Tristan Ahumada with 3 Keys to Real Estate Team Success [FUBCON Session]

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. Tristan, you're awesome. I'm super glad to be sitting down in a conversation with you. And I want to start where I started with everybody else, which is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team.

Confidence. I think the confidence that you can actually perform and get things done because the lack of confidence in any team or individual is really apparent when you're talking and sitting down with clients. They can feel it. It's like, oh, but there's something about Tristan that I'm just not fully convinced about. Right. And even if you're wrong, man, the idea of confidence is just to sit down and know. I think transfer that, that feeling like you're going to take care of it. Right. And sometimes we doubt ourselves so much that it's apparent in that conversation. Like a lot of us don't know what we're doing. We just kind of like just show up when we're starting and even when we're testing new things out, we're like, I don't know, I don't even know what the hell to do. Like, you just show up and you kind of half ass it. But you have the confidence that regardless of what happens, you have their best interest at heart and they can feel that.

Yeah, I really appreciate that you went straight there on the trans. I refer to it as the transfer of emotion. It's that thing that people can feel but like they can't necessarily articulate it. So I'm just thinking about, let's just say a couple and three agents come through there dining room over the course of a week's time or something.

Yeah.

And there's like, well, the first one, but. Yeah. The second, but the third one, you know, like, it's just that it's that thing that is left. It's the emotional resonance that's left from that interaction. And I appreciate emotional resonance. Resonance.

That's really cool.

It resonates, it kind of hangs, it sticks, it lingers. It's like, man, there's just something about them that I'm really into, you know?

Yeah. Or they're gonna go back and be like, you know, number two, the data was good. It's like, it's so sm. But number three, there was something about him and that's it.

Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that. Now how do you. You know, besides, like, kind of the fake it till you make it kind of a thing, Put yourself in a leader's position where you have, you know, I'm making the whole scenario up six agents, you know, two of them, they're good. Don't. They don't need a lot from you. You give them everything that they need as much attention, but it's not much. And then you've got, like this middle. Let's say three or four of them. They're like. They got so much potential. They're pretty good. But confidence is an issue with a of them.

Yeah.

You know how. Like, how do you support that? How do you coach that? What's the path to, you know, greater confidence for the reasons you described?

Yeah, it takes. It takes a lot of hand holding and example. You've got to take them under your wing and then expose them to what other people are doing. And sometimes it won't be me, sometimes it'll be bringing them to an event like this, and then they have to experience what other agents are doing. Because sometimes, if it comes for me, it's falling on deaf ears. Right. We hear it and see it all the time. It's like, oh, it's kind of blind now. But when they hear it and see it from other people and also slightly differently, they can then start gaining their own confidence and be like, you know what? I think I can do it. Like, that person. Almost like when you scroll through social and you're like, I just can't. I just can't. I'm not funny and I can't dance. And then you stop and you're like, wait a second. I think I can do, like, this person. Right? Similar. Similar idea, man.

Yeah, there's a lot there. I also feel like tapping into something that they do well or an example where, like, yeah, you didn't do it all the way, but like, you did 50% of the way. Like, yeah, that is in me. I am capable of that.

Yeah, hold on, on that. A big challenge is that sometimes with our team, we expect them to fall into the mold that we already have as far as lead generation and prospecting. And we don't give them the ability for them to focus on their strengths and saying, look, online leads is not for you, I guess, but you're so good on social. You should really go out and do this more, Follow that strength. I think that's a good point you brought up, man. I like that strength.

Yeah. Reflect on yourself a little bit. I mean, you've been a leader In a wide variety of capacities. For my view, certainly a real estate team, lab code, agents, success. Um, you know, a brilliant tribe. You, you're building and leading a variety of. You built in, lead in a variety of environments. How is your own kind of leadership journey shaped up? Maybe, maybe from the beginning of taking on more responsibility and opportunity, what has stayed with you the whole time? And it's like just tried and true and it works for you or, and, or maybe something that, that you've developed along the way.

