Talking Team OS - Week One (Gary Ashton, Debra Beagle, Tom Ferry)

Hi, everybody. This is Stacey Soleil, head of community at Follow Up Boss. And I am very excited to dive in with my friend Lisa Vo. Lisa. Lisa Vo. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Yeah. So happy to be here. Good to see you again, Stacy. So I am president of Simply Close, so I run a Follow Boss consulting company. I am also in a different role as director of technology with one Home Colorado team. So I do a lot of mod squad stuff and kind of help with community, and so, so happy to do this video with y'. All. Awesome.

Yeah, I know that, you know, when I was thinking about who to dive into a conversation with, you definitely were one of the first people that popped to mind because you are an extremely organized and process oriented human. And so when I was looking at the episodes from Gary Ashton, Deborah Beagle, and Tom Ferry, there's definitely this theme and undercurrent of preparedness and getting organized with what you're doing to grow and optimize your business. So I was really glad that you raised your hand because you're the perfect person to have these conversations with. Yeah. So listen, when we were kind of talking about the different episodes, when it came to the very first podcast that was launched with Team os, Gary Ashton, you had mentioned that the metaphor that he mentions about the tennis ball machine, that. That really resonated with you. So I will kind of start there, you know, because when you have too many leads, it is kind of like that tennis ball machine where something's just coming at you first, slow, and then all of a sudden it's like crazy coming after, and you're just trying to hit it and hit it and hit it. Um, let. Let's talk a little bit about that. Like, how did, how did that resonate with you and, and kind of. Why did that strike a chord with you?

Yeah, I mean, I got licensed and I was a single agent for a while, and it was just like what Gary was talking about, right? You have these leads that you would catch and you could put it in your pocket and you could handle it. Right. And it would slowly grow. Right. And that's what we call growing and scaling. As you go through the business and you're like, what is growing and scaling? What does that look like? What happens when there's 20 balls coming at me and I can't them all, right? And so at some point you start pivoting and start questioning, like, should you continue being a team? You know, I mean, a solo person, should you consider going on to a team, hiring an Assistant, Is it still a solo agent? Like, what are all these different models out there? And I think when you come to that point, if you're prepared and mentally know that at some point you won't be be able to handle all that business and what does that look like? What are the different options and kind of planning that out? I think that's why it resonated with me so much because that's teams form, right? Out of necessity, at some point you either planned it or you were forced into it because you had so many leads and you need help.

Yeah. And I always thought it's really interesting when you think about when you do drop, like, let's say that there's opportunity and you know, you have a ton of people that are, you know, looking to buy or, or, or if you're fortunate enough to have a ton of people that want to sell. But like, how you make those decisions, Right? Like, how do you decide who gets your attention and who doesn't? Right. I mean, for you, when you were finding yourself juggling, I mean, how are you making those decisions?

To be honest, to begin with, it was very reactionary. It was just whoever wanted my time and attention. Right. Just like an email that just comes right in. It just came up at the very top of my list. So I'm just going to attack it because it only takes me a few minutes. And I didn't have an organized structure. I didn't have, I guess, follow boss in my system at that point. But once I got that and into play, I could organize and like, ok, okay. And I use Elena system now. Right. The hot, warm, cold, like how far out are they from transacting? Like, it doesn't stop me from having that conversation with them if they pick up the phone and call me. But I'm not proactively going and calling everyone on my list every single day. I'm organizing them into buckets. Right. And it's almost kind of like our task list. I'm very much an operator integrator. So I have a checklist of things to do and I mark them off based on urgency, priority. And that's kind of how you have to treat your clients as well. Right. Just because someone's ready to list doesn't mean that they have to have their photos scheduled today, house clean today, because they're not ready for the next year. Right. So they go a little bit on the bottom of the list and you still check in with them once a month. Like, hey, how are things going? Here's a checklist. For you to follow while we're waiting in between. So it's almost like dating as well. Right. Like you don't want to push someone whenever they're not ready. You're working with their time frame. And so that's how I kind of see like my leads and my clients too.

