Real Estate ISA Radio: Recent Episodes

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Nate Joens: Welcome everybody. My name is Nate Joens with Structurely, coming to you live from my bedroom, on this fine Wednesday morning. We are currently in the process of moving offices, and ours is under construction, so just easier this way. But, excited to welcome Robby T to our recap, our final conversations with the top ISA, with one of the former top ISAs himself.

Nate Joens: Robby is going to give us a rundown of what we've learned from the last six sessions with some amazing ISAs. Robby, just give an intro, I'm not going to try to pronounce your name again. [crosstalk 00:00:40]

Robby T.: Yeah dude, my last name sounds like a pharmaceutical drug with all the problems and none of the money, hence me being on the webinar today, right? Hey, Robby T here. Good to be back as always. It's been fun, right. We had, we started with Jim, who is like a brother to me, and it's funny, because a lot of the guests were either, I was good friends with, or became good friends with afterwards.

Robby T.: But I'm super excited to kind of walk through the main things that I really learned from some of them, and then I want to kind of talk today about some of my thoughts and my ideas, as well, on what it takes to be a really great ISA and so forth. But, I think we gotta start here.

Robby T.: I think the, we'll skip right into the meat of it. The thing I wanted to break down, what were the five key themes that I heard from all the different guests? The great piece is that, what I noticed is that a lot of them were, and Nate, feel free to chime in, from a ten thousand foot view, every guest, they had their own the flavor.

Robby T.: But they were saying a lot of the same things. There was a lot of consistent themes that were coming through in the calls. And the five habits that I'm going to go through, I think, really reflect those five key themes. Am I describing that well Nate, from your perspective?

Nate Joens: Yeah, I think that each one of them brought a different perspective, which is definitely the case. Everyone was from a different market too, which, [crosstalk 00:02:26] was interesting,

Robby T.: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Nate Joens: I think, weren't they? Yeah, so I think that that played a lot into the role. And I think everyone, every ISA just comes from a totally different background. You came from politics, Jim, I don't really know where Jim came from.

Robby T.: We don't know either. We're still trying to figure it out. (laughs)

Nate Joens: A different planet. But yeah, everyone comes from a different background and I think that that plays a role into how they take on the role.

Robby T.: Yeah, that's a very good point. They've all had different stories. Let's start here, let's start with the first habit, and I'm just going to talk about my point of view, Nate, and I want you maybe to chime in on your thoughts from what you've heard from other people.

Robby T.: Is, I would say this, the number one habit I've picked up on, from, and just to recap the guests, right, we had Jim on, Jim Renfro from Ash Realty, my brother, Holly Faulkner, she's from North Carolina. Heck, remembering all the companies and places can be tough. We had Dan, we had Alex, we had April, and we had Tyler Spraysner. I think I got all of them. Hopefully I didn't miss anyone. I got em all, right?

Nate Joens: Yeah, that's all right.

Robby T.: And the first thing was this, is, every single one was hungry in some way, shape, or form. And I think that is the first habit that was consistent, is they all had some reason to inconvenience themselves to pick up the phone and do the work. Whether it was, you know, we heard stories of, you know, I'm a single mom and I had to provide for my family, or I'm massively in debt and I need to get out of that and I need to crawl out of it, or frankly, I want to change my life.

Robby T.: I grew up, one person shared this story, I grew up watching my mom live paycheck to paycheck and I wanted to change my life. What they really showed and demonstrated was some form of hunger, where they were willing to inconvenience their lives, put in the work, and frankly, just pick up the phone.

Robby T.: And this is number one, because I think it's the most important from my perspective as well that you can't convert leads if you're not willing to pick up the phone and have the conversation. Right. Even if they utilize technology like yours, Nate, with conversational AI, using your product.

Robby T.: If you don't hop on the phone and convert the lead, because those opportunities come in at all times of day. If you're not hungry enough, if you're not willing to do the work, you're not going to have success. But, I'd love to hear your thoughts, Nate.

Nate Joens: Yeah, I completely agree. Our product is there to augment the role of the ISA and replace it. Our product doesn't have a chip on its shoulder. It puts in the work so that's why one caveat to your first point, but I see it time and time again. It's frustrating to me that when our product takes up a conversation as far as it can go right, still requires agent to follow up.

Nate Joens: And I can't tell you how many times I've seen a message come through after we've qualified the lead saying, "Hey, I didn't hear from your agent." Four times, and that's just, it's sad to me because I know that there's a team leader on the other side who spent a lot of money on that generating that lead.

Nate Joens: They've spent money on our product to qualify that lead to tee them up. And then it's just for a lack of hunger that that agent isn't pulling the trigger on that lead when they need to. So you can't really coach that. I think you can and that's something that hatches I think done so well. You can go down the line and tell what each one of your ISAs chip on their shoulder is, and why they're here and why they come in and make as many dials as they do every day.

Robby T.: I love that. That chip on the shoulder definition is really good. But the thing that was so fascinating was to see the different chips, right? And hunger is like this buzzword, and I probably shouldn't even use it, but the chip on the shoulder, it's fun because everyone's story was different. They were all that that chip look different but they had it. And that for me was just hands down. The number one thing is these people are proven something or they have something that are pushing towards.

Robby T.: And another big piece is their self realize and they understand that and they've had conversations about it, and they're putting at the forefront of their mind and it's a focus. And that's another piece is it's not just some uncovered why, it's something a lot of them are most likely talking about in their businesses, another thing and it's a primary source of their motivation.

Nate Joens: I come from this in a different perspective than you who's the one in active human coach, the most successful ISA teams in the country. But I think there's a big piece of accountability even in there you chip, if Jim shares his chip with you and the rest of the ISAs why he's doing this, why he comes in and grinds every day than you poke him with that you can say, "Hey Jim, I know you want to provide for your dad. You didn't make as many calls today." Why not? Do you still want to do that. And I think that that's a big piece too.

Robby T.: One of my former coaches, he told me once, and I think it's like quote worth writing down is, "If you to hold somebody accountable to your own goals, don't resent you, but if you hold them accountable to their goals, they'll thank you." And really that just the hunger is... and as a leader to play on that point. You have to know not just, I want to make money, right? That's not a hunger.

Robby T.: And that's the thing. If you were going to watch all the episodes, I don't think anyone was, I just want to make money. There was so much more depth behind that. And if you're leading ISA through, you're leading anyone in any business, you can't just settle for that service. You've got to know the depth behind it because as you just, you showed a good example.

Robby T.: If you can hit on those more emotional pieces of the why behind what's motivating someone, what they need, want or desire in their life, you can help them get to where they want to go. And when you first hold them accountable, I guarantee you they're going to be frustrated. We just went through that. In our ISA department, we've got super focused on a really massive goal.

Robby T.: Basically, going from May to September to get caught up on our goals. And Jim, I want to speak for him. We were on a quarterly and we were talking about this, Jim held them accountable because they were falling short based off of what they've all bought into. And he's like, "Guys, we got to change something." And at first they all said that they were frustrated with him, that they were a little bit upset with him.

Robby T.: But then at that quarterly, they said, a couple of days later or later that day, it clicked up. No, no, no, no. But this is for us. And then it was really, they were thanking him. And it like being a parent. You don't always want to do what's most popular, but you got to do what's right. But knowing that hunger is so key and finding hungry people.

Nate Joens: Yeah, absolutely. So if you're listening now, if you're an ISA, please tell your ISA leader, your team leader, someone on your team, what your hunger is, what your chip on your shoulder is, why you come into work and you grind every day.

Nate Joens: And if you're a team leader or an ISA manager or just someone on an ISAs team, please hold them accountable and they can tell you their chip and understand what their goals are and see if they're meeting it and if they're not a light a fire under them a little bit.

Robby T.: Truth. Exactly. So number one, hunger like a chip on the shoulder. I love that phrase a lot. Here's the second one that I noticed Nate and I'd love to hear your thoughts and I'm going to pull this term from a book by the same name called Grit. And I think that's something that really was self evident among the top ISAs was they were gritty people. And really what in my mind, and I read Grit by Angela Duckworth and end to plays right into it.

Robby T.: They push through the tough stuff. And despite resistance, they push through the tough stuff, and they're willing to delay their satisfaction and they are willing to not focus on all the nodes. Instead they view the no's as being something that's getting closer to those yeses. So grit, just being relentless in their pursuit of those yeses despite the no's was another huge common theme that I noticed.

Nate Joens: And I know, I think it was the last episode with Tyler that we talked on this. And you preach it all the time, I know with your coaching clients. I think one of my favorite stories for how to onboard an ISA the right way, it comes from grit and it's the whole, you can't give a teenager a Range Rover and not with the 1992 camera. Or I'll say they get a spoiled more or less. And I think that that comes from a place of building grit.

Nate Joens: And so if you are a team leader or an ISA, anyone listening and you're looking to hire an ISA, but good way to build grit early on is to get your new ISA hire really bad leads, it bring them push through those because it's not going to be easy and they're not going to get used to it or they will get used to it, but they're not going to like it.

Nate Joens: And then eventually you can start to give them the golden Apple leads, the Zillow leads, the low hanging fruit where it's you pick up the phone, you call them and you set an appointment. So I think that building that grit, some of it obviously comes from the number one point, their hunger, their chip on their shoulder, a lot of grit can be coached and should be coached. So I definitely consider that.

Robby T.: Yeah, and I agree. And I think another major, major piece of it is there's a lot of times where you're going to essentially get kicked in the face in this role. And what I mean by that is you're going to have the person you've been chasing for 18 months, and you're going to have these great conversations and you're going to call, and they're going to say something like, well, I decided to go with X. And you know that that person is just not good at all.

Robby T.: And some people, it's so easy to fall into this trap and let something like that be a de motivator. And those that are the most successful, that lights a fire underneath them and they go on find another person. And one of the things I've noticed, and it was dear in my heart and I've noticed this tendency even in top bottom stays as well, is that they have this passion and they take it personally when somebody has chosen to work with somebody else, and then they do everything they can to avoid that again.

Robby T.: But again, it's that grit, it's persistent, it's relentless, it's delayed gratification. And that's probably one of the biggest things to tie and put a bow on. This is none of the ISAs that we interviewed, said I had success, you know, month one. Usually they all talked about how this was a long term play. It was a longterm game. And for some reason a lot of people talk about how it's about a year in where the game, the light turns on and the games much easier.

Robby T.: And that requires grit to push through that year because you're making the calls, they're shooting the texts, you're getting a heck of a lot of notes. And of course, you got to be focused on I'm building my pipeline, I'm going to find those yeses. And it's almost like remained optimistic despite the pain you're going through. But that grit is huge, especially in this role. And obviously this applies to really any sales role that you'd get into as well.

Nate Joens: Yeah. And one point I didn't make up on the whole start a lead an ISA out with old leads and bring them on to new leads, didn't want to link to was in on four week onboarding schedule. So I just linked that in the chat. It's definitely pulls from some of these points that we learned from the top ISAs on what does the first week look like, second week, third week, fourth week.

Nate Joens: But like Robbie said, none of them were having extreme success in that first month. They're not making a whole lot of money that first month that delayed gratification is really what should keep them around. And that reward should be that much better over time. And that's a huge piece of retention too. Making sure that they do eventually get that gratification in a really, really big way.

Robby T.: I like it. So anything, excuse me, anything else you want to add to that one, Nate?

Nate Joens: No. Number two was a grit. Number one was hunger. What's number [inaudible 00:16:27]?

Robby T.: Number three is the innovators. And here's the simplest thing I can say about innovators is they are constantly trying new things. And I coach them on some of the best teams in the country. And this is one of the biggest things I preach all the time, is don't rely on me to tell you what to do. Go out and try new things all the dang time.

Robby T.: And really, I think the reason people haven't done that is intrinsic in innovation is we're going to fail and you're going to make mistakes. Jim told a really, I don't know if he told that on this episode when we did it, but he's told a story of one time when he was trying to send a message. He actually sent a message out to 2,500 people and he didn't mean to. And some people discouraged of failures like that.

Robby T.: And I'm like, nope, that's awesome. We have to make mistakes. We can't live in fear of, we're going to mess up. And you got to be willing to try things all the time and what inherently that means you're going to get kicked in the face. You're going to do something wrong, and what you have to do is adapt. So innovation to me was, and that's why you see somebody different strategies among the ISAs, and what they were doing is they're innovating in different ways.

Robby T.: And I think it's so key in this role, especially these last five years. I go back when I got into the game as an ISA, nobody was texting leads. Like that wasn't normal. You were calling and you just dial, dial, dial. And then the game shifted, right? The game shifted and emails, but it wasn't a big deal then it shifted to we were dialing and texting.

Robby T.: And for us as innovators, we weren't on the front edge of that is frankly the only reason we were switched to commission Zinc or one of the main reasons was commissioner Zinc was a first platform that really allowed us to mass message and auto message leads. Now of course, they've slipped backwards, I guess you could say with that.

Robby T.: But even today, the game keeps changing, right? And now texting just with words isn't enough. Then turned into texting with emojis. And I remember once that I requested of commissions Zinc like, "Hey, when can you guys put emojis in these text messages." And people laughed at me. I'm like, "Dude, all I do, anytime I want to innovate is I go look at what other people are doing."

Robby T.: And for me I go look at my brothers, those are five, six years younger than me. And they're just, it feels like a generational way and they're doing things, tic talk and stuff like that then I don't even know of. But the point is that I'm looking at them, saw that they were doing emojis and now it's gifts. Like we're seeing stupid response to gift messages and it's because we're innovating.

Robby T.: And don't get me wrong, we have some stuff that the bombs, I have sent some messages that I thought would be great, didn't work, but you got to be innovative and you got to be trying new things. And what that means is, trying new things his as a company on new processes, their systems and procedures. And I think innovators, we fail a lot. But number two, you consistently break things a lot.

Robby T.: And it's funny because the Global Leadership Summit was just, I think it was last week, right? Last week. And there was one talk that I just watched the recording of, I couldn't attend live, but I got access to the recordings, and what she talked about is there's really four stages of learning, and I'm going to walk through those real quick. Nate could you type these into the chat box for me?

Nate Joens: Yup.

Robby T.: Awesome. These are not my ideas. I'm sealing these on what's her name? I'll find it in a moment. But there's four stages of learning. And the first stage is unconscious incompetence. Basically this is, you don't know what you don't know. You're oblivious, right? That's every one of you when you first start day one does, you have no dang clue what you are doing. And it's kind of blissful, but that's stage one.

Robby T.: Stage two is conscious incompetence. And that is when you realize, ouch, I'm not really good at this. Or ouch, you know what you don't know. You realize, okay this is where I can get better, right? You start realizing I'm not that good at this at et cetera.

Robby T.: Number three is now conscious competence and it's, I can do it but it takes effort and this is like getting to peak stage. Then from here you have a choice, and you have a choice to go down and want to pass and one is really beneficial for you and one isn't. The path that isn't beneficial is when you go into unconscious competence. And this is when you think you're so good that you quit innovating, you quit learning because you think you've got it figured out.

Robby T.: And I see it happen all the time where people get stuck, they think it got figured out. I'm good to go, I don't need to learn anymore. Whereas what really successful people do and what innovators do is they go back to stage one. They force themselves to become unconscious in competencies cycle, loop over. And that's the learning cycle is going through a loop of challenging yourself and really come on Nate Jones, just good. We're really, what it is is going through that and realizing you don't ever have it figured out.

Robby T.: And for me, I know my blood, that's why I'm just always challenging and thinking what's next, what's going next. And I think really great ISAs embrace that mindset and grant.

Nate Joens: What was the fourth? [crosstalk 00:22:30].

Robby T.: Oh yeah, number four, the bad place to get to basically number four. Either start over and to go from three to one or you go to number four, which was unconscious competence. And that's just really, that's when people, you see it all the time, but we all think they got it all figured out. It's wondering ego takes a hole and you're like, I got this figured out. Nobody else is going to catch up to me, it's like the whole idea of the innovator's dilemma.

Nate Joens: Got it.

Robby T.: But go ahead Nate. I talked for a while there.

Nate Joens: Oh, that's really really interesting. I hadn't heard of any of those, but when you spoke to them, I could feel myself thinking through certain scenarios where I was like, "I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm doing and I'm bad at this. Oh, I'm getting better at this." And then making that decision on where to go from there.

Nate Joens: That's a really interesting thing I think you should be aware of when hiring a new ISA for sure is understanding where they're at in picking up how to be an ISA understanding where they're at in their process and making sure that you're tailoring your onboarding content to help them through these four stages of learning. So those are really interesting for me to hear.

Robby T.: Yeah, and the, the lady who, gave that talk, Liz Bo Hannon, L-I-Z and then Bo Hannon is B-O-H-A-N-N-O-N, And she's just releasing a book. I forget exactly what it's called. I think it's Beginner's Pluck, P-L-U-C-K. But yeah, super, super great stuff. And one of my friends here at Hatch Coaching with me and I'm gripped by it.

Nate Joens: That's awesome.

Robby T.: But I think the biggest thing is, this is the reason why I showed those four stages of learning. It's not a matter of once you learn something, it's not a matter of whether you come down from the peak, it's a matter of whether you want to fall or whether you want to purposely go back down and get to the top again. That's the choices you have. You're going to fall on their face and you think you've got there, you've got to figure it out. You going to quit innovating and eventually, what you're doing is obsolete.

Robby T.: And anyone that's just calling today, for example, that's the world you're in. If you ever, for example, only calling leads, it's not going to work. You got to be innovating and trying. And that requires you having the hubris to recognize, I don't got this all figured out. Someone might come along and do it better. What are they doing? And look at it. It's why one of my favorite things to do is go spot-check or competition. Sometimes I'm really happy about it and see some really great things. Sometimes I'm like, hey, we should try something different.

Nate Joens: And it's just from, you're not differentiating at all. If everyone's calling, how would you stand out from the noise? But if you send your leads a message through like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or just some other medium in some other way using a gift that cuts through the noise, that gives them some reason to remember you, even if they're not ready, you're going to try and tie that back to your brand saying, I remember that guy, he sent me a message on WhatsApp with that really funny gift.

Nate Joens: The things that cut through the noise. And if you're just doing what everyone else is doing, not being an innovator, then there's no way you can get ahead, obviously.

Robby T.: Correct. Exactly. I love it. So number three they innovate. That's the biggest thing. The next thing is number four is their systemize. They've got some form of system to make sure every lead has a place. And along with that, that goes along with systemize. And I want to give April in California, some major credit here. She I think their ISA department is the most relentless in pursuing leads. Like they will just keep chasing and huge kudos to them because it definitely shifted my thinking. It's one of the joys of being able to partake in these conversations is I learned a ton.

Robby T.: The way they literally, I know just music going to call back six months later. I think that's what they described is I'm in that Nate, something like that. And they have a system for it. And this is probably tied together grit and persistence and systems, but I think that the put a bow on that idea of what really comes down to is not giving up too easily.

Robby T.: And I think another thing you'll see in our conversations is then we'll give up in their conversations easily either because if you ask someone, almost always, Hey Nate, you just curious or you think about making a move. A lot of people say, "Ah, I'm just curious." I was like, "Right, what had you interested in real estate? I was thinking about making a move." It happens all the time. We're on the second or third question because I mean here is everybody has a garden, right? Who wants to talk to a salesperson?

Robby T.: When you are calling your a random number and you say you're with a real estate company, the lead is instantly going to lump you in with all the other people out there that are trying to hard sell them, push them, get them to do something. And rightfully so, by the way, because it was a lot of that out there. And what you can do differently when you ask questions, you're literally subconsciously signaling to them, hey, this isn't about me. It's about you.

Robby T.: And almost always on that second or third try, despite them saying no, they're going to shift a little bit. And that no might turn into a yes or maybe a not yet.

Nate Joens: No, I think on the systems piece, I think Leanne's was wonderful to hear. So what episode was that? Two or three?

Robby T.: Oh gosh, dude, I don't remember exactly [crosstalk 00:28:41]. It all blurred.

Nate Joens: If you want to hear a great a system on just getting up on leads, listen to the second or third, one of these so it's in our seven part series interviews with the top ISA. That was great to listen to. But yeah, I think it's partially to, you want to give your ISAs the ability to come into the office and know exactly what to do. That comes from a place of having your systems in place.

Nate Joens: You know, you need to call these leads because they came in overnight first, then you need to go to your fisbos, call them and run through this checklist without thinking so they can open up their time to be innovators. They shouldn't have to come through your database every day and say, who do I need to call? Why do I need to call them? What do I talk to them about?

Nate Joens: They should be spending their time thinking, how can I tweak my messaging to get better response rate? I'm going to AB test this set of 50 leads that I'm messaging today with a gift and an emoji and see which one works out. They shouldn't have to be thinking and spending their valuable time thinking through the very basic, mundane system tests that should be defined by an ISA leader, your team leader or the ISA themselves eventually so they don't have to think through those things.

Robby T.: I love that you're hitting on the biggest thing, and the biggest recommendation I can give on that point from knowing it in our world as well as top producing ISAs, if you want to simplify who we should be calling. The simplest way to do it is you need to create buckets that put apples with apples and oranges with oranges. Because what I see happen all the time and it messes up everyone's system and it makes it so impossible for them to work.

Robby T.: And instead of calling leads, they take 10 minutes to plan on who should I be calling every day, many times a day. All you need to do is you just need to take leads and categorize them, and take like leads and put it with like leads. And you should write that down because the more you chew in that is going to resonate and take like leads and you put it in a bucket with other like leads.

Nate Joens: Can you give example.

Robby T.: A great example is you should not have your contacted leads in the same bucket as uncontacted leads. It makes no sense because the way you're chasing a contacted lead that said, hey, give me a call back in a year is going to be drastically different than a lead you haven't called before. And what do you need to do just in systems wise is you need to create tagging mechanism, labeling mechanisms or whatever your CRM has offer.

Robby T.: And what we do is we just basically segment all leads into different pools, I guess you could say. And it's based off of them being like each other. So let's talk follow ups, right? This is what we do with all of our follow ups and a follow up from me because some people get confused. A follow up is somewhat of a nurture.

Robby T.: So a follow up with somebody that I called or texted, we contacted and we determined we wanted to follow up at some point in the future hence this following the follow up, I know a lot of other people have called them nurturance. We're talking to the same game.

Robby T.: Well, what we do is we take those and we actually subdivided and we categorize them as A followups, B followups, C followup and D followups. And the simple reason is is that a D followup is drastically different than an A followup. An A followup for somebody that when that followup time pops up, I need to call that right then and there.

Robby T.: Whereas D followup, if that thing pops up and I don't get to it for a few days, doesn't really matter. So it's really, it's systemizing things for you. And so we're just doing that all the time. On the uncontacted side, all we're doing is we're categorizing people in two different pools, high quality and low quality because when I'm making calls through that, I want to get to have extra time to call leads. I'm going to always call my high quality opportunities every single time.

Robby T.: So it's just taking this and taking your uncontacted, your contacted leads, your appointment set leads, taking your junk leads, right? The people that aren't interested, I could go on forever with this, but it's taking them and having a system that takes like leads and puts them in a similar pile.

Nate Joens: One thing that have been really interested in from a CRM perspective and a followup perspective lately has been a website activity. I think that is a huge indicatorwhen people buy a house, they get really hot and heavy for a certain amount of time. And then they buy a house. A lot of that comes from their activity.

Nate Joens: If your CRM or IDX site is tracking that, definitely recommend breaking your contacted and uncontacted into a last visited in the last 30 days or not last, not visited in the last 30 days. Like that, that prove that they're on your website, checking out properties and more of an aggressive fashion and then calling through that list with a little bit more a tailored content.

Robby T.: And I think why local is this figured out better than anybody? It's the whole idea of just behavioral techs where somebody who's behaving a certain way and that we try to trigger it. Trigger something I should say. And they got that figured out beyond anybody else in this game. And I agree 100%, and then some days like, but they told me they're going to look to buy in a year or two or three.

Robby T.: I have one simple real battle, plans change, things change, human beings stories, not constant. I bought three homes in about four years. No, I'm not going to buy a home for a long time. Next time we come on and I'm going to buy a new house. I'm not going to hopefully plans change, right? The human story is so unpredictable, you have no idea what's going to happen. So you've got to allow for some deviation in there.

Robby T.: With the other thing though is everybody falls into the trap of I want to talk to everybody every single month. And the reality is the top ISAs understand your most valuable resources for your time. And I used to play a lot of poker, right? And if you're good at poker, you understand one simple thing. You think in terms of bets, and what you do is you put more money in when the odds are in your favor and you put less money in when the odds aren't in your favor.

Robby T.: Like end of story. You follow that, you'll play some poker and read some bluffs of course, you're going to be good. And Annie Duke, a former professional or professional poker player wrote a whole book called Thinking in Bets. And really what it is, is this, as an ISA, your bet is your time, your effort you're putting in.

Robby T.: And if somebody says four years out, there's going to be some people that the plan's going to change, but it's going to be nowhere near as many as the AIDS, right? That are hot and ready to go. And you just have to choose to invest your time wisely. And the reason we created that ABCD system was my ISAs is the best more time in the A and B leads. They do their Cs and Ds leads.

Robby T.: What's cool about that internet activity is it can signal, okay, this person told me they were a D, but now they came back to the website and they're super hot and been there for six months. Something's probably changed, which is why Loco I think is genius. I'm not moving on that front.

Nate Joens: So it's implicit indicator saying, I'm actually interested, I'm not going to tell you to do something that [inaudible 00:36:48] that.

Robby T.: I'm going to call you and say, hey, we're actively again. The simplest way to live your life as an ISA is just put yourself to the test as a lead when you call that person and do that or would you just go to the website and you're homeless again.

Nate Joens: Exactly. And that's why I think it's so interesting because that's where technology should be open you as an ISA, that's where, hey, you know, that's probably five years ago you didn't have that. And I don't frankly know how you would know someone's more interested or their plans have changed other than actually calling them. Hopefully you had some systems in place so that you weren't calling all of them and you were hedging your bets a little bit and calling the followup A's and B's.

Nate Joens: But I think that to your point on the followup, not following up with D's and C's so much that just prevents burnout. ISAs can only handle so much rejection. It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. So you have to help get them set up in that way.

Robby T.: Truth. Exactly. So systems, they all have some form of system to do what we're talking about here. And they're all slightly different. April's is different than ours. Grants as I took some great notes on Arizona on some things. But there is some system that makes it easier for them to know who should I be called? Excuse me, who should I be calling today? Because that's the biggest form I see is people have analysis paralysis where they freeze and they don't know who to call so they don't end up calling.

Robby T.: And that doesn't sound like a big deal. What if you spend five, 10 minutes a day doing that? That is hundreds of hours wasted in the year. Somewhere around there and especially in the lifetime of an ISA, they're systemized in some way, shape or form. Anything else you want to add to that one Nate?

Nate Joens: No, what's number five?

Robby T.: Number five is they are service focused and this is probably the hands down the most common theme. The biggest one. And I'm saving the best for last is I don't think any of the ISAs we spoke to, viewed themselves as being sales focus, being salesy, which is really funny because they're probably the top producing ISAs and lead converters out there. And I think there's... we're going to talk about that in a bit, but the really service focused, and let me provide depth behind that.

Robby T.: The great ISAs aren't focused on one, two, three main street. They're not focused on making that sale. They're 100% hyper-focus on who is this person, what are they potentially looking to do, what are their needs, wants, and desires, and how can I serve them? And that was probably one of the biggest things, despite being, we had someone from Washington, we had somebody from California, we had somebody from Fargo, North Dakota AK the middle of nowhere.

Robby T.: And then we had people from the South. And I just realized that we covered like the whole, basically the whole United States. And then we had somebody from the East coast, the Carolinas, and the theme was they were focused on that service and they were focused on putting that leads, needs, wants and desires far below or far before the sale. What are your thoughts Nate?

Nate Joens: Yeah, I always come back to when I was at the Hatch Summit last year at this time I think, or was that the conversion? I think it was the summit where we had the breakout session. You drew the picture of a house and a person.

Robby T.: Yeah.

Nate Joens: And I think the old ISA model was focusing on the house and in the new way is simply focusing on the person. And that's always struck home to me from a product perspective. I've learned a lot from you about, from structurally, way back in the day, early on we thought, can our product integrate with MLS data? That's a whole nother story. It would have been miserable to do, but we didn't.

Nate Joens: A lot of that was because of you had told me the story of a lead will come in and say, how many beds does this property have? And they haven't told you how many they're looking for. And you say the wrong number, you say two and they're looking for three, they're going to be like, all right, thanks. See you. Then probably goes to you.

Robby T.: The ghost.

Nate Joens: But you didn't ask why you're looking for a three bed house? That's the question that you need to be asking. And that's the non salesy question. There's a point where you do need to provide information on the property, but following it up with a question is the model that all of these top ISAs are employing now.

Robby T.: 100%. I think it seems so counterintuitive. It's cool that that is becoming the normal finally. And I just put myself in the shoes of a consumer. Again, it's how I have played this whole game. And I think that's what these other ISAs have done as well, is they treat that lead in the sense of they would want to be treated.

Robby T.: And for far too long in this dang industry, people would call the end sales in general. They would call people with the intent of pushing somebody to do something they don't want to do, of manipulating with the intent of getting him to do something that's not the best for them. And it comes from this mindset of I don't have enough. And it comes from this mindset of being attached to an outcome of being dependent on this sale.

Robby T.: And I had somebody today that said something really funny about this. You basically said, it comes across as like desperate breath, and it stinks and nobody likes it. They can tell, they can hear it. When you're being very pushy and salesy, when you're really signaling to them as, "Hey, I need this next sale." And the thing my brain goes to is I would never want to work with somebody that was desperate for the next sale.

Robby T.: I'd want to work with somebody that truly took the time to understand my needs, wants, and desires at a deeper level that would help me process information. Because when you're in a sales mindset, what happens is this is you only talk about the surface, and the reality is this is that if the lead you were talking to, if their story isn't changing throughout the conversation, you're doing something wrong.

Robby T.: What should be happening is you should be asking questions like, get them to think differently. Because when you do that, you're getting to the depth of who they are and what they want. And when you don't do that, this is why almost everyone says buyers are liars is because they heard the surface response and then that person had a trigger that came up, and they didn't tell you about it because you never asked about it.

Robby T.: There was a trigger and now they're like, I got to walk away from this house, and they're not telling you why because you didn't ask. We never took the time to understand it. We have so much less of that because we take the time to find out what they need, want and desire. Not on a surface level. Like it's not just when I say that I'm not finding out that they want five, but as three garage stalls and three bathrooms.

Robby T.: Now we're finding out that they want that fence back yard because they have kids and a dog. And then I'm asking another question just to show an example of this. And I think the other ISAs kind of demonstrating this as well, is asking questions like, okay, but if your wife were on the call today, what would she say she would want in the house? And do you think people always agree on what they want in a house or do you think there's confliction there?

Robby T.: And then I'll even say, well, what about your kids? Sometimes I'd say, all right, roughly your dog. What the heck do they want as a joke? But for someone, their dog is their child, right? And really what it's doing is it's slowing down, asking questions to see, to help them think differently. And when you do that, you're going to provide some so much better service.

Robby T.: You will actually move much quicker with people because you won't have the hangups, you won't have the subconscious stuff that's not being aired slowing you down. So I think it's when you focus on that service side, it makes the sale like secondary and become so much easier.

Nate Joens: That triggered an action item and a curiosity point for everyone listening and for you to do Robbie, I would be curious to know in everyone's database, yours is a good place to start since it's so well organized. How many of your leads that were once responsive that have now ghosted you, that you're following up with, have provided you more or less a reason as to why they ghosted you?

Nate Joens: How many people are out there that are currently ghosting you that you could re-engage somehow by bringing that up. And I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but I'm thinking about it from a software company perspective, we'll cancel our product. And we always ask why it always makes us sad, but it's a similar reason.

Nate Joens: Well, it's because you don't have any integration with boom or you don't have script customization. You don't have a reason. And eventually we'll probably have that reason. And a really good way for us to bring those clients back is simply tailoring a very personal email to them saying, hey, you canceled because we didn't have script customization. We're releasing it this week. Do you want to sign back up?

Nate Joens: They're really likely to do that. Could you do that the same with the leads that have ghosted you? Hey, you had mentioned that you were thinking about making a move in the next year because you're waiting on a settlement, has that settlement closed, I'm really tailoring those messages to reengage your ghosted leads. Seems like a really interesting opportunity.

Robby T.: It's funny that you say that because my brain went to two places. We have two different types of ghosts. One would be the one you just said where they're waiting for something and granted, don't get me wrong. Out of probably a 100 people that say that, usually one gets a settlement from my experience. Yeah. But still that one is worth it.

Robby T.: I'll come back to that a little bit. There's maybe a story, I'll share that. But the other one is we have a message that really plays into that and calls them out on them. Go see us. It's our aliens in that and texts and basically says, "Hey, we've been trying to get ahold of you, did he get abducted by aliens?" Long story short, that's what it says.

Robby T.: And it says that it gives like three options and a lot of people will respond to that and say, no, no, I'm sorry. I've just been super busy. So acknowledging the ghost piece because it shows that, hey, I'm not super, I'm not trying to sell you out. I think if it's coming from a place of, I'm just trying to reach out. And frankly I love your perspective on that. I think just acknowledging that ghost can be the first step in it.

Nate Joens: You're right. Yeah. And I think that ties together all your prior points nicely that thinking about your database in that organized way comes from a place of innovation and systemization. But then also thinking, how can I service this person comes from your service focus point number five, so time is all in together. That's really what being an ISA is all about.

Nate Joens: That's kind of creative side of being in ISA is, look, I've got this job to do. I've got this database of leads that are look all different. It's my job to simply put it on the calendar as an appointment for my agents. There's a pretty clear path from point A to point B. And so I hope that a lot of these points helped cover how to go in a straight line from point A to point B and not a diagonal or whatever, a curve line. So I think these were all great points.

Robby T.: Yeah. I love it. I think to put an end on this, right? We talked about those five habits are, they're hungry, they're gritty, they're innovators, they're systemize and they're service focused. And I like to basically say that we overthink this ISA role a lot. Those five things really play into this, right?

Robby T.: I break up the ISA role into three core components. And the first is this is you've got to create conversations, right? To be an ISA, you got to create conversations. Whether you're paying to use a structurally to help generate that for you. You're making the calls, you're using automated texts, you're shooting texts or emails. Number one is you've got to create conversations. And we're asking people to go along with this by the way, is they'll make dials, make dials. The whole point of making dials is to create a conversation.

Robby T.: So hands down, number one is create conversations. Number two is form a connection. And you're not going to do that if your sales focused, you must be service focused. You got to be focused on them, their needs, wants and desires. And then number three, you got to book appointments. You can't forget about that last piece because we want to build connections.

Robby T.: We want to absolutely do that. But the reality is that as an ISA, you have a job to do. And we're focused on doing it. And honestly, some people are like, that feels girls. It really shouldn't because if you don't do it, these people are going to go work with somebody and they're probably going to work with somebody that sells six homes a year that writes our offer on carbon copy paper and now that's your fault. So one create conversations, two build connections and number three is book appointments.

Robby T.: And the top, ISAs that we interviewed, they're doing that, they're doing all three stages. They're hungry, they're gritty, they're innovators, they're systemize and more importantly they are service focused. And what that means is they're willing to... if someone is not wanting to do something, they don't care. They're not attached to that. So that's kind of my on bow on all this.

Nate Joens: No, that's been great. This has been a really exciting seven part series. This is the seventh episode in the series. You want to dive into each one of the six prior, they are on the structurally YouTube page going to hopefully make it up to the ISAradio.com podcast. And I'm working through that. There's a lot of content to dig through there. So yeah, if I check those out. I think we covered a lot of those points that in this episode.

Nate Joens: So I think Robbie and I are starting to think through our next series, which sound like it could be stories with an ISA. So, right, Robbie?

Robby T.: Yeah, yeah. Here's the thing for you 22 people that are on right now. Give us some feedback on where you think we could take this. One thought I had was obviously up until now, this has been very 10,000 foot view, the habits and what I say is due. I want to zoom it. I don't know for sure what we're going to zoom in though and I want you guys to help getting there.

Robby T.: And one thought, whether they want to reach out to me or shoot me a message, throw it at us. Reach out to Nate is having really successful ISAs come on and talk about, some of the conversations they've had with people. The most challenging conversation they've had. The most impactful conversation. They've had things along those lines.

Robby T.: They'd probably be a little bit shorter episodes, but I think that could be really valuable and really learn some cool insight into how they're doing it. But that's just one thought. That I came up with. Obviously, I'm not tied to that.

Nate Joens: A playbook that you can steal from in certain scenarios. That's a lot of people learn a lot of different ways. This was high level. I personally love to learn from examples. If I was ISA, what does Mr Eric Hatch always say, watch you go and do, we've been talking about the watch me and the watch you, but not really getting into the go and do part would be a really interesting aspects that we want to bring in to give all the ISAs listening, all the team leaders listening the ability to use real world examples from outside your market, maybe in your market. Just from all over that you can learn from.

Robby T.: Truth. Exactly.

Nate Joens: Well, I appreciate it Robbie. I appreciate it. Everyone listening Hannah, yeah, I'll share that four week onboarding with you. It's above in the chat the resources link or I'll have easy reach out. But again this episode was our seventh and final of the top ISA interviews with the top ISA series. This'll be live on the structurally YouTube channel shortly. As well as emailed out to everyone listening.

Robby T.: Awesome. Nate, can I give one quick plug real quick?

Nate Joens: Yeah.

Robby T.: In about a month of September 11th through 13th. We're doing our Hatch Summit and you brought it up with spark my memory here in Fargo and would love if you just go to Hatch Coaching.com. We would love to have you guys attend. Nate will be there. Andrew, the other co founder, we got a really cool group of people come in. I'll be there. Jim will be there. I think he posted the least peaks about that.

Robby T.: All of our ISAs would be there. We want some firsthand exposure to all of this because, you've heard it from Jim, you've heard it from myself, but if you want to see our team and you can come and learn from us our summit is like, it's basically our version of fam or union that KW on and more poorly than anything. We focus on having a good time and we'd love to see you guys.

Nate Joens: I can speak for structurally, we were there last year and I still come back to things that I learned there as I did on this episode. I'm sure the content will spark another year of learnings for me.

Nate Joens: So I would love to see everyone there from structurally behalf and on behalf of your business I think it's a phenomenal decision you can. With that Robbie, thanks for the time, we will see every one soon on our next series, whatever that maybe.

Robby T.: Whatever it is.

Nate Joens: Take care everyone. Bye.

View Details

Nate Joens: Welcome everybody. My name is Nate Joens. I'm the CEO of Structurely and welcome to the... What are we on, the fourth episode of the top ISA series?

Robby T: I think we're actually on... Is it six?

Nate Joens: I can't even remember.

Robby T: A lot. We're on a number. We're on some number of the ISA series.

Nate Joens: Yes, whatever number it is, we're excited to be here with Robby T from Hatch, as usual, joining us today with Tyler Stracener from the Novak team at eXp Realty in Everett, Washington. Robby, give us the intro to him, or Tyler please introduce yourself.

Robby T: For sure. So, obviously I go by Robby T for one simple reason. My last name sounds like the pharmaceutical drug and I joke that it sounds like that with all the problems and none of the money. So I have no qualms with calling Tyler, Tyler S. So Stracener, Stracener, whatever your crap is, I'm just going to call you Tyler S though this whole interview. If it [crosstalk 00:01:06] undo it.

Tyler Stracener: Yep.

Robby T: Anyways, super excited. We were supposed to have Chris on today and something that came up, a family emergency, and, frankly, super excited because I reached out to Tyler. I've had the privilege of coaching him now for a while and although he is somewhat new to the game, not been doing this for years yet, his skills are unparalleled for being at this level of the game. And he naturally gets it.

Robby T: It's deceiving, but he's a tall man. If he were to stand up, he'd kind of disappear on us. And is a former basketball coach and fell into the ISA world. But I've said enough about you. I would love for you to kind of share about yourself Tyler.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Right there. I come from a huge basketball background. Lots of coaching, lots of playing. Plenty of injuries, which ended my career. And a lot of that just kind of translates into what I'm good at now, and that's relating with a lot of different people. But then also just the personal competition with yourself 24/7 and the performance aspect has always been something that's been there in my life and has been a motivation for me to keep pushing forward.

Robby T: I love it. And you guys have a pretty large ISA department, don't you guys, Tyler? It's how many ISAs now?

Tyler Stracener: Well we've got three ISAs now.

Robby T: In addition to you, or three total?

Tyler Stracener: Three total. So I'm one of those three.

Robby T: Awesome. And you oversee that department, correct?

Tyler Stracener: Correct, yeah.

Robby T: I love it. Good, good. So I think one of the coolest things I want to make sure we hop into today is you talked about how you were a coach for basketball, and I'd love to hear, how is that coaching of basketball translate into coaching and leading your ISAs?

Tyler Stracener: Well, I really believe that coaching is coaching. It doesn't really matter what you're coaching. Early on in my coaching career, I started off coaching third grade boys and went all the way up through high school coaching boys. And then I made the abrupt change to be the varsity head girls coach at my old high school.

Robby T: Ahhh.

Tyler Stracener: One of the questions that I just... For some reason it just kept coming up, of, "Well, how are you planning on adjusting from coaching boys to coaching girls?" And my answer was, "Basketball is still basketball." It doesn't matter who's playing it. It's the same thing. But then making the switch to being an ISA and leading our ISA squad, I've really found that coaching is just coaching. It doesn't matter what you're coaching.

Tyler Stracener: So everything that I do now is still things that I did when I was a basketball coach. From putting trainings together, what people will need to work on, observing every single day. That's kind of one of the biggest things that I do as a coach. One of the habits was watching the players as they're walking in the door. Are they sluggish, do they have a hop in their step, what's their gait like, are they excited? Do they come in together, do they come in separate? There's so many things to watch. And I still do that with the ISA squad now. And how they walk in the door is kind of that immediate, "Oh, today's going to be a good day." Or I might need to throw in some motivation into the day.

Robby T: I love that. Good, good. So, I mean if you were to summarize, you said it a couple of times, coaching is coaching. And what is coaching? And obviously you've coached boys, you've coached girls basketball. There is one difference between the two, by the way. The balls are slightly different in size.

Tyler Stracener: Slightly.

Robby T: Slightly. That's all I know about basketball. Let's be real. Anyways, what does coaching really mean? If you were to break that down, what do you think coaching really is if you were to summarize it?

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Really, the act of coaching, I really think it's one, building the relationship, and if you don't have the relationship, the trust, and the respect, no matter how good of a coach you are, the technique, it won't be heard. So that's really the first step, is really building that relationship with whoever you're coaching. But then past that, you have to know them so well that you know exactly how to coach them. I'm sure that you can relate to this Robby, is how you coach me isn't necessarily how you coach somebody else. You have to take a different approach. And understanding really where the person comes from. And sometimes knowing them a little bit better than what they know of themselves. Sometimes pulling out those harder things that they kind of ignore or just neglected along the way. But really, the act of coaching, I really don't think it's the telling them what to do, it's... this will resonate. Asking the right questions to lead them to figure it out themselves. Because that's really where people learn best.

Robby T: I like that. So, one's relationships, two's taking a customized approach, and then three, as opposed to telling, I think that the phrase I always use is, you help them self-discover. And the funny part is that being an ISA, frankly, we can just call ourselves coaches. That's really if you think about what ISAs do in the real estate process, is they're just coaching somebody and one big ah-ha that's really played into this, is if you're coaching someone stories change naturally over time, right?

Tyler Stracener: Yep.

Robby T: And when we're having calls with leads or you're coaching somebody, the reality is that the story should be changing, new information should be coming to the table. That means you're doing your job well. But maybe we'll just petition to change it to ISAs are coaches. That's the new label.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Yep. And, when talking with a basketball player, really figuring out why they play this sport. Why do they love it, what's kind of their motivation, is the same thing when you're talking with a client. Why are they really wanting to do this? And so now, once you have that, you know how to continue forward and keep coaching them through the process to achieve what they really want. If you don't know that, you might be leading them in the wrong direction.

Robby T: I love that. Nate, go ahead.

Nate Joens: Yeah, no. I'm just taking it in. That's pretty interesting. Could you just give the listeners a little bit of a high level about your team set up? Where are you getting leads, some of the tech that you're using, what's the day-to-day process look like for you and your ISAs?

Tyler Stracener: Yeah, so the day-to-day process, we come in here, we're all in at 7:45 going through role plays together. And then once we start hitting the phones... Really just kind of quick tech stuff, we use Infusionsoft as our CRM and we get leads from many different lead sources from Zillow, Redfin, all that stuff, sign calls. Our ISAs actually handle all the sign calls, so that's been kind of not so much of a recent change, but it's been a game changer for the ISAs. We've had a lot of success with just us handling it.

Tyler Stracener: But as far as the handling leads as a whole, the ISAs aren't the only ones getting leads. We're kind of a hybrid, so to speak, where agents are still handling new leads, ISAs are handling new leads. It really kind of helps one, hold everybody accountable, but it's not like the agents are just sitting there waiting for appointments either. So, we kind of work on a floor shift system where you have designated hours of when you're responsible to make sure that no lead falls through the cracks and you're 100% responsible for making sure that those leads are contacted. And then everybody's dialing almost all day. Really just trying to create as many conversations as we can.

Nate Joens: That's interesting. I know that's a different model than what Hatch takes, in that ISAs touch every lead first. I'm kind of curious to hear what your opinion, Robby, is on that... on letting agents take the leads directly.

Robby T: So, what I'll do, Tyler, if you just want to lean to your right, I think it's your right, yes your right. There are very few real estate teams that hire agents that come in and know they're going to be making the calls like an ISA. And Mike and Rachel have built a culture that this is their absolute standard. And Tyler, I think you guys are unique that this is normal in your world, and if somebody can't make the calls as an agent, they don't cover their floor shifts. If I had to guess, they're not going to be around long. It's a part of your culture that you're going to be doing that work. So when you come in as an agent in you guys' world, you're signing up for that and you know what's coming.

Robby T: So, I think, that's the first thing I would say. There's obviously, literally, 1,000 different ways to play this ball game, but I think as long as... The ISA role was created for one simple reason. Let's just be real. Because when agents get super busy, the first thing that falls off is lead generation. And that's why the ISA role was really created was agents weren't making enough calls, they weren't doing it. And what I love about Mike and them is they've hybrided it and what we've seen happen over time is the ISAs are getting access to more and more opportunities. You guys are just slowly earning it, which is the best way to do it.

Robby T: Where I see... And I used to advocate for this, by the way, as a coach. I used to advocate, hire an ISA, shut off the flow of leads to your agents and give it all to your ISAs and that has disastrous consequences. I'll own that. And I've told many people I made a mistake there. And the reason is, is that you bring an ISA in and the reality is, is they're like a new 15 to 16 year old driver and if you just give them the keys to a brand new Range Rover, AK the brand new high quality leads, two things are going to happen.

Robby T: Number one is they're going to crash it because they're a 14 to 15 year old driver. And now they're driving a $100,000 Range Rover. What did you expect to happen? But, secondly, the reality is if you want to be a successful ISA, you can't just convert the Range Rovers. You've got to be willing to go and drive the 1990s Honda Civics, or if you drive a Civic, I used to drive a crappy Matrix. I've now upgraded to a somewhat new Subaru. Family stuff, right? I have a family safe car. The point being is if you give an ISA all those brand new leads right away, they accidentally crash the car, and then they become a little bit entitled because if you give that kid a Range Rover and then you say go drive that junker, they're going to say, "Nah." They're going to be frustrated with it. And I learned that lesson first hand at the expense of some of my clients and it sucks. But now I advise, go the path that they're going of have the ISA earn the opportunities to get the leads.

Robby T: So, give them the crap, have them earn it, and eventually get the better stuff.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. And to kind of build on that, giving a kid a Ferrari as his first car, knowing how much power is in a Ferrari, they're never going to get out of second gear. And so learning how to drive a stick the hard way when the clutch sticks, you're going to learn how to appreciate the smoother clutch. And it's going to be when you start getting those newer lead sources, you're going to be able to hold a conversation so much better because you've had the... I kind of call them little fist bites within the conversation of objection after objection after objection. But then you get these leads that are more motivated and right away the answer is, "Yes, I do want to be making a move." Now you actually know how to handle that conversation because you've had so many hard ones in the past.

Robby T: I love it.

Nate Joens: Good point. Yeah, yeah, I like that. It makes a lot of sense and I know we've kind of brought up that Range Rover analogy before and it hits home very time.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah.

Nate Joens: Tyler, can you kind of talk through what is the lifecycle, the career path of an ISA and an agent on your team?

Tyler Stracener: So really when Mike and Rachel started this team, they had the envision of we're going to be the absolute Navy Seals. And we're not going to be like Seal Team Three. We're going to be Seal Team Six. And we're not just the elite, we're actually the elite of the elite. So really the standards that we have are extremely high. Sometimes people come in here with a gung-ho attitude and within a week, I mean I've seen it first day, they decide that this isn't quite for them. They might be well-suited somewhere else, but as far as the standards that we have, really it takes somebody who is a little I guess screw loose to really dive in to this team and start showing up and getting shit done right away.

Tyler Stracener: And to kind of talk about some of the standards of... We keep agents on the phone for a reason. The number one thing that we've seen that people leave over is because of the phone. Whether its they're scared of it or they can't produce on it. And so that's why we start everybody there. As the ISA team, I really encouraged all of us ISAs that when we have new agents come in, that we're the ones setting the standards on the phone because we're the specialists on the phone. And the harder we work, the higher call volumes, more appointments, more conversations, they get to hear us more, which improves their ability on the phone, too.

Tyler Stracener: So really the ISA team as far as the phone goes, we're the ones who really set the standard, whether its quota, so to speak, or it's just this is what we do. Just because you make so many phone calls, doesn't mean you get to leave. You're here. We make money off of appointments, so do they. They just get to take it a few steps further.

Nate Joens: Sure.

Robby T: I want to dive into that real quick. I think one of the coolest things that you said was, "You guys didn't want to be elite, you wanted to be elite of the elite." And you talked about how you guys have people that come into your world with a little bit of a screw loose. And really that screw loose, I think if we were to find something, is some form of hunger. There's got to be something that causes you to push yourself through a ton of discomfort almost every single day in some way, shape, or form. And then, of course, the reality is when we're hiring people, sometimes people say they're hungry and then they get into practice and it's not there.

Robby T: And one of the biggest things I think really... and I'd love your perspective. You said you have very high standards to kind of protect being the elite of the elite. I'd love to kind of hear some examples of that, Tyler, of what does that standard look like and what teeth does it have? Because I've always said that, and we say in our coaching business, that a standard without a consequence is merely a suggestion. And I'd love to hear how you actually make it a standard.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah, so, as we've talked about, our culture is huge. And a lot of the times it's our culture that really kind of weeds people out and lets the cream rise to the top. And so we're always in the office, agents, ISAs, we're in here, especially during the morning power hours from 8:00 to 11:00, agents are in the office. They aren't leaving. And us ISAs are here all day. So we're kind of feeding off of everybody, the energy is definitely high. We work hard and play hard.

Tyler Stracener: But when it starts to just becoming playing hard and standards aren't being met for us ISAs, 200 phone calls a day, 1,000 a week, or you're having at least five appointments hold in the week, because really you could set a 100 appointments in the week and none of them hold, and it doesn't do you any good. So really having the stick ability in your appointments is where it really helps the team.

Tyler Stracener: So when that's not being met... Really for the ISA team and agents, kind of your gold nugget is a brand new lead. Because that first phone call on that first day is where most leads are converted. So that's the consequence. If you're not meeting certain standards, then new leads get kind of taken away from you until you prove yourself otherwise. So, floor shifts, you're being taken off of floor shifts. Agents, they're coming off of the ISA round robin where if an ISA sets an appointment, usually it's a very good appointment. So having that taken away from an agent is kind of a detriment to them and their business. So those people really work to try to stay within the new leads, like the round robin for leads staying within the floor shifts. And for agents, it's making sure that they keep getting ISA set appointments.

Robby T: Hmm. I like it. Would you mind, Tyler, you said the first thing that you really have high standards in regards to is your culture. And obviously culture is a very... It's a buzzword throughout business. And culture to you, to me, to somebody else could be drastically different. So I'd love to hear, if you were to kind of briefly describe what your culture is, just so we can have some perspective on what is the Novak team's culture really look like.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah.

Nate Joens: Can I jump in here? Another thing I want you to touch on that I know I took away from meeting you guys in BAMF is your open office Tuesdays when you let other agents come in. Could you touch on those, because that's a really cool idea that I'd love people to hear.

Robby T: Yeah, that'd be cool.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah, so I guess I'll try to explain our culture from those people that come in on Tuesdays of what their first impressions are. I guess if I were to sum up the office in one word, it would be loud. We're all together, nobody has their own offices, my desk is right next to the rest of the ISA squad. So everybody's having the conversations. When we're working hard and we're killing the phones, creating conversations, we're all having conversations, so the office is loud.

Tyler Stracener: But then after that 11:00 a.m. and kind of put the phone down for a little bit, take the headset off, let the ears cool down, that's when the humor in everybody starts to come out. And we start really relaxing together and there's jokes that it's almost like a room full of brother and sisters. We're all teasing each other, getting in the little sibling arguments. But when you have a group of people that when it's time to work and everybody dives in head first 100% and you're kind of going through the trenches together, nobody's really left alone. But then also when you do make it out on the other side we're still there together and celebrating the wins, ringing the bell, high-fiving. I mean I guess the best way for me to explain it, is it's almost like a locker room experience. There's a lot of teasing. Yeah, it really is a lot of fun. Even though you're working your ass off every single day and kind of the grind is wearing on you a little bit, your teammates are right there behind you and you know that the support's there. And that's a big thing within the culture, is that if I don't trust you to have my back, then I don't know if I want you there.

Robby T: Truth.

Tyler Stracener: Kind of the thought process, especially when I'm interviewing ISAs, is would I want to be friends with you outside of the office? I don't have kids yet, but I'm sure that when I do, would I trust you to babysit my kids? And that's something great that we've been able to have. I know that agents have it too, but the ISAs we have a designated day where we go out to lunch together and it's the best, we're just together right there.

Nate Joens: I like it.

Robby T: Loud, fun, playful, and it sounds like you guys really deeply care about each other above all else. I know that when you were at our mastermind BAMF, that's Chuck in your world. And Chuck is a lead agent on your team in some way, shape, or form, right, Tyler?

Tyler Stracener: Yes.

Robby T: And the guy is...He's a bigger dude. He dress so dapper, looks so good. And the dude just exudes love. Just you can tell that he deeply cares about everyone, about everything he does. And obviously that's at all levels of your organization, whether it's Rachael, Mike, you, and the rest of the team as well. I think that's another thing I'd say your culture really exists of. There's a lot of love in the place for each other. It's one of those things... I think the commonality we have, we're not as loud in our world, but the fun and playful side and the love and caring is super key. So that's great. I love hearing that.

Nate Joens: Really quick, can you explain what open office is?

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. So the open office, yeah, it's two Tuesdays out of the month where we have outside agents. A lot of times they're starting team or they're an individual agent just trying to find that next step within their business. Mike and Rachael open up the conference room, open up the office and they come in, it's a little bit more of a classroom setting where you really get to ask your direct questions of, "What lead sources should I be focusing on? What skill sets should I be improving? What's working right now? What should I kind of anticipate down the road?" I've been able to sit in on a couple of them and really they start from the moment that a lead comes in until its closed. And they go through the whole process of best practices. Really, if there's any question that you have about real estate, asking it to Mike and Rachael, you're going to get a very quality answer.

Tyler Stracener: I know that I feel lucky enough to learn underneath them and really see their... They're the ones that created this culture, they're the ones who their first year sold 75 homes between the two of them. And they know how to get it done. They know how to get shit done.

Robby T: That's awesome. I love it.

Nate Joens: A lot of people would be fearful of giving their competitors that much inside information. I think that's pretty cool to see how you guys open that up.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. And a big belief that I brought from basketball is you should do what you do so well, that you could give the other team your playbook and they still can't beat you with it. Just because you run it so well. So, I mean really our culture is kind of starting to expand outside of the team of we don't just want each other to succeed, we want everybody else to succeed to. So if we have the opportunity to help out some other agents, because ultimately we see it as our responsibility, whether somebody works with us or not, they need the best experience when it comes to buying or selling their home. So making sure that all the agents within our community work at a top tier level, that's awesome. We're happy that we can do that.

Nate Joens: Yeah. So if you're listening, Tyler wants you to succeed. That's it.

Robby T: I love it. That's why he's here.

Tyler Stracener: Yep.

Robby T: I love it. Good, good. Anything else you want to hit on regarding their team and stuff, Nate, or should we switch gears a little bit?

Nate Joens: Yeah. Go ahead and switch gears.

Robby T: So I kind of love... Obviously, being an ISA isn't always fine and dandy. It's not always the most fun thing. I'd love to... First off, maybe we start with what's your favorite part about of being an ISA and then what has been the most challenging piece of being an ISA? So I'd love to hear both of those.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Really I think that the greatest challenge and the greatest success as an ISA, you could talk to 100 different people and they'll have 100 different answers. For me and my own experience, the greatest joy and success that I have is the true connection with other people. I am a high I. I do like to be around people, I do like talking with people. So being able to do that and really building, again, that relationship with somebody over the phone and truly connecting with that person. I mean, there's times where you're just completely surprised that somebody feels comfortable enough to tell you some of the things that they're telling you. And so to be able to relate with somebody, even from a distance, that's kind of one of those greatest things.

Tyler Stracener: But then also the hardest thing as an ISA for me is the times where you hear some things going on in other people's lives. I've definitely comes to terms with some of the reasons why people want or need to make a move are not going to be pleasant. An example, actually this still kind of plays over in my head, it's really still there, but it's a great example of... Called this lady, she really needed to sell her home. It was like, I need somebody out today. It needed to happen fast. So I kind of had to pump the brakes a little bit. "Well, okay, what's kind of the reason for the urgency here?" And had to go a couple of layers deep, but eventually what came out was that her 11 year old daughter had died three months before and she can't stop seeing her daughter playing in the hallway. And so she just needed out of that house.

Tyler Stracener: And now telling, it still hits. And so for me, you've told me plenty of times, don't be the sponge, be the mirror. And it's so easy for me to be a sponge, and that's what makes me so, I guess, successful at relating with people, but, again, now going into the next phone call, I'm still holding onto that. So kind of letting those types of things go is, I would say, the absolute hardest for me. If I had an ISA that, "Oh, oh, okay, you know, onto the next phone call," and it didn't affect them at all, I'd be looking at them like you don't have a heart.

Robby T: You're a psycho.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Yep.

Robby T: That's crazy. Just an off question on that, what percent of people do you think are buying for fun reasons and what percent of people are not buying for fun reasons? Or selling of course.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah.

Robby T: If you were to put a number on it, what percent are really doing it because they're happy and it's something that's a positive thing, and AK, they're really full on pursuing pleasure in some way, shape, or form, and then how many people are trying to escape some form of pain, from your experience?

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Really, if I had to split decision I would say that it's 50/50. And really those are the only two reasons why somebody really is making a move. They're running away from pain or they're running towards joy. It's up to us to figure out which one is going on so we can help them and lead them in the right direction. So many divorces, but also so many people just got married and the want to buy their first home. Baby was born, or somebody passed away. Those are four very common stories that we hear on really a daily basis.

Robby T: Yeah. For some reason, 50/50s always been the number in my mind as well.

Nate Joens: I'd be interested to do that on the Structurely side, because we actually can tag messages, and we do, and we have things like mention tragedy versus new child and new job. So we have a pretty granular look, and if we see one of those on all of our conversations, that might be a fun data analysis that we could run to prove if the 50/50 hypothesis is close.

Robby T: I like it. That'd be cool to see. And I think the bigger thing is, the thing we should probably talk about is, the fun ones are easy. Like if they got married, that's easy. Anybody can do that. Where you earn your money is navigating the nasty conversations. I've always called them the Ds, debt, divorce, death. Just seems like all the bad words start with D. Hopefully nobody's name starts with D here. But, it's just death, divorce, and debt, those three things have really... significantly impact people, and those are tough conversations to have. And that's where an ISA [inaudible 00:34:28] I say earns their money, because you can't make assumptions in those conversations. In the fun ones, you make assumptions, you'll be fine. In the tough ones, if you make assumptions and if you don't listen, I highly doubt you're going to convert that lead. Those people are going to walk out the door.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. No, I definitely... 100% there. When somebody gets married, everybody, "Oh my God, congratulations." But when somebody says, "Yeah, my husband just passed," the last thing that they will want to hear is, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry." If I hear that on the phone, no you're not. You don't know me, you don't know what I'm going through. You don't... So, that's probably one of the hardest things at the beginning of those conversations is to not say you're sorry and to be okay with not saying it. Because a lot of times you want to say it so bad, but really listening to them and asking the questions of, "How are you doing?" If you have an instance where you can directly relate to that, just say, "I've been through something similar. How are you doing?" That's definitely one of the biggest things. For some reason, I'm a magnet for these conversations, so I've definitely had my fair share of practice over the last 12 months.

Robby T: Yeah, I think on that note I listened to a call once where somebody said that their mother died and the person's response was, in the call, "I'm sorry, I know what you're going through, my mom died too." And even if your mom dies, that person doesn't want to hear that, because your relationship with your own mom is not the same that they had. Unfortunately, it's dismissive. And it's a script we've been taught. And if you really think about it, I'm sorry is really for the convenience of the person saying it so you can move on. It's not for the advantage of the person that's actually going through some pain. And if you all want some help on that, go check out Brene Brown and just look at empathy versus sympathy, because she is the OG of empathy and gets this better than anybody else. But yeah, there's just so many... For me, and when I've talked to our ISAs, it's almost always we come up with 50/50, so Nate, I'm excited to see the data you all have in your universe to see what those numbers look like.

Nate Joens: Yeah, yeah. That would be interesting. Yes, so this was kind of an interesting... I know before we jumped on we said, "Let's cover the tough calls." I said, "You mean phone calls or like [inaudible 00:37:24]?" We've actually just covered tough calls, like phone calls. So, how about we move into tough decisions. What are the tough decisions that you have to make as an ISA?

Tyler Stracener: I mean, as I said earlier, our culture is huge. The first thing that I do is really try to build a close relationship with ISAs and agents and kind of be that... Kind of lead from the front and try to know how to motivate them and encourage them to keep moving forward. So you build such a strong bond with people when they do come in, that now when those standards are not being met repetitively, then it's time to start thinking about that tough decision of are they the culture fit and are they meeting standards? And really making that hard decision of do they stay or should they go? And that's always such... It's a hard decision because it's like you're firing your sister. You don't do business with family for that specific reason, but when you have such a strong culture you kind of start to become a family.

Tyler Stracener: So when you're having those hard conversations with your own teammates, that it really starts to feel like that you're firing your sister or your aunt or whoever it may be. But, in all reality, kind of relating it to the types of phone calls that we have of knowing exactly why they're here and why they're working so hard and sometimes just spinning their tires trying to get some traction, to know that is huge in these conversations because sometimes it might be best for them to achieve that somewhere else. And by keeping them around, one, you're just delaying the inevitable, but two you're holding them back because your culture and your environment and the position that they're in might not be the best position for them to achieve what they really want to do in life. That rationalization doesn't make it any easier, but it's a great way to kind of think through it and really you come in from the perspective of we want what is best for you. This isn't an us decision, it's a we decision, which is huge.

Robby T: One of the mantras out there in business is hire fast, fire fast. I'd love to hear your thoughts Tyler on the mantra of hire fast and fire fast. Ooh, can you hear me?

Tyler Stracener: You guys there?

Robby T: Yeah, we can hear you, just not see you.

Nate Joens: Can you still see me Robby?

Robby T: I can. Can you see me and hear me?

Nate Joens: Yep. That's weird.

Robby T: That is weird. He's just frozen. That's a good photo. I'm going to take a photo of that.

Nate Joens: [crosstalk 00:40:59] Unless he comes back, we'll pick that question up. Do you want to answer Debbie's question, Robby? It's a good one for you.

Robby T: So what is a good response when dealing with a D. When you hear that terrible news, what is a good response to acknowledge it without derailing the conversation too much? I think the first thing you have to really do here is we need to know that Ds are almost always of two different types. They're either a DI or a DC. And really I think knowing the difference is key. The way you're going to tell the difference is an I tends to be more of a social, direct person, but they talk more with some feelings and they tend to be a little more outgoing. The DC tends to be a more quiet, analytical, soft, and they're talking in details.

