Interviewing Kimberly Ryan about Real Brokerage & More

Welcome back to the Real Estate Revolution show. I'm Steve Valentine, your host and I have an amazing guest today. Actually probably the most significant guest I've had on because of our relationship over the past she's 15 years. This woman has had a significant impact on my career, my family, my life all the way around. She is a wife, my mom, GMA Hustler. She is funny. She's ridiculously smart. She also has a few addictions. She's addicted to neurology and the brain and how it works. And she's also addicted just helping people have a better kick ass life. Welcome Ms. Kimberly Ryan. What's up, mama?

Hi.

Oh, you're gonna cry?

No, not yet. I'll save that for later. You know it's gonna come.

I know. Well, here we are. And you are three years this week at Real. And so I. I don't think I've actually had a chance to interview you and actually tell our story and kind of go through some things. But we're gonna keep this all about you today. So don't be asking me questions.

Okay.

Maybe later you can do that.

Okay, I'll try.

So let me set the stage a little bit. Make sure that on here your real estate career consists of. You're the designated broker for Corinne Wynn at Real Estate. Right. You're a team leader at Realty one. Mm, let's see. You were a national trainer for. How do you want to put that in your career?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I really did very much training. I did a lot of building.

Okay.

I built entities inside entities.

How's that?

Leave it alone.

You sit on the board for CARE Fund?

I did. I chaired that.

That's one of your passions is boards and charities. And where are you at now?

Yeah, you know, right here.

Right here, Right here.

She is now Steve Valentine World.

She is now the real brokerage Arizona growth leader.

Yep.

So set the stage. Who is Kim Ryan?

Well, she's some of those things.

Come on.

It's funny. Yeah. I mean, it's weird. I think about real estate and I think about like my passion for business. And so being able to combine both of those with the ability to have like, legitimate relationships with people. And so that kind of like, if I look at that, then that says, okay, where can I. What kind of platform can I find where I'm in my lane, so to speak. And so REAL is. I mean, real broker's been pretty bad ass about it. Like, it's pretty impressive. It was very exciting to get to know the leadership you spent a lot.

Of time getting to know the leadership.

I did. Honestly, I vetted our leadership for about seven months before I said yes, that I would do what I'm doing for them, which is growth leader means that basically I started real in Arizona for them.

Can I go off topic for a second? I got all these list questions because I think this is important.

Okay.

I think that what you did should be what every agent should consider. Maybe not seven months. That might be too long.

It was a little retentive.

I think we go through and what looks good on the surface, but we rarely do the digging to really see if I want to be married to this company and its leadership before we go and move our careers. And we see a lot of that in this industry, where it's the shiny object up front and then it's kind of a bait and switch on the other side because we're not taking the time to see what our options are, which we've recently talked about. Dating, right? Like, how do you get to date your culture? And I love the fact that you kind of got to date the culture before you decided to sign up for it.

Well, it was really important to me, right, Because I knew that my reputation was going to be attached. I'm asking other people to take their businesses from someplace and come be in business with me. I can't ask that if I think that, gosh, this is temporary for me. I'm just going to ask you to move here, and then I'm going to do a hardcore piece out, you know, when I get tired of this. So I was like, I really need to make sure that I'm in alignment with my values, my morals, my visions, my dreams, and then innovation and all of that. I need to make sure that I'm in alignment there because then I'm not pitching somebody to come to real. All I have to do about real is I just talk to them about what's available to them and what it looks like for their future, what it looks like for their present, what it looks like for building their businesses, what it looks like for partnering with people, and then what it looks like from a technology and an innovation space. And you just make up your own mind, like, if the. If it's the right fit for you, you'll do it for me. I was like, I could never attach my own reputation and my own name to something that I don't actually believe in. And not just like that dating thing of like, oh, surface and shiny. But, like, I want to go deep. I want to Know, like, hey, what do our. I mean, I spent a lot of time with our coo, our chief technology and product officer, and our CEO, Tamir. And before I decided to come, lots of questions. Hey, what do you think about this? I had my own text thread. And what do you want to do about this? And how. How are you handling this? And have you thought about this? Because there was just so much happening in the industry at that time, and I didn't know them. I knew people that knew them, but I didn't really know them. And so that was really important to me was to find out, like, hey, who are these people? Because if I'm moving my career and then I'm going to ask you to move your career and your business to a platform like this, I can't afford to do that lightly. It has to be deep. Yeah.

So let's back up a second. What. What led you to real estate and what was your background before real estate? Because we all have a pre career. What brought us back?

Well, my pre career is business negotiation. I did corporate negotiations. Right. And we moved to Arizona, and I knew no one. And so my husband's like, you better find something to do because this isn't gonna work out. And so he's like, you should be in sales. And I'm like, I have zero desire to be in sales. And he's like, no, really, you should be in sales. I go, well, if I'm in sales, I need to do. I need to sell something I believe in. So I need to sell, like, really fast cars or I need to sell, like, amazing jewelry or I need to sell, like, mansions.

You want to be a bougie salesperson?

I do. I listen straight up. If I'm going for it, I'm going for what I want. So I was like, I don't want to work at the mall. So there goes the jewelry stores, and I don't really want to work at the dealership.

You would have been awesome at that. New home, sales, like, new home concept. Wasn't that a thing in the mall?

Oh, yeah, that's funny. I forgot about that. Yeah, that was weird.

But old school.

It kind of led to other things, right? I didn't want to work at the mall. I didn't want to work at the dealership. So I was like, okay, I'll go to real estate school. And my first house I sold, we lovingly referred to it as the dog poop house, because I conned my husband into helping me shovel nine green garbage bags of poop out of Their house.

That sounds like an average day in my world.

I know it is your life. It was a shock to mine. I was like, this sucks. I don't want to do this. Then I went to a business planning class and they're like, let's talk about your 1, 3 and 5 year goals. And I was like, dude, I don't know if I'll be here in a month out. So it's 20 years later. This is my 20th year in real estate, and I'm glad that those things are in my rear view mirror.

I think we've all in more than one time in our career have gone, I'm out of this, I'm peace out. And we're still here.

I mean, honestly, I vacillated in my real life. I vacillated between business, medicine. So you talked about my addiction to the brain, like neurology. So I call myself a neural hobbyist because I made a joke out of my own. I make a hobby out of like studying the brain. But it's really crazy what our bodies can do. And so our brains can do some crazy things and then we can do some things in business. And if you take business and your brain and you put them together, you can do some pretty amazing things.

Right.

I think that's really what's happened with real. And that was part of the massive appeal to me is there's such a different approach in the way they think. And by they, I mean our leadership thinks about what our industry should look like. The vast majority of our industry looks exactly the same.

It really does.

I mean, you can change the colors and you can change the font, but you do it this way and it only lives like this. And Real just said, you know, when people say we have to think outside the box, it's such a trendy thing to say. About 20 years ago, it's not trendy anymore. But we don't even have a box.

I like color outside the lines.

Right, same. But we don't even have a box.

Right, right.

Ours is like, listen, if you can think about it and you can innovate to like just dream and say, hey, what if we could do this? And how would that work in the real estate space? And then you pull that in, you go, shablam. There it is. And I mean, that's really what we've seen. And that was really exciting for me about Real. That made me say, okay, I'm in. So I helped them launch in a couple of states. Arizona is our home state. So it was a lot more Involvement here. But, yeah, I mean, it's pretty awesome.

What was the turning point in your career when you decided to go from production and leading a team to getting into the training and having an impact and. Because I think that's where some people in their careers, they get to a point, you know, where they're shifting and they want something different because they've been production. And you decided to change that path and go more towards.