Yeah. You know, it's funny because when you think about, you know, we do need to categorize and organize on the back end, you know, understanding where our time is going and how it's most wisely used for making sure that your, your activities are truly productive activities because you can be super busy and then at the end of the day you're like, I don't actually know what I did. I mean, how many of us can relate to that? And that by definition is, is when you're, you're keeping busy but not necessari productive.

Right.

And so I think one of the things that I always wonder is how do you go through effectively to categorize, organize and delegate your time so that you are giving your energy to the right people at the right time, but making the client feel like they are the priority every single time. I think there's an art form there that is some have the gift of mastering and many, many are trying to figure out how to do that. Because at the end of the day it comes down to how you were making people feel, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's goes down an entire different path right there. You know, we're talking about the tennis ball machine, right. And, and talking about, you know, juggle, juggle, juggle, and how to keep it streamlined. But then at the end of the day, what come down to how, how did that, how our actions or our inactions ended up making someone feel? Yeah, I mean, have you ever accidentally made somebody feel bad?

Yes, unfortunately. And at that point you just have to be humble and apologize like you didn't mean to miss their email or respond, you know, in a late form or fashion. Fashion. So just being human about it. Right. Like we only have so many hours in a day and at some point as a team leader, own solo agent, you have to recognize like, you know, hey, maybe I need somebody come in and you know, help me with emails. Just managing my emails. And I remember there was a follow up summit a couple years ago that was all digital online. I stay glued to my computer and watched all of that because it really showed you the power of how to utilize virtual assistants or you know, outsourcing things. Right. So there's two things. It's either people or systems. Right. And one of those two things are going to help you with your business. And I love what Gary was talking about with the team. Like when you have too many leads, you bring on more agents, right? You want to hoard it for yourself, keep everything for yourself. And that's how you grow and scale as a team. So it's very much the same whether you're an operations person or an admin. Even some admins need additional admin help, whether it's somebody else in the office that's helping them with those tasks or hiring an assistant for your admin. So those are things I think that teams should really expand on. I really love Jeff McGongle and his team, what he's doing. So he's basically as a top producer and you get too busy. The team team is helping them hire a virtual assistant to help those top producers. So I think it's a trickle down effect. You as a team leader start building something great and then you bring on other agents alongside with you and coach them and train them. And at some point you need a whole backbone support system to make that whole operations run efficiently, perfect.

And talk about segue right there. Because when you talk about operations. So in the episode with Deborah Beagle, now, Deborah Beagle actually is part of the same broker bridge with Gary Ashton. They, they run ReMax Advantage in Nashville. And she is much like you and you know, she's just a systems and operations guru. Right. And she was talking a lot about, and I think, I think you had mentioned that you really resonated with when she was talking about. When you're looking at your ISA team, it's, it's, it's not just for handling the leads that you're buying, but it's also about consistency. And so let's talk consistency, because I know that that's something that is a stickler for you is figuring out how do we maintain consistency? And I'll tell you what. Consistency in full transparency, I wrestle with consistency. So let's, let's chomp on the bit there.

Yeah, no, I agree. So she had talked about it's not just about handling the leads that you're buying, but it's the consistency part of things. Meaning when you have an ISA in place, it's somebody that's consistently following up with those leads. Right. A lot of times we will make that one phone call and then completely forget about that client and never follow up with them again. Right. And they were ready to go. They were probably right in that line and they were waiting for you to make the next step. And you just never close that deal. You never take that next step. So that ISA team is going to make sure, you know, those tennis balls like Gary was talking about doesn't fall through the cracks. Right. And I think it was, you know, Travis Halverson, you know, he's a fantastic isa, right. And so he talks about what we call the warm handoff. Right. So the consistency is following up and talks to that client how we make them feel, making they feel like they have VIP treatment that we haven't forgotten about them. We remember about their cat, Ginger. Right. And their third kid that just had a birthday last week. And when you make those relationship, relationship and relational connections and you warm hand off it over to an agent that will take them through the finish line. That's the beauty of having an ISA in your team and making sure that everything at every point, every person in your database is getting touched at the right time with the right message.