Robby T: So I think the first thing you really got to to do is you've got to properly mirror and match. What I've always said with DCs... What we talk about actually with DIs, what we just talked about absolutely plays of role playing where Tyler said something along the lines of, "How are you doing with that?" Sometimes I know in my case when somebody's gone through hell... Oh, dealing with the DI, thank you, yes, absolutely, okay, I see. This helps either way. Thanks Michelle for that clarification. I think sometimes it's okay to let them know... Yeah, I misunderstood it. Sometimes it's okay to let them know, "I don't even know what to say right now, but I appreciate you sharing that with me." That's a common response.

Robby T: I know in my case I was talking to a father and they were looking to move and sell their home, very similar to Tyler's situation because they had accidentally backed over their kid and killed their child. And there's nothing to say to fix that. There's nothing you're going to say that's going to do it and I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember is I didn't say I'm sorry. There was silence. And I said, "I don't even know what to say right now. I appreciate you telling me that." And what I've found is the silence in that moment will be one second or two seconds, and it feels like it's 50. It feels like it's going to last an eternity. What I have found is when I've done... because when I used to say the I'm sorry to a death, divorce, is it creates... it moves on and there's no depth to it.

Robby T: And the same thing happened in a conversation I had with... and I did a TED Talk on this actually... with an elderly lady whose husband passed away in a motorcycle accident. And I think what happens if you say I'm sorry, you might be able to move on and get maybe some more logistical details of what they want to do, but you're not going to build a connection with that human being. And I think what makes us human is us being compassionate, connected human beings, and being empathetic... What it does is it drives connection and sympathy drives disconnection.

Robby T: So on top of that, go read Brene Brown's stuff, but empathy versus sympathy is super key. And I hope you all take this, and it's not just for the Ds, the death, divorce, debt. It applies to when your spouse or your friends are going through a crappy day. I know that a lot of us want to just fix things. I know I fall victim to that and sometimes someone wants to be just heard and really heard, so that'd be my couple thoughts on that.

Robby T: Thanks for that clarification again, Michelle, appreciate it.

Nate Joens: Tyler, you can hear us now, right?

Tyler Stracener: Yes.

Robby T: Ah, there you are.

Nate Joens: I'm going to ask that question one more time. Robby, what was it? What are your thoughts on hire fast, fire fast?

Robby T: Yeah. What I was asking Tyler was there's a common mantra in business of hire fast, fire fast. And I would love to hear your perspective on hire fast, fire fast.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. We were actually having this conversation just yesterday as a leadership squad. It's kind of funny. It really shows, with all of our experiences, is when you know it's time because for about the last 36 hours, you just know that it's going to happen. Whether you've been part of the decision from the outside looking in. That's what's so great about our culture is that how that person is operating within the culture will tell you what you need to do next. And then on the hiring side, how they integrate themselves into the culture. So we definitely... We do hire fast. We try to get people into the office as fast as possible. We have people shadow and kind of try to drop them in the culture as a test run, and if they fit, awesome. If not, we got the answer right now. But as the team grows, as we progress, things change.

Tyler Stracener: One of the things with the Novak team is that you're going to have to get used to change if you're not used to it already. And so when those changes are happening, the team's growing, a lot of times the team kind of outgrows the individual. And the culture, again, will start to bring those people to light, and really our culture is just an arrow. That's really what we see it as and it really makes things very obvious and easier to detect.

Robby T: Cool, got it. Nate, you got any other questions you want to make sure we hit on today?

Nate Joens: I don't think I do, but if anyone does have one, feel free to shoot it our way now or forever hold your peace. We might be able to get to it quickly, but I know we're probably going to wrap it up here shortly and I know we like to wrap it up in a certain way, so go ahead and [inaudible 00:47:54] Robby.

Robby T: I love it. So, Tyler, thanks again last minute, coming in clutch, showing up, appreciate it a ton. It's cool to hear you share about your culture and what you guys are doing out there on the west coast. What we always like to ask since I'm not seeing any other questions, is what is something that makes you nerdy and my favorite piece is would you prefer Star Wars, Game of Thrones, or Other? Maybe something else.

Tyler Stracener: Ooh. Oh, okay. Well, first, I guess the nerdy thing that I do, we kind of touched on this earlier, is with music and the lyrics. I'm like finding the double entendres in there and for some reason language is something that has fascinated me, especially recently. I see that the ISA position kind of revolves around the language you use, so that vocabulary is important. And going into music, it's very fascinating, honestly. I've sat there for hours listening to the same song, just kind of dissecting what they're actually talking about. So, the story behind the music has always fascinated me.

Nate Joens: That's cool. I like it. What are your favorite books? Any books to recommend for us?

Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Definitely any Dr. Seuss book I'd say is great.

Nate Joens: Awesome.

Tyler Stracener: My favorite book is actually one of the first books that I really got kind of almost fascinated with. It's called The Hurricane. It's actually about a boxer who... professional boxer was about to fight for the championship and his nickname was The Hurricane and he actually got framed for a murder that he didn't commit not too far before his fight for the belt. And went to prison and then just these random people came through and helped. I've never been like a fiction reader. But for a personal development, one that's big on our team is Extreme Ownership and then definitely follow that up with The Dichotomy of Leadership. Definitely those two books together, you'll be able to grab a lot of nuggets out of those.

Nate Joens: Awesome. I love it. Well, cool, yeah. Tyler, I really appreciate your time today. Doesn't look like there's any other questions. Do either of you guys have anything, any final thoughts to add?

Robby T: Oh man. I'll let you go first if you've got any.

Tyler Stracener: Well I didn't answer the Star Wars or, yeah, what was that?

Robby T: How dare you. Star Wars or Game of Thrones or something else?

Tyler Stracener: Yeah, if I had to choose between Star Wars or Game of Thrones, I'm definitely going Star Wars. But if I were to choose anything over it, especially right now, because I just binged watched the third season, is Stranger Things. That show's awesome.

Nate Joens: Awesome. Stranger Things.

Robby T: I haven't got around to it, I need to do that.

Nate Joens: Yeah.

Tyler Stracener: Yeah, you need to.

Robby T: Awesome.

Nate Joens: Well cool. I appreciate your time, Robby and Tyler. For all of you listening, again, this will be sent out to you soon-ish. I don't exactly know when that is.

Robby T: [inaudible 00:51:38]

Nate Joens: As well as available on the Structurely YouTube channel and the ISAradio.com. Always got to drop that link. So make sure you subscribe, that's for the podcasts. And, as always, thank you guys and we'll talk to you soon.

Tyler Stracener: Sounds good.

Robby T: Peace y'all.

Nate Joens: Bye.

Tyler Stracener: See yeah.

Robby T: Bye-bye.

View Details

Nate Joens: Welcome everybody. We'll get warmed up a little bit slowly here because I can still see people coming in. My name is Nate Joens, I am the CEO and co-founder at Structurely. Structurely is an Artificial Intelligence inside sales agent, we help you qualify, nurture and respond to your leads. This is our interview with Top ISA. Today we have Holli from Donna and Team, New Bern Keller-Williams out of North Carolina as well as the usually Robby T. from Hatch Coaching and Hatch Realty.

Robby T: The usual, that's what I am now. The usual. I love that.

Nate Joens: But, yeah I'll let you guys kind of introduce yourselves, Robby how about we go ahead and start with you.

Robby T: Yeah, good to see you all again. I'm glad that I made it in this time, and know that you can see my face and hear me. We, first off thanks to everyone for switching over to Zoom. We switched publishers, we were just having some other problems so glad we did that and this is a lot smoother, I think and I'm excited about it.

Robby T: Robby T here, what do I do? I'm just a nerd. Total nerd who likes to geek out about lead conversion, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, throw it at me we can talk about it. But, you know I'm excited today because one of the first, you know when I got into coaching, one of the first teams that I actually helped out was Holli and Team New Bern. Holli, that was over two years ago? When was that?

Holli Faulkner: 2017

Robby T: 2017 so awhile back. And I have the privilege of going out there and meeting them, and they run a solid, solid crew up there. Donna's great, you guys have a fearless leader as you well know. I'm really excited for this episode because Holli's not just a rock star, but she's got some cool stories to share with us, and yeah, I'll turn it over to you Holli, tell us a little bit about you.

Holli Faulkner: Okay, so I'm Holli I live in New Bern, North Carolina and I've been in ISA since August of 2017. I think Robby you came in maybe, 30 days after I had started, and I was brand new, I had no clue what I was doing. I was the only ISA not only on my team, but pretty much within like 200 miles of me, I mean, the only other team I think closest to me, was the Harlow Group in Greenville, South Carolina. So I really didn't have anybody to shadow or to really talk to. I didn't know all the things I know now, as far as like the Facebook groups and all the ways to talk to different people. So, I kind of figured this out on my own. And our team was kind of trying me out, as far as, "Do we need an ISA? What is an ISA? What does that look like in New Bern?" We're kind of the last to jump on any bandwagon in the whole world. You know, it feels like we're kind of going around an island sometimes. But, it was pretty cool to become that person and kind of pave the way, in my own way.

Holli Faulkner: So, that was the way I got started. I came from time share sales, actually. I sold time share for four years prior to that, and I think that's really what gave me the grit that I have to be the ISA. Because if you can sell time shares, as far as I'm concerned you can sell anything.

Robby T: Truth.

Holli Faulkner: That is a tough business. When you're 24 you don't really care, you're just like whatever. Give me the role and I'll do it.

Robby T: I love it.

Holli Faulkner: That's where I started and now, almost two years later, I've moved into director of legend position for my team, recently in January. And we have just hired our other ISA so now I'm coaching a little bit and helping him work through that and so, I'm slowly building my own team, within my team.

Nate Joens: Sure. Awesome. So tell us a little bit about the team in general. How many buyer/seller agents? Is it just the one ISA right now? And kind of just a little bit about your STAT's when you were practicing it as a ISA as well.

Holli Faulkner: Okay, so we are a team of 19. We have two buyer agents currently, we are looking for a few more of those. We have four listing agents, we have two ISA's. One of those being new starting in April, and then me has a hybrid. We have one director of sales, we also have one listing manager and she has an assistant. We have three admin, and then we have three field care, who run our signs and do all the day to day, kind of you know that stuff there. Those people are so important. They save us so much time.

Holli Faulkner: And then we have a director of sales as well. So, we have our Rainmaker, so we're a pretty large team for our area for sure. We're the largest team in the area.

Nate Joens: Awesome.

Holli Faulkner: I would say that when I was, let's say last year, as the full-time, that was my role, that's exactly what I did every single day, I had 108 closings. So I count my first three months as a ISA kind of like in 2017, I don't really count those. I roll all of that into 2018, when I was really digging in. And so, I had 108 closings, don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, or if I was hitting the mark or not. I was just happy with it, just to have a closing.

Holli Faulkner: So that was me. To date, from January to now I've about 8,000 dials and I have about 3,000 contacts [inaudible 00:05:58] 150 [inaudible 00:05:59] so far. That's just being kind of hybrid and part-time, and I've had 42 closings year to date.

Robby T: Cool.

Holli Faulkner: So, pretty proud.

Robby T: Absolutely. So, what's the total number of deals that your team is roughly going to do, give or take, this year Holli? What's your team looking at?

Holli Faulkner: 500 is our goal.

Robby T: 500 is goal. You guys treading pretty close to that, you think?

Holli Faulkner: Yes, definitely. We had 418 closings last year. Closing families that we helped, and I think we're going to exceed our goal. Our fourth quarter is our strongest, and so I think that we are definitely going to exceed our goals this year.

Robby T: I love it. And how many people are in the New Bern area? How many, what's the total population, just so we can get perspective here.

Holli Faulkner: Our population for all of Craven County is roughly about, I'd say 102,000.

Robby T: 102,000. I think that's one of the biggest things I hope people take away when we're talking with you is, if you're in New Bern, like your team is the, you guys have built a cornerstone in real estate. Is that fair to say?

Holli Faulkner: Yes.

Robby T: Do you know, like your market share percentage roughly, by chance?

Holli Faulkner: We're on either side of the transaction or both sides of the transaction of about one out of, I believe, it's one out of two now. So, we're about 40%, 50% we're up there.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: Keller-Williams as a whole is most of the market share, then of course we've got our boutique shops and whatnot, but Keller-Williams is probably the largest in Craven County, along with our surrounding counties as well.

Robby T: I love it. Nate you're up, I asked two questions, your turn.

Nate Joens: Yeah, no that's pretty incredible, and I hope that kind of sets the stage for why we have you on as a TOP ISA. So, can you tell us just a little bit about when you got started, which wasn't too long ago, what was that like for you? What was, you know, what was difficult for a new ISA just getting thrown in the fire? Just kind of set the stage for what you might have done differently, you know now looking back, that you could potentially teach to the new ISA that you're training, and that other people in similar role as you or a team leader could learn from when they're bringing on a new ISA.

Holli Faulkner: I want to take it back to 2017, I actually was recruited for about four months, before I actually decided to take the risk. And I call it a risk because I had no real data on what this position even was. I had no clue what it was. I couldn't really Google it, there was like, it was so new no one really knew what it was and what it meant for New Bern or real estate in general. Even though I was licensed as an agent, I had never practiced real estate. And at time, I had actually not even bought a house yet. So, I had no real base line on what real estate even meant. And in my brain, I was thinking, the typical, well, I don't want to sell houses. And I don't want to do that. That doesn't sound promising. And so, I had a really good friend on this team, Meredith who recruited me and was just relentless. I can't tell you how many interviews she set up for me, that were like blind-sided interviews. I had no clue they were even happening. She was relentless and she still is. She's a recruiting queen.

Holli Faulkner: And then I finally made the jump, it was right after my daughter's birthday, and I was sitting in, I remember, I was sitting in my time share office and we were doing our daily check-in's and I, it's just one those things where you just knew like, you were not in the right spot, for some reason. And prior to time share, I was actually a bar tender and so I went from bar tending to time share and that was my first "real job". And I was scared to leave it because I was like, this is where I, I don't know I've been here for four years this is what I'm used to. I was scared of new. I didn't want any changes, I hate change. And so, that was not me. But, I was sitting there and I was like, this was, something's not right, I don't know what it is, and I literally just quit my job. I said, "I'm done." And then I joined Team New Bern that following Monday.

Holli Faulkner: I had no clue what was going on really, just walked in and I was like, "Here I am, I don't know what to do, but here I am." And, so I took a very big risk and we had actually closed on our house like two weeks prior. So, not only did I take on a mortgage, but I took on this risky job that no one could give me information on, but I knew I was going to make it work. Because I believed in what they were telling me, I knew it could happen. I just didn't know how, and I didn't know when it was going to happen.

Holli Faulkner: I actually remember meeting with you Robby, and I was like 30 days in and I was like, when am I going to get a closing, when can I expect all this stuff? When's it going to rain money? And I remember you telling me to be patient and it would take maybe six months or so to get ramped up. And I remember saying, "Not going to happen. Not happening, I need a closing." And I remember closing my first one in October. So, I made it 60 days, because I mean, I had a daughter, I had a mortgage, I had family to take care of, and so that wasn't happening for me.

Holli Faulkner: But, what was really neat, and we laugh about this all of time on my team, because no one knew who I was or what I was doing, or why I was there, and I didn't either. I remember coming into work and I had this corner in the back of the office, literally, it was like just this little box in the back of the office and it had my computer and a phone. And, I was just like, I don't know what to do, or who to talk to. Or what but I know I made, I knew how to find leads and I knew how to get something. And all I knew at that moment was, I need to find a body and I need to put it in front of an agent. And that's all I knew what to do. So I said, "Well, here I come." And luckily Donna has a database that was massive. It was a big hairy database that wasn't quite maintained, it was just leads. All these leads, just coming in and I didn't understand them at that time. So, I just kind of started at square one calling.

Holli Faulkner: Because in time share I learned, we learned how to cold call. And we cold called all over the world. So, I had dealings with people who were being ugly, or they were very nice. And time share, no one wants to own it, but everyone owns it. So, you know trying to call those guys, and that really set the stage for me. And I didn't care about a no, it didn't bother me. That really, that job paved all that for me. So, at least I was past that, I wasn't scared of the phone. So, I think that my biggest success was not being scared of the phone. Even if I didn't know what the conversation was going to be, didn't know what the end result was going to be, didn't even know why I was calling them. All I needed was for them to say, "Hello." Just pick it up.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: And then I'd figure it out from there. My biggest mistake, I was two weeks into this and I got a call from a co-broke and "You're not allowed to call listings here, if they're listed." I didn't know that quite fully. I kind of knew it, but I didn't understand it. And so I was just calling anybody and everybody, I was just like, "I'm here to sell your house." Well, this ladies house was already on the market. And that shot me down, I had backed into a corner, and I kind of didn't want to call anybody for a week. I was mainly embarrassed, my ego was hurt. I was like, because she wasn't nice to me at all either, so I was like, I don't want to call another person, I'm scared now. I went really shy, but I got over it really quickly, I mean because I had bills to pay and mouths to feed. So, it was rebound right?

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: But that was my biggest, I'd say struggle at first was not knowing the rules and how to play the game.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: Just kind of going in too quickly, I guess. So, I'd say for future hires and things like that, if they're new in the real estate world, make sure that they know the rules, and like really know them. Because we tend to talk in like, "This is how we do it, and this is why we do it." But, it's not black and white. It never will be, not in real estate anyways. And there's loop holes for everything, and so I think as long as those lines are laid out, then any agent or ISA coming into this role can prospect and call and do everything as long as they don't run into that. Because that can get you in, real estate jail. You can get in trouble.

Robby T: Real estate jail. Holli, I've written down like four points of yours. First off, "Time shares, no one wants it, but everyone owns it." Made me die. I got to ask this, obviously you said the time share experience laid the foundation for you getting into this role, let's say hypothetically you would've went from being bartender to going straight into this role. Do you think you would've had the success, do you think you'd still be in the role you're currently in, if you would've done that? Or do you think that, getting kicked in the face, I'm assuming in the time share world, really toughened you up, or? Give me some insight there, how would that have changed things, if that foundation wouldn't have been laid?

Holli Faulkner: I would say, bartending helped me with the social peice, it did not help me with the introverted side of me.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: Or the grit to pick up the phone.

Robby T: Yeah.

Holli Faulkner: Because I, believe it or not, bartenders, most of them don't want to talk to people, it's so weird. It's the strangest things, because you know I don't really like face to face interaction too much, lately.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: And bartending that's where you are. But, the cool thing about bartending is the hustle bustle. I was in a busy bar, so I didn't really have to talk, I just kind of, watched body language and I knew what you needed based off of what beer you were holding in the air. You know, that type of thing. So, then to move into time share, I think that the time share piece really laid the actual foundation of what's needed for this position.

Robby T: Yeah.

Holli Faulkner: As far as the grit to stay on the phone.

Robby T: Yeah.

Holli Faulkner: To realize that the no's aren't about me.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: It's about them. It really, it just means not right now. Doesn't mean not forever. Because we all know they're going to do something at some point, eventually. Whether it be now, or 100 years from now they're doing something. And so once I got past that, that really helped, and time share I think really helped me with that. Because you hear, "No, no, no" all day long, and I actually figured out the art of, or I call it the "art", the art of, I don't want to call it schmoozing, or whatnot, but the art of getting what you want without directly asking for it.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: I learned that in time share. Because I've never, I don't know if y'all have ever been to a time share resort where they ask you to go to the seminars and the fun stuff and all that, we didn't quite roll like that where I worked. However, you did need to come to a meeting, and so I figured out a way, I like, I basically investigated how other people did it, and I just didn't do it like that.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: I did it differently. And so I learned what not to do, based off of people's stories they were telling me. And that's kind of how I do it here, too as well. Because I already know how every other agents doing it, you know they're just calling, "Hey, how can I help you find your house?" And so when you call as a person whose actually interested and trying to figure them out and really caring about what they're doing and why they're doing it, that's really where the game changed. And so I think that's where time share really laid it out, and I needed a real estate license to sell time share so I would've never gotten that as a bartender.

Robby T: Cool.

Holli Faulkner: Because I never had an interest in it actually.

Robby T: Yeah.

Holli Faulkner: So, yeah, I think that's why it paved the way for me.

Robby T: So really the grit was that, one of the biggest pieces and having a license really helped with that foundation.

Holli Faulkner: Yeah.

Robby T: Is there anyway, because I think you're getting into a couple things that are super key here that, you know you've gotten successful because you can tell that you were hungry, right? You've mentioned numerous times you had bills to pay, mouths to feed, and that grit pushes you through it. People that are listening to this, a lot of them are Rainmakers that are thinking about building an ISA department. Some are ISA's that are in the game. The biggest thing, and I agree with you, is you got to have grit in this role because you're going to get told no all the dang time. Is there anyway Holli, that you would say, these are things you can go and do to, maybe strengthen that resolve, build that grit a little bit? Because not everyone's going to be fortunate enough to work in time share, or unfortunate, depending on how you're looking at it. How do you, you know, if you were kind of to give some advice on how you can maybe become a little more gritty, how would you do that?

Nate Joens: Can I tack a question on there too? Where did you source your new ISA as well? [inaudible 00:20:24] come from, and how are you building that grit into him, or did he come with that?

Holli Faulkner: So, our new ISA actually went to law school, and that was his track.

Nate Joens: Oh really?

Holli Faulkner: And yeah, and then he moved back to the area, he's from New Bern, or from the county over and a listing agent on our team actually knew his father and she said, "Hey, I think you should come in." We weren't interviewing for an ISA at all actually, until we found out that I was going to be having a baby in September so I was kind of like, okay, it's either now or never, we need to build a team for sure now. He has drive. He's hungry, humble and smart. And so, he has a big why, that's big enough that makes him show up every single day and pick up the phone and, he actually in his past did census calling. Which, sounds horrible.

Robby T: Yeah.

Holli Faulkner: I think I've gotten those in the mail like five times, and I just trash them. That's probably like the worst citizen thing to do but, whatever. That's what he did, he actually door-knocked, and it was a piece, I saw a piece to that when I found out that he liked to door-knock. I was like, I hate that, that's not me, I don't want to do that at all.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: "You're the missing piece to my puzzle, and I need you." He's hungry, and he's humble and he's smart. And those, I think are the three things that you have to have, not only in the ISA role, but any, any role. You got to find out why are they showing up to work, because, I mean let's be honest, we could go to work anywhere, right? Like we could just go wherever we want, but why do you come to this office. Why do you do this position. And if you don't find somebody who is passionate to find a passion, then it's hard to put that, otherwise you're going find that person who just show's up. Because you have to, not because they want to, and so with him, we were lucky and fortunate enough to find that he has some passion. And he has a life, that was pretty important, you got to have those things.

Holli Faulkner: But, I'd say if you find somebody who has one of those pieces...

Robby T: Yeah.

Holli Faulkner: To build it, you've got to figure out why are they doing what they're doing. Maybe take the position out of it. I know one of the first things that my director of operations did with me that I thought was really strange, but looking back at it now, I'm like that was actually really cool why she did this, she sat me down and she did career visioning with me. She took the job out of it, completely out of our conversation and she did four different categories and she was like, "You know, where do you see yourself in one year? Five years? What's important to you? Why do you need the money that you want to make to do this?" Because really, I mean you think about it, most people just say, "Well, I need money so I can live and eat and pay my bills." Right? But, we all know want to live a bigger life than that. And so she really dug into the whole like, fantasy Holli. Like the things that you think about, but you kind of put them on the back burner, because you've got the light bill due, or you know, whatever.

Holli Faulkner: She really dug into those things and if she saw me slacking at any point, or if she saw that I was down, she would kind of bring those things back up.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: And say you know, "Hey Holli, I thought you really wanted Zoey to go to a private school." Or "I thought you wanted to pay for her college so she didn't have to work in college like you did." And she really hit those pain points, and you're like, why would she say that? So, it's important to find out those things, and that will drive them.

Robby T: Were there some times where she brought those up to you that maybe it kind of irked you a little bit Holli? Were you like you knew if I'm a little bit short, and now she's bringing that back up and it's granted, your ideas and things that motivate you, were you kind of frustrated at all about that? Give us some insight there.

Holli Faulkner: Yeah, I'd be, I'd feel a little sassy about that.

Robby T: 100%

Holli Faulkner: I would just kind of be like, how dare you bring that up? You know? But, entirely knowing like, it's just a feeling like, oh, she's right. And I don't want her to say something else in front of anybody else. So, let me get back into what I'm supposed to be doing. Or she'd say things like, "You know, I'm going to hit my goals to do what I want to do, and to make my dreams happen. Are you?" And I'd be like, I can not believe you. And it was kind of a joke that we do around here, we kind of say those things to each other just to kind of help build you, you know build people up, when you're squirreling. Because let's be honest, I mean in this role as an ISA, God it's so easy to squirrel. You want to go down a rabbit hole sometimes so fast and not come back until tomorrow, you know? And I think it's those days, where that's important, to have that accountability piece.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: And it just, you got to set the stage you know, from the beginning she, from the beginning told me, "I will bring these things up to you if that's okay." And naturally you're like, okay, like you don't really know what to expect. As long as you have that agreement piece in place, then it's kind of free game to remind your people of why they're doing what they're doing. Because they may forget, I forget all the time sometimes. You know of, why I show up. But, with that little piece, I get reminded.

Robby T: Are you thankful now, upon reflection of it, are you glad that she took that approach to remind you of what's important, although it kind of brought a little bit of sassy Holli out once in a while.

Holli Faulkner: 100%. I still like it. She does it to me still, all the time. I think, it really helps. And it proves that she cares, I mean honestly, because it'd be so easy for her to just focus on her own goals. Like, why does she care so much about mine? And, I think that's one really cool piece about this team, is we care so much about each other, and it's just kind of built into our culture and our nature. That we're constantly doing that to each other and it's expected and it's respected too. So, I really like it.

Robby T: I love that.

Nate Joens: Could you share some of the specifics on like, when you know you're squirreling. You know, when do you get those messages from your team leader, what, I think, we talk about this with a lot of the ISA's, what are your standards? For appointment sets, contacts made, do you have those? How does your team leader know when to, you know kind of try to motivate you?

Holli Faulkner: Yeah, so we have a sales meeting every Thursday and our ISA's sit in with our listing agents and our buyer agents. And we have our CGI boards and each agent goes around and they say, "I've gone on this amount of appointments, I've had this many closings, this many agreements, and these are my goals." And they also share their profit, which is kind of uncomfortable, no one wants to really put that out there sometimes. And, I think it's important that we do that.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: But, and our ISA team sits in there so that way we can see, okay who needs what, and maybe why are they not hitting their goals. Maybe did they take a vacation, or maybe did they not show up to LeadGen, or you know those types of things so that way we can work through it as a team, and individually and one on one's. But our standards for my ISA team, we are still building this, but we are working towards being 75% of the team goal. Since now there is two of us. With one, I did, I think I was 25% of all the closings last year. So, I figured if we add another one, there's no reason why we can't at least be 50%, but let's push it and let's be 75% because, we like to be extra. So, we'll just be extra. So, we have an agreement that the ISA team will bring in 23 listings a month, and or, 33 listings a month and 23 buyers a month. We've just initiated this too, so we haven't really gotten any statistics on it yet.

Holli Faulkner: But yeah, so we're here to support the agents and how we get there is by going in those one on one's on Thursday's, and the team meeting on Thursday to figure out who's where and why.

Nate Joens: That's awesome. I was just posting that in there. That's really cool, it's a little bit different than kind of what we've heard from other ISA's. Is you kind of let your agents set the goals, and then kind of work with them to achieve them, I think that's are really interesting way to do it.

Holli Faulkner: Well, we do that because we have our team goal, but we get our team goal by looking at our agent goals. Because they're the soldiers, they're the boots on the ground, right? And if our goals don't line up with their goals, then no one's ever going to hit their goals. And we're going to constantly feel like we're struggling or we're not doing something right, or maybe chasing something that's not achievable. So, I think it's really important to plug and play, you got to find out what your agents goals are to see if that even supports the team goal. Because if it doesn't, then if you try to push the agents too much, they hit a goal that they're not interested in reaching, you're not going to have success like that. You can't, you know you can't influence them unless you find out what they're influenced by. And if they're not influenced by their goals then you can't teach them, or want them to reach a goal that they don't want to reach.

Holli Faulkner: And so, that allows you also to see who you need to hire. Do you need to plug into something else? Do you need to find a position, more agents? So, I think it's important to hit the agent goal, and then plug into that.

Nate Joens: Yeah, I think that's awesome. What do you think, what does an ISA need to do every day to meet those goals, to be successful? Is it a certain number of dials, is it you know, prospecting? Is it just updating the CRM, what is success look like on the daily?

Holli Faulkner: I'd say it's all. All of that. All of the above. A little piece of each. And with my ISA and I, we have our favorites and we have our not favorites. He's more of the, we call it kind of hunting and gathering. We're both hunters. I prefer to cold call. I don't really like to talk to people that I know, which is very different, I don't know why I'm like that. But, I love to get a list of people I don't know, and just power through it. So I'll cold call, circle prospect that's my favorite thing to do. So, I think it's important to do what you love. And if you have success in that, then do that. We have a database of over 18,000 people, we use Boom Town and so we're constantly answering messages and calling and doing that kind of thing. So we kind of have to structure our day to where we're supporting all things, but we do our favorite things when we're our best.

Holli Faulkner: He's better in the morning, I'm a better person in the afternoon. So we kind of flip-flop it and we plug into our own strengths. We're doing some activities throughout the whole day, just at different times. So, I think that it's important to do all those things and then we update at the end of the day. I don't focus as much on updating, just because that's not a dollar productive activity to me. The tracking and all of that stuff, we get it done. However, if you're prospecting and you're having great success and it's 5:30 and you need to, and it's time to go, we'll update it tomorrow. But, I do think it's important to track it and update it and stuff like that.

Holli Faulkner: But, plug into your things that are your strengths.

Robby T: I love that, I think that's some of the biggest things we need to re-emphasize, and you said it, "Do what you love, and lean into that." We run a master mind and Jay with Wise Hire, who I think is one of the most brilliant people in the hiring game, talks about how he did a study among, what was it, Nate do you remember, 150,000 employees or some crazy number, a lot of people, and there was two things that led to employee's being productive. And one was self-awareness, and knowing what you're good at, what you love is so key. And another one was inauthenticity, Nate? Is that the one? Inauthenticity, so not just knowing who you are, but finding what you love and doing more of that. And really, what that means is if you really dislike something, do less of it. Which is really funny because I think my parents were raised on the whole dogma of, fix your weakness, fix your weakness and when I was seeing all the social research strength [inaudible 00:34:04] 2.0, saying, no, no, no, no do your best to lean into what you love, because it gets you more energy, and manage around what you dislike, and what you don't want to do.

Robby T: So, a lot of stuff that, you brought that up and it was just kind of a mental trigger and connected to what Jay was saying and that's so key.

Nate Joens: Yeah, no I think that's awesome. I don't want to just completely switch gears here, but I really want to try to dive into the story you were telling us beforehand.

Robby T: Yes.

Nate Joens: I don't really know how to ask how to get into it, can you just, can you retell the listener's kind of about your experience with the hurricane?

Holli Faulkner: Okay. So we had our Hurricane Florence, it hit us directly. I believe it was September 12th. All of New Bern, Craven County, I mean our surrounding area's were completely, you know, gone or not gone, but under water. I mean it was panicky, it was bad. And some left and some stayed. I, for the first time in 30 years of my entire life, was scared of a hurricane and I left. I went to Georgia, [inaudible 00:35:28] Georgia, which is a long ways away, on top of a mountain in nowhere. I remember half of my family stayed back, and I remember thinking, literally thinking, we had a meeting that morning at our office, of maybe a day or so prior, we were taping up windows, moving desks, I was preparing for like, total disaster. I didn't really know what I was preparing for, it was kind of one of those moments where you kind of grab everything and you don't know why you're grabbing it and you just kind of do it anyways.

Holli Faulkner: I remember packing up my house and packing up really, it was just packing a suitcase, like clothes, right? I remember thinking, what about this, like what about that? Do I need a U-haul truck? Is this going to be here when I get back. And I have a, she was five at the time, and this was her first hurricane. And so trying to be a Mom and remain calm, but also wanting to pack everything including the kitchen sink, you're like, you know you're spinning and you don't know what to do you just spin. And so, we packed up and we left. We went to LJ some friends and I and our whole house, all of our kids, seven kids by the way, under the age of five. That was a nightmare.

Holli Faulkner: But, we were fine, we were dry, we had two big dogs with us, it was fine. And we were gone for I think, five days. We were gone for a while. It felt like a while. But, while I was there, and this is what's really cool and I want everyone to understand about New Bern, and Craven County as a whole. And just our general area, because I know CNN and I know the weather channel and all these other places, they projected that we were completely tsunami'd off the map, and that there was nothing left, and you know that there was this crisis. Which there was, but it wasn't like that, the way that they portrayed it. The way that we bounced back, I've never seen before. So, while I was in Georgia, Facebook works during a hurricane in case no one knew that, don't know why it does, but it does. Everything else can go South, but Facebook worked.

Robby T: Thank you Mark.

Holli Faulkner: Yes, thank you Mark for that. I don't know why it works, but it's great. I remember sitting on, and if you've never sat somewhere else and watched your hometown just be, I mean it was, I can't even explain what that feeling feels like.

Robby T: Right.

Holli Faulkner: You can't help, you just sit there, and you're just waiting. And you don't know if your family is alive, not alive, you don't know what's happening, you don't know. But, I remember sitting there and Facebook, I was on Facebook and all these people, we have all of these yard sale sites and things like that, all these people kept posting help, or "I'm at this address, the water's filling up to the roof, I'm in the attic." And by the way, if you're ever in that situation the attic is the worst place to go because there's no way out, if water is flooding. You'll drown, unless you get out. I mean, so I remember that and people were saying, "We're on the roof, we're outside, we're on the roof." Posting how many people they have, how many kids, dogs, whatever. Whatever the case was, and I remember seeing a post from the Cajun Army from New Orleans. And they travel to these different locations to help people out, and they bring their Jon boats and their big trucks and their stuff that they need to work through these situations. And, they posted phone numbers and I remember sitting there thinking, if I can't help anybody physically, then I can do something.

Holli Faulkner: So, I remember sitting there calling and tried to coordinate with these people and getting people rescued. And that was just like the craziest thing, so I guess my natural ISA took over. It was like, you know what, I know how to connect, and so I can be triage for anybody. So what can I do? So that was really cool to do that, and even when we came back, it was really difficult to get back. Because roads were closed, waters were still everywhere. Roads were messed up and whatever. So we used Waze, which thank you Waze, Wazay or whatever it's called, they got us back.

Holli Faulkner: I remember I went to a Walmart, I think it was in Greenville, like 45 to an hour away from us, and I just got stuff for strangers. People I didn't even know. You know, because there's no water, no gas, no food, there's nothing and we're about a week out at this point. Or maybe a few days, I don't remember.

Holli Faulkner: But, it was really cool to be able to use that scenario to still help and connect people to what they needed. So, when we got back, Keller-Williams actually, this was like my first year with the company right, so I didn't know any of these things and, I come home and there's these huge trucks, like Mack trucks full of paper towels and shovels and all these things. And literally, our entire company of like 270 agents are there with their boots on, and their own houses are flooded, their own stuff is messed up, and we're out in the community, snakes and all, we didn't care dirt, mud. I mean, the river was gross at the bottom, if you've never seen it, it's gross. It was muddy and it is nasty and when it goes in a house, there's no mopping that. Like, you need more than a Swiffer for that. You need more than a pressure washer for that, it's bad.

Holli Faulkner: The whole community just came together, we mucked out houses, we knocked out dry-wall, I became an electrician, you know whatever, I was like a construction girl. You just do it. You have to just get through it, and I think that was the most important piece for us and for our community.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: I don't know if it's a Southern thing, or if it's a way that we are just built here, or what it is but when things like that happen, or bad things happen to people, regardless of what could happen or what's going to happen next, you kind of have to deal with what's already happened, and you move on. And you pull your pants up, and you get to work. And you just do your best to make it what it is. And so, I think that's kind of what helped us. Three months after that, after we've mucked out houses and people are still displaced and whatnot, Christmas hit and that was very tough for many families, of course. You know, naturally they're, people are out of jobs, their houses are a mess. You've got families who have young kids who don't understand and they're just feeling, not only are they feeling the loss of their stuff, but now they're feeling the pressure of trying to make it as normal as they can for their little ones or their families.

Holli Faulkner: Our town has this really cool thing that they do every December and they put the Santa hats downtown in the middle, and they light up the streets and it really looks like the little village people that you put, like your Grandma has on the thing with all the fake snow. It looks identical to that. And they did that this year, this past year. And, that was the coolest thing because it was normal. That was, everybody was trying to find their new normal right, and to have that happen, that was the one consistent that happens every single year, that was kind of like the breathing moment of you know what, we're fine. Everything's fine. We're on our way. That was pretty much all of that. I could talk for hours about it.

Robby T: Well, I love it because you hit on a lot of things first off. But, this is one of my favorite things about KW is the whole KW Cares stuff that they do, and to give KW some major credit. You saw, not just in community like yours, but also after Houston KW stepped up really big. And the funny thing, I think what this shows is, you brought it up, that in these type of opportunities, things happen. Because, they do. All around the country, the world and especially here in the United States. The media is there to show them the destruction, and you see it. And what they don't go back and show is, two-three months later when y'all have stepped up to rebuild. And nobody's seeing that, and I think that's, you know, maybe something that is, you know it stinks that it has to happen but, when you see stuff like this happen, you see human resilience come out. And, you're a testament of that, you see people doing things you never thought was possible. Holli became an electrician and frankly, you were saving lives. As an ISA between the people on Facebook and the Cajun Army, you were literally connecting dots.

Robby T: And, I think what these types of things show is, we think because the media is showing the worlds coming to and end, like utter destruction. And I asked Holli a question, when did things hit normal, and I think you had said it took about three months and then things started to get normal again. What's cool about it is, when these things happen, and no doubt there's damage and it's not fun. But, human beings bounce back. And I know that happened, that just happened here twice in the last few years, in the North Dakota area where two towns were decimated by floods to the rivers through, over land flooding when there is so much snow melts and it's crazy to see the communities bounce back and rebuild.

Robby T: It's one of the coolest things in [inaudible 00:45:40] itself, and you're a testament to that and I appreciate you sharing that.

Holli Faulkner: Yeah.

Nate Joens: Yeah absolutely. [inaudible 00:45:47] if you want to wrap up with the favorite part of Robby's, the [inaudible 00:45:54] so I, I'll let Robby ask his question first.

Holli Faulkner: Okay.

Robby T: Oh Nate. Yeah, a lot of it. So, I always like to end, and you don't have to tell them the [inaudible 00:46:06] but I always end Holli would you prefer Star Wars or Game of Thrones or to those that aren't nerdy, fill in for one of those something else. So you know, what is your nerdy thing you like Star Wars, Game of Thrones or something else?

Holli Faulkner: Well, I have to be honest, I've never watched Game of Thrones. I've never...

Robby T: What's up with you people? Why?

Holli Faulkner: I tell you, I don't want to do anything that everyone else is doing. I think that's why.

Robby T: I can't debate that actually, that's valid. Good call.

Holli Faulkner: So, honestly it's because I also have a five year old still, and she'll be six in August but...

Robby T: Don't watch Game of Thrones around her. Don't do that.

Holli Faulkner: Yeah, no. By the time I'm done, you know with all that stuff, the last thing I can do is focus on something else. And so, but when I do like to geek out or whatnot, I did watch the entire season of Weeds.

Robby T: Nancy Botwin right, or Nancy...

Holli Faulkner: Love her.

Robby T: Yep, yep.

Holli Faulkner: Nancy Botwin. And Scandal. I don't know why they didn't bring another season, I'm addicted to Scandal. That is my jam right there.

Robby T: Nancy Botwin and Olivia Park baby.

Holli Faulkner: Yes, they, I will be those two people at some point in my life. I don't know why I like those things. I think it's the, I've always been interested in the kind of like, mind game shows. Not the scary ones, like the, what's the little guy on the bicycle with the circles. Yeah, so like none of that, no. Not those kind of games, I like that Olivia Park games where she kind of, her conversation's like, you know get what you want without directly asking for it. Those are fun. That's why I like those. I mix it up with some Disney movies, and some JoJo Siwa and.

Robby T: That's a good answer.

Nate Joens: My question is do you have any book recommendations?

Holli Faulkner: Well, so when I do read books, that sounds so bad but, I don't read them a lot at all. I listen, sometimes I listen to them. Right now, I'm listening to Rachel, I don't remember her last name right now.

Robby T: Hollis?

Holli Faulkner: Rachel Hollis, yes. I'm listening to Girl, Stop Apologizing. And I liked Girl, Wash Your Face. I like to listen to Chelsey Handler, she's just like my trash podcast that I get in every now and then.

Robby T: Sure.

Holli Faulkner: I like those a lot. But, I think that when I read The One Thing, that one was a really, more internal kind of book.

Nate Joens: Great book.

Holli Faulkner: But, I really like to read books that are more like Rachel Hollis where they're just kind of like, you know what, move on, who cares? Because, we all need that reminder sometimes. Especially as an ISA, you hear no like 50 times a day. And it's just when you read those type, the kind of books that those are, they really just tell you, move on. It's not about you, who cares, keep going and call them back tomorrow because they might say yes. You know? Like, they probably changed their mind, you never know. But, yeah I do like those types of books. The Seven Habits, I've actually, I'm looking at this thing by Hannah, I started that one. That one's good so far, I think I'm on page like 13. So, I'm still new at that one.

Nate Joens: I love it.

Holli Faulkner: Yeah, so all of those kinds of books.

Nate Joens: They're great. It's cool to see Hannah posting in there too, so those are great too. I appreciate it, Robby did you have anything else to add?

Robby T: I wanted to do a little pitch for a book I recently read and the, I'm telling you, the label of this book is the most misleading thing and it sounds like a snooze fest, but it is the best book I've probably read this year. And it's called Measure What Matters by John Doer. Basically, just remember Jon's worth seven billion dollars, he is the guy who helped guide investments into name a big company, he was in it. Again, Measure What Matters, it sounds like a snooze fest but long story short, he talks all about how Google and Intel have found ways to measure what matters. But, what's really great is he tells it, you know a principle and then go with a stories of real life applications. And we're not talking about people with you know, small companies doing five million a year, the people that were excerpts for this were Bill Gates, on of the people like Google. So, some of the biggest names, that have had some of the biggest success in the world. This is a killer book, so get out there and read it. Measure What Matters by Jon Doer, Doer, that guy.

Nate Joens: Measure What Matters.

Robby T: Measure What Matters, I'm telling you. It's good. It's really good.

Nate Joens: Awesome. Well, I appreciate both you guys time. Robby, the usual, that's what you're known as now. Holli, I appreciate hearing all your stories, it was [inaudible 00:51:48]

Holli Faulkner: Anytime.

Nate Joens: This Izzy, I don't know if it's going to go out, new platform so we're still learning. You're going to get a copy of this webinar shortly, it'll be available on our YouTube page just find Structurely. We'll likely be sending it out to you via email as well. As, putting it on to our podcasts, if you're not subscribed TheISARadio.com, if you want to catch the episode on the go, the podcasts that's the place to do it.

Nate Joens: With that, I will let everyone go, and have a productive rest of the week.

Holli Faulkner: All right.

Robby T: Thank you Holli, appreciate it so much. See you.

Holli Faulkner: Yes, thank you. See you soon Robby.

View Details

Nate Joens: All right. Welcome everybody to our third interview with the top ISA. We're really excited about this one today with Alex Vincent. Robby T is, of course, joining us from Hatch Coaching after one of their very successful webinars, it sounded like, of their own. Again, for all of you watching, my name is Nate Joens. I'm with Structurely. We are joined today by another top ISA, like I mentioned, Alex Vincent of the Simone Group.

Nate Joens: This is going to be another detailed discussion about how she's running her ISA team, how her practices might differ from other practices of ISAs that we've had on the prior webinars in this series. And with that, Robby would you like to introduce Alex?

Robby T: I love it. First of, if any of you don't know, I only call Nate, Nate Joens like the rapper Mike Jones. And if you want a funny laugh, just go look up who Mike Jones and it's going to be the worst song you ever heard. Some every time I see Nate I think of-

Nate Joens: Not very good.

Robby T: Not very good. Anyways, Alex, super excited to have you on today.

Alex Vincent: Thank you.

Robby T: I first had the pleasure of meeting you... Was it about a year ago now?

Alex Vincent: Over a year. It was December 2017.

Robby T: December of 2017. It's been far too long. And we were doing in-person league immersion trainings, and Alex came up here with a team member, correct?

Alex Vincent: Courtney. Yeah.

Robby T: Yep. Yep. I remember you... Too many names, faces. You know how it goes. But what I loved is... Alex is, I believe, one of the most talented ISAs I've ever met. And I think, when you were up here, you just naturally showed that you get this role. And I think we have a lot of the same core beliefs. What I was most impressed about is: Alex is not afraid to share her opinion. And we had about 30-some people in the room, and I love it. You were very direct, you gave your thoughts. And more importantly, if you didn't agree, you named something. And that was really cool.

Robby T: So, super excited to bring your perspective to the role. In a moment I kind of just want to have you start off by telling us about you and who you are. I'm disappointed that baby Elliot isn't in the webinar right now. And I was kind of hyping that a baby would be involved. In crisis of leadership. But I get it. I get it.

Robby T: Anyways, Alex, tell us about you. How the heck did you join the Simone Group? And just give us the 101 on Alex Vincent.

Alex Vincent: Yeah, so. Commenting on Elliot not being here, she would've cried. It would've ruined the whole thing. So I definitely want to be [inaudible 00:02:55] of that. But yes, normally she is with me. I bring her to work every day. And... All day long. And it's actually a really great conversation starter. I think it's giving me an edge, not going to lie.

Alex Vincent: So joined the Simone Group back in 2017. And this was with the intention of building an ISA department, helping build up the team in sales. And it's been so rewarding. Our director of operations, Zach, was actually a close, personal friend of mine for years. And when he was kind of talking to me about our brokerage and the team, and the goals and kind of vision, really, it definitely drew me in. The ability to build something and have this kind of start-up feel, but with the support of a team that's been around for years. And the leverage and the money, which is a big part of startups. It's a big sore spot for some people.

Alex Vincent: It just... It really elevated me and brought me into some high level conversations. So I'm really excited to be here. I love Mondays. Not many people can say that. So yeah, we're just... I'm really excited to be a part of the team.

Robby T: I love it, I love it. So, every team in brokerage... We kind of talked about how that drew you in. What are some of those key things, like... There's a buzzword, right? Culture. And culture's just a placeholder in my world. It's a word that has so much more meaning than just culture. Give us some insight, like what drew you in? You said you wanted to build something, the startup feel. But if you were to say, "This is why this culture is really great," what would it be?

Alex Vincent: "Why is this culture really rare?" Well, you know, we are all workaholics, if you will. And we all like to play hard.

Robby T: Sure.

Alex Vincent: And I think that's been really awesome to be a part of over the past couple of years. You know I'm also, like I said, I've known a couple of teammates before I even joined. So, you know. Opening day, baseball season's a huge day for us. We all take off, we all go out, we all cannot remember the next day.

Robby T: Yes.

Alex Vincent: You know, it's things like that. Some of us are very family-oriented. Me, personally, I was just out for the past four months. Had a pretty crazy family trauma experience with my child being born and being brought into this world. She was in the NICU for 73 days. So the team being extremely empathetic to that and supporting when it all first started happening. And even months later, it was well, "Well how can I help you?" As a response to everything. I think it's just huge and even more of a win for me. And even more of a reason why I try to work as hard as I can. While I plan... Why I will plan on being on this team for as long as I can.

Robby T: I love it. Can you see yourself leaving your team, Alex?

Alex Vincent: No.

Robby T: Is that something that has crossed your mind?

Alex Vincent: I have people reach out to me all the time. It's actually really flattering about... I don't know if you've ever hard of EXP Realty. It's like brokerage... An online brokerage [crosstalk 00:06:16]. They reached out to me. I've had other... Keller-Williams teams reach out to me, which is like a big no-no. But it is what it is. And it's super flattering and the answer is always the same. It's like, there's nothing that will make me leave here at this point.

Nate Joens: Right? Can I ask a question on that? I was just listening to the "Is your culture wrong?" webinar, or was it a podcast that we had done two or three episodes ago?

Robby T: Yeah.

Nate Joens: I think one of the things that stood out quite a bit for me, hearing about the culture at Hatch Realty with their ISAs was... And this is a repetitive theme that we've talked about before, but a lot of people think that ISAs are the lowest on the totem pole [inaudible 00:07:05] organization. What have you done on your team to flip that?

Alex Vincent: That's a really good question.

Nate Joens: Or how is it positioned in your team?

Alex Vincent: That's a really great question. So, an ISA... You know, I'm like one of a very small team [inaudible 00:07:21] in Maryland that have my role specifically. A lot of other teams, what they tried doing, was making ISA a stepping stone to becoming an agent. Where we know and where we've learned from seeing other teams fail at this time and time again, is that this is just not the way to go about it. Someone who's going to love being an ISA probably won't love being an agent. And vice versa. I have absolutely not interest in being an agent and showing houses and nurturing a client outside of the office in that way. I love being an ISA and that's just a personality thing as well. So, just two completely different people.

Alex Vincent: And then also, they're not only acknowledging that it's not a stepping stone and that it's a role in itself. But also acknowledging kind of the numbers and the importance. You know, my role... I'm in charge of 80% of the business. It's a lot. And me being out for four months was hard for our team. We actually had to scale back our goals for the year, which is crazy to think. That that's... I didn't really think of it in that way when it was happening. And when I came back, it just made me realize even more how important I feel and how everybody is here. In our operational staff is super important. We've just become crippled without key players.

Alex Vincent: It's important to everybody's like that in our team.

Nate Joens: Robby, have you already asked Alex about some of her numbers?

Robby T: I was... Literally where I was going to go was... You opened the door to 80% of the business it comes from the ISAs. So let's walk through it. What are some of your numbers? What is your... Eric asked earlier, "What's your baseball card look like?" So, tell us your baseball card.

Alex Vincent: Sure. I'm going to give you 2018, because I think a full year really captures a lot stronger than a couple months in. Especially with my history over the past few months.

Robby T: Cool.

Alex Vincent: Let's talk about buyers and sellers separately. So for set appointments we have 305 buyers of 2018. 185 for sellers.

Robby T: That's all you?

Alex Vincent: No, this is the corporate sum of our team. But for buyers... Specifically buyers, like over 90% is me. And sellers are over 80% is me. 305 and 185 is a team.

Robby T: Cool.

Alex Vincent: Broken down, so we very much focus on conversion which I know you probably want to get into. That's a big topic for you, Robby. But broken down from kept, taken, pending, closed, for buyers kept. We'll go all the way to closed. We'll say 77 closed buyers, 56 closed sellers. So for our conversions we definitely missed the mark, but not by much. You know, we have let's see I kept a set ratio for buyers was at 55% for 2018 and 57% for sellers, which is a lot lower. Our goal was 70% for year. So we missed the mark by 14% and 12%. So that's something we're definitely focusing on this year for sure.

Robby T: I love it. So is the pain point in your world the kept to set, from a quick perspective?

Alex Vincent: Yeah, from a quick perspective, we did really well to taken to kept last year. We were over target. So what I learned in the beginning of last year, even if you separate it by quarters it's a lot stronger later in the year. Is really how to prequal stronger. How to seek commitment differently. And really how to nurture a little stronger, too. You know, knowing that it shouldn't necessarily be the agent's role to keep someone on their pipeline for longer than 3 to 5 months.

Robby T: Sure. I love it. I want to share something that changed our world because our conversion last year in 2018 was 35% set to close. And that's below where we want to be. The number that we have been at has, I think, healthy is 39, 40%. 50% is crushing it. And in one of the cases it was our kept to set was our pain point. And one of the things I would love to share with all of you on this podcast today is: we started doing something extremely simple. And it sounds silly, but what we started doing was something we called a group text. And what that would look like is: we started introducing the prospect in a text message to the agent they're meeting with. And like, creating a group text. And every single time the agent responds and then the lead responds. And since we started doing this probably two months now, Jim has not had one person flake.

Alex Vincent: Wow.

Robby T: So I think. You know, I was reading a book called "Influence" by Robert Cialdini. And he talked about how if there's the more people that know about something, the more likely you're supposed to fill that commitment. That's how we're hardwired is. The problem was, we were handing people off to an agent, and they didn't care about that agent because they had never met them. And it's crazy how one text of going back and forth creates buy-in.

Robby T: And we're seeing ridiculous conversion numbers jumping from kept to set. So, just wanted to share that with everybody. Might help you guys. I don't know if you're doing it, but it's super valuable in our world.

Alex Vincent: I love that. We definitely have our agents reach out via text message within 24 hours of the set. And you know, also reach out within 24 hours of the appointment. And even focusing, too, on making sure that you're scheduling the appointment within a reasonable time. You know, the end of next week, obviously, that might not be as strong unless there's certain circumstances like they're coming in from out of town, et cetera.

Alex Vincent: We work with video calls, we work with a lot of people that move to Baltimore. Johns Hopkins, Underarmor, Amazon. They're all huge companies.

Robby T: Sure.

Alex Vincent: So you know, just different ways. I think kind of what you're tapping into is knowing your consumer and communicating the way they want to communicate, right? Definitely agree with that.

Robby T: I love it. I love it. Nate, go ahead.

Nate Joens: Yeah, so yeah. Those are awesome numbers. You guys are sharing some very insider secrets, I feel like. This is all really exciting stuff for me to hear and understand. Since I don't think we've really dove into the numbers as deep as we are now in our other episodes. This is really interesting.

Alex Vincent: I know way too many numbers. Not as much as Jim. Jim got his email to contact ratio. We don't need to get into that.

Robby T: He's next level.

Alex Vincent: But yeah. And kind of going into that, I couldn't do any of this without Zach. Zach is our director of operations. And he is the guy that filled out our conversion tracker, which is where all our numbers get plugged into. All the business reports into that. And being able to really dissect every single contact to appointment, to take in pending close, by quarter, by month, by day. It really does give you a lot of insight into your business and know where to focus on kind of, earlier. We know that, "Okay, we need to focus on our cap to set." We're talking conversion, we're talking working more effectively.

Alex Vincent: And transparency, too. For the team. Because you know, as an agent, you might be so focused on one part of the role or the job. Where at, ISA obviously focuses on another. Being able to be in sync is so important. So that we can be better together. Because my numbers don't matter if my buyers agent isn't closing any deals, right? Because then I'm not making any money.

Robby T: Truth.

Alex Vincent: So that transparency is just so important knowing your numbers.

Robby T: What is "Knowing your numbers" in depth? Can you give us a specific action that's been taken because you've seen a red flag in your numbers. Can you give us an example of something you've done to change what you're doing because your data, your metrics showed, "Hey, we got a hole here."

Alex Vincent: Hey, I mean, just coming out to North Dakota was one of them. That was one... Hey, obviously we're missing something here and we need to learn more. Let's do a conversion training with Ravi. That wouldn't think for us. We pivoted... I literally came back from that and said, "All right. Throwing everything away. Starting over." Gave everybody anxiety in itself, for good reason.

Robby T: Sorry, [inaudible 00:16:17] Group.

Alex Vincent: Yeah. So, but, it really helped. And I have a coach. I always recommend everybody getting a coach. And like I said, knowing where to focus on being able to tweak the conversations. I know recently one of my biggest tweaks was instead of asking somebody, like a cold call for a withdraw and expired of. You know, "Your house is beautiful, was even motivating you to sell it in the first place?" To making it to, "Well, what originally motivated you to sign a listing agreement six months ago?" Just that little change, I've seen a huge difference.

Alex Vincent: So training, coaching. Huge.

Robby T: I love it. And Alex, are you the only ISA on your team? Just for perspective?

Alex Vincent: Right now, yeah. I brought someone on last year. Unfortunately it didn't work out. And with everything that's happened in my personal life, we decided to put things on hole, scale back a little bit. 2018 was going to be a rebuilding year. We brought on other agents and unfortunately those partnerships did not work out. So we are deciding that 2019 will be a rebuilding year as well. Which is fine. Have you guys... Are you guys familiar with the book "Predictable Success"?

Robby T: I'm not actually.

Nate Joens: Mm-hmm (negative).

Alex Vincent: Great read. Highly recommend it. It talks about different stages of a business that we're all familiar with. But what it does is it puts it in perspective of building. Talks about this fun stage where basically as an agent, you're kind of just, "Sales, sales, sales. Driving, driving, driving." And then this whitewater stage where it's saying, "Okay, now we're putting an operational role in play in order to make sure that sales and ops are working cohesively for the client." And this stage takes about a couple of years. So we're in this whitewater stage, if you will. And our goal is to get into this predictable success stage where there's this cohesive balance. And we're almost there. We just need a few more talented people to really help us grow in that role. In that stage.

Nate Joens: What the size of your team is? And the roles?

Alex Vincent: Yeah, so right now, we only have one buyer's agent, one listing agent, three ops, and me.

Robby T: Wow. So you're leaning.

Alex Vincent: What's that?

Robby T: You guys are running lean.

Alex Vincent: Yeah, it's really cool. You know, there's other teams in our organization that are doing just the same amount of business with ten different agents. We are really happy and brag about how we'd rather have really key, effective people doing what ten people can do. One person doing what ten people can do, I guess.

Nate Joens: That's very much the wide versus deep model that Eric was talking about in a few episodes ago. I can't remember which one, but it's a really interesting dynamic that some people... It's not that either model is wrong or one is right or one is better than the other.

Alex Vincent: It's different.

Nate Joens: Yeah. It's different, which is really interesting.

Alex Vincent: Yeah. Yeah, we love it. We're bringing on potentially to other agents pretty soon. We're now in final talks with them and that's going to be huge for us. We're in some other talks that I can't really discuss right now, but we're about taking over the world. What we know is that the top ten teams in the nation are pretty much operating in this same way. You know, you can talk about different models: referral models, et cetera. But when you get to a certain point, everybody's business looks the same.

Alex Vincent: And so that's what we're modeling our business after. Because we want to get there and we want to get there well.

Robby T: Sure. And I know you guys don't have many people on their team. If I had to guess, the people you do have specialized, heavily in what they do. Is that fair to say?

Alex Vincent: Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

Robby T: And I believe... And I'll share my perspective on this briefly, is that we're going to see a complete shift in real estate. Where if you want to be a competitive real estate company, you cannot be a generalist. The generalist-

Alex Vincent: Exactly.

Robby T: The generalists, they are going to be pushed out of this industry over the next five to ten years, because tech is going to replace a generalist and provide better service than you can at a lower price. And what's going to have to happen is you're going to have to highly specialize leverage companies that provide superior service if you want to have a company that competes having a future in real estate. And I've been... I mean, there's a lot of people talking about this now. Gary Keller calls it the "tech-enabled agent," which is just one way of saying that. I think that it's going to be even more than that. I think you've got to have people that are extremely focused on making sure that this transaction is some of the best service available.

Alex Vincent: Absolutely. I love that you kind of opened that up for me. We... With everything that happened over the past year, you know. Mark, Zach, and myself really sat down and said, "Okay, this is an opportunity for yous to rebuild, to sit down." We actually scratched our admission values, et cetera. And redid that. And we're really excited, and it pumped us even more. You know, our mission now is to revolutionize your relationship with real estate.

Alex Vincent: And it really inspires us being able to say that. You know, we know that we want our service to go beyond a transaction or a sale. You know, in big-picture thinking that means being an all service team. You know, that someday that would mean everybody's specializing in something specific. If that's helping people move, if that's a lender, a title company in-house. Big picture thinking. You know, what does this mean? Where is the industry going? We have people we talk about Redfin and Zillow. It's "How do we best serve our community?"

Robby T: I think far too many people view tech and these other companies as being a threat. And I've always argued that the biggest threat to real estate is not really tech. It's poorly performing agents who provide terrible service.

Alex Vincent: Agreed.

Robby T: And Zillow is going to get their fair share of the pie as well as Redfin. And good for them. Like, let's... I mean, if people took that energy and poured that into themselves to become better, to provide better service. And pour it into their clients, they wouldn't have to be afraid about the demon that is on the other side of the river. So I guess just from my perspective, focus on you and how you can bring your game to the next level. That's how you are going to make it through this transition. [crosstalk 00:23:11]

Nate Joens: I have a point kind of on this topic.

Robby T: And that's a whole can of worms. I'm going to put a stop on that, because I can go on forever and it's [crosstalk 00:23:16]

Nate Joens: It's maybe a multi-pronged question. But I'll just start it off by: could you, Alex, could you tell us a little bit about how you specialize? You know, Robby has always said that his ISAs are the only ones to touch team leads. Is that your role? Are you the only one who can tough team leads? Where are you getting leads from? Where are you sourcing them from? Where are they being distributed? Things like that.

Robby T: Good question.

Alex Vincent: Sure. So everybody's in charge of their own core. We actually have all of our leads... Well, things definitely changed. We were the last region to be touched or impacted by the Zillow, I don't even know what you call it.

Robby T: PA-4.

Alex Vincent: Yes, thank you. So previously, it was a lot more in our control. Now it is, as you call it. So it's important, if it's just me, it's important that somebody answers the phone so that goes to all of sales. Whoever answers the phone. Otherwise leads actually get dumped into a pond and I lead generate off of that. The sales department is more than welcome to do so. However, they generally don't because they have me to do it. So core, a previous client I've already built relationships with. Our agents will reach out to our agents and that's absolutely fine. But besides that, all of it is on me. The cold calling, the bulk in for our expires and withdrawns. I actually tap right into Zillow for sale by owners that are listed. And of course the Zillow that comes in.

Alex Vincent: I can't remember off the top of my head, I want to say last year it was like 30% of our leads were Zillow conversions and the rest were repeat referral bulk-in. Et cetera.

Nate Joens: Go ahead, Robby.

Alex Vincent: That's always a question. Yeah.

Nate Joens: That was basically based in-

Robby T: I want to go in... No, do you have any more follow-up pieces that go along with that, Nate? Okay. Cool. So I want to dig into this. Alex, tell us what is the biggest pain point that you run into when it comes to being an ISA? Because there's people that are going to listen to this that are brand new. And let's be real, it's not always sunshine and rainbows. I wish. But what are some of the biggest pain points that you go through in the role? And what advice would you give to somebody regarding those pain points, regarding on how to get through them?

Alex Vincent: That's a good question. So for me with where I am in the business, for me right now it's hiring. I'm so picky. And with that hire that didn't work out last year, it really shined some light into how much more picky I needed to be.

Robby T: Sure.

Alex Vincent: Anybody that's coming into this role with the expectation to grow the role, the department, the team, leverage is always going to be the most difficult probably for anybody. In any role. Not just an ISA. As an agent. Et cetera.

Alex Vincent: You know, I guess maybe starting out in the beginning for me it was building a pipeline. Last year we really focused on seller nurtures. And that really helped us keep on pace with our listing conversions and needs. And so what that means is that when you focus on a sell and nurture, I mean, how do you define that? You just [inaudible 00:26:57] that somebody that's been willing to talk to you within a year that wants to list their home within a year. You know your motivation on why you want to list with them. Or why you want to list their home in general.

Alex Vincent: And you know, that's pretty much it. And so basically having a goal of saying, "Okay, how many seller nurtures am I going to get a day?" So I say, "I want to have five people that are commit to talking to me within the year that want to list with us. Or at least have a conversation with us.

Robby T: Sure.

Alex Vincent: And that's been huge. Building that pipeline. I mean, I'm 20% lead gen, 80% follow-up now. In the beginning when you're just starting off it's usually the opposite. You're like 80% lead gen. And you can kind of get into this mindset funk, if you will, of constantly trying to get people in where I think the common misconception is focusing on need conversion. A lot of those appointments will be in the follow-up. And not in the initial call because you're not just focusing on the appointment, you're focusing on building a relationship. And with the right person, if that makes sense.

Robby T: I love that. I got a follow-up question with that. When did that switch happen? Because you talked about in the beginning it was about 80% stuffing the pipeline and then probably 20% converting it. When did that switch happen? When did you feel that switch? And it doesn't have to be specific but roughly when?

Alex Vincent: I would say within six months of the role.

Robby T: Six months?