Well, I'm gonna answer that a little different way because I think you said agents do this, and here's the thing. I think most really successful agents think that the next step is that they have to build a team.

Okay.

I think that's one of the biggest misnomers in our industry.

Agreed.

If you are really good at this, that doesn't mean you're gonna be really good at that.

I'm the epitome of that.

So am I. And that's why I say that. Because I did this natural progression. As soon as I got my license, people were like, oh, you should have a team. You're a leader. You're this. And I was like, I don't want a team. I don't want it. I don't want to do that. I want to just be responsible for me. And it took me a long time. I ended up brokering for Corinne, and I did a brokerage. I brokerage. She ran REO stuff. That's how we built that. And REO was over. And then we were like, never our dream to own a brokerage. Right. So for me, I'm like, let's go. We started our own separate teams. I went to Realty one group with my team and then ended up brokering for them. When RDB stepped down, I brokered for them in Paradise Valley. And I. It was at that point that I was like, okay, I'm gonna try to run this team and still broker. And I didn't like that at all.

Right.

So I ended up saying, okay, team, I'm gonna let you guys be your own entity, do your own thing, and then I'm gonna broker. Had been. Honestly, I had been praying that God would increase my territory because I knew that I was designed for bigger influence and bigger impact. And I didn't know what kind of platform I wanted to either create or get on board with.

Okay.

So that was this thing. It's like, I know there's more running a team. I loved the people on my team, no question. I loved what we were doing. We were successful at it, no problem. But I still felt like there's a next level, there's something more. So brokering, I thought, okay, well maybe that's it. So I decided to go back to brokering. That was not it. Let me just tell you that is not the pinnacle of your career. Look me in the eye. Whichever camera you're looking at me, look me in the eye. That's not the pinnacle of your career.

I'm gonna go off the cuff here for a second.

Right.

And I hate to say this, have.

You been on the cuff at all by the way?

And somebody will take offense to this. But I think it's interesting when I look at the brokers in our industry, they are people that actually couldn't produce. A lot of them are not big producers and they go into something that's a salaried piece sometimes.

That's true. Okay, but here's what I'm gonna say. I think that there are a lot of really good brokers in town and in the industry that have done a lot of really, really good things, but also have a bent more toward the training and the politics.

Agreed.

And those people are career long, career long brokers and they are playing a very significant role in our industry in its in the lane that it's in. Okay. So I mean there's lots of people I'm going to give a lot of props to. There's some people I'm like, my favorite ones are when they're their broker owner and they're horrible. And you're like, I need to talk to your broker. And they're like, I am the broker. Dang. Okay, that's too bad. You should have someone else broker you.

Right.

I digress in that. But I'm saying I think there's some people I as a broker did not have an interest in that. I didn't. I like teaching, I like training because I want people to grow. But I also got really frustrated in that because how many classes have you gone to and how many classes have you taught? Well, you know that people walk out the door and they're never gonna do anything you said.

Right.

So you wasted my time. You wasted your time. And I don't, I don't like that. So for me I was like, okay, I need to find a way that I can have a bigger influence and be more impactful. That we can actually change lives for people. They can actually see that when the level of professionalism they're operating in is actually effective and helpful to their client base and to other agents around. That's my mission, is let's get There. If we can elevate your lives, you can elevate your skills, if we can elevate your financial status, if we can do these things, that opens the door for more opportunity. So for me, when I was like, okay, I had a phone call from another national company that said, hey, can you come and basically build our mentor program? And so I went to that company, I built the mentor program, wrote it all, built it all, and started seeing how there were all of these places where it was like, well, we're missing that element. Long story short, I built like 10 internal programs in like 22 months. Right? Because that's what I'm good at. I'm a really good architect. Yes, you are, right. And so I have this ability to be 5,000ft up, I can see the whole thing and then I have my beautiful mind map whiteboard that everything's written on and then we execute, right? So that to me was like, okay, that is giving me a level of impact where I can have an effect on people's lives. So that was a big one. When I set, when I knew that, I went, no, let me go backwards. When I went from I think I can do this to I know I can do it because now I've done it. That landed me in a place to look at real and say, okay, I have all of this information behind me. I understand how to maximize this platform for agents. And so then now it's more for me about getting in front of people to be able to talk to them about like, tell me about your business. Because if it's a fit, there's a lot of people I tell not to come to real. To be honest. I mean there's. I'm like, yeah, we're not the right fit for you. You, you have a different business model and you have a different way of thinking and you appear to be unwilling to be open minded about it. If you're that hardcore, stay where you're at. Be happy. Like, yeah, don't come here and be ugly, right? Stay there and be happy.

Yeah. I wanna reframe what I said about the brokers. And here's why is that. Part of it is I think that the brokers in the industry, there's this conversation I have with the boys, right? And we were having lunch and I feel. And we've had this conversation too. I feel like our industry has lost, especially in Phoenix, from what I grew up in. We've lost the old guard of brokers and leaders and I think there's new ones rising. It used to come from the broker level. Right. John Foltz was my broker and he is salt of the earth, everything. And John was always a. If John had to call another agent or another company or a broker, it was always, how do we. It was always classy. And it was always, how do we get into this? Like, we've got a problem. How do we fix this? What do we need to do to work this out? Right. And that was always John. It was one of the things that I always learned from John. And same thing with my dad.

Yep.

And some of these. Some of the leadership in these broker owners that hire the brokers, the brokers give it a way to just have pissing contests with agents or like, I'm the designated broker and you screwed this up. And I remember a hot air balloon company designated broker calling me and just going to town on me. And I finally asked him, are you done? Said, because I'm working on the solution. And nor did you ask me if there was a solution to this problem and I will fix it. And if you'd like to come to my office in person and have this conversation, I'd be happy to do that with you. And he just kind of shut up and went away. But I just. The leadership is not the same.

I was just gonna say what you pegged is that we have. I think our pandemic is in leadership.

Agree.

I think we have. I think we have a lot of people who can make a lot of noise. And just because you speak loud. Yeah, well, I mean that way. But I mean, it's funny because you listen to. Not that any of us necessarily has an original thought. Right. We can talk philosophy later. But you listen to some of these people who are really good in social media and really good at getting their message out, but their message is really kind of vacant.

Yeah.

It's just noisy. And so in the lack of actual leadership or in the absence of leadership, you're gonna migrate to the biggest noise. And so. Oh, everybody's following this. So I should just go that way. Right. And so I think. I think that's a bigger thing. I think that's probably more what you meant when you made the comments earlier about the brokers. Because I feel like we. I mean, for 10 years I've been asking this question, tell me the five most influential people in the Phoenix metro area in real estate, and I'm telling you what that you consider strong leaders. Right. I can get to about number three. And they're almost always the same three that people say. And then it Dies off at four and five.

Interesting.

It's crazy. And I ask people this question all the time, like, hey, tell me who you think are the top, top five leaders in our industry in the Phoenix market. And it's very. It's very. It's hard to find. 20 years ago, 15 years ago, we could have named a handful easy, maybe about 20, to be honest. And you made reference to them being the old guard. It's true. Right. So I don't think we have a new guard. I think the new guard is noisy. And I think there has to be. There has to be a generation of actual leaders saying, hey, this is what we're doing, and leadership doesn't mean territory. And that drives me insane.

So it actually is very fascinating, as you say that is that it really kind of takes into context when you look at the country and the divide. Let's go into the real estate business and look at the same thing. It's this. John Fultz was always a reach across the aisle, and let's pull people together. I mean, they were the initial realty executives, was. Let's do a quarterly event, invite everybody. It's all brokerages. Anybody can be here. And that was the way they always did it. That's who started it back in the day. Right? And now we get to hear. And it's like there's these hard lines that people draw.