Yeah. And I think that it was Deborah that was also saying that when you think of your isa, I mean, they truly are an extension of your real estate agents entirely process an entire being. And if you were to put them together and make sure that they're really connecting with the agents that they're serving, finding a way to really understand the psyche and like, what's, what's the driving factor? Like, what is the strength of the agent that I'm serving? What are the weaknesses, you know, so that you can kind of stand in the gap and identify, like, okay, if we know that the weaknesses fall into the XYZ categories, well, we know that we have to double up and ask the, the ISA to stand in the gap in those areas and maybe turn up the volume. Right. So that we're creating a really balanced effect. And I think that's really, really helpful because we can't be all things to all people. You know, we can definitely figure out where our superpowers are, but having a strong, strong ISA makes all the difference.

Now here's.

Here's something I was curious from your perspective because, you know, there's ISAAC programs out there and then there's hiring your own ISA internally. Now, there's some folks that swear by using a system that is ISA focused, and then others want a dedicated. What's your opinion on that?

It. I want. I want to say it depends. And I think, Gary, you touched on this as well. It depends on your motivation. It's almost like picking a brand. Right. Your operations is very different than how our operations runs. Right. So for Us specifically here at One Home Colorado. For us, it's in house. Right. We like the personal touch. We like having somebody walk into our office. Being able to smell, you know, what the office smells like and you know what the carpets look like. It's a very different experience, you know, like, you know, when I go to Disney, it's the same thing. I love going to see the castles with the princesses, the whole nine yards. It's a very different experience than if I were to watch, you know, just a documentary on Disney on tv. So for us, having an in house is very much like that. They are part of our culture. We can see and talk to them on a daily basis and it's that consistency of having that office culture. What is our branding? What do we stand for? We love that our ISA is local and can know that there's a 711 down the street around the corner from that house that you're looking for, you know, five miles down the road. Right where I think sometimes you can lose that with overseas. Me wrong. I love, you know, assistants and ISA companies and things like that. I use them myself, but it's a different correlation, relationship, connection. And it just really depends on what you're building. I think starting out budget wise and having those in place already for you not having to figure it out is fantastic. When you hire someone inside, you have to be ready to train them, walk with them and it may take six weeks to six months to fully ramp up somebody who. And you may not know if they're really a right fit for the ISA program. Right. So challenges with both. But again, it really depends on your operations and what you're looking for in the long run.

Yeah, I remembered it was one of our masterminds, I want to say it was maybe our mastermind that we had in San Diego. And Rachel Chu, she works with the Kyle Whissel team, was talking about, I believe, and I hope I'm not misquoting, but I believe what she was saying was I never hire an ISA that wants to be an agent. I hire ISAs that just want to be an Isaac. And I thought that was a really interesting perspective because you, over the years of being in the industry, I would more often see people coming in as brand new agents and the owner saying, hey, listen. Or the team lead saying, hey, you're going to start off by hitting the phones, you know, doing the cold calls, like work your way up the ladder basically. And you're going to start off this way as an, as an isa. And I want to say that in the early days, we didn't even have a label for it. It wasn't an isa. It was just. Just cold calling. It was just a part of the job. That's just what you did. And I remember that that was sort of the. The low totem pole. You got to do the dirty work. But the funny part about it is, when you talk to ISAs now, today, most of them will say no. It's opposite. The most important conversations are at the very beginning. And it takes a very special talent to be able to. To overcome objections in the moment as you're having a conversation. Because more often than not, people are prepared with what? Not interested? No, I want to hang up the phone. So it takes a certain skill set to be able to walk people through that or know what to say instead of, you know, falling into some stereotypical script that we've all heard and we've all go, no, I'm not interested. Thank you. Unsubscribe, click. Right. So, yeah, I thought that was really interesting. So don't hire an ISA that wants to be an agent. Now, what's been your experience with that? Have you. Do you typically have agents that start off doing the cold calls and then.

Kind of lean into becoming an agent.

Or what's been the practice for you?