Alex Vincent: Yeah, I rebuilt it within six months of starting I really felt it coming to fruition. And even as we started growing there was this constant, what's the quote? Gary Keller said that "Even NASA, their ships are on route 3% of the time." So you're constantly adjusting and changing and that's how I feel all the time. We're constantly adjusting and changing. So there's a little bit of, you feel like you're being moved back sometimes as the team starts making changes, adding people on. Changing systems. That's also that white water stage, if you will. If you're familiar with predictable success.

Alex Vincent: But as long as you keep that pipeline strong, you're always going to see these things coming to fruition.

Nate Joens: Can you share how many people are approximately in your pipeline right now?

Alex Vincent: [crosstalk 00:29:16] Six months for sure.

Nate Joens: Last couple of months or so? Can you share how many people are in your pipeline like now, or you're just maintaining at a given time?

Alex Vincent: Sorry, can you say that again? I didn't hear that question from the beginning.

Nate Joens: Yeah.

Alex Vincent: Oh, that's a good question. So I have like five hundred right now. And I need to get through them. And that's just from me catching up from being out.

Nate Joens: Robby, how many do your guys have?

Alex Vincent: If I'm being completely transparent. But-

Nate Joens: Robby, what does Jim say that you manage?

Alex Vincent: [inaudible 00:29:59] Say that one more time?

Robby T: We were talking about this the other day. And I want to say the number probably was five to seven hundred per ISA that have been in the role for more than a year. Give or take. And I think... And I actually I don't get as concerned about having... I'd much rather have too many people in the pipeline than none, first off.

Alex Vincent: Yeah, I definitely have to-

Robby T: Yeah, I wouldn't stress about that. And I do think that from my perspective that one of the cheat codes... And I've recently started writing a book, because I'm a nerd, calling it "Lead Conversion Cheat Codes" and-

Alex Vincent: Well it's about time since you've read so many.

Robby T: Yeah, exactly. I'm excited for it. But one of the cheat codes is that with your follow-ups you have to prioritize it. And every single one of our follow-ups is labeled A, B, C, or D. Because when I actually follow up with someone, you want to make sure that you actually you follow up with your As before your Bs before your Cs before your Ds.

Alex Vincent: Exactly. Being able to prioritize your leads. We do that as well.

Robby T: Correct. Exactly. And that makes it so that 500, if I had to guess, it's probably broken down to the majority are Cs and Ds, if I had to guess.

Alex Vincent: You are correct.

Robby T: And if you don't call that person back exactly a year later, they don't care. You can call them back ten days late and it doesn't matter. With your As, if you call back ten days late, you might as well light, I don't know, a couple hundred dollar bills on fire. So. Anyways, but yeah. We're kind of in the same ballpark.

Alex Vincent: Yes. And to address: someone had a question about having 7500 leads in their system. How to go? Prioritization is key. And setting rules for that prioritization are non-negotiable. So As are, for this is how we do it. And this is something we've kind of ripped off and repeated from Hatch, but As are first thing in the morning. People you need to connect with right away. If this is somebody that came in at 10 PM last night through your website, through Zillow, whatever, right away. Usually you want to connect with them usually between 8 and 9 AM. And what we know from just data and research is 8 and 9 AM. And then 3:30 and 5:30, or some people argue 4:00 to 6:00, whatever, are the best times to reach people. Because it's right when they're getting into work or right before and vice versa, leaving.

Alex Vincent: So connecting with those people first and then calling them a couple times a day. Sometimes I'll try to reach them again before during lunch hour or before I leave the office. Vulcan, I try to get out of the way immediately. Again, same reason. Catching them before they go into work can be powerful. Also, catching people before they've already been blown up by 50 million realtors and are already pissed off is really important. If you've ever called Vulcan or a similar system that also reaches out to expired withdrawns, basically you know you've called too late in the day. You've already been cursed out enough and you don't need that any more in your life.

Robby T: Amen. Yep.

Alex Vincent: So reaching them is really important. And that's pretty much my 20% lead gen. You know, sprinkled throughout the day. If I'm behind on goal, I'll definitely add more later in the day. I feel like I'll do Fizzbows through Zillow are really easy easy. That's actually my easiest to convert, personally. And they should really be anybody's because in theory they're the most motivated. But, yeah. And then the rest of it's follow-up meetings, trainings, et cetera.

Alex Vincent: When you have so many leads in the database, it's really hard not to feel overwhelmed. I know I am somebody that has that "Too much on my desk" feeling constantly. And trying to battle that is just a mindset thing. Knowing as long as you keep going and chipping away, you're not going to be really able to do all at once. And there are some system you might want to put in that are, of course, going to be more automated to help you achieve your goals and kind of help that feeling be alleviated.

Alex Vincent: But for the most part, a lot of it for us is coming through leverage and prioritization. For sure.

Robby T: I love that. And you said something, Alex, and I want to make sure everybody else heard is if you have 7500, the first thing that you should do is chunk it. And don't worry about 7500. Take 50, 100, 200 leads at a time and attack those. I think that when we talk in 7500 and you try attacking all of them, it causes you just not to take any action. You got to break it up into smaller bite-sized pieces.

Robby T: So start somewhere. I typically want to advise you want to start with the newest opportunities that are the highest quality and work backwards to the, at the very end, have the oldest and the lowest quality up to that came through. I will say this, though. I say lowest quality for one reason. For my perspective is, just because someone signed up four or five years ago doesn't mean it's a dead lead. That's where everybody goes wrong is, we confirm leads consistently and that sounds so ridiculous that are four, five years old. And we called hundreds to firms and never heard a thing. So don't give up, don't write it off. But make sure you're working through the 7500 with the cream of the crop first and then work backwards.

Nate Joens: Kind of switching gears, I have one follow-up question on advice. Alex, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to a seasoned ISA? Rather than a new one?

Alex Vincent: [inaudible 00:35:53] Don't be afraid to go back to basics. You know, as someone that's been out for so long and coming back into it, I had to go back to basics. Don't forget about training. As good as you think you are there is always opportunity to get better. Like I said, fairly recently I've been calling Vulcans for leads for two years now. And recently we made a switch and I'm seeing a huge improvement, and that was just a suggestion from my coach. So training, a coach, don't just fall out of those back to basic that mindset. A lot of people to usually kind of blame agents for this and ISAs can be just as guilty of this: is falling out of that schedule or that routine. You know, they'll think, "Oh, I'm doing great." Well don't forget the work you put in three months ago was really makes you feel like that right now. [crosstalk 00:36:51]So mindset, always mindset.

Robby T: I love it.

Nate Joens: You talk about the different stages that you're in as an organization or a team or a business. What does does leveling up to... I mean maybe you can tell us like what does leveling up the first time, so maybe after that first six months feel like? And then what is the next level look for you guys? How do you guys know that you're leveling up to the next stage?

Alex Vincent: Leveling up to me looks like my numbers just getting bigger. Just being able to capture more people and help more families. And being able to have that talent or that leverage to be able to train them to do the same thing. And that's another reason why knowing your numbers is so important. You want to know where you're going. You have goals. You need to be keeping track of them. So you know for us right now, it's definitely building out that ISA division. We want to be more ISA heavy than agent heavy. You know then building out the ops division, knowing that we shouldn't be having one ops person to every five agents or something. It would be really [inaudible 00:38:09].

Alex Vincent: And just being service oriented as well.

Robby T: Sure. I love it.

Alex Vincent: Yeah. So we're really excited. We're really happy. Even though we took a step back from me being out and us having some things that didn't work out last year. Which... It sucks. But it really gave us some more insight on what we should be doing. It gave us an opportunity to pump ourselves up in an even better direction. So we're just trying to get things rolling, if you will.

Robby T: I love it.

Alex Vincent: Anyone who wants to come to Baltimore and wants to interview as an ISA, email me! We're looking for talented people.

Robby T: Don't reach out to my ISAs. Keep your hands off. So I love... Alex, first off, this is really, really good. I think you've brought a lot of different value than you've brought on the show that was a lot more systems oriented. And systems are key. And obviously you guys have that dialed in. You're constantly looking for your flaws, which is great. I do want to give you major cred. There is not another ISA, I don't think anyone in real estate, having a baby on their lap calling leads. And it's just... If you're an agent and you're saying you're too busy to call leads, I'm sorry. But I mean, you just don't have an excuse. So I love that you're taking full ownership and there's no excuses there, so that's really cool.

Robby T: I'm excited to see you scale the ISA department for you as well. And when we have you on next time, hopefully there's another person that we've brought on that's had some success there. But as always, we've got to end on a nerdy note. Being lead peak and all that good stuff. So I always ask: do you... Are you a Star Wars person? Do you like Game of Thrones? Maybe other? And you've got to tell me why.

Alex Vincent: Okay. My geeky... So of course, Game of Thrones. If you don't like Game of Thrones, I don't think we can even be friends. Just as skeptical.

Robby T: Hey now.

Alex Vincent: And the funny thing is, when I watched the white walker battle I went to go see the new Avengers movie the day after. And it was just like so much, all within a 24 hour period.

Robby T: That's a lot.

Alex Vincent: But yeah, it's definitely Game of Thrones. I don't want to spoil anything for anybody. The books are amazing, I highly recommend them.

Robby T: Oh yeah. A little graphic. A little more graphic than the show, which I didn't think was possible.

Alex Vincent: More graphic. More characters, you know. Like a book, I guess, it's just always more detailed.

Robby T: I want to do one spoiler real quick.

Alex Vincent: Yeah.

Robby T: There's one spoiler for Game of Thrones I've got to share. There's a Starbucks cup.

Alex Vincent: Were you watching, did you actually notice it?

Robby T: I didn't. I didn't. I had no clue. And then I saw it, I was like... I went back and saw it and was like, "Dang!"

Alex Vincent: People were mad about it. I actually thought it was kind of cool.

Nate Joens: An Easter egg.

Alex Vincent: Then it was like, "Surprise! There's been a Starbucks cup in every episode and nobody's noticed it [inaudible 00:41:27]" or some crap like that would be awesome.

Robby T: I love it. The firm real nerds understand.

Alex Vincent: Love it. Yes. And I think it's just funny because as I interview people, the nerdier you are the more you kind of enjoy this role. Is that really sad to say? But it's so true.

Robby T: There's a reason we call them "Leads Geeks."

Alex Vincent: Yes.

Robby T: I mean, look, Nate's a nerd. And I hope people know when I say that you're a nerd and Alex, you're a nerd. That is a cool thing. That is me giving you a label of... A term of endearment. In a good thing. I just love that that's a place we're at.

Alex Vincent: And the opportunity for growth in this role is insane. Pretty much wherever you go, you really... I would hope, at least. In any team it opens up a lot of opportunities and doors. And financially as well. It's just the books that I have read since I've been brought into this team. The way I operate in my marriage, I've become a whole different person. And I would hope that anybody in this role kind of takes the opportunity to get themselves networking with as many people as possible. And you know, reading as much as you can. About the role, about the business, about business in general. The skills... Just DISC. Just something as simple as DISC. And you know I'm a DI and my husband's an SI. And I can't tell you how much we... It's great. Just to be able to acknowledge that. Schools like that.

Nate Joens: Recommendations? I don't know, it seems like we should be asking everyone for book recommendations.

Alex Vincent: "Predicable Success," One of my favorites.

Nate Joens: "The Ideal Team Player."

Robby T: I like it.

Alex Vincent: And "The Ideal Team Player" is something I'm reading right now.

Robby T: Cool.

Alex Vincent: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Just started that. Yeah, definitely. These are more business. Not just ISA-directed. They're more business books. You know, but, at the same time, if this is actor, present yourself where you want to be, right? You know. If you're an ISA starting out with the opportunity to grow, read these books because the level of conversation you'll be having not just externally with potential clients, but internally with your team leader with people you may want to fulfill that. You can feel yourself elevate.

Nate Joens: "Lead Conversion Cheat Codes" is the new one?

Robby T: Love it. Give it time, give it time.

Alex Vincent: You're going to send me one, right, Robby?

Robby T: Yes, yes I will. The Robby... It is... Writing is a fun, yet difficult process and I bring it up cautiously, but knowing that she will get done this year. So pretty excited about it.

Nate Joens: Alex and Robby, as always, I appreciate both of your guys time today. It was very exciting. A little bit different than our other ones, which is just a great flair to add to our interviews with the top ISA. And Alex, you are definitely a top ISA. With that, as always, I am responsible for bringing out the famous yellow bucket today, apparently. And we will begin our giveaways as we do here on some of our webinars.

Nate Joens: So here's the famous yellow bucket. Just so you know, we're giving away two old lead bundles today. 50 leads each, two winners. We will follow up with you guys via email. The winners, everyone who either registers or was on this, this will be available as a recording via email, YouTube, and on the ISA radio. So without further ado, we have got: Cathy Thoth. Thoth? Cathy Thoth. After I get this... No, unfortunately not.

Robby T: And Robby T!

Nate Joens: You have too many leads.

Robby T: Am I eligible?

Nate Joens: And the second winner [crosstalk 00:46:08] is Sunny Binder? [crosstalk 00:46:11] Binder? Binder. All right. Well, congrats guys. Let me just write your names here. No, he's got it. Perfect. I will follow up with you guys shortly. Alex and Robby, thanks again for your time today. Make sure you subscribe to the ISA Radio. We're getting caught up on our episodes-

Alex Vincent: Thank you very much.

Nate Joens: If you missed any of our higher episodes of our Interview with the Top ISA series, they're available on the Structurely YouTube as well as the ISARadio.com. That is a must subscribe. Available on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify. Anywhere that you can listen to a podcast, it's available. All right. Thank you! Take care everyone.

Robby T: I love it. Thank you, Alex. I appreciate you talking!

Alex Vincent: Thank you for having me.

Nate Joens: You're very welcome.

Alex Vincent: Goodbye, guys.

Nate Joens: Goodbye.

View Details

Nate Joens: All right. What is up everybody? My name is Nate, I'm with Structurely. We have an exciting webinar today that we're getting started finally on this beautiful spring day out of Iowa.

Robby T: Oh, yeah.

Nate Joens: We are joined by Robby T and LeaAnne today. Robby, would you like to kick us off?

Robby T: Hey, first off we got to celebrate the fact that we have no tech issues today. Sometimes tech is a pain. Funny part is as well, I was just on another webinar right before this about snap offers and we had some little tech issues. So major celebration. Other thing is, we have no snow in Fargo so life is fantastic.

Robby T: Hey, excited as heck to have a bunch of you join us today. We have one of the supreme ISAs, not just in real estate. LeaAnne also served as an ISA, and tell me if I'm wrong LeaAnne, but in the car industry. So I got to hear about that.

LeaAnne Ledford: I did.

Robby T: And now you've transitioned into basically being the lead ISA and overseeing your department, so would love to hear about that, but LeaAnne introduce yourself and tell us a bit about you.

LeaAnne Ledford: Hey, so I'm LeaAnne from Johnson City, Tennessee. I have been, collectively, from the car dealership to real estate, in this whole phone conversion thing, for several years now.

LeaAnne Ledford: Started out at [inaudible 00:01:33] Developments. When you say seven years, it's a long time. I mean, that's older than my kid, but obviously I like it so ...

LeaAnne Ledford: I started out business development internet sales in a car dealership. Very high volume car sales. I'm talking 30/40 car sold a week. Sometimes 300 a month. So I was one of two, and then our department with the help of the two that were there slowly grew to about six to eight at all times back there.

LeaAnne Ledford: I came into real estate in 2016. August, 2016 was my first month, and I'll be honest with you, I started out with these high hopes thinking, "Hey, I'm going to go here, and I'm going to crush it." Not only my teams only ISA. I was the only [inaudible 00:02:26] in our entire market. So I had no one around me. No one in our whole area knew what an ISA was supposed to do.

LeaAnne Ledford: These were big dreams and I sucked. I sucked. I almost left the industry altogether and the only thing that saved me was going to Family Reunion in Vegas in 2017.

LeaAnne Ledford: Since then I've been in it. I did my whole first year and went from having three closes from August to December in 2016 to having 74 the next following year.

LeaAnne Ledford: I'm on my own and kind of self trained, built all of our systems and then the next following year worked part-time. So half the hours, half the dials and got 101 closings.

LeaAnne Ledford: So-

Robby T: I love it. LeaAnne that's a good introduction. Lots to hit on there. You have a fascinating story. If you don't mind, I'd love to go back to the car dealership ISA stuff because-

LeaAnne Ledford: I don't go back there, but yeah we could do the talk.

Robby T: Well, we're going to go back for a minute. What's funny is we started this ISA stuff all about being an ISA in the real estate ball game, and I think you probably agree that the skills that we talk about and the skills that you're going to talk about, it's not just the one industry if I had to guess. So give us some insight. You said you were doing 300 car sales in a month?

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah.

Robby T: What does that mean? I don't understand that. Give me some insight there.

LeaAnne Ledford: So our dealership was the number one volume Toyota dealership in all of the east pretty much. We were doing 300 sales a month. Roughly 65 to 70 percent of those sales at all time were coming out of our internet sales department. We, much like an ISA in real estate, we got the leads.

LeaAnne Ledford: We were the first person speed to lead on that in a matter of seconds and then we would nurture them. Not quite long as we nurtured real estate. I was used to the gratification of setting an appointment today, and it goes under contract, they drive away today. So that was the difference. That was the game changer was coming in here and saying, "I'm going to talk to these people for two years? Two years?"

LeaAnne Ledford: Back there it was two weeks or they've made a decision and they're gone, but when you put it together and you look at the role, and you look at what's important, and you look at what it takes to actually help people to their goals that they reached out to you to get help for, it's the same. You can equate it to restaurant industry, car sales, anywhere. It's the same concept of listening to people, coming up with a solution, and making a pathway to get them there.

Robby T: Gosh. Listen, create solution, create a game plan or a pathway.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah.

Robby T: I love it. Okay. So you did that for how long LeaAnne? How long were you in the car sales?

LeaAnne Ledford: Four years.

Robby T: Four years. Okay, I understand why you don't want to go back.

LeaAnne Ledford: I tried [inaudible 00:05:44] to get out of there if James is listening.

Robby T: Yeah, so tell us about that. We have a little back story. It's really cool to hear that a lot of the stuff translates, albeit different time frames.

Robby T: I think the funny thing is most people calling internet leads have the, "If it ain't going to close in two weeks, I'm not going to do anything with it," and frankly that's why most people convert a pay per click [inaudible 00:06:10] at sub one percent if that, and it's because most internet leads, especially fourth registration pay per click is so long term.

Robby T: When we measured it, it's been ... The conversion cycle is 18 to 24 months, and they're long term, just like you said. Up to two years. So it's kind of cool to get your perspective on that. But tell us, LeaAnne, how the heck do you get out of car sales and how did you get into being an ISA in real estate? Give us that background.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah. So it's much easier to fall in then it is to fall out. So I took the car sale job expecting fully for it to be temporary. Went to school for health, could not find a job, and I was like I have to make some money. So I sold my soul to the devil, as they say, and I went to the wonderful world of car sales.

LeaAnne Ledford: Now when I started, I was an extreme introvert, and I had at my previous job that I had actually gotten fired from for not being able to say hello to people when they walked through the door.

Robby T: Wow. I would not have guessed that at all.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah. So extreme introvert. Awkward. Super awkward.

Robby T: Sure.

LeaAnne Ledford: So over the course of the four years in the car industry and just getting beaten down every day, developed a love for talking to people, developed a love for just human interaction and for problem solving, and about two years into that ... A year and a half/two years into it, I had seen an ad for pretty much the same job but just in real estate, and I was like, "Well that sounds more long term. That sounds like a good plan."

LeaAnne Ledford: So I actually applied to work for Jim three times over the course of almost three years, and the first time I was to be considered. The second time they told me that I'm not an ISA, that I'm actually an agent profile and they offered me a job being an agent. I gracefully declined and went back to my cubicle at the car dealership. And the third time I would say he hired me out of complete desperation, because he just really needed somebody. Never give up if you're out there. Don't give up.

Robby T: Never give up. It's funny because a lot of people have heard us say, even on this show, that we usually say you want somebody who is very balance or a higher DC on the disc, and we always ... I make sure to emphasize it's not a strits. You got to be this. So I can help but think that Jim maybe heard us say that and said, "I can't hire this lady."

LeaAnne Ledford: Maybe it was your fault, Robby.

Robby T: You can blame me. [crosstalk 00:08:59] Give me some insight because I'm assuming if you're built like an agent, you're a [inaudible 00:09:08] which means you went from being an introvert over here to now being extremely extroverted it sounds like. Give me some insight into how you were successful in the ISA role if it's not a super natural fit for you.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah. So when push came to shove I had a reason. So I had my one thing of why I quit the job in the car dealership and that was because I found myself being a young expectant mother, and I had no health insurance and no job. So had to do something. So I walked into this industry and almost gave up multiple times, but luckily I had a mentor, somebody that was helping me that pretty much one day grabbed the phone from me and stuck it to my face and was like, "Hey, they can't bite you on the other side of this phone. You're going to forget the conversation the next conversation you have of what they just said to you."

LeaAnne Ledford: So it was just a lot of people that knew my one thing and it was just me sharing my one thing with people for them to hold me accountable to that. And so now on our team that's one thing that we do often when we have new members come on, when we hire, everyone knows everyone's one thing, and we make people tell us the excuses they will hide behind.

LeaAnne Ledford: My excuse was just that I was scared, but it wasn't really that I was scared, because I wasn't. It's just that I was uncomfortable, and I don't like to be uncomfortable. And she knew that was my excuse that I would hide behind, and so when she saw me gearing towards that excuse, she pushed me out of it. So now when I mentor others, that's one thing I try to do for them. At the end of the day, you have to know why you're there. You have to know what motivates you to show up that morning, and you have to keep it in front of you at all times. When it gets hard, you have to think if I stop this right now, who am I effecting? Whose family am I effecting? Whose goals? So it's not just about you.

Robby T: LeaAnne I was telling people before this interview that you were going to bring some fire, and you just became a dragon.

LeaAnne Ledford: My screens kind of flashing red a little bit too.

Robby T: Oh. I love it. I love that.

Nate Joens: Was that a Game of Thrones reference, Robby?

Robby T: Yes, it was.

LeaAnne Ledford: I don't know.

Robby T: LeaAnne, we'll get to that. Let's not ruin the surprise. But I love ... First off, I got to say, huge kudos to you, because a lot of people are in those types of situations where they feel like there's a lot of resistance or there's a challenge in front of them, and my biggest fear in this world is many people shy away from it.

Robby T: Because if I had to guess, you've went through a hell of a lot of discomfort, a lot of pain, a lot of frustration, probably don't like rejection, yet you literally signed up for two jobs where when you're succeeding, 2 percent of the time and losing 98 percent of the time, you're actually killing it. So major kudos to you for stepping up.

LeaAnne Ledford: Thank you.

Nate Joens: I really like the one thing that you had ... I can't remember. I've been trying to think of this. Was it you guys at ... I'm sorry I got a train.

Nate Joens: Was it you guys at Hatch, Robby, that did the trading cards of everyone on your team?

Robby T: Yeah, so we-

Nate Joens: An awesome oppurtunity to write your one thing on the trading card amongst ... That'd be a really cool idea.

Robby T: Yeah. I love it. I couldn't agree with both you Nate and LeaAnne more that you got to know your why. You're calling it your one thing. We refer to it as your why. Simon [inaudible 00:13:03] implanted that in my brain. We're saying the same thing, because if I had to guess, LeaAnne, it's probably fair to say making the phone calls isn't what lit you on fire every single day, and you probably tolerated it, but what pushed you to pick up that phone was knowing you got bills to pay and you want to be a great role model, a great parent, and you probably want to enjoy some stuff in life as well. So huge kudos to you. I love it.

Nate Joens: Could you tell us a little bit about the team that you manage now? I'm really curious to learn about how you're dealing with those ISA's. Really how you're mentoring them too.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah. So I moved into being our teams director of [Legion 00:13:51]. So with director of Legion, I'm not only helping out ISA's but I'm also helping out all of our sales team members. So I help in recruiting new agents. We do hybrid models. So new agents, I help bringing them on board. Training them in the scripts, the dialogues, the processes, the systems, everything like that.

LeaAnne Ledford: My ISA right now, I have two. Full time ISA's who are back there right now grinding it out and they ... I started last year and I made one really bad hire. It was completely my fault that this person did not succeed, and I carry that on my back, but I learned from it. I hired more carefully the next time, and the two guys that I have right now, their first month with zero experience ever, between the two of them, they set 55 appointments, but we're just very transparent. Everything that they do is shared with the other ISA and with myself. So if one ISA sets five appointments today, the other ISA is seeing that. It's that little push. So we are all about transparency. That's kind of how we run things. Very system, very process, and very transparent.

Robby T: If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to hear more about how you guys are making that a reality LeaAnne. How are people seeing ... crushing it? How have you created these systems and this transparency? Are there tools they're using? Give us some insight there. How are you doing it?

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, so I'm not a tech friendly person. I actually don't even use apps on my smartphone. I use browser for everything. Well, not browser, Safari. Not tech friendly. So I use a google sheet, and the google sheet is shared amongst my ISA's, myself, and our rainmaker. It's also shared with our director of operations.

LeaAnne Ledford: So we mark ... So when they set an appointment, we have a column on there of which agent it went to. We have a column of whether it was buyer or seller. What lender it went to, and then each one of those, was it converted to a met? Was it converted to assigned? And was it converted to a close. That way at a glance, the ISA's don't need me to help with lead rotation. We don't do round robin. It's based on you earn it, you get it. And so they at a glance can know at all times what every agent's standing. They can know where a vendor is standing.

LeaAnne Ledford: The agents were transparent with them as well. They know if one of the other agents took seven listings this month off of appointments that we gave them and they didn't get any, it's because that other agent was crushing it. So old school google sheet, updated every time they set something, and we are viewing it at all times to see the break down of how many appointments were set this week by each ISA, what the conversion was.

Robby T: Sure. I love it. Can you get a little more in depth on ... you said you don't do a lead rotation, and you give it to the agents that are performing. How would I as one of your ISA's know which ISA is performing and crushing it?

Robby T: Give me some insight there.

LeaAnne Ledford: So as far as ... are you asking which agent's ... how their ISA's know which agents-

Robby T: Yeah. You kind of said that those that are crushing it probably get more appointments than those that aren't crushing it. What does crushing it mean? Are you saying that the assigned ratio is higher? Or give me some insight there.

LeaAnne Ledford: So for me crushing it is more than conversion. It means more than just converting it. It means that they are compliant with the things that we are asking of them. So if one of the team members who is skipping team training, and they're skipping that oppurtunity to better themselves ... If they're skipping our team outings, if they're running in late to team meeting, if they're not on our morning role play call, which by the way, we use Hatch as a lead generation, whatever you call it.

Robby T: The role playing game! Yeah, yeah sure.

LeaAnne Ledford: Those are incredible. Those have made our team ... love, love, love prospecting. We use those every morning, and if they are not at role play practice, then that's a notch against them, and then when it comes to ... When we're seeing off a lead from an ISA to an agent, we're going to base it on who's compliant, who's trying to benefit themselves.

LeaAnne Ledford: You didn't get an appointment last week, you lost it. That's great. Do you know why you lost it? Did you come back and tell us why you didn't get that appointment? Are you working on that? Are you working on that objection handler? Are you looking for ways to add value so that next time you won't be caught in that? If you're not doing, then you're going to have to go find your own next opportunity to practice on. You're not going to do it on one of ours.

LeaAnne Ledford: And then it comes down to personality. So we match people up a lot personality wise. You can give me the best realtor in the world and if my personality's not going to match theirs, I'm not going to work with them. So that's how our ISA's are kind of trained to give the appointment.

LeaAnne Ledford: And we tell our agents upfront, life isn't fair and neither are we. So no round robin here.

Robby T: So the ISA appointments are not something someone is entitled to- [crosstalk 00:19:25].

Robby T: Go ahead, sorry.

LeaAnne Ledford: Team leads are not a right. Anybody joining a team, nobody owes you leads. It's a right. I went to a class that Seth Campbell was teaching and he made a very profound statement. He says, "What they join you for, they'll leave you for," and that's true for ISA's, that's true for agents, that's true for anybody. I mean, anybody you're entering a relationship with, whether it's a friendship or any sort of relationship, what they join you for, they will leave you for. So make sure they are joining you for the right reasons, because if it's leads, they are going to leave you for more leads, because they want something more. But yeah you have to earn team leads.

Robby T: I love it. Nate, go ahead.

Nate Joens: [inaudible 00:20:13] Could you kind of tell us a little bit ... I'm switching gears a little bit, but can you tell us a little bit about that first hire you made that you said was more or less a failure? Could you tell us a little bit about how it was a failure? What did you learn from that process and how would you do it differently?

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, so when I kind of with my rainmaker made the decision that we were going to expand and bring more people into this ISL realm, I immediately jumped to familiarity. I didn't want to be uncomfortable, again. So in my mind I was like, oh, wait I have a guy I worked with at the car dealership who I know could do this type of work, because I knew how to do this type of work, and he actually just lost his job. So perfect timing, perfect hire, right?

LeaAnne Ledford: So I did not take him through the full process, because I was basing it off the emotion, not the logic. I'm going off of emotion, which is the worst thing to do, and I'm like, "I know this guy can do it, because he's coming from the same place that I did," and so I made the mistake of bringing him on based on my emotion, setting expectations that he was never going to hit, and worst of all, I did not have the systems and the processes ready to go to bring someone in. So I was setting him up for failure and he just didn't know it.

LeaAnne Ledford: So I brought this guy in and my biggest thing was every time that he would do something I would revert back to this thought of, "Well, I came in with no training, nobody to lead me, and I figured it out, why can't you figure it out?" Because I didn't have the systems and the processes there. So it ended up ... I mean, he lasted two months and then he just ended up . ... He wasn't a team fit, first of all. He was not a fit for our culture. I didn't know anything about bringing people on at that time. He wasn't a culture fit. He was actually not a fit for the role at all, and I completely set him up for failure because I did not plan to succeed.

Robby T: I love it. I got a question on that. You said you didn't push him through the full process. Would you mind ... After you hired two people, and I'm assuming with those two you went through the whole process. So I'd love to kind of have you share what that full process looks like, and maybe what you skipped with the other guy.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, so I am on a team that's with Keller Williams, so we career vision everyone now and we actually ... I went to a career vision class to learn how to take someone through this process and so before we hire anybody we have sets of things that they have to go through. So we have different assessments that they have to complete, and then we bring them in and we go over the assessments. We dig into their motivation, what pushes them, their life story. We basically try to come up with any red flags, and we try to discuss those red flags before we bring them on, and it is a process. I mean you don't find amazing talent, most of the time, that's just ready to burn it up and start tomorrow. Most people that are amazing talent, are already talented in a role somewhere else. So it's a month long process.

LeaAnne Ledford: I took a lot of shortcuts with this guy, and I wanted him to start in the next couple of days, and I didn't set him up for that, but I did get two guys after that. One was actually my waiter one night at Outback Steakhouse. Brought him into the whole process, and another guy came to one of our client events, and so I hired. Didn't post any ads. Did it for people that were within the sphere and within past clients. Things like that.

Nate Joens: So you're saying the best source for new ISA's is outback?

LeaAnne Ledford: Waiters and bartenders are made for this type of work. They are made for it. If I had to hire another person tomorrow ... Well, okay, so I'm not going to hire another person tomorrow, because that's ... but if I had to start recruiting for another person tomorrow, I would definitely be looking for bartenders, service industry people. They are conditioned for this.

Robby T: Yeah, why do you think those people are good fit? If I were to ask you ... Just give me some insight into the two guys. Why are they crushing it and why did they ... Obviously they came in and you've trained those next two really well, and it's funny how ... and I posted this today in [inaudible 00:25:06] that everybody ... Failure's kind of looked down upon by many people, and if anything, failures are the best things that I think can happen as long as you use them as motivation to learn from.

Robby T: So what do these guys look like? Why are they crushing it? And how are they setting 55 appointments in their first month in the role? Give me some insight there.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, so they both came from completely different backgrounds. Neither one of those background ever included real estate, calling, being on the phone, anything, and so they came in ... When we took them through the process, I spent a lot of time getting to know them personally, and I needed to know them and I needed to know what made them tick, what pushed them, what they would hide behind ... I needed to know all that before I brought them on, and I brought them on and they didn't know much about each other. So we never acclimated them before for them to get comfortable with each other, and they honestly ... I brought them in telling them pretty much there was only one position.

LeaAnne Ledford: So they've always seen each other as competition but at the end of the day, they see each other as a team, and if they need to push each other, one will call the other out. They sit back to back in a room together, and they'll call each other out, and I think that's a great culture to have.

LeaAnne Ledford: They both have something they were fighting for, and it's two completely different things. One's fighting for advancement and one's fighting for a family. But they both have something that they are fighting for, and I set the expectation upfront that Im not going to drag them to their goals. I'm not going to drag you there otherwise, I'll cut the chains, and I'll go and you stay back here. I'm not a dragger. I'm not the person that micromanages and everyday says, "Hey, let's do this, let's do this."

LeaAnne Ledford: So they want it. It comes down to the same thing that helped me to succeed: They want it. And they want it for themselves more than they want someone else to want it for them.

Robby T: When I talk to people that ... I always talk about how you have to be hungry and humble, and what it sounds like ... and I love that you bring up that you have your own thing and then these two other guys each have their own independent outlook, but they clearly know what they're pushing for and why they're willing to make sacrifices to actually get there, and I think you're hitting on something that you could hire the most talented people in the world. You could technically ... You could train really good people, but the reality is if they don't have the hunger to pick up the phone and do the work and self start, I don't think it'll ever work.

LeaAnne Ledford: If you ever want it more for somebody then they want it for themselves, you're battling an uphill battle. Something's going to give and it's probably going to be you. You're going to get exhausted trying to push this person that is just not going there.

LeaAnne Ledford: True talent, we call it bottom up talent, true talent pushes you. So they're the ones that are constantly challenging you. They're calling out your systems. They're calling out your processes and they're saying, "You know, I get why you said this, but this is a quicker way. This is a better way. This is more efficient." They're challenging you to be a better person every day. If you're having to do the opposite, then it's the wrong fit.

Robby T: Love that, and kudos to you LeaAnne. I read, I think it was something this morning, but it said that ego is all about who is right, and truth is all about what is right, and I've seen far too many people get in the trap of, "Hey, we've done it this way, because I created it that way," and if I had to guess, you're two ISA's are starting to do things differently than what you trained them, and frankly, better, because they have different perspectives, but kudos to you for being willing to not at all have an ego and say, "No we do it this way because I said so." That's the kiss of death in innovation.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, and we give them the freedom to do that. To make those choices and to make those improvements. Success isn't a one size fits all. Everyone has a different picture of what success is, and for me, I may say that success for them is to have X amount of closings a year, but it may mean something completely different for them, and I feel like if I give them the oppurtunity every day to own the role that they're in, they're going to appreciate it so much more. They're going to see the longevity in that role, and they're going to make me better as they get better, but we'll give you the freedom if you try it the system and the process way first, because you got to start out learning the basics. You've got to learn the systems and processes. Once you learn those, you got that flexibility and that freedom to do things that are more your style and more geared towards you, but if they don't work, guess where we're going? We're going back to the basics.

Robby T: Truth. I love it.

Nate Joens: I really like Kyle's question here. I think it's a good segway kind of. Tell us what your why is and when you lose, what keeps pushing you forward?

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, so my why is a little complex. I try and keep it simple. I was raised by a mom who spent all of her time working. Every memory that I can recollect she was working, working, working, trying to better us. From her working, we never got to spend quality time with her. We never got to go on vacations. We never got to do anything, and unfortunately I lost my mom three years ago, and the one thing that I learned from that is you can't get memories once the oppurtunity to make those are gone.

LeaAnne Ledford: So for me, my why is I'm here so that I can be more present with my child when I'm not. So I know that when I'm here I'm present, so that when I'm not here, I can be present with her and I can make memories with her and I change the way that I leave her behind. I can change that completely. So for me that's kind of a short, condensed version of what keeps me going is knowing I don't have to make the same mistakes and have the same regrets that somebody else did.

Nate Joens: That's an awesome why. [crosstalk 00:31:48] I was just going to say that's probably one of the most ... I can see why Robby was saying although you didn't exactly match the standard disc, your why is kind of just like ... it's really, really present. And is that something ... I know Robby continues to coach on hiring this time of disc, how can you ask those probing questions in an interview or a recruiting process to really get at that why and how do you kind of know who ...

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah. So my viewpoint is if they're an amazing ISA fit, I don't have to probe them, they probe me. What's the number one thing you're hiring an ISA for? To dig deeper, to ask the right questions, to guide the discussion. So when I'm interviewing somebody, when I'm considering somebody, if I'm having to do more of the guiding, then I know they're probably not going to be the best fit. I want somebody that asks me that question first before I even ask them, I want them to ask me.

LeaAnne Ledford: When I say something about my daughter to somebody that I'm interviewing, I want them to stop, acknowledge the fact that I said I had a child, ask me a little bit more and keep going, because if I say something instrumental like that, which is a way that so many people lost the ability to connect with a client with, and they just keep going, I know they're going to do that on the phone too. I want them to stop me, and I want them to ask. I set them up into traps like that too when I'm interviewing them, but you don't have to probe a good ISA. You never have to probe.

LeaAnne Ledford: But what we do is we just ... Just like when we're on the phone and just when we're doing our dialogues and everything like that, we go deeper. Tell me more about that. What does that look like to you? What would that mean to you? Just keep going deeper.

Robby T: Love that. I know for us one of the things that we've learned to ask is ... We always just start, give us your life story and it's crazy that just asking that one can lead to finding out ... It always leads to the why if you do it right if you're digging deeper. I'm assuming you all do something similar where you know someone's why at least at some level before you hire them.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, and there's always the real why behind the smokescreen why. So my smokescreen why is my daughter. I can keep it really quick and simple and just say my daughter, and that's the smokescreen. That's the surface level, but you have to dig and get below that surface level, because it's so much more than my daughter. You'll never push me to my goals thinking it's just my daughter. You have to get behind the emotion where my mother's tied into that to really push me. So it's just like when you're on the phone, you have to get past surface level.

Robby T: I love that. I love it.

Nate Joens: So kind of switching gears on that though, when you're coaching your ISA's, obviously it's kind of a reoccurring theme that asking why is definitely what we kind of believe makes a successful ISA. I think you mentioned you trained these people on script. [inaudible 00:35:22] says there's no such thing as a script. What are you doing to train those people up to make sure that they're asking the right amount of questions to move it forward, but also digging deeper? How are you kind of coaching them up on that as well as, what is one piece of advice that you would give to a brand new ISA?

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah. So kind of along what Robby says, when my ISA's start, they get one piece of paper and that one piece of paper is everything script wise that we have and it's literally a page of questions to dig deeper on things that matter like motivation, location, price ... It's not a script. I call it a blueprint.

LeaAnne Ledford: So we will coach them on finding ... every single person's different, and so when I sit down to coach, every last person's opener and closer is going to be a little bit different, because it's going to be geared towards their personal style. The worst thing to do is to give someone a script that's going to make them sound uncomfortable, and so we gear it towards somebody's personal style.

LeaAnne Ledford: So their opener, and they have to know the inside of the sandwich ... where to ask those questions and then where to take it. So that's kind of when they start ... That's what we do. We work a lot on their opener. We find what's comfortable for them. We go back and forth, me and the trainee, a lot. They have partners outside of the market, and then we just work on it every single day until it is natural. And they will learn the objections as they are given the objections. You can't completely train an ISA on everything they're ever going to ... I've been in this seven years and I still have not heard it all. So it's ongoing and ever-changing.

Robby T: I love that. One of the things that people oftentimes say to me is when they hear the approach that we're talking about where ... I even say the best script in the book is tell me more, and I think you're saying the same thing. There's a lot of different ways to ask that. People always say, "Well, it doesn't," ... "Don't people feel like you're invading in their life? Aren't people upset about that? Don't they get frustrated? Don't they hang up? Don't they want to hang up on you? Don't you feel intrusive doing it?"

Robby T: So I have my perspective on it and my idea, but I'd love to hear if someone were to say that you, "LeaAnne, your approach sounds like you're probing and you're putting your nose where it shouldn't be," I'd love to hear your rebuttal.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, so you just gave me your opinion and what does everybody like to do? They like to share their opinions and their thoughts. So thank you for sharing yours.

LeaAnne Ledford: If you make them feel comfortable, if you're building rapport ... Like I said, if someone mentions their child or, "I want to be close to work," you stop and you slow down and you quit worrying about going for the close. It's so overrated. Don't worry about going for the close, worry about contributing.

LeaAnne Ledford: So, "Hey, Robby, I know you said you wanted to be closer to work, where do you work? Oh that's awesome, how long have you been there? What do you do?" People love talking about themselves. It's a natural human ... People love talking about themselves, and so for you to give them the stage and to shift the conversation towards who they are and not what you can do for them, that makes them so much more comfortable, but you have to build rapport as you're digging. You can't just dig in like a Frankenstein voice, just, "Hi ..." You have to make them feel comfortable. You have to do it. If you're not going to build rapport, then don't try and dig deep.

Robby T: That's great.

LeaAnne Ledford: Save the [inaudible 00:39:08] questions for last. I always start with information, because if I can get them talking about the why, then the how is so much easier.

Robby T: I oftentimes say you can know every what in the world, and it is nowhere near as powerful as one why, and you're hitting on a fundamental truth, and the fundamental truth is everybody loves to talk, and I agree. I agree 100 percent.

Nate Joens: What is one piece of advice that you give to a seasoned ISA? How would you coach up Robby here who is still an ISA?

Robby T: I love it.

LeaAnne Ledford: Somebody who has been at it for a while? The biggest thing is don't ever think that you have it figured out. Don't stop trying to learn even if you are at the top of the totem pole, there is always someone to learn from, and that very well may be the person at the bottom of the totem pole. So never stop looking for those opportunities. You're never going to know it all even if your mama tells you you do. Everybody that you meet is a learning opportunity one way or the other.

Robby T: I just love the, "Even if your mama told you so," that's my favorite thing I've heard all day.

LeaAnne Ledford: Mama's love telling their little boys that they're right. So don't listen to your mama on this one. It'll never go well.

Robby T: Your mama's wrong! I love that. So first off, I can't thank you enough LeaAnne. It's really fascinating to get your perspective through all of this. You're obviously aren't just skilled at what you're doing, you're extremely skilled, and I have about three pages of notes. So thank you for helping me. I love everything you're saying.

Robby T: When we like to wrap these up, because we tend to be nerds as ISA's in our world, so it's kind of our joke. For a while we've always said, we'd only hire someone that likes Star Wars. That's not always true, but...

Robby T: I ended the last one asking Jim, what do you prefer: Star Wars or Game of Thrones? And I don't know if I've ever seen Jim so hyped in my life. I thought he was ... He was jumping up and he was like, boom, boom, boom. So I'm going to ask you the question Star Wars or Game of Thrones and why?

LeaAnne Ledford: So Robby cover your ears. I have never seen either. I have never seen a single episode of Star Wars nor a movie. I have never seen Game of Thrones.

Robby T: So everything LeaAnne just said, don't hear any of it. We can't trust her. [crosstalk 00:42:05]

Robby T: Anyways, is there anything ... What do you love that's nerdy? What do you love that's maybe kind of nerdy in some way, shape or form? We'll pivot.

LeaAnne Ledford: Well, I don't have a ton of super nerdy tendencies when it comes to TV preferences, things like that. I won't willingly tell my TV preferences because people will hold it against me, but one of my nerdy tendencies is sometimes I get really into folding laundry. I know it's not horrible, but I get really into it. Like giant piles of it. Making sure everything is done just right. Mastering the retail folds. Mostly, Marie Kondo folds. I geek out on some organization systems from the container store. Things like that. Closet systems, drawer organizers.

Robby T: I love it.

LeaAnne Ledford: That's about as geeky as I get.

Robby T: I love it. So you're Marie Kondo. You can teach us some of those things.

LeaAnne Ledford: I don't like to get rid of stuff.

Robby T: Oh so you organize but you don't like to get rid of-

LeaAnne Ledford: I'm not a hoarder, but I do need all probably 80 pairs of my earrings. They all still bring me joy.

Robby T: I have never heard a hoarder say they are a hoarder. So we may have to talk later.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah, maybe. We may need an intervention.

Robby T: Well, LeaAnne, again, from my perspective this is really great. Thank you for bringing a ton of value to people today. It's really great to have you on. We'll have to have you on again at some point. This is the beginning for these types of conversations, and again, we can't thank you enough for your time.

LeaAnne Ledford: Thank you guys as well.

Nate Joens: Absolutely. Thank you very much LeaAnne and Robby. We appreciate both of your guys' time. As is tradition here at Structurely though, we're not done yet. Now we got our prize specialist. He's making it around.

Speaker 5: Are you bringing a bucket?

LeaAnne Ledford: Hello.

Nate Joens: So what we usually do here is we have a giveaway at the end of these fun hour long sessions. [inaudible 00:44:33] what do we got today?

Speaker 6: Today we got two people winning 50 free leads. So what that means ... whoever is the winner of the free leads, you will be able to upload 50 of your old leads into our system in AIISA homes, Artificial Intelligence Inside Sales Agent will long term nurture them for you. So really good way to bring some leads back to life, and we've got two winners today. So we got the first winner of the 50 free leads is Laura Fleming. Way to go Laura.

Nate Joens: Laura Fleming, Hawaii.

Speaker 6: Winner two of the 50 free leads is [Tiffany Keylander 00:45:25]

Robby T: Keylander.

Speaker 6: There is a J in there.

Nate Joens: Sorry, Tiffany. I don't know how to spell your last name.

Speaker 6: You missed the J.

Nate Joens: Well, we'll follow up with you guys after this?

Speaker 6: Yeah, you will get an email from us and anyone who is registered will also get a copy of this webinar two hours from now. Re-watch it, keep your notes.

Nate Joens: It will be sent to you automatically via video. We're also working to put together this episode, as well as the last one, in our podcast, which you can subscribe to at theisaradio.com or on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, really anywhere you listen to podcasts you can find us at TheISAradio. Lots of other episodes with great ISA's, just like LeaAnne, as well as Robby T and Mr. Erik Hatch as well. Well, with that guys, I really appreciate your time on this Tuesday. There's a train going by, which seems like my cue to leave. So we'll see you guys next time.

Nate Joens: Oh, our next episode I should mention that. Robby, it's still pending, right?

Robby T: I believe.

Nate Joens: Okay, so-

Robby T: I think we're good.

Nate Joens: Pretty well confirmed with Alex Vincent on May 7th 1pm central. So that's may 7th at 1pm central in a couple weeks here we'll be back to talk more ISAs. With that, we'll see you guys later.

Robby T: Thanks again my friend. Thanks, LeaAnne. Appreciate it.

LeaAnne Ledford: You too, bye.

Robby T: Have a great day now, bye.

View Details

April Martin: Awesome. My name is April and I'm with the Dani Blain Real Estate Team. I was a full time ISA for three years. Now I am currently part-time ISA and part-time ISA manager. So, I used to do live ISA-ing from morning until noon, and from noon until the evening, I am managing, training, and overseeing the platform, and our agents, and leads. Currently, my stats are, forgive me they change all the time so I've got to look.

Robby T: That's funny.

April Martin: It's true. I can't keep track of the numbers. Over 113,000 calls made, over 60,000 emails sent, over 47,000 texts. Are you still there?

Nate Joens: I kind of am. Can you see me?

April Martin: No, I don't see you and I see a pan of Robby still.

Nate Joens: I do too. I think Robby has sufficiently broken this.

April Martin: Okay.

Nate Joens: Okay. Well, Robby's just going to be there smiling I guess since I can't seem to get rid of him.

April Martin: Okay.

Nate Joens: So I guess just keep going.

April Martin: I am at roughly 1,300 appointments set, and a little bit over 400 closings year to date.

Nate Joens: Okay. Great. So, can you tell us a little bit about your current role today and maybe how it's changed since you started with your team?

April Martin: Sure, absolutely. I was privileged to come on board with Kevin Blain himself, I was his original ISA, so founder from the beginning. I got the pleasure to go over and travel and see Robby, and Jim, and Eric and train with them personally. They've been a huge blessing in our life.

April Martin: From the beginning, from just not really knowing how to do it, or what to do, or what to expect, to today, I oversee four other ISA and we do currently manage and have managed up to 50 agents and 30-40 taking leads. So, my mornings are pretty busy. I come in at 7:30am, and pretty much do my leads, and my sales as an ISA until around noon. At around noon, I check out and I put on the management hat and making sure our ISA's are accountable. I'm going over current appointments set with them.

April Martin: We're trying to hold a pretty high standard for what the appointments set look like for our agents. I'm taking a look at who's converting. I am also looking at our different agents conversions. So, more of a management role and also providing training for the ISA's, because I've bene in this role three years. And since, the role is pretty ne overall in the industry, I think it's kind of up to ourselves to consistently grow and find new material. We're constantly trying new things and seeing what works. Just constantly providing new ways for our ISA's to get better.

Nate Joens: That's awesome. Could you, first of all, what are come of the tech tools you're using today. You'd mentioned you start the morning with your leads. Where are those leads coming from? Are they different than the ISA leads that they're working come noon? Kind of what's your lead, set the state a little but on your tech scene.

April Martin: Sure, so we have a basic CRM. We use Sync here. I know all ISA's and every team is different, that's one thing I've learned by studying ISA's the way I do. Is that, all teams are different, very unique and I would say some specialize in some things. We specialize in typical online leads such as Zillow, Realtor.com, Facebook, Facebook back at you, Dave Ramsey. Those are some of our traditional lead sources. My day, when I come in, any new leads on the platform, there's typically two of us at all times so, shifts tart from 7:30 until 4:00, and then one comes in from 12:30 until 9:00. All leads are round robin amongst the ISA's so typically everybody is getting a consistent new lead source a day. New leads, fresh leads, if you will.

April Martin: Then we also might have something a little different than a lot of teams. Because of our team size and the amount of conversions we do, we do do a lot of advertising. So, we do have a hotline and that phone does ring. And so typically whomever has that hotline, it's something you usually have to earn because you have to be very quick, because those are coming in live. You've got to be very, I know this is a hard thing to measure, but you've got to be very intuitive, and you've got to be very good with people skills and getting them to talk. Because, that phone can ring up to once every 15 minutes.

Nate Joens: And how may ISA's do you have? I'm sorry if I missed that.

April Martin: That's okay. It's me and four others, so four and a half.

Nate Joens: Okay, and what are their ranges of experience?

April Martin: I have one that's been here two years, and then two that have been here one year, and one that's brand new that we're currently on.

Nate Joens: And so, you know, this is probably a little bit a deeper question that I want to continue to dive into, but you had mentioned that getting access to the hotline is a high privilege. How do you set criteria for them to gain that access, gain that privilege? Is it simply based on experience? What are your criteria for that?

April Martin: Well, that's normally, when a new ISA comes in, they're typically trained for 90 days before they're going to access new leads or the hotline. They are shadowing, they are sitting with us. I do a lot of one-on-one when I put the lead on speaker and let them hear the questions we ask. We typically have a set form of information that we are to do our best to in conversation, get the information from the lead.

April Martin: Our new ISA, her name is Myra, and she said she hears us question so many different ways, just lead the conversation, so that when we come to a point where we dial, and I let her take the lead, it is on speaker and if at any time she gets stuck, she backs away and I take over the conversation in a fluid motion so that way there's no hiccup there. We do that quite a bit until she is comfortable. Even then, I like to listen to them dial, hear them for quite a bit before there's so many different scenarios in real estate that come across the hotline, that she has to be comfortable with taking agent referrals, she's got to be comfortable in the new [inaudible 00:09:00] sellers, competitive listings. Many, many different scenarios on that hotline.

Nate Joens: So, you're allowing those new ISA's to work leads that aren't new to start for the first 90 days. What type of leads? Are they calling? Tell me about what those first 90 days are like.

April Martin: Typically, the first 30 days, a lot of learning, a lot of role-playing, a lot of industry language. Real estate's a whole new language. A lot of listening to us, so there's hours of listening to us. Hour just learning our CRM. There Is hours in learning our agents and what their specialties are, and who's good at what. So there's so much, almost information overload when and ISA first starts, So, then when we actually get them comfortable with the CRM, and they're watching my girls do follow-ups on the dials and everything, then it's time for them to get comfortable with Mojo, and loading Mojo, and that whole dance that we do with Mojo. And so, one they get there and we are actually giving her leads, it's typically the older leads, the ones that maybe we never got, maybe they're just attempted contacts and there's been a lot of dials on them. But just a lot to practice on and with, so they're typically the older ones.

Nate Joens: Okay. I know that's what Robby teaches as well. ISA's don't get the privilege of the new leads until a certain period of time that they get a work through their crappy leads and kind of earn their stripes that way. When they actually do graduate to the new leads, why do you think that ISA's might not be successful after a certain period of time? You said you had an ISA that's been there for two years. Is that your most experienced other than yourself?

April Martin: Yes. We have had ISA's stay longer, but they just transition into being a full time agent. So they still are on the team, but they just went that route.

Nate Joens: Okay, so do you think that is a successful career path is to graduate ISA's into agents? Because, I know that's a little bit different than what Robby might believe. How do you think that's working out?

April Martin: That's not my preference ever. I think if it's my goal, long term goal, is to set this up in a way where my ISA's are very successful and they don't want to leave. To keep them as long as they can and as long as they're happy. I think it's really a personality type, and this particular ISA was an excellent ISA. She is now an excellent agent and she is one of our top converters because of her experience in ISA. So, I can't fault her for that. I think her D was so high, she's definitely going to be a business owner as far as a real estate agent. Phenomenal, she's brilliant.

Nate Joens: So, what do you think is the most important criteria or aspect in your business that keeps ISA's around that doesn't cause burnout. From my perspective, the ISA role is hard. It seems like a role that doesn't have a very long shelf life. It's exhausting. You get hounded by people all day who frankly don't say a lot of nice things sometimes. What do you do to combat the burnout?

April Martin: We try to make our work environment especially fun, and positive, and encouragement. We do a lot of laughing, a lot of joking, and a lot of celebrating. I think one thing that is important as a leader, I provide at least once a week, videos, encouragement, we have books that we all read together and share. Just the positive mindset because, like you're saying, this is a very, can be, a very negative field all day.

Nate Joens: Yeah.

April Martin: And so, then I think it's okay to admit this has been a really rough week, or a hard day, and just acknowledge that and take a break. Take a break and refresh, reset, get the positive mindset. We are all about positive mindsets here, and encouragement. And so, acknowledging the hard things and we turn it into laughter, because some of them are so bad. Some of the responses we get, some of the feedback, some of the texts, we turn them into laughter. You have the stage, you either laugh, or you cry.

Nate Joens: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What do you think is the typical ISA look like for you. I think you mentioned that one of yours was a high D, I assume, we talk a lot about the DISC profile here, what are your ISA's look like that you think are going to stay in the ISA role?

April Martin: You know, it's interesting. One thing that I learned from Kevin, and I've kind of taken his approach on this and it seems to be really working, all of my ISA's are extremely unique. Each one has specific strengths with specific lead types. It doesn't mean we don't work on our weaknesses, but I am finding that an IS or an SI, the energy that comes from an I, the intuitiveness, the ability to grab people and hold conversations, but the steadiness of and S, to do all the notes and all the tracking. It's working very, very well. I am an off the chart I, and a pretty doggone high D. I can see where my weaknesses are not a good fit for what needs to be done in the every day tracking, but I think it's my D that forces me to get it done. The S's can be trained to really track very well.

Nate Joens: That makes a lot of sense. I think those are the two that Robby recommends on the DISC profile. Robby if that's wrong, please chime into the chat and let us know.

April Martin: I think they might have suggested DC's.

Nate Joens: We talk about it a lot, I just can't remember right now, so hopefully he jumps in and confirms that, but I think that's always been really interesting. You have to get the right mix of ISA's or, in the case that you're just hiring one, you have to have that person who can definitely handle the note taking on their own. That's so important. That's one thing that I definitely hear from Robby. He actually posted in Leads Geeks yesterday something about how the diligent ISA's are always taking notes, and you have to be religious in that.

Nate Joens: So, what are some of the things that your ISA's do on a daily basis, maybe inside our CRM that you think, maybe not only your CRM, but inside of all of your tools. What do they do on a daily basis that you think sets them up for success in the future and on an ongoing basis?

April Martin: First of all, answer the phone.

Nate Joens: Yes.

April Martin: That's a simple one. Sometimes we can get so caught up in numbers, that they have to do a certain amount of dials per day, that they're dead set on getting the dials done, that you can ignore opportunities right in front of you. So, answer your phone first of all. If that hotline's ringing, Zillow live, whatever, take that first.

April Martin: They're really good at, first of all, getting their mind right. Being very positive and today we are going to do this. We're going to accomplish X, Y, and Z. I always encourage them to write out what they're going to do every day. They are going to do it. Then, set forth. When you set forth, usually if you come in priority is hot leads on the platform. If they land, our lead sources here in California, the market is extremely competitive. We've got about 30-60 seconds to get to them or we're going to loose them. So, hot leads are a priority, getting them on the phone immediately. And then we have the lender in the office, so transferring them if... Because our goals for the day, if these are their goals, a couple hundred calls, but I'm more interested in contacts. Eighty contacts, four appointments. That's our goal.

April Martin: We do appointment reviews, so they're really successful at getting them on the phone and then transferring them to a lender. And mind you, this sounds really cut and dry. There's usually about eight to fifteen minutes of conversation in getting to know them, connecting, getting pain points, pleasure points. I think my ISA's are excellent at connecting to people. And so, we know that we've done a good job when the client actually wants our ISA to be their agents. And so, I think they're really good at doing that, getting right to the lead. Their communications in their CRM, we have a lot that is automated, we try to rely on automation. First, I would say the fresh leads, getting back to the ones that have responded, and then dialing correctly. Watching who's active, who's alert. Watching who's logging in, and then just going for it.

April Martin: Of course, we do do the 10 days of pain. So, if we don't get them on the first try, we are dialing for 10 days and texting and emailing. All of it's automated as far as the texting. Just staying on them and with them knowing that the first day within 30-60 seconds is really important. The third day, the fifth day, and then after that staying in contact with them. Just setting up for once every two weeks, to once every four weeks, to filtering them out if they're not just attempting contact.

Nate Joens: If I did my math right, your goal is 80 appointments a week. Is that right, 20 per ISA, your ISA's?

April Martin: Yes.

Nate Joens: So, 80 appointments a week. How do you define an appointment?

April Martin: What we have, I have a checklist, a sheet of things of information that they need to get from the client. It's basically, it's kind of, it sounds cut and dry and very cold. It doesn't happen like this. It's all in a smooth, fluid, getting to know them conversation. So, they're definitely not going through a checklist. But it's basically a mini pre-app. So, we are finding out about the client, we are finding out... Because, the goal is either an appointment set with lender or agent, appointment set with lender, or a strategic follow up. All of those are gold. All of them.

Nate Joens: What is a strategic follow up?

April Martin: Strategic follow up is where you have gotten their motivation, you know their time frame. My ISA's are taught to ask a lot of process questions. Oh, okay, so looking to buy in a year. Awesome, what's making you wait a year? Sometimes there's so many misconceptions, that they think they have to wait a year, they think they have to have 20% saved. So, finding out motivation, time frame, why, what's holding them back. Getting their permission to follow up again at a certain point. All of those are gold. They all take a lot of time. I know [inaudible 00:22:05] plan to prize the appointment set first. Strategic follow up is just money in the bank later. I put weight on equal, and I expect equal from my ISA's.

Nate Joens: Can you say those three appointment types again in case some people missed it?

April Martin: Okay. The obvious highest and most prized is the appointments that pre-approval with a lender and agent. Then there's some that may be not quite ready to go to the agent, so it's just lender. And then, strategic follow up.

Nate Joens: How are your ISA's responsible for, when the actually pass it off to your lender or an agent, what's the pass off or the hand off look like?

April Martin: So, we're talking to them. We're finding out all this great information, their motivation, their timeframe, their pleasure points, their pain points, we find out where they work, we find out what they believe their credit score is, if they've been there at their employer a couple of years. We find out all this great information. If they're willing to talk to a lender right then, I a handing the phone. Our lender has put their ISA in our office. So, we are directly doing a pre-approval right there if we can get it. At that point, the lender is giving them right back to me and I am saying, okay now you are... Our team is a little bit different because we do cover four different counties. So, the lead going to that county, I already have made a great connection with them. I already have the agent in mind. I've already mentioned them a few times in the conversation. And so, at that point, the appointment is set with the agent to reach out.

April Martin: Our agents have a rule. Once we give them a lead, they have an hour to get to it. So, the call is made, the text is sent. I'm telling them, when I'm on the phone, I'm like, our agent so-and-so is amazing, he loves first time buyers, he's so good with them. Super patient, he's going to answer all your questions. As soon as we hang up, he's going to text you his business card with a picture, and then he's going to call you right behind that.

Nate Joens: Awesome. Yeah, that's great. One thing that I kind of want to switch gears on here is the actual strategic follow up piece and the just general follow up piece to unresponsive leads. A question that I have here from Robby is how many follow ups each are your ISA's responsible for in their pipeline at a single time? How many leads are your ISA's each following up with today?

April Martin: I think there's a difference between how many leads are in their pipeline, and how many leads that we would consider viable leads.

Nate Joens: Okay.

April Martin: So, they may have 5,000 in their pipeline, but they may be corresponding with about 3,000, and they may have up to 1,000 strategic follow ups. They are responsible to get at least, we try for, two a day.

Nate Joens: Two?

April Martin: Strategic follow ups.

Nate Joens: Awesome. So, two strategic follow ups a day and four appointments per day are your goals.

April Martin: That's like, you are an overachiever.

Nate Joens: Okay, cool. Are there any other goals, standards, procedures that you have in place that are important to hitting those numbers?

April Martin: Yes, we try to shoot for, once again, I try not to get caught up in the amount of dials. Because, one thing I've learned about my ISA's watching their dials, I can have them blow through 300 or 400 dials, but that means they're not talking to people. So, I want to see the contacts is really what I'm interested in. Because when I see contacts go up, I see strategic follow ups go up. So, it can range depending on if they have the hotline, if a lot of new leads are landing, their dials can get interrupted. We typically look for a couple hundred dials a day. Hi Robby.

Robby T: [inaudible 00:26:49]

April Martin: So, 800-1000 dials a week. Hang on, let's see. About 400 contacts a week, and our ISA's typically do get in between 400-500 contacts a week.

Nate Joens: Okay.

April Martin: Typically, you talk to about 80 people a day to get four good appointments.

Nate Joens: 80 people, 80 contacts a day to get four appointments is what you're seeing for typical conversion rate.

April Martin: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah typically 40 contacts will get you two.

Nate Joens: Okay. Two appointments?

April Martin: And, you've got to remember that's 80... Hey, you know what, yeah I do want to talk to you, now's not a good time, but can I set a time later. You get those contacts, but it takes 80 of those to get the decent ones.

Nate Joens: No, that's really helpful to help me grasp how many attempts are actually needed to be made here. You said you had a lot of the follow up actually well... Let's answer some of these questions actually. It looks like we had some questions on that. So, Abby asks, one ISA has 80 contacts a day over the phone seems like a lot. Is that all over the phone? Are some of these happening over text and email too?

April Martin: Some of them are texts, some of them are text and then to phone.

Nate Joens: Okay. And, Zack then asks a similar question, how much dial time do your ISA's have a day to hit 80-

April Martin: Four to six hours.

Nate Joens: Four to six hours, okay. That's a lot of calling.

Robby T: P.S can you guys hear me? Am I actually here?

Nate Joens: We can hear you Robby can you hear us?

Robby T: Can you see me? Because it shows me up on the screen with you guys, I just want to make sure, can you see me?

Nate Joens: Yes, we can see you Robby.

Robby T: Oh my goodness! I clutched it, guys. I've got to celebrate. I honestly have zero clue how I did this. No clue. I went in the same link literally 20 times. Anyways, I'm amped right now because I wanted to chime in like 400 times. Can I ask a question really quick, April, now that Robby T's back I the house?

Nate Joens: Yes.

April Martin: Yes.

Robby T: Awesome. Good. So, how many, obviously you guys are crushing it and you're having tons of conversations and everything you've shared is a lot of good stuff. How many incoming leads do you guys have coming per month to feed this machine that you guys have created?

April Martin: We've got about 800-1200 depending on the season and the peak, and these are prime leads.

Nate Joens: New leads per month.

Robby T: There's not a lot of PPC in there, I'm assuming. Is it a lot of property inquiry leads? Give me a little more depth there.