So weird.

It just makes no sense where you're like, look, you're representing a buyer, I'm representing a seller. We can come together and find the win win and not, you know, getting to pissing contest. And some people want to take that negotiation game and go just, I'm gonna win.

How many times have you crushed a negotiation just by being quiet and letting the other agent themselves right out of money for their client? Like, I mean, to me, that's actually kind of fun. But part of me, it's just like, dude, if you just settle down, you would have saved your client all this hassle that you just created. But I think that that's because we do have a lack of leadership. I think that we're missing people saying, hey, this is how the business should be done. This is how we should be, like, thinking ahead for our clients.

And I think that the leadership piece, in my opinion, I look at our industry especially. You have a lot of trainers, coaches, mentors who are desktop coaches in theory, right. And they're still not out in the production side, which it appears to be leadership here. But then if they're not belly to belly with the current market.

Yeah.

How do you stay relevant other than hearing the problems from your clients? And I think that is the biggest piece that I see right now that. That I know that you feel this way. I feel this way is that being at Real and watching Sharon be in the living room and being with us on a daily basis, I'm in the weeds with my network. You're in the weeds with your network. I don't know how many times a week we talk about different things and how we're helping other. And I think that that is. Is truly what's needed because there is a lot of. Listening to Shiran's interview on with Byron at BAM was really fascinating, which was interesting, because he did that interview after we had breakfast that day.

I know.

Because he was in the hotel so good. And just listening to him reframe and talk about. The agents are lonely. They feel like they're on an island right now. And the more conversations I have with the agents and. Which I'm curious what you're hearing as you meet with agents on a regular basis. Like, what are the. What would you say the top three things when you meet with agents? What are they missing in their current life and business?

It's not even three. It's a single thing.

What's the single thing then?

Community. It goes to speaking, to being isolated and being alone and trying to figure this out, this business out. People are winging it on their own. There aren't these collaborative groups. There might be some, you know, networks or some masterminds or whatever, but people don't feel the freedom to be vulnerable in those, to actually get the help that they need. And so when you're building genuine community, where your company says, you know, collaboration is our culture, like, that is our vibe. And if you're gonna give something away to one person, you're giving it away to everyone. Everyone. And. And that's our standard. Right. And because of that, you start to attract people who are, number one, craving that community, but number two, wanting to participate in it. Not just wanting to sit on the outside. We have. If you look at real, I mean, I think one of the things I think is super fun about real is, is the connectivity that I have across the nation, in Canada, across North America. Not because I'm special, but because I've just built these relationships with people. I have friends in Arkansas. I have friends in Colorado and Canada and California and Texas and Pennsylvania and, like, whatever, everywhere. It's wild and genuine relationships. Not just like, oh, hey, no, when we have company, Wide events. It is like, oh my gosh, you're seeing your long lost friends because you've built these relationships because you're helping each other in their businesses, you're working through things with them in their life. I have people from Florida, North Carolina and Oregon that are all connected. Right. So I think that community thread is really, really critical.

The community thread is critical. So I'm going to ask you another thing because you said earlier that you know some of the agents, it's not a good fit for them.

Right, right, right.

So where is it with these relationships where you feel that the relationship is, has an equal exchange of energy going back and forth? Because sometimes I think we get some of those people that are, that are lead weights because they always need something, but they have nothing else to give, nor do they want to offer to give anything. So how do you do that? Because I mean, I've seen that a lot with what I do. So how does that work for you with attracting agents and meeting with them? And then what does it look like as far as the equal exchange?

Well, I think the equal exchange comes down to the conversation has to start with, explain to me, describe to me your business, like what does your business look like? Because I can tell pretty quickly based on how they talk about their business, whether or not it's really in alignment with how we operate and how we think.

Right.

If it's in alignment, then obviously that's an easy conversation because I can say, okay, you, you expressed 1, 2 and 3 as your challenges. Here's how real can solve 1, 2 and 3, right? So that's an easy one. When people are saying, listen, this is how I think, this is what I want to do. You can tell in their conversation, you can tell by the words they use, you can tell by how resistant they are to actually share that they still are sitting in this scarcity or lack mentality. And our community doesn't sit there because it is this contribution based community and it is right from Tamir to Sharon to Pritesh, like all of our leadership is like, hey, I'm doing this to make your life or the life of your client better, right? Like what they're producing. So I think when you have people who are like, I've always done it this way, I can't imagine doing that. I have to have this, I need that. Okay, well those, those aren't things that we do because those are not things that are moving the needle forward for you to progress in your life and to build your business.

Right.

And that is Our focus, our real's whole platform is a wealth building platform. Not because it's greed based, but because it's like, hey, the more we help you create wealth, the more opportunity we have created for you and your family. The more opportunity we have, the more imagination that you can use, the more innovation that you can use, the more creative that you can be about what you want to do with your family.

Right.

You have a different kind of hope that you never had before.

Sure.

Because you don't think like that.

So you said the word wealth building, Right. So let's go back to an exercise that you did with me because one of the things we didn't do was like, let's talk about how we met and you talk about collaboration and what this looks like and crossing aisles and those types of things. Like, let's really talk about that because that does. Before we go into the story, it's interesting because this is where we talk about crossing party lines and collaborating and not.

Well, it's part of our lifeblood because it's who we are. We're solution oriented people who say, listen, we have a mission, right. I'm a listing agent, you're a buyer's agent in our scenario. Right. We both have.

And I was the buyer and you.

Were the buyer, you know, and a few other things. But yeah, we have a mission to get the house sold, to get it bought, to convey it to you, to make sure everybody's taken care of and move on. It never did it cross my mind that we are opponents, right. I never walk into a transaction relationship with another agent. As in, oh, you're my opponent and I come from corporate negotiations, right. So people automatically think, oh, well, me versus you, one is gonna win. We're gonna arm wrestle and I'm gonna crush your soul. And I'm feel so good about it. And I, in order for me to win, you have to lose terribly. Not just kind of lose, but you need to be, you know, just annihilated and that. I mean, how many transactions do you run into? You're like, whoa, dude, we're, we all are going there.

I can only tell you though that if the attitude on the other side is met with, with that, then I'm gonna go for the throat, right. If you're gonna come at me and be a dick, we're gonna have that conversation and go to town, right?

And I am gonna be super fun about that. So here's what I think about. There's a lot of people that come at us like that. And if you just kind of learn to bob and weave a little bit.

That's true.

If you move at just the right time, they just go right on their own face. And you don't have any mud or dirt on your hand. All right, Mom, I'm saying you don't end up having to apologize to a bunch of people because you rose for the bait and you don't. I think we can just be better minded than that. And it doesn't mean I don't want to throat punch somebody sometimes. I'm just saying.

So tell me. Tell me your version, because actually, it's kind of fascinating. Right. So we come walking into this one open house that you did in your.

Career, which I think is so.

By the way, listen to this one open house. 12 years ago. I still live in that house.

Yep.

12 years ago. Christian was nine when we walked in that door. And he's behind the camera right now.

I know.

So what, what was that like? Like, when you still think back to that day, it's still very visual for me.

Yeah. I mean, interesting. It's so funny because I at the time was like, I have no interest in doing open houses, but my daughter was getting into real estate. And so I go, okay, you have.

To be the leader.

