Podcast appearances and mentions of gene frederick

Happy Holidays. Listen now to today's Holiday Special Interview with Gene Frederick. Gene is on the board of directors and is the 3rd largest shareholder in EXP Realty. Gene is widely recognized as one of the most influential people in real estate. Gene has been a leader in the real estate industry for decades having traversed many market cycles and real estate trends. Today we join Gene and his lovely wife Susan as Gene shares with us the journey to where he is today. What you will learn from this show will motivate you, educate you and get you into massive action. Gene is a living embodiment of having a life focused on being of service to others and 'doing what you don't want to do when you don't want to do it at the highest level'. As always, if you would like to join EXP Realty please text Tim Harris directly, 512-758-0206. Schedule A Free Coaching CallListen on iTunesListen on SpotifyListen on Stitcher

Mike Bjorkman sits down via Zoom with Gene Frederick and Kevin Cantrell to chat about the real estate market today, and how it's being impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.

In today's episode of The Kyle Handy Podcast, we discuss how he presents the eXp Realty business model to prospective agents. For show notes and more information visit: https://www.kylehandy.com/how-to-present-exp-realty-business-model-gene-frederick/

Gene Frederick began his vast and illustrious real estate career when he left the corporate world in 1984. Three years later he joined Re/Max and soared to become one of the Top 20 Realtors in Texas. In 1994, Gene sold his first franchise and was then hired on as one of the first 10 agents with Keller Williams in Dallas. Gene has served over the past two decades in various management capacities at Keller Williams. Prior to joining eXp Realty and his appointment to the eXp Board of Directors, Gene owned six Keller Williams franchises including Palo Alto, Cupertino, Carmel, and the Keller Williams Northern California/Hawaii Region.

Our guest today, Nicole Rouseau, has been in the real estate business for 8 years. She started as a part-time agent selling on her mother's real estate team back in 2010, and after taking a break for a remarkable career opportunity in the corporate world, she came back to real estate in 2015.  Her areas of expertise are sales, training, and now real estate.   When her father and eXp board of directors member, Gene Frederick, joined eXp realty in 2015, she went into real estate full-time working with Gene to help grow eXp Realty.  Since joining the company in 2015, the agent count has grown from roughly 400 agents nationally, to now over 15,000.   Schedule A Free Coaching CallVisit Tim & Julie Harris OnlineListen on iTunesListen on Stitcher

One of America's top brokers, Gene Frederick, shares his secrets to generating business and more leads anywhere and all the time! Gene is the author of "101 Ways To Generate Leads In Real Estate", was the top 5 Broker at KW and now has more passive income and stock than ever! He has taught thousands of Agents and Brokers over the past 35 years how to have all the leads with no dollar investment!You will discover:✔ Not all people are created equally for leads!✔ The 3 types of people who refer leads!✔ How to think big and then small to generate leads!Plus, Gene has THE question to ask when going to a listing presentation that will generate $200,000 commissions a year!✔ Learn the power of asking for help and how to ask for it!✔ How to make Easter or any holiday a way to own 500 homes!✔ How to energize what you do to make it fun and last a lifetime!Gene can go anywhere and generate leads and lots of business, and so can you after you listen to this amazing show!   

Our guest today, Nicole Rouseau, has been in the real estate business for 8 years. She started as a part-time agent selling on her mother's real estate team back in 2010, and after taking a break for a remarkable career opportunity in the corporate world, she came back to real estate in 2015.  Her areas of expertise are sales, training, and now real estate.   When her father and eXp board of directors member, Gene Frederick, joined eXp realty in 2015, she went into real estate full-time working with Gene to help grow eXp Realty.  Since joining the company in 2015, the agent count has grown from roughly 400 agents nationally, to now over 15,000.   Schedule A Free Coaching CallVisit Tim & Julie Harris OnlineListen on iTunesListen on Stitcher

Part 2. Joining us today is John Sterling. John's been in a number of markets and was previously with Keller Williams and most recently was in San Francisco California and is currently in Colorado. John's background is fairly extensive in real estate. John is known for his work in Europe and London as well as working with multiple team leaders and market centers and helping them attract agents. John talks at length about his challenges in real estate and really not really getting EXP at first. John I'll give you his insight in terms of why he ultimately moved from Keller Williams to EXP and he hasn't regretted it and never looked back. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   EXP innovating and game changing technology made simple EXP Stock valuation explained Revenue share versus profit share Expansion Teams Simplified Fears and worries of competitors Other big companies reactions to EXP growth Non bricks and mortar game changing EXP eliminating layers of expenses through with new virtual technology     Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Jon to inquire or ask questions. Contact Jon Sterling Phone call or text at 720 605 1063. Email: Jon.Sterling@exprealty.com   Transcription Jon. So that was the answer to the technology. So the money the technology. We talked a little bit about you know privately held versus publicly held. Another note on that one place where I've seen some pushback and one of those half truths or just like something that wasn't fully explained or isn't still isn't fully explained as when we get attacked for not being profitable. Right. Because a publicly traded company would have to release your finances so anyone could go check on your health anytime they want. That's a funny attack to me. It demonstrates that people who are saying it just are lacking some basic sort of fundamental knowledge about stock valuations. Somebody who's a really great example there's been in the news over the past couple days. Amazon. You guys heard on Amazon right. Well they hit one trillion dollars in market cap yesterday and they had huge revenue and free cash flow which they reinvest in their business. Instead of declaring profits for many many years they didn't declare profit at all. They found a way to essentially get their tax bill down to zero because they're putting everything back into the research and development. All right. So it's like are you going to bash a trillion dollar company, the world's second trillion dollar company because they're not declaring profit. It's like give me a break. Watch everything else grow. There's like a problem take care of itself. Right? And the reason that the stock valuation continues to improve is because the stock analysts understand this. The company doesn't have debt like we're not taking on huge loans. We're not doing crazy stuff with her money like it'll naturally work itself out. Another great example everyone else is uber profitable Uber is? it isn't. They lose money every quarter. How many billions of dollars there worth? I don't know the exact number but you can look it up by the time we look it up I'm sure it'll change. But anyway so that's the whole point. It's like it's what's wrong with copying those strategies. Some of the fastest growing and most valuable companies in the world aren't declining profits. Why would we? Go reinvest. Make this the place that's going to sustain the next shift in the markets. And any other change or the show up because we have the right people the right attitude you know the right sort of base to weather that storm. Kevin. It's one of those things... I'll touch on it and I am not the CFO of EXP I have no relationship to the board. And this is not a representation on behalf of EXP. This is just me understanding profit loss. You and I went through many many many many classes of market centered financials and understand PNL in the real estate world. I also know it from my nine startups I did down in Silicon Valley I understand how to look at a growth company PNL. So one of the things and if this is where you're hung up as a listener you reach out to me and I'll be happy to walk you through it off line. But the general gist of it is if you look at Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or Gap principles a company like Expedia or any other growth company is going to end up taking charges that are non-cash against the hard cash items in a PNL. Right? And this is not an accrual versus cash basis. This is just when you get to the bottom line. If you look at the financials and drill through you'll see these gap adjustments what are those things right? You look at you know the logical ones that if somebody took accounting they heard over things like depreciation. The big ones for our growth company are equity stock options non-cash awards and things like that. Obviously as John talked about there is a lot of that going on at the EXP. It does not affect cash flow in the business. It is something that is taken against income and is an offset. So in a recent Financial I looked at... Let's just say the number was hypothetical to say the number was something in the order of magnitude of 20 million as a loss after the gap adjustments. 16 million of the 20 million were the gap adjustments. So somebody on Facebook comes out and says Oh my God I lost 20 million dollars. So if a growth company post that in 16 million of those paper you should be looking at the four million number and you're looking for things like are they adding to cash flow or are they making improvements. What was the number like a year ago. Based on the pre gap adjustments. And this is a big part of what the industry doesn't understand about a growth company. Is when you're hitting a hockey stick, the growth year over year is so big that you know you'll hear others in the industry talk about residential brokerage specifically. While we do this many transactions, our set of agents that are in this space. Did this many and that's more than a company like EXP. What they're not realizing is the week over week growth let alone the quarter over quarter growth is basically vertical. And so as a result there is a lag. Right. When John moves over or a team moves over and by the time they close out the business with the old brokerage and they get new business on the books and that business goes through marketing its listings and then gets closed and then gets booked. You have a lag. So when they're looking at these numbers what they're doing and I call it playing with the timing they're looking at the old numbers not projecting what the new numbers are. You know I was at the EXP shareholder meeting and they put up a slide at the shareholder me it was public information and the room went... collectively a big gasp because many people in the EXP didn't realize it was growing this fast. They knew we're adding agents but the general gist of it was they talked about transactions that were either closed or pending as of the date of the shareholder meeting in April and it exceeded the entire number for the whole year, previous year. So in other words this was in the spring of 2018. That number as of April was higher than the entire number for the entire year in 2017. Brokerage companies do not do that. Growth for the number one franchise system is like 2 or 3 %. You're not talking about them saying in April that they have more booked pending and closed than they did in the entire previous year. If you're wanting to understand a little bit more about what this looks like happy to have a conversation with you. Gene Frederick would be happy to have a conversation with you. Do what John did which is dig into the material and get the real facts. I mean I saw a post on social media about this which is your sort of very honest and candid post which said I was basically skeptical and I was listening to all the rumors and innuendo and misdirection and when I got in here it was a whole different picture and I'm sure you'll get getting calls about that from people because you're very well respected not only within Keller Williams but within the industry. And I think it raised a lot of eyebrows when John Sterling decided to move. Jon. Oh yeah. It's finally the number of private messages I got versus public reaction to that post which I guess it's predictable. But you know it's like people that are in transition. They were you know in the process of joining us like they don't want to put their you know it's like they're pending deals at risk or they just don't want things to get weird in their local markets. But you're right. I mean it was just kind of... it was just one of those things it was like. I thought I knew it all. I thought I understood it. I thought that what I was being told by the previous company was true. I was like Of course it's not all the way to you. It feels like those days when we were the pioneers at Keller Williams and then you know there were these very coordinated efforts and outside consultants that would be hired anytime we came to town and they had all of these pretty prepared sort of you know objection handlers. Well you see how well that worked out right. It seems that they have slowed down Keller Williams growth. It's like give me a break. It's like one hundred eighty thousand I'm a runner. So again it's like people are going to come at their own pace. I get it. It's not for everyone which I don't think it will be but it's gonna be for a lot of people. I've never seen growth like this. I just kind of digging into the financials doing my own research as you mentioned. It was more than just looking at what was publicly listed. You know it's like I'm going to talk to these agents that I know it's like. Tell me about their business. What's changed to see if the growth that I think is true has you know anecdotal evidence at the local level as if I know somebody these people and I've been around forever they're straight shooters. You know they don't have any problems with their license and everyone respects them feels like those are the folks I'm talking to the ones who were going to give it to me straight up there's something unfavorable or unflattering they would tell me. And there were only a few things that were just minor annoyances. There were no big red flags no matter who I talked to or in the country they were. So I kind of made that part easy. Kevin. Absolutely so I want to get your take on something John obviously the big announcement out of Keller Williams at the mega camp right. You know you're familiar because not only did you work with team leaders and others within the system you know a lot of OPs you know a lot of regional directors. They announced and most of the industry I think really understood the implications of this. Essentially what I call a gift to the expansion teams right. We'll see how they actually execute on this. But you know there's a lot of... and I think this is kind of like in the high tech world from Silicon Valley where a company that's big will preannounce something and then you see whether they can actually deliver on it because they want to kind of get ahead of the market and say well we're going to do something virtual or non bricks and mortar too. What are you hearing about that. Because I'll tell you first what I'm hearing which is you know the expansion teams are beyond excited and we can talk about that a minute why they are but the number of agents that I know that are not either wanting to play on that field meaning they're not going to be an expansion business organization or that's not their desire right. They're great mega agent they have a team they're in a market center they're concerned if they have to do execute on this about creating an unequal playing field what are you hearing. Jon. So just got a big picture I could first. I mean my first reaction to that was is it it's something that the 12000 agents.. that 13000 owners or whatever ever we have now compared to 180000 that Keller Williams is not reacting to what seemed to me to be bigger threats to them like better funding like compass right. Some of these places that are taking market share and gobbling up the world right. It's like you have these players out there and Keller Williams isn't really talking about them not publicly bashing them anything like that. I've never heard the company like publicly bash or publicly oppose an organization especially one that seems so small and insignificant. Right. So it's like that's very telling by itself is the fact that they're reacting to something that is so small compared to them. I mean it's less than 1/10 the size you know. Is there any other... like is Amazon reacting to you know it's like little little startup online e-commerce store. Well you know not as a big deal but they probably have it seems like it about it but they're not out there publicly bashing this little thing that doesn't seem like much of a threat. So unless we're we're a real threat or a real reason why would there be public bashing and why would there be so much copycat stuff going on. So that was just an interesting sort of twists right. As you said it's like the expansion teams they're thrilled because it's essentially removing a lot of the politics that you get in a franchise you know it's just a lot of headaches if you're trying to expand your team to new market because you have to get approval from all these different levels and you have to get buy in from all these levels. You have to get because otherwise these these owners and these managers that are either short sighted or they want to remain the kings and queens of their franchise territories or whatever stand in the way or they just don't understand it. They don't take the time to go to their expansion classes and all this other stuff. And I was one of the few dozen people in the company who was certified to teach that team expansion haptic course. I got to interact with a lot of these folks and I got to talk to a lot of OPs and team letters about it's like just getting there understanding what's going on. And I've heard a lot of opposition people will like this expansion stuff is kind of a headache. We got a lot of people run around or supervise big risk to our license. So the expansion teams are great because it kind of clears the runway for them. They're happy that they don't have to interact with the problematic franchise owners and managers anymore like they can just go around the system. So where that all falls apart is because you have these layers of ownership you have the local franchise owners you have the regional franchise owners which the are last time I counted 33 of them. So basically they cut up the US the 33 territories. So all these people are getting a little piece of the action whether it's the local company dollar or franchise royalties or some combination right. So those folks are the ones that I've heard the most from because they're terrified. I mean they're locked in these either five year tenure agreements with their franchise and they can watch the whole thing unfold. You know if they've had a monopoly in their area.. you want to work in that city you're going to work with Keller Williams and you're going to be working with that markets that are like no options. Well now people have an option and that's scary to them. And what's even more scary is they might not be able to get out of their franchise as well as the housing value. So it was like they might have four years before they're up for the next renewal before they could feasibly sell it or dissolve it or whatever they need to do.A lot of people they'd planned on there franchise ownership being a retirement plan. So they wanted to build it to a certain point and sell it and hire someone to run it or whatever. But if all of that value has a risk of going away like who's going to write a check for that now. Like you know like I was around during the last boom that looked like this when we were buying up market centers like crazy we paid top value for a lot of these things where we could see the opportunity it wasn't necessarily