Dude, I'll tell you, it's now that I look back on it, right. It's a little easier. But when you're in the middle of it, you're like, does that work? What am I doing? It's really taking the time to grow yourself individually and know that you're not going to do anything ever perfect. But you're going to show up every day. And whether it's working on your mind, your body, spirit, on an emotional level, familial. Right. Whatever that looks like, I think those are, or those are key. Because if I don't show up for me every day, that means I'm not showing up my best self for the people around me. Like, I really like for speaking today. I really have to go through and prepare. I'm not going to half ass it. Even though people ask me, they're like, what are we going to talk about? I'm like, I don't know. I'm not sure. I already. I know exactly what I'm going to talk about. I think you wing.

Yeah. I just don't want to give you the whole presentation.

Yeah. So I'm always like, I don't know, I'm just, I'm going to wing it and there's not no way. Yeah. So I think taking the time, and I learned this from other leaders, taking the time to invest in yourself, to think, reflect and be like, what could I be doing better? You know what, that conversation I had with that person, shit, I shouldn't have just brushed it off. Or I shouldn't have talked to my son that way. Or you know what, Damn it, that's my fault. How did I miss that? Those moments of reflecting and thinking make you better. And I think that's key, man.

Yeah. I would also add to that that acting on your observation is key too, you know?

Yes.

I can't tell you how many times I've like, someone's come to mind like, oh man, that person was so awesome. I can't believe they did X, Y and Z. And you're just like. You don't reach out.

Yeah.

But it comes and goes. So I think it's a blend of, you know, turning that into action, too, I think, you know.

Hold on, dude. You brought up a good thing right there. I'll give you an example with. With me. Because as I was discovering this whole process, one of the things that popped up for me that was a big challenge was I realized that I was. I led with envy sometimes.

Okay.

And I had worked on that. When I realized that, I was like, no way. I was like, holy shit. Yeah. I guess I. Oh, damn. Right? And so one of the things that I tried to do, right. Working on that moment, I tried it on Social. I bring up social. I'm on Social a lot. So whenever I would have that feeling on a person that's like, oh, man, what the hell are they doing? I'd be like, tristan, what's going on? So I did this. I'll be completely open here. It was Chris Smith, right? And I go. And Chris is a friend of mine.

Yeah.

I'm like, what the hell is. Kristen. What is this? Why is he always. I was like, slow down, dude. You know what? Just congratulate him. This is me talking to myself. Yeah. And I go, okay, great, dude. Congratulations. This was. It was actually awesome, dude. I love seeing your success. And it's training my mind to be like, hey, twist it around, man. From that, he messages me back. He goes, dude, it's been a while. I'm like, yeah, man, it's been a while. He's like, I'm just re. Releasing my new book.

Conversion code.

Conversion code.

Yeah.

This is how new this is, by the way, to say that I'm still a work in progress. Damn it. Okay. And I go, dude, I'm happy to help you. Let's put it up on lab codes. Let's do something together. He's like, let's do it. So I help him out. We're done with that. He's like, man, have you ever written a book? I'm like, I have a book, but it's, you know, it's just there. He's like, let me connect you with my publisher, which is Wiley. Your publisher?

Yep.

And then I said, okay, connect me with Wiley. I showed my book. They're like, no, we don't want that book. Do you have a real estate book? I'm like, I can write one. It's like, write one and we'll publish it. So I wrote one and they published it. Yeah. That came from that.

Yeah, man. This is nowhere where I thought we were gonna go with this conversation, but I'll just pile on with another Chris Smith story. So one of the things. When I first started writing Rehe Human Eyes, which I wrote with Steve passinelli, I was 15,000 words in before I had any idea how to publish a book.

That's a good. I love it.

I was like, oh, man, I better figure that out too. Right?

Step number two. Yeah.

Yeah. So I reread books written by people who I knew and could reach out to. And so I reread six books and then reached out to six different people and asked them, like, would you talk to me about your process? How did this go? Like, what kind of. What should I be looking for? I need to put together a budget, by the way, for anyone watching, listening, who wants to do a book.