I got to be the leader. So we're gonna do this. I'm gonna teach you how to do them. Because I've done them, and with other agents, like teaching them how to do them, it's just not. They weren't my favorite thing. Now, I think every agent should be holding every house open as much as they can. Sure. Because this is how you're getting in front of people. I know a lot more now than I did 12 years ago about them and have stronger convictions anyway. So I was like, okay, we're gonna do this open house. And so we have. My client was interesting. They were really challenging. He had like 6 PhDs, but didn't think that if he didn't pay his second mortgage that they would foreclose. And I was like, clearly, you didn't have a finance PhD, right? You missed that one. Right. So really unique people. His wife didn't even know. His wife was a friend of one of my clients, and she called me and she said, hey, can you meet with these guys? Because the wife just found out their house is getting foreclosed on. And I was like, well, let's talk about why. She goes, it's weird. It's their foreclosing on the second. And I was like, the foreclosing on the second that don't make no sense, man. So I meet with them. Husband and wife are super hostile because she just found out because there was literally something nailed to the front door, Right? And she's like, what is this? And he's like, oh, don't worry about it. We're current on our front.

I got this.

Right? I got this. So they didn't got this. They were actually in massive financial dire straits. They needed to sell this house. They did not have a single penny to buy the next house, and they didn't have income to support a mortgage. So they needed all of the equity, like every last penny from the sale of the house that you bought to be able to pay cash for their house, and then they would just have living expenses. So I'm negotiating this or navigating all of this with them to try to figure out, like, talk bank accounts. Let's talk retirement. Let's talk investment. They weren't young. They were in their 60s. Late 60s. Yeah. If not 70s.

I still get their mail, by the way.

Yeah, they did have a water bed. See, these are the things the child remembers. He's like, about the wave. Yeah. And anyway, so I was trying to work through all of that. They were not super reasonable because they were actually hostile with one another. Right. So it's almost like being in divorce court. But we hadn't gotten there yet, so it was okay. You guys walk in. It was a Sunday afternoon. You guys came from church.

Yep.

And I mean, I remember what Wendy was wearing. I remember the boy. I remember it all. I. With that kind of weird brain. Anyway, but so you guys rolled in, you're looking around and whispering, the two of you. Wendy and Steve whispering everywhere they go. And Jamie's like, what do we do? And I was like, just be quiet. Let them do their thing.

Right.

So they do their thing. We end up. You end up writing an offer. We execute on the offer.

I got decline, Loan decline. We got a loan decline because tax liens. Welcome to 2008 and trying to be in 2012 and fix your shit.

And try to fix it. Yeah. So we accept the account. Did we even get to the point that we accepted?

We accepted the first one, but I had to cancel.

And then we had to cancel. And then we're like, okay, well, wait, this is definitely the house for you guys. Let's figure this out. It's not dead. I really need this house to sell because these guys are going to be homeless one way or the other. They're going to get foreclosed on or like, it's going to go well.

I remember calling my dad's lender, who was kind of creative at the time, and she figured out, like, hey, if you have a tax lien and you have a payment plan, we can do debt to income. And, yes, we can do this. So we put it back together. And the crazy part about the house was, it was such a dump.

It was such a dump.

Such a dump.

It's funny that you have been living out what you've been doing for other people.

Right.

Like, it's not like you said, oh, I think this is a way I can really, like, go for it. No, this is what my life looks like. This worked out for me. And through your point of pain, you can actually. It resonates with these people that you see struggling who need, like, my clients who need to get out of the deal and need to have, like, be rescued in some ways. Right. And yet then you can help that family. Then you help the family that's coming into it because you have an ability to work with people on the incoming side. I know I'm changing subjects, but, I mean, you've suffered through all that. I mean, our transaction was not easy. I mean.

But what's fascinating about, though, was what Kim hasn't shared is when we got to the inspection, and this is actually fun because this is where my creative brain started to work, is Kim got the bins or we had AC unit problems. We had all these problems.

Right.

I think I was asking for like 20 or 30 grand for price reduction. Of course, I knew they were going to foreclosure, so I'm going to take whatever stab I can.

And they're having a heart attack hating everything about you.

Yes. And I remember being at Mellow Mushroom, having beers with the guys, and Kim calling. She's like, I need you to call me back.

Take time out, though, before that, because you don't. This part, like, I'm sitting down with the binser with my clients, and the things that they're ask that Steve and Wendy are asking for are actual legitimate. It wasn't fluff stuff. It wasn't. He was trying to shank anybody. It was legitimate. They had not done any kind of maintenance on this house maybe ever, honestly. So I'm having this hardcore conversation with him. I'm like, I don't think it's unreasonable. I think, you know, we can probably compromise. There's some creative things we could do, which we ended up doing on the AC stuff. And, you know, we just dug in deep to think, okay, how can we solve this?

So she calls, does not tell me any of this.

It's not my job to tell you that.

I lose my shit on the phone and I go, you know what? Screw this. I'm not doing anything. You know, they can have their house. We'll figure it out. I'll go back to my wife. And I hung up the phone. She calls me back 10 minutes later. She's like, that's exactly what I needed you to hear. I had you on speaker and the sellers were there. I'm like, right, really? That's what you did?

Yeah.

Which is totally a Sharon move, by the way.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

And it worked. But here was the creative piece in it. They didn't have the money. They needed the equity. And I remember talking to my dad and remember this is 2012, so only about 18 months from 2010, which was Phoenix's massive hailstorm that just crushed everything here.

Grapefruit and tennis ball hillsides.

So I said, hey, what if we do this? What if they put an insurance claim in for all the damaged AC units? And. And they just signed the insurance check over to me in the roof and then we'll call it a day. So we ended up putting in an insurance claim. I think I got a check for 25 or 30 grand. We replaced the AC units and eventually replaced the roof. But it was a fascinating transaction, working through it. And one of the things that, you know, again, I try to tell my clients, and they always look at me like you're crazy. We did buy a real. Like it was a financeable fixer upper is what it was.

It.

And the house worked. The lot worked, the location worked. It needed everything. So it was definitely a piece where we thought we could grow into this house. Even though it had pink carpet, floor to ceiling porn, mirrors, waterbeds, terrible wallpaper.

Well, and the actual island of non use in the middle of the house that kept the house from being connected. Do you remember that whole. Yeah, it was. It was a terribly dysfunctional house.

Let's fast forward to. So we still live in that house 12 years later. We've remodeled every inch of it. But the exercise that you did with me is. That's where we started, right?

Oh, there we go.

The red shirt exercise came a year after we owned that house. And it was the year that my dad. It might have been two years and I was done. I didn't want to do real estate anymore. I had kind of fucked around.

Dad wasn't gone yet.

The dad wasn't gone. Yet.

Right.

I didn't want to do real estate. I screwed around for a year remodeling the house, and then I was like, ah, so that was like 20, 15, 2014, bought it in 12, so it.

Might be like 14, probably 14, maybe even late 13.

But yeah, the Reo business was coming to an end.

Yep.

Right. So now it was like, oh, I have to do traditional.

I have to work again. I don't want to.

So I reached out to Kim and I'm like, will you coach me? We met every Friday for years. But there was a specific day that I came to your office and you did the red shirt exercise. So go through that because it's still very impactful. It's still hanging on the wall in my office. Go through that exercise because I think it's important for agents to hear this.

Well, part of what you said was, I think I'm done with real estate and I don't know what I should do. And I was like, well, okay, I don't think you're done with real estate. I think that's. Your comments to me were, that's all I know. So what do I do? Okay, well, what you should do is figure out how you can use what you know. So let's, let's just go through it. So it's an exercise of being able to say, okay, listen, if you had someone else, like, who could do all of your work, what would you have them do? Like, in a typical day, what, what would you do? Let's just start there. In a typical day, what are the things you do? So the very top of this is, you know, I respond to emails, I.

Go on appointments, go on appointments, I.

Make calls, I prospect, I, you know.