there was like There's no way we'd be writing those checks today. It's like considering what's going on if there's no real value to the franchise territory if you're going to be stuck with these huge leases that's all your risk. I mean the way the franchises work is you give the franchise or person who's selling you the franchise give you permission to use their name. You give em a bunch of money for the privilege of taking all the risk for signing all the leases with personal guarantees for hiring all the people who are signing up all the insurance all that stuff and then after you paid for that privilege you got to pay the franchise or a percentage of your revenue before you even get paid. They're getting money off the top. So they take no risk. They get paid before you get paid. Which I think suddenly has caused a huge bump and interest in EXP because we don't have any of that. We have no franchise fees. We have no franchise territories. We have no regional territories none of it. So you've cut out all that nonsense. So it's not just the politics. You don't have to navigate anymore you know the money makes sense and the technology is good. There's no limit to it. You don't have any problems sort of convincing the local ownership that you're a valid person and you need to be in that market. So the virtual thing was a real interesting one and kind of lit up my inbox for a few days so people be like OK you know if I needed to walk away from my Keller Williams franchise How do I join you. Like what's the cleanest way to do it. Like know I'll talk to your lawyer but just like the fact that people are asking those questions is certainly eye opening for me. Kevin. Well I have a little bit of a different take on it. You know I've talked about this before and I think you know the story is the average Agent Market Center. It could be a rainmaker for a small team that's not going to go expansion or a agent that just knocks out of the park with lead generation those people even within a market center have the ability to disrupt things they end up doing so much mass lead generation that they could disrupt things we did this in St.. LEWIS Right. I moved in from out of the market I got ramped up and I had five buyer agents we were launched the real geeks Web site I mentioned in St. Lewis we were getting 500, 600 leads a month on that organically. This is before you know Zillow, Iconic etc took those No 1 slots with some changes in the organic world so you could imagine that if you walked around the market center and queried agents of their biggest frustration the answer was that control team has all of our leads and we're not very happy about it. And this is where my concern would be for an agent. If you're listening to this let me tell you what happened and then let Jon tell you what will happen in the New World. I was talked to by the OP and the team leader and I was told We love you. You're doing fantastic things but this is so disruptive to our market center. You need to leave. I was kicked out of Keller Williams for knocking it out of the park with lead generation. So now if the franchise system sets up a statewide brokerage operation the model for expansion is you know that whether they call it a grid or a big MSA. Each team brings in.. And the model is bring 10 to 20 people in right. You hear Adam talk about it that's certainly his model and you know Tim and everybody else and Ben all do the same thing. So now what Kevin did in St. Lewis is on steroids with multiple teams now the difference is as you know and I'll ask you this Jon because you actually taught expansion if the brokerage is state wide and it's not the franchise, Who are they going to complain to if I'm the agent the market center that is actually gonna be doing do anything. Jon. Well that is the question I can only guess what the rollout will look like but if it's anything like what I'm thinking it's like so you have certain legal and compliance things to just think about right. So you know each state is going to have a broker kind of like how we're set up at EXP then that broker it's really that brokers licenses the one at risk if somebody misbehaves. So I have a feeling that that person is going to get a lot of this pushback or whatever where I think it's going to be real telling is what is going to happen to these franchise owners like they were sold one set of circumstances and one set of things right. I can't speak to what is inside the franchise documents because it's been a while since I looked at one last time I looked at it. You know it's very clear that you know they're like phonebooks incredibly thick things. So it's like there you know you have these big application and then whatever whatever. There are certain representations that are made by the franchise or that if there's a virtual thing takes off and they executed the way people think they're going to execute it. That's I mean that sounds like class action territory to me. I don't know there's that has been a term that has been used by several existing OPs at Keller Williams Amazon and they're just friends of mine who are like What do you know about this. My dad's not a lawyer I can't give you any advice but sounds like you should get together with your friends to see what you can do because it just doesn't make any sense that a dramatic shift from.. OK... You have a franchise territory and it's totally under your control and we're not going to let anyone open up anywhere close to you to protect that territory to now they've just erased all of that with one announcement. Kevin. The point that I'll add on top of what John said is where the agents could have political power collectively within the office in a franchise model if they're complaining about somebody they might as well work for another brokerage which they will technically. And so the mount of influence that OP or a team leader would have over a statewide virtual brokerage operation. I'll just go out and say it. My expectation is it'll be zero. And so the agents that I'm hearing from and you and I both knew a lot of them. This is what they're terrified about. They're terrified about the fact that hey I've been in this market for 10 years. I'm 15. I built up a great reputation and I don't want to have unequal playing field that I'm competing on where they've got better economic terms better caps better structure and then I have zero say over it. And here's the number one thing I'm saying is like I'm hoping that this is something that they announce that they'll have such a difficult time executing on that it'll never come. But I don't know that I can stick around here and support this if they basically bring in a competitor under the same flag in a different brokerage that's going to try and crush me in my operation. Jon. Sure. And that's the part that was unclear or like just objectively not bashing their plans by any means but objectively I don't know how it made any sense to only be opening up that virtual brokerage option to the chosen ones. I mean that's the kind of political stuff that is again filled by inboxes since I moved people out like I'm just so tired of the regional stuff and the Nationals that all this stuff being pushed down on us is like we just want to sell real estate like we don't want to talk about you know it's like how many bodies can we cram at the door etc. etc.. So it's like I just don't get how you can continue to be such a massive player when you're still ordaining people as worthy or not worthy to be part of the new generation. All right. And agents aren't stupid they're gonna figure that out and it's like they feel like they're being shunned we're being insulted twice like first when they weren't invited and secondly now that they're you know all of the advantages that they had from being the local expert are starting to evaporate. What's that going to look like. Like I have a pretty good guess and I moved my license accordingly but I don't know. Kevin. Yeah it'll be interesting. My expectation is we're at least 12 to 18 months out before you see any significant traction if even that early. Jon. Yep another big question it's you know put fear in a lot of people is what happens the profit share right. If you keep whittling away at these caps and everything goes cheap or free it's like oh there's no company dollar. That means there's no local profit. That means there's no local profit to share. So all these people that a you know bet on their property are continuing to grow... Again maybe there's some sort of elegant solution they thought of that I didn't think of but it's a real concern with a whole lot of people so I know I'm not the only one asking that question. They're smart people they run a good operation they built something pretty amazing. I have a feeling they'll figure out something. But I just don't know if it'll be in time or sufficient enough because they're working with a fundamentally obsolete model in the first place. Kevin. And I would echo what you said which is they have some of the best and the brightest both at international and in leadership that if there is a team that's going to figure out how to execute on that they'll figure it out. And I have the utmost respect for them. So I think that we'll figure something out. My bigger concern is the better they figure out the more chaotic it is to the actual franchise system right. Jon. Yep. Again I like to take the long view on these things because I'm still fairly young. Hopefully I have a lot of working years left. So I'm looking at 10 15 20 years in the future. If the result of all of this is that fees are lower for agents and service is improved for agents which allows us all to do a better job at servicing our customers than I think that's a net win for everybody. Right. There's always going to be competition. It's never going to be everybody works for one company. Right. It's never gonna be anything like that. So if there are five big players and a bunch of independents kind of like what we see now that would be OK.. if it raises the bar for everyone in the industry that we're going through this process and figuring out the virtual model and figuring out compensation packages that are more favorable for agents like I think that's great. I think it's healthy competition is healthy. I mean it's just part of how capitalism works. You know if we had no competitors that's what we get lazy that's when he get sloppy. So you know that your next competitors are always right on your heels should you take a rest and stop innovating when you're in trouble. So overall this whole thing is going to work out well for the industry and you know time will tell. Who were the big winners are. Kevin. Well absolutely and you know you can look at it on a broader basis and obviously there are announcements coming out that big franchise system may try and create a consumer facing portal that'll take on Redfin and certainly they may get better fruit their overall long term because they've got a better agent base. I mean if you look at specifically Redfin and you dissect their financials one of the things they have to struggle with is finding enough people internally to work as an employee. You know if you look at a system like EXP where we're adding 1500 and growing agents per month the growth rate the exponential growth that we've talked about who basically overtakes all of these entities in a very short a time and you know as we start to get better traction. Talked about earlier on the independent side that just doesn't stop. So when you look at what the overall industry should be worried about is you know if bricks and mortar is going away and I believe that is I'll get your take on it the second there's going to be a number of big huge shifts in the marketplace in this model where you're a non bricks and mortar better service better tools better platform is a great hedge against somebody trying to force the industry into an employee dumbed down comp pie on limited earnings model and because we're growing so much faster they can't get enough people to take them up on the offer to go sit in their model and make a lot less money than the top people in the industry make sure. Jon. Well no particular example you know or I think is going to would help them actually find some people would be a major shift in the market. So I remember talking with a team owner. She's had a team for a very long time. I won't mention her name. I have permission. But anyway clearly prolific you know we'll call her real estate famous lady. So she's got a team heard decades like before teams were fashionable and she figured it out and she said when the market was hot all of our agents wanted to be on a commission structure so they could make more money. And then when the market cooled off and it took more effort and more time to sell the house everybody wanted to be on salary. So she sort of goes through waves right. But I can see you know if you're running a salary model which you know the people drawn to it are generally not high producers that you would benefit if the market were to soften. And it takes more effort and skill to get deals done because people are going to sit on that salary. They'll be OK. Like having a salary and a small bonus versus keeping most of the money. So I think that would be interesting to see. I mean we're not seeing signs of the market really slowing down. Besides the regular seasonal stuff right now it still looks like we have money is still cheap cash still way more buyers than houses of most metro areas in the U.S. there seems to be no clear immediate solution to that. So yeah so is it getting away from bricks and mortar. I mean that's inevitable. It's happening in every industry. Like I don't know why you wouldn't expect that in real estate just because you have so many people who have built their lives and their brand around a physical location or they're just owners who aren't tough enough to stand up to their agents and say No you don't get a big cushy corner office anymore because you don't need it. It might say they think they need it or they think they deserve it but it's really it becomes a retention tool for some of these these brokers to just absolutely spoil their top producers because they know they have all kinds of better options out there and they're willing to pay to keep them engaged. Kevin. Yeah absolutely. Absolutely. I mean it's definitely something where I don't let those going to be 5 years from now or 10 but I think you can easily project out that bricks and mortar virtually nonexistent. If you're an agent thinking that this is all about your awesome office that you rarely go into. It's a great convenience now that you pop in there every once in a while. But between that and staffing and duplication across multiple offices it's the reason the brokers don't make any money. Jon. And it's eliminating all of those layers of expenses so we are able to keep the things we charged or even so low. You know it's like we don't have a lot of over to cover. We don't have managers and owners and regional people or offices and everything else. And we just did all of that has been eliminated so we can return those savings to the agents. Makes perfect sense to me. Kevin. Absolutely so John I ask this of every guest that comes on here and I know you know this I'm going to have you give me some final thoughts and then I want to get your contact information in the best way to reach you. If somebody is listening to this and wants to have a chat with you directly what are your final thoughts. What have we not covered the one to hope that we talked about today. Jon. Let's see. I think we had a pretty good chat. The whole revenue share versus share stuff. It's been interesting to hear people onstage and once they do talking about how well we tried revenue share and it didn't work for us Back in the 80s and 90s therefore it's never gonna work for anyone like we've already figured out that that's not an option. It's like OK that's fine. Like if you want to defend the property system because revenue shared and work for you. That's fine except there's a hole in that argument and that's not the whole story. So when this particular company went overseas a few years ago they rolled out a new program that wasn't profit sharing. It was a revenue sharing program. So if it didn't work in the 80s and 90s and you're saying that anyone who tries it today is going to fail because it doesn't work then why in the world would you have rolled it out five or six years ago. It's like that's way past the 80s and 90s and it was championed as an improvement on the current property system. So again that's not a story that's told in any of the groups that are fiercely defending their way of life but it's just one that I want people to hear. Kevin. And that's a great point. I mean the other fact when you and I were around I think I was around a little bit longer than you and certainly Gene Frederick's been around even longer is the detail that's left out which is that was based on bricks and mortar and a fully staffed operation and it was done when you have a couple of hundred agents at most. And you know I think most people would agree and I know you would and I would because we've talked about this that somebody tried to do a revenue share model with physical location of bricks and mortar staffing and all of the overhead. It's not going to work. Jon. No. The simple way to think of it is like the math doesn't work because you have too many expenses you'll never be able to keep it afloat unless you're a massive organization right. And even then I'd like to be massive with a traditional model you can have a massive space and more staff people so it breaks every time you try and make the argument for it. So but with a virtual setup it's wonderful. Like I've seen the number. I know we're not allowed to share it. I'm hoping they're significantly bigger than the ones that I was seeing with the previous system that I was part of. Kevin. Absolutely so John you know and this is for anybody here that's been looking at EXP. They're excited about potentially talking to you. We're all agent shareholders we're all pointing in the same direction. I'm going to have you give your contact information and for anybody out here, Here's essentially what you don't see behind the curtain which is we're all here to give you the best available information. If you want to reach out to John he's going to give your contact information and he's going to send you right back to whoever you've been talking to and whoever introduced you to EXP. So don't feel like you're doing anything you shouldn't be doing there's plenty of people out there to talk to you feel and reach out to me and get a hold of Gene or anybody else. We're all here to help you finish your due diligence. So John how would somebody reach you and connect. Jon. The fastest way is to text me by phone number is area code 720 605 1063. If you prefer to write a novel. Via Email that's fine too. It's Jon JON so no H. Jon.Sterling@exprealty.com. And just as a side note. As like. I talked to people all the time. Who are probably not ever going to join the EXP. Can't say never but it's like they have no intention of joining they just want to do some research and get my take on it. I'm always happy to have those conversations The way I look at it is look like you may be completely happy your company have no reason to leave or contractually bound to them for the next 5 7 years whatever. All I want to do is be sure that you're getting correct information so you can make the right decision. Like don't make your don't make your decision based on propaganda or what a competitor saying. It's like I'll get the facts. Right. So. If we're not your number one choice I just want energy for the number two spot. Kevin. And that's perfect because I can tell you that you know both Gene and I and everybody else that has a lot of conversations has had an interesting dynamic occur. You know sometimes it's not them but all of a sudden you get a call from somebody or a text and said Hey I talked to John Smith and I know you were speaking with him and he said hey you know what. I should follow up with you because I think this is a good fit for me because if it's not a fit for them it's potentially a fit for plenty of others. Jon. So that's a small industry. We can all use more friends in it regardless of company affiliation. So I will carry that attitude with me forever. Kevin. Absolutely John. Thanks for coming on and I appreciate your time today. Thank you. . Jon. Thank you.

