teams is there's no true protection. If we call it what it is to team agreements. Every single one of a team agreement is the team leader will honor it. Outgoing team members, that's a whole other story. And there's no protection to us within the association whatsoever. You have that as a brokerage. Teams don't. That's an underbelly often not talked about.

No, I certainly haven't heard that in my seat in this production. I've certainly heard like I was in this brokerage and it was just a chore because they made it really difficult to blah, blah, blah. And you know, that's a story from, you know, 15 years ago inside a brokerage that still maybe isn't as team friendly as some of the other ones. But that piece I had not heard yet.

But overall teams are. They'll continue to thrive.

Yeah. Any thoughts to add, Ben?

I think there's a need in the marketplace for teams. I just, I'm curious to see the development as what the large brokerages will do because they can typically implement enterprise level benefits at scale across an entire brokerage. And so that makes it kind of hard to compete with them as a team or as an independent brokerage. And so it'll be interesting to see if that gap in the service offering between certain brokerages and teams becomes larger over time.

Well, not all brokerages are conducive for teams.

That's true too.

Well, in the brokerages to provide those top level services to be shared are going to have to change their split. So the 100% companies can't be 100% and provide all these.

No, it's either or.

Right. So the teams have a margin built in for that to be shared. In the broker world, it's just, you know, the agents are just keep wanting more and more and more and more and they want the split and they want the services. So how that's got. That's gotta change too.

Yeah. That's what I hear the most about the attraction of teams is like you can design your model in a way that allows you to provide to agents what you want to provide in a way that still gives you some margin on it and works for everybody and do it independently. You could, you have even more flexibility than I think probably anyone else does. I've certainly heard people going independent specifically because the way they were aligned and this, you know, large team they've built didn't support the speed or flexibility that they needed to go forward.

Yeah, it's nice being able to pivot quickly.

Well, I appreciate all of you so much. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day. This was not a small commitment on any of your part. I hope you found something useful and enjoyed about getting together. I appreciate you all making this happen.

Thanks.

Thank you for the collaboration.

Yeah, if you missed the first part of our conversation with Jenny, Ben, Renee and Ken, it's just a few episodes back and it's linked up right down below in the description. Be sure to check that one out. Next up in the Summit series are Emily Smith of Wiemer Group Realty and Gio Sanginessi of Posit Group and they walk us through in detail end to end how their teams recruit onboard and retain their best agents. Get episode alerts and Instant access to eight Subscriber Only episodes. Head over to realestateteamos.com subscribe thanks again so much for checking this one out. I hope you're enjoying this Summit series format.

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