Blah, blah, blah, show homes.

So, okay, if you could pay someone to do this, these things, then what would you do with your day? And you just keep drilling that down. I mean, probably four or five times because you're really forcing the brain, honestly, to get really technical, to shift between left and right. And it's confusing and it's frustrating. It's really hard. It gives you a headache and it's not working if it doesn't give you a headache. Right. And it should make you really frustrated and really mad because you're desperate by the time we get to the bottom of the sheet. And the sheet is one of the big post it notes.

So what's interesting about doing this exercise with Kim is, and the reason it is still there is because at the end of that exercise, for me, this is how powerful it Was it brought me all the way back down to one word, which was wealth builder. And this was before we owned any rental properties. We started down the investment space I knew a little bit about my dad was doing, and I said, well, I want to figure out the wealth building component of real estate. And that was she's three years before I bought my first flip.

Right. Well, I think when we look at that sheet and you go down, you go, okay, the last few things that you're doing right. When we say, okay, if somebody else can do that for you, what are you gonna do with your time? When we get to that bottom point, you look at those words and you go, okay, well, what would you call that person? Yeah, what title would you. If that person has to have a job, what title is that? Job. And so you can kind of play around with a bunch of different synonyms, but ultimately we get to wealth building, and he's like, well, what does that mean? You were like, what does that mean? I was like, that means that you are interested in A, building wealth for your family, and B, helping other people build wealth. And now fast forward, that's all you do.

What's interesting is that it came so pre what I was ready to do, but it gave me the idea, and it sent me down a path which opened my mind to what else was possible in real estate. To where, again is what I really teach you guys is there's so many other possibilities to start opening faucets and letting things drip and realizing that real estate is way more interesting than just typical representing buyers, sellers, prospecting and doing those things. And I think that's where I had gotten to because the REO business had burned me out. I mean, well, it was. We worked like a mother.

It was hard.

Yeah, it was hard. And I mean, there was months that we'd close 100 Reo transactions. And why everybody thinks that's great. Remember, we got paid $1,000 commission.

Exactly.

Plus a referral fee out of it. We might have made $500 per house, but it was a volume play when it came down to it. And don't get me wrong, we did really, really well. Thank you. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Right. But it came at a cost also. And people who don't, you know, they're like, oh, well, you're one of the chosen ones for reo. Yeah, I'm the one that was crucified over and over and over and again. Right. Like, it was crazy. But I think what's important about some of that, too, that that you talk about is the timing, right? When you look and say, listen, this revelation came so that you would have time to, like, get your head around it and start to say, okay, how. How can I. How can I integrate that? How can that be something in the way that I think and in the way that I operate? And so, you know, just like everything else, it's an overnight success, right? It takes some time to actually formulate. And then even when you started it, when you started launching it, there were a lot of, like, massive fails. And I'm just gonna say that with the love in my heart. Right? But I mean that you have. You pay the price for these things if you have an open mind and you say, okay, I don't want that anymore. I think 99% of figuring out what you want to do in life is figuring out the 99% of what you don't want to do.

True.

Like, I. And you were like, I don't want to do traditional rules estate anymore. I just can't stomach it anymore. I need a new career. What should I do? Okay, well, wait, you have this mammoth wealth of knowledge, right? So let's take your wealth of knowledge. It's the same thing when I talked about it earlier, where I would think, oh, I think I can do this. Then when I actually did it, it's like, now I can stand here and go, well, I know I can do that. That doesn't intimidate me anymore. I've done stuff for three global companies now. My stuff's all. All over the world. My little brain power thing, that's no braggadocious moment. It's just like, hey, that means I'm capable of that. What else am I capable of? What else can I do? How can I contribute? How can I help? And I think that's the same thing I think that I was conveying to you. Listen, you're not equipped to do this now. But if you think you can and you start working that way and you make your brain start formulating, hey, what can I do? How can this look like, what. What one step do I need to take to get me there? Then I think it accelerates because you start accumulating these skills and these thoughts. And I think for me, in my own career, all of these things I thought, I thought, I thought, I thought I could do, Turns out I really can do them, right? But I couldn't do them over here. I could do them here because I needed the space to take place so I could ruminate, I could figure it out. I could Think and spend time doing it, and then you can execute, and then you execute and you don't do it. Well, we just don't. We have to figure these. We have to formulate that and go, okay, learning as we go. And when you're in the public view, there's not a lot of mercy for learning as you go.

No, no.

Like, there's a lot of critics, and so you have to have thick enough skin to just go, listen, I need to shun you while I just get in my lane and do my thing and I'm going to take my hits. That's fine. But I think it's really important, and I think this is important for agents today. Honestly, this, this industry is not easy. There are things that are shifting and changing all the time, and if you have your head in the sand, you're gonna pay the price. Right? Get your head out of the sand, put your chin up and get in a community of people who say, hey, listen, we're forward thinkers. The things that people are talking about in today's real estate world. We were talking about 6, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15 months ago. This is coming. This is what it's going to look like. We're going to. Now, we didn't know how it was going to come, and we still aren't really sure if you're thinking about, like, what's currently happening nationally. But I think it's really important to say, listen, you have to have a skill set in this industry where you have the ability to pivot and to learn. And if you can't pivot and learn, you're just. I mean, you're sitting duck 100%. Right. So, I mean, it's crazy.

So three, three and a half years ago.

Yeah.

You decided to go down this road. You did a lot of interviewing with culture and dating the culture and the CEOs and the operational people and all the things. When you decided to take this position, there's no salary. Right. Brand new company in Arizona.

Right.

And you're gonna go take on Arizona and go. I believe in this company so much. What was your thought process then? Like, you spent the seven to nine months with that Arizona opens, and now you're, what, Scared to death? All right, let's be honest.

I mean, I'm like, okay. I mean, I really hope that everything that I have learned and everything that they have said and I have disturbed, concerned that we're on the same page. Because now it's real life. Now it's not something I'm talking about like, hey, this is what we're gonna start. This is what I'm gonna do. It's not supposition, it's reality. Right. And so, yeah, it was a little. It was a little scary. We had, you know, you just like, all right, I guess we're going. Right. And so you just start. I mean, really, for me, the part was fun, and the part that remains fun is. Is the relationship part.

Sure.

So I have the opportunity to just spend time with people doing strategy sessions about their businesses. And that to me is like, I'm get super juiced about that because there are things that I know that I know. Right? There are things that I know that I don't know. And then I'm sure there's things I don't know I don't know. But, you know, I'm closing the gap on some of those, particularly around our industry and around Real now other people have other innovative ideas, and I learned a lot from these conversations. Sure. She's. I never thought of that. That's brilliant. But you know what? If you did that and you did it with this, then you could do that.

Yes.

So that's how my little puzzle piece brain works. And so that's super fun for me. So really just became this, let's have conversations with people. And I'm not. I'm never going to be somebody who hounds somebody. I'm not a stalker. If you reach out to me, I'm going to talk to you. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna harass you and just, like, drive you nuts. And so it was really just for me, just like, hey, let's have conversations. If this is a good platform for people and I trust that they can make a good business decision, I don't need to harass them and harangue them. I am 100% against that approach. I don't think it's healthy. And I think what it does if you do that is you're teaching people that that's the way to build your company, so they go and replicate it. And so I'm like, nope, we're not doing that. So let's back it up and let's do this in a way that I can be in genuine relationship with you. And here's. I'm gonna ask you a question. My turn. So here's the thing. Did I ever harass you or even call you and talk to you about Real?

No. You walked in my office, you said, this is what I'm doing. This is what I did. And I said, cool. Where do I sign up, right? And here's, like, that.

I mean, that is literally.