Today we talk with mega agent Tom Daves from Sacramento Califonia. Tom was previously working with Keller Williams being a top world wide agent. As a team leader he runs a large successful real estate team. Tom talks to us about his decision to move to EXP, why he did, he touches on the real estate market change, equity, growth and revenue share and explains how much of a game changer his transition has been to his life and business.  Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.     In this episode Being Sceptical about EXP EXP in Nasdaq Market Change Why Join EXP EXP as an Exit Strategy The EXP value proposition Equity and revenue share opportunities Marketplace disruption Due Diligence  Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Tom to inquire or ask questions. Contact Tom: Call at 855 Tom Daves. Or email at Tom@TomDavesteam.com. Links: www.EXPCloud.com Takeway The pain the other great mega agents that are coming on board and as well as the alignment with amazing team members that we have. So yeah it all came together at once. Transcription KEVIN: Welcome back to another episode of EXP explained podcast I am host Kevin Cottrell joining me today from just outside of Sacramento California is Tom Davis. He is the team lead from the Tom Dave's real estate team. If you're in that Keller Williams system you undoubtedly recognize Tom's name in his team's name. They were the number one team for several years running in the Keller Williams system nationwide and Tom runs a business on the team that does multiple hundreds of millions of dollars per year. A very very large business very successful businessman in the real estate business he's been in the business for quite some time. So when I heard that Tom had made the move from Keller Williams as a large multi hundred million dollar producing team I wanted to find out his insight on why he made the decision to join the EXP. What he shared with me, I know he's going to be insightful whether you're a team lead on a smaller team or your team lead on a large team like Tom's including expansion teams. Please stay tuned for my interview with Tom Daves. KEVIN: Welcome to the show Tom. TOM: Hey Kevin. Thank you. KEVIN: Oh I'm looking forward to our conversation. Excited to share your story and talk a little bit about the big change you made over EXP. But before we do that why don't you give us a little of your background. Obviously a lot of our listeners probably know who you are but once you get a little bit of your real estate background talk a little about your business before we dive into the big change here. TOM: No I appreciate it. Absolutely. I've actually been in the business for 40 years. Kevin I started when I was 12 at a very young age and started right away and worked with traditional real estate sales and got into management and had a couple of different Remax brokerages and also worked with Oreo's with Flip's, Blackstone private equity team so pretty much seen every single economic cycle and it's been an amazing tour so far. I'm really excited that I'm now at EXP and I always say real estate you know is very very exciting and you can go from the hype of exploitation to the depths of defeat within the same 60 seconds. So it's fun it's exciting and it's all mindset right. KEVIN: Absolutely absolutely. So I think the question and certainly for me and everyone else when you announced you were leaving Keller Williams. You were the top agent worldwide for five years so this is the question I have someone who has that big business right. It's Mission critical it's important you're the top guy at Keller Williams worldwide for five years. This is an important decision. It's a strategic decision. What led up to walk us through a little bit of the process and why EXP. TOM: Okay great. So as I briefly mentioned I think my favorite saying is Wayne Gretzky you have to skate where the puck is going to be. And I've been blessed enough to position myself in most cases ahead of the curve and I head of that economic cycle whether it was traditional Oreo Flipp's you know hooked up with Blackstone private equity sold them like 600 homes in a year and a half. And the team and don't get it wrong. You know the team was amazing and Keller Williams was amazing. I was there for 18 years. I have nothing bad to say about them. But being a top agent is not always what it's cracked up to be. Candidly the margins weren't always that good. I had some great years and I noticed over the last few years that the margins were definitely shrinking and the market is starting to crown the market is starting to change as well. And there's no doubt that the market is shifting and it's technology based cloud based you know with all of the different companies that are coming online. Zillow, Redfin, Purple bricks, Amazon and they are all engaging in real estate. There's no doubt that technology is the future of our industry. And plus the consumers that consumers want and instantaneous communication at their fingertips. So that was you know one of the main reasons was the economic model and the cloud base. I literally when I made the move and changed over to the EXP realty I cut my expenses in half which was pretty amazing. And my very first month I had a 42 percent profit margin.My first month here which was pretty awesome. Pretty excited about that. Not to mention you know the stock EXP were publicly traded company as well as the revenue share and really having an exit strategy as a leader. I always feel that we need to seek out opportunities for our talent for our organization. And one of the problems that I've always had is to keep that ceiling of opportunity far greater than what anyone could achieve if you don't you're not going to be able to keep any talent. And it was becoming a little bit of a struggle for me whereas with EXP with the three types of income the commission income the stock for building are well as well as the revenue share it really truly provides an exit strategy for myself, anyone on the team and anyone that seeks to find it with literally no capital risk which is pretty cool. And the final is to have the opportunity to partner and align myself with you know Don Yokum, Randy Bird, Brent Gove, go and Gene Frederick. I mean it's just amazing that to align yourself you are the sum total of the four or five people that you hang out with. So that's pretty cool. And there is a saying that I really like is not always the assignment it's the alignment and that's quite frankly why I made that change. It wasn't easy. It was tough. But that's why I made change and that's why some of the biggest minds in the business are going after this thing. KEVIN: The question I have for you. I'm glad you brought up the margins. And one of the things I want to talk about is and I don't know if you're involved in the early MREA early 2000s when they had everybody in Austin for those mastermind's. I used to be with Andy Allen and Aaron Lancaster and they had that one of those mammoth early teams that was doing 600 transactions a year more. And what we found was exactly what is talked about which is there's a lot of sexiness to high volume and high transaction volume but the margins can be rail thin. You're subject to market conditions changes keeping talent attracting and recruiting and all that becomes a big machine. And I found most interesting your comment about instant profitability and margin increase because really if you look at it from the standpoint of the originals called the core value proposition in the MREA book about what you should be making your numbers went from where they were which undoubtedly was a lot less to you called it 40 - 42% which is sort of the lauded number that the best of the best in that model should hope for. Now one of the realities is you know I'm from Austin you know I joined Keller Williams very you know probably pretty close to when you were involved with them as well. And you know Gene was my mentor and trained me and then I was a team leader so I was around a lot of this and that was my first observation. I'm glad you brought it up because I think the marketplace is trying to figure this out right. You know there's a couple of challenges with big teams. You touched on one which is you know like you said it's not always awesome to be the biggest guy on the block with the most volume of people and expenses because the margins can get thin. But for listeners. Here's an example of an enormous operation that suddenly had 40 percent whereas before and you don't have to tell us necessarily what it was. But I would imagine you were probably down in some pretty low numbers where you had to watch things carefully and things could go south I'm assuming. TOM: Oh absolutely. And like I mentioned the margins were definitely shrinking. Yeah I was top agent with KW And you walk across stage and get your plaque but it's all about the bottom line of the profit and it did take me a few years to learn that realized that I think the first half of my career was all about success and walking across the stage and kind of all about me. But the second half is about significance. About pouring into others adding value and the bottom line right. They get significant. KEVIN: Tom the question I have is in the traditional teams that the retention of talent sometimes is hard right. They want to go do their own thing because they can only grow to a certain capacity and income level and they don't have the buckets of revenue share. They don't have stock. And so the comments that I'm getting from guests again and again are that my environment and my team from a standpoint of wealth creation for team members is different now because I can help them and mentor them. So it's not just one bucket production in their income that comes from that they can build revenue share they can have stock. Are you looking at that in your operation as being something that you're going to basically utilize for team members as well. KEVIN: Absolutely. And I think one common mistake that real estate agents do is they don't treat their business like a business and they don't think long term. So many agents and brokers are on the real estate cycle. Good month bad month. But if we begin with the end in mind and we think long term then we'll be able to build a plan and a strategy with a vision to achieve the goals that we really want to achieve to live that big life. And that's what it's all about you know whatever that is. KEVIN: And that's true. And I've heard from guest after guest and you know Jean and I and you and and Don Yoakam and others are talking to a lot of people and the ability for people to create the different income brackets that you talked about is a game changer it just doesn't exist right there's nothing wrong with the franchise systems. They just have not created an environment where that exists in other words. I've got a key team member and they want to go off and do the next big thing, normally and quite often it is go do their own thing have their own team. Well in the EXP world what we're seeing again and again and again is they start looking at the bucket of revenue share. They start looking at let me accumulate stock the way that we can accumulate stock and so it's creating a different dynamic especially for the teams that are coming into the EXP envelope where the rainmakers and the leaders who are in these teams are saying everybody's trading everything different. They're not inclined to run off and go do their own thing or even talking about it like they were they're talking about you know hey Tom tell me how to go do this. I want your help. I want to go get revenue share and I'm assuming that was part of your equation too you know to reward talent and attract people because not only are you known throughout the system that you just came from but you're well-known enough in the industry that lots of teams are going to pay attention to what they're going to hear on this interview and what they hear from you and Don Yoakum and others which is this is a game changer isn't it. TOM: Oh it really is. And EXP just totally provides the structure and the ownership opportunity that most brokerages don't. And this structure vital to maintaining a profitable real estate business and creating additional income just being in a constant state of growth. KEVIN: Which is absolutely true. So imagine rolling back to when you were observing and you were in sort of the big franchise system and you were starting to see significant movement because it has been going on for a little over a year where we had really big movement among teams including large teams. A lot of listeners are in that same position today. And I want to kind of talk a little about due diligence and key things that if you were sitting down and having coffee with them you would want them to be thinking about in other words you were where they are before now you know what you know. And as Jay Kinder says once it's seen it can't be unseen. So let's talk about some of those things from the standpoint of putting you back in your you know "I'm the number one guy worldwide at Keller Williams. I'm seeing this happen". What are the things you know now that you'd want somebody listening to this to say if I'm a team leader for a real estate team a big production team what should they be paying attention to how should they approach this from a due diligence standpoint. TOM: That's a great question. So I would take a look at the books. Take a look at the numbers. Take a look at the economic model. Talk to others that have gone before you. And you know things that to be honest I was a little bit skeptical that I mean I just thought EXP with all of these ways of creating wealth and opportunity. It just sounded too good to be true. And I just did not believe that it was sustainable. But when the Federal Trade Commission approved EXP to go on the Nasdaq and will become publicly traded. It was a game changer for me. I'm like OK well that's it. It's a done deal. So definitely a way to go. KEVIN: The other thing that's a factor obviously the up listing on NASDAQ is huge. Right. It's a credibility thing you don't get uplifted in the Nasdaq if there are holes in your business model and things are not sustainable and you can't go essentially out in the marketplace if they look at it and go oh this is never going to work long term. Right this is not the way it works in Nasdaq. So the second thing that I think you mentioned it's important to circle back to is the fact that too many it looks too good to be true. And you know my advice always is you know there's guys like you rent go Jean-Frederic, Pat Hays Scott and Tracy Lewis, me. There's a number of people that are available to you as resources Don Yokum will be another one. And you know that's why we always before we wrap up in these interviews get the best way for contact information. Most guests will say here's how you reach me and text me and I'll be happy to talk to you because they'll be other people that are in similar situation to you regardless of how they learned about the EXP they're going to be like well "I'm skeptical too. I need to talk to somebody" and that is in my mind a key due diligence step. In other words don't sit there in an envelope either hearing the words you're in a vacuum or an envelope you don't see any outside information and looking in the envelope going this doesn't make any sense to me. It looks too good to be true and you're trying to make your decision in a vacuum. You need to talk to people that have come before you like Tom said you need to have those reference calls and that's part of the process. And so part of the reason we do the I guess interviews so you can hear in the parties like Tom's words why they did what they did. But I would imagine that in this process Tom that you didn't just do this and figured out on your own you did talk to people did you. TOM: Oh I did. Absolutely. I did a deep dive. I spoke with two different business coaches both my coaches spoke with several different people many of the agents that have already come onboard with the EXP and asked them what they would do differently. You know if there were any snags or any concerns and every single one of them told me the main mistake that they made was they should have joined sooner. KEVIN: You know I mean frankly that is the number one thing that we tell people which is even if you decide it's not for you. I mean if you're a rainmaker and a team you know whether you're similar level and scope to what Tom is or maybe you have a team that's a much smaller team. The biggest mistake you could make is being skeptical of not doing something because definitively if you waited three four or five years it's going to be a different opportunity. It's kind of like the people that were at Keller Williams When you talk to Jean-Frederic and others that got in in the early 90s and got significant profit share built up and they are at the top of the tree. It's the business opportunity with a rapidly growing business. EXP is growing faster than the franchise system ever did because of the way it structured its a cloud based brokerage. So that would be my advice too which is even if you ultimately decide to not do it take Tom's advice and dig in and talk to those people do those reference calls. Figure out if it's a good fit for you. And then dip the decision but do it sooner rather than later. Because what ends up happening is more and more of your peers and your competitors in the marketplace are going to be over and they you know look up and if you waited you know God forbid three four or five years you're going to see a lot of people coming over and I'm sure that was part of what you saw. You started see what started slowly last fall. You know and then you had like Jay Kinder or Michael Reese and some others come over and then mega team after team came over in the last 12 months. I mean it's a crazy number of teams after Jay came over in November and I'm sure it will be hard to miss that in the marketplace. TOM: Like I said many of the best minds are going to after this and also I think one of the things that was happening was my pain was increasing you know as I mentioned the margins were shrinking. Just different things were happening with the growth of the team and the numbers and you know the only way for me to keep the numbers was just to you know we closed 350 transactions last year. Okay keep these margins we need to do 450. You know let's just do more volume let's just do more deals hire more staff to crank up. And so the pain I believe was getting so great that this opportunity was a no brainer for me. You know it all kind of came to a head all at once. The pain the other great mega agents that are coming on board and as well as the alignment with amazing team members that we have. So yeah it all came together at once. KEVIN: Tom here's what I would say too is because your business is so gigantic is the top guy worldwide Keller Williams. You look and act a lot like we're also seeing. And you know this because you and Yokum are talking about it is lots and lots of independent brokers whether they're small at 30 40 50 agents 25 agents or hundreds of agents are all waking up with a similar problem what you had which is margins are thin. The industry is shifting. God forbid there is a big market shift and they're caught on the wrong side of it with EXP growing around them. And I know you're seeing it and I'm just saying this for listeners benefits what Tom saw and Tom accomplished is not unlike why the independent brokers are what Gene and I see as one of the huge trends that's going to happen in the next three years is the conversion. TOM: Oh absolutely. KEVIN: So one of the things I always like to ask is Tom before I get your contact info for listeners in case they want to reach out to you is there anything that you hoped I asked you on the podcast today that you really wanted to get out about EXP and watch what's going on over here that I didn't ask. TOM: No that's great. I think we hit the high points. KEVIN: Okay fantastic. So again I always give this preface. It doesn't matter who got you interested in the EXP Tom and Jean and I or Brent Gove or anybody you hear on these interviews is there as a reference to help you make the right decision. Tom's the same way I'm going to get his contact information as far as the best way to reach him. We're going to turn right around and send you back to whoever introduced you to the EXP that's the cultural agent's point in the same direction. So don't feel sheepish if you're a team leader on a big team and this is mission critical for you as well and you feel like Tom's e-mail shoot straight with you and he's enough of a peer that you think he's the right guy to talk to, Tom how do they reach you. TOM: Great the best way to reach me is to either call me at 855 Tom Daves. Or you can e-mail me at Tom@TomDavesteam.com. KEVIN: Okay perfect. I appreciate you coming on. And thank you so much Tom. Thanks Kevin. Have a great day.    