April Martin: Typical Zillow, Realtor.com, they're probably our highest source.

Robby T: Cool, awesome. Just wanted to get some clarity there. That's great, cool to hear. Sorry, I just had to celebrate really quick.

Nate Joens: Yeah.

April Martin: We do get a lot of people calling live through Zillow.

Robby T: Oh, okay.

April Martin: A lot of clicking on the call button and going through. The hotline really rings, I've seen it go off once ever six minutes. So, we do get a lot of call action.

Nate Joens: Sure. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Cool. And, just one last kind of piece on this that Zack wants clarification on is, how do you define a contact? Is that just anyone who picks up the phone or anyone who responds to a text or email? Is that a contact no matter what they say?

April Martin: No, it's a conversation. It's a conversation to get a call later. It's a conversation like we've talked to them, find out they're not interested. It's a conversation. And, that can come through a text. I see a lot of questions about what is 80 contacts? 80 conversations with people to get an answer of what to do with them next.

Nate Joens: Okay.

April Martin: Out of the 80, you might get 20, 16, 14, depending on the day that lead you to those appointments.

Nate Joens: Okay.

Robby T: Sure.

April Martin: The rest is going to be scheduling you for later, telling you about their Grandma got sick, they're not ready to buy. You're going to get a lot.

Robby T: Yeah. And, then I'm assuming, April, a lot of that as well is people that are just frankly not interested and say April, take me off your list. That's a contact as well.

April Martin: Absolutely.

Robby T: And, I don't think, I've always said that that's one of the major portions of this game is, and I think you guys embrace this as well is, get the no's quickly. That way you can spend more time on these yes's, because that's what I'm hearing you say is you're just trying to go all in and spend more time nurturing, touching, taking care of servicing, I call it loving. That's really what you're doing is making sure those people feel like they matter. So, is that kind of a good way to describe it?

April Martin: Yes, and Robby I know that you and Jim know, people who have been in the game for a while, just because they say no right then does not mean they really mean no. We keep them in the pipeline, in six months, their activity might go way up, and they call back in live. We have leads who have re-registered six different ways, and still telling us no, they're not interested.

Robby T: Yeah, there's always a funny matrix between somebody's behavior, and what they're sometimes telling you. Sometimes you just caught somebody on that bad day and that's why in our world, I don't believe in ever trashing a lead completely unless they literally say, Robby go... You can fill in the words, we're all adults here hopefully. But, if they say something like that, along those lines, that's not someone I want to work with, frankly. I'll trash that stuff. But, if somebody says, no, I'm not interested at all. Heck, even if they have an agent, I'm not trashing that. Because, stories change. Behavior changes all the time.

April Martin: Robby, one thing that we actually found that works for us as a good strategy, like I said, we have very competitive lead sources so, especially one particular one. When that lead registers their information is going out to a couple different agents and everybody in this area has figured that out, so they are calling within a minute.

Robby T: Yeah.

April Martin: It's our job to get to it first, but a lot of those leads have agents. The one thing that we've discovered is we wills set a follow up in a week. Okay, I hope it works out great with your agent. Do you mind if I contact you to see how that showing went? And we will find out that it didn't go well, they weren't happy with the agent, they never made the showing, and we get a lot of appointments like that.

Nate Joens: I like that, April. I'm going to make sure to note that down. That's good. I like it. And, I'm sure sometimes they're like it went really great.

April Martin: They do.

Nate Joens: Who cares, now at that point you have some better information. That's really good, April.

April Martin: Yup.

Robby T: Huh. Yeah that's interesting. I would have never thought to do that.

April Martin: If you look at agents follow up over all, and then we call back and they've said, well actually the agent called me back and let me know it's pending so no, I never met with them.

Nate Joens: Truth.

April Martin: They're just free.

Nate Joens: Interesting.

April Martin: And they're really, thoroughly impressed we called back.

Robby T: Yeah. Absolutely.

Nate Joens: Have you ever had someone get mad when they called back?

April Martin: Never.

Nate Joens: Why not? Why do you think people don't get mad, even if they have an agent, it went well, they're committed to that agent. Why do you think that they're not getting mad at you or something along those lines.

April Martin: I think it's rare nowadays to see any type of customer service. Everything is automated, everything is routing you somewhere else, and the biggest complaint form clients is that their agents won't call them back.

Nate Joens: Yes.

April Martin: So, here you have somebody actively providing customer service. They're not used to it, and they like it.

Robby T: That's a very good point I agree with that.

April Martin: They're very polite.

Robby T: That's great.

April Martin: And they remember us because we told them we're going to check in.

Robby T: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Nate Joens: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Robby T: I like it.

April Martin: And sometimes they text. Sometimes they text us back, hey thank you for checking. It went well and I'm working with them it's going great.

Nate Joens: Yup.

Robby T: That's cool.

Nate Joens: There's a reason you guys across [inaudible 00:35:54] I was going to say up there, but then I realized we're higher up than you guys, so it's over there.

April Martin: We're going to [inaudible 00:36:05] you.

Robby T: That's great, that's cool.

Nate Joens: I think we've touched a lot on tools and processes and things like that which has been great. What do you think just simply makes the most successful ISA our of your four. You don't have to name them, who are the most successful, who aren't, but they have their days. What do you think makes them successful on a day-to-day basis?

April Martin: Being diligent about the processes, whether you like it or not. Being extremely good listeners and intuitively asking the right questions. My best ISA's extract the most information, and the client gets of the phone feeling like they just made a new friend. And so, I think every single one of my ISA's are trained that way and we tend to pick and hire people who tend to have that naturally as part of their nature. And, they're warm. They exude warmth over the phone.

April Martin: This is what I've noticed consistently that I can say for ISA's and agents across the board, and I say this all the time, whether you're a top producing agent, or whether you're a top producing ISA, the one consistent thing I can see is they are positive and warm. If there is any chance of moving that lead forward, or that client forward to conversion, it's such a positive, warm, informative, educational, customer service, get to know them kind of process, with my ISA's and top conversion agents. They're positive. They provide information in such a positive way that the clients get excited.

April Martin: I think our ISA's are consistently good at providing excitement over the phone. Genuinely excited for the home buyers and it works. I can hear them smiling.

Nate Joens: I love it.

April Martin: So, that, and the consistency with the process.

Nate Joens: I love it.

Robby T: So, I've got to ask, and first of all April, I have to agree with you a billion percent that you've got to have a system and a process for everything. Here's what I heard you say just so we recap it. ISA's need to be great processors, they've got to stick with the system, they've got to be asking really great questions, and they've got to be diligent listeners. Earlier you said they've got to be diligent note takers, and they've got to be very positive and warm.

Robby T: What's really funny with this is, when you bring up the warmth and positivity, that's the one that probably matters the most actually. Because, if they're cold and negative on the phone, you're not going to convert even if you do the rest of those things. And, the reason I want to talk about this real quick is all you're saying with that, is that your focus on them making somebody feel like they matter. I always say that logic makes us think and emotion makes us act. It sounds like what your ISA's, and I've seen this amongst the best ISA's out there is, you make people feel like they matter.

Robby T: Again, it's a feeling. The warmth and positivity makes it feel like I'm somebody, and I agree with you 100% that customer service is something that is, and I actually think that it's always been an art, that warmth and positivity is just an art form. There's different dialects. Our ISA's typically are DC's and CD's. Or balance, right? But, the reality is it's all focused on, how do you make somebody feel on the phone and do they feel like they matter. And if they don't, you're not going to convert them, end of story in my mind.

April Martin: I totally agree, Robby. I think we have one of the hardest jobs, I call it BTOP: Building Trust Over the Phone.

Robby T: Yup.

April Martin: And it's a skill, and it takes time to get really good at it, to ask the right questions. They've got to feel safe with you. And, typically, it's at really good appointments, I have a ten set questionnaire that all my ISA's have to get this information to set the appointment. Now, of course the client doesn't know, but there are ten things that need to be... and I do go through my ISA's appointments. I make sure that that's in there. And, if they didn't get it, why? Where did you get stuck? Typically, we get stuck with the B's. The B personality, those are the ones that typically you've got to handle a little bit differently.

Robby T: Yup.

April Martin: But, it is that building the trust over the phone. If you can do that, you will convert.

Robby T: Amen. If you were to give some advice here. Obviously your people, you kind of talked about this, but how would you advise someone to become a better listener? What do you do to practice those skills? Some people have it innately, some people have to work at it. And, I'm sure you have a combination of both within your ISA's, and even if you have it innately, you can always get better. So, what would you do and what have you guys done to practice those listening skills?

April Martin: When we role play, or when they hear how I take a phone call in the training portions, we will actually correct each other and I will purposefully role play and I will throw out little tidbits, pleasure points, pain points, that if they're listening correctly they can dial in on.

Robby T: Sure.

April Martin: There are certain questions that if you ask them, they will open up a can of worms and you will get the information.

Robby T: Yeah.

April Martin: And so, knowing those key questions and when to insert them that they feel safe, you will get the information. So, we practice and I will stop, or they will stop me and say hey, I just let you know that I'm a client, I'm living in a house that's overcrowded. Well, that was a perfect opportunity for you to ask, okay so, tell me a little bit about that. How long have you lived there? And let them talk, just let them talk. Ask questions and let them talk.

Robby T: Ask questions and let them talk. It's funny because we just released a new game called conversations, and if you buy, if you use it, it's honestly it's just that. It's when people bring things up, far too many times, the biggest mistake I've seen people make is they move on too quickly to the next. So, if someone says their home is too overcrowded, you instantly move on past that.

Robby T: What you just did, the brilliance of it, was you just did tell me more, and that's just always been my argument. The best script in the book is some form of tell me more. And that's all you did. Give me some more insight behind that, tell me a bit more about that. That is the best script in the book and that is what leads... It's really weird, and tell me if you agree with this, April, but from my experience, what happens is you ask that and probably three, four minutes into the conversation and it's where the meat is. There's almost a pause after you ask it, and it's almost like they're contemplating, uh-oh, am I going to let this all out? And then boom, the emotion comes out behind it. It's weird.

Robby T: The ISA's, you've got it, because you know exactly what's going on. The best ISA's will tell you, when you ask tell me more type questions, there's going to be a contemplative moment where the lead literally is questioning, do I trust this person enough? Am I in a safe enough place? And it's crazy, because what comes out next. The overcrowding is a surface level response and beneath that is going to be so much randomness. That overcrowding could be a billion things. It could be, we have twins, I just adopted my brother's kids because he passed away. You don't know what it's going to be, but it's almost always when you hear things like that, when you use tell me more, that's where the meat is. So, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring that up.

April Martin: And that is where you do your connecting, and you do your empathizing, and that's where you show some compassion, and that's when they understand you're human and you care.

Robby T: Amen.

April Martin: They don't care about what you know until they know you care.

Robby T: Amen.

April Martin: If I focus on anything, the hardest of my ISA's, especially at first, is learning positions in the conversation to connect.

Robby T: Yeah, I love that.

April Martin: Connect and get the information. Connect and get the information.

Nate Joens: Over, and over, and over again. I love that. I like that you said that that's what makes us human and that's the key and that's great.

Robby T: By the way April, somebody requested that they want the ten questions. Would you be willing to share that with the listeners of today if you email that to Nate, I think Nate could find a way to get it sent out to everybody.

April Martin: Sure.

Robby T: So we can get them a copy of your ten questions that you're using.

April Martin: Okay. I can do that.

Nate Joens: I can do that too.

Robby T: Awesome.

Nate Joens: Yeah so, Robby, do you have nay other questions for April before we wrap up with our less ISA and real estate-y questions?

Robby T: I can think of anything. April, as always this was... Sorry I missed about 50%, 60% of it. I think it's funny by the way that you guys could see me and hear me, I had zero clue. I don't know how it's happening, and I don't know how I got back in, but I'm glad I did because April, you know you're one of our favorites and we think much alike and I love your perspective. You brought some major value for these people today.

Nate Joens: Yeah, absolutely.

April Martin: Thank you so much, and I want to thank once again Eric, Robby, Jim, You, just the whole crew. We love you guys, we miss you guys. Great place to learn right here, [inaudible 00:46:39] resource, and also acknowledge all my ISA's. I've got girls under me that are amazing and we're hitting over a thousand closed total for all time record. And so, we're just really looking forward to doing a lot of good things this year. I think I have the strongest team I've ever had. So, it's amazing.

Robby T: I love it. That's great, April. You're a great leader for them, that's super cool.

Nate Joens: Yeah, can you leave us with any book recommendations?

Robby T: P.S I have one more question after the book question. P.S I have to ask it, but yes, book recommendations.

April Martin: Twelve Pillars I really enjoyed and our girls read it. That is a good one. It's called Twelve Pillars. Right now we're reading JumpStart Your Thinking by Maxwell.

Robby T: Ahh, sure.

April Martin: Keeping them ready, positive. So there's a couple.

Nate Joens: Cool. Yeah, those are great. Robby, what have you got? What are your questions?

Robby T: This is, I've always been a lead geek, so I try to end this every time with the question of, and I usually ask the question April, are you more of a fan of Star Wars or Game of Thrones? I've got a bad feeling you're going to say neither. So, we may have to have a debate about that. Game of Thrones is a little not PG, I get that part. Is there anything that's super, and Leann taught us this, anything that's super nerdy to you that you love getting into. Super geeky, nerdy, that you maybe don't tell anyone else.

April Martin: The only think that I think I'm a little OCD about is I'm an online researcher and whatever I'm interested in, so I can spend hours digging myself into rabbit holes into whatever I'm looking... and it could be researching ISA's, or just whatever my mind is focused on. I am very geeky with reading books. Very geeky with constantly growing.

Nate Joens: I love it.

April Martin: That's me.

Nate Joens: That's great I love it.

April Martin: And no, neither Game of Thrones or Star Wars.

Nate Joens: I love it.

April Martin: I'm more of a business [inaudible 00:48:57] person.

Nate Joens: Love it, that's super good.

Robby T: My internal goal is to make geeks cool again, or cool to begin with? I don't know if that's... probably cool to begin with, but I'm working on it.

Nate Joens: Right.

April Martin: Awesome. Well thank you for having me you guys.

Nate Joens: Yeah, we appreciate it April, and we're not done yet. As we usually do with our webinar's we do a giveaway, but unfortunately we're not doing a giveaway today. But, we have something equally as exciting and something that I'm very excited about in that Structurely has a new feature that we've been waiting to roll out for this one. So, with that, I'm going to try something I've never done before which is to share my screen. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to try it.

Robby T: Uh-oh, that could break it.

Nate Joens: Can any of you see my screen?

Robby T: I can see it, it's itty-bitty but probably because I'm a presenter.

April Martin: Yeah, I can see it, It's itty-bitty. That's me.

Nate Joens: Anyway, if you can see the screen, it should say something like, Introducing Smart Nurture, which is the feature. Smart Nurture is very similar to what you were actually mentioning, April, in that you call them Strategic Follow Ups. We're calling it Smart Nurture. It's essentially when a lead becomes responsive and they are saying a few things. Hey, I'm just looking around right now. We continue the conversation, that's what this actually does. We have qualifying conversations via text with your leads. What is your timeframe to move? Are you working with an agent? Financing status? Price range? Beds, baths, this that and the other. We get that information.

Nate Joens: But, a lot of leads, as you can attest to, both of you, say something like, don't waste your time, I'm not looking to move for another year and a half or so. Up until this point, we would just say got it, no problem. We'll connect with you later and that would be the end of it. Now, with Smart Nurture, we actually will follow up with them in that period of time that they may have told us.

Nate Joens: So, if they're saying something like, in this case I'm looking to move sometime next year. So we say, great, we'll be in touch with you next year. But, obviously it doesn't make sense to connect with them exactly 365 days later. You want to do a little bit of nurturing up until that date. So, we actually would reach out to a lead looking in the next year, about 180 days later, and continue to follow up with them for the course of a few months up until the time frame to move. So, we take care of that all automatically for you through our new Start Nurture feature.

April Martin: That's awesome.

Nate Joens: It sounds very similar to the strategic follow up, which I did not know you guys did.

Robby T: Nate, can I tell the story of how we mocked this up?

Nate Joens: Yes.

Robby T: So, Nate and I were in Minneapolis, was it a couple of months ago, Nate?

Nate Joens: Probably, yup.

Robby T: And when we mocked this up, we were talking about this and it's kind of a funny story. We went to University of Minnesota and we went to their library and that place was packed. There was no place. And, I'm a white board fan, anyway, I'm going to show a picture here and I think you'll be able to see it. We broke into some random building, don't tell the U of M, and these white boards you can move, and we just geeked out and everything you see was everything they created was from that white board. So, funny story. Trespass and breaking and entering mates, lead to something great. [crosstalk 00:52:50] We didn't break in, we didn't. I'm making it sound like we were more BA than we actually are. We just literally walked in because the door was unlocked into a random building.

Nate Joens: We break in and nerd out. That's what we do.

Robby T: More like, door opening and closing is what happened.

Nate Joens: Well, if you want to check out the feature that started as a white board brain [inaudible 00:53:15] confession, break out and visit www.structurely.com/smartnurture. That will be available always we will send that link out in a follow up email as well as on Structurely's social media as well as this webinar will be automatically sent out to you in a recording via email in about two hours. We'll put it up on the Structurely YouTube channel, we'll post in our our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. There's going to be no shortage of finding this great webinar with April as well as it will be on RheISAradio.com as a podcast, so just type that out TheISAradio.com be sure to subscribe to that. You'll be able to listen back to all of our great interviews with top ISA's like April in the past and all future interviews with top ISA's coming up. So, with that, thank you guys. Thank you Robbie for joining half way through it was great to have you and that you could join us.

April Martin: Better late than never.

Robby T: Awesome. [crosstalk 00:54:26]

Nate Joens: Take care April.

Robby T: Thanks, Nate, I appreciate it brother. Love you all.

Nate Joens: Bye.

April Martin: Bye guys.

View Details

Nate Joens: Hi. Welcome everybody. We're finally going to get this thing started. I was just waiting for a train to pass, so if you happen to hear me ... Hear some loud rumbling it could still be a train. Welcome from the great State of Iowa. My name is Nate, I'm the CoFounder of Structurely - one of your co-host today. I am with Structurely, we're really excited to kick off our conversations with the top ISA series. This is the first episode, starting off right with one of the best in the country. This will be a seven part series with some of the top ISAs in the country. Myself and Robby, with Hatch Coaching will be interviewing them. You can catch all of these on our YouTube channel, we'll be recording them so you'll be able to catch up on them at any point afterwards and also will be available on Real Estate ISA Radio. We're really excited to get this one kicked off today. Robby, tell us who we got here.

Robby T: Awesome. Well, again Robby T. here with Hatch Coaching. I want to start a fight with you real quick Nate, you would said one of the best and I'm going to say we wanted to do this series right by bringing the best to the table. We got the man, the myth, the legend, Jim Rentfrow. I call him Jimmy. I probably make a nickname out for you every other day and I'm sorry for it. I just want to tell you guys a little bit about Jim before we get into the ISA stuff, stack pro. I have the pleasure of being an ISA alongside Jim. Jim isn't just a top producing ISA. He is this guy with a massive heart, too big a heart sometimes and we've had to call you on that.

Robby T: Jim is truly one of the best people I know. I'm so excited for today because you guys get to hear from his mouth, his approach, what he thinks of this ISA role, how he's been successful? We got a great list of questions for all of you and the ones that we've created. Before we get into that, I always like to start with numbers. We're going to start with this, Jim. Tell us a little bit about your numbers. You started as an ISA, how long ago and just give us [crosstalk 00:02:29].

Jim Rentfrow: I started in July 2014 and I think July '17, was my freedom day, as I call it, the day I came over and started over here. Since then, 331,600 dials, about 43,000 emails I've sent, 49,000 texts. The emails and texts have been since we started tracking, which was what, Robby? 2016 I think when we started tracking those numbers.

Robby T: Yeah.

Jim Rentfrow: I think I roughly have spoke to about 18,000 people and have set 1700, 1800 appointments and I have 706 closings as of right now. I popped into CT and checked it out right before this. My volume is about 155 million since I started. Yeah, I've done right.

Robby T: You're scrub. You're terrible.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah.

Robby T: Jimmy lumped a lot in there, so let's just make sure everybody heard that. I'm just going to ask directly, and I want you to tell me the number.

Jim Rentfrow: 330,000.

Robby T: Roughly, how many calls have you brought in? 333,000.

Jim Rentfrow: 18,000.

Robby T: Right. How many rough contacts, give or take?

Jim Rentfrow: About 700.

Robby T: 18,000. How many appointments?

Jim Rentfrow: Little over. Seven or six.

Robby T: Then 700 some closings, correct?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah, pretty much.

Robby T: You're like a real estate team and other yourself.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah.

Robby T: Awesome. Well, I love it. well, thank you for sharing that. I want to start here. I want to start very 10,000 foot view with this today. What do you view your role as? You're an ISA and ISA is just inside sales agent, but what the heck does that mean to you, Jim? What is your role on a team? How do you describe it? What are you doing every day? What does ISA mean to you?

Jim Rentfrow: I struggle with this because the industry looks us ISA as the starting point, the lowliest of the lowly and the way I look at it ISA is I am basically the coal in the steam engine. If I don't put the coal in, this train doesn't go anywhere, nobody's dreams come true. While that's a lot of pressure, it is also really liberating because whatever I do has impact and that's the reason I came to this job is the ISA is the impact person. It is who drives the ship, it is who makes this whole thing work. Eric and I have talked in its description too of, we're the insurance policy on the database, we're the insurance policy on the money spent, but really the way I look at it is we're the coal that makes this whole thing work.

Robby T: I love it, Jim. That's a great analogy. We've talked a lot about insurance policy. What the heck does that mean? I think we all understand that you guys are really the engine, the steam engine, you're putting that colon and making the whole machine work. When you say insurance policy, what the heck is that?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I mean, when I talk about is that most leads that people go after in their system are called twice. That's it. I think our record ... I think Cody actually just broke our record. I think he broke it and I think it was 383 attempts before he got in touch with someone. We're basically there in order to pick up the phone and make sure that these people are talked to. The other thing is, a couple times a year, I'll go through and I'll play what's called the resurrection game in the database. I did this the other day. I think Cody had posted a blog article on it, and we had talked about it. I just go through the database a couple of times a year for people that have said no, and I see, hey, is it still no? I did this the other day, sent out 1900 texts and basically 38 people that had previously told me no, are now ready to buy. Really, what I do is I go through even the crap, shovel it and find the little pieces of gold.

Robby T: I think that 10% number, the resurrection game is a really funny number because you said you reached out to how many people during that, again? Was it three-

Jim Rentfrow: [crosstalk 00:06:57] 371. Out of that 371, I had 38 follow ups that are ready and I also set two appointments right away on that. Just from sending out a mass temp, got a couple appointments on it.

Robby T: The insurance policy really means ... What I'm hearing you say, Jim is, you guys do everything you can to reach out to these leads and have conversations. It's not just you call once, twice, maybe shoot one off text. Even when people tell you no, you're eventually going to follow up and attempt to convert them again, because we all know just because of no now it doesn't mean that they're going to be a no forever. [crosstalk 00:07:36].

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I think I can count about 25 times where someone has literally told me no, almost, and someone has told me to F off even, and literally have called me back 10 minutes later and said, "Hey, I was just really upset. You caught me in the moment. I do want to talk here's what's going on." Even when you hear no especially in today's society, no one wants to talk right now. Nobody can talk there. Everybody is busy. You hear no and you think, they're not serious. No just means like, hey, you caught me at a bad time, usually.

Robby T: For you no is often times not just no, it's not yet.

Jim Rentfrow: It's not yet. Exactly.

Robby T: I love it. Awesome. That's great, Jim. Now that we've established that you're a terrible ISA and you've no clue what you're doing. Just kidding. I would love for you to share a little bit about what your conversations actually sound like. We know that you're taking these proactive measures to generate these conversations, and we can probably get into that later again, but what the heck of your conversations with leads with people actually sound like? Do you use scripts? Give us some insight there.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I mean, I have two [crosstalk 00:08:47] in my script book and they're both the intros. I'll just take you through it. Robby, let's say you're a new internet lead. I would call and I'd say something like this and say, "Hey, Robby?"

Robby T: Hey.

Jim Rentfrow: "It's Jim with Hatch Realty, saw you on our website looking. We're just curious, are you thinking about making a move soon?" That's it. It's the Zillow and we can accommodate any property increase would be, hey Robby? Saw you're looking at 3434, 23rd Avenue South and ask the question on Zillow. We're just curious, what's going on? Go ahead.

Robby T: The funny part about that was I was actually in a Facebook conversation today about this exact topic. Somebody was asking, but don't people get mad that you didn't answer their question. You just said someone comes through Zillow and is like I want to know about 123 Main Street and oftentimes, there's that question associated with it. What you just said was, you're transitioning that to use it as a means to ask them a question, right?

Jim Rentfrow: No.

Robby T: Do they get mad about that? Give us your perspective there.

Jim Rentfrow: Out of the Zillows I see, maybe 5% actually have questions. It's very, very rare where they actually have a question. Really, it just says, I'm interested in 123 Main Street. That's why I start the conversation that way. I mean, if there was a question on there, I'll just flat out ask, hey, Nick, I saw you asked what are the specials on one two Main Street? Excuse me. Were you just curious or why were you asking that question?

Nate Joens: I think one of the things that I learned from you guys is that your lead conversion training was exactly around this. I think you got up on a whiteboard because Robby doesn't like to use whiteboards or anything and drew a picture of a house and a person. Does this ring a bell? We've talked about moving away from your discussion about the house and more about the person. Is that what you're talking about, Jim? Can you talk about that more?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I mean, I was talking with my coach ... I coach with Robby and one other person. I'm five years in this role and I still get paid coaching. Basically, we were having this conversation yesterday. I mean, we were talking about what's the difference between talking about the house and talking about the person and the scripts. Basically, when I was talking with my coach, he was saying that the ferry organization and KW both say you need about 120 conversations per closing, that's the script based approach and the house based approach. Well, I ran my numbers yesterday, and this was for all of my ISA across multiple years of experience last year, we needed 38 conversations per closing.

Jim Rentfrow: If you're going to talk about the house, 120. If you're going to talk to the person and the actual motivation and things like that, 38, which number is better? I'm a big believer in data and that comes across boastful. I'm not a boastful person. I just know my data. My data is, if I talk about the house, I'm going to lose. If I talk about the person and form that connection, I'm going to win. More often when I do lose, it's because we weren't able to establish that personal connection.

Robby T: I love that. In other words, what I just heard you say, Jim, is that your approach is three times more effective than the other best people out there when you compare numbers to numbers. That's who we are, we always talk about numbers. That's great. You get them talking about, hypothetically, they say they are looking to potentially make a move, to continue that a little bit further. What happens there Jim? What's that look like? I think people don't really understand, even if they say, I'm looking to move-

Jim Rentfrow: Are you looking to move, probably?

Robby T: ... Where is the conversation go from there?

Jim Rentfrow: If you look at the script stuff, it's like, great, that's very smart. A lot of people are moving, we should really do that. How can I help you? It's like, no, let's just bring things down to the lowest common denominator. Why are you looking to move? Let's have a conversation. Let's not sound scripted and robotic. Why are you looking to move? Then you'll tell me ... Give me a reason, Robby, why are you looking to move? Why are looking to get a bigger home?

Robby T: I need a bigger house and looking to get a bigger home.

Jim Rentfrow: What do you mean by that?

Robby T: Well, our family's growing bigger. My mother in law's moving in with us. My father-in-law just passed away and she's going to be living with us for a while.

Jim Rentfrow: Okay. That sounds [inaudible 00:13:21]. How are you guys doing on that?

Robby T: I mean, it's stressful. All right, we could go on forever. I think it illustrates the point that we're not just saying ... I should say, you're not just stopping and moving on to the next thing. You literally just really asked me more questions [inaudible 00:13:45].

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. Let's just go deeper. Go deeper on everything. That's the one thing I'd recommend anybody is mirror and match extremely well and just go deeper.

Robby T: That's good.

Jim Rentfrow: If I was going to give two tips from this, go deeper, mirror and match.

Robby T: I love it. Go deeper, mirror and match. What do you do when somebody says that they're not looking to buy, Jim? If they say, I'm just curious or I was just looking [inaudible 00:14:08]. What do you do then?

Jim Rentfrow: Why were you just curious? Robby, why were you looking for fun? Guess what happens? Six times out of 10, usually, well, I was curious because I think about making a move. I know you are and that's why I ...

Robby T: I love it. Even when somebody comes across as a no, you dig in deeper and you take the same approach.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. Exactly.

Robby T: You just say, why are you curious, is what I'm hearing?

Jim Rentfrow: Here's a great example. We brought on a couple of ISAs late 2017 and I get a call one night from one of them and the whole call and tells me what happened. He says, the guy didn't want to work with an agent. I just simply asked the question, "Why didn't you want to work with an agent, Eric?" There's silence for about 10 seconds. He goes, "I'm going to go make a phone call." Here's the thing, the guy didn't want to work with an agent because he was misinformed because he thought he had to pay for an agent. It was a very simple objection to overcome. You need to know the whys behind those objections in order to overcome them because people often have false objections.

Jim Rentfrow: It's not, I'm just looking. Well, why are you just looking? Well, I'm thinking about buying a house. Well, why are you thinking about buying a house? People overcomplicate this game. This game can be very simple. It's not easy, but it's extremely simple. Which is this, pick up the phone right now, dial some numbers and that's getting less than less. That's why we're doing more and more texts is because we're having to have more and more of these conversations via text and via automation. However, if you pick up the phone, whether it's to text a person or call and just ask, how are you looking?

Nate Joens: Can you have these conversations over text too? Can you mirror and match? What does that look like?

Jim Rentfrow: You can. I mean, if someone has a long written out structure, I'll try to have a long written out structure to my replies. If someone's been extremely short, I'll try to be extremely short. It's harder with text, often because it's so much easier to just dose people, they can just block the number things like that. The game is changing, but I'll just ask flat out, why were you curious? About 50% of time, it goes ... About 50% of the time they actually reply and say, well, I'm thinking about buying a house or I'm thinking about selling. Tell me more about that.

Robby T: If people respond and give you those more in depth answers, Jim, via text do they tell you ... Obviously, like in this case where we role played, within 45 seconds you got to be talking about my hypothetical dead father-in-law. Are people saying very sensitive things via texts and emotions through text messages? Are you seeing that?

Jim Rentfrow: Not as prevalent with over the phone. Over the phone, you can pick up subtle nuances like voices cracking, laughter, and stuff like that. That is the hard part I have with text is it's not easy to pick up those subtleties. However, if you have that text conversation long enough and then you want to finalize, I always try to finalize over the phone and have that extra buy in because the way I look at it and the way our whole process is set up is we want to have extra buy in at each stage. If I'm going to have a talk with you and I'm going to have the buy in for when you want to talk next, or have a talk with you, we scheduled appointment, I have buy in the next step with a handwritten note, I buy in with sending that text introduction, I have buy in with that agent doing an introduction call. I want buy in all along the way because that increases our conversion.

Robby T: Awesome. I love it. Last question about your conversations because I think you've given some brilliant insight into it. How long are your calls, Jim, traditionally? When you're on the phone with somebody, how long are your calls these things? You're asking for an appointment traditionally in three, five minutes? What does that look like?

Jim Rentfrow: I think the longest call I ever had was something like an hour and 10 minutes and that was with high guy and that was exhausting. I would say our average is ... I actually get something set up in just 12 to 14 minutes. Honestly, what I'll do is I'll play the phone game where I look at my phone and I see how long it's been. If it's only been six minutes, I try to make that thing to 10.

Robby T: Let's hit on that for a moment because we know ... Eric just posted a question. He said that we should maybe talk briefly about the danger zone. No, we're not talking about a reference to pop culture. Jim, what is the danger zone model?

Jim Rentfrow: Riley just question here, he said, six to eight minutes is when I schedule my calls. I can do that too, but I know ... The way I describe the danger zone is this. If you have a three minute call and you set an appointment, there's a 30% chance that person is going to say, "Come to the office." If you have four minute call, it's 40%. If I'm looking at six to eight minutes, I know there's a 60% chance this person is going to show up at a 40% chance they won't. I want to have a longer conversation because the more I can have a more in depth and real conversation with these people, the more they're going to actually relate to me and want to do business with me. The danger zone for me is basically that three to seven minutes where you could set the appointment, you can feel it in your gut.

Jim Rentfrow: You don't want to. You want to actually make sure that, are we answering all their questions? Are we actually getting to know these people and are they telling me stuff that ...? I mean, Robby, I've had people tell me about coming home and having the UPS driver in their bed with their wife. I've had stuff like that. I've had people break down and cry. If you're just doing a transaction, you're getting in there, getting the appointment, getting out, you're doing yourself a disservice. I used to do that. Guess what happened? I got pissed because Robby would have more people show up and Robby would have a higher conversion rate. I got freaking pissed. I thought, what is he doing that I'm not doing? Then I just started watching.

Jim Rentfrow: That was the great thing about being side by side is basically if I can watch you and you can watch me, we can pick up on each other and that's why I think we really were successful as we tested stuff, we broke stuff and we always try new things.

Nate Joens: I don't. I was going to ask when-

Robby T: There's so many great questions. Do you get questions to go with that?

Nate Joens: ... if ever, do you guys ask for the appointment? Is that a close? I feel like you talked about that lead conversion seminar, but I can't remember what you guys' stance on that is, the appointment.

Robby T: Good question.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. If they're going to be ready, I would say in the next six months, they don't have an agent and they're actually serious and I can recap everything, I've been on the phone with them for eight, nine minutes by that point, I just do basically the heart effect and go for it. Is there a benefit to move forward with this?

Robby T: You unpacked a lot there, Jim, and you put a label on it. Nate, what I think you're asking is, are you just closing for an appointment or what does that look like when you're aligning yourself for an appointment? Give us some insight there. What the heck does heart affect mean?

Nate Joens: I mean, for me, basically, the heart effect is talking about, I've helped a lot other people in your same situation and this is what we've done for them. Do you think that'd be beneficial for you? If I'm talking to an expired, I'd say something like Robby, we've helped a lot of people have tried to sell their house before and felt stuck. Have them come in, sit down one of my agents have come up with a game plan to get this place sold. Do you think that'd be a benefit to you?

Robby T: Let me ask, Jimmy, if you asked that two minutes into a conversation with an expired, do you think that would be successful?

Jim Rentfrow: Two minutes in, they're still in the venting stage.

Robby T: Why not?

Jim Rentfrow: They still tell me everything about their previous realtor that sucked or about the situation, about the whole process, about all the points they had. A really good process I took Cody and Joey through yesterday is, people either want to run away from pain or run towards pleasure. Until I know what they're either running towards or running from, it's really hard for you to pick up on that and really push them towards good people.

Nate Joens: That's why you try and close ... That's why you try and tie to close.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. What is their actual pain? I mean, if we're going back to Robby's example, earlier, he needed more space. That's not Robby's pain. Robby's pain is he just had a death in the family and now he's having his mother-in-law move in with him. I love my mother-in-law, she spoils the heck out of me. Living with her would be hell. It's nothing against her. I think anybody that's having that moved in ... His pain point is his, his mother-in-law is going to be living with him now. There's going to be pleasure with that because maybe she could take care of the kids and things like that, but ... If I was two minutes in, I'd say, hey, Robby, what I've done for a lot of other people that needed space is having come in and come up with a game plan. That's not the pain point. That's really a mute point. That's an excuse.

Robby T: There's always more depth is what you're saying behind what am I saying is the motivation?

Jim Rentfrow: Yup, exactly.

Robby T: Okay. Jim, you had said this because I want to keep this moving ... There's literally a billion questions we could ask and we'll do this again sometime, by the way for sure, but I want to keep things moving. You said people overcomplicate this game, this lead conversion game and you said, one you need to pick up the phone and then two you need to ask why. One thing I think that I'm hearing is, you're not a salesperson. I haven't heard you talked about pressuring or selling anything, but frankly, my wife's a school counselor and what she's doing with middle school students sounds a lot like what you're doing with a lot of these leads on the phone. Jim, you pick up the phone you asked why and it sounds like [crosstalk 00:24:32]. Would you agree with that sometimes?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. My top five [inaudible 00:24:34] strengths is focus futuristic and then my third one is realtor. As a relater, I don't want to talk about stupid, petty stuff. I want to talk about the stuff that ... Quite frankly, I want to talk about your divorce situation, I want to talk about your dreams in life, I want to talk about big ticket stuff. Talking about the weather, oh my God, I'm going to fall asleep. I want to talk about stuff that's actually meaningful. When I can have those conversations, that's actually the part I actually like best and the part that actually refreshes me and reinvigorates me to pick up the phone because if I sit there ... I've had these conversations, probably a million. I've had 18,000 conversations.

Jim Rentfrow: I can tell where conversations going go almost from the first second. It's boring to me. However, when I actually find someone that actually is going through something that's really impactful and really painful, and I can help them, that fires me up, that makes me want to get after it. I'm actually almost tearing up a little bit about it because I'm an emotional guy, but that's the reason I come in and keep doing this.

Robby T: I love that. There's a lot there. Let's move on here because I think that's a great foundation for who you are, Jim, what your heart is and what your conversation sound like. Let's talk about the ISA role in a little more abstract terms. I'm just going to shoot some questions here. You just answered one. I was going to ask you, what's the best thing about being an ISA? Feel free to use the answer you just said. You said that's one of the things that gives you life, but what would you say is the best thing about you being an ISA for Hash Realty Fargo?

Jim Rentfrow: I think the big thing is impact. I mean, I love watching people that are new to real estate and haven't ever really experienced success skyrocket and change their life's trajectory, because that's what this place has done for me. That's what this role has done for me. That's why I call it my freedom day is this place has changed the trajectory of my life and this role has. When I can see a new agent come in, that puts in their time as a showing partner or a listing partner, and then get those first couple of appointments and really see, holy crap, I could make a lot of money and I could change my life and they have that thankfulness and they have that difference in their life, that's what I love as well. The word I always use is in impact. I impact my community, impact here and impact my employees and my co-workers lives here. That's what I love about it.

Robby T: Cool. It's a great answer. On the impetus side, Jim, what's the crappies thing about being in ISA?

Jim Rentfrow: No, you talk to some crazy people. I would say also think, out of the last five years, I've taken a lot of vacations. It's also really hard to check out from this role unless your phone is turned off. That's why I love going north. If I'm in New York or Disneyland or California or anywhere else, my phone still rings. I could turn off notifications and things like that, but every call I ignore is possibly $500 to 1000 or more dollars out of my pocket, so I cringe every time I do that. Even though I believe in my team and I love sending them leads and I love sending the other guys here and helping them out and having that backup, I always feel a little bit, not guilty, but hesitant to ignore things.

Robby T: Awesome. Toughest piece is it is almost impossible to check out is what I'm hearing?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah.

Robby T: I'm sure you've been called the plotter of interesting names.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I think there's a name out there I probably get call a bit at some point. The funny thing is ... Robby, we've done, like I said, 18,000 conversations. Out of those 18, I can really only remember two that were actually really bad. One was just really crazy because he was literally mentally unstable. He had gotten arrested for using an ex-girlfriend's purse to defecate in. That one was easy to write off because it was like this guy is literally mentally, not handicapped, like disturb. That one was like, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one because maybe he forgot his meds that day. He was crazy. The other one I remembered his lady just completely rimmed me out ... That was Mark's guy actually.

Jim Rentfrow: The other one she completely rimmed me out for like five minutes and I just took it and she called me back 10 minutes later and husband had been like, no, we need to talk with him. I mean, you may get the occasional F-off, but other than that, I really don't care unless they're doing a personal attack. I don't care there may just be having a bad day.

Nate Joens: Yep. No.

Robby T: Sure. I think we want to add that defecating is something I didn't think [inaudible 00:29:47] on today's podcast episode.

Nate Joens: Got to keep it real.

Robby T: I love that. Jim, let's keep going here. What does an average day look like for you as an ISA? Just so you all know, Jim isn't just an ISA in production, although he's heavily in production. He also leads for other ISAs that we have in the department. Maybe we could separate it out, Jim, of the production side of Jim and the leadership side of Jim. Maybe break it down so people see that difference.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. Let's talk about production side first. I'll about when I was straight production. Normally, what I would do is I'd get up about 6:30, 7:00 in the morning. First thing I do is, I'd hop over, upload expired into the system that we use to look up those phone numbers. I'd want to be in the office by 7:30, 7:45 because I'm always competing against Robby and he would be there early and making dials. I'd want to get there early. I would take new dials, new leads overnight and expired first thing in the morning and then we'd hop on lists till about 10:45. By 10:45, if I was heavy in production, I wanted to have 300 calls done maybe more.

Jim Rentfrow: Go to lunch right after huddles, usually 11:00 and 12:00 and then the rest of the day if incoming calls were coming, I take them, but the rest of time I was doing follow ups and then going through this again until about 5:00. Then at 5 o'clock, I'd usually head home. There's a lot of nights where I stayed till 7:00 just because my wife works late to as a teacher. If she was going to work late, I'll just stay at the office and work late, but basically from 5:00 to 9:00. On weekends, I would-

Nate Joens: How many leads are you managing in your pipeline at a given time on a day to day basis?

Jim Rentfrow: ... Ticket common stuff and do leads, but I really wouldn't call through list all that often. I'd occasionally do it on Saturdays if I need to up my numbers, things like that.

Robby T: Sure.

Jim Rentfrow: When I was full, full production 100%, had about 1200 at any one time of 1200 follow ups, and there's 18,000 in our system. I had 1200 my own personal follow ups managing at any one time, usually checking in to make sure agents are checking in with their clients. I'd check on 80 to 100 contracted clients just making sure, how long ago was it this person contacted-

Nate Joens: Those two come from a variety of sources? You're doing some follow ups on-

Jim Rentfrow: ... And then chasing lists that were from another call to 1000 people.

Nate Joens: ... People you've crossed off to your agents, you're doing some new lead generation even and some just longer term follow up.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. That's why when Robby and I first started, we just called everything and we didn't segment things at all. That would be the number one other tip I would give people is you got to segment your database and you have to automate your follow up to your database as well. The only reason I was able to do 1200 is because I had most things automated.

Robby T: Yeah. I'll even add to that. Jim, you mentioned this, we always talk about efficiency and effectiveness in our world. One of the biggest things we've learned is with anyone that we've spoken to ... The 1200 people that were follow ups, Jim, can you explain who those people were? Some people don't know what a follow up actually is.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. Those are people that were already [inaudible 00:33:20] the first time I talked to them or the second or 20th, the work ready right now. People that we classify as an A, are basically people that are going to be moving and ready to go in the next three months. Bs are three to six, Cs are six to 12 and Ds, to me, is anyone over 12 months or can't get pre-approved or can't sell their house because they're underwater, things like that. As we talked about earlier, if people say they're not ready right now, we ask why they're not ready right now. We go into that. Let's keep remembering the why questions. Maybe they've given me a really legitimate reason why it is next year and so we'll talk about that.

Robby T: Some other people are people you're following up with. Are you efficient with those or do you do things maybe more and this cost of efficient, but then you have be very effective?

Jim Rentfrow: With some follow ups, I am caring more about effective than efficiency. Follow ups take a lot more time because a lot of times it's single line dials, followed by a voicemail and a text message, sometimes an email as well.

Robby T: Sure.

Jim Rentfrow: If you have 28 follow ups, that should probably take you an hour if not two, compared to an hour to one to two hours on a dialer, you're going to go through 300 people. I mean, I'm always looking and I always look at what is my best dollar per hour use of my time. My best dollar per hour use of my time is my new and my follow ups.

Robby T: Sure. With follow up you're being very effective and with uncontacted leads, people that we maybe haven't got a hold of, what you're doing is you're focusing probably more on efficiency as opposed to effectiveness. Fair to say mass dials, mass texts to generate responses, things like that.

Jim Rentfrow: Yep, exactly. The way I look at is, if I have 20 minutes to do lead gen that day, and there's a lot of days as an ISA manager, I have very limited time. I need to make sure that that time is as effective as five to six hours of lead generation time. Just because I'm in this role doesn't mean I can't make the same amount of money or more money. Last year, my number went down for the first time ever and that pissed me off. A lot of times it was because I was doing more mass attempts, rather, rather than doing effective attempts.

Robby T: Sure. I love it. That gives us some good insight into your average day in production. Maybe for just for the sake of time, I would like to know, Jimmy, from your perspective, what does it ISA need to do day in and day out to be a successful ISA? What do they need to be doing? What are some key points you give, advice to a new ISA or a seasoned ISA, and say these are the must dos to be successful?

Jim Rentfrow: I would say the number one thing that has made me successful is I am not afraid to screw up. There's been days where I have accidentally mass texted everyone in our database. There's been days where I sent out a voice blast to all of our database and made the agents little upset. You have to constantly try new things, but at the end of the day ... I mean, I go back to, pick up the phone and make attempts. It's really that easy. If you want to talk to 20 people a day, you're going to have to least do, right now with phone calls, probably 400 dials. If you're going to do text, you're going to need to talk to ... It's about a 15% to 20% response rate. Would you rather do 100 texts or 400 dials? Find out where you're good at and do that and work on improving the ones that you're not good at, the skills you're not good with.

Jim Rentfrow: Until Eric came on and Cody came on, my text game was not as strong as it is now. Because they were much better at it and I saw their success. I was like, hey, I've been doing this for four years and this guy next to me is talking to a ton of people via text. That's kind of weird. I should maybe try that. I was like, I'm talking to a lot of people now via text. There might be something to this.

Robby T: Absolutely. Failure is a key here to being a successful ISA. On that note, Jim, it sounds like you're ... I would truly say, you're the most successful ISA known that has had success for many years. I got to ask, how often do you lose?

Jim Rentfrow: I mean, I lose multiple times per day.

Robby T: Tell me about that.

Jim Rentfrow: I mean, the thing I've always said, if you want to win a lot in this business, you're going to have to lose 10 times as much. I might get 10% to 15%, sometimes 20% of the people I talked to that I might set appointments with. Well, that means I'm probably not setting appointments with 30% of people and the other 50% of people are probably follow ups. I lose all the time. I lost this morning. I was chasing one of my listing agent spheres and she was chasing her and both of us lost because we got undercut on commission. Now, we could not reply to that message or we could say, hey, totally understand. If your plans change, let us know and then watch that list in like a hawk and when it does expire, have a very fun conversation. I mean, you're going to lose all the time with this role and what you have to remember is ... I look at it as the harder I work, the luckier I get.

Jim Rentfrow: I think it was Benjamin Franklin said that. It's attributed to him. I doubt he said that, but it's attributed to him. But it's true. I mean, that day I sent out 1900 text messages. That day sucked. I talked to almost 400 people that day and I heard no hundreds of times, but I didn't care because I knew if I did the work, all the appointments would come. I mean, the way I look at it is you have to pay the lead generation gods their dues and their views are calls and dials and they reward you with come listings and phone calls to the office.

Robby T: Oh man, I'm going to lose it over here. I've never heard of the lead generation gods, but I feel like we should get a little idol to worship.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I mean, if you want to pay them your dues, you got to take out your phone and hear a lot of nos. It's funny every time I've done that, the next day ... Every time I've had like 800, 1200 attempts, 2000, 3000 text messages sent out and gotten no appointments, the next day, I've got six.

Robby T: Sure. I love that. One thing that I want to I want to really touch on, a lot of people, as you may see, Jim, are asking, what do you do to make sure you don't burn out? Essentially, I'm reading it. The reality is you said this role is something that it's really tough to check out and that's always been you know what we talked about. We've seen our ISAs, you guys are working 50, 60 hours per week and your role is a lifestyle, it's not a job. What do you do to make sure that Jim doesn't burn out and say, screw this, I'm done. I can't do this anymore? What do you do to check out? Give us some insight there.

Jim Rentfrow: It's funny because I struggle probably more with that the last year than I ever have. Here's the funny thing. I've taken more vacation the last year than I ever have either. In order for me to kind of not burn out, I always focus on what's the next thing. For instance, I just got back from New York and spent a lot of money on that trip so it's like, now we got to pay for New York. I always think of things in terms of transactions, which is like, I want to go down to Mexico and go to White Tiger, Black Jaguars for a week and hang out with the Tigers. How much that cost? That's about $14,000 for Rachael and I. That's about 28 closings. What do I need to do in order to get 28 extra closings?

Jim Rentfrow: Well, that means I need to talk to 38 people per closing. Now, I could break that down and have a fun little game. I try to gamify my life. I look in I see, what do I want? Literally, now there's nothing that I can't have and that's what motivates me because I'm a 99 financial on the monetary scale. I love money and so the way I look at is, what do I enjoy? What can I be pushing towards? There's going to be days that suck, but going after what I'm going is much easier for me to keep doing that.

Nate Joens: I think maybe one of my questions is, at least for those of you listening, I think Eric Patch posted like one of the keys to success is having multiple ISAs. Jim, you're the leader of those ISAs.

Robby T: For sure. This is great, Jim. Nate, do you have any other questions you want to ask on that?

Nate Joens: I don't know if we really touched on your leadership too much. Is that an aspect of your role that excites you, more in potentially keeps you less burned out or the opposite?

Jim Rentfrow: For me, it's the opposite. Myers Briggs is what's called an advocate. If I was going to be completely and totally joyful, it is not managing other people. That being said, I want to have impact and I love helping others, but the managing others can be ... It's not fun for me. For me, I'd say leadership can be fun because, like I said, when you focus on your future [crosstalk 00:43:55] things. The management of people though is not fun for me and that's causing [crosstalk 00:43:57] more than sitting and grinding marginal goals.

Nate Joens: One thing I ended up focusing at too that I think is completely different about the Hatch model is your ISAs don't graduate from agents. I don't know if we covered that. We've covered in previous webinars a bit, but that's another really important piece I think to add here.

Robby T: Sure. Good point.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I want to address two things. One, Riley had said, 50, 60 hours a week is a ton. It is a ton, but that's only if you have one ISA or two ISAs and you have all the leads going to them. Secondly, there's weeks where I work 50 to 60 hours a week. I was gone for nine weeks last year. There's nine weeks where I was not working and I still hit 150 transactions.

Robby T: Yeah.

Jim Rentfrow: It's because being effective when I'm there. There are a lot of days where I'm here 10 hours. There's a heck of a lot of days where I'm not here at all.

Robby T: Let's hit on that, Jim, because I almost like to talk about how your first year of being an ISA is so much different than any years beyond that. Do you mind giving us some perspective of the first year compared to years two, three, four on lead issues?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah, let's do that. My first full calendar was ‘15 because it start July 2014. I think it's 2015, I did 86,000 dials and about 40,000 mass attempts, if I remember the numbers. I think those numbers I went over the last time with the mass attempts was just from 2016 on. I did roughly 120,000 attempts in that first year for 121 closings. Last year, I did 20,000 dials and 20,000 mass attempts for 150 closings. The way I always talk to people is, if you can put in the work the first two years, you're going to set yourself up for a great third, fourth, fifth year, for way less work because you're building your pipeline and now those conversations are fun. You're not talking to a ton of new leads. I let my ISAs grind on the new leads, because they need to build their pipelines. I want to take my follow ups and the new ones and basically, I don't need to build my pipeline as much because it's already built.

Robby T: In other words, your first year especially is you're building that pipeline and then from that point forward, it's all about maintaining the pipeline.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah, exactly.

Robby T: Maintenance takes nowhere near the amount of work as building. If you just look at the math, if you start making calls new ISA today, you're not going to see a closing. I mean, your first closings for three, four months. You're not getting any checks, any pay from people who want to [crosstalk 00:47:07]. The reality is, is it your first year and you will work harder than ever and make less. That's why we always talk about how this is a long term play. That was very good, Jim. Awesome. Nate, anything else you want to ask there? I love it. Last thing we should hit on, Jim, obviously, you've been instrumental in us helping find our next ISAs, the next yous. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't at least touched base on, when we're looking to hire an ISA, why don't we look to hire? With the last few minutes here, Jim, when we're looking at hiring an ISA, what's maybe the biggest mistake the biggest that people make and what do you look for in an ISA?

Jim Rentfrow: I think the biggest mistake people make is just bringing on anyone. This is the hardest role to fill. We have done so many interviews on this role and gotten so close so many times and it's so freaking painful. I would say the biggest mistakes is we did not ask one question and the question was this, what are your goals in life and how ...? They'll tell me their goals and then I'll just simply ask right after that, what have you done to accomplish that?

Jim Rentfrow: Robby has a question in his interviews that he could talk about as well that he likes. What I want to do is I don't want to actually hire anyone ever again from a career night for ISA. I simply don't. I want to have people that are actually going to seek us out and be referrals because it's extremely hard to find motivated people that will pick up the phone and get kicked in the face time and time again that don't have goals and can't tell me what they've done on their goals. If I asked Erica Cody what they've done on their goals, when we were having that conversation, they could list five things and the stuff that they're working at in their life.

Jim Rentfrow: The interviews I've had that have ended right then is that one guy said, I want to be able to take my friends out and be that friend, and I said, "Can't you do that now?" I there was just silence and then I was like, "Okay, we're done here." The other the other thing that I love is I like to ask people if they hate to lose or love to win BECAUSE I am very much a hate to lose person. It pisses me off and every time I do it fires me up. Now you can love to win and I think that's good. Winning is good, but if you hate to lose, and I see Robby has more numbers than me, guess what's that going to do? I'm going to be motivated to beat him. There's no animosity. It's not animosity. Robby's my brother, but I will crush him.

Robby T: Yeah. Right. Jim, you are filled with a ton of insight and knowledge, man. This has been fabulous. The reality is this is ... One more thing we should talk about is this ISA role is a lifestyle. We've talked about it. you're working 50, 60 hours per week. It's tough to employ. One last thing I think we should definitely bring up is that you get almost no social interaction, face to face interaction with people. Is that fair to say, Jim?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah.

Robby T: You're calling these leads and you're having intimate conversations, but it's taking place over the phone and via text messages and emails. The reality is if you love face to face interaction ... One of the things we found is if somebody loves that, that's not going to be fulfilling in this role. We've had some great people come into the role and burn out almost immediately. That's another piece. I got to end on one thing where you and I were the leads geeks along with our ISA brethren and all these others. I think we got an end on one nerdy question, if you don't mind. Is Star Wars or Game of Thrones and tell me why? Make a compelling argument.

Jim Rentfrow: All right. It's going to be Game of Thrones. Here's why. Game of Thrones has literally caused me to stand up and swear and throw my TV remote at the wall and break it. Star Wars, it's a decent storyline. They got cool stuff blowing up and lasers, but Battle of the Bastards, that episode I got up. I was fired up. I was like, "Oh no, you better not die again. This is BS." I was pissed. You're never going to have that emotional response with Star Wars. It's like, Luke cut off his hand, big deal. I mean, Jon Snow died. Oh my God. I'm going to say, Game of Thrones. Got it coming up in 13 days, I think. I'm not counting down or anything. I'm pretty excited. It's probably the most animated you've see me for a while, Robby?

Robby T: Yeah. I'm sorry to all of you, about 100 some listeners that if you haven't seen the show, Jim just ruined it for you.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah, it's six years. You have seven years to watch it.

Robby T: Spoiler alert. We're going to put that in here. I never thought-

Nate Joens: Absolutely. Jim, we appreciate you dearly.

Robby T: ... We just put in there [crosstalk 00:52:35]. You bring so much passion to the role and you are a trendsetter and a friend, so thank you for taking your time to do this. [crosstalk 00:52:35].

Nate Joens: For everyone, this will be recorded and sent out shortly. As an add bonus, we have two bonuses for you now. We've done a previous podcast episode with Robby, Jim and Cody. Hey there. I highly recommend that. You get insights and flavors from all three ISAs with Hatch. Definitely subscribe to the ISA Radio. I think it's like the fifth podcast episode or something, that's a great one. Second bonus is, Izzy with Structurely has some fantastic giveaways on behalf of Structurely. This is something we kind of like to do on most of our webinars. Thank you for listening. As if the insights from Jim wasn't enough, Izzy is here with some free leads and one of the awesome headsets. I don't think it's as good as Jim's, but it's pretty good.

Izzy: It's a good one. We have a lot of giveaways, more than normal this time. This is a good webinar to have registered for. We have four people winning free leads, so we will engage in long term nurture. Our ISA Aisa Holmes, our artificial intelligence part will long term nurture 50 leads for you. The four winners are going to get that and then one winner is going to get a headset. We'll start off with the four winners for the 50 free leads and then lastly will be the headset. Our first winner 50 free leads is Sheena Croce. If you're on here-

Robby T: Spell that.

Izzy: ... C-R-O-C-E.

Robby T: R-O?

Izzy: O-C-E, C-E. Well, it's one. Okay. You'll get an email from us with all the information on how that's going work, but congratulations to our first winner. Sheena, did I pronounce her last name right? I see that you're on. [inaudible 00:54:48] pronunciation with me. Second winner of the 50 free leads is Danica Holm, H-O-L-M, like a spinoff.

Robby T: Nice.

Izzy: Oh shoot. Sorry Sheena. Our third winner of 50 free leads is Aaron McCormick. Well, it's I-C-K.

Robby T: Awesome.

Izzy: Our fourth winner of 50 free leads is Ron [inaudible 00:55:36]. That one's a hard one.

Robby T: Ron K.

Izzy: Ron C. We've multiple Ron Cs on here. The winner of the headset is one [inaudible 00:55:54]. T-A-R-R-A-S-Q-U-E-L.

Robby T: [inaudible 00:56:06].

Izzy: All right. Well, thank you to everyone that registered and congratulation to our five winners. You will all be getting emails from us-

Robby T: Sorry guys.

Izzy: ... After this on how to claim your prizes.

Nate Joens: Well, we appreciate everyone [inaudible 00:56:24].

Jim Rentfrow: Dang! I didn't win.

Robby T: Cool. [inaudible 00:56:47].

Nate Joens: Awesome. If you already haven't subscribed to the ISA Radio, you can actually register there for future podcast. The next one on April 10 with April Martin. Go ahead and get scheduled for that, register for that now so you don't miss it. Again, this one will be sent to you within a couple of hours here and included in the ISA Radio. I also want to just mention the leads geeks. Most of you are in the leads geeks Facebook group, but if you're not, check it out. You're going to get a lot of more in depth information, valuable lessons from Jim and all the ISAs at Hatch. Awesome role play stuff. I've even watched a lot of those. They're hilarious. They're absolutely hilarious. You have to watch them. Cool. Thanks everyone.

Robby T: [inaudible 00:57:58].

Nate Joens: Bye.

Jim Rentfrow: Bye.

Robby T: I love it. Guys, thank you all. Appreciate you all. Thanks again, Jimmy. You're welcome. Bye. Bye.

View Details

Nate Joens: [00:00:03] Welcome everybody. My name is Nate Joens. I am the CEO and co-founder at Structurely we've got a really exciting episode today of the ISA radio with our friends at Hatch coaching Hatch realty Erik Hatch Robby Trefethren guys. Can you tell us a little bit about your business. Robby I I'm very bad at pronouncing your last name Colorado everyone is you crossed it and there's a reason I sort of go by Robert T. Yep. It's the first time I've actually tried to pronounce it live. So we did you that well and the guy's house as he says it.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:38] His last name sounds like a pharmaceutical drug trial here. I've heard that one. It's great. So thank you for the introduction.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:46] And it should be known that Robby and I are huge fans of Structurely you're not even paying us to say that we just simply like you guys a lot and we think that what you're doing in the ISA and artificial intelligence world are game changing. So really elated to be partnering with you on this here at here in Fargo North Dakota. We have a couple of different ventures that are rolling out and it all started with Hatch Realty. We run our real estate company as a team. So our team consists right now of 35 people that includes three expansion markets. We run a different model than most people do even that are running teams. In 2018 we did six hundred and sixty foreclosed transactions just a hair under 5 million in volume 5 million of GCI and just over 150 million in volume. So we've had a fun run of things so far about three and a half years ago I had been getting coached and I was doing some coaching on the side and really felt like we had a unique voice in the market and it was different than what other people were doing and so especially with Robby by my side and I'll let Robby share his story and his journey. But what happened is we saw that there was a need and an opportunity for us to try to influence an impact in the best possible way. And so that's We curated Hatch coaching now. We we catered to some of the top coaching clients some of the top realtors in the country and we are honored to be a part of it. So Robby Your journey has been similar but different.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:24] Yeah I started up a team back. Jeez it would be January of 2014. Does that sound right. I mixed up all the years a while ago and I started on the team as an as an ISA which is why we created this whole of the ISA radio and everything goes along with it. And when I came into the game I remember my first day I walked in and Erik kind of gave me a remember the script book right and old school script book filled with I would refer to it as a bunch of junk because it was all focused on I like to say manipulating and coercing and really trying to take advantage of the other person.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:05] And what I found was I wanted to create a way that really put the other person first because I think that's a better way and a more sustainable way to do business. And in my heart it felt right. So went down that route and now we had some major success. We have an ISA Department now with five full time ISAs of course.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:26] And they were featured on one of the other podcasts as well. And I have the privilege and honor of coaching most or a lot of the top teams and ISAs teams throughout the country. So that's awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:03:41] Yeah. For everyone listening. Definitely check out the sixth episode of the ISA radio so you can hear firsthand from from these ISAs with hatches as we referred to them on the episode. The actual rainmakers.

Erik Hatch: [00:03:56] Thanks for that. Yeah I agree 100 percent man.

Nate Joens: [00:04:00] Yep awesome. So we're we're switching this one up a little bit today not necessarily ISA focus not necessarily script focus but kind of giving you the inside look into the culture that has been built at hatch from the rainmaker himself. Mr. ERIK Hatch I want to do a rainmaker or I may go. We'll just get everyone's kind of a rainmaker right now so we're gonna kind of dive into culture and how you can build culture successfully.

Nate Joens: [00:04:47] Like the guys that Hatch have they might not agree that they have had it had it figured out from the start.

Nate Joens: [00:04:55] But as we like to say every time here we've kind of fumbled forward and figured out the right culture to attract and retain some of the top producing talent in the industry. So guys can you kind of tell me a little bit about the culture at hatch and kind of how you got there where you're at today.

Erik Hatch: [00:05:13] So let me interject first if you are watching live right now I encourage you to ask some questions in the comment section. We would love to answer any questions that you might have. As we go through this and if we can't answer during this we certainly will answer afterwards. So please make this interactive instead of just a one way conversation. Here's the story. Nate Jones as best as I can articulate it is I got into real estate full time in 2011. My previous life was involved in ministry. I worked at the local church that I was baptized and raised in and I spent eight years out of college pouring into kids love the gig hated the pay and my family really was at a place where we needed to make some financial moves in order to actually be parents. We had some major infertility and I had to pay for it out of pocket. So I jumped into real estate full time in 2011. I sold 52 houses on my own with a part time college student as an assistant. 2012 I started the teams we were four people as of January 1st and 13 people as of December thirty first. I had expanded into the commercial world and across the state of North Dakota. We sold one hundred and ninety two houses that year. I was one hundred and thirteen of one hundred and ninety two. So I was 60 percent of our production as well as running in every direction.

Erik Hatch: [00:06:34] And in 2013 I was given the wonderful opportunity to start over as my company kicked me out and and what happened in that Nate's is I was so egotistical and cocky and I thought my crap didn't stink and I was in a place where I thought we had a great culture because we just preached culture and we use that word culture and by the way the word culture is completely watered down it is overused and the fact that having a culture conversation here gets me fired up and also diluted at the same time. But what happened is when I thought my culture was great and after I got kicked out my 13 team members turned into myself and two other people just three of us overnight because I thought my culture was creating an environment that everybody wanted to be in and it wasn't. It was instead creating an environment that everybody ran from except for two people. And so I realized that something I was doing was wrong and what I was doing is I was creating a culture where everyone was a sidekick a crony. They were riding my coattails essentially and when given the opportunity they ran from it pretty quickly and so I realized that we had to get intentional with our culture and it wasn't about the number of transactions that I did it was about the number of transactions they could do. And it wasn't about the life that I could live. It was the life that I could empower them to live. And so when we started over in April of 2013 this was just nine months before Robby came on nine months before we opened up Hatch Realty and created our own brokerage. We really did it differently. And I want to I want to transition to Robby because you came into our world by having not known the previous only hearing horror stories of what I heard previously but I think that we did pretty well by you in terms of building a runway for you. But with you. Realistically So what did that feel like. What did that look like.

Robby Trefethren: [00:08:35] I think I've been trying to think of just some some key words and I just want to contrast most places in real estate is it's a workplace.