Yeah, we've tried that method where we took one of our agents, put them in that role, and it was mainly a band aid. They can be really good about it, but again, like, their desire is to go out there and close deals. Right. And that's the agent mentality. So we are actually in the middle of hiring for an ISA right now and going through that process. So we're looking for people who have been in that role or really love sales. Right. And just being on the phone and just overcoming those objections that you're talking about. And so what we're doing now is like phone interviews and actually like, role playing with some of these ISAs as they come in, listening to their past phone calls and how they keep the conversation moving. Right. Like you said, it is a magical skill to have, and that's what we're looking for. So we're taking our time to hire that perfect person, because it is a lot of time and energy to put that into place and then bring them into our culture to find out that they're not, you know, really a good fit. But I think that is the great starting point is if they know what an ISA is, if they've done their research or, you know, they can show other skills in the past of how they've done that in other roles, I think that's a really good start. So they may not need to necessarily have ISA experience, but you can tell that person has it after talking to them. Them.

Yeah. I remember Deborah saying that some of the best candidates for isa, for the ISA role might be maybe they were in insurance sales, maybe they were in car sales. And I'm going to add one more in there from my experience, my friends who when they were younger went and served on a mission and they were door knocking and sharing the word of their faith, they learned some strong objection overcoming skills and a lot of grace and empathy. So I'm also going to put in another vote for anybody who's done some hard line work there because those make some amazing salespeople.

So you add on to that hospitality as well. So. Yeah. Or someone working at restaurants. Right. Cashier, things like that.

Especially Chick Fil A.

Right. They always say my pleasure. They have a culture that's really ingrained in them. So it's serving the people and I think you need to have that heart.

Yeah. So that's really, really an interesting. Like, I love how naturally the segue is going because I wanted to talk about Tom Ferry's episode and one of the things that he had mentioned was when you're trying to like, figure out what you're going to be putting out there as far as the expert of authority, you know, like what are all the touch points that you are, are utilizing when something goes wrong? You know, are you, are you making sure that you create videos that, that solve for all of these things and all of these stages proactively? So I, I'm just curious, you know, because most agents don't do that, do they? They, they're not reverse engineering, you know, the, the process. And I'm. You, you mentioned to me your, you, you guys are all Tom Ferry folks inside your organization, isn't that right?

Right, we are, yeah. My team leader, Steve, he is a Tom Ferry elite coach and he, you know, we use Phil Jones in our voice and our language for everything. So we're really big on Tom Ferry and you know, everything he's doing, he's fantastic, I think with his coaching and yeah, basically when you have these problems come up day to day as an operational thing, just record a video and stop that from happening in the future. So, you know, specifically, like I said, I do a lot of deals management. Right. Transaction management inside. Follow up, boss. So what I did as part of my introduction was here's the journey Right. It's a four or five step process. Right. These are the milestones, which is, you know, deliver your deposit, your earnest money, then have an inspection, then we're waiting for appraisal, then we're waiting to close in the very simplest form. That's what we do in a real estate transaction. Right. And so you can take that a little further and put it in a nice little infographic as someone's visual. And then if you'd like to just do a two minute video talking about that process. Right. That will save you a lot of headaches. You already set the expectations of what's happening, what I'm going to do and what your role in. Is it as a buyer or seller? And you just get less and less, I guess like problems along the way because you already set those expectations, they know what to. What's happening next.

Yeah. Who I think we were talking once with, I was, I want to say it was our friend Andrew Altman from Open to Close and he was mentioning that he will literally just sit in front of Zoom for the day, hit record and just do your day and then talk out loud what you're doing so that it's captured and then just take that entire recorded file, send it over to your virtual assistant and said create SOPs from what you just saw on this video. I heard that and I was like.

I haven't had the time. I always forget to hit the record button. But yeah, I, I think that's a brilliant idea. Especially when you're starting out internally and you're hiring people and building a team. That is a perfect way to start. Especially single agents. Right. Just hit that record button, record the whole day. Once you do find that virtual assistant or in house, help send them the video, have them chop it up. That is twofold. One, you've documented everything you do on a day to day basis and they can walk through your thought process as you're doing the work. And then two, the, you know, admin or in house person can take all of that and build your SOPs. So you kind of done twofold work.

Yeah, no, it's pretty, pretty cool. So as far as the creation of video, solving for problems, kind of that reverse engineering concept, I wonder if everybody, you know, every single agent that's out there has hit. Whether you're brand new in the industry or you're a seasoned veteran, you've hit some challenges. Right. Whether you're sitting at an open house and you're just like, I, I didn't ask the right questions or I You know, I asked the wrong questions. Whatever the case may be, you have these objections and I wonder if, if we all just took a few minutes to just sit down and think, okay, what were the questions that people had asked me that I either didn't know the answer to or maybe I did. I knew the answer to. Write that down. Because each question and each answer, that could be one video right there.