Joining us today is mega agent Tierny Jordan from Dallas Fort Worth. Tierny has a had a very successful past in the real estate industry being the No 2 team in the Keller Williams market place.  Tierny talks to us about her team, her important decision on moving to EXP despite being a very successful agent with Keller Williams and what has happened since she joined EXP.    Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.     In this episode   Tierny's determining factors to joinging EXP Why Terny believes EXP is a game changer EXP's culture and mindset between members and collaborations opportunities EXP's culture standpoint - team work Tierny's du diligence ideas and tips EXP is not only for mega mega agents Personal business and team growth within EXP Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Tierny to inquire or ask questions. Contact Tierny Jordan by phone/text: 469 446 8971   Noteworthty "you can have ownership in a company that is going to be the number one real estate company in the world" Tierny J "So I would just encourage everybody to really sit down and understand the opportunity don't go off of what necessarily other people are saying because there's huge value here and I'm excited to help anybody and answer any questions that you guys might have". Tierny J     PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION KEVIN: Welcome to the show Tierny. TIERNY: Thanks so much. Just to be here. KEVIN: Good. I'm looking forward to catching up with you. Why don't you before we start a little bit on your decision to move to EXP tell listeners some of your real estate background because you've got a fairly large business you run up in the Dallas Worth area. TIERNY: Yes. So I've actually been licensed since 2006 and I did a little bit of flipping. Before that I was an investor. Up until then and got my license in 2006 got my broker's license in 2008 I had my own brokerage before I went to KW about four years ago. And then I went to KW for like I said four years and then excited about the opportunity to recently switch over to EXP. KEVIN: Awesome. And so I know you said you did some flipping and had your own brokerage Keller Williams you had a fairly large.... I see you're very visible in Dallas Fort Worth. What's the size of your team. TIERNY: So I have 15 agents right now. So we've grown significantly. Last year we had about four. And just with the opportunities that we've had and really changing over to EXP we've grown significantly over the last month or so. KEVIN: Oh fantastic. And even with the four agents let's talk just a little bit about your business because I know the audience will be listening to this you know could be in almost any franchise or brokerage but a lot of them will be in exactly your position. They have teams. So what kind of business do you do from a volume or unit standpoint. TIERNY: So we did a little bit over 200 transactions last year with four people and a little bit over 40 million in vilume KEVIN: OK big business if you will. And I know for most people I had a fairly large team and did about that volume in St. Louis and I know that when I was a lead on a team the thought of changing brokers and moving around and you know with all that number of transactions and listings is a big undertaking. What made you decide to even take a look at other options. TIERNY: I think the biggest thing was the ability to be in partnership with people like Brent Gove. Adam Bailey, Jeff Willams people that run really big businesses and being connected with them through the revenue share piece allows us to collaborate and help each other's businesses. That was the biggest determining factor for me. KEVIN: So if you talk about collaboration for someone listening if they've gone through some of the other episodes one of the things that Tierny is talking about that has been echoed on other interviews is this really truly agent focused business model and I want to have you give us your perspective on it I mean in other words everyone whether they are in the same revenue share group or not is all focused in the same direction. I know that I've done this and I'm sure you have as well where somebody either from our former brokerage or elsewhere has questions about the EXP and they'll reach out everybody are shareholders and the EXP is all pointed the same direction and we're really agent owners and it's something that I want to get your perspective on this. It's not really visible from the outside and I think people appreciate it until you get inside and the collaboration is pretty incredible isn't it. TIERNY: Absolutely. It's amazing it's something that can't even compare and I've had my own brokerage I've been you know with like a KW Where you have people in the office and the support and the collaboration that I'm seeing in a virtual world. It's awesome. KEVIN: For anybody listening to this. You know I come from the same brokerage background that Tierny did. I was a team winner and I also had a team at Keller Willimas and it's an awesome company. I mean they do a great job with mastermind's and mega camp and all these other events. The difference that I saw after being around EXP is it happens every day. In other words there's a very active proactive collaboration. There's a lot of sharing of information. So instead of it being a couple times per year when you run into people in person at an event the cloud based system allows that collaboration to happen regularly. I know that for example you know you still have the person things I know Brent Gove was in Dallas last week at the end of the week for a mastermind session locally there. I don't know whether you were at that or not but there's a lot of face to face as well. So you know for anybody listening it's not just cloud based I mean we certainly have a couple events per year but in addition to that there are groups like Tierny referenced and Brent Gove is driving a lot of those Gene Frederic is as well where we're getting the best of both worlds and that cycle of time between the masterminding is much more frequent than it is if you have to wait for one or three mastermind sessions per year or somebody listening I got to believe that this was a big factor for you too. In other words you get to work with these high producers and others and this doesn't just apply to somebody that is your basis that you're doing 200 transactions per year. We have a lot of cappers and megas in the making that are also plugging into the system as well and I'm sure you're seeing that in Dallas. TIERNY: Yeah absolutely. We have one of the first agents that signed up on to be part of the you know mind down line with somebody who was on my team previously. KW And he left to build his own team and it kind of cut off because he wasn't connected to me anymore. But at EXP you can still build your own thing and share your resources and build together. So there is definitely local support there. Face to Face. I'm excited. KEVIN: I'm glad you brought that up because for rainmakers if you will or Mega's that have teams I certainly had a big team with my regions and listing specialists that is in a franchise system because of the structure and how the teams are normally oriented something that's a challenge right. You get talent on your team and then they want to go off and build especially if they're very talented. And there is no play for them where there's a win win between the rainmaker and that's causes necessarily strife right. You describe somebody leaving but in the EXP world you saw Brent do this. I'm sure you're doing this with your team. Between the revenue share opportunities and the stock and equity. It's really a retention tool that also allows people to grow and it's not that same sort of win lose if somebody decides that they're at the point where they want to branch off and do their own thing because for somebody and your revenue sharing group that also has grown up and wants to do their own team. It's not a loss for you. Right. You're still going to benefit by helping them produce so for somebody in a franchise system. This is absolutely revolutionary for the industry. I mean this does not exist as I'm aware in any other franchise system. There is no effective way to create revenue sharing or no effective way that they're going to get rewarded in a fashion that when they start their own team if you will if that's what they're doing that somebody like Tierny can go I'm going to help you grow. I'm going to help you succeed because not only that like you described this well in the previous brokerage they left because they felt uncomfortable potentially. I don't know about this case. How much do you see that affecting the industry. Because I think that's going to be a disrupter and a game changer. TIERNY: It is definitely a game changer. As a leader you want to help other people grow. But because like you said the challenges with the current models the way they're set up it will sets you up where you can't do that. So you have to face the inevitable as you're helping people grow you know they're going to want to do their own thing. And the model that you speed just it gives you a freedom to say hey I'm here to support you I want you to get bigger I want your you know your business to grow and I'm going to help you do that. And it's really just because the model supports that. So I do think it's going to be an industry changer and like I said it gives us freedom to continue to grow and continue to help in an industry that's being challenged not only internally you know but also with these other companies like open door. You know that offer certain things this is going to allow us to continue to provide value and not just be for the top 1 % of people who are making it impact you know on our clients. I think with the model the way it's set up it's going to allow more people to be able to provide value. KEVIN: It really does. I mean if you look at you know EXP was.... in April it'll pass 10000 agents so I mean we already have that many in process with onboarding and we'll be north of 20000 at the end of the year and these are all people that are cappers or better. And there's a disproportion about in the industry of those that are moving because they see this value in it and it's something that I'm seeing. Also I'm going to ask you this because you were on brokerage before we're seeing brokers do this too. In other words in a traditional independent brokerage model I mean this is not the case if you own a franchise because you got to figure out what to do with your franchise. But if you're an independent broker you have sort of more control of your destiny. Gene and I were in a meeting with somebody this week and she's got 100 agents. She got it immediately. She's like oh I could take 50 of my agents. Put them under me and then I could ticket the rest of the 50 agents and put them under my key people in the brokerage that are my leaders and reward them and help them benefit. And then they in turn will learn about how to now mentor and get more agents in. That doesn't exist in other models. In other words the synergy of people immediately getting wow i when they when we can all benefit together unless you're your own company that has the equity in the stock or if you happen to work for a company and I'm not aware of them I mean we can talk about the one that is the diametric opposite which will be somebody like Redfin. Right. They have people down to the level of being an employee right. There's really no upside for them right there just essentially an employee and they get some sort of incentive compensation but they don't have the stock play they don't have the revenue share piece. And I believe this is going to be what disrupts the ability for them to effectively field a large number of agents as employees because now the option exists in other words people are coming out of franchise systems and saying OK what's next. What do I need to do. And with the a large number of Mega agents like yourself and even cappers that are leaving. I mean Daniel Baer is a perfect example. In his interview we talk about him leaving Keller Williams as well in San Diego. And since I interviewed him they've gone from somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 or 20 agents in San Diego to over a hundred in less than three weeks. You're seeing that in Dallas right you're coming in a little bit later. I don't know an agent number you were with your team coming over but you know when Gene Frederick started there were a handful of agents in Dallas and there's close to 900 now and it's what I call the EXP effect. It's like people are sitting in markets and they're like well there's only a handful of agents there's like St. Louis is a market I know. And I think there's 29 or 30 agents up there and you know Gene and I are running a big event next month and they'll have hundreds of agents when they look up a year from now. And it's the effect so if you're listening to this and you're in a market that was like San Diego just get ready because there are agents like Tierny in your market that when they come the rest of the market just gets disrupted and shifts. Don't you agree? TIERNY: Yes absolutely. KEVIN: When you look at somebody maybe listening to this and thinking about well you know I see this. I'm not sure what to do. I've got you know 40 listings active in pending. I've got a big business. What would you tell them as far as due diligence or taking a look at this. What would be the best way that you think they should evaluate this. TIERNY: I would definitely look at the current structure and agreement that they have where they are concerning their listings so most brokerages are going to allow you to close anything that you have pending out under your current agreement and then move all of your active stuff over with you. But I would make sure to ask about that first before you know. So that isn't challenged in any way. And then once that's figured out... really just sit down and look at the opportunity that's here a way you can have ownership in a company that is going to be the number one real estate company in the world. And from my perspective I did a very conservative growth projection with and when I sat down with them in Mexico and we looked at just 5 % of the agents told 35 people about the company in four years will be close to like 344000 agents. So looking at the opportunity to have ownership in a company like that that has disruptive technology that allowed you to build your business and provide value to the people that you're surrounded with. When you look at that opportunity for what it is there's nothing else that's better for us. So making plans to transition your current business would be what I would do and what I did. KEVIN: And absolutely and you know you talk with Gene Frederick and others and you know Don Lawyer did the same thing you both were in the same market center and I'm sure you were paying attention when he was doing his due diligence. The one thing about you EXP and I would say this for listeners and you know attorney you'll give her contact information before we wrap up today is regardless of who introduced you to you EXP the culture of this business is we all win when we get great top producing agents which is what's happening at the company. So if you listen to tourney's interview or somebody else's it doesn't matter who introduced you to EXP you're going to talk to anyone who's a peer or somebody you would respect as a reference both because maybe you have a similar business or you have a need to get a couple of references. I'm sure Tierny you talked to more than one person. It's an important part of the due diligence so don't think that just because you were introduced by John Smith or Susie that that's your reference point the culture of this business as we're all here to help you it doesn't matter if it's me. Doesn't matter if it's Gene Frederick or anybody else we're here to help you it doesn't matter how you were introduced to the company and that's part of the reason we're doing this podcast is for you to hear in people's own words why they came to you EXP. Are you getting reference calls from people like you maybe have never met or didn't even have initial conversations with. TIERNY: I haven't yet. One thing I can say is absolutely correct. What you're saying.. I have been with KW for four years and of course Don Lawyer and myself werw at the same market center I never really interacted with him a whole bunch for the four years that I was at. KW When he saw that I came over to EXP I did get a text message from him welcoming me to the company. He said he was very excited to be with the EXP and I didn't come in under his downline so we're not connected that way but he did tell me that if there was anything that I needed I could reach out to him and if he could answer any questions for me and he welcomed me to the family so I thought that was like to me it was a culture shift just from what I experienced with KW And Don. And then what I experience with EXP and Don it was just a totally different culture. So I wanted to make mention of that. KEVIN: And that's a great example. And you know the audience listening to this podcast many of them are at a franchise or they're independent and maybe they were introduced by an agent their market or somebody that on a transaction with. And your point is very very valid. Just realize that if you're doing your due diligence and there isn't and your franchise office another person that just recently left to go to EXP this is a whole nation wide operation. Right we're going to be through 10000 agents by the time this episode is live. There are going to be plenty of people for you to talk to and as Tierny said from a cultural standpoint we're all here on one team. We're all here and that's a very different thing where especially in franchises like the one that you and I came from. There are great companies but they're all islands right. You were in one market center a big one that does a ton of volume and Arlington but you guys didn't interact you didn't collaborate. You didn't mastermind. Whereas now everybody's pointed the same direction and willing to help aren't they. TIERNY: Yeah. KEVIN: If you look at the market going forward you talked about doing some projections and where the company's going to go you know when you look at the company growing who do you think the perfect fit is. In other words there's a lot of talk in the market. I want to address the sort of the nonsense and I'm going to hit the first part of it and then I'll let you talk about who you see joining in Dallas and you know in your downline etc.. Because there is a number of people out there are trying to talk about people are coming to EXP and leaving right and I'll hit the turnover rate right over the head. I mean we have about an 8 % turnover rate. It's very low for the industry. You know a big franchise system including the number one is running 36 %. So you don't get confused if you're having somebody in your franchise system tell you that everybody is leaving because that's not the case. We have great producing agents is that not what you're seeing as you're dealing with agents in Dallas that these are cappers so to speak and better aren't they. TIERNY: Yes and I happened to be on the Finance Committee at KW which was like a close group by invitation only. And we got to look at the books and we got to see how many people left and came. So I agree with you like that rate is high. And I think part of it is because of the structure and I'm not just talking about KW as a whole but just nationally for brokerage's because the value of actually bringing people in and providing them with a network of core people that are going to help them and give them value to build their business not only just with the same wash rinse and repeat where you're doing the same thing over and over but providing an opportunity to have passive income providing an opportunity to have retirement through the stock. It's just an amazing platform and model. And I think with the way that it's set up it allows people to connect more and help build more. And I've only been with the company for a month. I've brought in close to 30 people. I haven't had anybody leave yet. I know the person who brought me in hasn't had a huge turnover at all. I don't think anybody's left him and he is close to like 90 people. So I think it's just the value. Like we're plugging and and we're helping each other build and we're looking at this as a long term business and partnership and helping each other grow and making sure that our company is stable that we have ownership and with the stock. So I think it's a different mindset. You know we're not just coming to get what we can out of it. We're coming together to build something bigger than we could do without each other. KEVIN: Absolutely and I'm glad you brought that up because you know for many many agents they don't want to. Good bad or indifferent. Right. There's no judgment in this comment. Have a 200 transaction 40 million dollar business. So you know they're plugging away doing listings and buyers and they've got a good business right. They cap and they run a great business. The stock equity opportunities you know to be a shareholder and do stock and the revenue share opportunities are something that just don't exist. And it's a game changer for so many agents because you don't have to bring in 100 people to change your life from a residual income standpoint you don't have to do anything other than cap and then if you do the 20 transactions on top of a cap which is not 200 transactions in markets especially on higher priced markets you're going to have the opportunity to be an icon where essentially you're getting the cap back in equity. So it's become such a huge game changer for people who don't want to have giant teams and I'm only saying this because somebody could possibly be listening and saying well you know I don't want to have a 40 50 million business. I'm happy doing 5 million 10 million 12 million and I see so many of these people coming in and I was in a meeting recently here in Texas where an agent that's been with the EXP for two years said I have 155000 dollars in equity in my account in less than two years. I don't have a 30 million dollar business. I'm a solid double capper I do four and a half million dollars a year. And I want that. I want that to sink in for somebody listening that that is them because I would challenge you to take two years look at your PNL look at how you run your business and come up with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in an equity account. In other words she's not doing anything other than what's offered and what she will qualify for in the business. And this is a game changer because for so many people this is their frustration right there. Good producer but they don't want to be a mega mega giant team which is fine. The majority of the marketplace is that right. And previously they just didn't have that opportunity. They didn't have the opportunity to say why did to create wealth. I need to figure out what my residual income stream is you know and the traditional stuff is in a lot of the franchises is start buying property right. Go invest and get that and then they have to figure out in order to fund that. How to do a much more production. Right now we're back to the same problem again. They don't want to have a giant production business and team if this is you. This is why you need to dig in and talk to people like Tierny because even though her business is a larger scale than yours or any of the other episodes that we've done or if you want to reach out to me or gene we can explain to you how somebody can work here at two years and how they accumulated 155000. You know there's an agent in Tierny's market that's been here a little over two years and she's got 700000 equity and she's roughly at Tierny's volume. You know Sherry Elliott is her name and you can listen to her episode. That is a huge game changer. You know and if you're in a franchise system that does profit sharing there's enough people now that can point to. They had attracted agents at EXP and they had previously had agents they got recruited into the franchise system. They know the difference right in the revenue share off the top. In other words getting paid like we talk about on the podcast as a regional owner is a 10x or more difference. In other words you know what your number is. For profit sharing and you're listening to this. Multiply it by ten or more. If you're planning on attracting people like turny talked about being here a month and how many people have come over if that's you right you're listening to this and maybe you are active in your marketplace and you've got people in your profit share go take your last profit your statement and multiply it by 10. If you're going to be purposeful income over EXP that's a game changer from a residual income standpoint because unlike the complex formula and the unknowns and profit sharing revenue share is really easy is an attorney. It's a formula that you could put on a napkin and I could show somebody over coffee. TIERNY: It's very the atoms that KW for four years and never really understood the proper share P and a lot of people didn't know how to explain it but I definitely understand the revenue share piece it's very simple and you can just explain it and write it down on a piece of paper. KEVIN: Absolutely. So before we drop off today any final thoughts things that I didn't ask you that you think would be good if somebody is considering EXP to consider? TIERNY: I think it's just an exciting opportunity. I would say take the time to really sit down and understand what our company is offering because when you look at it and you see the true value in our industry there's nothing else like it and we're really at a place where it's still the beginning. You can still get in to this opportunity and connect with what's right for you what's right for your business. And it doesn't matter. The majority of the people the 30 people that I brought in didn't have big teams. Their single agents who were cappers on a capper in our market or an icon in our market does about 28 transactions a year. So that's a little bit over like two transactions a month. It doesn't take a whole bunch to utilize the money that you're already investing at another franchise and get that back in stock ownership in the company and start building something bigger than just the standard business. So I would just encourage everybody to really sit down and understand the opportunity don't go off of what necessarily other people are saying because there's huge value here and I'm excited to help anybody and answer any questions that you guys might have. KEVIN: Fantastic Tierny how would they reach you what's the best way to contact you. TIERNY: So my cell phone number is 469 446 8971. And text is always the best way to contact me. KEVIN: Fantastic. Thanks for coming on the show. TIERNY: I appreciate you.    