Robby Trefethren: [00:08:46] And I think the first thing from the moment I walked in and if you ever heard about an interview process on my final interview with Erik was three hours and in that interview from that moment I could tell that the culture of this place was something radically different. And what I mean by that is Erik. By the end of those three hours my whole life story. The the good the bad the ugly my dreams my aspirations. He took my whole mask off. It took a couple swear words coming out of me as Erik as you said the F word at least five times in your interview.

Erik Hatch: [00:09:24] And I have no idea why I kept you around.

Robby Trefethren: [00:09:27] Oh man I'm still trying to figure that out but it was something different and I think what I could tell that moment was I was entering into a workplace so it wasn't just an 8 to 5 job or where I go to work with people. When I joined the team it quickly became my family. And I think if there's really one word that is abundance and in our culture if you were to walk in there's a lot of love for each other. There is a ton of hugs and connection and it's not this normal workplace where you just go there and you check out. Jim one of our ISAs I think put it best he said that he hates Fridays and loves Mondays because he wants to be around these people because in our world you know beyond love other things we challenge each other. We're constantly trying to grow and become better versions of ourselves. And with that comes a lot of opportunity and trust. But the core tenant is really I would say Love which isn't talked about enough.

Erik Hatch: [00:10:34] Robby you said that there's a lot of hugs but you have to know that the difference between a hug and a chokehold is merely arm placement. And so those that you love are those that make you the most crazy is he you can quote that one all day long. OK. Is the difference between a hug and a chokehold is merely arm placement and and realistically those that we work in close confinement with.

Erik Hatch: [00:11:00] You have to make sure that you love them not tolerate them not put up with them. These have to be people that you can trust. Patrick Lynch she only has the five dysfunctions of a team and the core dysfunction is a lack of trust. And the people that I trust the most are the people that I love the most. Yeah they maybe make me that was crazy. But as we circle back here to the crux of the conversation Nate you had said basically what is what is the culture of our company and what's happened now. Come come 2013 and 2014 is it wasn't Erik and the rockets anymore.

Erik Hatch: [00:11:40] We instead when we were down to three people and rebuilt I realized that my core function as a leader had to be to help our team members succeed. It was no I knew how to sell houses but I had to transition my energy even more so than it ever had been into leading people and helping them build runways. We are an airport and we are a hub for amazing talent and of course I think of us as a country clubs exceedingly exclusive to get into an amazingly inclusive. Once you're there. And so for us our culture has an energy to it. But the piece de resistance the the the thing that most people don't assimilate with their culture is the culture of high production. Most people will say our culture is warm and gooey and touchy feely and we love each other we have fun and we have a ping pong table and that means we have a great culture and a ping pong table is a thing. It's not a culture. And instead the piece that has gotten me I think to this place now and I love where I'm at. I'm not satisfied with where we are. I am hungry and tenacious as the day is long but I am so thrilled as as to where we find ourselves today. It's because we've created a culture of high production and high performance. So let me break that down if I may. But let me I think I mean like going to the engine here and Nate Robby what am I doing.

Nate Joens: [00:13:10] He said Robby mentioned was you know other than love which is obviously an important factor of culture is the fact that you're challenging each other. I think that from from my perspective I don't work at Hach but being close to you guys that's the number one thing that I've seen is you know when we were in the mastermind in Los Angeles sitting around the hot tub you guys before talking about you know what you want to do on the weekend and hide and seek out with each other it was it was genuine challenging conversations with one another in your passive time. And I think that that is the one from an outsider's perspective. That's what I can take away from. From your guys company.

Robby Trefethren: [00:13:51] Yeah I want to add to that I think to kind of later in before you get into high production that was one of the things that was very self evident was Erik was very intentional in creating a business that was going to do real estate very differently.

Robby Trefethren: [00:14:08] And Erik you always said that we're in the business of helping people we just happen to sell real estate. And now that's of all to coaching and many other things. But we we are a place that's really focused on growth and challenging each other and I think we never had it in our minds to just be another real estate company in Fargo that was never part of our M.O. and that required us to be a culture of high production to bring things to the next level.

Erik Hatch: [00:14:39] It boiled down to this. I didn't want to look like everybody else. I didn't want a world that had the continual churning of people. I've heard other real estate industry professionals and major influencers talk about how let's say a buyer agent right.

Erik Hatch: [00:14:57] Let's say a buyer agent is on a team and they start right here and they get to 10 15 20 maybe 25 deals that they can do with the team and then almost always they are gone and they don't stay with the team.

Erik Hatch: [00:15:14] Where in our world the average production of our agents they start right here and they come on board as showing partners or listing partners and they earned the right to actually have the privilege of selling real estate on our team and as they earn their first year the standard that they have to adhere to is 36 transactions.

Erik Hatch: [00:15:34] When realistically in our world our average buyer agent sells over 60 homes a year and our average listing agent sells 90 homes a year. These are nearly on matched in the industry ISA. We've had a crazy 20 18 it's 20 19 now in twenty 2018 we learned a lot of lessons because we didn't have the retention that we had of previous years. In previous years we had held onto everybody that had ever started with us.

Erik Hatch: [00:16:06] And I can say probably that any agent that's ever started with us in real estates outside of the ISA department anybody who started on the buy side of the listing side are still in the business even if they're not with me and with us. And so we figured out how to give people in our culture the possibility to have exceedingly big lives. But right now I promise you somebody is watching this or listening to this and saying Yeah but.

Erik Hatch: [00:16:34] And that yeah but is saying I want to keep people right about here or so because if they come here they're bigger headaches if they come here they go to leave if they come here over to this massive amount of production they're not going to stay with us.

Erik Hatch: [00:16:52] They don't desire to be here anymore because our value proposition that we think exists is we're gonna help you sell some houses and there's an amazingly different thing that happens when the leaders and the rainmakers and the influencers of an organization show up and ISAs every day Nate Jones if you're on my team every day I'm gonna do whatever it takes to help you get to your goals and that looks so different than anybody else same. All right what's your goal. OK here's what we're gonna give you. Good luck. It's it's a slight difference but it's everything. And so as we've created this culture now we've had people earn the right to be a high producer. The real estate industry as a model and in and of itself is a broken model because I think that people sign up and they get thrown to the wolves and if they know how to fight they're gonna make it. And if they don't know how to fight they're gonna get eaten and what does it 75 or 80 percent of people don't make it past their first year. And I think that's unacceptable we have to do better for our people. This is not. Now I can tell you this Nate if I wanted we could open up the floodgates and hire three or four times as many agents as we already have.

Erik Hatch: [00:18:10] And I actually think we would sell more houses. We need some more houses because we would have so many more people in the batter's box taking swings. But I would have no all stars and if I have no all stars in the world and people watch from the top you can get influence from the bottom. And if all you have are new folks and folks who can't sell more than 20 or 25 homes in a year which is still a respectable deal of homes then you have people that are selling 20 or 25. That's all you're ever going to have. And for me I get the most obscene amount of joy from influencing the influencers. It in fact is why we're coaching in the first place and why we've built our infrastructure with Hatch realty as such that people start here and they can climb all the way up and all the way up and then this forces me to continue to make our world even bigger and even more grands so that I don't lose people. I'm not giving them the keys to the kingdom but I'm opening the door with them and showing them what's possible now.

Erik Hatch: [00:19:22] The people who seem to stay in our environment are those that are massively high in production. As an example we have a guy who is a younger agents. He was a teacher previous and then came to us through some connections and then his second full time year of being a buyer agent. He sold seven houses for one point seventy two million dollars worth of volume last week

Erik Hatch: [00:19:47] Has one week of real estate seven houses and five boats seven houses were from his sphere.

Erik Hatch: [00:19:54] What a bait and book by the way that was five of those seven houses were from his sphere. The company gave him two of those. One was a five hundred thousand dollar deal and one was a two hundred thousand dollar deal. But he brought in a million we brought in seven hundred thousand and he's not going anywhere.

Erik Hatch: [00:20:12] And the reason why is because I'll go to him and I'll say Tyler you crushed it last week. How can I help you. To get what you want. It's it's it's such a small change but we have a culture of excellence now. And the problem the whole topic is is your culture wrong. And I believe that if your culture is wrong it's when you have more of the people over here than you do over here. And these people if you want Navy SEALs you have to have a navy. That's a banking quote. I'm not that's not an Erik Hatch original but I'm happy to stay up is if you want a Navy SEAL you have to have a navy and they earn the right to move this away. And as they move this away and they start producing more they now have influence on the people over here. And giving somebody not only permission to crush it. As a producer but also giving them influence within your organization creates an ambience that I think people are drawn to and you can give them more than they exceed and they could create on their own.

Erik Hatch: [00:21:15] Let me pause and take a drink.

Robby Trefethren: [00:21:18] So I want to add into that. I think I'm a big fan of the quote. You either innovate or you die. And the reality is this there's really two different models from what I've seen and Erik you're describing one where you actively try to create a players. And I have heard from many people and they'll say don't get a players because a players always leave. And the problem with that is this is that Erik we would be stagnant if all the innovation only came from you. And I think you would be the first person to admit that all of the ISA innovation came from me and others other A players that are in our world. The innovation on the buy side is coming from these eight players. And here's the reality. I love our model because it's one that encourages and cure rates innovation at all levels of the organization. And my biggest fear if you are just the a player at the very top and you're like I'm not going to get those eight players because I don't stick around. And the reality is it's easier because in order for you to retain a level talent you've got to be an A level leader. There is no A level talent.

Robby Trefethren: [00:22:39] So some would say that again. Say that again because you see a lot of dumb things. But that was not one of them. I don't even know what I said. You said you said A level talent won't stick around unless you're on a level leader.

Robby Trefethren: [00:22:53] Yes. If you're if you're a level talent and you're stuck behind to be level leader you're going to leave and create your own thing. And that's tough because leadership is is a nasty tough thing to do but it is one thing that allows you to create innovation at so many different levels. And again to get off and on the call I mean that was that was incredible.

Nate Joens: [00:23:17] I'm just like an op ed like listening to all of this and how how clearly different your your culture is from from the unsuccessful I mean from from an outsider's perspective I see I see a ridiculous amount of turnover in real estate and in companies we work with. It's it's alarming to me but I've never been in the industry before so that's probably why it's so alarming to hear you guys say that you're keeping the amount of people that you are in. You know I think that I want to counter that with in our previous episode Episode 7 in our previous webinar YOU GUYS YOU GUYS DIDN'T HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT WITH YOU. YOU GUYS LOST YOU GUYS LOST what three of three 3 five buyer's agents was that right.

Erik Hatch: [00:24:12] Yeah yeah yeah. I mean you that last year I lost five of our eight Bye.

Nate Joens: [00:24:16] I would highly recommend first listening to that webinar followed by this webinar and just kind of you know comparing and contrasting and I think you'd learn a lot if you're listening now by comparing those and just hearing the journey that Hatch went through because they didn't have it all figured out you guys didn't have it all figured out. You guys. We still. But I think that kind of leads me into to one question I'll go. MAN 2 Were there any were there any early indicators that you know those five or eight would leave. Why. Like were those people not a culture fit. Did they not buy into what we're talking about here. What are the indicators of potentially the you know I wouldn't say low producers but if we're if we're saying the people that shouldn't be in your company are quote low producers. What are some of those those indicators of potentially not a culture fit.

Erik Hatch: [00:25:16] So I have to isolate yes because a low producer in our world is traditionally a high producer in someone else's world. Our are our lowest producer. And let me go back to 2017. Our lowest producer did thirty two deals. Our standard was thirty six so that person was under our standard and thus got put on a Performance Improvement Plan. The five that we lost in 2018 one we had to remove from the company for falling out of culture one blindsided us and surprised us. Her life had changed and as her life had changed we hadn't necessarily adapted and met her where she was at. She was immediately tied to one of our agents that we knew would go with her. And so one day when one goes usually two goes and the same was with the first person he had someone that he was closely tied to and so that person went. Also the fifth moved across country and so let's take those things and to your question name your your challenging to ask about culture issues and when does somebody fall out of culture right. When are the early indicators and the easiest thing if we're talking about culture in terms of production is very much understanding the lead indicators of what's going on in our world. This is this is of everything I teach on everything I coach on. This is the baseline 100 level yet so important type of piece.

Erik Hatch: [00:26:53] So at the foundation here we have standards most teams believe it or not Nate don't have standards. They instead have suggestions. We suggest you sell twenty four homes a year and then if you say well what's the consequence that comes from not meeting that suggestion or that standard.

Erik Hatch: [00:27:16] And if they don't have an answer of what the consequences. You don't have standards you just have suggestions. So a standard is nobody's allowed to fall below this. Everybody has to be at this level no matter how you do it. Everybody has to be here now.

Erik Hatch: [00:27:33] You of course allow a couple months of grace when somebody is coming in that they're not going to produce in their first month like somebody will on their 13th month. And so you have to crescendo that in. But after standards that everybody needs to adhere to our goals and the goals are those of the individual agents not of the company. The standards are just the rules that everybody is agreeing to play by. And if you break a rule there has to be a consequence associated with it. Otherwise it doesn't it doesn't work. Then you have your goals here in the middle and the goals are those of that individual agents. That is how you will best lead that person my coach told me that if you hold somebody accountable to your goals they'll resent you but if you hold them accountable to their goals they'll thank you. And so great leaders mirror and match and they find out what Robbie's goals are and if I was goals are here in the middle we're going to make sure that this is what I'm reminding Robby of. This is where I'm creating all of his daily tasks and everything else that needs to show up and then above this up here are expectations and great leaders pour into people with exceedingly high expectations. If I were to say to you Nate.

Erik Hatch: [00:28:48] You know what Nate. I know that you wanted to sell 40 homes this year. Yeah I think you can probably do it.

Erik Hatch: [00:28:54] Good luck or if I said Nate your goal is to sell 40 homes our standard is to sell 36. Dude I don't know if you see it in you but I think you're amazing and I'm betting on you big because I think you can do huge things in our world and I bet you can get to 50 this year. Now if you want to get to 50 if you do I'm gonna help you get there but I'm gonna tell you that you have something inside of you that very few people in this world have. And I'm going to do everything I can to pour into you. Those are high expectations and those high expectations are usually met with some resistance and yet it will rise the tides. And so to your original question Nate how do we indicate that people are maybe out of culture or what are some of those lead early indicators is of course if they are not meeting standards let's just make the assumption everybody is meeting standard that they're showing up when they're supposed to show up to lead generators that your best practices and remember when we're working with independent agents which most most of our team members are they are not adhered to with standards that we can't say you have to do these bare minimums you can't hold them contractually to it or you will be in a legal mess. Instead you create best practices and you can give birth and taketh away any opportunities that you'd like.

Erik Hatch: [00:30:15] And so we monitor people's lead measures and if they're not doing their job they have consequences and their job is to meet the standards to strive for their goals and to believe in the expectations that are set for them.

Erik Hatch: [00:30:31] Robby I know you're chomping at the bit going.

Robby Trefethren: [00:30:33] To say that that's that's the only way I have figured out how to give a natural consequence and it's not a punishment it's a natural consequence when people fall below standard. We do everything we can to help them get above standard. And there's got to be something that you know eats away. And the reality is you own the opportunities that are created by your company through marketing and you can give those to have whoever you want. So that's the only carrots I know that you can control that once is behavior.

Erik Hatch: [00:31:10] I. I heard a quote recently and I'm gonna butcher it but you go ahead and say great quote Erik worth of information people person so these that make me feel good after it but a race horse and a donkey are together and a donkey can't become a racehorse but a racehorse can become a donkey and everyone has influence.

Erik Hatch: [00:31:38] And oftentimes if we think that our culture is as such where we're gonna have one superstar and we're gonna have ten mediocre players or ten people at standard at best there's a good chance that that superstar is either going to go and leave.

Erik Hatch: [00:31:57] It's the LeBron James story they're going to go and leave and find another place or they're surrounded by superstars yes they make other people better but the people who are better do not foster the right environment for the superstars. And let me declare with every fiber of my being that your organization is better and more difficult with superstars. They're there merely choice. There's not a right or wrong way to build a real estate team. They're merely choices and consequences. Choice number one is this as you go wide and you have 20 agents and each one sells 10 to 20 homes and you can have a great life at that. I have a number of friends in the industry that have a life like that and they're smiling from ear to ear. I am endorsing that if that's the life that you want the life that I want is I want to be surrounded by race horses and I want innovators in my world and I want people to challenge me everyday to get better instead of just seeking that out elsewhere. And it creates headaches because we're consistently what feels like reinventing the wheel because we're inviting people to have voice and they have voice because they have influence and they have influence because they are far above the standard and they are massively influential in my life and this industry.

Erik Hatch: [00:33:18] So let me pause there because I have one other piece I want to get to but I want to welcome your green boxes.

Nate Joens: [00:33:25] I'm alive right now. Always been interested. Your first night in your wild versus kind of diva approach. There's there's obviously extreme like you said choices and consequences made in each model. I think from a leadership perspective as a team leader it's probably a lot of headache to try and continuously stay on top of your of those those race horses but it allows you to go deeper

Nate Joens: [00:33:55] In those individuals rather than the wide model. And I think from from what I've learned from you guys this is that that breed of leadership is is most suited for the deep. Deep model because you can invest you can. You can set standards goals and you can go in and talk to those race person every day about those extraordinarily high expectations and say hey I think you can do one hundred deals this year and they'll you know they'll say no way but then they'll go do it.

Erik Hatch: [00:34:28] Your culture has to support that to Nate like. You can't just say you're going to go. Like what resources. When we talk about building a room that that so has to sell the houses. But what can I create that gives them the best possible environments that no other company on earth can give them. What kind of leverage what kind of mentoring what kind of guidance what kind of energy can I share with them and pour into them so that 100 is possible because the resource still needs all the right nurturing it needs all the right nutrients and it needs the right race track in order to run exceedingly fast.

Robby Trefethren: [00:35:09] I like that one because I want to add this as well. And Nate I don't know if you're frozen or not but you might be. But we're gonna continue anyways. It's something that I call I call it.

Robby Trefethren: [00:35:21] But I started called the Bannister Effect and I think that's what's been really cool about our team going super deep was really with a lot of players as I remember the days Erik when selling 50 homes as a buyer agent was just unthinkable right. And then we had 50 and now we're talking you know I think title and Kyle as you push now 80 90. And you know the Bannister Effect basically is named after a guy Roger Bannister who was the first guy to run a four minute mile. And really what that means is this is that human beings wait for the first person to do it and then once that's done people buy and do it. And what happened with Roger. Roger Barstow ran the first minute mile was like in the next month or two afterwards a ton of other people did it and that's what keeps happening in our world is because we have those eight players setting that pace and showing and being the living rendition of The Master effect. People keep pushing the bar higher and higher. And that's one of the I would say the advantages of recruiting and trying to retain a players. The other piece is this is that I'm sure you guys have maybe noticed put it out as Erik and I rarely rather rarely talk about this one word and it's management. There is very little management in our world. Instead there's an incredible amount of leadership and leadership goes deep and I think when you go wide and being more managers manage things when you go deep management's not as big a deal.

Erik Hatch: [00:37:02] We manage systems and we lead people right.

Erik Hatch: [00:37:07] The final piece that we're going to wrap with here and I Nate jumped off. Can anybody still hear us. Just type in I want to make sure that we're not just talking to each other. Oh hey Izzy great to see you. OK. We're good to go.

Erik Hatch: [00:37:20] This piece is a thing that I have studied in pretty great depth as a real estate coach and it is the rule of 20 to 1. Please write that down if you're taking notes right now because this rule of 20 to 1 I believe shows health in an organization. I believe that a solid real estate team can do 20 transactions per team member not per sales person per team member because we're all built differently have different pieces of leverage from that you have extra expenses that of course come in and there are just consequences and choices that we're making throughout this rule of 20 to 1. I believe tells us if we're airing on the side of a deeper model or a wider model. And once again let me tell you that there are benefits to both and there are consequences to both. But that wider model of having each agent do 10 or 15 or 20 deals each has you under that 20 to 1 ratio because of course there's some support staff that's a part of that also. So quickly I'd imagine some of you are doing the math on your team trying to figure out how many total team members and if you have a part time person that does 20 hours a week figure that person has a point five. Right. As you do your numbers and I'll share with you Hatch Realty is numbers. We did six hundred and sixty four transactions last year and we finished with 34 team members. So if I take thirty four times 20. That should tell me that six hundred and eighty is the number of transactions that we should have done but we did six sixty fourth. So we were right where we were about 19 and a half to 1.

Erik Hatch: [00:39:09] But I think that a real efficient team and in fact my friend Chen Chad Lindemann and Brainerd Minnesota. He has like a 30 to 1 ratio seen anybody with a community of like 60 thousand people to and his team nearly a thousand transactions last year. Crazy numbers. What it comes down to is this is if you want to know if you're efficient and if you have a pope and you're sure and the culture is a culture of high production we need to expand our minds no longer talk about culture just as important nice good people and we like spending time with them. But it's also the culture of are we pushing one another and our we're creating an environment that helps people win all day every day. If that's the case then you're 20 to 1 ratio I think is the way in which you measure that. If you're like one or twenty two or twenty three to one I think you're hitting that culture's nail on the head. If you're 14 or 15 or 16 to 1 you have some inefficiencies and some opportunities I think to run a very deep model that supports people winning the crux of all this I think relates to back what Rob to what Robby said a couple of moments ago and that is a level talent won't stay around a leaders who aren't a level at least for very long. OK. So if somebody is an A level talent unless you as a leader are creating that kind of environment for them to be loved to have exceedingly high expectations for them to win and everything else. I think the opportunity is ripe for you right now to jump in and to win. Robby give me your final thoughts.

Robby Trefethren: [00:40:57] Yeah my my final thought is it looks like a snowstorm and Amy's got a lot worse than we thought it was gonna be in a crash the internet. No I think you're you're you're exactly right. And I want to add just one more perspective I want to talk about the hot tub that mate brought up earlier when we were down in our mouths to mine. We love the hot tub that at Hatch Realty and coaching.

Robby Trefethren: [00:41:20] What's really cool is this is that the people that are driving hash realty frankly is not this guy. It's not Erik. It's not me. It's a group of individuals that are more talented than us.

Robby Trefethren: [00:41:37] And I think that's what's so cool about this is you're talking about 20 to 1 ratio but each of those people especially a ton of them are the drivers of what's coming next in that world. And I've always said that the whole goal of our company is to build something worth.

Robby Trefethren: [00:41:58] Erik were to disappear tomorrow but the company keeps running and frankly runs better and I think that doing that in a wide model is extremely difficult. It's tough to have that as a saleable asset in our world. And this sounds really gross. What if Erik were to disappear tomorrow if he were to go on a vacation for a year. I personally believe Hatch realty wouldn't miss be because we have great people that are there that are more than equipped to run the show.

Robby Trefethren: [00:42:33] So that's that's what I think we're trying to build here and that model is something that's sustainable and well there's.

Erik Hatch: [00:42:43] There is a scarcity mindset around not letting a players into your world or giving them an environment to grow exceedingly well. And that scarcity mindset is related to ego and I'm like King ego guys. Sometimes I am this interesting blend of like super egotistical and like the most insecure person you're ever gonna meet. So it's it's a really it's a really great thing. Every time I look in the mirror. Well what it boils down to in its simplest form is how in the world can we create for our folks a place for them to step in and win and win means we have to get out of the way and our true measure of success is not the amount of money I have in my bank account although that's important. The true measure of success is the amount of influence you have and the influence that you give to other people because realistically Hatch Realty and just remember I started real estate in 2011 Hatch realty open in 2014. And as of today I spend two days a week with Hatch Realty and I kind of get in the way a little bit. And so I think what Robby said is true as I can get out of there right now because we've bred great leaders. We've given permission for a players to exist and now I get to go and build some other things. So selfishly it's a great move for me. But you have to get past that first step of ego. So let me wrap with this since Nate isn't able to jump back on. I want to say thanks first to Structurely there an artificial intelligence ISA company. And if you haven't looked into them you really need to do so.

Erik Hatch: [00:44:27] Well maybe maybe Iowa can get Internet soon it'll be great.

Erik Hatch: [00:44:32] It's not the kind of diner I was doing just fine.

Erik Hatch: [00:44:38] But Robby and I with Hatch coaching and Hatch realty are huge believers in and Structurely they've been massive for our business and so consider looking into them. You can check us out of the hatch coaching dot com or go to Structurely dot com and see all the goods that are out there. So on behalf of Nate Jones and Izzy and Robby T and myself Erik Hatch have a beautiful Tuesday and much love peace yall.

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Nate Joens: [00:00:02] Welcome everybody on this fine and freezing Tuesday morning out of Fargo and great state of Iowa. I am Nate the CEO Structurely these fine gentlemen or with Hatch coaching we're about to start our what is this our fourth webinar. Fourth or fifth team 18 20 18 eighteen hundred webinar which is how to build a bench. Erik in Robby are gonna be leading this one giving us some insights into really frankly they lost two thirds of their sales team at Hatch Realty. Guys give us some background. Let's get this thing started.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:58] So people used to ask me how much do you bench. My answer would be most of the game. And so it's fun to talk about benching once again. And so here we find ourselves dive in and I'll give you a brief synopsis in twenty seventeen. At that point that was our highest year of production for our team. We we had thirty eight or thirty nine people we sold six hundred and fifty two homes in Fargo North Dakota which is a city of one hundred and twenty thousand. The counties we serve in total are about two hundred and fifty thousand but are our main metros one hundred and twenty thousand. And we did. So we had grown exponentially and our team members never left. The people that we started with five years ago and four years ago were basically still with us and our agents were like the top of the top producers are our average listing agent sells anywhere from what is it Robby 90 or 100 homes for a listing agent and a floor is about 75 80 ish up to 1 10.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:01] So yeah average in 90 95.

Erik Hatch: [00:02:03] Yep. And then our buyer agents were averaging you know the floor was probably thirty five for our bottom producers and ninety five for our top producers we were averaging about 60 transactions on the buy side. Now right away if you're B.S. meter is like mind you say how in the world can each agent produce so high and it's it's the leverage that we give them we have we have shown partners we have ISAs we have great admin and so the agents and their actual tasks that what they have to do on a regular basis is maybe different than most people's. And we had a group of people that had never left our turnover that happen annually was only coming from us removing people from the business. Occasionally somebody would move to a different part of the country or what it would be or we would help them find their way out the door if they weren't the right fit. And so we had 90 percent plus retention year over year. Robby what am I missing here and kind of our background.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:03] Yeah I think just to emphasize the point of a lot of people think 90 60 homes per person that seems like the essence of valid thought I want to re-emphasize the amount of leverage and specialization that we have built in.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:18] When you say our team was thirty nine people at peak that includes you know we have three full time ISAs as well. So there's a lot of leverage to bring temps. There's a ton of love to bring to the table as a value proposition to our team frankly and to our clients right.

Erik Hatch: [00:03:39] And so obviously the topic of this of this webinar and for us to dive in is to really understand how did we lose everyone and how do we continue to sell more houses because I told you in 2017 we sold six hundred and fifty two homes in twenty eighteen we did six sixty four we sold twelve more houses while losing five of our eight buyer agents by losing two of our five ISAs by losing a couple of admin. And here's what happened. Let's rewind the clock and I'm gonna have maybe flashbacks here. So if I start twitching you know why in February we had just an issue with the team member that didn't go so well and we had to remove him from our business when that happened. This was a friend of mine a good in fact a great producer a hard worker charismatic as the day is long and the guy who was like one of the founders of the company he was ingrained in the fiber of our business and we oftentimes allowed the little things to be ignored. And if ever we're a trigger for anybody listening right now I think that if you ever have a statement that says oh well that's just Robby that's just the way Robby is that that's just Robby if that's something that happens in your organization.

Erik Hatch: [00:05:03] I'm guilty of it. Across the board where we've just said well that's just that person and we haven't allowed them to necessarily be coached exceedingly well or maybe they're just stubborn and they don't want to be coached and we just ran into some problems where we had to agree to go our separate ways with this person because we had said that's just Robby for far too long. And we needed to look out for the betterment of our company and our agents. We knew that he was tied directly to another agent and so we expected that person to go and sure enough they did. Those issues happen and the mistake that we made is that it was never a big thing. It was just a whole lot of little things. And it started to impact our our culture and our energy and we didn't realize we didn't realize that this person will be better off without us we'll be better off without them. But I'm so thankful for the time that person put into our organization because it has been a huge gift. So we had to let somebody go because of culture and they just didn't necessarily fit anymore.

Erik Hatch: [00:06:09] They had another agents attached to them so there we lost two of our eight buyer agents. So now we're down to six. We had a gal blind side us. She again was part of the original group. We never thought she would leave. I thought that she was a lifer and I thought that she she was gonna be with us until the end of days and she came to me blindsided me a few weeks after we had left that previous person go. And what happened is she said I want I want to work less and I want to make more and I can't do that here. And so I'm going to go out on my own. And I just I was flabbergasted she didn't talk to me about a compromise or a way to build it a way to grow and just totally walloped me. She then was connected to another agents on our team really well we knew we would lose that person and we sure did. Robby you. You posed some really great questions as we watched this gal leave. What some of that insight that I think some of the people listening and tuning in right now can maybe absorb so they can avoid some of these pitfalls.

Robby Trefethren: [00:07:21] So I'll simply say this that when it came to losing that person what really hurt about it was we were traditionally a place that prides ourself on connecting with the people in our world and helping build a runway for them. And what really stung was we didn't hear if you wanted a different one way until she walked into your office right there and literally said this isn't right for me and it and that wasn't on her. It was on us because what we realized was the person that she was expected to be connecting with. That was the leader in the organization was the person that we had to let go and that person wasn't necessarily the best fit to dig in to the people that they were leading and try to find out what their needs wants and desires. And what really happened in all of this. And I think upon reflection is she slipped through the cracks. We didn't connect with her. We didn't make her feel valued and her name wasn't on her anymore because that's the future. It was on us. I think the big thing is it's so easy for things like that to happen to have somebody in the wrong position graduate someone in their competence is a top producer to be the leader when they don't do leadership things. And I think that was one of our pain points and that was this all the culmination. Losing her was a piece of that. So I want to say I was sorry you did.

Erik Hatch: [00:08:49] My day is bigger than yours so here we go. Three words are the reason that we lost this gal. She became invisible.

Erik Hatch: [00:09:02] And it wasn't because we didn't love her and care about her. She wasn't our top producer so she wasn't always celebrated. She wasn't the bottom rung where we had to give a lot of pressure to her and attention. She was just our steady bet a middle of the pack unbelievable team player and she became invisible to us. And in your organization right now I dare you to try to figure out who's invisible because there's some of them out there right now and it's dangerous. I don't get it. Your team is how big and Structurely 7 1 1 or 2 of those people right now probably feel invisible. I hate to break it to you man but they they might be dreaming of a life where somebody pays more attention to them and loves them a little bit more and appreciates all the stuff they do because they're poor and and the same goes for everybody else too and then it's a big problem. So enough about our SOB STORY Our last agent moved across the country two of our ISAs is one here across the country and the other one we coached out and so now all of a sudden we had eight buyer's agents and five of them were gone. We had five ISAs A's and two of them were gone. We were man, I didn't think for the life of me we could have sold as many houses as we did. And somehow when I ran the numbers at the end of the year we sold 12 more and twelve more is not a huge number. But when we lose literally 65 percent of our producing agents and top producers at that time we still manage to sell you guys. S

Nate Joens: [00:10:43] I know you guys are kind of going out your way to be vulnerable here on this webinar and I appreciate that a lot. I think everyone including myself can certainly learn from from all of your growing woes what would you call it failing failing forward. We coined the term yes the term on our some of our past admirers and you guys are great at it. Failing to meet

Nate Joens: [00:11:14] A little reality can you tell. I appreciate that encouragement.

Nate Joens: [00:11:17] I know you said you're blindsided by some of this. Were you preparing your team to fill these vacancies prior to these these people leaving. And if so how

Erik Hatch: [00:11:31] If you would have told me that person a and person B the first two examples that I gave you would've told me that they were leaving our organization and we weren't expecting it would we be prepared for the storm that's about to hit. And I had no idea. And it's not just the production storm.

Erik Hatch: [00:11:50] That's the thing that's so easy to talk about and we can glamorize this that we sold more houses even though and we're going to talk about building that bench and how to do it and how to improve yourself. But the biggest bomb that's been the hardest piece that we're still in trash over is how our team members feel are they walking around tiptoeing afraid of stepping on a landmine that we've planted in our organization and how we treat people in good times in bad times set minds off all around our world.

Erik Hatch: [00:12:23] Let me give you an example Nate. If it's Structurely you come in tomorrow and you fire someone because that person has pissed you off they haven't met their standard and maybe you've talked to him one time or maybe you've talked to him 100 times. Everybody sees what you're doing whether your organization your organization is seven people or seven hundred people. They see how you handle that situation. Now if somebody gets away with murder and you allow that person to always oh that's just Nate. If you allow that person to continually just be Nate and you don't help them get better. Everybody sees that too.

Erik Hatch: [00:13:00] And that also creates landmines where they understand that there's not many landmines and so they can step wherever they want to bring in whatever crap they want into the business and pollute the water and bring some toxicity in there. And for us that's been our hardest piece with all this is yes we had we had the bench built to work on production. It has been a time suck among all time sucks if you don't have the right environment that setup to retain people.

Erik Hatch: [00:13:29] It is such an exhaustion for your leaders and it instills such doubts in your people. If folks come and go quickly. Robby I know you have some thoughts on that. So I just want to add to this.

Robby Trefethren: [00:13:42] I would say actually when we first started building the bench for the most part I think we failed to envision a world where these people weren't in our world. Therefore we never really saw it as a bench. We saw this specialization and leverage I more of a pathway and really what it became was it's a bench that's our insurance policy on the business. Now it's those backups and honest we kind of fell into it. I think we got a little you know it was it was intentionally unintentional or maybe vice versa. But I think we went into it creating leverage for those people for the people that we just talked about that ended up leaving. What's great about it was when they came in they were learning from most people they were learning how to go on produce and when they did end up leaving of course they could. It was a one to one translation but we kind of unintentionally fell into it you know at the same time.

Erik Hatch: [00:14:37] So I think there are two types I'm I'm backwards in my camera there. There we go. I think there's two types of benches that people have in the real estate industry wide and deep a wide bench looks like this. If in our world you do six or seven hundred transactions a lot of people will have a team of 50 or 60 or 70 that supports that number of transactions. That's a wide bench. That means you have 40 or 50 or 60 salespeople. And if one or two leaves you have 10 leaves you've got other people that can pick up and do that business. And that is a common model in real estate. It is not a bad model. They're not necessarily right and wrong models. There's just models that have consequences with the choice that you make the model that we have decided on is to have a model that's very deep and not. As we've talked about a couple of times as we have are if a lead comes in and the lead comes in right here the ISA takes care of it. The ISA hands off an appointment they don't hand off leaves the of an appointment and that comes right here and now the agent is converting that but the agent is also partnered with a showing partner on our listing side.

Erik Hatch: [00:15:55] We also have listing partners. And so they're sandwiching that. And then when it comes to the details we have our transaction coordinators and then of course we have a whole world an ecosystem that supports those people. And here's what happened is every person in our organization we think at least our agents in production are Navy SEALs and I heard Ben Kinney say once that you can only have Navy SEALs if you also have a navy and it's a really great point. The only way that you can have your next Navy SEAL your next man or woman up is if you have other people still playing in your ecosystem that's ready to move up the football team in Fargo that that I love and Robby tolerates is the North Dakota State University.

Erik Hatch: [00:16:43] I'm an alarm of NTSC too and they've won seven of the last eight FCX national championships and they have a philosophy. They just graduated 24 seniors and they have a philosophy that is the next man up.

Erik Hatch: [00:16:56] Then everybody is in that system and they understand the values and maybe they didn't get all the playing time right away. But they've been instilled in that system for years and they're ready to go into the game when called upon. And if you can create an ecosystem that's next man or next woman up and that has become a training ground for your next level of talent. If you have a year like we did last sixty 65 percent producing agents and the work that they do and we still sold more houses it's because the system was set up for somebody to win rather than simply relying on a couple of people and we're screwed and out of luck they're gonna screw.

Robby Trefethren: [00:17:37] It up by the way as well I think one of the things that I've realized about entering real set is the typical model is broken and that's why I struggle with the going wide model is the turnover rate is not just in terms of are they going to be on their team but are they still in real estate.

Robby Trefethren: [00:17:58] A year later is very minimal and what's really kind of an interesting idea about every single person whether there's a witness or not is I believe every single person that we've brought in as a show showing partner almost everyone is still in real estate and almost everyone have every every showing partner and every agent we've ever brought in is still in production full production everything on with our team.

Erik Hatch: [00:18:21] And so that's a fight that's over five years. Yep.

Robby Trefethren: [00:18:24] And I think that's a testament to most people that are in the live model. Obviously we know that the burnout rate is what 80 90 percent but by year 2 in this game for us the entering real safe broken in the sense that you come in and this is what you walk into is you have no training or minimal training you don't make any money for six months to a year and if you're making money it doesn't come for at least four five months so you don't attract top tier talent because of your towns. I can't weather that what we've found is when we created this bench is there was a way for us to attract top talent come on and you get to learn from a top producing agent gonna be leverage for them and along the way you're going to get paid to do so and so no one is saying that the resume kind of shows hard won wide versus deep model for any kind of ratio of close volume per team member.

Nate Joens: [00:19:27] Could you share how many people are on your team and how many transactions you did again.

Erik Hatch: [00:19:32] So. So we've studied this model at pretty great length. I'm fortunate to be in a network with some of the top real estate teams in the country. So I've investigated what a healthy team really looks like and what I like to compare is I like to compare the number of people on your team not just agents but the number of people on your team and compare that side by side with the number of transactions in our world we finished out 2018 with 34 team members and we did six hundred and sixty four transactions. Simple math and the rule that I'm applying here is the rule of 20 to 1. I think that you have the capacity on a healthy team of doing 20 transactions for every team member that is if you're choosing the deep model the wide model looks different. I have I have friends who have a hundred agents on their team and they're doing twelve hundred transactions. That means they're doing a 12 to 1 ratio. And again that's a fine and fair model it's just not the model that we are choosing to do in our world. I believe that 20 transactions for one team member is healthy. If you can do 22 or 23 or 24 you're going to enter into a better profit and a better sustainability. Now some of the people I have the privilege of coaching we've been talking about this number at great length and they see a gap because they're seeing that they're inefficient right now that they either have agents who are newer who aren't producing at this higher capacity or they've over hired on admin or maybe they've hired too soon because they want leverage in their life and those are OK to be at a 15 to one or 16 to one ratio.

Erik Hatch: [00:21:17] If I think your as the team leader still in production you can afford more hiccups. Tracy you asked as the team member count staff. No I'm talking staff and everyone Yep staff and everybody not just producing agents because if I told you in our world we have this year we have five buyer agents three listing agents and two soon to be three expansion partners. If I told you we have a team of 11 that's going to sell seven hundred and fifty to eight hundred homes it's just not possible. I don't think a team of 40 can do that. And we can do that with 11 agents in production. So it's a very specific way to break this down and we have to be very careful if somebody says my agent sells 60 percent probability of anything to on that awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:22:08] But what kind of leverage and support do they have an item that are 20 to 1 ratio number is that the ground is waiting to get well your shrinking team and then growing team again.

Nate Joens: [00:22:18] I think that we kind of covered what caused them to leave. What were you doing to train up your bench. What were you doing to train those replacements that they were coming in.

Nate Joens: [00:22:27] You kind of mentioned you put them in a position to start learning but how did you graduate them up to take over that position when those vacancies arose.

Erik Hatch: [00:22:37] So let me touch again on a point that Robby made because it is not to be breezed over quickly when we can get people and their entry points to come in with certainty rather than uncertainty. The real estate model as a whole asks for agents to come in with uncertainty and uncertainty of when their first transaction is going to close when they're actually going to get paid how they're going to get trained. And for most of most people they go to a two week course and they're handed the keys to people's kingdoms but they have no idea how to actually implement and deliver. And for us we believe that that is insufficient for our clients. Our clients deserve better than that and if you're watching let me lean in here OK. Your clients deserve better just as they move closer. Your clients deserve better than people just showing up and getting the privilege of working with clients. They deserve better happiness because that good does that cost. And and here's why we shouldn't be practicing on our clients when we bring people in we bring them into the showing partner model or the listing partner model. You cannot sell real estate at Hatch realty unless you start off as a partner. And I have stories upon stories of people who are making 80 thousand dollars a year as managers and as engineers and everything across the board and they took more than a 50 percent pay cut to come in to our entry point in our entry point got people in and now we have literally we have six steps to our business that every step along the way people can grow and graduate to take on more responsibility and they train while they're getting paid.

Erik Hatch: [00:24:21] But here's the beauty. Here's the beauty is we have Navy SEALs in our organization. We have some people that are the best of the best and the only way that they can produce and maintain that lifestyle is if we give them leverage and so our leverage. Are these partners this partner model is the leverage for a Navy SEAL so that they won't pick up and leave. I want Navy SEALs and my organization. I don't want a bunch of people who are just in the reserves. I want people who are shining superstars and we build this model and as people graduate and as they step up you start here as a showing partner. You're in that role for a year and you have to do X number of deals from your own sphere. You get a referral for that that you bring in.

Erik Hatch: [00:25:09] But this is gonna be really important. I'm going to walk through these five steps here and we start here with a base pay in our average sales price here is two hundred and thirty five thousand bucks so we start with the base pay of thirty thousand. Meaning from day one. You are not having to go and chase after that mission you're not going to have to wait six months to hopefully get a paycheck or to have a spouse or someone that's going to support you. You can come in right away and make a moderate salary. Then you have to do at least eight deals from your sphere that you're open house and sphere. Once you've done that you can graduate to showing partner plus I should make a sidebar here before I go too far. Is that these partner models are paid by the agents that use them as leverage. We have a series of steps that that I can talk through people with but we would digress on a different path there. If you are interested please shoot me a message and I'm happy to share with you. Robby and I made a great video on these different steps for showing partners and how to compensate them.

Erik Hatch: [00:26:15] So after we start with the showing partner then we move to the showing partner plus model. That means you can now start working with buyers that you bring in under the tutelage of the team or the agent that you're partnered with. Then you're a buyer agent Phase 1 and then a buyer agent Phase 2 and then a buyer agent plus which means you can start working on listings as well that you bring in and then you can even graduate to be an independent agents on our team which simply means you don't receive team leads anymore. You're on your own but you still get all the leverage and support you're still a part of our ecosystem. And as we do that we've built now a at least six year plan for our agents and we told you of the gal that left some out 10 or 11 months ago and here's what she said. She said even though we. We dissected and figured out that we were treating her as somebody who was too invisible. She said I want to work less and I want to make more. And if Robby says to me Erik I want to hire commission split. Most of our answer is what. No chance right. No. Sorry. I used to be a buyer agent on a team loved him. I went to him and said I wanted to get hired this late because I'm doing 70 percent of the business myself.

Erik Hatch: [00:27:32] And their answer was No. And I would've built them an empire but they said no. So I picked up and I left. And what we have to say is we have to say yes when as a huge take away right now I hope that you write that down. Is don't say no. You say yes. When. And when that opportunity shows. Now we all of a sudden have a chance to build up to get Navy SEALs. I want to get back to the original point of the webinar here Nate because it is not lost on me by any means is the idea of building a bench only happens when you have people at different points now in the wide model. You can have everybody as an agents and if people leave you just put in more agents. I think that our model is you have everybody at different steps and in different points. And if your Navy SEAL is up here these new folks come in and they do three things in this order. If you're showing partner the first thing you do is you leverage this Navy SEAL you are leveraging that agent that means inspections and showings and everything else. You were there to leverage this person because this is my shining superstar right here and I'm tired of losing them. You lost some of them and I don't want to do that again because I love these people.

Erik Hatch: [00:28:52] I have years of training and I know they're gonna crush it if they go on their own. Our world is better with these people here. But here's a sidebar. Is these people also give me huge headaches because their talents and talents pushes Robby is the most annoying person in my universe guys. And the reason why is because he's talents and talent pushes and I don't want an environment that has a whole bunch of yes men and women. I want people to challenge me and I don't I don't want I don't want a bunch of followers I want a bunch of leaders in my organization. And so as we have our Navy SEALs up here these partners step number one is they're leveraging this person. The second thing they're doing is they're trainings. That means going through role play regularly having training partners watching a whole bunch of videos making sure that if something happens to this person they're ready to go. And the third piece in this order first of leveraging second is their training their third piece is their lead generating which is different because up here their primary job is to bring in business. But. I have to I have to say this. Robby on our team. How many sphere deals do our agents average in a calendar year. Just as they bring in from their own procuring.

Robby Trefethren: [00:30:14] It's probably right around 20 so it's all in.

Erik Hatch: [00:30:19] You're exactly right it's 20 to 25 spear deals that each agent brings in. That's these agents the Navy SEALs and these guys start off by bringing in five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve and we bring that all the way up so that they're not reliant on waiting for the company to just feed them. We don't have right rate here. If everybody starts like this you have a bunch of goldfish. And the goldfish in your world will be replaced by other goldfish as a kid. I had all these fish and they would die like I did. Now you say a prayer and then you go and vice That's right. Nate you're laughing Did you have a goldfish or is that just me fish. Well I guess I wasn't good at taking care of goldfish but up here as you as you as you grow you're getting sharks up here that can feed themselves. Again these are Navy SEALs. These are agents that will crush it on their own and when they leave it really hurts when somebody here leaves you're gonna be fine. You really are. But if somebody up here leaves the only way you can supplement is if you built people right here to start climbing their way up and that's what we've done. I mean I could summarize this whole webinar right here by simply saying bring in other leverage to leverage your best people and having them train on the job and that's it. That's the summation of it. And a bunch of you are saying like I'm really wasting my time right now listening to it. It's really simple. And it is it's really simple. It's not easy because for this person I keep missing my hands up for this person over here to grow from here to here. Robby what does this look like for somebody to go from here to start climbing. What kind of training and systems have to be there so that this person is best leveraged.

Robby Trefethren: [00:32:14] So I'll say this first off in order for a navy to become a Navy SEAL. There needs to be clearly defined standards that say this is when you get to earn your next opportunity and you talked about a few of the steps Erik and maybe we should just send out and post the you know the pathway to an independent agent. Basically long story short is it is dependent on you bringing in your own sort of influence. It's a big check mark for us going from you said eight to graduate from front partner to strong partner plus and then from there the number goes from 13 right from a strong partner plus to eventually become a buyer agent. I think the other piece I want to talk about is in our world we have very high standards for growth. And what I mean by that is my agents Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Friday must spend an hour together what we call a role play time and we have a wonderful team member on our team named Connor Connors our full time trainer and role play expert and what he does is he curated content conversations and he leads that time every Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Friday for an hour essentially and that is where we're practicing. That's where we're failing. You talked about practicing on ourselves and some of our clients and I would say that that is one of the biggest things that has helped our team grow is intentionally buying into that time and then it is the absolute expectation that you are at that. The only exception would be is that you schedule a showing or something during that time. But I would say the attendance that that is traditionally 80 80 plus percent and that is one of the biggest growth pieces.

Robby Trefethren: [00:33:57] And then again very clearly defined standards on a check. Are there any systems in place. I know you've read between lots of layers there. Those are possible because they have to source deals from their sphere of influence.

Nate Joens: [00:34:07] But you had mentioned that you do supply them with team leads when they're when they're not an independent agent. What systems.

Erik Hatch: [00:34:17] No. They get so they'll get appointments in our in our world. Our agents only work with their sphere their mets and their open house people. We have a very divided line right down the middle that says agents you go after people you know I ISAs you go after all the business that the company has paid for or procured through reputation or marketing or whatever it may be. Robby I know this is your hot button issue. Why is that so important.

Robby Trefethren: [00:34:51] I think it really just comes down to this is that who do you expect to catch more fish or father in law who likes a drink a Bud Light and go fishing once in a while. Okay our men all or the full time Master that is full time fishing on the lake and our say is our full time fisherman. That's our full time job. It's our full on focus. It's frankly why we created this podcast was to share that story. And these webinars. But really what it comes down to is when people have their one thing they excel at it and this is the problem with having agents do it. Is agents cant ever going to convert a company leads extremely well not because they're bad people not because they're not trying but it's because they're a part time fisherman and the system's flawed. So we clearly define that break. And again all these go to our ISAs. The other big piece is this is that my ISAs. What the agents accountable the where ISAs pay. They only get paid when something closes for the most part. And they hold my agent accountable to do the things they're supposed to be doing.

Erik Hatch: [00:36:03] Here's here's one of the biggest whores that I just had is when we have our folks up here when we have our Navy SEALs and they leave and they have been nurturing a thousand leads that I've paid for that I purchased through Zillow and maybe they haven't converted yet or they're a paper per click or they're a referral that I handed off to them when this person leaves. If you don't have a constant I actually think Structurely is a nice play in this because Structurely for anyone that's not in appointments traditionally is the constant. And if you were supposed to be talking to Jeff up here and Jeff is gone and all of a sudden Sally reaches out the consumer gets confused on that quite often and you have to make sure that you're protecting your business and if you're handing all your business to your agents and if one of them leaves you've not only lost that person's production but you've lost all the nerve trace don't they make every such an extended time.

Nate Joens: [00:37:02] And we'll see we'll be like inside your business and not a bit longer than you want. You're not seeing me through.

Nate Joens: [00:37:09] Ok. OK.

Nate Joens: [00:37:11] So I appreciate you guys sharing all that systems building up those bench players could we turn the topic a little bit in Erik.

Nate Joens: [00:37:20] I know you've talked about it quite a bit that it hurts the most when you lose those Navy SEALs see you. You. Greg what can you do to keep those Navy SEALs around so that you're not losing them other than leverage other than the leverage we've talked about.

Nate Joens: [00:37:33] What more are they looking for out of you as a team leader.

Erik Hatch: [00:37:38] If your value proposition is first transactions and money they're gonna be gone the minute that the next train comes by and you see that I played with the train those was.

Erik Hatch: [00:37:52] I think your value proposition has to involve their bigger dreams and wants and desires.

Erik Hatch: [00:37:59] We've adopted the language and we're gonna use it till we're blue in the face that talks about our job as leaders and our job as an organization is to build a runway for somebody else Robby doesn't work for me. I worked for Robby and that shows up in me knowing what Robby wants out of his life. And I know that this year Robby wants to buy a rental property or two in his neighborhood and rent out to some college kids. And so it's my goal to figure out how do I help Robby achieve that goal. And what do I need to do. What opportunities do I need to put in front of him that he can all of a sudden create things for his family that he didn't have otherwise.

Erik Hatch: [00:38:42] This is it is again so simple but it's not easy. Your value proposition cannot be around money and it can't be around leverage. It has to be around investing in that person's life. I'll be honest and I don't mean to project on you Robby but if every day I say Robby what can I do for you. Why would he ever want to leave that. If it and if I'm sincere I can't just say it like you're your words and your actions have to match up.

Erik Hatch: [00:39:12] And I don't I don't get it right even half the time. But Robby knows because we have a close intimate relationship that I'm going to show up and work for him with great diligence and the only way that I know that is if I have approximation to him if I'm close to him and the reason why we lost a couple of our people is because they didn't have proximity to keep people.

Erik Hatch: [00:39:34] It's why I'm a Jesus guy and Jesus had 12 disciples. And I'm not Jesus and you're not Jesus and so we shouldn't have even 12 people directly reporting to us. You should have maybe five or six or seven at the very most. And then to go exceedingly deep into those relationships and then allow those relationships to go exceedingly deep into the next level. And so a scaled leadership model where somebody doesn't feel invisible. They have a voice they have community and they have proximity is imperative really important.

Robby Trefethren: [00:40:08] I want to add to that as well. Bernie Brown one of the most recent books daring to lead talk about how one of the biggest fears of human beings is the idea that they are not importance and not relevant. I think it's the word she. All right. Thank you. And I think that that can go hand-in-hand with what we lost that person we talked about the one that hurt irrelevant is the same as invisible.

Robby Trefethren: [00:40:36] It goes hand in hand. And what matters is not always that Erik fulfills getting me everything I want because sometimes it can happen. What matters is he's making sure that I'm seen and that is one of the biggest fears of human beings is that we don't matter that we're irrelevant that we're invisible that someone doesn't care about us. And what's so crazy about it is we invest all this time onboard and people training them. Why the hell are we investing the time to make sure people feel like they matter. And it takes 15 minutes a week or so. Just checking in making sure that person feels heard understood and valued.

Robby Trefethren: [00:41:22] If you do that that is going to undoubtedly help you keep people. When we lost people that we didn't want to lose it was because we lost sight of that. We were that person that wasn't investing that time to keep the people that we cared about. So make sure you're checking in finding out what matters to them and it's going to change. What I want for example has changed drastically. One of the first things that I wanted was this frankly you guys are experienced today was I was one of the major catalysts of Erik let's go coach people. Let's bring this nationwide and it came to fruition and it's going to constantly change. But you got to keep checking in and that's what a piece of leadership is it makes those people feel heard understood and valued. Or another word I like to say is they feel love. All right. Well yeah.

Nate Joens: [00:42:08] Robby once I got that I kind of like get some pretty tired of ones closing thought from you or tweeting on prestige worldwide added to this experience of losing only two thirds of your team what's what's one takeaway you can give to the team members listening into the team leaders listening so you know they're not losing each other.

Robby Trefethren: [00:42:33] Erik you take team leader all the team member.

Erik Hatch: [00:42:36] All right. For the team leader I will tell you that it's your fault. If stuff goes wrong we can cast blame and we can throw it aside and say oh that person was just on their way out.

[00:42:51] But I think that if you're going to learn and grow and do better knowing that everyone's watching and everything's contagious you need to dissect every single person whether they're fired or they leave whether it's expected or not you need to completely dissect and figure out what you could have done different or better in that situation. It's never about them. It's always about you. And I didn't realize because what happened is we had grown as an organization. I hadn't grown enough as a leader to adapt to our ever changing organization. And that's on me.

Robby Trefethren: [00:43:29] To play off of that team members quit expecting your team leaders to be perfect human beings quit expecting them to be perfect to be the ones that are always going to come to you. I think we can all eat healthier worlds when leaders take full ownership and they're proactive. But team members you can do this as well.

Nate Joens: [00:43:49] Awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:43:50] Well I appreciate everyone's time on this very very cold and soon to be snowy miserable Tuesday morning in Iowa in Fargo. Hopefully all of you in warmer weather. Really enjoying your lives.

Nate Joens: [00:44:05] Make sure you subscribe to theisaradio.com. Lots of really exciting content to come out. All right. Well take care guys.

[00:44:14] Thanks Robby. Erik appreciate your time.

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episode6-isa-best-practices.m4a

Nate Joens: [00:00:07] Hello and welcome to the ISA radio. This is Nate Joens your co-host with Structurely we're excited today on our sixth episode to be joined by Robby T and the ISA team at Hatch coaching. Robby, could you give an introduction to these fine gentlemen.

Robby Trefethren: [00:00:42] Absolutely. Hey super excited for today. Unfortunately we don't have Eric our rainmaker the man but we replaced him with three of the real rainmakers in our world. We got Cody Meyer one of our fellow lead geeks.

Robby Trefethren: [00:00:59] Cody is a phenomenal ISA Who who's really excelled in some system pieces and I'm excited to hear his thoughts today. He was also recently named by our team as the sales manager. We got Cody we got Eric Hegg who is the ever talented ISA who seems to speak like three or four different languages. I still don't know why he works with us but he is one of the up and coming and blooming ISA. And I know that we look to him a lot when it comes to texting lead. So I'm excited for him to share his stories his thoughts his ideas today as well. And then I have the man the myth the legend here too we got we got Jimmy Rentfrow and Jim without a doubt the best ISA in the country over the last three years to do days from here to hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of deals. I'm not going to say the exact number because I get it wrong and Jim would correct me instantly. But we got some stellar ISA some of the top producing ISAs in the country and I'm excited for them to share their stories about you know what the world looks like especially in regards to how we use texting it can convert leads.

Nate Joens: [00:02:14] Awesome. We appreciate everyone being on here today a little bit of a change in topic. We're really focusing on how to text your real estate leads today. We've got the best in the business who know the ins and outs of everything you should or shouldn't say and when and when not to text your lead. So with this sixth episode of Real Estate ISA radio we're covering how to text your real estate leads. So with that I really just want to want to jump into the first question how often and for what percent of leads are you guys typically texting in your pipeline regularly.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:54] Jim that's all you brought up. You go ahead.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:02:56] Yes. So I'll start us off as far as the percent of leads that we are texting. It is 100 percent. So we've built out our system to automate text every single day. So what's a lead comes in. We get to it in five minutes. We call and then we'll send a text immediately after if we don't get a hold of them. And then the next day through the first 10 days are getting one text one email and multiple calls per day. And then it's built out basically for the next six months every 15 days afterwards until they respond to us.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:30] I love it. I'll get back to that. So Jim is there any any leads in that we don't text any leads that we don't text period.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:03:40] Yeah. The only leads we don't text are the ones that have unsubscribed in our system will allow that and technically we want to do that anyways because it's a good way to get fined. So I love it.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:52] Good good. Cody Eric what what are your thoughts. Know. You want to add to that

Eric Hegg: [00:03:59] As far as the recurring what's in our pipeline that we're texting. For me I have about 600 in my pipeline at any given time and usually every day I'll start out the day by texting 20 to 30 of them. And that's first thing when I get in in the morning. And then as they start you know some will respond some won't but as they respond I'll take a break at like 10 a.m. noon 2 p.m. and then right before I leave work in the evening just to spend 10 15 minutes replying to those texts and keeping that conversation going. So that's overall about 5 percent of my pipeline every day that I'm texting. Mm hmm.

Nate Joens: [00:04:38] That's interesting. Great. Can I jump in there. One follow up question on there do you. Do you set a recurring. Task every time someone responds to respond back to them. Or how do you stay on top of you know an extended conversation after you get someone on the hook.

Eric Hegg: [00:04:58] Yeah it's a good question. I'll have a task reminder for that first thing in the morning and that's where I'll start the conversation. And then as they reply they come into our CRM. It'll just show up in my communications tab as unread text messages and I never try not to go to bed with any of those left unread. So if I'm even watching TV or reading a book in the evening I'll usually just take 10 minutes set that time aside and just reply to those people at night and a lot of times they will reply and I'll just keep the conversation going when I get back to work. At 8:00 a.m. the next day.

Nate Joens: [00:05:38] Got it. And that makes sense.

Robby Trefethren: [00:05:39] Cool cool. Anything to add on it. I want to ask the following question. And I think Cody that maybe you can answer this one to get you to chime in and add some stuff as well. I'm a lot of people ask me what times a day are you texting leads. And if I were to ask you guys when are you guys texting leads. What would your answer be When are you guys texting these leads.

Cody Meyer: [00:06:06] I think I kind of concur with Eric as far as you know setting some time aside in the morning to be going through a portion of the pipeline. But honestly it's it's all day if I've got the phone on me and you know I get a text I'll text him right back right away. You know it takes all of two seconds and you know for some old leads you can re-engage them if they you know got a drip texts or are finally responding back to one of my texts and we've got him on the hook there. You know I text any as long as I'm awake and I've got the phone in my hand I'll play that game all day.

Robby Trefethren: [00:06:36] Okay. Have you guys ever seen like do most of your attacks happen between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. 10 to noon or is it fair to say that texting is something that has really been in all the time from 8:00 a.m. until 9 p.m. type game.

Eric Hegg: [00:06:53] Yeah it's it's all the time. There's definitely higher response rates I feel like over the lunch break time and then at like 5:00 p.m. as people are getting off work but a lot of people even when I'm making calls and I'll be like I can't chat right now I mean I'm at it they'll just I'll just ask them like hey would it work better if I texted you and nine times out of ten. Yeah absolutely. And then you could just continue that that phone conversation the attacks.

Nate Joens: [00:07:25] I'll say one thing from Structurely it's perspective being that we get Thousands of messages a day. We definitely see. The highest engagement rate during during the daytime hours. But I think the numbers between what we consider after hours which I think is just what we considered 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. we see about 30 percent of all of our messages come in during that time. And then the remaining and then I think it's another 30 percent off to double check those numbers. But I think it is another 30 percent that come in overnight. So 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.. So there's there's definitely a large opportunity for our our responsive leads that come in quote after hours if you don't have the right things set up if you don't have the right systems in place to follow up with them at least in the next business day at the soonest. This can often slip through the crack.

Robby Trefethren: [00:08:26] Yeah well I want to add to that real quick because I think one of the things that you hit on Eric and I just want to emphasize it and I think Jim and Cody are doing something comparable and a lot of my clients are is is the fact that sometimes we will text a lead and we'll send that text. And the problem is is that if they don't text us that will accidentally forget about that lead and making sure you set some type of reminder to remind yourself to text that person again. I think the simplest way to really discuss texting in this day and age is texting is a wonderful medium but the reality is is that so many times people will open up your texts start sending you a text back and forget or sometimes they'll even start typing that response and forget or frankly open it up just be looking at it and then they get another Facebook notification and now it's slipped through the cracks and a lot of times we've got to send some type of nudge to get people to re-engage.

Robby Trefethren: [00:09:31] And you know something like Well won't that annoy them. And the reality is this and I want to pick on you for a second Nate. Nate you've ever been texting you know maybe a business partner or your mom or dad and you completely forgot to respond when they had texts that you absolutely all the time all the whole time. Right. And here's the thing is do you love those people. Do you care about those people. I do. You do.

Robby Trefethren: [00:09:59] And you you blank you ghosts your friends and family just because that's the world we live in right. Our phones is full of noise. We only respond to texts when it's convenient. The problem is we're human beings and we forget to respond. So make sure you're setting some type of trigger because if here's the thing if they forget to text you back that client's not really missing anything if you forget to re-engage in that conversation on the other hand you're probably missing out on some really great opportunity. So make sure to follow their and schedule something to remind yourself.

Nate Joens: [00:10:40] Yeah I would say that's so important just to stay on top. It's to stay on top of all your leads to continuously nurture them. One of the most common phrases we use is you know I just want to make sure I'm not dropping the ball so you know shooting them a re-engagement. Another nudge. But you know actually calling out that you are being a little bit annoying usually goes a long way because they say we see so many responses that are like oh you're not dropping the ball I just forgot to hit send.

Nate Joens: [00:11:09] It happens so often that people just completely forget to respond to you even though they are still interested.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:11:17] Yeah that brings that brings up a good point made because I think one of our most heavily responded to texts is the alien text we sent where literally it's we built it into our system I think it goes on out on day eight or nine and we get tons of replies for and it's basically the same thing. It's like hey we haven't heard from you. So either you're not interested you're still looking but haven't had time to reply or you got abducted by aliens. And it's it's actually funny to see how many people reply to that text. And so what we've done in the past is we've had systems go out every 30 days with our automatic system once we talk to someone in the discussion. I think we're having now as far as these we need to move that up maybe do every seven days every five days just to make sure we're constantly on touch in front of them still.

Robby Trefethren: [00:12:06] Mm hmm mm hmm. Very good point.

Nate Joens: [00:12:09] Yeah I think that I mean just going you know using content diversifying your messages so that you cut through the noise is so important in today's today's age not only you know staying on top of people but also getting them to to look at your message and you know be interested in it so much so that they actually open their phone and try and reply to you. So what are some of the best lines some of the best scripts that you guys are using today other than your alien or I've heard eaten by alligators. Other than that line what are you guys using to spark engagement for some of those hard to reach or unresponsive leads. Well.

Eric Hegg: [00:12:48] We implemented the what we call the six minute text which we got that idea from you guys. And I think when the tracking was working we had about 26 percent of new leads were responding to that text so we'd send out the first text message as soon as we got to it. You know just say you're looking at homes online are you just curious or are you thinking about maybe making a move. And then six minutes after that it's just a quick text that says let me know if you have any questions and we get just an incredible amount of response to that second text.

Nate Joens: [00:13:25] Yeah it's been huge I think. I don't know exactly the psychology behind that but the the reason I think that six minute or I've heard a 12 minute nudge message is so powerful is because in today's in today's age and 20 19 people have sniffed out auto responders and they think that first message is usually an auto responder. But as soon as you hit him with the second one they're like well wait a second this is this is maybe actually a human I should respond. That's what I think is actually going on behind the scenes.

Eric Hegg: [00:13:59] Yeah exactly yeah.