A.

It's an absolute joy. It's a. It's a really fun way to reflect on your own experience and to work with other professionals and clarify your own message and story and to be able to share with people in formats that you're not communicating right now. In any case, Chris was one of the. So. So I messaged him and he, you know, after I read he was one of my. The six people I messaged him and he immediately. He didn't just, like, email me back, he just called me and it happened to be a time I could take the call, and he gave me like 90 minutes and like, broke down all the. Because he had done self published, he had done Wiley, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, awesome guy. I love that. Okay, a little bit more in zone. I feel like you have a really unique perspective on the industry for the way that you participate in it, both as a practitioner, but as a supporter, educator, facilitator, connector, all the different ways that you engage in the. In the real estate community, broadly speaking. And so I. I'm really curious about your view on the rise of the team model. Like, when did that language start becoming a thing for you? Like in. In. Where are we in the arc?

Well, I know exactly where it is. So go back to 2008, 2007 and 8. The market shifted. It tanked in the United States. It tanked around the world, I guess. And I'm in the process of rethinking. I'm like, wait a second. I think I need to. I need to be able to duplicate myself because I'm getting so many online leads. So the rise of online leads, and I can scale this shit. I need a team. So I went from Century 21 to Keller Williams just for the search of a team. Then I went to a couple of events and then I realized that there were a few people already dabbling in team building. And I was like, okay, I can do this. So I started building a team and then I supported it with online leads, right? And then processes and systems and people. And then from there it grew. And then I started seeing everyone wanted a team, right? And then the next thing happened, which was, well, I figured out teams. Now let's expand. Why not use Follow Up Boss? Dude, Follow Up Boss has been with me since 2011. And I was like, well, I can just go to Hawaii. I can go to San Francisco. I can go. I went all over and I failed at all of them.

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Yeah, when I was calling people in Hawaii, they were like, why are you calling me so fast? I'm like, they don't operate like in la. I was like, what? No, I was like, that was nuts. So the team then went to expansion and then I started seeing a shift from brokers going to a lot more hundred percent ancillary and not netting as much. And so I was like, wait a second. There's a shift happening more towards teams than talking to different corporations. Gary Keller, Gillen Sanford and being like, here are the models, here's what we're seeing is net, right? So it's not the same as it used to be. In fact, what you want to build is a team, Ridge. But what we're seeing is now a shift. Everyone's a team now, right? Everyone's a partnership. We're seeing something happen right now because of technology that we're going to See, I don't know where it's going, but when people like Howard and G from Y Lopo get on stage and they show us what's actually happening right now where AI through 11 labs and other products where they've been able to create ISAs that sound and feel completely human. Tonalities on point. I can choose the voice. British. I'm going to pick somebody from probably Georgia, a little Southern accent, female. And they have full conversations with their online leads. And it sounds real. So close, right. That now it's like, do I really need a team? The same structure. Can I just maybe have a buyer's agent? Two buyer's agent, three buyers. The whole model starts changing. Now, as a mega agent in a luxury market, I don't really need as much. Now, as a agent that has a lot of team members. Where you brought up, you've got two, three that do well. The rest kind of don't. Maybe I only need two or three. Maybe I don't need anybody and I just need staff. Maybe I operate like Redfin. Those are going to be thoughts that are going to happen soon, and it's going to allow us to leverage a lot more of this technology and be able to grow where we haven't been able to grow like this ever. Man. At the end, it's like, I don't want to use other companies like Zillow, Redfin, realtor.com, nothing against them, but I want to net more money. And if something like this, so simple, can allow me to net more money, it's like I'm going all in.

Yeah. How. I mean, I've seen some of those demos, but you've sold enough real estate. Like there's. I guess I'll formulate in a very specific question in the near term. Let's just say the next 12 to 24 months, based on what you've seen AI be capable of in this kind of direct interactive zone. You know, obviously we're far away from fully replacing people with that stuff, but, like, agreed. What. What is that timeline and. Or what is the unique human value? Where do you. Where do you. Given what you know right now and what you see right now, what. What parts of the process are much, much farther away from being automated or replaced?