Right?

Just short content. Get to the point. You and I were just talking about like as much as we love podcasts, oh my goodness, it can get too long sometimes and it's just like I don't have the bandwidth for this. I need short to the point, let's go. And something about that one question, one answer concept really speaks to, you know, somebody who's like, I just need some information to help me get over the hump. Right?

Yeah, especially when you're building a knowledge base. That's what we kind of do. We just take the FAQs, what are we getting asked all the time by our admin team and our leadership team and we just have started throwing it into a Google site. Right. And just it's just an FAQ and we write out the script for it. But then now I'm starting to go back and record, you know, less than two minute videos. Because when you're at up at 7 o' clock at night and you need to know how to write a contract and what does it mean to have an inspection resolution? I don't really know. There's a short two minute video and I think open a closed does this very well as well. A lot of their help videos, if you look at their help guide, they're short, quick, to the point answers. And I think that's what Andrew has done very well with his help guides.

Yeah, well, we know how he did it now. Yes, the secret is out. So listen, there was one other thing that, that I was listening to inside of Tom Perry's episode when him and Ethan were talking about when it comes to your team and making decisions about, you know, how it's working out with someone who's on your team, there was this concept of carefrontation. Right. Meaning I care so much about you that I'm willing to have a very open and honest conversation about your behaviors and then the consequences of those behaviors. But then, and being able to have that conversation with empathy, that was very interesting to me because, you know, all the years that I've been inside the industry and I've worked with numerous brokerages, one of the things that I've always seen that's kind of a common thread is brokers will allow the agents on the inside to kind of dictate how things are really going to be. Because that fear of attrition is real. Right. Where if you set a boundary and expectation and they don't like it, they're going to say, well, you know what? I'm going to go somewhere else. I don't need to be here. And that's a real fear for a lot of broker owners and a lot of fears for team leads right. When they're trying to grow their team and maintain. So, like, how do I keep. Keep this Nucleus happy? But then there's this other part of it where it's like, well, sure, you could spend all your time making sure that everyone feels happy and they're sticking around. So now you're like the rock star at retention. But if you're retaining non production, if you're retaining drama, if you're retaining, you know, just where you're having to repeat yourself constantly, or you can't give time to somebody who truly could use that time and, and grow the business for you with that, that tutelage, that can be a time suck. And so those are really, really hard leadership decisions that have to be made. Right. Have you ever had an experience where you had to make a hard decision like that with, you know, having a conversation where this is where the road ends?

Yeah.

Have you been there?

I have. I have. Being a office manager, that was one of my roles to hire and fire on behalf of the team leader. It wasn't a fun role, but it definitely taught me a lot as a human being, as a person, and it was difficult. This person I considered a friend. We didn't know each other before, but, you know, came very close and we had the same systematic views and outlook on life and things like that. And when she was failing at certain, you know, like, expectations that we had. And then we found out other things after she left, like the gossiping and it was a lot of negativity behind the scenes for our team that we weren't realizing that was happening. And it was really hurtful. I think personally, I. I took it very personally. It took me about a month to get over that. Spent a lot of nights crying, wondering, like, you know, was it me? You know, that kind of stuff. And you start questioning yourself as a team leader. Right. But I think having these confrontation conversations early on, I follow a lot of Dave Ramsey and Entre leadership and his principles, and he talks about having those honest conversations very early on. First, you set your values of what it's like. And if you have a no gossip policy, you just nip it in the bud. There's no if, ands and buts. If you have an issue in the organization, bring it to someone who can do something about it, right? Bring it up to your higher ups, bring it up to that person and mediate. Talk it out. But talking amongst other people who have nothing to do with the situation and can't help, then that is gossiping. So he draws a line, very clear there, and you're gone within 30 seconds. There's other ways, right? I think that you can have a, you know, I have a three conversation rule with people. So, you know, the first one is like, hey, let's sit down. Why are you always consistently lazy? Like, do we need a changer? Times.