Robby Trefethren: [00:14:02] To add to it as well as other pieces it's another notification on their phone that reminds them of the first message and I can't understate the importance of that is half the reason people don't respond is they just forget or they forgot they got distracted and just a little bit of a ping somewhat later. You're right nate that first off it seems human. But secondly it's another ping the top of their to do list. It's something that's like Oh I gotta get this done again.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:14:34] Yeah. Another one that I'll do with people I've had conversations with is basically I'll just start droping properties to them via text self. It kind of goes to me. I'll look at what their history is and see which ones they've favorite it or see which ones they've looked at the most and just start sending those over like Hey I know I've just wanted to see if you'll be interested in a house like this. Well quite frankly I know they're interested in a house like this because they've looked at it 14 times online but at least starts that conversation and I come from value as well. Cody what are some of your yours that you have been using.

Cody Meyer: [00:15:09] So one of my favorite things to do honestly is if we had a conversation in the past and you've kind of fell in of follow it fell off the radar. Scuse me is the double back on the conversation we already had. So for example if you know I'm texting Nate and we've been talking about kitchens before I might text Nate you know a couple days later if I if he's fallen off the radar and say like hey Nate you know we're talking about big kitchens before meant to ask you know what kind of finishes are you looking for. And it's not even really about the details so much as it is all a sudden you have something to work with and you automatically come back with you know we really like the newer stuff we've been seeing and you know ex house or you know and these builders. And then I guess I've got a brand new springboard to start a conversation. I know you're there. And then I just make sure that I'm continuing to. And each text with a question I never want to send a text that doesn't have a question in it.

Robby Trefethren: [00:15:59] Sure.

Nate Joens: [00:16:00] Yeah I think that's that that question piece is so important. And I mean you know this is this is not unlike typical sales. If you're selling software if you're selling insurance I think we're hitting on some of the basic fundamentals of sales which is like Jim said always provide value said a listing like Cody said always it's always end in a question. If you're if you're just simply texting to text you know trying to promote yourself. I mean people are going to ignore that. It's it's no different than you know deleting that that spammy email from their inbox. They're just going to they're just going to swipe left and delete your spamming text if there's no value or no question added. I had one really off topic question that I wanted to ask you guys. I've heard it from some people. Do you guys ever use video texting or. I. I call them GIFs. They could be called GIFs.

Nate Joens: [00:16:55] I don't really know how you guys how you guys say that.

Nate Joens: [00:16:58] But I've heard people just like dropping a funny gif or video into a into a message to spark some to spark some engagement with those super hard to reach leads you guys ever do anything kind of funny like that.

Eric Hegg: [00:17:11] No our CRM right now doesn't support GIFs sending that out but you know if we were to if we were engaging someone not through the CRM we could do that. And I've had clients that have used that back as well but it's not like a regular practice that we employ here.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:17:33] Yeah I would say the Sam it's not something we employ. Plus I have pretty dark humor. I try not to use it with clients.

Nate Joens: [00:17:42] Got it. So I know I know one thing that you guys preach in you're the best that in the country is mirroring and matching. You guys have done so many videos in leads geeks on mirroring and matching over the phone. Is there anything that you guys use to mirror and match the text is that even possible.

Eric Hegg: [00:18:03] Yes absolutely. If they are you still want to mirror and match their energy level so if it's somebody that is selling their home because they just had a death in the family you want a mirror and match that and be empathetic to their situation but if it's a first time homebuyer they just got pre-approved they're really excited they're using lots lots of exclamation points emoticons that I'm going to mirror and match that right back if they're sending me a quick short

Eric Hegg: [00:18:33] Text that are very to the point I'm going to mirror and match that back in if they're sending me a paragraph and they're just telling me their whole life dream I'm no mere match that back as well.

Robby Trefethren: [00:18:44] I like that I think the best way I've learned is to describe this Nate is that these principles of mirroring and matching still hold true.

Robby Trefethren: [00:18:54] All that's changing is the medium in which you're having the conversation and I think you hit it on the head Eric that you can kind of tell and I know we use disk as just a very shorthand way to know the way someone acts and communicates traditionally but you can usually tell the way someone communicates if they're a high D because you're gonna get like four four words at most or they're gonna be very short direct short answers whereas somebody that's very social and gregarious and outgoing it's going to be a longer more energetic optimistic type text and the reality then is if anything it's actually probably easier to mirror match via a text message because it's literally right there in front of you. Going to look at what they're saying in their written word and write in a very similar fashion. And sometimes people change throughout a conversation but it's probably easier to mirror via text on you know via voice.

Cody Meyer: [00:19:50] Yeah I would agree with Robby 100 percent. I think people tend to make it a little bit harder than it needs to be when it comes to a mirror matching via text you know like you said it's right in front of you you know it just be natural and have a conversation with them don't put so much thought into it.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:20:05] I think mirroring and matching it is really easy with text like everybody has said the hard part with text that I think we've run into is context and context as well as how do you create urgency as well has it is really really easy to block a text. So what we found is I mean unless you get up right away it gets harder and harder and harder to engage them via texts unless you know you're doing a really good job doing a lot of dials which we are. But text is very easy to blow off sometimes too. Mm hmm

Nate Joens: [00:20:38] Mm hmm.

Nate Joens: [00:20:40] Yeah I think that's interesting mirroring and matching is something that you guys do so well and I know we try to do it through our product a lot harder with with something like AI but I mean we definitely see it in our responses. Some people are just one word answers the whole the whole script the whole conversation some people tell us their entire life stories. Which is crazy to think about. First of all it's crazy to think about their texting a quote computer their life story. Second of all it's crazy to think that they're just texting some. More or less stranger their life story. So is that something that you guys typically see through your conversations do is are people willing to actually you know hold pretty lengthy conversations giving you giving you those tidbits that you can you know build rapport up around.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:21:32] Yeah I'd say yes.

Eric Hegg: [00:21:34] Yeah go ahead. People just they. It is weird. And that was something that when I started this rule I didn't understand how people open up that much but there's something easy about opening up to a complete stranger about everything that's factoring into your move whether it's a job promotion relocation something like that or if it's something devastating like a divorce or family death or job loss or something like that. But definitely people seem to have no problem opening up via text and it allows them to have these personal conversations in a public place because they're texting. Whereas if we're on the phone and somebody goes into personal details about their situation a lot of times it's well you know I'm at work I need to call you back because I can't talk about it here or I'm out in public I'm at a restaurant. But if they're texting they can text you back whatever they want and it's just that confidential conversation between the two people.

Nate Joens: [00:22:41] That's a really interesting point.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:22:43] Yeah. Peggy brings up a good point and I think another big point is as ISA is as agents that are doing late conversion how many times do we get hung up on. So I think the other texts that we utilize a ton is the hang up text which people that used to hang up on me I thought you know they just basically told me to f off. So they don't want talk to me like trash delete.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:23:04] Now we said that and what it is is half the time people that work they're out to supper like Eric said. And it's just really easy way to re-engage someone that you thought you know basically didn't want deal with you. They're busy.

Robby Trefethren: [00:23:15] So I want to I want to add something to this as well to to your question about people opening up about I like to call them the D death debt divorce or their dreams

Robby Trefethren: [00:23:31] And the I think one of the funny things about culture is simply this is that if you think about communication and what we're taught in schools is it is hammered over our head and we're taught to communicate. But that's realistically only one side of communication because they're traditionally teaching you how to speak. The reality is is that this world lacks listeners. And if I've learned anything from this role is that a part of the human being experience the one thing that we crave is we want it to feel heard. We want to feel valued and we don't care who it is or who's asking the questions. What we care is is somebody is listening to those answers. And Jim you know I know one of the stories you've always shared and I've shared it in my story as well as you had somebody open up who had said that they came home and their spouse was sleeping with another person. Right. Think that most people would never talk about help. I guarantee you to this day that person probably hasn't told some of their friends or family not because they're friends or family aren't worthy of hearing that story but because they weren't taught to ask questions and listen the reason that person opened up the Jim in that moment is because Jim was sitting there and and guys if I were to ask you this What percentage of time are you talking compared to listening if we were to run down the breakdown of one year on a call what percentage the words are being spoken by you and what percentage of the words are being spoken by somebody else and if I had to guess it's probably easy.

Robby Trefethren: [00:25:17] 80 20. The fact is if that 9 out of 10. Right. And in Texas it's probably pretty comparable work. Yes. It's you asking a question but it's them answering and answering. So I think I think the big point I'm trying to make here is we crave this feeling of being visible. It's a part of our are our genetics. We want to feel like we matter.

Robby Trefethren: [00:25:42] And you just asking questions and listening is you signaling to somebody hey you win your story matter. And that is that is so needed in this society. Obviously we don't teach it well. And these guys are masters of that both in text and in voice of voice conversations.

Nate Joens: [00:26:04] Yeah. Did you guys have anything else you wanted to add to that. I think that's so important. Being able to ask the right questions and consistently listen

Nate Joens: [00:26:13] I know you guys are live in that day to day. Anything to add to Rob's points.

Eric Hegg: [00:26:18] Not to Robbie's point but Jim talked about the hang up text but then didn't even share what we actually send in the text which I'm sure is probably going to bother some people and all that text is is just Hey Jim, I think we got disconnected I was just calling because ISA you're looking at homes on our Web site are you thinking about making a move. And that's it. So there it is. And you know a lot of times it'll be like Yeah I just can't talk right then we are thinking about it but we're still six months out or something. But that's yeah that's how we respond to when someone hangs up the phone on us immediately send the hang up text.

Nate Joens: [00:26:58] Yeah that's awesome. I think you guys have definitely mastered that. I kind of want to shift gears a little bit. Along the same along the same vein you guys you guys have mentioned you know some of asking the right questions periodically throughout the conversation. Kind of a two pronged question what qualifying questions if any do you guys ask throughout the conversation you know time frame. Is there any is there any information that you're really specifically trying to gather or are you just simply there to listen throughout the conversation. And second what is your guys intended outcome of a text conversation is it to set in an office consultation. Is it to set a phone call or is it to set a showing or listening appointment. Where do you guys try and you know convert or take that conversation after you've got you know some initial responses.

Eric Hegg: [00:27:55] Yeah. Good questions. First thing that I always ask within the first couple of texts as soon as possible. Are they working with an agent or do they have someone in mind. I don't want to spend weeks or months texting someone that already is working with another agent. That's just a waste of my time. Always to their time. So I always ask that and we go through the normal qualifying questions what's their agent and what's their ability you know are they pre-approved if they're not then I'll ask them questions about their credit history are they working full time. Do they know what their credit score is. Those basic things to see if they're even in that preapproval range. And my goal is always to get an office appointment but I have set those up the text and it's very tedious trying to determine like a time and a date. It's so much easier just to say hey that's great. And then just give them a call. They already recognize your number. You've been texting you already have that rapport built and then you go into the close. But it's always better to close that over the phone.

Cody Meyer: [00:29:02] So I think Eric really hit the larger portion of it one thing I might add is honestly I think the outcome is that help initially when you're having those text conversations you know that they're coming at you with a lot of questions they're starting to spill you know their intentions and their needs. One of the questions that I love to ask and honestly is it's really just stupid simple is how can I help.

Cody Meyer: [00:29:25] And generally they'll lay out exactly what they need. And I'll say OK that's great. I've got some answers for you. You know can I give you call and generally just say yeah you know I'm available or no but give me call at 3:00 and you know we can talk about it then and I've already got you know I've got to value add because I have the information or I have answers to their problems. You know I know they're going to pick up the phone if they say you know call me at 3 o'clock or you know or if I miss or if they miss a call for me they're going to call me right back. I've had a lot of success with that.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:29:54] Yeah. As far as from my perspective I always try to get the timeline first. If they're two years out I'll find out why they're two years out and then if they're truly two years out you know I don't need to have too much of a conversation right now because things could change drastically in three months compared to two years. However if there are a closer timeframe and that timeframe is validated then I'm going to take more time into that conversation. I always lead with time timeline and that lets me know OK how much effort should I put into this conversation.

Nate Joens: [00:30:27] Got it. Yeah I think I think those make sense.

Nate Joens: [00:30:32] I think you guys you guys kind of are masters at driving the conversation like again mirroring and matching. I know there was there was a there's a conversation you guys were having in the leads geeks groups about kind of some of the go to scripts that you guys use. I think those are typically used or leveraged. Kind of made conversation or maybe if they fell off the face of the Earth Earth after a couple of responses and I know you kind of mentioned it to Jim you you always ask why that's kind of one of you guys is most important questions. What are some of those kind of next level questions that you that you that you use to dive a layer deeper when they try and hit you with an objection like I'm I don't know my time frame I'm three years out I might be working with an agent my friends an agent how do you kind of get over those objections or leverage the scripts that you were mentioning to dig a layer deeper.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:31:31] Yeah. This is I think the hardest thing with text conversations is getting that context and getting those two or three levels deeper at least from my perspective. But I think the big thing like you said is give them to the why. So. Oh I have a friend that does real estate. Oh well Why are you looking on our Web site then. You know just trying to find out where their pain point is because the other friends in real estate. Why are you why are you talking. Why are we talking you know so trying to really dig down into the whys I think is the big one and then that conversation that next responses. That's what I'm going to use for my next question. Right. And just go and try to go three or four levels deep with it that can that can lead to some conversations that go you know why why why I like Eric has had in the past with objections. But I think that's kind of my point is just really trying to go two or three levels deep with the why.

Eric Hegg: [00:32:25] Yeah. And every once in awhile someone will push back on that like I've had the one where I love to ask what are you looking for in a realtor because that gives me what their expectations are. And I had on very few occasions people say I want someone that's not going to ask me a bunch of questions. Maybe there's some expletives in there but you know those are far and few between most people usually really appreciate the depth. If you even if it's something as simple as well I'm looking for a four bedroom home OK. You know why do you need four bedrooms. Well we're outgrowing our current home. Oh yeah. Tell me more about that. How are you outgrowing it. And well we we've got two kids one on the way and a great dane. So it just opens up more and more doorways by just asking why at least one or two times on each question and I want to add some pieces to this.

Robby Trefethren: [00:33:23] Some people will ask well why do we need to do that. What's the point of all of that why are you finding out all this information you could just do that in person. And the quote that's always stood out to me is one that Tony Robbins says where he says if you want to influence someone you need to find out what is already influencing them and really what happens is as whether it's via text or if you're talking on the phone when you use the tell me more mentality like you kind of just brought up Eric I'm digging deeper into somebodies answer. What happens is you're usually well human beings like an onion. And yes you deal or peel back the layers you eventually get to this oh that's why you're looking to buy.

Robby Trefethren: [00:34:08] And it's that information then can be used to leverage you know to a line how do we help you. It's so much easier to help them when you know what's the pain point or what's the pleasure that they're seeking. And more importantly why are they seeking it.

Nate Joens: [00:34:25] While you guys were sharing that really insightful stuff about the conversations I I search lead geeks and found that that post by by you Robby. Oh sure. Just so I can share it with some of the listeners. You say the best scripts in the book are tell me more say more. What else. I'd love to hear more. What do you mean etc. So rather than just saying why over and over. You can ask why in five different ways.

Nate Joens: [00:34:58] And I think that that's really what you guys are are so good at and understand so well about this lead conversion game Mm hmm.

Robby Trefethren: [00:35:08] That that threat is one of my favorites. Yeah. The best scripts in the book. Two more words that I'll add to it that I really love. What else. And then keep going. It is crazy how sometimes you can just tell there's more to somebodies answer. And it was like OK go on tell me more about that. Or you you just you know out there High D. Keep going. They're not going to open up if you don't ask.

Nate Joens: [00:35:32] Yeah. I love those. That's that's honestly one of my favorite threads to keep keep watching too because I mean it. It puts people it's not just checking. You know checking and ticking boxes through the qualification scripts which are important which we've talked about. But it's just go in that level extra level which is super important in these conversations. I think we've talked about what to cover and how to cover your conversations via text. What if anything should not be discussed over text Whew.

Robby Trefethren: [00:36:14] It's a good question.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:36:17] I think people naturally bring up those boundaries. Mm hmm. If we cross over. That's that's what I've noticed in the past is oh I don't really want to get into that or you know they'll just change the subject. But for the most part I mean you know like Robby said I mean I've talked to people about you know their husbands their wife having affairs I've talked about death via text. It's what other whatever that person is comfortable with.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:36:42] And I think sometimes with text you can actually be more comfortable because you could kind of emotionally detach from it in a way because that person is not in front of you and you don't hear that voice don't hear that voice quavering and and wavering. So I mean for the most part. You could ask anything. It's just how you ask it to like you know if I'm talking to a D on the phone I could speak you know what's your credit score via text it might be like something like Hey do you know what your credit score is or you know you said you're going to need financing you need help with that. You know it's it's it's just that context peace again.

Nate Joens: [00:37:18] I think one of the one of the most valuable things that I've learned from listening to your guys videos before that you preach over you know your phone conversations is don't assume anything.

Nate Joens: [00:37:30] I would imagine that is especially true in text or at least equally as true. Do you guys just kind of want to cover covered what you mean by that and how it might apply to texts too.

Robby Trefethren: [00:37:43] Yeah yeah I'll start and then Jim I'll let you take the reins. I've always jokingly said it's the best ISAs in the world would be like a a knowing three year old who just ask questions all the time. And that's because they act like they don't know anything. The problem with assumptions is you'll think that somebody is motivated by one thing and then as you dig in deeper you'll realize that that's not at all their motivation. I think with most people I've spoken to there's always two different motivations there's a surface level let them surface level motivation which would be something like I want a bigger home. And then there's always a deeper motivation like I want a bigger home because my mother in law's moving in because my father and lodges stop and bills are two drastically different conversations. And if you just make an assumption you only find out the surface level answer you get stuck. And then we're sitting around playing whack a mole all the time because we're like What the heck. I didn't think that was a big deal but I think that's the big piece with this is digging in deeper gets you pass at surface level motivation. Jim go ahead sorry.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:38:55] Go on. No worries. Basically. Basically almost the same answer Robby gave. You know if someone says oh I need a bigger house why do you need a bigger house. Someone says I'm not ready till spring. Why not spring. I mean it's almost the same type of conversation you have to be on the phone. You just do it in a text medium.

Eric Hegg: [00:39:12] Well it just reminds me of a conversation that I had last weekend where it was the same thing. Why are you looking at homes while I'm looking for a bigger home. It's okay. You own already. Why are you looking for a bigger home. And you know they had kids they're sharing one bathroom and then I got a little bit deeper too and I said so when you're daydreaming about your next home you know what's something that you always think about. She goes a really big bathtub. And that was a really important thing for her then. She wanted you know her own bathroom a big bathtub like a nice place where she could go because she was stressed out with kids and just that was like her one place of sanctuary. But because they only had one bathroom that was in that was really like the pain point was this one bathroom and then she went off telling me about how when they're potty training one of their kids one of them was in the bathroom the other one ended up wetting his pants outside like yeah that's stressful that's that. That pain point that emotion where you can really build off of that. So it it we don't want to assume you know anything and really get to that personalized. Issue that is driving their motivation.

Cody Meyer: [00:40:31] Yeah. So the assumption thing is a really good point. I'm going to kind of build on what Eric said with a failure story because this was one one time that building on assumptions don't talk about things or make assumptions about stuff that they haven't directly told you. I'll give you example of that. There was a person I was talking to a couple of months ago and I had initially reached out when they entered our system gave them a call didn't get contact you know sent you know that initial text and then they got the six minute text will a couple of minutes after that they sent me a text back and said Hey I'm really sorry I didn't get your column out of dinner with friends. I was like oh not a problem. Just wanted to check in and you know see what was going on. So you're on our Web site thinking about making a move. Yeah absolutely we're really really excited. We're currently living in Fargo and renting but you know my boyfriend got a job here at Grand Forks and we were kind of looking to settle down here in Grand Forks. I was like Oh that's great. We're talking for a little while having a great conversation and then she's like hey I'm going to have to leave you hanging here.

Cody Meyer: [00:41:33] I'm heading to the Ralph which is a big arena in Grand Forks tonight. Now I knew that there was a big Cirque de Soleil show there. I knew that because Eric had tickets he was going himself and I was like Oh that's great. Not a problem. I'll she the text tomorrow. Enjoy Cirque de Soleil. And she had never mentioned it but I knew it was going on. That was the only show going on there. But we hadn't directly talked about it. And a couple days went by I was shooting texts trying to get back in touch with them. And probably like a week later she had finally given me a text back and said hey Cody's sorry we're going with somebody else. And I was like Oh OK. You know can I ask you know what happened. I feel like we kind of kind of got off on the wrong foot there. She's like Yeah. You just kind of creep me out. Like Oh that's. OK. So. So unless they directly talk about things you know building on assumptions don't don't assume that you know things even if they're self-evident.

Robby Trefethren: [00:42:36] Oh man that's a good story. And the funny thing is Cody if you were to do it differently if you probably would have just sent a text like Oh great what's going on there tonight. And then she brings up she's going and then you say that no big deal. Exactly. That that changes everything. But dang that's that's a very valid point. I I called that left-fielding where you bring up something that they didn't bring up directly. It was very indirect. Right. But yeah that's that's that's a heck of a story.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:43:10] I'm just so I'm just a creep. You bring up a good point though Cody because I've I've actually made that same mistake before where you know you'll you'll be talking to someone look up on social media. See they work somewhere or that and then you know basically ask Hey do you work here. I think it could creep people out real quick. So even I make the assumptions now where even if I know that and I'm handing that off to. An agent a lot of times I won't put that in the notes because they have to self discover they're going to be pretty creeped out. So yeah it's a very very good point and I think I think that one of the points in this is even if you know something because I almost guarantee you she went to that night. Ask the question to get them to say it

Robby Trefethren: [00:43:59] Just because there is this small likelihood that they're wrong that something else is going on or there's something else as well get done to say it then it's good to go. You can mention all day long. Mm hmm

Nate Joens: [00:44:12] Mm hmm. Yeah. Never assume anything that's that's why I posed the question. I learned a lot from from you guys in your your past videos on this and in sometimes in the conversation. Less is more especially from from your side as the ISAs less is less is often more from from this side of the table. Yeah I think I think I want to wrap up with kind of one question that one final question for each of you that kind of builds off one of our past webinars which is are dials dead. So we've talked almost exclusively about texting today and how to take those text conversations further. We've we've mentioned you know when you should close in. Oftentimes that closed turns into a call or an office consultation but kind of generally do you guys think that phone calls are dead or dying.

Nate Joens: [00:45:12] How do you intertwine texting with calling. What does the what does the today of ISA qualification in Lead Nurturing look like versus five years ago versus what it's going to look like in the next five years.

Robby Trefethren: [00:45:32] Yeah. Oh I'll go ahead and does it.

Eric Hegg: [00:45:34] I just read a really interesting study that was done by I don't know one of the cell phone networks they were hired to do a study in in 2017. Three point seven percent of total cell phone calls were some sort of spam or robo call in 2018.

Eric Hegg: [00:45:55] It jumped to twenty nine point two percent and a lot of that you know were all the calls that were going out with election season and everything there. But it's projected in 2019 to be at 45 percent of all cell phone cellular calls that you receive are gonna be some sort of a robo or spam call. So The cell phone companies have recognized this and and who's going to use the cellular network if all you do is get spam calls on it like no one is.

Eric Hegg: [00:46:28] So they're making it easier to block calls and probably seen it Android all of the major ones they have the ability to screen calls forwarded to voice mail. So I think that's why it's so crucial to do that initial phone call and then immediately follow it up with a text message. And but we also need to be mindful of how easy it is to block text messages so you don't want to send them useless text messages that they're immediately going to block.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:46:56] Yeah. One thing I would add is I think the old model of things was where the ISA or the agent would control that sales cycle. And I think what is given naturally happened is the client is going to start directly impacting and directly controlling a lot of that sales cycle now. So I think we're going to be there as the relationship piece and answer questions and automating as much as we can. But I feel like the client is going to start controlling a lot more of that which can be scary to agents and to the ISAs because if we don't have control we can't control our pipeline we can't control ad revenue things like that but people are going to sniff through things much more they're going to start blocking things much more and you have to have a much more customer and client centric system or people are just going to leave and go somewhere else.

Cody Meyer: [00:47:47] Kelly I'm sorry about that. It took me and I think by my view button. So I think kind of building billing on both Eric and Jim's points. You know if I had to give you a direct answer you know our dial set. No but I think they're dying and it's just like any other form of communication. I mean you could ask the same question of you know is letter writing dead is doorknocking dead. You don't know. I think it's still has a place and it's still an important thing in our repertoire it's still an important practice that we have to you know do day in day out as as inside sales agents. But you know you have to meet people where they want to be met. And for some people that may be a phone call and for a lot of people that's becoming texts you know next year to three years down the road we might have another medium. I mean we have so many different mediums to communicate. You know we're we're on a Skype call right now we can Facebook message there's tweets you know there's DMD there's I mean there's everything.

Cody Meyer: [00:48:40] So yeah I think dials are dying but I don't think they're irrelevant and I'm going to add this and I know I've shared my thoughts on this.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:49] I absolutely believe the UN arranged answering of a phone call is going to be a thing of the past that is with the with the metrics and I saw that same study that Eric had mentioned if 50 percent of the calls I receive are unsolicited and robo calls aka junk. This will a phone call in most people's mind is going to be no different than a junk email therefore they're going to treat a phone call unless they know it's from a phone number that they recognize they're going to filter it out. It's going to go in their spam folder. I think what is shifting is texting gives the consumer the power to not commit to a conversation they can not text back if they want. And I think what's going to happen is I think conversations will still happen. I just think that instead of it happening because on my terms as a salesperson as an ISA of calling you out of the blue I think it's there's going to basically be some pre check marks that are being checked some pre work being done and a lot of those calls are probably going to be more arranged or at least you know pretty filtered but dials are dying and it's crazy because I grew up in the world. When I came into this game five years ago that's what I was taught and I did it and I dialed like crazy but it slowly slowly slowly eroding so to add add to this Nate we we are all big believers in data.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:50:27] You're right. We all love data. So Robby you got out around June 2016 right. Yeah. That's when I was full on out. Yeah exactly. So if I look at your data so from January let's say 2014 I think that's roughly when he came on to June 2016. You had sent roughly 31000 texts and emails when I'm looking at it right now. Yes. Oh life. Yeah. So when I'm looking at my data and I started around July 2014 and I'm still in the game I'm right at eighty two thousand roughly so four and a half years so I don't have the calculator in front of me if I look at Hegg's you know he's at about 13000 and that's just over a little over a year. If I look at Cody he does a lot of automation outside the system. So if I look at here he's at about 8000 texts and emails. So it's definitely I feel like it's definitely speeding up and it's definitely becoming much more text and email and not even email email I would say is is people that are over 30 years old. I mean it's very very sporadic. It's it's mostly text now.

Robby Trefethren: [00:51:44] Yeah absolutely.

Nate Joens: [00:51:48] Yeah that's that's awesome. That's awesome insights.

Nate Joens: [00:51:51] Obviously that's all we focus on it at Structurely so I don't have a comparison of of calls vs. phone phone numbers but I can I can echo almost everything that you guys have said today. People are willing to tell you their life story over text. They're willing to take an entire conversation to a close whether that be another phone call in office or showing appointment or listening appointment. Texting is so important too to add to your repertoire today if you're not doing it as I think your numbers allude to Jim you're missing out on a lot of opportunities.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:52:33] Yeah I mean I just look at my ratio I'm sending it about 18000 texts and emails a year over the course of this while Robby was sending about 12000. So I mean it's just it's definitely speeding up but it's becoming much more useful and much more prevalent in the game.

Robby Trefethren: [00:52:52] And please know that when we say those numbers that is basically us doing an outbound attempt to somebody that doesn't include if I text somebody back a hundred times back and forth. That's not a one hundred text. It would be one text message outbound to them that's all that's kind of just so because there's a lot more text being sent than that. I just want to make sure that's very clear.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:53:12] Yeah yeah exactly yeah.

Nate Joens: [00:53:15] That's awesome data.

Nate Joens: [00:53:18] I think I think we can go into an entire discussion on on data on tracking on metrics on analytics that you guys live and breathe by in your ISA role.

Nate Joens: [00:53:29] I would love to turn that into another episode on real estate ISA radio we'd be. We'd be honored to have you guys shed some some of those specific numbers on it. On a follow up here. But for now I think that we've covered most of most of the questions that I had listed here for our listeners. I know you guys are definitely going to want to listen to these actual rainmakers a lot more than what we covered here today. So if you I'm gonna let you guys kind of plug where they can go to get more information on some of those videos leads geeks just where can it where can our listeners find a little bit more about Hatch coaching leads geeks and learn from you guys.

Robby Trefethren: [00:54:18] So let's talk about the hatch coaching piece if you definitely just go to the hatch coaching dot.com and we've got a lot of videos up on there you can reach out to us via that platform. And then I think the most prominent place to learn about what the these three real rainmakers. I love calling them that well that were they're what they've been generous enough to do is in Facebook. We have a group called Lead geeks L E A D A L E D s space G E E K.S. leads geeks. Some people think it's real geeks it leads geeks. And if you just search that on Facebook we have a group you get apply to be in it. And these guys have posted how many guys how many videos so far guys.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:55:10] Cody how many is there. Oh ISA just over 40. Hold on I'm pulling up the actual page right now.

Robby Trefethren: [00:55:20] And then where else can they find some some information guys. What are the all the resources they can follow and start seeing the good stuff that you guys are saying.

Jim Rentfrow: [00:55:29] Yeah we have a board on Pinterest so you can actually several boards over there. Cody can talk about that. We have our blog as well so yeah. Yes.

[00:55:40] So you can definitely check us out on most social media platforms under leads geeks like we said mentioned the Facebook group. We're on YouTube that's where we post a lot of our live role players if you guys want to connect with those just look up leads geeks on YouTube. And then again on Pinterest too we print a lot of our content and content that we find relevant engaging on there so you can connect with us a lot of different ways whatever whatever your medium of choices.

Nate Joens: [00:56:05] That's great. Well I appreciate everyone taking the time today. I know I learned a lot as as usual. But I believe that's all we have today for how to text your real estate leads you can find more free insights like this by searching real estate ISA radio on iTunes Google podcasts or on the ISA radio dot com. Again this is our sixth episode you're definitely going to want to check out the other five but we also again be sure to check out the best in ISA coaching at Hatch coaching dot.com and the most insightful artificial intelligence inside sales agent at Structurely dot.com.

Nate Joens: [00:56:45] Until next time guys I appreciate it. And as we like to say here it's actually happy closings.

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Nate Joens: [00:00:01] All right. What is up everybody. This is Nate with you actually. We got the whole crowd here. We're gonna get this thing started again. I'm Nate Jones on the CEO Structurely. We've got a great crew here from from Hatch coaching and Jeff Chubb with Chubb Realty. Guys I'm gonna let you guys introduce yourself tell us a little bit about your businesses and let's get this thing started off right.

Jeff Chubb: [00:00:40] Mr Chubb hit us with it. Hey guys. I'm Jeff Chubb. I have a team I run a team out of Boston Massachusetts. We serve the whole Boston metro market right now for two thousand nineteen. Our plan is to actually have our goal at least right on the board is to have 60 agents by the end of 2019 and our two other expansion markets. So in order to do that 2018 has been a lot of focus on kind of the technology in the systems. In order for us to be able to scale right now we have including onboarding agents 15 agents work for you. You just made the switch from RE/MAX to eXp Realty and that's kind of me. That's me in a nutshell.

Erik Hatch: [00:01:26] All right I'll jump in. Erik catch on Fargo North Dakota. I have a couple of businesses that keep me up at night. My main one is Hatch Realty. We are a team of 34 people. We run a different model or really high service high specialization model and so our average agents on the buy side sells about 60 homes and our average agent on the list side sells about 100 homes. And so as a team we'll do we'll finish this year at the end of 2018 we'll do about 680 transactions hopefully correct the 800 number next year and have done that with massive service a massive system of massive technology to grow that I've been not a production myself now for just over four years and have filled that time after building up leaders in our team. We fill that time with Hatch coaching. I get the privilege of coaching some of the top three teams in the country. We started at the top and found some of the people that we were in the same groups with and started coaching them and I've just got some really positive energy from that. And so we built out some really important key I think missing elements and a lot of real estate coaching and that is leadership and ISAs and so I handle the leadership side and Robby handles the ISA side.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:45] Yeah and just to add to that Robby T. here in Moorhead Minnesota which is a sister city with Fargo North Dakota basically the same place. The reality is this. I served as an ISA with Erik coming up five years ago. Holy crap that seems a lot longer and yet isn't that long ago served as an ISA was in production for about two and a half ish years and got out of production and now get to coach people full time. My whole goal is this and our coaching company we talked about how we want to redefine the way people treat people. And Erik said his job is to focus on redefining the way we treat our team members. And my focus is how do we treat our clients. So that's what I bring to the table. I get to coach a lot of really great people throughout the country as well. Usually ISA as agents rainmakers and help them traditionally convert more leads and treat their clients better. So that's what I got to do every day.

Nate Joens: [00:03:59] Awesome. Well I appreciate all you guys taking the time to join us today. What we're going to be covering is mostly in terms of how to scale your real estate business with technology and I think this is a really good spot to talk about this. You guys are at different points in in scale and in growth. Obviously everyone listening is at different points in their growth in their real estate as well. That kind of I wanted to start by asking but I want to I want to preface this by saying I have a really strong pet peeve. I don't like it when people talk about growth and scale in the same vein. I think they're two completely different things. I'd love to get your guys to take. Do you guys see a difference between growth and scale. And if so what what do you guys feel that difference is

Jeff Chubb: [00:04:49] I mean the. So I you know one of the things that I kind of realized is is I've been so focused on I kind of considered one of the two. I mean it's real hard to grow unless if you are you know unless you put the systems whether that be technology or systems in regards to how file is just work right or if people place you know it's real hard to grow unless you you've got to build out those big businesses that can scale you know if you will go from five agents to 15 agents you're one of my really big key realisations for me. I'm reading the book Extreme ownership right now and this is just something that was truly a key realization for me that I'd probably like two days ago was you know we talk about scale and we talk about growing. And one thing that I didn't realize was you know as you grow your business you also have to grow your leadership skills ability if you will. And. I'm looking at myself and being judgmental myself because you know we're our biggest critics if you will. But what I'm realizing is that I don't wanna say I was a bad leader but I also wasn't the best leader. What's called a subpar leader and I wasn't building my leadership skills as I if you will scale my company. And so you know it's almost like you're each person that you had on you have to will grow your leadership skills incrementally I almost feel like you know. But I think growth and scaleability are kind of one and the same personally.

Erik Hatch: [00:06:28] Yeah I would I would see it from a different lens I'm not disagreeing but just seeing and seeing it from a different perspective. By the way I hate when I put my head down I see just how receding hairline is. There is no growth up here so I'm scaling my forehead realistically. Thank you. Here's here's how I understand it is I can add 10 more agents and I can add a million dollars GCI to my bottom line. But if I also add a million dollars of expenses I've scaled nothing. Scalability for me is understanding that if my expenses go up this goes up but not as high. I know a lot of people where their expenses go up excuse me their team goes up and their expenses go up even higher than that.

Erik Hatch: [00:07:16] There's there's this massive difference between adding more and gaining more and for me scalability. And Jeff was alluding to it. It talks about leadership and it talks about the resources that you have. I think scalability is a reflection of time. It's a reflection of the resources that you have and as you're looking at the hours that you're putting in and the dollars that you're putting it the only way that you're scaling is when there's a separation between the dollars and the time put in and the difference between the money that you have to spend and the time you have to put it. So the further this this differentiates itself is the bigger we scale. But most of us just grow. And then this goes right along with it. So we create more money more problems.

Jeff Chubb: [00:08:00] And I I just to that point one of the things that drive me insane about this industry are the agents that are only talking about this and I don't get it I don't give a crap about the higher number I really care about this number. You know it's amazing is that you know people talk about. I grossed you know two million dollars GCI. Yes you did that and then you find out that they paid their agents you know they were in the 80 20 split. So it's like All right. So to your company was only four hundred thousand dollars in commissions that you could then divvy up and with all your expenses. I think that's a huge part as does as you grow. I just I get so sick and tired of this. No I don't care about that number what's this number. Your true profitability is the only number that really matters to me should only matter to everybody right.

Robby Trefethren: [00:08:50] So I'd like to I'd like to summarize things with a very very simple thoughts and for me to really rapid look what both of you have said and Nate tell me if you agree with this growth is doing more with more because you're spending more scaling is doing more with less that's what scaling to mean is is doing more with less of something so growth is more with more scaling is more with less. And I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Nate Joens: [00:09:21] Yeah exactly. Yeah. No I think that's spot on Robby I love how you can so easily summarize things in such a short sentences it helps me it helps me understand them because I'm not as smart as you guys as I supposedly try to. Yeah. Kind of my thoughts on scale versus growth and keep in mind this is this is kind of from a software company perspective not necessarily real estate. But I think they're one and the same but a business is a business and this is a this is a thought that I I stole or I'm borrowing from our chairman who's taken to two companies two software companies public. So that's the definition an epitome of scale.

Nate Joens: [00:10:02] He describes scale or the ability to scale as thinking like you're thinking of your company as a spring and when you're hiring when you're hiring you're applying force on that spring.

Nate Joens: [00:10:17] And if you if you hire too quickly you stretch you stretch the spring out way too far and it will never it will never be the same again. It can't retract to be what it once was. But if you if you created the right systems if you put the right leadership in place it will don't bounce back almost better than before and you can continue to use it and continue to grow. So I thought then that analogy was wasn't perfect. Sure. And I'm curious to know what your guys his thoughts are and maybe taking it a step back

Nate Joens: [00:10:50] Kind of towards towards that force of applying you know when did you guys decide to actually start making your first hires for your team and how do you know who to hire second first third. That wasn't an order. First second third. How do you know how to continue to hire after that.

Erik Hatch: [00:11:12] We first yeah. This this. This is one of my favorite topics I. I was so gun shy when I hired my first assistant I got into real estate full time in 2011 and halfway through I was drowning in business and I realized there was the sign of when I didn't have enough hours in the day to do the things that really mattered to me because I was chasing business and I realized that I wasn't deliver a delivery of the type of service that I wanted to to my clients. I went and hired an assistant. The mistake I made is I hired a college aged person who is part time and so I had limited capabilities their limited skill set also or real world experience. And then I gave her projects that I had wanted to work on but I didn't have her leverage things that were on my plate and that's realistically I think the first hire is an admin that takes things off your plate. If I could go back and do it all over again here's my five hires in this order number one admin to leverage all the stuff off my plate and it's got to be full time not part time. If you hire somebody that's part time your business grows and you need them full time they can't do it or they don't either.

Erik Hatch: [00:12:25] They can't grow into it or they don't have the time and like you're just all of a sudden stop. So first first hire full time admin. Second hire full time admin. And the reason why we go full time admin for the second hire is this is not the growth piece. This is marketing this is helping you to get a little more momentum understanding that my dollars per hour are the highest dollar per hour in our business. So the third hire the millionaire real estate agent would tell you that it's a buyer agents and I disagree. I actually think it's a showing partner you should have built enough money into your system right now where you can predictably pay three salaries. Again keeping your dollar per hour as the highest are why then fourth hire is an ISA. You're now going and chasing after business that you've either started to purchase or you're going after expired and FSBOs and that sort of thing. And then the fifth hire is another showing partner because that third hire that buyer agent that you'll excuse me that's showing partner that you had hired should be graduating up to be a buyer's agent.

Erik Hatch: [00:13:26] But why would you give somebody who had never sold real estate before as brand new why would you give them the keys to the kingdom and half of all those commissions that they're going to convert at a piss poor rate anyways. Why wouldn't you rather hire somebody that is your sidekick and you trained them and you develop them. So they earned the right to be a buyer agents and we use that partner model to grow. I think the capacity for somebody in that kind of model depending on your market can do a hundred to one hundred and twenty transactions with you as the only agents and then as the only agent who is negotiating and navigating and then as you grow you've developed really great talented people who are invested in your system. So what is scaling now and now we have we have more admin per agent than probably any other company in the country because we believe in the specialization model and it's proven to be profitable to allow us to scale. And it's also allowed me to have a life. I've been on of production for over four years continuing to make more money every year.

Jeff Chubb: [00:14:26] I took a bunch of notes here because I just learned a bunch too. I guess to say I've done it wrong and I don't wanna say I've done it wrong. I mean I think most people I think that there's you know maybe that's your Bible I think that most people who go out and hire fires it was their first time. I would just I would disagree with that. I agree with the aspect of admin and I agree with it being full time. One other thing that I found out I would throw in there is a salary to me at least in my market. The difference of quality of work between a salary versus a an hourly worker was just night and day. My first one was a know just an hourly you know 30 dollars an hour or whatever it was. And then when I heard I was scared. I was home from a place of scarcity and I was scared in order to hire somebody salary. And I finally did it and the work product the increase in productivity the quality of worker just increased dramatically. Yes that's definitely one area where I would have I've never hired a showing partner. I did move over to a buyer's agent pretty much right away. You know I. You guys are the ISA pros at it right. One thing that I've noticed that I've hired two ISA is and I've failed miserably to have that is number four.

Jeff Chubb: [00:15:48] I think that's awesome. But I think everybody needs to know that that is literally probably the hardest hire for your entire team and if you're going to do it and you know I haven't even you got used you guys yet number one Hatch coaching is probably the best. Not not probably it is the best ISA coaching company out there. That was probably definitely one of my shortcomings when I made that hires is I didn't invest in the person like I should have. With that being the most difficult hire I mean for you to say that you're going to train them as well as being production as well as going on and listing appointments virus appointments is just completely ludicrous. So with each hire I guess what I'm trying to say is is there is a right way and a wrong way. And if you do it the wrong way you're not going to eke out maximum productivity out of that person and you're just gonna waste your time and your money is going to end up being you know I think the the the schedule if you will the map of it I mean I think that will vary a little bit by market to market but that's just kind of my personal opinion on that.

Robby Trefethren: [00:16:53] Yeah. I want to add one more piece to really emphasize a point that we're getting at here is I think the way that we brought agents to this industry is completely broken in the sense that we basically say hey quit your day job or whatever you're doing don't make any money for six months and really don't expect to make real money for at least 12 18 months. And that's a flaw. It really was a big barrier from US attracting top tier talent what the salary did was it allowed us to get really top tier talent to come in and at least have a safety net to begin with. And then with the vision of the long term potential making agent money. So I think the whole model has been broken and that's why the strong partners worked so well for us is to transition yes.

Erik Hatch: [00:17:49] Direct salary right now Jeff where that salary is paid for by the agent that they're partnered with. So it's a zero cost to the company. Yes.

Robby Trefethren: [00:17:58] And then they can make some more money on commissions to absorb our sodium and they can if they bring in their own sphere deals and make some additional dollars on those through commission as well so they can make some extra dollars as well.

Jeff Chubb: [00:18:11] So I know you're at a different market than I mean I'm in one of the most expensive metro areas in the country. So just out of curiosity in your market with somebody like that. Sorry.

Erik Hatch: [00:18:23] It's our our average price points here is two hundred and thirty thousand bucks. The average wage of somebody coming out of college is about thirty thousand bucks. We're right in that range.

Jeff Chubb: [00:18:35] And so as it's doing partner. Are they prospecting at all or are they on the phone prospect or are they just literally showing us.

Erik Hatch: [00:18:41] They have they have three priorities in this order. Number one is they're there to leverage their agents. So that means inspection showings that sort of thing. The second is they're there to train because we know they are our bench players and there are a next phase of talent. And the third is they're there to prospectively generate and the only way they can graduate's up is either we have somebody who has left the company we have enough growth or they force us by by bringing in at least X number of deals from their sphere. Coming up so I'll give you a very brief synopsis. We lost five of our eight buyer agents this year and we will sell more houses this year than we did last year.

Erik Hatch: [00:19:21] And the reason why is because of the bench and because of the showing partner model. So we're getting off track here. Let's just maybe rub it back in because we have a lot dive had and people are wanting Jeff. We can talk about this but I just want to I want to let our high D simmer just a little bit.

Jeff Chubb: [00:19:36] Let me Nate come back to what I was looking I was trying to learn I forgot. I thought I was just like you

Nate Joens: [00:19:47] Know that's awesome. I was along for the ride too. I thought this kind of fits perfectly in line with with our our discussion on how to scale. I don't know. I know there's some new questions that have come in. Do we want to kind of transit. I think one question that I did want to ask you guys it made it. We've covered it. Or maybe we haven't. But what is what are some kind of some other signs to look for when you're when you're just starting to hire those first five hires Erik how do you know when you can make that first hire and then after you make those first five hires you know you're six plus hire. How do you know when that time is right.

Erik Hatch: [00:20:29] The second you're starting to wonder if you need to hire you're already too late. Jeff are you going to attest right you've been doing this a long time is the minute you think why do I need another hire. You've already lost tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of business and you've worked too much and and it's really having a strategic plan and knowing when to play red light and green light with it. And so the idea of leading with revenue on everything that you do is going to be important for me I think when you hire your first admin that's an expense of anywhere from probably two to four thousand dollars a month depending on your market. And that's a really scary thing. I was I was 30 years old and was unsure of my success in real estate and the idea of bringing somebody on like ten dollars an hour scared the bejesus out of me. And I'm at such a point now where I'm understanding that I value my time so much more than I ever did and so I want to have scalability and everything that I do. I don't I don't get me wrong I'm a delicate flower so things like mechanically light for me anyways.

Erik Hatch: [00:21:33] But like I don't blow my own snow and I don't mow my own yard because it's going to cost me 50 bucks to hire that out and my time is worth more than 50 dollars now. And so that kind of scalability piece has to exist especially in your business. You talk about that 80 20 rule and most of us in our business in our business day are probably spending far too much time in our 80 percent of the stuff we're not great at versus the 20 percent which is our really high income producing times. And so when I talked about the scalability of those first five hires those are still keeping me or you. The Rainmaker as the person at the highest dollar per hour. And you're not giving that opportunity somebody else until they earn that from you. And so it protects your dollars. I coach a lot of people and some of them have teams of 20 and 30 people and if you take their production out of it they're losing money as teams and it's happening all over the industry right now that people are growing but they're not scaling appropriately and something has to happen. And and the thing that we have to do is we have to look to say where is my highest dollar per our value and how do I start hiring around that.

Erik Hatch: [00:22:40] Making sure that you're using your income and then there's there's a point when you have to start paying yourself a salary and then you pay yourself in a different bucket because there's there's three buckets when you want a real estate team. There's I'm a producer bucket and that should be a separate LLC that should be a separate paycheck with the same split as what everybody else on your team is making and that's where almost everybody screws this up Nate is that they take that money and they just put it in the company bucket and it's wrong because they have no idea if their company actually is profitable or not. The second bucket was their CEO salary and they should be paying themselves a you know seventy five to two hundred thousand dollars salary depending on where you're at. What you would pay any other CEO to do the job and then there's your owner profit. And when people boast and they staff 30 or 40 percent profit really they're taking that bucket of them in production and they're putting that in the company bucket and that's not a real number because they have to pay themselves separately.

Erik Hatch: [00:23:36] Now I'm on a tangent. I want to settle down.

Jeff Chubb: [00:23:38] Yeah. But I I'm going to add on because I actually respectfully disagree. But we all actually agree. So first off the first verse say somebody needs to do is they need to read the book Profit First. If you're looking at our personnel you read the book Profit First and it's gonna give you the steps in regards to how to not only build a profitable company but give or manage a scary aspect of your first hire. And actually every one of the things private first will tell you it's not three buckets that you have Profit First will tell you it's actually six buckets. So you have an incoming bucket of all commissions you have your employees salary. So you know for us when ten thousand dollars comes in two grand goes or you know fifteen hundred goes our employees salary. Two thousand goes into my salary. Forty six percent. So forty six hundred goes into an operating account 20 percent goes into a tax account. So you know if you read Profit First I think that that will really put anyone who's in the beginning stages of their business in a really good position in order to scale which which was the original question came from. But also this is something that I implemented last year and quite frankly I had to implement it because I was like I was actually screwing up and everything was going in one bucket and all of a sudden was a holy crap where did all my money go and why am I broke right now. Right. And and you're using these processes and these type of systems which again goes to your original question system scaling all that. I mean it's going to it's going to make you feel a lot more healthier when you are hiring additional people when you do go out and spend that additional fifteen dollars for a platform cost or you know you add aren't Structurely in order to help complement leads that you're already purchasing like by following those type of systems. That's that's ultimately you know where you will feel that comfort. Yes you will.

Jeff Chubb: [00:25:32] Read the book Profit First like that when I coached. That was the first thing I told all my coaching clients. OK. I really look forward to it. Now I have to go out and buy this book Profit First. Let's discuss next call.

Nate Joens: [00:25:45] Awesome. Yeah I think that covers kind of quite a bit about the scaling process there. I think I think this might be a good transition into the tech aspect of the webinar. I know some people started to ask some questions at least in terms of metrics and technology. Can we just get a start for your guys is tech stack. What's what tool that you're using today in each of your respective businesses.

Jeff Chubb: [00:26:18] Of course I'm all right. I was either going to Erik or me. But are our tech Sierra's our engine. Sierra Interactive. That is our CRM that basically runs everything we do. Google Pay-Per-Click that goes to Sierra. And then we have the beginning of November we had it on my Ylopo. It is something that I thought I thought I thought that I did not want to add art. And finally I was like I have to do it because it's that incredible product. So Ylopo feeds to Sierra Interactive Sierra's still our CRM that has our dialer our automated follow ups. I mean you name it. And then our insurance. I have an added on the ISA piece because quite frankly like I said I already failed twice and I use Structurely I think I was probably one of your first clients you know. And if somebody was holding a gun to my head right now and said You have to scale down the only two systems left I will tell you that Sierra because you need a CRM like you don't have a CRM you will not be successful in real estate and then Structurely it would be the second thing that would be like that that I would not eliminate because it's it has become that integral of a piece of our of our company. So but really I work really hard in order to scale down to three or four systems because I got sick and tired of going to Agent legend Sierra has agent legend piece I had another system that had a call routing I mean it was just it was 50 systems and I couldn't handle it anymore. So I've been a law to scale the business. Those are that that's where I figured out being the best engine in order to to allow us to grow in scale.

Robby Trefethren: [00:28:01] So awesome. So I'll talk to Erik from the lead conversion side if you want to add at the end on other pieces that we're using. Feel free to go ahead I'll go. Yes you're going to go less. You just got out did four for once by me. So leave early conversion. We are using commissions inc commissions incs great features are allows us to organize our leads pretty well. I will be frank we are exploring switching to a different CRM for a multitude of reasons that I will talk to you at a different time about. But the great thing about it is it does allow for us to create auto drip text messages and mass messaging therefore for events we can send out and about a reminder for people to come to get a pie on Friday. We can do things like that. Also all of our leads we can set a set a plan and set it and forget it. I'm all about setting it and forgetting it because our brains suck and if you try to remember everything it's definitely not going to happen. So we use that. We do a lot of auto text and drip text. I think we've sent over half a million texts and emails out in the last five years give or take. So that's been killer. We also use mojo to make our dials to use as they dialer networks pretty darn well it's pretty reliable. Great quality commission inc stuff wasn't up to par for us so we use mojo. So those are our main tools. We also use RingCentral to route all of our incoming calls because we want to change to the calls go through it's super cheap cost almost nothing.

Robby Trefethren: [00:29:44] And in a switch of a button I can change my call from going to Jeff to going to Nate to Erik. That way I don't have to go and take a lead phone and literally drive around town and give a lead phone to somebody. It's super cheap and you can just transform the phone. That's pretty darn well. So RingCentral mojo we also use land voice we're using land voice to get expired data. Basically that's just a lead source for us. So those are the main pieces of tech and the big thing I'll say is this and we've talked about it on the ISA radio is you've got to have something that allows you to send drip a mass text if you don't have that in the lead conversion game you're going to be irrelevant it's in the next year. And then the final piece the one that's that that we started using just a few months ago is of course Structurely with Nate and honestly we started sending the first lead we put in there were absolute junk. So in my world we have three full time ISAs and they crush it. So what we wanted to do is we took those old leads we put them in there and it's found it found three closings within I believe it's the first 45 to 60 days that without a doubt would have slipped through the cracks and it re-engaged it for the ISA and again this is the junk of the junk. My ISAs has scrubbed the heck out of it and it was even. Yeah. The compost pile it was actually worse than that Jeff like these people we had called easily hundreds of times with nothing no texts nothing back. And Structurely was able to reengage a few of those for us so Structurely is a big piece that we're we're integrating as we speak.

Erik Hatch: [00:31:28] The reason why it's important that Robby and Jeff answer that is because I don't pay much attention to the tech I pay attention to the people that no one understand the tech and we talk about scalability. We're at a point in my business that I couldn't have answered but Robby just answered and think about that. I'm the CEO I'm the rainmaker I'm the owner of the namesake of our business and yet I don't know all the tools that we're using and what what has to happen and I think that Jeff maybe alluded to one of the issues that you maybe had with your ISAs is that our ISAs for us. Are our managers are our systemizers. Are our high level executives within our business. And in addition to that they're also the grinders and so we've been able to build opportunities for leadership and for influence because they're the most front facing folks. And what happens. I don't know your story. I'm just projecting here. But what happens with most people is they'll be quick to hire an ISA and treat them as the bottom of the totem pole as the ones to go on to to do the grinding and we believe that our ISAs in our world are leveraging things on a really high level. I do want to add on as we talk about the right talent as you can have all the technology in the world but if you have an idiot team member it doesn't matter and you can spend all the money you want on the best possible CRM on the right kinds of things. But if the human that and is is mediocre like it's this whole huge issue I'm going to go off on a tangent here. Everybody buckle up. Those of you those of you that are with Zillow and we're with Zillow I'm a believer in the Zillow platform because that's what the consumer wants. So we've got to learn what they're doing. Zillow premiere agent 4 has changed a whole lot of things and they've changes. So now Zillow is basically protecting that before they hand it off to make sure that somebody actually responds. And the problem that's happening is that they're protecting it and that's the right thing to do because the consumer needs to have somebody that they talk to otherwise it looks bad on Zillow but when they hand off their hand it off to some times people that are mediocre converters and then people blame Zillow and they blame the lead and everything else when realistically they're poor and don't get me wrong. There are issues with that platform. I'm not endorsing nor negating that platform. But the problem is that we have not done a diligent enough job of teaching the people who are receiving these leads on how to be wonderful nurturers and caretakers of it. I'm talking. ISA as I'm talking Zillow people I'm talking every one of you on this webinar this podcast we have done a mediocre to piss poor job the second time I said piss poor now. At handing this off to the right qualified people.

Robby Trefethren: [00:34:18] So I do want to add to that as well just as very quickly as you said we are using Zillow and we have found success with it. I am a huge fan of something that did roll out. I just rolled out something called the first contact report. And basically what it does is it gives you metrics when a Zillow transfers you believe they're now asking the clients in very short questions to rate the experience. And I study this I honestly look at it two to three times per day because it gives you first off it tells you where you're at what your score is. And it tells you what percentage are you in the top five percent top 10 percent whatever the story may be and what's been really cool to see is it's it's given us a benchmark to know that we're providing good service but we can get better. So I love it. I love that piece of Zillow ruled out. I think it's a good tool to help hold us accountable to become better.

Nate Joens: [00:35:17] So I'm a fan. Jeff do you have anything to add there.

Jeff Chubb: [00:35:24] I hate Zillow so. The reason why I went from Zillow I was happy with it. And then I mean look I was buying Zillow leads when they sold you know quarter of market shares and they had two hundred percent. Those were the days and then they went depressions and I was I I guess I'll play. I just I got sick and tired of them moving the goalposts on me so I said Zillow in two thousand set. Where were 2008. Yeah 2017 was like twenty five percent of my business. I said screw you when they tried to move it once more and they went to the I forget what they did and I said I'm done. I'm tired of you guys. I want a partner in my business. I don't want somebody who just looks at me as how much water can they get from a from a rock type thing. And that be money from my bank account. So I want to build it back up. I was really accurate realtor dot com last year. I think there were like 30 28 percent of my business. Obviously those numbers will continue to increase because you know we now have all those leads and we're working on but then renewal came up and my pricing went up three fold.

Jeff Chubb: [00:36:38] And it's like I learned the same thing and that's why at the beginning of November I decided I'm sick and tired of portals. I'm going to go out and get my own leads. That's why I want to Ylopo. And you know I mean you talked about the systems. My my dream and what I'm looking at is Ylopo ,Structurely and Sierra and everybody getting along and talking really well to the point where I don't I'm allowed to say this or not but you know where I was talking to G and G is going to use Structurely technology in order to set up text messages artificial intelligence style to these leads because they looked at one two to three main street. I mean like three times you know and it just carefully nudge. I mean it's a dream and it's all gonna come together in 2019. And I am amped up and pumped and to go back to scalability that I have a system right now with those three systems that I have four systems that I have. That is true the scaleable which I'm excited about but I'm not a Zillow fan.

Nate Joens: [00:37:36] I can say we are working on a Sierra integration so I'm know you've been asking for it but I know it's not big I ask you.

Jeff Chubb: [00:37:45] I think at this point it's done monthly but I think I'm going to start like bothering you weekly and then when I start sending you an email daily that's when you know that you know.

Nate Joens: [00:37:58] It's important it's important getting your systems to talk to each other is extremely important. I know I know there have been some questions in here too about that.

Jeff Chubb: [00:38:07] Look I mean I if they don't right now. Right. And in that I'm looking at it as an increased productivity which awesome. Like I'm so pumped forward to increase our productivity even more. But we are instead of Structurely would be one of the last things that I never cut because it is now an integral part of that business and and you know I mean I originally thought of Structurely as a way to bridge the gap before I got an ISA right. And what I've kind of realized is as I am going to get an ISA and I'm going to do it right Robby is going to train my ISA and when I do get on he is going to hire that ISA as well. But even then you know these systems offer insurance and that's kind of like IBM was saying where he set out a half million text messages in the last five years. Right. The way I look at it is these automated campaigns. Structurely for example you guys just moved out to a year of contacts like this is all insurance I'm spending all this money on this lead you know for me to spend two dollars additional per lead in order to quote unquote ensure that the. It's kind of mindless right. I mean I get in my car. You know I just buy a brand new car. Let's just say I bought a brand new one hundred thousand our range rover right. I mean what's the first thing I do before I drive it off the lot I'm sure. Right. Tell me that it's just brands. So you know so and and that I don't like right now we're just providing these leads and then we're just hoping and praying most models I understand that yours is a little bit different for most business models are just hoping and praying that your buyer agents are going to continue to follow these guys and that's not the case unfortunately anyone right now that makes a lot of sense.

Nate Joens: [00:39:51] It's honestly the reason why Structurely as in business I will say it's been it's been really interesting for us as a company to see how different teams have been using our product. You know we kind of started out saying this will you know for those of you that don't have an say and I know Erik will say well everyone has an ISA if you don't have one you are the ISA. But that said we kind of set out and said this this can replace your ISA Structurely can replace your ISA. But we've been learning more and more is well it actually helps augment the role of the ISA. Many teams that are using us have their ISAs is logging in. It's really just cutting through the crap cutting through the filters or filtering through the crap and really just surfacing the leads that are most worth their time and really now it's kind of about fitting fitting you know fitting into the systems the other systems they're using like Sierra like commissions inc like their CRMs and lead gen. so that they can build their own systems on top of on top of those tech tools.

Jeff Chubb: [00:40:58] So that leads me to one piece there for people that are using Structurely you know first off I was fun my team naming her we didn't use Aisa we just name Valerie. Valerie Miller is her name and you know one of the biggest tips you know we're talking about these systems all playing together but the the person that they're the your lead pool that you have where you know we have 4000 leads in this lead pool you know originally was called Chubb Realty Group I was like one of the dumbest things at some point I had an aha moment where I said OK I have this quote unquote person Valerie sending out these text messages why not just name my pool. Valerie Miller as well. And it was really dumb it was. But you know you talk about minor tweaks to your business which can have a profound effect and it increased conversion where people will email and say Hey Valerie Can I please take a look at one to three main street because now they're getting emails and Valerie's text messaging. I mean it's just all these systems put together you need to work at intertwine it. One of the things that I'm going to do for 2019 is my automated voice mails I'm going to have a woman record these voicemails and say that she's she's Valerie with Chubb related group so that I have automated voice mails the text messages as well sending out emails. All this is in our buyer lead pool and all it's doing is nurturing these leads. You just you know just I wanted to throw that in there.

Robby Trefethren: [00:42:28] So I want to add to that as well real quick because I agree I love the insurance idea. I think it's really the way to view it in stage 1 if you don't have an eye ISA is it's it's qualifying insurance because that's really what it's doing for you Jeff is it's taking at qualifying it for you cutting out the crap ad and you're handing it over to your agent for it.

Jeff Chubb: [00:42:51] Because it's giving out the ability of an agent as some agents are better. Yes it's taking up a fair variable that is just a killer for us business owners. I mean that. Yeah exactly.

Robby Trefethren: [00:43:02] So it's helping qualify more opportunities in our world we're using it now as you would kind of describe it. It's leveraging the ISA it's augmenting the role of the ISA say that way we can focus on better dollar productive activities. AKA The ISAs is having that voice to voice conversation with leads and that's really where ISA is coming in terms of it's funny you call it insurance. We've always referred to our ISAs is the best insurance policy in the world because they also then hold the agent accountable to make sure they do the things they're supposed to be doing. Once the lead has been handed off to an agent because we all know agents as much as I love you guys Erik says that the difference between a hug and a chokehold is just arm placement and with my agents sometimes that's the way I feel is they do a lot of little things wrong. They let things go through the cracks. And that's what our ISA say is do full time is they don't just qualify leads have great conversations with them hand them over to the agent they're paid in a manner that they don't make money unless things close so they're going to make sure to keep an eye. And I jokingly say ISAs or big brother over the opportunities that they've created to keep eyes on the opportunities that they've created to make sure an agent isn't allowing one of their a contracted clients to not hear anything from anybody for thirty to forty five days. So they're not directly in involved in the relationship anymore with that lead or opportunity or contract to clients because it's been handed off to an agent but they sure as hell are the one that's checking in and holding the agent accountable to make sure they don't slip through the cracks.

Jeff Chubb: [00:44:45] And is that because they get a percentage of that agent's commission.

Robby Trefethren: [00:44:49] Yeah exactly. They're paid they're paid in a way that the majority of their money comes from the agent's commission. Yeah.

Jeff Chubb: [00:44:59] Yeah. They are making sure that is.

Robby Trefethren: [00:45:02] Because if they don't they don't make as much money. It's it was the simplest thing that we stumbled into. And then you have of course in really in terms of scale. That's. This is how we did scale. Our company is. It was myself and Jim holding our agents accountable now to be better versions of themself which doesn't cost any extra dollars but it's doing more with less. So that was when we really started to scale was living by principles. One of the things we live by is task squared. If you complete a task you've got to create a new task. So little things like that it's awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:45:42] Robby I know this probably is a discussion that would be an entire episode or webinar but how much can you touch on. You know your your lead flow system within your CRM basically how at a very high level how how should your teammates be using these tools so.

Robby Trefethren: [00:46:05] Great question. Basically we have a lead flow system that we coach on and I can show you a picture of it but you wouldn't understand it unless we coach for three to four hours on it.

Robby Trefethren: [00:46:15] What it explains how we treat every single lead. Most CRMs most companies have what I call leads lost in purgatory and we have none. They don't exist in our world because we created a lead flow system. And I think there's a couple principles that I'd love to mention that kind of answer that for you Nate I could talk on it again for four hours and it's really this that you need to prioritize the way you follow up with different leads. AKA You should call your higher quality opportunities before you call your lower quality opportunities both in terms of contacted leads being separated from uncontacted leads.

Robby Trefethren: [00:46:54] So basically in my world my ISA say is walk into the office and they have a literally eight point process of working down pools of leads.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:04] I call this I call this I call this and I call this and I call this guy five or eight.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:11] Say that again.

Erik Hatch: [00:47:12] That's all priority based right.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:14] Priority makes all promotions.

Erik Hatch: [00:47:17] Exactly.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:18] And it's never I'm going to call this from 1 to 130. No it's you're coming in the office from 830 to five and you're working your way down the priority list. So in other words we're just prioritizing leads. That that is the biggest thing because if I said Jeff if you have an ISA do you want them to make outbound calls to uncontacted property inquiry leads or on contacted pay per click leads. You're gonna say call the property inquiry leads first. All day long because they convert at a higher rate. Now I'm not saying ignore the pay-per-click forced registration leaves but sure as heck don't call them before you call the higher quality opportunities.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:56] So it's all about having so much to offer.