That is the truth. I had to do some finagling with my previous brokerage, which was fine, and there's always a time. But here's the deal. My relationship with my big sister here was one that when she came in as a leader and the person that I knew and she did the vetting, I had no reason not to trust her. Vetting and just follow the leader. Right. And so it is one of those things when I do have conversations with people, there's some people that trust the process, but they're, you know, they want to dig into it a little bit more. They're afraid of change. I looked at the opportunities and just said, screw it. Right. There's. I'll take the risk because there's nothing I'm really risking by making this move when it comes down to it, because either way, I got to pay a company. And this one has more upside.

Yep.

And this one has no upside, so.

And there was nothing wrong with your other company. Nothing. So I think sometimes agents feel like, well, I'm happy where I'm at because there's nothing wrong. That's terrific. I mean, I want you to live in mediocrity, too. I mean, that's the terrible, snarky way to say it. But I'm just saying, just because there's not anything wrong doesn't mean that you have to have a closed mind about other opportunities. And when you can. When you can look at another opportunity and say, gosh, how does my business filter through that opportunity? And when it comes out on the other end, what does it look like? And I think that's. That's the critical conversation. Hey, here. Here's the model. Throw all your stuff against it, and let's figure it out. Throw me all your objections. Throw me all your questions. Throw me all your fears. Okay? Because sometimes I'm going to go, yeah, you're right. You shouldn't come. We're not going to do business the way you do business. We're not going to give you that. We have this whole bucket over here of opportunity. Your business doesn't line up either your actual business model because. Because you're shady. I'll just say it. Because you're shady or not. Not down for that. Or you. Your attitude is such that you're not willing to bend or flex to see that there's another way you could do something that could be really, really beneficial for you.

I also want to point this out that I think is really, really critical for people to understand is that I don't care what brokerage you go to or what team you go to. The diving in and the trust into the leadership that you are going towards is the 100%, the main goal in this. And here's why I say that I didn't need to go and research Tamir. Sharon wasn't at Real. Kim was my leader, the broker, Chelsea, which does a great job. She wasn't our original broker. She's there to protect me and the company and keep me in compliance. My relationship is here. This is where I'm leading. And I'm also seeing leading from the top and leading going wide in the company. And that is what I appreciate. It's like, I love that Sharon and Tamir are there and I've loved the time that I've spent with Tamir. But most importantly, it's like, who is my direct support that I know is going to support me, my business and where I want to go, not where they want to see them go.

That comes because we have an authentic relationship.

Right.

I didn't give you a sales pitch. I didn't. All I said, you said, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? This is what I'm doing. You're like, well, why wouldn't I do it? I don't know why you wouldn't do it. I think you should do it.

Okay.

Okay. I mean, and. But that's built on a real relationship. Right? And so I think it's not a sales pitch, it's not a bait and switch. It's not, let me just make you all these promises and I, I hoodwink you in and then I ditch you because I didn't actually have a relationship either begin with. So I don't really care. I mean, it's a weird concept. I, I don't get it. And you know, yeah. To me, I think it is 100% founded in the actual relationships you build with people. And by the way, that doesn't mean you have to have a 15 year relationship. You can have a five minute relationship where people understand, like, you're authentic and you're real and your history supports what your future will project. Right. And so when I look at that, I'm like, okay, I'm absolutely not a perfect human being by any means, but you can look back and my history is pretty consistent of growth and investment in other people. My word is true. You can count on my word. Like, there are certain things, you know, you know, my brain so you know my level of discernment for things, you know my strategy brain. So you have a respect for that and that gives you a confidence to say, oh, what Kim's saying I can count on. And that to me, like, that's, that's a. Has nothing to do with the industry. That just has to do with me.

Right?

Like my. I was raised that your word means something. And if you're shady, you're shady. It's easy to. What am I most excited about for the next three years? Shoot. I'm excited for some of the things that they loaded at Rise last year. Those are forthcoming. The real wallet is. Honest to God. The real wallet is the thing that takes tickered to us to go the other direction. Like we are now not anywhere near in the same category as any other real estate company ever before and very likely ever going forward. Because this is such a departure from traditional real estate. It's. It's insane. And it makes me super excited because I'm like, okay, gosh, we're rolling that stuff out.

What is that?

Oh, real wallet, man, it's going to be so fun.

Give me the 22nd real wallet.

Okay, so I'll give you the example that someone else shared with me. And I was like, oh, that's genius. On my phone, come up wanting and you're gonna go away. So I don't think it's effective. I think it's. I think people naturally just run to the shiny because we're looking for easy. I think if you get in a relationship with somebody and you say, listen, I'm not going to show you the dream, instead of showing you the dream, I'm going to show you like how, how this applies to your life. And then you decide if you can build a dream on this, knowing that here is this foundation of benefits designed to help you have access to other opportunities. So I can show you the dream and show you, like what my revenue shared monthly deposit looks like. I can tell you, you know, who you're going to be in proximity with if you do this with me. By the way, if we haven't. Sorry, all the bones in my neck.

She'S going to go psycho in about five seconds.

Listen, if you are in conversations about moving brokerages and there are if then statements, you should flee. If you join with me, then I will do this. If you come here, I will do this. You know, it's super easy to say, here's the model. Does it work for you? Can you see your business thriving here? That's the question we should be asking, here are the.

Here are the levers you can pull when you're ready, if you ever desire to.

Here's the benefits if you want them.

Right.

Do you want that? Because, by the way, all of those require work.

Yep.

Every single benefit available to a real agent is based in production.

Yes.

Every single one of them. There isn't some easy schmeasy thing.

Right.

Real. Yes. We have revenue share. I'll just go there for a second because I'm kind of hot. Now. We have revenue share. But you know what that is? That is a commitment from the company asking you as the sponsor. We're paying you to take care of the people you bring in. We're not paying you so that we can make you independently wealthy.

Yes.

For the sake of making you independently.

It truly is supposed to be built in a ladder community, which, hey, we're going to compensate you for bringing something on and helping them take on their business. And you're going to support and mentor them. You are basically, when you take on and you attract an agent, you are saying, I'm here to support, mentor, and get your business where you want it to go.

Right.

And if you're not willing to do.

That, and I'm teaching you to do that so you can do that to the people you bring.

If you're not willing to do that, let's not go there. But if you are willing to come here. Right. You. I mean, I'm under you. Right. So I lean on you for a lot of things and you should. And I also. We banter back and forth, although they.

Don'T pay me enough for that.

That's what you get for the long relationship.

Dang it. Dang it.

Yeah. So, you know, when I look at it, I always try to look and go, your current brokerage, how many levers of income can you pull and at what time do you want to pull them?

Right.

So there's only a couple levers at traditional. Right. And you go into a cloud based. There's a lot of different levers to pull. It doesn't mean to go in and pull them all at the same time.

No.

Right. So it's, It's.

I learned that should give an agent, actually, if they can't come in and pull them all at the same time, that should actually be really encouraging.

Yes.

Because then it gives you some of that motivation and drive and. And to want to go forward. Right. And build more, build stronger.

My conversation, My conversation with April yesterday was, hey, we're coming over. I said, I Want to see your business plan? Because we were focusing on your real estate first. You get to start having age and attraction conversations when we hit these goals. Not that you don't have these relationships. And if you do capture it, then you bring it in and we have the conversation together. Don't get distracted by the squirrels. Let's stay. Your active income is important right now. Let me help build on the passive side down the road. But right now, do not lose sight of this.

Right?

Right. Because I think a lot of people come in, they shut yourself out for a couple of reasons. One, it's like, oh my God, this is a great lever.

Yeah.