Daniel Beer Interview Joining us today is Daniel Beer. Daniel is the CEO of Daniel Beer Home Selling Team in San Diego California and has been in real estate since 2005. In 2017 his highly leveraged team was the top producing team in Southern California. Daniel shares his story about his business with us, talks about his decision to move his already successful business to EXP Realty and explains why he believes EXP is the most important opportunity that has ever existed in the Real Estate industry.  Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.     In this episode Why EXP is the most important opportunity in Real Estate  How easy it is to move to EXP Many mega agents are making the move to EXP Creating revenue and passive income through EXP EXP is currently the fastest growing company in Real Estate The benefits of moving to EXP in these early stages EXP is like buying in to a business without paying for it Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Sean to inquire or ask questions. Contact Daniel via his website www.fastforwardwebinar.com   Noterworthy "It's killing the traditional model and this is the highest value proposition available today to people selling houses." "Me being at EXP has nothing to do with wanting to move away from Keller Williams vs it actually just has to do with me wanting to move towards something that I see as being a phenomenal opportunity"  Daniel Beer   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION KEVIN: Welcome to the show Daniel. DANIEL: Thanks Man. It's good to be here. KEVIN: Looking forward to the conversation.. The market and the industry are a buzz when you made the move recently but before we jump into all that why don't you give a little bit for those that maybe are listening to this that don't know you personally and know what you do as far as your real estate practice a little bit of your background. DANIEL: Sure. So having been real estate full time since 2005 and this past year 2017, my team was the number one producing team for all of Keller Williams and the Southern California region IGCI. And number two buy units. So we closed 222 houses for 164 million dollars in sales volume. We have what I call a highly leveraged fully built out team everything from operations, listing management, transaction management through company listing, showing agents inside sales and of course our sales agents or sales executives. It's been an incredible journey. And I went through the same Genesis that I think a lot of agents go through. I like most other stumbled into the industry. In 2005 I was 23 years old and my dad was about to sell a house and of course I got licensed because it's unfortunately are too easy to get licensed. And I started selling homes basically just doing friends and family business and that was cool. Up until the market crash.. The market crash happens we all know how devastating that was. All the friends and family business goes away. And I'm left to either make a decision to leave the industry or learn how to build a true business that can predictably systematically create leads in income for my family. So fast forward there were a lot of learning that you know that I went through is some winds some fails and here we are today having a ton of fun and now at EXP man I can't even begin to tell you how energising this has all been. I haven't had as much fun in a long time. KEVIN: And that's great. I like Gene Frederick we're team leaders and in leadership at Keller Williams I was with Aaron Lancaster and Andy Allen in the early 2000s and they had a team and we ran and we were doing about 600 transactions a year and that was the genesis for the whole MREA and so we thought we were having a lot of fun back then but it's nothing like this. So tell me about the process. Obviously well before you decided to move you started to hear about the EXP and you start seeing agents moving. What was the genesis for you making the decision to take a major big business like yours and make a change. DANIEL: Yeah it was an interesting journey. And so for me my personal story goes back to being in Gary Keller's mastermind of killer Williams so I have to say by the way it was a wonderful company. I was very very happy there and me being he has nothing to do with wanting to move away from kW vs it actually just has to do with me wanting to move towards something that I see as being a phenomenal opportunity. So anyway I was at Keller Williams. I was part of Gary Keller's mastermind. And you go back over a year ago. All of a sudden in our group we had a Facebook group. We suddenly started having people asking you know and making comments asking questions about EXP. And you know questions like "EXP just did this in my market" or "what are you guys doing about EXP saying this" or taking this person or "oh my god you hear we lost that one". And I found that to be really interesting because first of all I don't know who the EXP was. I had never heard of it. And of course at the time it was like a 2000 person company. And so I started to asking myself this is where do you think it's curious that the most elite group in the biggest company in the world or at least in North America is talking about some 2000 person company. But I have never heard of. So that's over a year ago and you know going back to say mid 2016. And the interesting thing about that too is that.. that group never talked about Berkshire Hathaway and they never talked about Remax they never talked about Coldwell Banker. They never talked about anybody. Yet they were talking about some little 2000 person company. So that's kind of interesting right. That was my first introduction to it all. I have another group that's a very very high powered mastermind. Everyone's number one or two in their market. There's about 35 or so people in it and that group all of a sudden three of them went to EXP. I'm talking about big heavy hitters. And so I learned the model and Kevin I think this might resonate with you. You know there's an evolution in this whole thing just when you hear about it, there is when you learn the model. So you go back over about a year ago. I understood the model okay call their stock. There's revenue share. There's the fact that you keep selling houses right? We're not being asked to become essential oil sales or anything we're just simply selling houses as stock revenue share. Cool. I got it. That was a year ago. But then there's when you finally kind of see the entire picture come together Kevin and you see the real power of the opportunity to step into the fastest growing brokerage in the country in the very beginning of the first inning. And when you see real productive agents start moving into the business. For me that was Curtis Johnson. Johnson was another guy that I was friends with he's a guy I followed actually been stocking years back before we knew each other. I was trying to learn from him. Now all of a sudden he goes yes. There's just that moment when you say wait a second what is going on. Too many incredible smart strategic business people that I respect are making the same move to the same group that Gary Keller's private mastermind's talking about. That's interesting. And so... you know I'll take a pause here Kevin in case anything to throw in there but when you start seeing that and then start seeing how truly financially incentivize the people at EXP are to help each other and essentially make it true the thing that we all tend to say in all brokerages that we are all for each other we want to share. We want to do this. Not in my market right or not too much. Not my true secret stuff. Well I started finally seeing a model that really incentivize people to open up completely and help one another because everybody financially benefits and the power of that and being able to go from one bucket of income to three right? just simply selling houses getting checks. It's also owning your brokerage and having passive revenue became so compelling that I made the move and I have been having a ton of fun since. KEVIN: Couple of interesting tidbits that you'll know who I'm talking about I'm not going to mention by name because I've got a good friend and he's in St. Louis and he's got a mega mega team like yours Daniel. I mean he was my mastermind in St. Louis when he was just getting started and I had my team and we were the number three team in the market. So I was talking to him about EXP and he said I get it. I know the model. Don't worry about it. Let me tell you this I've been accumulating stock and EXPI for over thirty four months. I've got thirty or forty thousand shares. I can't tell you the number of people. And he's with an NRT company. So guys like that are buying stock and the EXPI. There's a mortgage lender in central Texas. I think he's got close to 50000 shares. The industry is betting that this is the new model. And so some of the stuff that you know I just wanna throw in here because this predates your entry into KW and I agree with you it's a great company for people like Gene Frederick and I and others. We were there in 1999 when Keller Williams was a small little company and I'm going to tie down why you said it's kind of interesting to you to give you some perspective. Gary Keller and the team and the regional directors are all getting ready to launch a ton of market centers. They've got somewhere around 50 700 agents in 1999 and they have to go through the process of fining agents finding investors they have to go the 14 to 18 month process that other people have talked with me about on other episodes mentioned this. It's a slow process right. I could have met you in San Diego. Got you all excited about a market center and then 18 months later we'll be all through the process and opened. So now Brent Gove and I always give the story because it's most enlightening when you listen to his interview you'll hear him say this. He was in San Antonio for the EXP meeting met with Glenn met with Gene met with the team brought some people that were his best Devil's Advocates said poke holes in this model. Tell me why I shouldn't do this. Ten days later he is up and operating as the EXP and basically being powered by the brokerage. So the reason that people like you are seeing these antidotal people dropping in and out and it gets mentioned 12 times at fam reunion is this is Netflix versus Blockbuster. If you're sitting in the private room with Gary Keller's insiders not the people in the company but the guy that he's paid millions of dollars in consulting fees to they're going to tell him this is Netflix vs. blockbuster. You have all this bricks and mortar. You have all these franchise locations. It's a great company but so is Blockbuster and they couldn't pivot they didn't pivot. DANIEL: It becomes very difficult when you wrap up in hundreds and hundreds of franchise agreements. KEVIN: Absolutely. The interesting part about that I wanted to tie that down is there were fifty seven fifty eight hundred agents now eight years later they were at 78000 agents right. They executed extremely well. There were a bunch of us in leadership and I ran some market centers in South Florida. Gene was regional director as well as a team leader and phenomenal model lots of execution. The thing is and this is where Gary and the others realize this if it takes some 14 18 months to open a markets and with 100 agents EXP adding agents at 250 plus per week and you don't need a slide ruler to do the calculus to figure out if we're disproportionately high on producers like you or in the parlance of the franchise system cappers or better they can figure out what the picture looks like in 3 years when the company has 100000 agents. And I want to do two more data points you may not even know this in a one week period somewhere around Baltimore one of the market centers number one through five at one market center in one week they all basically said we're going EXP. So that is how you end up with a small little company being mentioned 12 times at fam reunion. The momentum is crazy. DANIEL: It is an incredible thing and here's how you know I truly believe this will be the first 200000 person company in North America. And the reason why and that it will also get there much faster than what is currently the biggest company is simply because let's imagine that you're an agent somewhere in remote Montana. Okay. And you want to be at Keller Williams and let's rewind right years back is I don't know where the market centers are but let's imagine it's the year 2000. And you want to be a Keller Williams And you're in remote Montana. Well they had to award the franchise fine the space build up the space they need to get X amount of what they called capping agents to be able to finally launch. And then eventually you can join that. That's a long process. If an investor chooses to build a market center in your area. You know that's that could be a one or two year process there. And again if they choose to build a market center in your area well you could be on a remote mountain top somewhere in Vermont right now without an agent within 500 miles of you and you could be speed this afternoon. And that is why this company without the restrictions of brick and mortar and traditional franchising territories and regions. When you remove all that you allow scale to happen at an exponential rate versus what companies not just in real estate but in any industry can traditionally experience. And so when you take all that in when you hear a guy like me that know I've had the privilege of being connected to some of the most incredible producers in the country I have a unique point in that I know what those conversations are. I know there's market centers being quickly unwinded so that people can move to EXP I know that headline making names across the country across every major city are all in motion right now. Right now is an opportunity that I saw to essentially step into Keller Williams in 1990 and in the very beginning the first inning. It it's been around for nine years by the way. But I would still say this is the first inning of a productive agents that will quickly and exponentially grow the awareness and the conversation which is already the loudest conversation in our industry is only being magnified each time one of these large producers in a different region nor a different city moves to EXP and the real aha is that if you can do that and you can have world class uplined support from big influential names and people and you're the first productive agent or among the first if you're in this first wave the first inning of agents that are really selling house it's moving into it. Yes. Well everyone wants to know about it. The conversations will naturally flow to you. What I saw Kevin is an opportunity to essentially own my region. It's like buying a Williams region without ever having to pay for it. And that opportunity was when I could not even I had not pass up. And this happened just like that right?. This is the loudest conversation in our industry. KEVIN: Absolutely. I mean I want to come back to what you just said because for people we've been talking a lot about wins it doesn't matter if you're at Remax or even if you're independent. The analogy of the fact that you can build a business where it's the equivalent of owning a region something that was out of reach for anybody in the franchise systems is the reality. And so if you're Daniel Beer and you're a major producer in your market and you have a couple of choices for additional income this is where I see the next phase of this momentum and rapid growth. You could go expansion right go into multiple markets and there's a lot of the franchise focus on that and certainly we're starting to see a lot of talk about this loud conversation from people looking at the EXP from an expansion standpoint and there's a lot of momentum there but it's that revenue share regional ownership if you will in the building a business around that that we have enough demonstrable examples whether you listen to the episode by Pat Hayes look into the Gene Frederick ston or even Sherry Elliott and Dallas. It's incredible now and I think the market with this loud conversation can no longer go. Well yeah. You know what they don't have anybody that has any real success because now regardless of how you've been introduced to this episode or any of the other episodes and as my guest ask whomever introduced you to EXP to go get you success stories. It doesn't matter if you want to talk to Daniel you want to talk to me Gene Frederick Pat Hays. We're all agent shareholders we're all here to help you. And again I want to get your perspective on this. Isn't that the craziest part of this culture that's not apparent from the outside. Anybody will help anybody because we're all age owners we're all either going to benefit through share or through our ACLI because the stronger the company can become the more our stock is worth in the most simple terms. Like I said the math finally makes sense. It's the first time it's been able to put the numbers and the altruistic or altruistic aspirations finally in alignment with the numbers and the math. It's a beautiful thing. And here's something I was listening to as I might say to myself OK that's helpful and great. So the 160 million dollars of real estate in the last 12 months. Sure. What about me. What I have seen over and over and already has set for us here locally in San Diego just within our first literally the beginning stages of us being at the company is if you're 5 million or 10 million or producer if you're an agent that's been operating with integrity showing up as a professional in your marketplace you are vastly underestimating your influence whether it be at a branch level or a zip code level a neighborhood. A town or county or city or state your region your underestimating your influence and keep something in mind. Again you're stepping into the loudest conversation only is being magnified by every big iconic agent keeps coming into the company which seems to now be happening on a weekly basis. So I'm stepping into the middle of that and your boots on the ground doing deals. Talking to agents talking to a hundred plus agents on a yearly basis. No one's asking you to go become a recruiter. In fact make sure you keep selling houses. Do what you do sell houses. All you needed really did was alter 10 percent of your awareness 10 percent of your script when speaking to an age. Something as simple as closing a deal out with somebody and just simply calling them hey is great doing that. You know what let's do another one soon. Let me know. Let me know if you listening coming up. You know I had the same conversation you're already having. And then just adding. And by the way you mentioned earlier during our transaction you know you'd asked me about EXP. We're actually having an event or there's this wedding or going on or blah blah blah. What I'm trying to say is that someone like me someone like Kevin and a lot of other folks across the country there's a lot of opportunities to it regardless of sponsorship there's a lot of people like us that have already created the system. Or you could just alter 10 percent of your awareness and introduce people into the system so that you can continue to do what you do and sell houses. You're going to go from what I call one bucket to three real estate sales but can we just sell a house and get a check. Transition to now having ownership. Because you actually get ownership simply for doing their jobs and having passive revenue here locally. Kevin like it points out an agent great agent just you know your bread and butter productive long time