Jeff Chubb: [00:47:59] You you've entered the company overnight or during the last like 24 hours or.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:03] Yes that is that is that is always new leads are always number one actually always number one priority is new leads. And then after that it goes into all the different rules.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:15] Exactly. Exactly.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:17] So I just let you know my wife just text messaged me and said He's good about you.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:25] So you know where to get him. I am kind of a nerd.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:29] I am wearing Star Wars. I know you all can see this but it's like Star Wars techie stuff so leave it up to the hype. Erik is embarrassed as hell right now and I'm so proud of it saying that now.

Nate Joens: [00:48:44] That's awesome. I definitely think that if you guys are willing we can make that an entire episode. It's a huge huge aspect of this. That's that's so important. Putting putting these tools and systems together. That's kind of at the core for business. I kind of want to transition into one of our last questions here trying to wrap everything up. So I think we've basically discussed that. You know we've discussed different options on how to scale different tools different processes the way or you know one one piece of advice that I've always been advised is in thinking about scale. It's always important to find ways to automate processes that require human interaction. I think a lot of what we've been talking about has been just that. So what are some places in your businesses that you guys have learned that you can recommend to others. What are some places it places that are prime opportunities for scaling?

Robby Trefethren: [00:49:44] I generally say this I'll talk about the lead conversion side. Basically if if someone is in a high quality opportunity and it doesn't need to be personalized that's where it's super easy to use most of our serums automated messages that are sending out a generic message. So we do that with a lot of our old leads. We send them those automated messages every 45 days. For example we basically and Jeff and I were talking about this earlier in the week. We have we have a pool of leads. We're probably 80 percent of all of our leads end up and it's called maybe even more the compost pool.

Robby Trefethren: [00:50:24] And truly if you think about what a compost pile is you'll understand why they go there. Basically it's everyone that is not a good opportunity to follow up with and it just goes into there and it's a compost pile. And then what happens is it slowly turns itself around and opportunities come out of that because we use automated messages that go out starting six months later that say hey Nate we have spoke a little while back and I know you weren't that interested in potentially making a move. I just wanted to see if your plans have changed at all. And that's a text message and somebody will respond. No I'm never buying a house. Some people say yeah I need to buy a house today I'm going through a divorce and it stimulates those conversations so automating a lot of that is a key piece of course we're now using some Structurely stuff to help chase those leads as well.

Erik Hatch: [00:51:16] I feel like I should buy robot insurance because I have a little fear of things that are automated at too high of a level. I understand that I was able to build our business. We got up to about two hundred and fifty transactions a year simply based on sphere. And then from there now with the 680 we'll close this year half our sphere and half our purchase business pieces and using automation and using technology as a replacement for a relationship is really dangerous using automation and technology as an enhancement for our relationship is really great. And my biggest underlying fear and it's it's shared with our real estate team members is the transactionalize a great relationship and for somebody to feel like we're trying to use them for the business gain or business growth that we have and if we put them on a thirty three touch campaign or if we drip on them consistently and it's lacking that connection piece and we're not enhancing our already relationship we're trying to replace it. It's really dangerous. People are parched right now for personal connection. Do you want to connect with somebody visit with them face to face have a phone call send them a handwritten notes connect with them via text or connect with them be a Facebook Messenger. Emails and automated voicemails and those sorts of things for people that are in your inner circle or past clients can be almost detrimental if done incorrectly correct.

Jeff Chubb: [00:52:59] On that. So the one thing that I always tell my buyers agents is I'll ask them especially new buyers agents great unless you guys what is the number one thing. You're talking to somebody for the first time what's the number one thing you need to do on that phone call.

Robby Trefethren: [00:53:13] If its a new lead?

Jeff Chubb: [00:53:16] Yeah.

Robby Trefethren: [00:53:17] My number one thing I always try to find out is if there is a way if there's a motivation that would allow us to help serve them get what they need want or desire is probably the.

Jeff Chubb: [00:53:28] Perfect. I mean I mean in a way I say build rapport which is just that right. Yeah. Yeah. It's always ready jumping to the point of screw the appointed build rapport. Yeah right. And you know what their dog's name is and my wife got a call the other day it was 22 minutes. This woman was maybe on the you know line of crazy. But I'll tell you what in that call she figured out she'd six cocker spaniels. Like I mean every single thing about this person. And I played for my agent and like you see what she did here. All she did was report like she she placed it back to our Saint Bernard that we have. We lived in the town next over like build rapport. Don't worry about. She didn't even go for the appointment because she wasn't 100 percent ready. You know maybe it's to Erik's point like you have all this technology and everything but technology can't build the rapport right at the end of the day it's still human being interaction interaction that builds that rapport which ultimately ends up being you know going back to the paycheck and I could I have a machine OK ten thousand dollar machine that literally writes handwritten notes.

Jeff Chubb: [00:54:33] And right now I'm working on a campaign of one hundred and then that will go out in the next in the next day because I mean just do the things that every single other agent out there is doing. But you know you guys are talking about the leads aspect something that I realized for myself because I'm not on Eric's level yet yet. And I got so focused in the business that I stopped working on the business and that's why I've literally just gone like this and it's been a lot of pain. You know one of the we talking key hires and automation and people and technologies and systems I hired a team leader and the team leader is help change the way that I've been running my business for the last two months where you know I'm not training the new agents I'm not hiring the new agents I'm answering big you know big level questions and most importantly I'm still in the business because my commissions my income is helping fund the business and and for growth. And I'm back to actually following up and working with clients and doing things what I'm really good at.

Jeff Chubb: [00:55:38] I'm good at planning and building and helping people see the picture but having other people help implement. So I mean I guess my biggest thing is what I would say is we're all wrapping up here and I think this is a wrap up type question is is is look I would look at the problem of your business What's the pin hole for me I was awful at recruiting. So I hired somebody in order to do that. I mean a follow up is what your problem is. Figure out your follow up system if if these are falling through the cracks then look at augmenting your technology with a system like Structurely or building out you know automated campaigns or hack here's an idea. Both my automated campaign ties into the text messages Structurely is going out which I have to redo because you just made it from a three month campaign to twelve months. Thank you. So I mean you know like the you know the big thing when you know when I coach the big thing is is there is a one size fits all. And you know ultimately where I am is different where it is more different than where you know Brian Margolis who actually is somebody who I used to coach you know we're all on different levels of our business. And you know it just you need to rather than asking and looking Hey what is the next thing that I need to do. I think there needs to be some personal focus and a SWOT analysis or analysis of your business in order to figure out whereas that whole and then that's what you attack and that's what you fix.

Nate Joens: [00:57:04] I think that's also wondering what I want to close with you guys getting a little bit.

Nate Joens: [00:57:13] That's where OK. Anyway I think I think it'll pass. One thing I wanted to close up with wrap up with was life as a business owner of any kind software company real estate company. Anything that's on your calendar should be what your best stat in the world. No one no one should be better at what you're doing on a daily basis than you. So that's just to say I think that's just to say you know don't hire someone who's better at you than recruiting. Let it let that fall on their calendar. Hire someone who's better at you than follow up. Let that be on their calendar. Everything that's on your on your calendar is a business owner should be what your best that no one in the world should be better at that than you.

Jeff Chubb: [00:58:01] So a air product and an edge are all you guys would love to have you as a shameless plug on an hour mastermind another level real estate mastermind it's a Facebook group so for anybody who's watching this obviously if you're watching this you kind of get more than your average real estate agent. We'd love for you to join a network with us and really just kind of take real estate to a much better and hire more professional level and really currently is. So please stop by and join our mastermind group because we'd love to have you.

Nate Joens: [00:58:37] Erik we think alike no, that's a great group.

Nate Joens: [00:58:41] I know Robby just started a great discussion in there about old lead so kind of a great follow on place from some similar topics that we discussed on this webinar definitely go check that out because.

Jeff Chubb: [00:58:54] Every time I have a script question I put it on that group and I'm hoping and praying secretly that he's going to answer and tell me exactly how I need to say it. So it's helpful to that aspect of it. So yeah awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:59:08] Yeah definitely check out the leads geeks too. That's what Erik just posted. That's another. Another group kind of led by by Hatch coaching and these these great looking guys that we have on the webinar now some fantastic discussions really really great ISA tidbits in there as well as some leadership and team building stuff. Any closing thoughts guys.

[00:59:32] I got to use the restroom. Great speaking to you. Great. Great. Thanks guys. Take care everyone.

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Nate: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the Structurely and Hatch Coaching webinar. My name is Nate. I am the CEO of Structurely. We're going to be talking about our Dial's dead. I'm really excited about this one today. I know Robby myself and Erik are about to nerd out and it's going to be on 45 minutes to an hour. So Erik let's get this thing started off. What do you got for us.

Erik: [00:00:41] Hey good to be here with you all we have people from all over the country and in North America. And then some folks may be watching that webinars too or the podcast later. So great to have you here. Let me give you a little bit of perspective is I started real estate team in 2012. We implemented the same model in 2013 and we were married to the idea that I ISAs hit the phones and when ISAs hit the phones they were continually receiving incoming business and then they were sending out and chasing down all sorts of nurturers and relationships whether it be expired listings or anybody who signs up on our website and we dialed until we were dead. We hit the phones and we hammered the phones and then some then recently has started to shift. When I talked to Robby our ISA team and we said what in the world is going on. And I asked the question and I made the proclamation to say are Dial's dead. And it really framed up an interesting conversation that we had and we can't be the only ones experiencing it. So we want to do our best to try to keep people in the loop of understanding are Dial's dead or not. And so the guy who I know to pitch to is Robby t he builds our ISA company in the apartment. When he was in the game he was the top ISA in the country and now coaches the top ISAs in the country. And so no one better to answer the question then Robby are Dial's debt. Whether you're an ISA or an agent if you don't have an ISA you are the ISA and the question is this is has your game changed and can you reach anybody on the phone anymore. I'm done here.

Robby: [00:02:28] So I want to start here by telling you guys the story. When I started this game about five years ago because I think it's going to give a really great framework for the rest of this call when I got the game that it was all smiles the method to convert Leads Online leads wherever it may be. The story was I was calling and calling and call it and what happens is that game is changing and it is changing drastically and we're now entering a phase where there is so many appointments that we're booking. That the initial contact isn't happening because it is happening because of it and the framework. All that five years ago there really was no to use automatic or mass messaging. It was in development. People were starting to allow it. It really wasn't. Yeah. And what we're seeing. Erik you refer to it as a massive shift the balance shift over. I'm now really feeling it and I felt it Robby.

Erik: [00:03:52] It's like yes I've been out of production now for four plus years. So running our team coaching. I've been out of production. And here's what happened. Is this thing right here was my lifeline. As a realtor I would wait if a number called me that I didn't recognize. I thought it was a sign call. I thought it was a referral. I thought it was that next piece of business that was going to have me crush the industry. That's what I thought. You know in the 12 months and especially through the last political season and especially through all the robo dialers that have happened now. I don't answer my phone when it's not a number that I don't know if one of you calls me and I don't have your number saved that's going to voicemail. And if you leave me a voicemail I'm just going to see the text from it anyways and not even listen to the voicemail. That thinking changed. I even think back Robby and this is maybe before your time but when I got caller ID at my house for the night. Yes. Caller ID need all of a sudden your life changed because you knew who was calling and it would tell you. Well now we don't all in it we don't answer again. Right. And that's that's the crux of the pain that we're experiencing.

Robby: [00:05:12] That is because what is happening is let's be real. Phone calls are a method that somebody answers that call. The thing that they're afraid of is how am I going out to talk to this person or am I going to have to get off the phone with us political advertiser or this sleazy salesperson. You're exactly right. It's the consumer now has more control at their fingertips than they ever did before. It's when they're receiving that call and that even if I call you I don't know where you're not going answer it sometimes.

Robby: [00:05:47] Rather what we're seeing is bring this full circle. What we're seeing is the power of an outbound call is diminishing and we'll get to some numbers later but it's dying. There's no doubt about it. And the reason that is is there is a better way. Now that better way is somebody you can have a texting conversation with the first. And this is what we're seeing. It's really a this that the initial idea is this is a random non pre arranged phone call that used to be dominant a conversion is dying and what's happening is we're having to pre arranged phone calls. We had extended texting conversations will we ever get the opportunity to have a phone conversation with somebody five years ago. That wasn't the case now. And here's the numbers for you. When I got this game it was nearly all phone calls last year as of 2017. About 50 percent of all of our appointments the initial contact didn't come from a phone call that came through a text message. So that conversation started that's this year we're trending towards 65 to 70 percent. And here's what I can tell you is I have zero doubt in my mind that that number is 85 percent in the future if not higher. Why. Because people don't want to commit to a halt to somebody they don't know because we live in a world where consumers have more control and more with that and don't want to sit there and could commit themselves to a random conversation that they don't really want to have. Yes but they will have a texting conversation with you. We'll get to that in a little bit.

Erik: [00:07:37] Robby you used to talk that. I know you're ready to jump in here but I just want to highlight one point. You said that Dial's are dying. You're not declaring that dials are dead is that right. You said dials are dying.

Robby: [00:07:51] Dying and really what it looks like is this a shooter. Maybe some numbers on it was when I was making calls five years ago five four years ago. If I made a hundred calls of usually contact about 10 people so I'd call 10 people or I call them to people or contact them when I ran the numbers this morning I looked at all our ISA on the calls that were doing.

Robby: [00:08:18] And that number is what we call a hundred people were contacting three-ish. That's a major drop in efficiency and in fact, thank God for auto-dialers by the way because it makes certainly not with my son but literally a phone call is 33 percent as likely to lead to a conversation as it was five years ago. And again that is going to continue that trend downwards. So it's not dead but you bet. No doubt it is dying.

Nate: [00:08:56] That's a pretty amazing stat. And I know you know I know we kind of talked about this internally amongst ourselves to that. You know I think myself in the millennial generation growing up we we go to messaging first to talk to one another. I'll never answer. Yes I think I said in one of our previous podcasts that the only person I'll really answer the phone for is my mother. And that's just mostly because if I don't then I'll probably be scolded for a while. But I'm curious on those numbers Robby. Have you seen a drop in your ISAs calling in the last five years. Are they making the same number of dials just less people answering or are they making more dials. What's that look like.

Robby: [00:09:44] Because the chances of somebody picking up a phone has gone down so much. The thing had to do to adjust is really two big things. First off you're not using all texting or drip text or mass texts. You are going to be irrelevant by the end of 2019. No not like you have no chance in this day. What we also have to do in addition to using auto attacks through text mass texting is we've had two or all joy and we've done that the dialers of course and there's dialers out I don't know if you guys are up this third dialers now that are pushing the six lines 10-line dials at once, which is really unheard of. Did you do that. Well to answer youru question in summary they were having to offer guidance to contact and create the same amount of contacts. That's what this whole ISA generation ball game was about the numbers game. And in order for us to generate those contacts we know we. We have to our thoughts and we style on that. But the truth is man this case he has a role in it and frankly we're getting less.

Nate: [00:11:08] Yeah. So I think I kind of wanted to touch on one thing he said there Robby. I think it was in terms of you know if you're not going if you're not texting or mass texting your leads you're going to be irrelevant. I think one somewhat preconceived notion that that is kind of wrong in the industry right now is you need to be focusing on texting your top of funnel leads right away. You know right when someone registers and that's important that's extremely important. It's a way you know as as your number state it's a way that people want to communicate. But I think where there's a lot of real opportunity is in the leads that are more so in the middle of your funnel people that you already know or have already who already know you. But who have not heard from yet and I think you know one of my buddies Dave Anderson the CEO of my LionDesk he he sees the same thing. He met or he was having a conversation with I think his sister in law who is a realtor. And he basically said like why aren't you texting your leads why aren't you texting leads in your database. Go text four of them right now and see what happens. You know I think he said lo and behold all four of them responded. And one of them ended up closing 25 percent conversion rate on leads that she already knew. But who may you know who have not made contact with her yet. I think that's where people need to leverage texting a little bit more is by combing through the leads that are in the middle of your funnel who you just haven't been able to reach yet

Robby: [00:12:43] I'll take it one step further. The reality is is that these are just people right. What other are you don't like you said on the Hill. There are human beings and human beings are not at all. And I guarantee most of them are going to stay or to be more likely it's easier for them to actually get them back. Oh by the way. Voicemails what was the last time any of us listened to a voicemail somebody just bought. And I don't know a lot of Voice Mails along those lines those things get deleted like that. I think it really lowers your contact ratio especially if it's very stable. The old leads people know that so. So I think I think I agree with you 100 percent we shouldn't be sending one text right away using texting as your strategy. It used to be a part of our strategy and now it's intrinsic useful. Everything we do is the foundation for what these are are old leads. Everything is getting texted if I can it is getting texted.

Nate: [00:14:03] And kind of touch on that point then a little bit more. Do you think that in today's world every generation of consumers millennials boomers etc.. Do you think everyone's starting to move towards text or you know just the millennials and younger

Erik: [00:14:21] They jump in with that. Because it's interesting my my parents and grandparents aren't alive but my mom's sister my aunt is 78 years old and she's the person who still says that she is going to go record something on her VCR even though she's really talking about her DVR right and she's she swore that Facebook and text messaging were the worst things possible she's in her previous job. She refused to adopt a computer and so used a typewriter. She is the one to be older baby boomers so she is about the the highest. She's an old 78 you know what I mean she's a she's an old soul and what she does is she text me. And Facebook's all the time. Because she has now adapted to stay in contact and in touch with the rest of the world because if she doesn't innovate on those two things she's no longer communicated to by her kids and her grandkids and that's not OK. Oftentimes people have resisted technology because they didn't want to adapt and adapt to their jobs. Well technology now is in our personal lives. And so that's the way that we're going to get those older generations to adopt them. They are at a rapid speed. And it's why people are fleeing from things like Facebook because now it's your grandma and your aunt and your mom that are on Facebook and it's not your peers necessarily. I mean Facebook still dominant it's still the biggest social media thing that's out there. But I would I would add to the argument here Robby and Nate that Dial's yes they are dying. So texting and Facebook messaging are going to be really really important things to consider as you grow your businesses.

Robby: [00:16:10] Yeah I want to add to that as well I think you're hitting it on the head. Are we really thinking about why this behavior has shifted and really I think you hit on the head it started with social media and we think about most of the social media ways we engage with or people who are commenting on their friends and what's happened is as people like their Aunts are getting on Facebook they're engaging in people via text messages. Right. Well let me call it text for Facebook message. Really it's just sending a message via words which is text and that is the finding the behavior. That was the beginning of the behavior you're making it so it started with a bunch of young millennials like myself. And then because I think there's a better way of making it spread all the way up the pyramid to darn near everybody is doing. Yes because it's more convenient. It's a better way to communicate.

Nate: [00:17:18] It's why you need to drill down on that a little bit. Why do you think it's more convenient. I think like to offer my answer to that it's texting is convenient for me because I can multitask. I don't like you know like what Erik said to start I don't have to make the commitment to five minutes of you know getting a sales pitch. We're all busy people and I can multitask when I text. Right. Is that where you feel too.

Robby: [00:17:50] I think even more than that I think the word control is today's consumers more control over their whole lives. One really cool example of this is look at our radio compare it to a Spotify or Amazon Music. People are willing to pay a fee to avoid hearing ads not wanting here and the happened so really content they consume. I think a phone call is a commitment and you lose control of it all. And what I mean by that is I might spend the next five 10 minutes speaking to somebody when I have something else I need to get the other pieces. This is what that text message can carry on a conversation. Right now a lot of we're going to text you back 30 minutes from now. It needs consumer control to stop and start what I want as opposed to 10 minutes or even longer. So they were brought up babies and it does allow me to have a conversation that's more convenient because I can text you about text during this webinar are not doing what I could that I could take back what I'm doing something.

Nate: [00:19:10] Yeah I feel my phone going up right now I not being texted but I don't have to make the commitment because I'm already committed to this. What I know you know the terms of control through messaging you know looking back at when we were having the phone calls you could. It's what you coach to Robby went with ISAs to dig deeper into conversations ask why get to know get to know the person not the property and build a relationship. Do you think you can have that level of conversation through a text message.

Robby: [00:19:48] I you think you could. It's as if there's one thing my ISA department is probably wrong with that. What's crazy I like numbers. So when this texting trend started to happen let's say about 3 4 years ago when we got texting what we noticed was I would text you Nate and you get a text back and forth maybe three or four times and it was very surface level. And then what would happen if we would transition the conversation to get on the phone. Now what is happening is this is our ISA days and a lot of cases are exchanged 15 20 25 30 40 text messages back and forth, before we get on the phone with the lead because we're we're we're a lot of their story. Don't get me wrong not finding out everything. What is crazy about people that are willing to share a very private information via a text message whether it's telling you they're going through a divorce. If anything, I think I actually think that because it takes away a little bit of a distance from the vulnerability it allows them to type something up without the fear that judge them and they type it up and they said no we're just crazy we're saying you won't open up about that stuff all the time. And I think it's because that's the normal now isn't it.

Erik: [00:21:19] Here's here's here's the even bigger normal. We have a team member who has a daughter that's 10 years old and he told the car ride that he had with her. And as he was riding like he kept practicing what's going on what's going on. And she said no I'm fine. I'm fine now I'm fine. And what happened is when he got out of the car when she got out of the car and he dropped her off at school he had a text message from her actually communicating her emotions. And there's this massive shift we're right now your generation my generation we're used to that emotion face to face and the only way we know how to best communicate it and we are seeing a major shift all the way over here and the younger they are the more likely they are to be able to open up through technology and through texting rather than look like we are just scratching the surface of what's coming. And we as realtor and team leaders have to be ahead of this communicating the way which people want to be communicated with. And we're all behind the eight ball right now yes that's right.

Robby: [00:22:25] I think dollar pieces of that. I heard somebody say that emoji is what's communicating feelings these days and it's so unbelievably true. What I think you're dead on Erik. It's that younger people. And my wife is a school counselor and a elementary school or middle school i should say. And these kids are a lot more comfortable texting about these things than they are speaking to somebody about them. Now they will speak somebody speak to somebody that they watch from text about it first.

Robby: [00:23:03] It used to be you would talk about then text about it later. And now it's shifting to you text about it first and then talk about later. It's literally just flipping everything are just crazy. But you're right.

Nate: [00:23:16] I mean I can tell you from. You know what. We handle it Structurely which is thousands of text conversations a month. And we we looked through them. I see books paragraphs of messages that people send in outlining their entire life story from the day they were born. And it's amazing to us to be able to see how much people are willing to offer in just a simple text message with essentially a stranger which is crazy. So I mean I don't I don't think that anyone here should be scared to ask those questions. When you're texting don't don't shy away from that and kind of to that point. Go ahead Erik.

Erik: [00:24:03] Quickly. I see you're transitioning here. There's there's a gaping hole and Robby. This, Michelle made a joke about the horse doctor role playing that I know we've done in the past is one of our one of our ways to role play what we haven't done and this is an ownership piece Hatch Realty and Hatch Coaching is we haven't started roleplaying our text messages. Think about that. There is there is a hole in our system right now because we emphasize roleplaying so much that we practice not on our clients what we practice on each other and all of us ourselves included are not practicing this role and text messaging unless you can tell me you are Robby you just have told me about it yet.

Robby: [00:24:45] I would say that roleplaying it in person. I actually think is pretty much the same thing. I think what you want is as a voice of voice is what you would ask via text messages are the same thing. I think it's a different habit. Your 100% right and getting used to it.

Erik: [00:25:04] We haven't had less of text messages what I'm what I'm getting towards is a mode and tonality you can you can say I'm a guy who was a super High D and so I oftentimes write one line emails one line text messages the fact that we don't put anything in this in the in the body of the e-mail it's just in the header and people think I'm pissed but I'm not pissed I'm just efficient. And what we have to do is we have to figure out how are we role playing and getting better at this so that we're mirroring and matching this person instead of them having to adapt to our ways.

Robby: [00:25:42] And realistically it's the same thing we teach oncall is somebody sending you very short incorrect answers. You better not send them a paragraph. You know the sound of short of direct questions back. So yeah I mean mirroring and matching all these skills are going to be the same thing. Now the big thing that I'll say is this is that. I believe one of the biggest things that human beings wants is they just simply want to be heard understood and valued. And you don't do that through the things you say you do that to asking questions and just simply asking questions allows people to feel that feeling of feeling heard or understood. So I think it's super great you bring up a good point, Erik with text messages.

Erik: [00:26:36] Really really it's a piece that we have to start practicing more of because my efficiency is me being a total prick to somebody else.

Robby: [00:26:47] I've seen some of those frustrating at least on it there on the spot Robby.

Nate: [00:26:53] Are there any I know some a few people have asked for you know examples of text messages. Do you have any you know auto text messages that you guys sent out to you that uses examples. I know I can share a few too.

Robby: [00:27:12] I think why I want to play to this as more of a principle. I learned that for a start don't ever send information to somebody via text they don't care about a lot that day gone and that if they're wanting information they can go to Google that I know that's rather what we've learned is all of our auto texts are always asking short simple questions. There are never more than maybe two sentences and even less probably too long to be honest. All right. Questions not statements questions not statements. Absolutely. And you should always take some of these answers and turn it into your next question. But you know some simple ones I'll share what we sent to you. Maybe somebody has a follow up. We've all obviously a lot of people have are about our initial 10 days of messages. If you want those let us know. Message me I'll get them to you again a short, sweet and to the point. But one that's really all is for somebody that's a lead that I'm following up with. So let's say you and I spoke to each other one year ago. You're retiring from your job about two years and think about selling and buying, this audio message would go out about six months after you and I spoke. I know what I would say to the effect of Hey we spoke a little while back and at that point you weren't interested in buying wanting to follow up and see if your plans changed at all. And what's great is it's so open ended is that sometimes you get a text back and say no plans are going to go.

Robby: [00:28:48] And in that case they feel like you're following up which most people in real estate don't do or you'll get them to text back and say, "Actually I I'm can call me today. I need a sell my home as soon possible". Questions short questions like that identifying why we're studying it and then moving on. And you've got to keep it with the auto and mass texting and you get to keep it so generic but open ended enough that it relates to them.

Nate: [00:29:18] Yeah I think that's the perfect way to put it generic in open ended. I think so many things that we so many problems that we see with you know with other automated messages that the industry is trying to create. Is it's a statement like if I got a message it's just like hey I'm here to help you. What. What am I going to do with that. What do you want from me as a consumer. What. What are you asking me to do. I don't I don't know where to take this conversation and that's that's a pet peeve of mine, always ask a questions because a lot of your consumers they they need you. They need to be guided. They need your help. And if you don't give them an opportunity to take your guidance then they'll have no idea where they're going and they'll just leave or not answer. So I think that's been a huge piece to our to our engagement the.

Erik: [00:30:09] Nate it's an open ended question as well. The question is "are you looking to buy a house." Because if they say no then you're done right. I used to. I used to do youth ministry and worked a lot of middle school kids and I learned to have perfected the art of just asking really great questions because if you ever want to find somebody who never wants to talk to you ever is an eighth grade boy. Right. And to be able to dive it into asking tough questions to try to actually get them to start opening up is the same game that we play in real estate every day. It's trying to get somebody to talk about something that they didn't think that they wanted. Now in college I used to work at the Gap which is why I am so fashionable. And what I see is I would see a lot of people walk in they were greeted with Hey can I help you find something. And when anybody asks you that in a retail setting your answer. Now I'm just looking right all the time. And yes this is high fashion. Thank you for noticing. But the truth is when I when I would greet people because I knew what to look for I would greet them and I'd say hey what brings you in today. Who are you shopping for. Like that question of who you're shopping for is a specific who it's either me or they may just say just look and then oh what are you looking for. Right. And so there's questions and there's so many things in our lives that can relate to this real estate. But what happens is when we jump into this we think that we have to become these robots that are business esque that are trying to sell houses. And it's all worth less. What we need to do is to connect with people and now we're seeing that connecting on the phone is harder than ever.

Erik: [00:31:54] And so we have to be able to connect via text message.

Nate: [00:31:56] Robby I love your entire the intro message most that I know you guys coach on and calls and I'm pretty sure that your first text messages , what is that?

Robby: [00:32:15] Yes I would go like this. "Hey Nate I saw that you were looking at 123 Main Street on Zillow. And you know I just wanted to reach out Nate and see if maybe you're looking for fun or see if you want to buy a home in the near future." And one or two items always comes up you know the look for fun. Right. And then what I do. OK. Why are you looking for fun? Boom, wide open. Right, or they say they're looking to potentially buy a home or make a move, whatever the story is and I live buy the rule. Tell me more.

Robby: [00:32:47] And truly if there's one thing that I can't hammer enough, you want people to open up to you if you want to get to the root of what people or what's really motivate people. It's this idea of living in the idea of "tell me more". Brenee Brown talked about this when we we're down at a conference in Vegas a few weeks back and she's a lot more direct than I am and she just says "say more to people". And it's all the same idea. It's literally just giving someone the time of day to open up and tell you more about what they're looking to do and it's not me trying to say you should do something now. If I do that that Nate you're going to check out immediately. You're going to hang up on me. Or not text me back by the way that's the other thing as it's so much easier for somebody not to text back to ghost you. On the phone people kind of feel a little bit of guilt, just to hang up on a salesperson get text message.

Robby: [00:33:44] The other thing you hold them to not tie them to you.

Nate: [00:33:48] But that's why that's why those engagement messages are so important and you have to ask. You have to ask your question or they'll continue to ghost to you. I know I know one question that we've seen kind of here in that Sasha kind of touched on there Randi touched on earlier in the chat. Do you think that you can leverage text messaging to set a phone appointment. Are those the new appointments.

Robby: [00:34:13] Do you mean as setting an appointment with one of my agents. If I'm an ISA I'm vetting I'm having the conversation is that what we're getting out is can I think your question spot Nate.

Erik: [00:34:26] I think what you're asking is are we missing a metric in how we say because we have we have set appointments and then kept appointments. But before that appointment is there a set phone call that's now going to be added to that metric.

Robby: [00:34:41] Yeah I think that's that's where I see things going. Well what I alluded to earlier that most consumers are engaging via text message. I think the idea of and outbound call has faded. Eventually it will be for all intensive purposes it will be dead. I don't know when that will be but sometime at that point it's going to be you have a texting conversation with somebody whether it's via snap chat or via Facebook messenger or texting whatever vehicle it is and then it will be used for you arranging a call either for yourself for somebody to begin.

Nate: [00:35:20] Yeah I think in some of the latest on that out earlier it structurally.

Nate: [00:35:25] I made the claim that texting is the new cold calling you guys agree with that?

Robby: [00:35:35] Yes.

Nate: [00:35:37] And I think really I think what I really mean by that is you know and I know the storm make calls.

Nate: [00:35:42] It's still important. People will still answer the phone. That's why we're saying it's dying not dead. I think I think what my point is is that you need to set the. You need to set the phone call via text first. And that's that's a new step in the funnel that you need to continue to leverage and to kind of touch back on my point earlier. What I mean a little bit by you know text messaging is the new cold call you can use text messaging to engage your your middle of the funnel leads people who again have not heard from you or have not made contact with you yet. You typically go out and try and dial through a list of you know whatever 500 calls in a day. Why not just set than 500 text in a day. That's what I mean by the new cold call.

Robby: [00:36:38] I want to add to that and this is what excites me about this and we've been doing is you can't really automate phone calls.

Robby: [00:36:47] And what I mean by that is this is automated phone calls maybe to reduce the amount of time you have to wait until somebody answers but me as a human has to sit there and make the calls right. And it's very time intensive. And the most valuable resource on all of this is frankly my time, an ISAs time somebody's time. What I love about this change is simply this. That you can leverage technology to replace a lot of this messaging that is taking place and most CRMs are on board they have auto messages they can send out. And truly it's this whole idea of to work smarter not harder. And that's why I'm excited about this change. I think it's a good change as long as you are willing to adapt with it which you're going to be forced to or you're going to be gone. But I think great. And I think it's you know we are talking about texting here.

Nate: [00:37:51] It's obviously it's obviously the new wave that's coming. What one con that I know we see and it is something that we've seen when I talked to David CEO at LionDesk, is it's a good problem to have when you send out a mass text to 200 of your you know old leads in the middle of your funnel. A hundred of them might respond almost on the spot and you're completely completely overwhelmed. I know that your ISAs are dealing with that and I know that that the overwhelming nature of those responses don't stop there. It's it's ridiculously hard for your ISAs to to have probably 20 30 50 to 100 simultaneous text conversations going at the same time. Is there anything that they can do to you know take some of that off their plate.

Robby: [00:38:45] Yeah. So what I want to address what you just said Nate, and say amen for say it because it's so unbelievably true.

Robby: [00:38:52] Generally if we send out a text message our response rate is 25 to 30 percent. Some texts perform higher than others some are lower, whatever the story may be. That's what happens is you hit it on the head. I send it out to 500 people a 25 percent response rate. I'm not just getting one way responses by the way. It's now I've got to have 25 people's conversations going back and forth back and forth back and forth. So here's one thing we've learned that you have to do.

Robby: [00:39:26] First off when you're texting somebody the trigger the psychological trigger for me as an ISA to respond to you you Nate, is always when I get a text message right. That's how we communicate. We're my texting back and forth. I remember to text you back because you just texted me back. Here's the thing with people we need to understand is that people aren't going to text me back not because they don't want to but because our phones we are fighting so much noise. Facebook notifications. Twitter with news notifications fantasy football notifications. And there's so much noise that can lead to somebody not responding to you. So a simple thing we're going to do is let's say, Nate, you and I are texting I send you an auto message and it goes out to you and you respond. We've learned you have to schedule a follow up for the day or the day following. That way you forget to text me back. I remember to re-engage the conversation. Now i've created a psychological trigger. That's what we're doing here. So there's little things like this. Lets say Nate and I we're sharing 10 15 texts back and forth I send him one at 8:00 p.m. tonight and tomorrow passes and Nate you don't respond to me. That doesn't mean Nate hates me. What it might mean is Nate is having a busy day and hasn't texted me back. I'm goint to send a little text like this "let me know if you have any questions Nate." And a little text like that, this is what it does. Imagine, pull your phone out and look at it quick. What that does is you get a little notification on your phone that says, "Oh this person sitting right there." The funny part is there a lot of people that have already started writing their response. And guess what's sitting there, when they see you texted back. In the text message was what they were starting to text to you, but they got distracted because there was some fantasy football score on Monday night by Antonio Brown or whatever story may be right. You've got to set a follow up that is your safety net to make sure those things don't slip through the cracks. And if you don't do this, I guarantee, no offense to all of you, you're not smart enough to remember all these opportunities.

Nate: [00:41:49] So yeah I can't you I know that scenario will happen when you finally get that lead on the hook. You finally get them to respond to your fifth Drip message. They're having a great conversation but then it stops. We that's why we introduced a feature called Re-Drips and it has been life changing. It's the it's exactly what you said there. It's sending a text message to a lead that's already engaged but who as we say fell off the face of the earth which happens all the time. They simply they want to have that conversation but they can't they just forgot about it. They're busy. That's kind of again a con of texting is that it's so multitask that people are doing 50 things at the same time and you probably don't get that text message doesn't take priority. But that simple. It's that simple nudge message that says hey you know oh and this is one of my other favorite things happened back to the scripts in one of our favorite things to say in our text messages is "Hey I just want to make sure I'm not dropping the ball. I didn't hear back from you yesterday by the way what was the what was the price range you're looking for?" The "I just want to make sure I'm not dropping the ball" has been so so huge for us. I can't tell you how many times I see people respond and say "Oh you're not dropping the ball I just got so busy I'm looking for a house under 200 k." It's huge and it's a little bit guilting them into it, be careful. It's really not guilting them into it because they were just genuinely busy. I know one one of the text messages that I think might be in that that 10 10 day message script that you that you haven't Leads Geeks Robby, is something along the lines of "Hey can you just respond if you are abducted by an alien or eaten by an alligator or something like that. I love that one."

Robby: [00:43:53] So yeah that's one of my favorites. I actually got the idea about four years ago first getting in the texting ball game, and I kind of augmented it. Somebody had a wolves one. Where it was "did you get eaten by wolves." But instead of course I'm nerdy hence the glasses and being a Lead Geek. We did the abducted by aliens and we only send that out as to people that received a ton of other messages from us and a ton of other attempts. And the contact rate is stupid it's one of the highest in the last message we sent. And I think it's because it's so different. It's funny, it gets people laugh and it gives them an option the three different options I forget exactly what they are basically they say yeah I got abducted by aliens or I'm still interested or just been busy. Here's the thing. I think we just need to realize with these people is they're just people. And I try throughout this process, to do one thing and it's put myself their shoes and what are the things that I would read or would get me to respond and that's it. And hear's what I can tell you, if you're sending wrong information nobody is going to read it, it's pointless. Don't waste your time. If you're sending something that's out of the box they have'nt seen before they're probably going to respond. If it's short and simple. I'm going to respond. And the other big thing is you kind of you said it is kind of guilting somebody and i think really honestly the verbiage we use is reminding people. Because we've all done this. Nate I've been sending you a text and I've forgot to press send. I've been texting my mom back before I forgot to press send. We've all done that and it's just a simple reminder. A little nudge, trigger whatever you want to call it. Get them back to the front of the mind again. You noise out there he's out. The phone is no longer where you call and text that ended years ago with so much noise. And we have to constantly be fighting through that noise and it's little things like you said sending a message just like heck honestly you could probably send a text letter with the letter a and it might even work.

Nate: [00:46:04] It kind of bumps at the top and I'll do it. I see that use in e-mails a lot is that some people would say like I'm bumping this up it gets my now responded usually because I just forgot. I'm so kind of on that then one of the last questions that Rick just asked to is again we don't want to say go you know spend all your time texting. What what should the balance look like between e-mails texts phone calls. How do you make the most of texting in your follow up.

Robby: [00:46:34] I I would say it is that when a lead comes in we still try to call right away because your first call is your highest answer rate. What I think is really really dying and some leads need to be spoken to right away and they're going to answer the call. What I think is dying is anything beyond that second or third call. Is it just the contact rates are are diminishing. The whole law of diminishing returns. So I still think we need to call a lead, from there you need to send a text immediately and we use the same thing you do the six minute text, and I think it's the same thing that we're talking about. So if you signed up today Nate, right now you'd get a call from one of my ISAs, you'd get a text and email if you didn't answer and then we would send you a six minute text. And everyone's like well don't people get pissed? I think more people get pissed if you don't call and that's everybody's biggest issue is you're not doing anything. But then from there you can receive in our world a text every single day for the next 10 days. And it's funny, I was speaking to our ISA this morning and I think we kind of have some similar data, but it's like the most likely that they're going to answer is day 1 and then its like day 3 or 4 that they respond. It's like for some reason day two doesn't really happen, I don't really get it. But it's it's it's like when you show your persistent and they're now like "Oh yeah, i need to respond to this guy I'm getting around to it". You need to automate you need to be setting these things out you need to set it and forget. Do not be manually sending these texts that could just automate. It's a huge waste of your time. If your CRM doesn't have these capabilities, go tell them they need to get it, tell them to watch this thing or whatever the story may be because if they don't I mean I don't know how they will be a CRM in a year or two. I actually don't get it. I don't know. So push them if you're CRM doesn't do the auto and drip texts, I think at that point you gotta consider switching something up.

Erik: [00:48:35] Let me let me let me say this. Nate I can't hear you. Here you go. Let me just jump in here very quickly. So we we've identified that phone calls are dying. We've identified that texting is the new cold calling. And we're also in a territory where we have to figure out how to start utilizing technology to enhance the agent. These are multilayered multilevel conversations. And for us to be cognizant of how technology is playing into this not just texting but how we can scale our businesses means that we have to start looking into some other things. And so somebody asked a question like What are we so we're not selling anything here. In fact we're just trying to bring value in and to start the conversation because we care about this community and our clients deserve better than what we've done yesterday and today. And so this is simply a push for that. And I can I can just say this that we at Hatch Realty have jumped on on board and started to use some AI stuff to enhance our texting through Structurely and it's been great. So that's the only pitch, otherwise you can pitch slap me all you want.

Robby: [00:49:53] I want to join in. I want to give you guys really I know we're getting close. I want to give you guys kind of my thoughts on what I felt. Is this whole lead version game used to be all about all calls calls calls. You know five years ago it was calls all calls. I think the last few years we've been going through what I view as the middle lead conversion game which has been a combination of outbound calls and auto and mass texts. And I think what we're going is really into a world where texting truly leads to the conversations that we have. And I have this kind of crazy idea that I think the shape of CRMs is going to change drastically over the next few years. Basically old CRMs looked like this.

Robby: [00:50:46] It was a tool us humans use to stay in front of our leads and clients. And I think what's going to happen is the smart CRM of the future is going to be a tool that uses US to stay in front of all our past clients and our leads. And that is a transformational switch, one that I have no doubt that more than that.

Nate: [00:51:15] I completely agree and I think I think the advances in technology really doing is they're coming back. That's right. They're coming in in a way that will make life easier.

Nate: [00:51:29] And as Erik said if you're not the ISA you are if you don't have an ISA you are the ISA. And that's just to say that everyone here can can leverage technology to simply augment the less than attractive things that they have to do in their lives like set follow up tasks sets and remind remind yourself to text someone the next day. It's too much it's too much to handle and that's why I think that's what you mean by CRM will start to use humans to make their lives easier. So you guys have any questions. What are you trying. Answer I know I know. And Erik are extremely active in the Leads Geek's community. I know Erik has said you know asks them questions they're going post your questions here. Post your questions there I'm sure these guys are going to be all over following up on this webinars so we just appreciate you guys. We really appreciate you guys taking the time to read it and listen to us and we're excited for ongoing webinars with these brilliant folks from Hatch. We appreciate it.

Robby: [00:52:37] I have one ask that I want to end on. If this resonated with you today, if there are people you care about that are in this real estate ball game. Please share this message with them. There's too much at stake and if they don't hear this they're going to be left behind. So the people you really care about, your team, maybe somebody in the market, someone you care about, shoot them the recording, share the link. If you don't agree with us, let's talk. And as Nate said, thank you for your time. And any questions reach out to Erik and myself that's what we're here for. Much love. Peace yall.

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Nate: [00:00:00] Well welcome everybody to the Structurely and Hatch Coaching webinar. We're excited to be here. Hopefully you guys are excited to be here on a Friday afternoon as well. Here to talk about how to hire the right ISA for your real estate business.

Nate: [00:00:31] My name is Nate Jones. I'm the CEO co-founder of Structurely we're an artificial intelligence inside sales agent company. We love to be working closely with with the hatch coaching and Hatch Realty team which we've got to be the best on that team. I would say with us today Robby T and Erik had taken away guys.

Robby: [00:00:53] Awesome. Well yeah I'm really excited today because we're going to get talk about something that's really dear to our hearts. All about hiring the right ISA and what I'm going to do is I actually want to keep attached to Erik first because you're the one who did this right the first time. And our last call you coined the phrase we fumbled our way through it. But you know I'd love for you to really start things off. Erik How the heck do you hire the right ISA for the real estate business.

Erik: [00:01:27] Gosh I wish it was an easy answer and it is not a pride myself. I pride ourselves on being really good at hiring Hatch Realty and Hatch coaching are based out of Fargo North Dakota. Our communities are two hundred thousand people. We will sell 650 ish homes this year we were this last year that number 43 real estate in the country. And I give you those facts and those pieces of data because it's important that you understand that it hasn't always been this way and we've built it now on the backs of ISAs and I've gotten really good at hiring and that's still been the hardest position I've ever had to fill. It's exhausting. It's difficult this year. Question right now from Ryan asking how do you keep somebody in that department long term like. There's just so much meat and potatoes here so let me dive into your question with more specificity Robby. I want to take you back to 2013. I saw some big wigs some people who really knew what they were doing that they wanted. They had ISAs in their world and even the Red Book the millionaire real estate agent book talks about people like call centers and outbound callers and realistically we had a plethora of business. And with that plethora of business we were letting in a lot of leads go unattended to. We didn't get back to them at all or if we did it was like a 24 hour period. And so here it was the hiring trend, write this down. Really important hire your friend. After 20 minute interview and then I want you to take that piece of paper and tear it up and just disregard everything I just told you because that was how I hired the first one and I got lucky. I had somebody who just answered and responded to leads and we actually got lucky. He had no desire to be like this big producer and agents loved being kind of behind the scenes prides himself on being a number two. And it was a really good culture fit. He was fine at the job but he was a really good culture fit. What happened is we then got introduced to a guy named Robby and Robby was in his young 20s. A year or so out of college was working on political campaigns and Josh our first ISA vouch for him when he said Rob is a really good dude and so I brought in Robby to interview him and I at this point I started slowing down and the interview process I used to just hire people because I liked them because they were great. But I started to figure out who we were and who we didn't know our role. We now developed a nine step hiring process that I'm happy to go over here in a moment. But in this ISA world one I brought in Robby here is the biggest difference maker of him and anybody else is he was hungry like notch not just hungry saying I want to make 100 thousand dollars or whatever it is. Robby had a chip on his shoulder. He had some people to prove he had a life that he wanted. And the only way to get through that and to that was ridiculously hard work. And so I'll be honest Robby gave a very mediocre interview. He dropped the f bomb three times in the interview and yeah maybe was more I don't know.

Erik: [00:04:55] He he started off as very nervous and fidgety and like doesn't like people at the first place. So he's like all super awkward. And then as he got going and as he got talking I started to see his heart and his passion and that's what I liked what he was and he was so rough around the edges and I just know that he he he was hungry.

Erik: [00:05:16] And Josh rush for him that he will be a culture fit. So for me that was enough to take a chance on him. And a lot of times those of us who are looking to hire ISAs are looking for the perfect DISC profile. And we're looking for the perfect set up and we're looking for the person that's going to crush it for us and we're looking for. We're looking for somebody who is maybe more qualified than we are sometimes at that point in our game when we were developing we needed somebody to answer the phones. And that's sort of a hire Josh we need somebody to respond believes and that's why we hired Josh and that wasn't even that he said the right things. He just he just answered the phone and call people and said How can I help you what are you looking for. Right. And then as we've gotten better we've now refined it and refined it and defined it. And at this point now this is the end of my long winded answer here at this point. Now we have decided that hiring an ISAs is crucial in our business. And so we brought on people we have got a 50 percent success rate where the rest of our company nearly doubles that with our success rate for retaining people for an extended period of time and then they either say we're only batting 500.

Erik: [00:06:29] I mean it's pretty difficult to find great talent at this point because our standards have continued to rise. But if you don't have an ISA Don't start your standard right here because you're in trouble my friends start here because this is really where you're at. If you're if you're new in that business you've got to you've got to grow with them. So that's there you go. Ya go ahead.

Nate: [00:06:52] Yeah I mean Robby you have anything to add in terms of like culture fit. I know you guys like you'd like Erik said fumble fumble forward. Did you know that Hatch was the right culture fit for you like during the interview a week after. You still not know it's the culture fit.

Robby: [00:07:10] I hope so yeah. I would say this from my perspective when I was going through the interview process.

Robby: [00:07:19] Most places you sit down and it's very surface level questions. It's going to be what's your past experience like what qualifies you for this job. Right those very surface level answers and although I swore many times in my interview Erik and I also he got to the heart of why was that.

Erik: [00:07:44] That's why you swore Robby I threw you off of what be a typical question that you were already prepared for and that's what brought the real Robby out and so many of us go through a hiring process. You spent 30 minutes talking to somebody and we think this person will be great my world. And that's like going on one date with somebody and married them. It's absurd. I mean like. Unless you're a great catch like Nate's who is single by the way ladies out there watch out.

Nate: [00:08:14] The only reason I'm going to Vegas.

Erik: [00:08:19] But I mean because you probably just want to emphasize knowing what it is and why you Zwart was because we were asking you things that were real life things and not just rehearsed answer business things that had you given a robotic answer.

Robby: [00:08:33] And what that showed to me because yes good question. It was the culture right. It was in that moment because she was willing to go deeper than I've ever gone before in any other type professional setting. I knew that that place was special. But it was different that Erik didn't just care about me coming into making phone calls that he cared about him aligning his vision to match up with mine and helping me go to where I want to go.

Robby: [00:09:03] And that was huge. And that created a buy in that I don't think can or can really be replicated unless you really do care because that's what it was was. Erik was taking a deep interest in me to see if I'd be a good fit. So yeah absolutely an end to hit on your point Erik. It is so crucial that your interviews are not 30 minute interviews. Like you said it's like dating for a week and then asking someone to marry you which sometimes works out. Usually not though. And what we lose we slow things down that way we can take people's mask off because that's probably what you saw happen and we've seen it happen a lot in our interviews as when you slow down and you take some time to dig into people's stories and find out about them. What happens is a mask comes off and they're trying to be in the room with you. And you see their authentic selves and sometimes that includes a couple of bombs so we prepare.

Nate: [00:10:03] Cool can you guys share any specific questions that you guys remember asking or that you that you're starting to ask today in your interviews that really touch more on the culture rather than just the you know how long you know how do you handle an objection. Things like that. Know what are some of those questions or what are some questions that you ask that really touch more of that culture piece.

Erik: [00:10:26] So let let me let me let me go through the nine step process and that's going to I think show how we get there. So if you are taking notes I think this could be a nice value add for you. The first piece is you place the ad and I know that sounds generic but what we found out is that we looked for people in a sales role quite often they've been drawn to what people views are typical realtor and our understanding of ISA is that they are a service based person.

Erik: [00:10:59] Our sales people are too but you know they're the folks who are going to be a little more tenacious in terms of having to be front facing those people and instead we define it as a service piece so inside sales and inside service. I mean that acronyms ISIS so we're not looking for ISIS here. And yet I want people to know and understand that as we place this ad and we as a company called WizeHire higher that's WizeHire and WizeHire is a really great company because it serves as a way to actually put out all of all of these feelers so it goes to indeed monster and everywhere else.

Erik: [00:11:38] The second thing that we do is we get pretty serious about just doing some research on the people so we get their resume. And with WizeHire we actually get a DISC score for us. We think that the DISC the personality profile is about 25 percent of our decision. You know we can narrow it down right away. I believe that the best ISAs are "D" "C"s or "C" "D"s.

Erik: [00:12:05] Those are dominant and detailed they're analytical and thicker skin and they follow systems and there are naturally probably a little bit stronger. I think that the people that could be a little more at risk are people who are high "I". Those are people who love to socialize with people they love interaction and they're going to be in an office for a long time as ISA. And so a high I can be really hitting a brick road for someone. Your natural buyers agents those are going to be your highest Is and then an S and S are stable compliance. They don't like to rock the boat and affect your confrontation.

Erik: [00:12:47] And as ISA your consistently quote unquote interrupting people's lives and you could have called reluctance if you have a higher Is now that's 25 percent the next 75 percent to 80 percent culture and then 25 percent of that is you're hungry or great your tenacity. And so ISA all those because on Step number two were able to get much more serious about understanding their profile how they feel about their resume if they can get a sign of if they're bouncing around. For every job and then you can also start maybe researching them on social media not to make any decisions based on our protected classes or rather to make sure that you're not letting crazy out the door. Step number three is we do a career night and instead of me trying to filter through and figure out who are all these people we instead invite those that have gone through the filter with every piece of that filter gets it narrowed down or more and more as we go through these nine steps at this career. Step number three we find out who had thrown their application out on 90 different sites and applied at 90 different jobs. We find out who really wants to work in our world and those that really want to work in our world will show up for the career nights and those that apply for every job and are willing to take an extra step. They don't show up. And so we filtered down automatically and then we get face to face and we get a chance to feel that person's energy and to see if they vibe.

Erik: [00:14:18] Michael great question you asked about to elaborate have a 50% culture. I would describe it like this Michael as you. It's a feeling and that feeling actually starts at career night the energy that the person brings are the the biggest two things. I believe that or for culture. Number one if somebody is coachable and number two if they're selfless if they are others before self their servants and their natural nature. For us that fits into our culture. I also think that people can't be victims and there's a lot of victims that apply. And when you ask them questions they're blaming everybody else. And that is like toxicity in world. And so we make sure that when we're talking about the present culture that we're keeping that out. So this career we're talking about the job and in fact my role and my goal is not to lure them in by talking about how sexy are places I rather try to scare the bejesus out of them and have them not apply. And I want them to self select out of the business to talk about how this is a lifestyle and how I don't want them to graduate up although there's opportunities to do so they have to earn the right to graduate and not just be bequeath that right. Step number four is there for them ISA questions and it's continuing to narrow down the final step number five 30 minute interviews are we really start to find out how this works.

Erik: [00:15:43] Step number 6 is we then check references and this is so vitally important because if I asked Robby for his three best references he's going to give me his best friend from high school and he's going to give me his co-worker that thinks Robbie's great and he's going to give me his art but I'm not going to know that it's his All right. And then we have to do more diligence than that. So we actually ask those three references for three more references and then we ask those three references for three more references and we do nine total reference checks on people because we're going to get to the nitty gritty of it. We're going to find out. It doesn't necessarily disqualify somebody if that person doesn't speak well of them. We just want to find out why in the world has there been conflict and how is this person persevered through it. So that's the first six steps and then step number seven to your question. Nate took me a long time to get there. Your question was what specific questions do we asked in the interview in our interview process on step number 7 as a three hour interview. The first half is the life story. Robby tell us about the life story because it's one of my favorite things that we do.

Robby: [00:16:52] So it's honestly as crazy as it sounds. It usually starts off with us letting them now for us with an interview the three hours long. You always seem to give them the framework that this interview is going to be different than a normal interview. That's where you got to start you've got to set that standard set that expectation.

Robby: [00:17:11] And one of the expectations we always start with is at any point in time if they feel like this isn't the right role for them or we feel like this isn't the right fit for them we owe it to each other to protect each other's time and let each other now. So you let them know how this frame of this interview is going to go. But the first hour hour and a half is all about them. And honestly it starts with the simple question of I wanna know your life story. So let's go back to when you were a little kid and tell me about how you were raised. Just start there. And what's crazy is every person is going to find from a question like that a different starting point. So I was going to say she was sort of middle school sort of elementary school. And it's really up to you to how you want to interpret it what you will allow them to get to that starting point. And then the conversation goes from there because everyone's been everyone's going to have a different story. I mean once we go down a different path and no interviews the same if there's one thing I can tell you is that no one is going to be the same. But it always starts with tell me your story. And traditionally when you ask that question sometimes are going to starting a surface and you've got to dig deeper but they'll guide you through the things that are the most important now things that we ask maybe generate more conversation are finding out the best thing that's ever happened to somebody finding out the worst thing that's ever happened to somebody because those are usually defining moments that can really determine who somebody is.

Robby: [00:18:49] Anything you want to add to that Erik.

Erik: [00:18:51] Now that three hour interview is I mean you're getting into the roots and the nature of people. And the goal is to have them respond to things that they naturally don't respond to. Let me give you an example because we can talk about this and a lot of people have heard that you go long and the interviews. But Nate let's role play this out for a second OK. I can't I can't. In an interview ask you about your family. I can't ask you about any protected classes. I can't ask you about any of them but with the right questions you're going to start answering that. So Nate tell me with your life story. Where did you grow up.

Nate: [00:19:38] I grew up in Des Moines Iowa.

Erik: [00:19:40] Ok. Who is really important in your life when you were younger growing up.

Nate: [00:19:46] That is a good question.

Robby: [00:19:47] I would say some almost word. And that's it. It is.

Erik: [00:19:54] So who is who is really important in your life.

Nate: [00:19:58] Yeah well it started jumping back in. I would say it's my grandpa. He and he's been with me for quite a long time. He's he's an entrepreneur himself and he's really impacted my life in some positive ways.

Erik: [00:20:15] That's fascinating. What kind of relationship you have with your grandpa growing up.

Nate: [00:20:20] Very fun casual he he doesn't really always act like a grandparent.

Nate: [00:20:26] He's kind of just a young man.

Erik: [00:20:31] So so what what kind of activities would you guys do that were out of the norm.

Nate: [00:20:35] I can't remember specifically when he took me out to a bar once and tried to pick up some ladies for me and so I don't know if that's a good sign for my business career but it certainly helps my my personal life.

Erik: [00:20:53] So you got amazing personal attention from your grandpa right. Yes. Were there any relationships in your life early on that you didn't get the amazing attention from that left you feeling maybe a bit of a void. Wow. OK so stop right there. Stop right there. Let's.

Robby: [00:21:12] That's when you know you've won by the way. When that wild moment hits it and.

Erik: [00:21:16] When when you don't have when you don't have anything that is a rehearsed answer and that's what you're going for in this interview is you're going to get out of the rehearsed answer. You had a story you told that story of your grandpa before. Right. And I just use that bit of information about what made you feel good. And I just gave you counterbalance it intrinsically if somebody talks about here's a point in my life that this was really tough. Man I grew up without my dad involved. Oh. So you asked about that and you learn about that because there's emotions with that. But then you say what kind of relationship did you have with your mom. And then you get the other side of the coin quite often and you get to find out how is this person resilient and how did they go through all this. Right. And so that's the first 90 minutes of this 180 minute interview. And you just dive in deeper and it's pretty common that people have emotions with it and yet realize what they are what they're working for and who they're working for the second half is starting to talk about job specifics for the first time. Step number six in the second and third hour of this hiring process. The first time we really get specific about the job is that step number 7 that was step number seven step number eight is then you should be gathering at the departments that you're going to be working with directly or the key people and they should go to a happy hour or coffee or dinner with you and connect on a social setting. We then want to allow our team members to say we think this person fits our culture and we like their energy or they can honestly nullify all the steps that were lead up to that point.

Erik: [00:22:55] Fact Robby did that a couple of months ago. Talk about that Rob because I think it's it's an important thing that you were able to dissect with the people in the interview weren't able to pull apart.

Robby: [00:23:07] So this is really this is the second half of the interview now we're I want to share a few questions and I've learned to ask that help us catch somebody that really didn't want to be and ISA but kept saying they wanted to be and this person was super great. And I she was awesome. But really what had happened at this point was she got all the way through the process. She did the interview with the other ISAs and I just asked him a few quick questions and I asked them well. Why is she leaving her current opportunity. And they said well she feels burned out from her current role and her current role was direct sales. All right. So we're missing a piece of the puzzle. There was something with direct sales that she was burnt out on essentially and I heard that and I said All right. So when she comes into the office and meets with me because I'm the final step.

Robby: [00:24:03] Now that was the final step you're part of Step number eight right. Yes. You're part of the team. You didn't do the interview but you're the you were the one to be able to either give your stamp approval or your step of disapproval.

Robby: [00:24:18] Exactly and I wasn't giving a disapproval at this point yet but I definitely had some red flags and I just sense there was something there. So she came in and honestly really what I did was I spent about 15 minutes just asking her what she was hoping to get out of a role.

Robby: [00:24:36] And I'd ask questions like ideally what is your your workday look like. What do you want to be doing. And she said things like she wanted to be working directly with clients. Eventually she wanted to be selling home she loved. Real estate. All of which is a red flag in the ISA role obviously because you spend zero time with people you sit in a box and shoot text shoot e-mails make phone calls all day long and you don't work directly selling real estate. So I just listen to her. Tony Robbins says we want to influence someone to find out what is influencing them. And that's all I did for about 15 minutes and there was still some red flags there and I put a bow on this. This is the question I've learned to ask that that really works well because it takes something that can be complex and makes it simple is I ask somebody I say what type of role do you want to work in. And I described three different options and I tell them you need to tell me which role appeals to you most. Instantly an answer like that and can't think about it. And then on top of that I want you to provide the why behind it. So I'll describe it like this or say Nate which of these roles is the most appealing to you.

Robby: [00:25:55] Nate you're getting hired or fired today or we're not picking you by.

Robby: [00:26:00] But option A looks like this. You work a very steady job with a very steady. Hey it's an eight 30 to 5 job where you check out you don't work nights and weekends and the salary is very consistent and you're probably making somewhere around 40 to 50 thousand dollars. Or option B is you are working 60 to 70 hours per week directly with clients who are working directly in real estate sales. There's the potential to make six figures. But you're probably working 50 60 hours per week and then Option C is your go to work in office 40 to 50 hours per week and then you're going to be working another 10 hours outside those hours. Certainly working 50 60 hours per week. And there's the potential to make six figures but you're never going to work directly with clients.

Robby: [00:27:00] It's going to be all over the phone or texting and emailing and which one of those Nate is the most profitable to you. And usually of course people that want to be an agent they say be someone that lacks the hunger that wants a very consistent type role he's drawn to an admin type role says option A. And then the say is going to say Option C so we generally. I present it like that. And in this case I did this to this gal and I asked and she said well without a doubt option B. And really what she's then saying is I don't want to be in ISA role.

Robby: [00:27:45] And again you can't as you want she wants to be in the world though. I mean that yes she was right. Yeah.

Robby: [00:27:53] Drown our world but not the job role and what we had to do in that moment was we told her. This is not a no of you not being in our world. It's this role isn't right for you. I think the last thing we should ever do is hire somebody into a role that's going to be extremely a poor fit for them and that's what it would have been we would have hired her she would've came in and she would have been miserable in that role. It was nothing that she wanted.

Robby: [00:28:22] And she was great talent and I think actually she'll probably join our world at some point. And I think we did the best thing by finding out she really wanted to see if it aligned with the role she's the right person. Right. Culture you're not the right fit for the role.

Nate: [00:28:43] Can I jump in there and ask a question kind of on on Erik's comment here. You know I know you guys are involved with every aspect of your business. How how might you know that someone's not a good fit for the ISA role other than those questions that you asked that you posed. You know is it is it. Is it the right idea to bring in multiple people on the interview so you can say hey maybe you know. So they have those different perspectives from the different aspects of business. Who is who should be involved in that interview process so they might have a better idea of hey not a good fit but she might be a good fit here for me.

Erik: [00:29:23] Loaded question I'll try. I'll try to unpack that their Nate. We have a person in our world that has done the majority of the hiring outside of me. She is on our admin side so we always we always believe in a three step process when somebody is getting trained it's it's really simple. Watch me watch you go and do and if if you have never hired somebody before and nobody on your team has ever hired somebody before you've got to fail your way forward. Use webinars use us as resources we want to help ride the tide as best we can but you've got to you've got to figure it out right. If you have hired somebody once twice three times or a thousand times your seen more as the expert. The more apps you have the better. We've we've spent a lot of time having Monica our H.R. gal in office manager I've had her watch me.

Erik: [00:30:21] And then I sat in and I let her conduct the interview and I watched her. And then finally when she was empowered that she was the one to go and to do it. But I want you to think about this because we hear that we're like yeah that's very typical business advice right. Like have somebody shadow you. And then you share with them and they're good to go. But I want you to think about teaching your grandma how to use your cellphone for just a moment. You teach your grandma how to use your cellphone. What happens is you grab your cell phone and then you type boop boop boop boop boop and you say you got it grandma. OK. And what she says is No I don't. No I don't. And by the way I'm 38 years old now which makes me totally out of touch with most technology and Mike Jones and all those other things. And so I am in this place now where I'm realizing that it is really difficult to just see somebody do something else and then think that you got it. It's like watching a grandparent watch you on yourself or that they just know how to they know how to use all these apps and it takes so much time and you have to show them and then you have to watch them and coach them. And so in our world if you are a larger part of a larger ecosystem whomever is the one that is experienced and it needs to have people watch them study them and then they need to be watching that person before you cut them. Did I answer your question there Nate.

Nate: [00:31:48] Yeah yeah I think he did. Absolutely. So is there is there an One-Step. Have we hit the right step. Yeah I get a job. Yeah. And that was the easy one.

Erik: [00:32:01] And most people skipped six to seven of those steps and every time I've skipped a step cut a corner or whatever it is it has not worked out. We want to rush this and a lot of us are millennials or close to it. We want things instantaneously. And that is not the way to setup a long term business plan is instantaneously. It is building a culture. But here's here's what is so imperative when you're communicating to these people who are going to be possibly your future ISAs is you need to tell them that this is a new role and that they need to show up and own this role. This is not an order taking rule. This is a role that they need to come in and be the chief commander the King Poobah of this entire role that you are giving them permission not to just pick up all these leftover leads that are responded to rather you were the future growth of this company. And everything we have is now on your shoulders. And so these people become managers and leaders and in your world and this is one of the huge differences between our Hatch Coaching and Hatch Realty world and many other ways in which people run their ISA programs.