I'm gonna stop selling real estate and go talk to a bunch of agents. And that's not going to create your active income. But what you can do is focus on your active income. When you're doing cross sales, you're doing showings, you're figuring out people that you want to be around and go, this piece would be cool to talk with or collaborate with. That is the gauge and that's the lever you pull down the road. It's not something you do when you jump in here.

Well, that's the authentic relationship piece.

Right.

And. And none of it matters if you're not producing. We're not a body shop. Like, we don't. We're not looking for. We don't need to be the highest populace of a real estate brokerage.

Right.

What we need and what our platform is designed for and why we're so attractive to people is if you are producing, you should be at real.

Yep.

That's the end of the story. There is, there is any producing agent should be looking at their return on investment.

You know my thoughts on that.

Right.

Right.

So here's the thing. You are going to pay a brokerage a certain.

And for those of you that keep saying your brokerages are 100%, they're not.

Yeah.

Nothing is. They can't operate at free.

Right. And if they are, they'll be around for about 15 minutes until all of the money that they didn't take in is gone.

Right.

Right. So it's silly. And yeah, that's a whole nother, like wild rabbit trail. But every, every single benefit you unlock at Real is based in your production. And if you close. Not if, but when you close one deal, you get paid twice. That's just you automatically you. And if you use any of our internals where you use a mortgage and you have your lo license, then you can earn based on closing the loan. If you use Title, you can be part of a joint venture. Like there's. And that's just on one transaction. So annual bonus, mortgage and title commission. Yep. So technically, on your very first deal at Real, you could be paid in four different avenues. Right. That's just one example. So just depends on investment, what levers.

You want to pull. And then you write it's what your return on investment is.

We know that not every agent is going to be interested in attraction. No. And in fact, the vast majority aren't. And that's totally fine. There's no pressure. You're no lesser being if you don't bring people.

Let's go back to this. I think everybody's interested in attraction. Not everybody is structured in their life to be able to do attraction. I say in the way that we do it. But they do want to do it. But they want help with it. Right. They want to be around it.

Some of that's true for sure. I think that there's a stigma that has been assigned in our industry to. If you're. If you're receiving rev share, you must just be a recruiter.

Yeah.

And so we're breaking that mold, clearly, because it's not true.

Right.

Our philosophy and how we walk it out, the execution of it is based in relationships.

Right.

Right. And so if I'm in relationship with you, I want to help your business grow, I want to help your team grow. I want to be in good relationship with all of your team. Right.

Like, I'm laughing right now because I'm just. I'm thinking right now of how it normally goes. Right. Is you. And this happens all the time. You join and then all of a sudden you're going to be friends with every real estate agent possible.

Right.

And I think about how bad that is and I think about all the relationships and how transparent it is. All the relationships that I have that are genuine, that have been decades, that they're okay to have those conversations. They're okay to reach out and go, how's your business?

Right.

Right. And from a true intention, because you're in relationship with.

Yeah.

It's.

It's not smarmy. No, it's legit.

And I think for some of you out there that are like, that's so gross. Keep in mind the people that you're around and think about the conversations that have been had. My questions are always, where's your business at? How can I support you?

Right.

Has nothing to do.

And it doesn't mean that you're coming to the brokerage.

Right.

I Run a weekly mastermind that's open to everybody. Anybody that's inside the company, whether I'm their sponsor or not, anybody that's outside the company, anybody who's inside or outside Arizona, I don't care. Like, my calls are the same. Yeah. It doesn't matter to me. My mission is to help agents figure out how they can have a better life and figure out how to be better in this. If in the course of that, they start to get the bug to go, wait, there's a lot happening over here that I'm missing. Then, yeah, I'm gonna have the conversation. But I'm. I'm not the guy that reaches out saying, hey, can I talk to you about real. Yeah, and not at all.

You know what it does, too, is, you know the band of brothers group text this morning? Right.

Love doing.

We were doing accountability last night. Right. So you know, these three guys, Blake, Brian, and Carl, all own independent, big independent brokerages. And one of them made a comment about these freaking recruiter agents, like, coming into the brokerages and doing different things. And of course, it's like, not you, Steve. I'm like, I know, but I know it's happening, right. And it's frustrating.

Yeah.

Okay. Three years.

Three years.

Three years.

3 years.

Your gamble.

Oh, yeah.

Which I don't think was much of a gamble. I think it was a very.

It was pretty methodical, but, yeah, you make me sound more exciting if you say it was a gamble.

Three years. We are the fastest growing brokerage in the world right now. According to Sean's interview last night that I watched. I think I was like agent 2350 when I joined.

Nice.

And here we are three years later for you. How are you feeling about the three years? And did you think it was going to be as massive trajectory?

Oh, yeah. That's the best part. Okay. And it's easy to say that because it happened.

You held out on that for me. You, like, come. Come join me in the sandbox.

Yeah, come play. So having the experience I had in my life around just business and innovation, I think, and then vetting them like I did, I was like, they're on to something, that they just are different. They just think differently. And you can ask my husband. He's like, are you gonna do this thing or not? And I was like, I don't know, man. These guys, they think differently. I like the way they think 100%. I like the way they think. It's very much in alignment with how I think. I'm usually the outlier Saying these weird things, people go, meh. Kay. I'm like, meh, here it is, right? So I could. I mean, they've 10x me at least, right? So I don't put myself in the same category, but I would say that it was very. I was very excited about it. And because I knew what I knew, I knew I could watch the trajectory go. And so I think that. I think that the company at large has just matured and just so beautifully. Not even in the population numbers, I agree. But our leaders have gotten a very good understanding of the intricacies of this business, real estate. If you guys don't know this, real estate is not like any other business. Like, no other industry is like our industry with all the weird quirks. So they have come a long way in terms of actually understanding the nitty gritty of how this business works. Then they have been able to take. Take it from there and say, gosh, knowing that, can't we level it up here? And then if we do that, can't we do this? And if we do that, can't we do this? And you just start watching this amoeba shape shifter and watch it go. And so I think for me, when I look at three years, I'll tell you, one of the greatest things that I can say, like, square in the eyeball with you is these guys. Everything that they said to me in my text thread, back and forth with them, has come to fruition. And there were a lot of things, and probably on a 10x level, by the way, but some of the answers that I got from them were like, we don't know. We never even thought of that. And some of them were like, yeah, we're not doing it that way. And the other ones are, yep, this is where we are. We're still learning. And I have watched them. I mean, they were super transparent. And who am I? I mean, I'm not like, honestly, who am I to come in and go, hey, you guys have this great idea, and you've launched this national company, and here, let me just, like, start shooting holes like crazy with it. But for me, I was like, hey, I need to know what your thinking is around this, because I need to know if I'm actually in alignment, conceptually, totally in alignment. And that would have been what probably most agents would go, oh, in concept, I'm there. So I just move. That's the shiny for me. I was like, let's dig deeper. I want to know and understand this part. In doing that now I have the future space of being able to look backwards and go, wow. Every single thing, every single little thing that they have said to me in that vetting time has come to fruition. It has matured and developed from that. That was a lot of rudimentary conversations. So, you know, and then for them to say, yeah, we're not doing it that way. For me to go, okay, well, I. I don't know if I trust them to do it that their way. I don't know what that will look like. But the more that there was, you know, Sean says it all the time. My dad used to say this. So I feel like Sean's kind of my dad in this, like, proof over promise, right? Here's the proof. Well, now I have a three year history with them. I have a little more than that because I started vetting them before I got licensed with them, right? So I have a three and a half, almost four year history of seeing proof over promise. And if anything, they were very careful to not promise because they didn't know what they didn't know about some things. And, and they're like, listen, we've bitten off this part. We're gonna go with this part, and we're gonna develop it the way we think that it should go. And every single thing has been like, completely in alignment. And so that part's the most exciting part for me because that gives me then the faith in whatever wackadoodle thing they come up with next.