respected agent. She's not a YouTube star she's not on stage. She's just doing what she does in her local market place for some time. And she has five hundred ish dollars of profit sharing the last 12 months that her previous company her revenue share based on which she's already introduced. It's unnatural attraction and conversations coming to her is already on track for seven thousand dollars this year. And I think that's incredible. I think that's the most incredible thing because it makes seven thousand dollars in passive revenue in San Diego. You need to invest about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars cash to do it in real estate on a rental. So that's power. KEVIN: There are tons of examples and you're going to see them on these podcasts episodes. I mean I always love to tell the story of Sherri Elliott. It's one of the other episodes she was age at number 14 in Dallas and they have over a hundred there now. So when you look at the growth of the company the other thing I want to point with that comment is even if Daniel's point you're in a market where there aren't 800 agents. Here's the deal if you're in a market like San Diego it's coming. Right. Less than two years ago Dallas had 14 agents they have 800. Austin's over 315. I'm just picking a couple of markets. Daniel have every confidence that you'll be at a huge number in the southern California San Diego market and it will be but here's the point nobody in real estate does a good job of saving like you can with an opportunity like EXP. I want to talk about her two numbers that she talks about publicly. One is the equity she's been hurt less than two years she participates and in the GCI program where she dedicates 5% right? And if you're at a franchise and you pay that royalty. Think of it as the same thing off the top she has. And when she told Gene this recently, even hundred thousand dollars in her stock account in EXP stock and less than two years. So I challenge anybody listen to this. If you're an independent you're in the franchise model and where you are you're never going to see something like that. We were telling the story and one of the lunch and learn actually explain meetings and one of the three agents from Austin was in there and she said well I don't know nearly as much business as Sherry does and this is your point. I probably do a tenth of what she does in production she said. Isn't it interesting that my stock portfolio in less than two years of the EXP stock is 155000. I've never seen that much money in a investment account my life. Those are why Daniel's point of you don't have to be 150 million dollar producer with a big team. You could be a capper in that parlance. DANIEL: Well the story I told news about someone that's been in the company for three weeks its simply for this reason. And really this is the thing that people have to take with them. If you go and see who's making six figures profit share. Keller Williams which again a wonderful company that I love respected. Gary Keller will forever be one of my biggest influences if he goes to you. Who's collecting six fingers of profit share at Keller Williams what you're going to find is that it's not the superstar agents it's not the guys on YouTube on stage and being created around panels and it's not the celebrity agents that you whose names you know today it's actually the people whose names you don't know who were simply there early period. Now that doesn't mean they just showed up and didn't do it thing. And he EXP isn't that either. You can't just show up and not participate. It's not a get rich quick and just you just sign here you a million. No that's not what it is. But the people collecting six figures of profit share at KW And that's profit share revenue sharing exponentially more powerful only to talk about why in a moment. And a key reason why as we go deeper into it the number one reason why is top line revenue can't be manipulated. People collecting six figures of a profit share in this. You have to allow them to land. It's not a celebrity agent. It's not the people you saw on stage at the last conference convention etc. It's people that were there early. In my view is 1995 all over again being given the chance to enter. What's about to be the fastest growing company in the history of North American brokerage and I might be wrong right. I mean I've done an incredible job of being right more often than not in terms of my vision of where to take my business which is how we've got here. But I've also been wrong but was a guy like Curtis Johnson also rock the guy like Jay Kinder was a guy like Frank go wrong and Gene Frederick are all of these producers Kyle Wessell 200 million dollar producer was he also wrong are we all seeing the same thing and are we all wrong. Well I'm excited to find out. Here's the thing. The odds of all those people being very low and if we are we'll just go back to selling houses because that's what we're doing is we're selling houses. And so you obviously can hear the enthusiasm and buy my voice around what's going on here. It's just been on fun I keep coming back to that. You know what I'm talking about Kevin like me the amount of energy that you feel around all this. It's something I hadn't felt until... KEVIN: Absolutely I would agree with that completely. Before we drop off today if somebody is listen to this and they want to reach out to you and talk more about it what's the best way to reach you. DANIEL: Well two things you could do. One is my name is Daniel Beer. So just like the drink I'm easy to find. Go get me. Call me e-mail me it was jump on a call. The others go to fastforwardwebinar.com spell out the whole model. We spell out exactly why we've done what we've done not just my self on the way but some other mega producers that have made to jump as well. Independent brokerage's you know I'm giving you the KW because that's my history but independent brokerages are seeing that this becomes a platform where they still get to operate their brand. They're what they wanted to build their brokerage associates operated they just can get rid of this stuff it's not so unlike the broker stuff repurpose that time to building your passive revenue it and not have to take your eye off the ball at all as it relates to real estate sales. So you want more detail around it it is fastforwardwebinar.com and yeah it takes a whole webinars. The reason why is it's a completely different model. It's a model that I hadn't seen in my entire career. And it's just different. And when we've been looking for what's going to disrupt our marketplace. You know Kevin we always thought it was going to be someone that would create a button that would allow a buyer to purchase a home. That's actually not where the disruptions coming in disruptions coming in the brokerage space and how the agent is demanding value from their brokerage on a level that had never been previously demanded before it and that's happening more and more. It's killing the traditional model and this is the highest value proposition available today to people selling houses. KEVIN: Absolutely I agree with you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. DANIEL: You've got it!

Sean Purcell - Interview In this episode joining us is Sean Purcell. Sean started in the real estate market back in 1987 when he was in college and has been in most aspects of the industry including home building, loans, residential real estate and moving on to becoming a coach and a productivity coach with Keller Williams. Sean talks to us about his decision to leave the franchise system and becoming an owner of a fast growing company. He gives us his prospective on EXP from an agent stand point and an independent broker that made the decision to move to the agent centric model of EXP.  Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.     In this episode: How to become an owner of a company that is getting bigger EXP is agent owned and agent centric.  EXP brings phenomenal technology to the forefront for the agents to use. Income, wealth building opportunities and equity differences between the EXP and the franchise system. Advice and steps on due diligence. The power of EXP is most times not apparent from the outside. How to really get informed about EXP Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Sean to inquire or ask questions. Contact Sean via email at Sean@thriveestate.com Contact Sean via phone at 619 993 9888. Noteworthy "Before EXP when you stopped showing homes you stopped making money. This is an actual retirement equity building company you could be a part of." Sean Purcel    PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION KEVIN: Welcome to the show Sean. SEAN: Thanks Kevin it's great to be here. KEVIN: While I'm looking forward to our conversation I've certainly have always watched you and your career in San Diego area and was excited to see you make the decision to come over DXP realty but before somebody who's listening maybe doesn't know your background hasn't heard of you before. Why don't you take a few minutes and give your real estate history. In other words your background in some of the work you've done right. SEAN: Ok. For the people who have a hard time sleeping at night. I started in real estate out of college back in 1987 and I've been in pretty much every aspect other than Title. I've done the loans I've done home building, primarily I've done real estate residential. I'd say about five or six years ago I started coaching agents more than I was doing real estate itself. And about three and a half years ago joined Keller Williams and became what's called a productivity coach there and really starting up with the job of coaching agents that became my career. Until we left Keller Williams my wife and I was a team leader and started our own brokerage. We want to do things a little differently and we thought we're the only ones who had this idea about it should be about collaboration and it's about helping one another and having ownership in what you do and in the community. And along comes the EXP was a fantastic surprise. KEVIN: Well it's excellent so you're a productivity coach. I was a team leader at Keller Williams Your wife was a team leader. You know one of the things the whole industry has always touted right? Everybody said it but I want to get your perspective on it now that you've been an independent broker which you and your wife launched in 2017 but when you look at an agent centric business this truly agent centric an agent owned this is different than what the franchises call an agent centric business isn't it. SEAN: Absolutely. The matter of fact I think what EXP is doing is the second major disruption in the industry. This is just my theory but the agent centered model that really Gary Keller brought to the forefront. That disrupted the broker centric model to a large degree and changed Real Estate and I see EXP coming along and saying it's not just agents centric it's owners the agents should own the company. That's a massive disruption. KEVIN: Well I would agree with you. You know for those of us... and I was with Keller Williams for a long time and had a career there Gene-Frederic was there for a long time. And so we spent a lot of time talking about the franchise model and you know kind of dissecting the moniker around agent centric business. Now you can say you're an agent centric national franchise or global franchise allow the agent to have their brand right the Kevin control team and that's what it says on my sign. But at the end of the day if a top down... you know the franchise or parent company and all of the things are driven from the top and none of the agents own anything in the business it's not really an agent centric business. You can call it what you want but when we were there we certainly espoused that. I'm sure your wife did as well and it was a moniker and a message that was well-received in the market. I agree with you it was highly disruptive right. We saw them open a tremendous amount of market centers and they're a great company. But I think that what's going to become clear and it's already clear is they're not really age centric right. People that just went to family reunion got to hear a three hour speech where Gary Keller told his vision of the world and what he's doing that wasn't based on Agent decisions. It's not an agent owned business and again it's a great company. There's nothing wrong with that but if you're under that flag and you buy into that just know you're not an agent centric business. Gary Keller and others are making decisions for you and you get to live under the decisions that they make right? He announced they are a technology company I think. Up till that point in family reunion the vast majority of the agents thought they were working for a real estate company. They also had a focus on consulting and coaching and training. Well they were told they're working for a technology company. The EXP realty is not confused. The founder of our company is not confused. We're a real estate company so I think the acceleration of the disruption is going to occur because many many many agents especially in that franchise system are going to realize that they don't want to run their real estate practice in a company that's confused about what they do and it is heading down the path of being a technology company and they want to do that the go work for Amazon right? That's a technology company. Or work for Google. With my real estate practice I know with yours, we didn't go seeking a technology company to hang our license with. We want a place that we can grow. Sean from your perspective you're a productivity coach. You look at sort of the next evolution you talked about it being the eruption right in the market. What was your thought as an independent broker right. Your wife was a team leader you were a productivity coach out there in the marketplace. You had a great launch of your independent brokerage. Walk me through what the decision was to say you know what maybe we need to make a change and become powered by the EXP as an independent broker. SEAN: Well we had obviously heard of the EXP. This is how it happened so often the number of large teams here in our area moved over to it and that really made us take a hard look at people I respect who are doing a lot of business success are joining EXP. We need to look at it and the more we got into it it's satisfied at the surface two things we really wanted to do which was give our agents the best chance to do business and our industry is being squeezed by technology. If you're not using the best tools you're going to get the hot new EXP brings phenomenal technology to the forefront for the agents to use. So that's what opens in a door. But after that once we really started exploring the revenue share is a model that creates a new stream of income for agents that doesn't exist in any of the other large brokerages. And then the really important part of this the part that it takes time sometimes to really get an agent to see it but it's the ownership.. You know you said that the agent centered model was really agent centric and you're putting a very very fine point on that. It's something that I hadn't thought about when when they came along and disrupted with it came a lot with the agency model, it was with the look backwards. It meant the brokers aren't going to make all the money now. Out of the real estate transaction but it didn't really put the agent in control of the business and certainly didn't give you a reason to cheer and work with the help of their agents. Were as here anybody in the EXP world does better by definition we do better. We looked at that and said this is going to change how it's being done. It's coming through as a force and either we're going to get involved and be a part of this or I think we're going to get it right. KEVIN: And those are points that as an outsider right you said something that's important for listeners to hear. And I'll repeat a couple of the points. One is you knew about the EXP but until you dug into it you maybe didn't know anything other than the observation that in the Kellems parlance cappers and Magas and big teams are moving and other people outside of even the franchise systems are moving and it wasn't until you dug in that you start to see about that. I've had every independent broker I had come on and I'll ask you the same question from a competitive landscape standpoint because we have a number of independent brokers that are like this podcast interview. How concerned were you and your wife as a former team leader about email to recruit as an independent against the value proposition. SEAN: Once we got into it. One of the primary questions I asked her and my wife she was a teenager like you. That's a professional recruiter. I said Can you recruit against this. She said no what they're offering agents I can't recruit against. That was a big eye opener. KEVIN: What's interesting now and we have example after example of this I'm not going to be a number of episodes that people ability to listen to and Sherry Elliott is one of them that they'll see if they want to search for it and look for it was a mega agent with a team from Keller Williams she's in Flower Mount outside of Dallas and she has huge success with it right. She was a very very high producing successful agent and when she found the value proposition I think she was the 14th agent in Dallas. We have 800 agents in Dallas now. So if you're listening to that and you're in a market like Sean's market in San Diego there aren't 800 agents there yet but certainly it's pretty easy to connect the dots now in Sherri's case, she's built a revenue share business that's in the mid six figures and growing in less than two years. The thing that blew me away when I heard this quote is She takes 5 % of her commission and buys EXP stock and she's been doing that since month 1 when she joined and she gets it at a discount that's offered in terms of the value proposition you get as the EXP agent buy her 20% of the market. This is so strategic and most agents are like well that sounds interesting right? I've had agents tell me this. Well let me tell you what it's done for her. And then we ask you how interesting it is after less than two years. She just announced that without paying attention to it just automatically diverting the 5 %. And here's the reality most agents wouldn't even save that 5 %. Thats is the Achilles heel of real estate. We're all busy and we don't save what we should be saving. She has seven hundred thousand dollars in her equity account in the EXP stock in less than two years. So I would ask anybody for a franchise system either the one we just discussed or another one with a balloon or where you are independent have you accumulated seven hundred thousand dollars in equity in two years. The answer is no. If you don't like that figure you're like oh that's an aberration. I was in a lunch and learn in Austin yesterday another agent less than two years here in Austin. Not nearly the producer at Sheri as you and I have a big team she said. I have a one hundred fifty five thousand dollars in equity in my account less in two years so I consider that the big game changer. If you're a franchise system the system is not set up to provide you with equity. That's certainly why Shawn were you and your wife look at this and they're like you want to and your passion about accepting your messaging changing the lives of agents. You want to help people create wealth. And I think that you're new enough to EXP that frankly your job probably drop when I just recited those 2 numbers. But those