Erik: [00:33:11] They are not the bottom of the totem pole in our world they are the top of the food chain. OK. So please be very cognizant about that. You're not looking for an order taker you're looking for a leader. As far as I'm concerned that's that's how the question is was asked a little while ago in the chat. How do you keep somebody in this role when they really want to jump to production. I think you actually feed them with leadership and responsibility. You don't keep them as as the ones who are just picking up all the stuff that nobody else is getting. Right. Don't take all your lives and just don't want to know ISA you're setting yourself up for failure. But as they earn the right to start leading the team that's how you find somebody who a grind and a rule is when you give them opportunity responsibility and influence. And so that changes the scope when I'm talking about that right you're not looking for somebody who's just really good details who make phone calls you're looking for somebody who's a powerful powerful leader right.

Robby: [00:34:11] That prerace by the way Wolf of Wall Street I think is.

Robby: [00:34:16] Yeah. I want to add to that a quick to really accentuate the points. When you hire an ISA they're not just going to be creating opportunities contacting lead setting appointments. They also have to have the willingness to have uncomfortable conversations with your agents.

Robby: [00:34:41] In our world our ISAs aren't just lead converters they are really leading managers. And that means that they are having to have management type conversations with agents. In other words sometimes agents drop balls and the ISAs are the ones that see it happening and they got to be the one to go that's the coach or the leader that goes and has these very uncomfortable conversations sometimes about them not doing what they're supposed to do. So make sure you think of that as well.

Nate: [00:35:14] Yeah. So I think I think we've covered the entire process there covered a lot. One of the things that I think we're kind of revolving around a little bit then is you know what. What should the typical background of an ISA look like. I know we kind of touched on what their DISC profile should look like. But now we kind of mentioned they should be leaders and they're going to be at the top of the totem pole rather than the bottom.

Nate: [00:35:42] So are you looking for people with you know a vast background of 10 years leading a sales team or are you looking for someone. What are you looking for. What does the typical background of say who could transition into a leader look like.

Erik: [00:35:57] I was I was in Texas a couple of weeks ago for some training and was with my buddy Thomas Elrod out of North Carolina and he and I were chatting and he described it to me like this as he said you know what in a lot of people's worlds they have goldfish that sits in their little bowl waiting to be fed. And he said that his goal was to have sharks people that went and fed themselves that were hungry and hunters and I would say that a person's job experience in the past doesn't determine where they're going to go in the future. I'm looking for somebody who is a shark and you can see that in ways when you do enough interviews you spend enough time with somebody you're going to see if they have waited for the world to be given to them on a silver platter or if they had been willing to go and to grind. We've had really great experience with people with military backgrounds. Two of our three ISAs currently one is Marine and one is Army National Guard. And they have had masterful experiences of falling into a system and then we watched them climb the ranks outperforming their peers. They showed that they were hungry. We also have a weird assimilation with all of our biases that seemed to really adore Star Wars. And I can't figure it out. I can't tell you why. I've never seen Star Wars before and I also know I would make a horrible ISA. You could say Robby shake his pipe and depart.

Robby: [00:37:34] No I think you're right about that I think there is no military thing billed as to any to go hire somebody from the military. Please don't hear that. What I think Erik is saying is what really matters is do they have a history of defying the expectation going above and beyond.

Robby: [00:37:53] I think another piece I know in my case when I sat down and I asked Are I ISAs is this correlation is not causation. One of the things that really stood out to me was the that I event that had been successful in our world and actually a lot of the people that have been successful in our world have had some type of life event or experience that was humbling. And I know for myself I left political campaigns not on such great notes. And that was humbling.

Robby: [00:38:26] Jim had been overseas and Cody and Erik had been overseas as well as well as Pete one of our former ISAs and I asked them that said what's going on here is this a fluke or is this causation. And they said the realistic piece of it is when you serve overseas and you come back every day here is a pretty darn good day. So I think humility and I think hunger. You want principles you want to see the principles and somebody's background. I don't think that correlates with you have 10 years of managing a call center. I don't think that matters. I don't think you need to go out there and hire somebody who has two years of calls and or experience of anything. I don't think it really matters. I know I've had a cousin who works in a call center and tries to sell me Cutco knives and there's a zero percent chance that I would hire her for this role because that's not what this is. I want somebody that has a history of showing that they want to improve their lives and they're willing to put in the work to do so. And when we learn somebody's stories you see demonstrations of that and the people that I've been successful in this role they have. When you learn their story they show that hunger. So I don't think there's one role I know in my case I worked on political campaigns and I knocked doors and I made phone calls and yes it helped me. Be prepared for this role because if there's anything less popular than sales it's politics. I had a knock on doors and make phone calls on political campaigns and have the door slammed you are facing gets worn out which same thing happens in the sales. But I think that the hunger is the big piece. You've got to find somebody who has a desire and hunger to change their life to change her life and is willing to put in the work. And you can't sell them or try faking it.

Robby: [00:40:30] You can't fake it for three hours when you ask the questions and that's what Erik found when he interviewed me.

Nate: [00:40:35] Yes. Processes that are important. Yeah go ahead.

Erik: [00:40:38] I mean when we cover this quickly Nate we oftentimes place job ads and expect the right people to show up. And I want you to think about that because we have we've discovered the irony and the mistakes and the holes in our system and our companies. And that is for ISAs we pride ourselves on aggressively going after what we think is the best opportunity we aggressively go after are not aggressive with them. We're aggressive with our systems and we're tenacious with it. And then when it comes to talent we just sit around and 21000 expected to show up. It's like waiting for book. The hope was a very bad business strategy. Hope is a great thing to have in your hearts. And yet if it's not met with massive action behind it you were setting yourself up for a huge failure and most of us hope that great talent is going to show up and really my job is I don't I don't hit the phones for for people. I don't hit the phones with the next listing and the next buyer I need to go out there and find incredible people and hunt them down. I need to be an ISA for talent I need to be aggressively going to find these people and it's not showing up to say Would you like a job. It's constantly every restaurant that you're at every interaction that you have with somebody who's in service seeing how they are and being unafraid to ask them about their dreams and life. It's not to say hey do you want to make a hundred thousand dollars. Come work with me instead. Is same man you give me really great service. I want to learn more about you. What do you want to do with your life. What are you passionate about. And if those passions happen to align yourself in a better spot. So if you're gonna find great ISA talent they tell you yes you have to go through placing the ads and everything else you will almost always have your best successes when you find people that are already connected to you because you believe and so forth and you're pretty.

Nate: [00:42:43] So are there any are there any red flags. I know we've talked a lot about the good things to look for you know the positives that the the great flags that you should be looking for. Your interview process. Are there any red flags or deal breakers that you might hear or see in your interview process or in your applications. I think I want to I also want to say for any ISA listening is there any red flag or deal breaker that you know walking into an interview with with Erik or a team leader that you should be aware of as an ISA that might make you back out to kind of both sides of the equation there any deal breakers red flags.

Robby: [00:43:31] So I would say this in this I a role but the first red flag I look for is anytime someone says I want to work in real estate. It's almost always a red flag and it's because they want to work directly with people. And it's it's a red flag for this role.

Robby: [00:43:49] Every ISA that we've had come into our world. One did not have their real estate license. And then two had zero desire to work in real estate. They didn't want to. It's not what they're drawn to. It's not their natural fit.

Robby: [00:44:09] And the reason for that is working in real estate is working directly with people.

Robby: [00:44:15] And again in this role you get very very very little of that if not not I think of the 1 2 3 4 400 ish closings that I brought in I probably met two or three random strangers and they were very impactful stories. That is not what I would want. So that's one of the the big red flags. The second one is we have no room for angry human beings in our world. And we had someone in an interview that was it that showed anger demonstrated anger and not just frustration but anger or a desire to hurt someone. And that's just that's not going to fly in a world. So that's probably more of a culture piece. But those are just two major red flags that that we've you know jolted people out.

Erik: [00:45:07] I I'm I'm drawn to people that are me people are actually that are people and are turned off by people who are me self-serving. You know the things that we love we also can find out what we avoid by looking at the other side of the coin. My my. And this may be where I've been lately. My biggest frustration with potential hires are victims people who play the blame game. Yeah it is. It is just you can't stop somebody from being a victim. But you sure cannot hire. That's a lot easier.

Robby: [00:45:47] And the opposite side of that the opposite side of playing the victim role is an ownership role. And when you learn people's stories everybody has failures. And when they talk about their failures are they blaming somebody else for their failure or are they taking ownership that they caused the failure just little pieces like that are the ways you're going to take past the surface level B.S. and find those authentic stories.

Robby: [00:46:14] So yeah it's not just avoiding the victims. You want people to take full ownership of what they do that are accountable to what they do.

Erik: [00:46:23] And here is the question. Here's the interview question. Nate tell me a time in which you failed on a huge scale when and then ask follow up questions. When's the last time you let somebody down. What was the biggest mistake you made in the last month. Like just get specific give them a mind set up but sometimes you can say with your friend group because people just think we're at work with your friends. When do you let your friend down recently. And if they don't have anything they either the perfect friend and I just want to be best with them. Or or or or I can be there. They're not self-aware enough to understand that they are victims and it's because you asked us Robby right now Robby when were you a bad friend in the last 30 days. And I bet you I bet you'll say you you with any I'll say in this situation I saw this person is directly and they needed me and I didn't send it right away and I like you own your stuff.

Nate: [00:47:22] You know is there any point thinking anyone in that process or droughty innervation where the ISA say or that he attended is able to ask you questions. I mean in terms of like role play I know we've seen a couple that that question a couple of times. Do you do you offer that opportunity to let the diet kind of jump in. Ask you questions.

Nate: [00:47:43] You know that's what they ISA roll is they're only as good as the questions they ask. When does that when does that opportunity presented itself.

Robby: [00:47:54] So I'll answer that first. I think in that beginning of the interview I let them know traditionally if they have any questions for me they can certainly ask. I will say this. That's the highest quality candidates that we have in the second part of the interview when it becomes very professional. We give them the opportunity to ask us questions about the role and that's traditionally where some of the stand outs really pop out because they don't just sit there with their you know hands tied. They start asking you some questions that are usually pretty darn good. So I would say they're allowed to ask questions throughout the process. But it's towards the end of the two and a half hours where it's their time to ask very very specific questions. And honestly we get excited about some candidates. We just hired a guy who had a list of questions. And in that last half hour and because you're right that their ability to ask questions is so huge but it's hordes that towards the end will get them.

Erik: [00:49:04] But it's amazing to find out how it happens at the career night. It happens when they're applying because they can ask questions to us it happens when they're registering for things.

Erik: [00:49:12] We're seeing this trend. Some people say how much you want to make. And that's their first question. Yes. I love your hunger but if you think that that's how you're going to win somebody over is jumping to compensation. It's tough. I do want to I do want to make sure that we say this piece is a lot of people want to graduate their ISAs. When you hire an ISA they may want to move into a producing Agent role. In fact there is a body Lance Loken in Houston Texas he runs one of the top real estate teams in the world. They do thousands of transactions a year and Lance requires people to start as an ISA in his world and then will graduate them up. The only way I can endorse or recommend this and same with Lance is if you also have ISAs that are permanently in the rule because you use the said you can use it as a breeding ground testing ground and a grounds to give people something it's fantastic..

Nate: [00:50:11] I just kind of want to have that consistency and the right there is somebody or out hiring the second highest and that is something that you wish you would have done better in the first one that you learned in the second hire. What's the dynamic between you know going forward and hiring your second third fourth ISAs.

Robby: [00:50:37] It's not often that I get to do it the hunger of the second or third ISAs should scare the first or second that would be my biggest thing is when you hire that person you should bring them in. They should be better and they should be hungrier than the first or second. So I just want to get to that and you can add to it Erik.

Erik: [00:50:57] Thank you. The funny thing is I have a haircut coming up and I just want everyone to see this. It's going to be very quick watching myself. These are painful.

Erik: [00:51:10] When you're looking for your second ISA you are looking for an interesting combination. I wouldn't always say you want somebody to compliment that person meaning. My wife is an "S" "C". I'm a "D" "I". Right. We compliment each other but my wife wouldn't be a great ISA nor would I. But you're not looking for that person to compliment it just to bring in the soft side or somebody is more aggressive. You're looking for somebody to compete and Robby said you want that person to hustle hard because having that second person in there should intrinsically make that first person run faster. Do you run faster Nate if you're being chased or if you're chasing someone. And the truth of the matter is you're going to run faster if you're in a race than if you're just jogging on your own.

Erik: [00:51:54] So whether you are in first place or second place you're going to you to Structurely get away when you're done. Also how would you describe this type of their final comp is your first. Say you do with us is good but he's good at it. Yeah. Friday afternoon looks with a somewhat questions right now.

Nate: [00:52:12] Guys give us your final thoughts while we are we let some others get some final questions and.

Erik: [00:52:30] I'm going first Rob. My final thoughts are this is ISA game has changed our world and us getting serious about higher and this is this isn't just ISA that we're talking about this is everyone we just talked specifically about the ISA language. This game is changing. The real estate game is changing artificial intelligence is changed and people are changing. When we look at different generations of folks and it's going to be imperative that you take this so seriously and 80 percent of your problems go away when you have the right people in your world instead of the wrong people. And so take this seriously move intentionally slow be strategic about what you're doing and then fail your way forward. Failure way to the Top and is going to be essential. And so yes you're going to look for that perfect ISA say they will totally disrupt your world if they're terrible if they're good you can you can move if I have to accept it. But you can't move a three to seven. Right. So I want you to see a fine rate here and help get them here and pray that they got here. Honestly I thought Robby was here. Turns out he's up here and so you don't know what you don't know. You start doing that and trust your processes peace out.

Robby: [00:53:47] I love it and I want to add one more thing that maybe we breezed over is you need to hire. Not that I was leaving. I think that's something that we oftentimes move to quickly pass is this role is truly about serving other people and loving and caring about other people's self so when you're hiring and ISA hire someone that you would trust to help your grandma to help your spouse to honestly babysit your children. If they can't do things like that you would never trust a person to do that. If they're hungry but they are schmuck. Don't hire them. You've got a hired good people. That's that's one of the biggest thing that I would highly recommend. So find people that love and care about other human beings who can go a long way.

Nate: [00:54:37] It's awesome when we see what's going on time. We appreciate it guys. I think this was awesome. I love all the comments here. It's really really exciting. I will bid you farewell from Structurely. I'll let Robby say goodbye to you.

Robby: [00:54:57] Yeah thanks. I'm excited. We're excited to debate "Are Dials Dead" its one of the best questions to get asked in awhile.

Nate: [00:55:12] Right well we will see you guys. Thanks everyone. Have a great weekend!

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Real Estate ISA Radio - When you Should Hire your First Real Estate Inside Sales Agent

Nate Joens: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. This is Nate with Structurely welcoming you to our second ever real estate ISA radio podcast where we give you an inside look into the science and setup of building a successful inside sales team for your real estate business. I'm here today with my co host Robbie Trefethren as well as special guest Erik Hatch with Hatch realty. Robby would you like to get us started.

Robby Trefethren: [00:00:39] Awesome yeah I'm really excited today because the focus of today's calls is going to shift. Last call we really focusing on the role of the inside sales agents in our businesses. And today we're going to go down the journey of when are we going to hire one should you hire your first real estate inside sales agent. And I think there's no better person to talk about this than than Erik Hatch because Erik, I think it's fair ISA that when you really were first exploring getting in ISA it wasn't anywhere near what it is now in terms of popularity. It was maybe like the new shiny thing. Is that fair ISA at that point Erik.

Erik Hatch: [00:01:20] Yeah I I hired an ISA because I listened to a bunch of people who were top teams that I never thought I would ever even get a smidge of their success the rise of the copy my way to the end. And sure enough I saw the people that were having great success and they were using an ISA. I didn't even know what it meant when I'm outside of having somebody simply answer the phone and respond to leads passion. That's the only thing I knew about it and we fumbled our way to the top here.

Robby Trefethren: [00:01:52] That's probably a good way to describe it fumbling way to the top. Love it.

Nate Joens: [00:01:57] There you go. So Erik sounds like you've got it figured out now but when you know you it sounded like you were starting to build up your team. If if you're a new team leader of looking to actually build your team today should an ISA be your first hire onto your team.

Erik Hatch: [00:02:16] Boy that is a heavy laden question. I'm going to say no I don't think it ISA is your first hire. I think that people want to jump to having and ISA. Well what we have to figure out here and this is something that I have studied in great depth to try to figure out who to hire and when to hire and and then certainly how to hire what we think about is this is if you were the rainmaker for me when I started 2011 it was my first year in real estate. I sold 52 homes in 2011 as an independent agent. I had in the summer months I had a part time college student helping me up but otherwise I was a slow operator and I was just burning the candle at both ends and really struggling to stay afloat and so I did what any reasonable person would do and that was I hired a bunch of people that were my friends and I never regretted that I just brought them aboard. And we grew our team in 2012 from from 4 people to 13 people by the end of the year and how we hired Nate Robbie as we went and I hired two buyer agents and one admin and we just jumped out and I think that's a that's the easy desire is people want to jump in right away and they want to find producers and they want people that can help bring them an income. That year we sold 192 homes and up 182 I did 113 of the transactions and as I coach and as I mentor people throughout this industry I find out that that's usually the case is that the rainmaker even as they're growing their team are still the main producers because were traditionally hiring folks that aren't necessarily trained well and that we don't we haven't done our due diligence to teach them how to do it exceedingly well us a rainmaker know how to crush it in real estate.

Erik Hatch: [00:04:12] We think that that's just the natural progression is when you crush it as an independent agent then you go and you build the team and so I bring all that up to get to the root of the question. Here are the roots of the question depending on where you live in the country. It comes down to this. I think that your first hire should be an assistant somebody to take the stuff off your plate. The second hire should be an assistance. The first assistance I think is again giving you life back in your day they're freeing you up from all that people work and all the added stuff that is so heavy laden in this real estate industry. The second hire then is a growth piece. The first one is really bew. And so now you have more time to prettiest and if you spend that time producing you continue to be sick with coal we'll right. And so this second admin comes in and they help you with marketing support that marketing support is a really important piece of this because now you have to figure out how to market your sphere better. And at this point you may start entertaining purchasing some businesses are going out and using your dollars to create more dollars. The next hire usually say it's an say but if it's an ISA that means you're the producer. And think of the chaos that would create in your world if you now have leveraged yourself through assistance and dad and ISA it's doubling the amount that you're doing. Like that's just that's too much. And so I actually think that the next hire is a showing partner not a buyer agent a showing partner you need to as a rainmaker when you're built in your world.

Erik Hatch: [00:05:53] Spend more time training the people that are there instead of just giving them business and hoping that they can succeed. And you need to use a shrimper model as a way to get better service as a way to train the people that are coming aboard. And as a way for you to protect your bottom dollar. After those three hires I think the next hire your for hire which is your fifth team member. I think that person now is an inside sales agents because you now have leveraged out a lot of your time with buyers. You've leveraged out a lot of your responsibility with the administrative side and with listings and you now are looking again to grow and this and say sales agents is the best way to do so. I do think though and this may be jumping the ship a little bit here. I do think that when you hire one site sales agent you actually need to hire a second. ISA bringing somebody on board so that that one person doesn't get burnt out and that they have somebody to lean on is really important. But to summarize this again here would be how I would hire assistants assistants showing partner ISA and the hire after that is actually another showing assistants or shall we partner because that first showing partner will be graduating to be a buyer's agent who that was a long answer up.

Nate Joens: [00:07:15] I think that's awesome. Robby since you kind of lived in the same world do you think first of all do you have anything to add and second of all how. How important do you think that that piece of hiring two ISAs are one right after another is in terms of competitiveness and just overall team structure.

Robby Trefethren: [00:07:33] Yes. So I'll answer the two plus ISAs and I'm just kind of add some depth to Erik's answer request really won't. One big thing that that has to be happening throughout the hiring of admin one admin too and the showing partner is really this is your role as the rainmaker is to basically put it in shorts because I know Erik will love a second term. You've got to find a way to bring in the bacon and the bacon would be it leads for the team. Because here's the thing is if you're not bringing in leads anything you just said air works. If you're not bringing more opportunity for the team none of that work. And the reality is is when you're hiring other admin it's leveraging rolls off your plate so you can basically put your time into dollar producing activities. So I just wanted to add some depth to that area. Would you agree with that.

Erik Hatch: [00:08:33] Oh of course of course we do. What usually happens is that people are slow to hire and ISA because you think that you can chase after those deals and then you think that you're going to bring on buyer agents and listing agents to chase after those deals. When realistically unless you have to break them exceedingly well and do so you're not going to have massive success. I've said this before and I'll say it again is that if you don't have an ISA you are the ISA and the push that we're having here on this higher is you need to find that spots in your team and you have to make sure that there is enough business for them to chase after as well as theirs and that there's enough business for you to handle.

Erik Hatch: [00:09:21] It's a both and yes it's it's an imperfect science. Erik said we fumbled our way through it and I think that's this process this lay out is because we fumbled a couple times. It's probably the easiest way to describe that two second point or something if you'd like to quit and then I'll get this.

Erik Hatch: [00:09:41] I was just going ISA you don't necessarily have to buy business to employ ISA right away. I think an ISA they can work your sphere and your have mets. I think they're better suited to work. They have not met at least in our world they are but there are US a plethora of expired and FSBOs and things that you can go after and that person could come in and sharpen their teeth before you start spending an obscene amount of money on purchased business so I think that they can go through any old leads that you have whether it be a sign call or an Internet lead or any of those expired service groups but Robbie back to you.

Robby Trefethren: [00:10:22] Yeah I love that and the hitting on old leads is something we're going to talk about in a little bit. How do we onboard ISA. But I want to talk about to ISAs real quick. I want to tell you my experience when I came into this. ISA game.

Robby Trefethren: [00:10:38] Basically the way it worked was I was really the whole time. ISA myself for about three to four months. And what that really meant was we probably had about 300 ish leads coming in per month between Zillow between what we're old Tiger leads me and now been on commission inc. We had organic leads coming in because Erik is very well known in our community. So there was a lot of opportunities out there and we had an ISA that was hired before me but he really transitioned out of the role and it was really only me for about 3 to 3 ish 4 months and I will say that by the end of that three to four months I was completely burnt out to the point where when I brought in the next ISA that we we finally did hire finally like three to four months is a long time but when we didn't bring them in. Basically I just handed everything over to him. Out of pure exhaustion no joke got on a flight went Vegas with.

Robby Trefethren: [00:11:41] My wife for I think 11 days and just completely checked out. And the reason it's it's key to have two is to out that I went through it that all possible have to remember now because it was unbelievably exhausting. A lot of people try to take this role confined to an 8 to 5 job and that's just not possible. People keep trying people keep failing. It will not work because and ISA if you're doing all this outbound work throughout the day especially now what happens is people texting back and calling back at night and if you don't answer that call it really defeats the whole purpose of everything you do because the whole point of everything and ISA does is to call leads generate conversations identifying that conversation whether whether somebody is a prospect or not and then convert the lead. And if people are calling it back and texting you back and you're not taking advantage of it it defeats the purpose. And on her last when we talk about how in this role it's easily a 50 to 60 hour per week rule. With that being said you do need to protect your time and if there's only one to you if you only have one ISA please for their own sake make sure there are some built in leverage for them to take a night off a couple of times a week whether it's you know an agent taking leads for whomever somebody around they will burn up.

Robby Trefethren: [00:13:10] Secondly the other major piece with with having ISAs is it creates speed to lead it creates friendly competition in our world that all leads are fair game. Basically it's almost like something called a shark tank. Basically it's first come first serve. So if a really great lead comes in at 3pm when both ISAs or office because there's trouble. It's a race. Get to that lead first and that friendly competition. The constant comparing each other's numbers raises the floor of their performance and pushes their ceiling even higher. So those are two of the main reasons I say you definitely want to. If you don't have ISAs think about getting a second one. Usually it just forces them to go and find more business that's already in your system to begin with.

Nate Joens: [00:14:06] Absolutely yeah I think that competition is so important. And I think what we'll touch more on onboarding but absolutely don't copy what Robby did and go to Vegas after you or your first ISA. Switching gears a little bit just to kind of put some real numbers to what we talked about this team structure and how to hire and ISA who to hire first. How much are leads I think I think you kind of touched on a couple different variations you can buy. You can buy leads or you can longer work free leads. But how many leads should you be generating before you hire an ISA.

Robby Trefethren: [00:14:44] I'd so I would say I would say the number should look like this.

Robby Trefethren: [00:14:49] Traditionally that suite number I like ISA is 300 or 350 leads per month. We'll keep an ISA busy day can momentarily do more than that. I think if you have them do more than that when ISA long term they're going to burn out or it's just going to happen is they're not going to be able to grab the high hanging fruit because they don't have the time. That number really needs some more clarity though. If you have a lot of high quality leads coming in if it's a lot of property and leads like Zillow or realtor.com if it's a lot of higher quality leads you don't need as many higher quality leads he means more conversations more conversations and more appointments and honestly booking appointments takes a considerable amount of time. In our world if you have will lower quality leads to me and if your strategy is a lot of pay-per-click leads for example you're going to need more of those leads. Keep one ISA for us. I think we've a very healthy bland. Our strategy in terms of marketing we bring a healthy blend in of lay for radio his property from leads from Zillow some home whole search leads as well as a good amount of pay-per-click leads.

Robby Trefethren: [00:16:16] So the number we go off of because we're well bounces around 300 to 350.

Erik Hatch: [00:16:22] Well I would say this also is the answer that would give aid is no way in which the game is played today. Nate what you are doing with Structurely and artificial intelligence ISA to have that as a game changer for real estate ISA companies. I don't I don't know that answer yet. I'll be honest Robby spoke with some fire about where we're at today. I think that number's going to be way way way way way higher in the future. The amount of leads that we actually need to employ one ISA it means less cost for us on the overhead of employing people.

Robby Trefethren: [00:17:05] And I have a quick as well just the echo that or you're 100 percent right Erik that we're where this game is going. When I got into it it was so dependent on me picking up the phone and dialing people. And honestly that was pretty labor intensive. And now this scheme is becoming so much more text based and really what it does is it eliminates the amount of dead time of doing attempts.

Erik Hatch: [00:17:30] And Robby 60 percent of your conversations in the ISA world started via text now 60 percent.

Robby Trefethren: [00:17:38] And it's rising. I honestly and this sounds crazy but I I can envision a world not in the too far future where people don't even answer their phone unless it's a prearranged phone call unless there's a specific purpose for it. Because I sit there and I look at younger generations that's how they behave. It's the millennials and the Gen Z-ers that literally my brothers will not answer my call. If we text about something and arrange a call we'll still talk all day long. But they don't want to be inconvenienced with a random phone call. They're more than willing though to respond to text messages. And that number that you just said is going to keep rising. I don't know what the top end is but it's going to be a lot higher than 60 percent. There's zero doubt about it.

Nate Joens: [00:18:23] I will absolutely second that. I'm I'm 24 and the only person that I'll answer the phone for is my mother.

Nate Joens: [00:18:29] So if it's if it's anyone other than her then it's not happening but I'll text them.

Erik Hatch: [00:18:37] It's not even, It's not even you pretty face millennials either. It's like I'm I'm 38 I'm right on the cusp of Generation X type. And part of me is a baby boomer at my heart. I'm like right in the middle of all of those things and I don't answer my phone unless I know the number. Like unless it's somebody that I talk to because I get I did 10 robo dialers a day right now and it makes me crazy. And that's ISA has changed. People are going to pick up the call for the most part. If it's not a number that they recognize very very valid point.

Robby Trefethren: [00:19:19] And yes start with younger generations. That's how all of these new trends start as they start at the bottom and then it spreads. You look at social media adoption. It was young folks that did it first. And now everyone and their grandma has a Facebook account. Actually now of course young people have been away from Facebook because my mom's on Facebook and I don't want to be on Facebook with my mom.

Robby Trefethren: [00:19:41] But would love you it. That's how it works right. It's young folks start it on because they challenge the status quo to do something different. And then if it's widely adopted it spreads among different folks because I think you're on the accent right. Right. Is it spreading that that behavior is becoming the norm. I mean everybody is just the way it is.

Nate Joens: [00:20:05] Right. I don't and I don't think this is ISA that phone calls will like you know no one will be you know will be calling each other ever. I think that's one thing that we see time and time again through our conversations that our product has via text is you know we'll warm up the lead will ask a few questions maybe the third or fourth conver third or fourth question in they say hey why don't you give me a call. And yet you know it. That's that's the perfect opportunity where ISA or an agent who's acting like an ISA can jump in and actually make that call. It's a very valid point.

Robby Trefethren: [00:20:39] But yeah it did put a bow on that too to really emphasize that point. The game's changing and the amount of leads per an ISA going to go up and undoubtedly really because they don't have to sit there and waste so much time. Instead they're going to be exchanging text back and forth. Now I want to see action that change. What skills are required of contention in the role. Because making sure things are supposedly practiced. You know in your world you have artificial intelligence that's having the conversation back and forth. And you know it can remember text back with human beings. Sometimes we forget to send that text back now for plus reasons. And the system to create and make sure those follow up text don't slip through the cracks are going to be crucial and key to be relevant in the future.

Nate Joens: [00:21:31] Absolutely so. So I think we talked a little bit about you know how many leads should you be generating before you have an ISA. I think I think this is a hard question to ask and answer but this is kind of more speaking to the pipeline that your ISA should be regularly working so I know that I think it's Dunbar's number or whatever that's called says that you can. Humans can only have 150 friends 150 relationships ISAs are obviously superheroes. How many should they be handling in their pipeline every month.

Robby Trefethren: [00:22:07] Man I actually think that the this question has less to do with the person and it has a lot more to do with what is your system.

Robby Trefethren: [00:22:16] For everything I know in our world and I can't even really tell you for a month. Right. You guys heard how many leads we have coming in roughly ISA for month.

Robby Trefethren: [00:22:27] So our number that we worked was that 350 number just right now. And again the numbers going up my ISA is at any point in time. Generally how about depending on the time of year five to eight hundred follow up scheduled with prospects in the future. That means Nate if you were my ISA and you had all these people were following up with that you had once contacted the conversation and they say they're a year out and it's a very firm year out we have 500 to 800 of those generally per ISA at any given point. Now I think the reason Dunbar's number is 1 50. If the ISA was the ISA the agent and the person that stayed in touch with the consumer afterwards I think the 150 number will make a lot more sense. Really what we're leveraging here is all the ISA is doing is nurturing and then handing off to the agent so that that number maybe doesn't have as much relevance in this in this conversation. But for an agent definitely it makes makes a ton more sense because they're chasing their friends or family their sphere past clients and that 150 number is basically saying you can invest the energy to maintain those relationships just because the ideas are only do in the front end of a relationship and then handing it off and letting somebody else do it. The number that we generally see is eight hundred. We let it get to be as big as about twelve hundred once and that was an absolute nightmare. And we had to create again a system and maybe we'll get to that on a different call That's a whole 25 minute conversation but we have a system to make sure that we can keep all those organized because not all follow ups are created equal.

Robby Trefethren: [00:24:23] Basically long story short is some follow up some opportunities in the future are a lot more valuable than others and therefore we need to prioritize those over the other opportunities.

Robby Trefethren: [00:24:35] So it's not ISA the less quality opportunities are crap don't ever make them but you should never call you know a "D" lead before the "A" follow up for example.

Nate Joens: [00:24:49] Absolutely that makes sense. So kind of switch gears on you guys. Now I think we've talked a lot about you know what ISA should look like when they're up to speed. Now you actually get them up to speed. What after you get the right ISA which we can talk about in a later episode. How do you onboard ISA and what's that first. First four to six weeks look like.

Erik Hatch: [00:25:11] Well I'll give you the simple answer and then I'll let Robbie give the more detail answer. Perfect. It is a three step process. The first one is Watch Me The second one is watch you. And the third one is go and do the watch me portion means if you're on board and as ISA if you don't ISA they need to watch you or if you go on ISA I need to watch that person intentionally Nate I'm telling you to read a book or to study a book. You do it differently.

Nate Joens: [00:25:47] Maybe than you. Yes I am.

Erik Hatch: [00:25:51] Like if I tell you to read a book you're going to carefully glance through it but if you study a book you're going to highlight you're going to take notes you're you're actively learning and they say that most of us make is that is that we always assume that people are watching when rarely they're seen us they're not watching with great potential. Robbie go ahead.

Robby Trefethren: [00:26:15] Yes going I was going to say just to reemphasize the just reading a book compared to studying it I just think of you know basically anything that is that is a fiction book is always be something you read and like a nonfiction book would be something you study. Nobody really studies fiction set up because when you get out.

Erik Hatch: [00:26:37] So that that portion has timeframe and people say we're how long does that take it takes as long as it needs to until they get it. If you're putting a exact timeframe on that they may not get it and you're just saying well the other two weeks watching me so they have now. And so it's until they get this second step of watch you is the one that everybody screws up myself included. This is if Robbie is the ISA and Nate you're the new ISA quite often you're going to watch Robbie for a couple of weeks and see what he does and then he's going to ask questions like yeah you've got it. And so he just jumps to start number three and that's going to get you watch me. We talked about it so now go ahead and realistically I watch golf all the time. I love the game. But the second club is in my hands. I become a bumbling idiot and I'm no good I'm no good for nothing. And that's how I practice obsessively with a coach. I'm never going to get better and that second step of watch you is the most important step in that three step process is whoever is the trainer needs to spend a diligent amount of time making sure that that person's swing group rotation foot placement ball placement all those other things are exactly right. And until that happens that person should not be cut loose to go do. But that's my answer from 10000 foot view.

Nate Joens: [00:28:13] That's awesome. It sounds like you're a pro golfer actually. Yeah I really I always play but I always play best ball I tell him my best mom and I go to the best part.

Nate Joens: [00:28:26] It's awesome. That's great. Robby do you have anything else to add on the on boarding.

Robby Trefethren: [00:28:33] So all supplemental Erik said I do think that is the biggest mistake most people completely skip the skip step two. They have the person watch them and then they say go and do and then what happens is two months later the say is having these conversations that are way out of line. What they want out and then they get mad at the ISA and the problem with that is I would say almost all all of these issues are almost never the teammates fault early employees fault. Whenever I see issues in terms of someone is relatively new it's almost all these people skip the. Now I watch you stage and I'm going to make sure that you're doing things correctly. You're having the conversations correctly so most people skipped that and it's extremely detrimental now in terms of specifics. I like Erik's that I like to zoom in really in the first three weeks. Here's what I would say needs to happen first off your ISAs they shouldn't just shadow anyone that's making lead generation calls. They also need to go into shadow buyer consultations listing consultations and the shadow showings open houses now not because your ISAs they should be doing open houses. We used to do that by the way and it's just we moved away from it but because you're ISA needs affirm we understand and have a firm grasp of the whole process. They need to understand what it's like for a consumer to make the call walk in the door go through the closing process because they're going to need to be able to articulate it to other people on why that is value to them and if they've never been to an open house they don't know what to show and looks like they don't know when inspection is. You're missing the boat on an opportunity to train them on what the whole process looks like. So the first few weeks. That is absolutely crucial. Basically I would say the first three weeks is them watching you like Erik said You watch me space. That's all it is. Then from there that's when you know after three to four weeks in that's when we'll do some role plays and I'm going to start watching you to see if you can do the basics of this conversation really well how's your introduction. Jim talks about this really well Jim is hands down the best ISAs in the country and he talks about how most people like go and practice these extravagant role plays. And what you need to do is you need to practice the basics Nepal of John Wooden here John Wooden with all his basketball players. The first thing he would teach them how to tie their shoes. Good think about that time the shoes in his ISAs they were all is. What is your opening question with your potential clients that is tying the shoes. And if you try running with shoes or tie terribly you're going to trip. And if you just start running out of the gate and don't ask the right question right away you're going to trip. So phase two those next week or two. And I don't think we can put like a definitive. This is the amount of time. I think it's this is the checkmarks. you earned right. We don't just push people through space on time. We do a base of competency in the role which I think is really key. And then I want to have one more piece of this in terms of how to onboard your ISA. A lot of people and I used to do this I use advocate when and ISA comes in give them access to leads right away. Give them access to new leads right away. Ace advocate for this and I was dead wrong. Realistically what we found works best is when ISA comes in once or out of the you watch me and I watch you say and now they're in the go and do stage. What should happen is they should start calling your old crap in your database. That should be the first leads your ISAs is ever called Don't Go get them and they expire and expires FSBOs and the card and actually you know. So for me when I first came in what Erik did was I got access to basically I think it was 2000 old Tiger Leads I forget the exact numbers but that was all the leads I got for basically the first two three months of my job All I did and there was another ISA taking the new stuff at that point. All it is for those first two three months was I pulled through a of old Tiger leads. And then I manually did was I went through the last five years of expires and this is before there was companies that would sell you this list but I manually created a list of all expires and canceled that I could chase. And that's all I did for about two three months. And I prove myself to not just Erik through those channels but to the team because I was now ravaging the fruit that was higher up on the tree because I was chasing things that are already bent chased. The trees are even shook by the by the agents or by the other ISA. Now I was creating opportunities out of the old crap. And the reason this is key is if you given ISA a brand new stuff you give him the brand new leads to brand new leads. It's kind of like this you don't give the keys to a brand new Range Rover to a 14 year old or a 15 year old. First off because they're going to crash it no matter what you do when they go and do they are going to crash the vehicle a little bit that is always going to happen and we don't want to miss out on those opportunities because we're still learning to drive. Secondly if you give a 14 15 year old the keys to a Range Rover and then you say hey by the way you got to go drive the Honda Civic. Once in a while to idling is going to happen. I hate that sentiment entitlement don't our world when an ISA comes in they call through that old crap like Erik that expired cancels the old ones. The old leads in the database that have got forgotten about that have been forgotten about and have them create opportunities there then have them slowly worked their way on to arming the best lead sources don't just hand over about good stuff right away. It's it. It's a disaster waiting to happen. And honestly we've done both of these methods. I was on board the I think the right way. When we boarded Jim and I Jim and I talked about this all the time when we boarded Jim. Jim was the guy that came on and I got on the flight to Vegas and he had been on for about I want to say a month at that point. And I just turned everything over to him where those 11 days we didn't really know any better. Right. We fumbled our way forward and what unfortunately happened was Jim got so accustomed even in just those 11 days and then of course once you give it you can't take it away you get so accustomed to the easy stuff that he did learn the work ethic to grind through the tough stuff. And over the next year you would get really frustrated because I learned I came in and I I just work through the tough stuff. And I'd built those habits of making ridiculous styles of getting rejected and not just calling the brand new Zillow leads. So we've learned that both ways of course. Jim now has it turned out well thankfully. We coach up and Jim self discovered a lot of this and now he's on you know the best ISAs in the country. But his first year he would be the first to tell you his mindset wasn't right. And honestly that wasn't his fault it was mine. I onboard him think incorrectly. I give him access easy stuff to suit up. Don't make my mistake. Don't go on a flight to Vegas and turn over the easy stuff to your new ISA please please please have them prove himself in the old stuff. By the way that's free money free right. And those all expired. It's free for all of us with those old leads free money that we all forgot about. Go find some free money for you. And then during that process the promises are going to be legitimized by the team. That's just how it works. Yeah for sure.

Nate Joens: [00:37:12] I think that onboarding peace is so important to get right. But you guys might have not gotten it right first but you certainly figured it out now. Absolutely. So I want to kind of flip the flip the script here a little bit. We've been talking a lot about the ISAs role. When they get on the team and how they get on but I think we have you know really interesting perspective here with Erik and Robbie. What qualities is in ISA actually looking for in a team leader.

Erik Hatch: [00:37:46] I like that question. I would I would say this. First off We have to understand who's going to be brought in as ISA in our world it's not somebody who's a traditional salesperson. It's not somebody it's not somebody who is who has the high "I" super social outgoing person that loves people interaction and face to face stuff all day every day. And so what Instead if you're familiar with the DISC profile. And we heard it in our last one we're looking for oftentimes in "D" "C" or a "C" "D" personality somebody who is dominant a driver and then somebody who is good with detailed systems. So I would make this proclamation based on that aforementioned information. The leader has to have a very clear vision of where the team is going and the success that awaits them. For somebody to be foolish enough to sign up as an ISA they have to understand that they are coming into a position now as the bottom person on the totem pole rather you show them the path of what it takes to grow into management and leadership and influence within your organization. The team leader has to be able to say I want you to be the central player in all these people's business and you were going to be the key person that we lean on for growth and for sustainability to be able to have that kind of articulation around it is essential. And so I think that the team leader has to have a clear understanding and then they have to be able to have the right kind of follow up to say yes we talked about it. Now here's how we're actually going to do it because a "D" personality doesn't wait around for many people and the "C" personality needs to see a plan. And they need to see the steps that are taken there. So we have to have that roadmap laid out. It is difficult to bring somebody on board and say I hope you do really well and I hope you get help our agents make some money and by the way you're not going to get a paycheck for months and months like that's it that's your sales pitch you may as well hit slap yourself in the face so it's not going to work.

Robby Trefethren: [00:40:05] I want to add that I think if you're hoping your way towards leadership I think your leadership is probably nonexistent. While one of a recent event somebody had kind of brought up in our world. I think what Erik is honestly you know if you were to come to Fargo and be exposed to our team and our relationships what Erik is known for is finding out what the people in his world wants and helping them get it. Erik you always talk about how you're trying to build runways who the people in your world. It's kind of your go to right and from where were you go wrong. I think in leadership whether I think especially with ISAs DC personalities where you will go wrong is you will make assumptions on where you think people want to go and you can't just tell people that you want to build runways for people what you have to do is not just have the mindset Erik talk but you have to also be willing to zoom in with your ISAs dig into what they want what matters is where do they want to go and then help them build a plan to get there. That's how you're going to lead and ISA I think honestly I'm not just an ISA like anybody on your team on fire. Is are you taking the time to sit down asking Nate in this case or you know anybody else. What matters to you. What do you want to change by your life. What do you want to do. We are we going and then saying how do I help you get there if you can do that. And if you can find ways to align your business with helping the people in your world become better versions themselves envision and help them create the better life that they desire. If you can do those things I promise you people are going to stick around. Especially at higher rates than normal in this industry. That's what creates fighters settle creates advocates in your world is when you take time to not just make everything about yourself but about the person across from you because here's a reality. You go ask any of the best ISAs I know they don't want to make calls. They don't want to go shoot text messages. But what we've done is we will like the work that they do with helping them achieve the goals that they want to achieve and that's what a great team leader does is use zoom in to find out what matters to them. And you bring in alignment with what you're doing in your world and how do you create that pathway to get people to where they want to go. That's how you create a loyal hard working fully bought in ISA and any team member right.

Nate Joens: [00:43:06] And I think you guys that's why it's so exciting to have you both on the on this podcast as you guys have figured out both sides of this although you know you might not have figured it out it's that first you guys have built one of the most amazing really real estate teams in the country. I firmly believe that you've figured it out with leadership from Erik's side and Robby's side as well as you know the day to day you guys are hiring the right people training them right. And it's exciting to see. Guys I really appreciate. Really appreciate everything that you guys brought to the table today. And I think with that we'll wrap it up. So that's all we have today for When Should you Hire your First Real Estate Inside Sales Agents. You can find more free insights like this by searching Real Estate ISA radio on Spotify, iTunes, Google podcasts or on theisaradio.com. Also be sure to check out the best in ISA coaching at hatchcoaching.com and the most insightful artificial intelligence ISA at Structurely.com. Until next time everyone happy closing.

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On the first episode of Real Estate ISA Radio, your hosts, Nate Joens of Structurely and Robby Trefethren of Hatch Coaching, are joined by the one and only, Erik Hatch - Founder and CEO of Hatch Coaching and The Erik Hatch Team.

isaradio-podcast1-9-3-18.mp3

[00:00:00] Hello everyone. This is Nate with Structurely welcoming you to our first ever Real Estate ISA Radio podcasts where we give you an inside look into the science and setup of building a successful inside sales team for your real estate business. I'm here today with some special guest. Robbie T and Erik Hatch. Robby, I'll let you introduce Erik!

[00:00:38] Awesome. Yeah. So I got Erik here. Erik is literally right down my right hand man said it to my right said seated my right. But you know Erik is not just a co-worker he's one of my best friends and he's our partner in crime in believing in this ISA world. And honestly being the person that first dreamt somebody doing it at his highest level. I want introduce Erik a little bit. We're based here in Fargo. And Erik has built now a team that will do seven hundred-ish deals give or take some 700 or 750 depending on how things shape up. And he's got his hands and fingerprints all over Fargo here as well as real estate interests like our Hatch coaching and. Erik, you want to introduce yourself a little bit and tell people who you are.

[00:01:35] Well Nathan and Robby it's an honor to be here especially in the first episode of Real Estate ISA Radio this is this is great stuff. You guys are up to something that that's cracked the code for the ISA piece you're able to elevate your game your business your service and all the fun from maybe 60 or 70 percent functionality right up to the top 100 percent.

[00:02:00] And so it's been an honor to be on the ride with Robby and a fellow ISAs in Fargo as well and we weapons. So thanks for having

[00:02:08] Us Yeah. We're really excited for you to have to be on our very first episode today. So with that I do want to just give a quick background is this is our first episode on myself. My name is Nate I'm the CEO. Structurely we're an artificial intelligence based inside sales company for real estate out of Ames and my co host Robbie t who has a great deejay nickname at Deejay Robbie T. I'm sure that's going to stick. We're looking out right now by the way. I love it. Yeah and we're where we're the cohosts of real estate ISA radio moving forward. So without further ado we really want to jump into our first topic which is just simply the role of the inside sales agent. We're going to touch on describing the framework of a new lead journey from when they register on a Web site or portal to when they get to your ISA. And then when they're passed off to an agent we're then going to touch compensation structure of the ISA you know what makes them tick what a typical day in the life of an ISA is like. And I think that you two especially are going to be great with this topic so that further do Erik come to pass this question off to you. What exactly does an inside sales agent do in real estate.

[00:03:25] Hopefully everything.

[00:03:28] I mean I would say this is that you don't have an ISA you are the ISA. So whether you are somebody who is brand new to the business or you have a team of 90 people whomever is the lead converter is the ISA. ISA stands for inside sales agent but really I think it's inside service and inside sales that acronym is ISIS and we probably don't want to be calling these crewmembers ISIS. And so instead we're just trying to call them ISAs. The truth of the matter is when a leader signs out when they have raised their hand whether it be signing up through a Web site or party vendors Zillow or realtor.com that they call them to our office. We've structured our team so that our ISAs are the first touch for and have not met anybody who we don't have a relationship already established with. And so it's their job to nurture maintain massage listen to pursue. And basically they are the keepers of those relationships. Converting have not met into mats.

[00:04:35] Their job their goal is to of course protect them strategically design their action to protect the company's dollar so that it can go for may have not met from somebody who has signed up to a match which is it kept appointments and so that's the ISAF main role and function awesome.

[00:04:54] Yeah I think that's a great great introduction to start. So when when did it make sense for your team attached realty to actually add an inside sales agent.

[00:05:04] So that's realty functions only as a team. The air catching up had fidelity and an outside hatch Cochon because Embury an original when it comes to anything when they hatch by the time this is done.

[00:05:21] And my new company happily set a structure there that gives me a firebrand. That's right.

[00:05:30] I go back to 2013. I started my team in 2012 and I can't tell you how much money I wasted on trying to figure out how to convert leads.

[00:05:42] In 2012 I hired a whole bunch of agents and I trained them poorly and they were always out doing showings and distracted. And traditionally if we got back to any Internet lead within 24 hours we'd like give ourselves a pat on the back thinking that we were crushing it. And then in 2013 I was studying what other models were doing and I saw other people doing the I'd say and so I said well they look smarter and more talented than these. I'm just going to copy printer this and call of our own. And so I hired my friend Josh who was drawn to real estate had a career in higher education and an amazing thing happened.

[00:06:17] Josh wasn't a great ISA in terms of structure or the things he said or the way he acted but he did this crazy thing called answering the phone and responding to leads in a timely fashion. And we watched the amount of business that came from have not grow substantially and we recognized right away that we were on to something because we realized that speed to lead was this crucial form age. It didn't even matter if he was good at what he was doing. If he responded quickly and promptly we had so much more business than we ever had. And so in most real estate people are structured where they are the ones receiving the calls but the moment they're with a client or a family member or if they are in another appointment or if they're distracted on another call maybe they're not able to respond to speed to leave and that that's not a high function for them because of that that's there's this massive gap in people's businesses and those that have ISAs are watching their businesses surge because people want immediacy.

[00:07:18] And we've figured that out back in 2013 and now it's more prevalent than ever.

[00:07:24] That's great. And you know you can you kind of touched on your first ISA you know didn't have phone skills maybe necessarily but you know could you talk me a little bit about what made that ISA special what makes your ISA special today. What are those skills that they typically have.

[00:07:43] Well Josh was the same way. We think that whenever we're hiring somebody we use a three three tiered system of the first 50 percent this culture. We need people to fix the organization that we're running. We call ourselves a team. I don't have employees. I don't have people that work for me. We have a team and a family that I work for everyday. And so with that intentionality makes I make sure that these people are of the right culture that they fit that they're not the church and the punchbowl. These are people who we think are our people but I'm willing to invest in support into and they're doing the same for me and so whether it be Josh or Robbie or any other ISA that we've hired the first piece is culture. From there we think of a DISK profile or a personality profile we'll try to figure out what matters and what matters and this is a hot button topic needs oftentimes. And Robbie laughs already because how many times have we heard the hire a High I in the ISA Role.

[00:08:43] I would say it's an almost any main brokerage or main brand.

[00:08:48] It's it's the talk of the town as you hire a High I in the ISA Role

[00:08:52] And if you're a High I I'm a 99 I Nate. I mean in fact it's like bursting out of me. If I have to call somebody and talk with somebody that I don't. Now it's really fun for an hour and I want to be done with my day and go actually be face to face with people as to who has high I's and most sales people are high Is because they like that social interaction. An ISA I don't think looks like a traditional sales person. I think they're oftentimes the Star Wars nerds the people who have passions that run deep but maybe don't align with necessarily pop culture type things.

[00:09:28] Our ISAs are passionate. They're people of character but they aren't the typical sales person that wants to be funny faces and so we think that 25 percent of the equation is their profile and we recommend a DC or a CD that somebody who's dominant and thick skinned somebody who is a driver and then somebody who's also analytical and good with numbers and systems and processes. We want somebody to be able to be diligent enough to get knocked down and get back up again thanks to tub thumping for leading the way.

[00:10:00] So thank you for that.

[00:10:03] And I just want to add that I think the main reason a lot of people are saying you should hire a high I as an ISA is it really comes down to what's your intent with the ISA.

[00:10:16] Well most companies you hire and ISA. And the goal is to have them graduate and be a real estate agent and don't do it.

[00:10:27] There a couple problems with that.

[00:10:31] And I'm afraid we're telling his story in a little bit. But this game of tracing online internet leads as a long term play.

[00:10:39] And if you're Taizé long term leads I mean it's easy to be chasing them for the long term.

[00:10:46] And this is what happens is you see a lot of these people come in as high I's as ISAs and then six months later of course they move out of the ISA roll into becoming a joint partner or an agent listing agent or buyer agent whatever it's all the same thing.

[00:11:00] And low and behold they move into that role and what falls off are all of the prospecting all of the chasing of the lead. And from our point of view it just seems like it's such a waste of potential opportunities.

[00:11:13] So when we say that we don't want to I it's because our ISAs stay ISA and that's a fundamental shift compared to most people that are either in ISAs.

[00:11:25] Now it is here large enough for scale I think of my friend Lance Loken in Houston for example Lance requires all of his team members who are going to be producing agents to start as ISAs as he wants them to understand and appreciate and to also prove their worth and to get a little bit gritty but he also has he has permanent ISAs that stay in that role so that these nurturers and these long term relationships are fostered.

[00:11:52] My favorite story of that is this is it's Robley story right. Robbie started as an ISA in 2014. 2014 you helped to close. How many deals probably it's some SCCA 60 some I write that down some is very angry.

[00:12:09] Robbie second year in 2015 helped to close over 150 deals right. I think those are 167 ones. 167. OK. Now you're in a little more specific now and then in 2016 Robbie only was an ISA making phone calls for January and February. Very part time very part time and then get to this coaching role and you focus a lot more on helping to lead our team and to help our have coaching well as well as the only make calls for two months. You have to close. Holman who deals in 2016 knows about a common app. I mean did you catch that. He made calls for two months in his third year and helped appose 150 deals.

[00:12:50] This is a long term game and you cannot and should not look for an ISA to get in the role and then leave after a few months. It's why the culture piece matters and it's why this piece really matters for their profile. They need to and want to stay in that role. The final warning. You're getting them fired out here and then to the finals 5 percent that we make matters a lot is Gretz it's hunger it's tenacity. It's somebody who has a chip on their shoulder.

[00:13:25] We have some people who have some chips on their shoulder in our world. They have to prove wrong. And so every day they wake up a little more hungry and a little more tenacious. And so for us that's the equation coach you're 50 percent D'Este profile personality profile 25 percent and their Gretz and hunger 25 percent. And that's what we look for in an ISA.

[00:13:45] Awesome. Yeah I think that makes for very successful ISA and you guys definitely proof that. I think there's a lot to unpack there. We can definitely you know I'm thinking through it now that the disk profile sounds like another great episode were for a few episodes that we could really dive into some of those specifics. And I absolutely think that you guys have proven so successful with your team because you've you've slipped the same model on its head. I think there's been you know there's there's been so much turnover traditionally in the same role. But you guys have been able to combat it extremely well and I think that you guys put that that that culture first and it's very apparent so kind of you know touching on the greatness.

[00:14:31] I would that it was named 10 or 15 years ago by Gary Keller and Gary Keller as far as I'm concerned is one of the if not the guru for this industry and when he was reading the millionaire real estate agent book he talked about having having things like call centers and having things that were a coal color system as a part of your formula to grow a really large team.

[00:14:55] I think that Barry was on to something. And I'm curious to see him create 2 comes out to see how he interprets it now. But Robin he has been one of the lead people in this country in this industry to make it not about cold calling and to make it not about simply smiling and dying and trying to maneuver that person so you can get a quick sale. Robbie has turned this into a relationship business and has has found a way for these ISAs when they're making their calls live not about I'm trying to sell you something. It's rather trying to serve someone that's rooted in a relationship and it's rooted in understanding what that person wants and desires are and so approaching it differently and approaching it as a service role looks far different than a call center model to try to get somebody who has a low hanging piece of fruit.

[00:15:44] Absolutely. It's funny that you mention Gary's book. I literally have it sitting here on my on my desk as we speak as I'm looking at it right now. So he's definitely touched every aspect from tech to everyday agents lifestyle to ISAs. He's really created the blueprint for the industry and it's exciting for the it's exciting to see how far it's come and how far he's been able to reach. Very true. So you know kind of what I was diving into was you know what a little bit more about the mindset of the ISA say what are some what are some of the common issues that your ISA might face that you know would would be troublesome for them or you know might make them second guess their their position at their job or the role Nate I've met you in person before.

[00:16:32] You're a good looking guy. You're easy on the eyes you're handsome on right. Like you probably don't get rejected all that often.

[00:16:42] If you were to go to the bar as if you were to pull yourself together that sort of thing like I rejected very often I won't speak to that but I appreciate it.

[00:16:56] Nate I'm I'm nearly in a midlife crisis with my hair falling out probably as I'm talking and I bet that heavier set and it's more difficult for a guy like me. And so I develop a little bit of thick skin because I get rejected maybe more often now. Fortunately I found a wife who was way hotter than me anyways input and output. When I bring that up because we have to talk about rejection and we have to talk about the ability to have a why and purpose that is bigger than the phone call that you're on. Our purpose only. Come home we live it out through someone else and to have the ability to serve means that you're serving the person on the other end of the phone as well as your service that are working on as well as your serving our family and your God whatever that may mean for you. And so to have a larger purpose is imperative with this because if you're starting off as an ISA Nate and you're calling people that you've never talked to before the steps that we've run say that for a random paper click Internet lead you're going to be lucky if you can them in six months after 20 or 30 conversations. And so I want you to think of what day one week one looks like as an ISA in and you're calling a whole bunch of people and 95 percent of them don't answer anyway because most people want to text nowadays and then when you actually get somebody on the phone somebody is pretty upset it's you or they don't want to put up with you or they're going to hang up on you.

[00:18:26] You're really surprised at how many people when you greet them with warmth and are trying to be a sleazy salesperson will respect that and give you that same kind of dignity.

[00:18:35] But an ISA has to be prepared for it copious amounts of rejection. It will take I think six months to possibly get your first commission check if you're if you're getting compensated based on the transactions that close I think you get a commission check within six months of you started the job. You're going to be sitting pretty and Robbie story was that when he started 2014 your first question probably came in May or June. Right. But that all of a sudden the next six months at so more food on it. And then fast forward two years and the damage two months of phone calls and got paid on 150 transactions because of the work he did two years prior. And so you think about this and how many people are living in immediacy. Most of us are of them microwave oven generation where we have things that come to us quickly and we're not used to waiting in order to have this ability to play the long term game. You need somebody who has long term goals and your ability as a leader to speak to those goals and to remind them of what's really at play here is going to be imperative.

[00:19:48] Speaking from my point of view as well I agree with Erik and moral the same that will just beat you into the ground is the days where you make a thousand calls and you speak to 75 people and you get zero appointments and you don't have something larger that you're looking at something larger about what's you.

[00:20:10] If you don't have some form of hunger or purpose it's really tough to transition and go and do that again and again and again I think in this role there nailed it on the head.

[00:20:25] It's so frustrating because you can be killer at this role and you won't see a payoff for six months or 12 months if not longer.

[00:20:34] And that's frustrating most of us especially in our generation made us millennials as Erik said we want out now and you can't blame us right if we play something on Amazon that shows up on your doorstep sometimes in some cities a few hours later.

[00:20:51] But this takes a lot of work a lot of rejection and it's such a long term play. So I think that's probably one of the most frustrating pieces that you have to keep in mind is seeing where are you going and who trusts trusts and can make these calls.

[00:21:12] If I do what I'm supposed to be doing that it will lead to the results to kind of put a bow on all of this.

[00:21:18] I described the ISA role like this if you were at the beach half a little Tylor if you have kids you probably have seen this little sand sifters and that's really what an ISA is doing is they're taking a bucket of sand and the say are the hands and the sifter that are shaping the living.

[00:21:35] I had a saying and when you shake it all of us for the big pebbles and that's all we're doing is ISA Ages frankly. You have to shake the heck out of this thing to get rid of all the sand and or you will lose and burn out in this game is if you look down and you see the pilots and that's sitting there and you say those are all opportunities you will outlast this world. You have to be focused and low in the air and see the goal posts the little or the pearls whatever.

[00:22:08] Wow that's what we've got to be focused on in this role whether it comes down to made is this realtors love shiny objects. Most people are looking for that podcast or they're looking for that thing at a convention that's going to make them rich quick. An ISA it's not a get rich quick scheme and in fact it is a disrupter in your business if you're a full functioning team right now. However this is part of the infinite game and Simon Senecas been hot on that as of late talking about the differences in the final game and the infinite game and I'm convinced that the ISA are part of the infinite game the long term strategy and the relationship nurturing.

[00:22:54] But if you're signing up to be an ISA if you are not coached and led properly and if somebody is trying to squeeze you to get that new deal to close you are set up for summit failure. And I hear so much about it.

[00:23:10] Absolutely. I think you guys covered so much about what the the role of a successful I'd say it looks like there there's there's so much more that we can on back in terms of you know what the day to day looks like from from everything that you guys covered there. And I love your analogy Robbie that you mentioned about the sifting through the sand. I want to stay kind of on on the topic of the mindset of the psychology of the of the idea say while we're while we're here I think you guys can offer a really unique perspective on this next question because you coach ISA teams even ibises yourself you manage other ISAs internally. So from all of your unique vantage points what is it that an ISA is looking for in a role at your company.

[00:23:55] Why did why would they want to join your company. That's that's a tricky question. We know what we're looking for.

[00:24:07] But I'll be honest if I have prided myself for the last four or five years to be exquisitely refined at higher traditionally when somebody comes into our world they have more success than they would imagine. And we have done exceedingly well except for the ISA departments and half of the ISA is that we hire traditionally don't make it. And every realtor I've ever hired otherwise has made it in the business but not in the ISA roll because it's tough and if therefore avoided gurus of this and we only about 50 percent. That means that you made that you know 20 30 40 percent maybe. I hope you can teach us some things because we really are craving learning as we go. But to answer your question Nate what are they looking for. I hope that they're looking for something that isn't immediacy. Well we was struck with the last question but this is a long term game and we need somebody who is bubbling up to be more of a lifer and to have a career rather than be at that that a mediate get rich quick scheme. The icy roads isn't isn't what it is in it for. In our world we don't allow people to graduate from the ISA to being an agent at least until they do that job for an extended period of time and proven that they earn that next opportunity for something else.

[00:25:32] But we've hired so many weirdos in this department that we really we really have hit some home runs with the guys that have lasted and that have demonstrated. Well I'll I'll say this. Here are some things that we found that have worked really well.

[00:25:48] Our ISAs that have lasted never came to us through an ad we placed online.

[00:25:55] Instead they've come to us through relationships and understanding that they wanted to be a part of the fiber of our company rather than be a realtor. It's interesting whenever you put an ad out there to hire a realtor you're going to get people who love each HGTV and those people don't make great ISAs and you're looking for people who you know maybe you want to make a lot of money and so they see commission. ISAs it's a longer longer term game and clusters of the lower and lower commissions. And so the people we've had our best luck with have sought us out and have come to us through relationships where they understood the fiber of our company in addition to that we have some great commonality with them military experience. It doesn't mean that you have to hire somebody that has military experience but a lot of our hires have had armed forces or you know policemen type jobs.

[00:26:44] And so that's the nice commonality and star wars it started that Danila a secret. I've I've never seen Star Wars anyone but myself and many of the people right now but I ISAs have a weird passion for Star Wars or something peculiar and I'm not saying that Star Wars is peculiar but we have one guy who loves like music boxes and this is the weirdest thing.

[00:27:11] But he had he has a hobby that is passionate about that is obscure and we have another guy who's a geologist. Right. And it's just that of your passion and hobby. And then there's Robbie who is like an encyclopedia and reads 100 bucks a year. And then we have our other say who loves birds. I don't know why but he's so excited about owls and it's just weird to me. But it works.

[00:27:34] So basically what you're saying is if you're hiring for the ISA role go set up shop whenever the next whatever the next Star Wars movie is. And that's where you should be recruiting from.

[00:27:45] That's one of my plans. There you go.

[00:27:48] Was on a secret a couple hours on it's on right on on all of us especially the Star Wars art.

[00:27:55] And there's no way in 90 percent of people are going to be ostracized by missing out because of Episodes 1 2 3 3 Star Wars nerds.

[00:28:03] So anyway I digress.

[00:28:07] One of the things we're spoiled with here is we when you join if you come to Fargo and you're exposed to ads realty if you follow what we're doing you've been exposed to coal from leadership that's probably second to none in this industry.

[00:28:27] And I think sometimes we overlook it and we're spoiled by it or sometimes just forget about it.

[00:28:36] But the that's one of the pieces.

[00:28:39] He said they're being drawn and it's because people were consistently named one of the best places to work. People talk about us people want to be a part of what we're doing. And that's not just you know the hiring because Erik gave about finding people not through an ad ad buy that for almost every position on our real estate team.

[00:29:00] The vast majority of people that have joined come from some connection that we already had. Now some say that it does work. But we already knew them. So I think the Colts are the big piece. Gonna have a place that people actually want to work. As simple as that sounds. The other big thing if you were to go a Haci I'd say is that that have made it in our world including myself.

[00:29:23] There's gotta be opportunity and shirr doesn't need to be you know size you know two months away really worth a million dollars. But there's gotta be some financial opportunity related to this role.

[00:29:41] And I actually think this is a really good transition point because you said he wanted to get into comp. So if you don't mind briefly breeze through that and put a little ASRock on this.

[00:29:53] That's it that's all right. Absolutely yeah.

[00:29:56] Before we go the first thing I want to say is every market is going to be slightly different and we're going to share our numbers what we do and it honestly may have zero relevance for you because I have open lines that them in different cities and the numbers would never make sense.

That's all we have for The Role of the Inside Sales Agent today. You can find more free insights like this at by searching "Real Estate ISA Radio" on itunes or google podcasts - or on https://www.theisaradio.com/ . Be sure to also check out the best in ISA coaching at https://www.hatchcoaching.com/ and the most insightful artificial intelligence ISA at https://structurely.com/ . Until next time, happy closings.