Yeah. And.

Or where's the handoff to the human being?

Yeah, the handoff right now. Over the next. Let's say. Let's keep it the two years.

Yeah. Because it's impossible. I mean, otherwise it's pure. Pure speculation.

I think what you see in Two years or less is the ability for technology to come in and have somebody supervising it continually and saying, oh, got it, We've got a hot one here. Right, let's take over.

Yep.

So there's an actual human assisted process or part to it that eventually goes away. And what we are going to start seeing in our industry a lot more of is somebody who handles specifically AI, artificial intelligence throughout the whole company. Right. It could be a tech director or it could be an AI person, but that now becomes an integral piece to what we do because it's allowing me to save a lot of money and net more. But I don't think that you ever, ever replace the human interaction. Because if I'm going to go sell the $10 million home on the beach, it's. It's not going to happen. Most of the time by them just visiting me online and talking to somebody online. Yeah, it's going to be in person.

Because the other side of that is what am I getting for my spend as the home sell?

Exactly.

It needs to be an experience of some kind. And I think the richest experiences are the ones we're having right now.

Dude, that's it.

In the same room.

That really is it. I think it comes down to the experience. What experience do you offer? And that'll set you apart. Dude, I love that. I think that's a good tone for the shifting market that we're in. We're in the middle of it or somewhere along the way. And I think what sets us apart as agents to be able to get to that next level is the value that we bring. What experience do we offer? It needs to be unique. It can't just be. Hey, thanks for visiting our website on whatever you were browsing in this area. Oh, you don't. You're just. Oh, you're just browsing. Got it. Okay, well, call me when you're ready. Yeah. Instead it should be like, oh, look, I don't want to spam you, but I've got this great PDF for you. It shows you what's happening in the fall. Let me send that over to you. And when you're ready, great, here it is. Bam. And then follow. What'd you think of it? Right? Value, Right. What experience are you having from the very beginning? And then take that through with follow up, boss. And everything that it attaches to. It's like, dude, the capabilities are insane. This is why I love AI. Yeah, right. So anyway, yeah, I can also see.

Now I'm dwelling in my own speculations in your presence to get your reaction to it kind of maybe correct. Correct it or steer it. I'm now seeing some of this again, not as full replacement, but we have auto dialing and some of these other things. It's like the auto dial now goes 15% farther and at a certain point when the keywords, key phrases, the complexity of the question or whatever, AI now. Oh, you know what, I'm going to turn you over to my friend Chris who can help you with this thing. In a way it's like the machine just going farther along on the journey. Journey to the point where that human to human moment super matters.

Dude, it's going to matter even more because one thing that it'll allow us to do as agents is to focus on building the relationship and nurturing everyone else who's not quite there yet. But as agents we forget about because I want to go to the lowest hanging fruit. So this really helps us out long term. Yeah, you'll start seeing a lot more people build businesses with this than before. Ones that are actually paying attention.

It's interesting too to think about the generation of businesses or teams in particular or team ridges or whatever it turns out to be starting with all of this in kind of a mature state. Think about the way we talk about like digital natives versus me, analog native, digital transition.

Oh, I see. Yeah.

There's gonna be like a generation of entrepreneurs who are now building their organization where they, where the AI dynamic was just kind of baked in for. But it's been that way forever.

You know, you brought up something about where we're at. I think there might be a differentiation too in looking at the teams that focus primarily on getting business from portals versus teams that focus from getting business from Google PPC and Facebook lead ads. And I think what you see is the portals are. Their job is to make money at any and every opportunity from the agents. This is why they charge us 35, 40%. I wonder if through this process we create a strong enough process for higher conversion than the 1% that we have with Google PPC over five years and increase our conversion and then really start separating the teams that are now succeeding net wise versus those that are just barely making it interesting. I didn't think about that. Huh. I wonder if we go that route. Well, the point is I don't know where we're going. Yeah, but it's fun. Yeah.