are one of hundreds of them now. And so the game changer in the industry that I expect will happen is there's plenty of people now just like you and your wife will be on in another couple of years they're going to be able to show the actual numbers. We got plenty of the show the numbers now. But now imagine recruits looking out and going well I'm in this franchise system. I'm not sure oh well why don't you go talk to Sean why don't go talk to Sherri. Why don't you go talk to Chrissy. Why don't you talk to whoever you want to Pat Hays in San Antonio and you have demonstrable numbers where people can go well this is what my life looked like when I was in the franchise system. This is what it looks like now. You're at a decision point. We're not right for everybody but if you like your net worth and your streams of income to look like mine I don't know how you do it where you are. And that is frankly... the technology makes it happen but that's the game changer. There is no other wealth creation business and Gene Frederick and I met with somebody who is been on the Hall of Fame in Inman and she made the comment she said I teach Wealth to Real Estate and Mortgage Professionals in my opinion. This is the only value proposition meaning EXP realty that I would ever endorse.. ever.. as a wealth creation vehicle because that is frankly my frustration of trying to teach real estate professionals how to build wealth. There hasn't ever been a model that allows them to do it. SEAN: Completely agree. I think from an independent brokerage model. Just the just the EXP alone in real estate is enough that agents should be joining the between the technology and the fun and I didn't even mention the support on the back it mean to have people standing behind a desk in the virtual world for technology for Broker questions for agents services for accounting. You can't even get that in a lot of large agencies. So just those tools the alone makers come aboard support your real estate business. Then you start realizing what you can do with revenue share or what you can do with the ownership. I don't want to recruit agents. That's great. You're a phenomenal Real Estate Agent. Be it. Take 5 %. What most companies would charge as a franchise fee. Take that money and invest it yourself and grow with the company. Otherwise... we have a great agent on here named Mary Maloney who is part of a large group that came to EXP and she was doing a luncheon and she got up in front of a bunch of agents and said I don't want to die on a listing appointment. I want to be able to retire at some point. And that's the problem. Before DXP when you stopped showing homes you stopped making money. This is an actual retirement equity building company you could be a part of. There's nothing like it. KEVIN: Absolutely I would agree with you. So if somebody is an agent or a team leader which is the kind of people as a productivity coach you work with. I mean what would your advice be if you were a friend of yours and you knew them whether they were in the previous franchise system or not. What would you advise them to do. In other words they're seeing their peers moving what's the right steps as far as due diligence. KEVIN: Well the first step is if you see people you respect moving check the time to explore. Don't close your mind. I would then come to one of the luncheons or the classes where we're laying out what this is about. Because when you first hear of it there's so many levels and layers it takes 10 or 15 minutes even get it all into agents. We've met with every one of them walked away saying my mind's exploded. I have to go do research. That's the next step. Now you're going to want to go do your own research. That's great. We just listened to Jason Guessings CEO said "I don't want any agent come aboard and so they're absolutely ready". And this is such a new model and so such a vastly improved model but I really think it needs to go and wrap your head around it. It almost sounds too good to be true. The first time you tell them what's happened. KEVIN: And that's a good point. So for agents that are potentially or even if you're an independent broker or a team lead for a team the more complicated your business right a solo agent can get introduced to EXP. Talk to whoever introduced you to the EXP or as Sean said go get in touch with somebody that you're peers maybe you're at a franchise system you saw somebody you respect completely lets join the EXP you can certainly reach out to them and ask them about it regardless of who introduces you to the EXP. One of the great things Shawn said about the agent centric agent owned culture is anybody in the company from Gene Frederick to myself to Sean to whomever will be happy to help you with your due diligence. Doesn't matter who introduced you to you EXP that so you'll be involved with from a revenue share standpoint right there the ones that made the entree and got you involved. But don't ever confuse the fact that you can't say look hey I want to talk to Sean. I want to talk to Kevin I want to talk to Pat Hays in San Antonio you'll listen to some of these interviews. At the end of every interview is contact information we want you to be able to reach out and get the right information. The market is getting more abuzz with misinformation misdirection from some of the franchise systems. We want you to do it best the best available facts we want you to make the right decision. It's not a perfect fit for everybody. So in order to do that whomever introduced you EXP if you have a medium to highly complicated business let's say you happen to have a team and you're doing a fair amount of business it's mission critical. You do it right. You may want to talk with somebody else. It's a rainmaker. It could be Sherry Elliott and Dallas you could be Brent Gove in the Sacramento or in Northern California. We will get you in touch with the right people. Just ask whomever introduced you to EXP to make an entree to somebody that is a peer of yours or somebody that's taking the path before you. You're an independent broker we have plenty of independent brokers that are available to tell you about how they converted their business and best practices for a powered by EXP solution. Now if you're a franchise expansion team leader and you're in 5 10 markets and we're starting to see a lot of contact from them we want to get you in touch with the Gene Frederick so the world or myself that we can bring the sea level executive team in so we can help you understand because at that level you're like a C level executive yourself running a big business. We expect a lot of them to convert in the next six to 12 months based on market conditions. If you don't take a quick pass. I have somebody who's a Harvard educated guy who has a seven market expansion team. The comment was well he's going to go look online and get some information and I told the CEO of this company he's a smart guy. I said What would you venture capitalist tell you if you said him I'm going to move my multi million dollar business and I'm going to do a little research online. He laughed and said I know I've got to get him in touch with Gene. SEAN: I am a Princeton graduate I'm not surprised the Harvard Graduate doesn't figure it out. You do have to do your your due diligence. This is your career and I've been amazed by the number of people that I've been able to reach out to like you who will take the time and say here's how it works. Here's why it works no matter what level you are. Like you said whether you're a single agent or you're running a 150 transaction huge company there's somebody EXP who's been at your level and who made the move and it would explain why it benefited. KEVIN: And that's something that's not apparent from the outside. Right?. People are thinking well I can look at a video other I'll do a google search and I'll see a video of Gene Frederick they'll look at the link and they show notes for this episode and see the seven minute intro video just know that whether you're an agent a team lead for a team and expansion leader or you're an independent broker. We've already taken plenty of people through the due diligence. We're going to help you understand whether it's a good fit for you then that's ultimately your decision. But as Sean mentioned here's the reality. There are plenty of people to help. It doesn't matter how you came into the EXP. We're going to respect the fact that somebody introduced the opportunity to you and we're going to offer you... because we're all shareholders and that's different than a franchise system that's different than if we're individually owned and operated a location where they're almost islands. So I just know that that's the case so Sean before we let you go any final thoughts before we have you get your contact information out there in case somebody wants to get in touch with you. SEAN: Just this one I've been to a lot of different conventions for a lot of companies including realty brokerages and when they announce an expansion they announce how many new agents they've brought on every one cheers. Think that's great they look like they're a part of the team. I can't wait to go to our convention. And when they announced the latest aging count or the expansion going on you're not just cheering because it's great news you're cheering because it benefited you directly. You're an owner of the company that's getting bigger. That's a change. KEVIN: I agree completely. So if someone wants to get a hold of you Shawn how would they reach you. SEAN: They can reach me by phone call or text. 619 993 9888. Or they can email me Sean@thriveestate.com KEVIN: Perfect Sean thank you so much for coming on the show. SEAN: Absolutely. Kevin It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Interview – Julie Nelson In today’s episode we have Julie Nelson, who has been in the real estate business in Austin, Texas for 18 plus years. Julie started out in a small brokerage then transferred to Keller Williams, where she also served as the Director of Crew Development. After resetting her business and life, Julie transitioned to eXp Realty. Today, Julie is a realtor, trainer, coach, industry author and career strategist who coaches agents for success. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Julie’s experience with eXp Realty Culture and mentality at eXp Realty Agents are shareholders Customer service set up Lead generation systems eXp Realty is currently bringing in more than 250 agents per week Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Julie to inquire or ask questions. Contact Julie via email at thenelsonproject@gmail.com Find Julie’s book Success Faster on Amazon Connect with Julie as a coach at www.thenelsonproject.org Noteworthy “At eXp, the majority, hands down the majority, of agents are their producers, their cappers and I like being in that environment.” – Julie   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION  KEVIN: Welcome to the show Julie. JULIE: Thanks Kevin. KEVIN: I'm looking forward to the conversation you and I have like some great overlapping background we both came out of the Keller Williams system and we're both at EXP realty now. Now for somebody that doesn't know you like I do in your background why don't you take a couple of minutes and give your background in real estate and what you have done. JULIE: Sounds good. 18 plus years in the business. First two was with a small brokerage with a couple friends and I moved to Keller Willimas in I think 2001. I'm dating myself here a little bit. So 16 years with Keller Williams in the last five of those I was the director of crew development at the Austin Southpaws Market Center or at least at the time was the largest Keller Williams office in the world and I oversaw the training program in that market center and left that position and kind of hit a reset in my business and my life and had to restart my business again and that's a story in itself. And then last fall I joined the XP. KEVIN: Excellent excellent. So you know for listeners that aren't as familiar with some of the terms I know you and I both do I think we probably joined Keller Williams I think it was the same year. I think it was 2001 2002 that I was working with Andy Allen near Lancaster on the team here in Austin and then I was later a team leader productivity coaching and they'll be a link obviously to your book which we'll be referencing here in a minute. You spent a lot of time advising agents on success and I know one of the things you're pretty passionate about and you have a chapter in your book on this is helping agents at Keller Williams which is a great company but there's lots of agents at different companies that are joining you EXP. People seem to have a hard time figuring out this brokerage thing don't they. JULIE: You know it's an interesting topic I think the truth is we actually all think about it and talk about it a lot. But nobody wants to have that conversation with their broker in terms of whether it's the right fit for them. I always like to say when I'm talking to an agent is the best place for an agent to run their business is simply the best place for that agent to run their business. And if somebody is re-evaluating their brokerage choice it's a possibility that the best place for them is exactly where they're at. I think agents need to hear that because folks relax a little bit around the topic to say oh OK you know what that's a good point. So then you could have just an objective look at where you're at in your business what you need what you're currently getting, what other brokerage options may offer. And then what's the right fit for you because the last thing any... Well hopefully the last thing any broker wants for an agent is for them to make a switch and then realize it's not really the best place for them to run their business. So let's help people make really sound and objective decisions around where they're choosing to hang their license and the individual's needs. That can change over the years. So for a very long time. Keller Williams was absolutely the right place for me to be running my business and creating the opportunities that I needed. But things change people change. And I started to re-evaluate. So I've been in the business for a long time. I swear I re-evaluated every year. If I was in the right place. KEVIN: And I did the same thing I've been with ReMax I've been with Marcus Millichap on the commercial side. I originally got licensed in 1986 joined Keller Williams in 2001. So I've done a lot of stuff and one of the things that I've heard Jean-Frederic talk about and I'm seeing come up more and more. I'm glad you brought up sort of the re-evaluation and things change over time because I'm hearing more and more now because we're having actual examples of it. - And I know this is going to resonate with you Julie - of agents. That doesn't matter it's not a Keller Williams story. Keller Williams is a great company it's just that in their career wherever they are they're realizing I'm not saving enough money. I have a great practice right? I'm listing and selling and working with clients. But they start looking at going I don't want to do this forever and then in a lot of the historical models KW is one of them, I did the production based or I'm going to make more money in production. I had the number three team from scratch in St. Louis but then I started looking going great. The team did 240 transactions we were number three in the market. Now what do I want to be doing 800 transactions do I want to go into mobile markets? I look at my PNL my cash flow my savings. I wasn't saving money and building wealth. And so the comment that's being made is and Daniel Beer said this on his episode if anybody wants to listen to it it's like the other buckets are empty. Right. People have production Daniel beer and his case in San Diego is that like 165 million in production. But he started looking at what kind of residual income do I have. What kind of wealth in forming equity do I have. And we're starting to see this and this is where I think you could talk about this Julie in terms of your decision process. I know it was a big deal for me. I didn't have a whole big stock portfolio and equity I can't make a comment like Sherri Elliott where she's in less than two years sitting with 700000 in equity in the EXP I stock or another agent in Austin that I just met and she was in a lunch and learned and she popped up when the Sherry Elliot comment was made. She goes I don't have a big team like Sherry and I'm at 155000 in equity and she's like I didn't have equity before. I was just an agent. I was worried that I was going to have to list and sell forever. And so when you think about because you spent a lot of time coaching agents either it's not part of the process right. We're talking about in the case of EXP a lot of these agents are building this wealth by taking 5% of their gross commission income and investing it like an insider at a 20% discount. The outside world doesn't even know that and most agents don't save any money do they. JULIE: It's a problem in our industry. An agent is as good as their next deal. So unless they've been an extremely disciplined saver flèche investor over the years the majority of agents do not have a good exit strategy. Retirement is a concept that's not well executed in our industry and that was very attractive for me with the EXP. I'm 56 years old and I don't care if you're 40 or 50 or 60 I think most of us have retirement on our mind. And I know I don't want to be selling real estate when I'm 70 years old. So it really took a look at that with the EXP is very attractive with a combination of the stock and the revenue share was very attractive to me because I've felt like I can do something with that. You know I was at Keller Williams for 16 years and five of those in a leadership position. And Profit was never a big deal for me. It never materialized. Now granted it wasn't a top priority for me but I just felt like the opportunity was limited and it was never going to truly be a solid piece of my retirement plan. KEVIN: It's not that there's anything wrong with profit share I'm vested and remove which for anybody listening means that I've spent more than three years at Kellems like Julie did or Gene-Frederick or anybody else. But the fact the matter is that as you listen to my interview with Gene we talk about this. This is what Daniel Beer just said in his interview that I did with him today where that bucket where you're paid like a regional owner off the top and then for listeners that haven't heard this before in a franchise system like KW they take the money off the top and they pay the regional owner out of that money. EXP does the same thing. And so even somebody like myself who had a fairly decent profit share and still get profit share from Keller Williams. Gene does as well. What we're realizing very quickly is this starts to look a lot more like you if you are focused on it get to act like a regional owner in a franchise system. Now the EXP is not a franchise system but the cash flow is so much more predictable from that residual income that you can build a business around it. In other words if I was at Keller Williams and I started to figure out what my profit share would be I'm sure you didn't try and do this because you're going to make the comment I did which is it's like black magic at the 21st of the month you get this payment you're like ha I don't know how that happened. They give you a calculation and report with it. But there's no predictability to it. And for people that have been in both systems the thing that we're seeing