Well, that's my next question. What are you most excited for in the next three years?

What am I most excited about for the next three years? Shoot. I'm excited for some of the things that they loaded at Rise last year. Those are forthcoming. The real wallet is. Honest to God, the real wallet is the thing that tickered to us to go the other direction. Like, we are now not anywhere near in the same category as any other real estate company ever before and very likely ever going forward. Because this is such a departure from traditional real estate. It's. It's insane. And it makes me super excited because I'm like, okay, gosh, we're rolling that stuff out.

What is that?

Oh, real wallet, man, it's gonna be so freaking awesome.

Give me the 22nd real wallet.

Okay, so I'll give you the example that someone else shows shared with me. And I was like, oh, that's genius. On my phone, on my phone, I have the Starbucks app. And the Starbucks app says, kim, if you give me a hundred dollars, you can go into Starbucks and use your hundred dollars. But they are never giving me back my hundred dollars, right? So I give them my hundred dollars and I can go spend it. It can take me five years to spend it or whatever.

Right?

But Starbucks, if they're. Let's just pretend there's only a million people the world who have Starbucks app on their phone. And let's pretend that all million just deposit $100. How much money? It sounds like third grade. How much money does Starbucks have?

Million dollars.

$100 million.

$100 million. Right.

You might have to edit this. $100 million. So if you have a million people giving $100 deposit into their Starbucks app, Star Starbucks now is sitting on $100 million of liquidity capital. Think what they could do in innovation, et cetera. So now take the real card, the real reward, and you have a debit card. And you can get your commissions paid to your debit card. And you can just leave it there if you want to, you can funnel it right off to your Wells Fargo account. That's great, too. But you could leave it there and you could be swiping your real debit card for your groceries, your coffee, your gas, whatever, clothes, whatever. And instead of earning airline miles like American Express gives me, what if you earned real miles and real miles paid for your real fees?

I'm in.

You're in?

I'm in.

Okay, so that's one way that the real wallet can work. Okay, so, but that money's sitting there at any time. You could exit it out, put it your Chase or Wells Fargo or whatever account, but it's sitting there. So what if all of these agents have all of their commissions just sitting there right now? Real is not. They can't. You can't sleep it. Because it's not the same. Right, Right. But you get the concept.

Yes.

Okay, but then let's go forward and say now we're going to roll out our real credit card.

Okay.

Our real credit card then is going to be collateral collateralized against your real assets. What are your real assets? Well, your real assets are. We have a history of your production. We know that typically, year over year, you earn this much in revenue, that becomes a collateralized asset. Hang on. You have a revenue share network that you have built and you can count on that earning X dollars. Right. Then you have all of your shares, the company shares that you have earned through your production. That's an actual asset. Right. So now real can say, steve, you came to me and you said, listen, I need some liquidity because I'm going to launch something new in My business and I want my company, I want to be able to borrow. So can I have basically a real credit score? Right. Which, that's Right, you shouldn't quote me, but you get it. So they're going to look at your collateralization ability and they're going to say, okay, well here's $20,000 that you're borrowing against. Okay, now I have way oversimplified this.

It wasn't 30 seconds.

Wasn't 30 seconds. My real answer is a lot longer. Right, that gives you a general idea. So tell me where you can go to work for a company that its desire is that they pay you to work for them. That at some point there is a crossing of the line where, where you are not paying fees in, but you are having such a high ROI that the company is paying you. But we are continuing to grow. That model is 100% sustainable because we're only really operating with people who are producing. If you are coming to our company to hang your license, you are that we're not home for you.

Yep.

We're just not home for you 100%. Right. So when you say what excites me, I'm like, that super excites me. Because if we can have that kind of innovation, we have the machine. Our technology is robust. We have written every single line of code. We don't have plug and plays, we don't have widgets, we don't have whatever else you want to call it. We are our own machine. We have our own transaction processing, we have our own signature, we have our own app that connects everything to everything. You can see all of your transactions, you can see the status of history. It's pretty stinking phenomenal. So when you know that you have that machine, then you also know that you built it so that you could scale. So our ability to scale is unmatched, unmatched. Without all of these like roadblocks that people jump into. We have API that we can give out so that people who have spent all their time.

Yeah, there's so many things like we need to go into another podcast of like just the benefits of being it real.

So it's like exciting because there continues to be more benefits that benefit agents lives in a real way, not just some like, hey, we give you $50 for a referral. Thank you, I'll take that. But the truth is this is life changing for people for doing exactly what you are already doing by serving a buyer and a seller well.

And that's, you know, for, for me, for you. Because our Values align. And it's all about helping the agents become more successful. And that's exactly what our leadership is doing, is it's about the agents being more successful and keeping the company profitable. But not at the extent or not at the cost of the agent. No, they're trying to move things around to make sure that I'm not costing the agent for me to be profitable. And we're making sure that it's win win for both the company, because the company needs to be profitable for all of us to succeed. And so just watching what's happening and being so close to it has been fascinating. So congratulations. Congratulations on the methodical gamble that led us here. And thanks for joining us.

Well, I didn't do it by myself either, by the way. Can I just end with that? Because I did not. I mean, Arizona is going to be three years old in June. Yep.

How many agents?

And we are on the cusp of a thousand agents.

Who wants to be the thousandth agent? We're doing a big celebration for you.

That's exactly right. We'll have a party. But I didn't do that by myself. Right. Like, I started it. I built a really good core of people. And then that core has multiplied itself. If your business is, you know, screams integrity, if you are a good practitioner of the art, and then if you're just fun and cool. And we want to hang because we want to work with people we like. Right. Like, that's really the criteria. But we've built a really good foundation. And I think it's exciting because when it's. When the word got out, right. People started going, wow, there's something different. And I think that's the biggest thing that's fun is then it started to be this, you know, it just multiplied. And so other people have joined in and, and helped build and grow Arizona and the company. I mean, we're. We're approaching 20,000 agents. Yep. That's no joke.

20,000 agents in two and a half years of, you know, when I joined.

Right. Well, and I look at it, and part of what I get excited about is we're not at 20,000 and we're a publicly traded company. So this is not one of those statements. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying we're approaching that. And so here's the trick. I look at Arizona, I mean, right now we're 1/18 of the population. We have. It's published that we have 18,000 agents and beyond. Right. So we're almost at a thousand agents. Like a hair behind that. And that is 1/18 of the population. That means the explosive growth in Arizona. Super excited about because we have business people in Arizona. We don't just have your regular Joe agent who's just gonna wing it here and there. We have people who are focused and concentrated on building a business and building a future. And so you start to collaborate with those people, then your life changes and that makes me super excited.

Well, thank you for coming in and thank you for all the shares and congratulations on three years and I am so blessed to be on this road with you in this journey.

Likewise.

So many things over the last three years and so many things to come. So thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me. All right.

Hope you guys enjoyed that episode. Couple of things. One, you can follow Kimberly Ryan where on Instagram.

I think it's Kimberly Ryan. Joinreal awesome.

Kimberly Ryan is right there in the name. Wanna remind you that I do events and calls on a regular basis. Check out valentinegroup doc valentinegroupaz.com events check out the events there. Don't miss those. And I hope you will share this show. And if you are interested in real this is an attraction thing and you're interested in this, reach out to Kim, have a conversation with her. Just see what it is. Don't be afraid of looking at an opportunity because you may be surprised at what's there. So thank you. Have an amazing day and peace out.