Nobody does. Okay. In the here and now. Speak to the agent who's thinking about starting a team. How should they be thinking about it? What questions should they be asking? What Are some positive signs. What are some question marks for you as someone advising this person?

Teams, I think you've got to come down to it's not a self serving thing. Number one, teams are to build so that everyone in the team could live a better quality life. When I looked at the team, I was like, I want to make sure that the people I bring on are number one, they're a culture fit. Right. And number two, want to have a more harmonious life. They have time for their kids and they have time for work. Right. And I needed that too because I didn't want to work 14 hour days, right. Showing property back and forth, no time to breathe, eat McDonald's every day. It doesn't work. So that is important. And say, hey, how can I help these people reach that level? That's number one. Number two is you've got to really think about your offer. What is it that you're offering as a team leader? We don't, I don't know that we think about this because we bring in new people and the first thing they always start with for, for us at least when we're bringing them in is like, do you have leads? I'm like, what does that really mean? Let's get down to it, right? What are you missing? And then discovering what that truly means to them and then saying, maybe it's a support, maybe it is the leads, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's a conversion, maybe it's the tech. You also get follow up boss. And this is all it offers. Our ISAs, our staff, our years of experience. Right. Our marketing, our branding, our social. So I think you need to be really clear on what it is that you offer. And from failing miserably, you've got to be able to offer them more as they grow because if you don't, they leave. Yeah, yeah. So I think having a growth process within your team.

Yeah. What are a couple mores there like for that agent who came in with maybe a little bit of experience but not a ton or even like that moderately experienced agent that really came into their own within the context of your team, what does more look like for them?

More is clear, man. More number one is allow them to build a team within your team. So that's one of the things we discovered early on. So I had this great agent and he's like, dude, I want to stay with you. He was working at UPS as a manager, came in, made like 60 million in volume with me the second year on my team. He's like, I Just want to do more. I want to stay with you. I'm like, dude, there's no more on my team. This is me failing. He leaves and makes 100 million his own team the next year. And I go, okay, got it. I need to do something more. More. Looks like this. You build the team under me. I pay for everything. Leads, processes, admins. Everything that you see, that you get, they get too. You get a 5% override from everything. Because I need to still net to make more, to make more, to grow. And so now they're netting. All they have to do is answer questions, help with contracts, kind of coach them along and they can start building a team. And now they have kind of like a little bit of like revenue share from this whole process. We started that years back and that has allowed our team to grow. That's number one. Number two is you've got to also show. You got to show them and talk to them and say, this is where we are going. When you're talking to somebody with experience, like you're saying, and you show them, this is where we're going. This is how we're growing. This is what's next. It's easier for them to believe you and be like, oh, I got it. I see the vision. Because they're already visionaries. They're already there. So they've got to understand where you're going to next. And a lot of us as leaders, we keep that to ourselves. And we're like, okay, guys, let's just show up and let's make more calls. But dude, that the ste. I call it the Steve Jobs effect. I want to know what's next. Wow me, right? And so that's number two. Number three is I think they need to understand who is supporting them and who's there for them. They've got our admin, they've got our marketing team, they've got. They've got our ISAs, right? And they've got. Usually like, if it's follow up boss, they've got their customer service there, man. I think when you lay it all out, they have to understand that they have the support and that they're in the right environment for growth because you're providing everything for them. The only thing you're not providing for them is the action. They have to take it when they see that. By the way, I had two conversations just like this over the last weekend, and one of them is a team, husband and wife. They've been in production for a long time, producing already, and they're like, what do you offer, Tristan? We love you, by the way. We love what you're doing and everything. We see you everywhere. But what's in it for us? Because 50, 50 is a big split, Tristan. And so that's where I'm like, well, and exactly what I told them. I'm like, look, you've seen me everywhere. You know that I'm always innovating. You don't have to go somewhere else to figure out, well, what's next in our business. I'm always ahead of the curve. That's number one. Leads, yes, you're going to get leads, but it's just more than leads, right? It's not just Google, PPC and Facebook lead ads. You've got a whole process here it is and we have it outlined. So I think letting them know that you're going to take care of them, it's almost the same effect that when I'm sitting in front of you at the table and I'm saying, look, this is how we're going to market your home. To sell for the most amount of money in the least amount of time. It's the exact same thing, but for agents at a higher level, newer agents, all they care is am I going to close a transaction or two. But more veteran agents, they want a lot more. That's how we do it.

Yeah, man, that was fantastic. And you kind of doubled back into a couple of ideas that you expressed off the top. One of them is the reflection piece, reflecting on not just how things are going or how things went and seeing if you can communicate better around that or do it better the next time, but this vision piece is a little bit. You need to dedicate time to look forward and really be aware of where you're going. And then of course, you also mentioned, you know, when I asked about starting a team and this is kind of a layup one, but you kind of double down in very specific manner here, which is what's in it for them? Why would someone join you? Which is at some level the same story of why should they stay with you? You just need to reinforce, reinforce, reinforce. And I think it that that split does scare off a lot of people from joining a team. But it's. But the other side of that is we've all bought things that looked expensive to us, whatever that is, but we just saw enough value on the other side of it. And so I'm stitching together here this idea of your vision and your value prop being communicated clearly enough and consistently enough that you can attract people who don't yet understand why they would do that split and how to retain the people that are already comfortable with the split but are wondering like, should I do this on my own? So I love all the paths that you opened up there, dude.

I really want to emphasize for bigger teams, brokerages, those teamerages, they have to do a better job setting the vision and they have to talk about it more routinely. Be like, this is where we're going, this is why we're doing it. And they're like, oh, so what they're doing over there, I don't need to go to that team. You guys are already doing it. I didn't know that that's what we've gotten better at. Because sometimes I'm like, you know, as, as visionaries, entrepreneurs, we just do things and we don't have to explain it to anybody. That's the biggest mistake. Yeah. So yeah, man, that's my problem, man.

This has been absolute pleasure. I love talking with you for a variety of reasons and just including, just the.

That was a great conversation.

Like, like you got me thinking a lot. It's been really, really fun. Before I let you go though, what is one of your most frivolous purchases? Or you don't have to answer that. Or what is a cheapskate habit that you keep holding onto even though you probably don't need to.

Cheapskate habit. I can't think of one, but I can tell you. Most frivolous purchase. I collect notebooks, right? So Facebook and Instagram now track me and follow me. So I came across this. I don't even know how to pronounce it, but it's a Japanese company and they make great leather journals that are tanned for years, right? So it's like it cost me a few thousand dollars for a stupid little journal and my wife's like, what's this? And I'm like, it's a journal. Yeah, touch it. Look at it. It's amazing. Holy shit. That was it. That was the only one. I was like, maybe that wasn't a good purchase. Yeah, good.

I appreciate you sharing that. It reminds me of. It's one of the best books I've ever read. It's Marketer as Philosopher by a guy named Dr. Flint McLaughlin. But he did an addition, you know, beautifully bound hand sewn leather cover. This is beautiful piece. So it was like, you know, normally it'd be a book you'd buy for 12, 15, 18 bucks. But the experience that he put around it and this is not, this is like 75 bucks, I think.

But still more than $12, dude. Totally.

But it was like I was.

Oh, it's kind of like Ryan Holiday's leather versions of, like, the Daily Stoic. The obstacle is the way.

Well, the trick is, this wasn't, like, a super well marketed book. I don't think so. It's not like you can, you know, it's not on Kindle or audiobooks either. So it's like, oh, it's the only. Kind of the only way to get it. And it's a nice barrier to entry. Anyway, absolute pleasure. You're awesome. I appreciate you.

Thank you, brother. Appreciate it, man.

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