consistently in other words people that have a decent profit share check the revenue share if they're purposeful in their claims and they come over to EXP there's plenty of people I could point you to that are at 10x note it is also very predictable in other words they can look and go. I know what I'm going to make in 2017. I know what I'm going to make in 2018 and 19 just based on the number of people I'm going to have in my revenue share group. You can't do that. I can't go to Gene-Frederick and go: How much are you and Susan going to make this year and profit sharing. I've asked him that. He says I have no idea. It's so variable that I have no idea. JULIE: And he gets as you know a huge profit share check yeah I have found I'm doing the math right now and I am predicting everything that I made in profit share last year in 2017. Okay so that's after 16 years at KW. I'm predicting that within six months at EXP I will match that. So MY 2017 profit share I predict in my first six months at EXP I'll hit that number. KEVIN: That is not a typical I don't want anybody listening to this to think about it. And if you're not in a system like KW where you get profit sharing you don't have anything to base it by. But just what you should take away here is this is very very predictable and you can model it. The math is simple when you look at who comes in in revenue share and who's in your revenue share group and you can start and look at it and Daniel Beer said this perfectly because there's a lot of noise and misinformation out there he said the revenue share is not only very easy to calculate and predictable but you can also count on it because producers are the people that are coming over to EXP. You know what their production as you know what the math is. It's not like we're getting people to switch to the company and telling them to sell essential oils. This is what they do for their livelihood anyways. They're going to work with buyers and sellers. And as such because it comes off the top it's not black magic. It's not. Oh I have to line up profitability for a particular office with the production. And they're not capped. The complexity of trying to get all that and model it accurately is virtually impossible in Daniel Beer said the same thing you did which is I couldn't pay a lot of attention to it because I couldn't figure out how to make a business out of it. JULIE: Yes I had little to no control over that. And in this i feel like I how I can drive it. I'm in the driver's seat. KEVIN: And that's a great point. And you know there are great places and you and I come from probably the best franchise system out there. Keller Williams you and I both get profit share from there. And this is just a inflection point in the brokerage business in my opinion. We're at a major major inflection point. The agents at EXP are in the same alignment. Their equity holders and it really is an agent centric business. I mean I look back at my very first family reunnion I went to and I heard that term agent centric and then I went into leadership and I ran some market centers in South Florida and did all that. And now being outside of it and watching how things line up at EXP I realize that we coined a term there and certainly Gary would aptly say you can do your brand you're the brand build your business build your database etc. But when you look at the execution of the business it was not an agent centric business. They allowed agent branding. But EXP truly is I mean the best examples on my guests on the podcast people will say I'll get on the phone with anybody. I'm a shareholder in this company. Doesn't matter who they were exposed to EXP and I know you Julie you think the same way where somebody could be sitting in Boston Massachusetts and you're going to be the perfect person for them to talk to. Maybe they're coming out of a franchise system like you and I did. And they need to hear from you or they knew you. Maybe they took a class from you and they want to hear your words. Maybe they will listen to the podcast. It doesn't matter if they're going to be in your revenue share group. The culture of this company is something amazing that people don't see from the outside they might experience it. If somebody introduces them to the EXPE and then all of a sudden they're thinking wow the agents really are driving this thing all in the same direction because they're all shareholders. JULIE: Yeah I've experienced that on both sides so I've had other agents and readers around the country that have been super responsive to helping me get on my feet or just to answer questions. I've had the opportunity to do that for quite a few people myself so there really is this you really do feel like an equity owner in the company. It's a mentality I've been extremely pleased and impressed with the customer service side of how easy EXP is set up with the cloud and your ability to go online. I have a question just even a simple question it might be a question on a transaction it might be a broker question. It could be an accounting question. A basic kind of administrative questions and I can jump online in the cloud and nine times out of ten I actually have my question answered with a real live person under five minutes. It's kind of like you can go into any office whether it's here Banker or your own brokerage and you had an accounting question saying go to that office and you knock on the door. You just hope that they're there. Or you might send them an email and you're crossing your fingers that you'll get a quick response and answer to your question. And that's normal business for the majority of the business world. KEVIN: Absolutely. And that for agents especially if you're doing transactions and you're going to get an adjustment on a closing and all of a sudden you realize the night before something's got to get change. Like you said you hope to God you can go in the morning to accounting and get them to do it. Well because we operate multiple time zones at EXP. Like you said you show up in the cloud. Somebody is going to help get that thing fixed you know and because agents are in all different time zones. There's pretty much somebody there for an extended period of time and tech support for a lot of agents is a big deal you and I are both fairly tech savvy now. Lots of agents especially agents that are listening to this or not. I can tell you the number of times not just in the cloud but in workplace which is the collaboration environment that EXP is rolled out to support the cloud and it is a completely different platform. But it's very very interesting to watch especially with the lead generation systems. Obviously people are rolling out Cavey core now in 2018. They are they want to set up conversion. They'll come in and say I'm not tech savvy. I need help with this. I'm trying to figure out how to do this this and this and in XP agent will chime in in the comment and say hey I'm in a different state. Doesn't matter. I got this wired. I can probably get you on the phone for 15 minutes and tell you exactly how to do this. That does not happen in a franchise system or offices independently operated certainly doesn't happen in a small brokerage or an independent where you don't have that wealth of knowledge and experience across the country and that's in addition to the great customer service that the company offers. And that's just the culture of the agents. They're like hey you know what you might be in Alabama. But I can get you on the phone and get your conversion site up and running in a 15 minute call with you. JULIE: Yeah. And there are thousands of examples of that online. So it's a real community. It's very helpful. It's interesting because sometimes you think if you don't have experience with something cloud based like this you might think on the surface before for experience. You might think that it may be an impersonal system. It's exactly the opposite. There's so much engagement there's so much easy access. And it's a community where everybody is helping everybody and whether that's in just in Austin the Austin group is so helpful in itself. And then there's Texas group and then there's just access to everybody nationally. It's pretty impressive. I've been very pleased. KEVIN: The one thing I would tell for people listening and it doesn't matter for an independent you're at a big franchise system or you're in some regional brokerage. The level of collaboration right because the franchises tackle this this way right. They've got top producers and people and certainly Julia you would fall into this category where when you are doing what you're doing in productivity coaching there will be an event and they would have you up there and people that traveled to that event would get to experience you or if they're in your market center you would be heavily visible and the agents would be able to catch you and hear you and learn from you. Well in the EXP model we have icon agents we've got other agents and the level of masterminding across the country that happens every day and every week blows away one event or two events per year and that's something that I think when I looked at this when Gene first approached me a couple years ago I didn't get that that was going to happen when I joined with Gene last year it was really at the point where the company got critical mass right. I think that you know there were 400 agents when you first talked to me. He likes to kid me inside me that I'm a real slow decision maker and learner and I didn't join. There were about 35 agents when we reengaged. We just passed 8500 agents were we going to be 10000 agents. So now imagine my point. You're in a company with 10000 agents predominantly you know in your world if you're a franchise there are cappers or better there are big producers the kind agents have a wealth of knowledge. Not only are there sharing within themselves but part of what they're doing is they're giving back to all agents. So your ability to plug in. I know this is preaching to the choir with you but I'm sure I want to get your opinion on this. I've never seen the level of high level skill knowledge and experience being shared every day and every week have you? JULIE: No and I think in my I'm now part of my read and this is I don't know the exact statistics but I'll just make the point is that at EXP something like 80 percent of the agents are producing so in Real Estate there are a lot of agents out there that actually don't sell any real estate. They're not producing. I didn't experience that before. Managers of real estate offices. They analyze their agent count, production who's producing who's not because that's how they have to run a business and they have to be profitable. At EXP the majority hands down the majority of ... and are producers their cappers and I like being in that environment. KEVIN: Absolutely. The number that I heard I think Jason Guessings shared this last summer haven't seen it since but this is right before EXP got on that the number was like eighty eight or nine percent. There's plenty of people like myself or Gene who don't list and sell anymore. We're helping mentor and coach and bring people and we're helping the business expand and we're attracting agents. So we count in that you know call it 12% that are not producing this will ring true to you because we're in Austin we're in central Texas you and I see each other because we're also there at the face to face lunch and learns whenever we can because we're supporting from a cultural standpoint being there regardless of whether we have somebody we attracted at an event. That's the model right if you're listening to this whoever introduce you to EXP ask them to invite you to a EXP explain lunch and learn. You'll see people like Julie and I everywhere in the country there that can share our knowledge help you in the due diligence process. Let's go to Austin right everybody knows we've been talking about KW mostly because we both come from there the large office that you were with is the big office right. Highest agent scout in Austin. Production. You know the franchise recently touted the fact that they're number one in a lot of metrics. Gene asked me to poll the numbers and I went and did some research work with some of my title company contacts. We polled the most recent numbers that were available. That was Q3 of 2017. Number one office is the Southwest market center for Keller Williams right people that are listening this week. Well that makes sense. They've been there for more than 25 years right. That's where it all started. And there a huge office now if you look at it from production. I think that I don't know what the exact age account is but it's more than 800 agents and EXP is at 315 agents. It was not in Q3 it was probably 270 or so the number one office is absolutely colorway homes in the market. 800 plus agents. Number two is the XP in production that's an aging count that came in less than two years. So the easiest way to connect the dots for anybody listening if this isn't crystal clear to you is you have to have high producing agents. Everybody's in production way at that high number of 80 or 90% to make it with 300 agents and I had this just come up in an EXP explain where somebody said well but you don't have this many agents. Right. The big franchise system just talked about having way more than 150000 agents and you guys have eight. How is this going to play out. I said well let's just look at Austin 315 agents. There probably were 270. They're number two in the market. 800 agents they have production at number one. But if you start looking at the fact that in Dallas two years ago we had 14 agents Sherry Elliott was the fourteenth agent. They now have 800 agents. You start looking at this happening all over the country. You can close the gap on production with highly producing agents and that's who's being attracted to Keller Williams. Right? But then they stay there for a while and then they look at the next step and I'm going to bring it full circle back to your career piece. Now they're looking at I don't want to be in production so that segment not just at Keller Williams but across the board independents other franchises now go - I need to figure out what this business model is all about-. Those are the people that are moving right we're not attracting any new agents in the parlance of where we came from cappers or better. So Julie if somebody is listening to this and you can kind of describe your due diligence process. They've been introduced to EXP. I always tell them get to explain explain face to face if you've got a complicated business right. They've got a team maybe they're an expansion team and they're in multiple markets. There a major agent. They have plenty of resource. I know you mentioned that you went through the process of talking to people both before you came in after you've witnessed this and probably had people that joined that did this know how powerful do you think it is that you can get senior people in terms of production and experience in EXP regardless of how you were introduced to it. JULIE: I'm a cautious business person meaning a bit of an over thinker. I really like detail and I will take my time with big decisions. Now some folks they may watch a Gene Frederick video and they are all in and then they're signing up the same day and that's awesome. My wiring is a little different. And so I really needed to take my time. I spoke with numerous people I pulled together a spreadsheet so that I could manage my transition really smoothly. I had phase 1 phase 2 phase 3 phase 4 of making it all happen because I didn't want to forget any of my detail and I had people around the country helping me with helping me be my over thinker self just to manage the process. It was about all its work to change brokers. I had that vision and I was really excited for the vision so Christy Davidson helped me out quite a bit. The Lewises helped me out. There were just a number of people that I tapped into and it said Okay help me. Help me understand this help me put my pieces together here. Help me with this plan. You know I like things now. It was about three or four weeks really just kind of planning and putting the pieces in place so that the day that I made the switch I really fell quite organized. It was a smooth process. So for the owner thinkers out there we can help you. KEVIN: Well absolutely. Before we wrap up Julie is going to give her contact information and what she's describing is not unusual right if that's your behavioral style and you want to do detail due diligence or your business is mission critical right. You and your team sell a lot of property and you have a lot of pendings and a complicated business. Doesn't matter who introduced you to EXP ask them to tap into the network. You can go to anybody on any of these interviews or anybody within the company and say I really liked to talk to somebody who is in a similar situation to me and that person or whoever they can reach within the company. And this is the culture of the company. They will take the call. You can text them or e-mail them and they will help you through the process. We're all shareholders. We all want to make sure you make a good decision. The EXP is not a perfect fit for everybody as Julie said sometimes people make the decision not now or not the right thing for me or I decide not to do it and we're okay with that. We have plenty of people in the company at this point while we're recording this is bringing in more than 250 agents nationwide per week. So we've got plenty of people that are interested. We want great agents to make a good decision. We realize it's not a fit for everybody but we want more than anything is for you to get real due diligence information. We don't want you. And that's why Gene and I started this podcast we want you to hear in agent's own words how it should work so that you're not hearing something that secondhand or god forbid a thousand comments on a Facebook post where people are going between a franchise and EXP at the end of it you've heard 500 different opinions and you're just confused right you're like well I don't know what to believe anymore. And so the best practices get plugged in get great advice real advice from people that have made the change. Some of them can say OK here's where I came from. Here's what I did and here's what I know now that I've been here and there's plenty of people I'm sure you did that as part of your process and you're phasing. JULIE: Yeah. So I mean for anybody listening to this podcast if you've been in one of my classes if they've seen me speak on stage at some point if we're connected some way online and your you're thinking about this or you're considering the EXP just call me. Shoot me an email. Shoot me a Facebook message and let's chat. I'm getting messages like that almost every day. I will help you have an objective conversation about making that decision. KEVIN: I want to tie this down because there's got to be somebody listening to this to say oh my god I'm happy with my franchise I'm happy in my business. I'm not a disgruntled and upset. You were there. That was your position when you first started your diligence. Don't let that stop you from... JULIE: I like to say I wasn't running away from something so my move was not an anti move. I wasn't running away from something I was moving towards a new opportunity and our industry changes. It evolves it changes and you have to pay attention and figure out where do you want to be. What works for you and what is the best fit for you. Initially when I was analyzing kind of my five and 10 year plan and trying to figure out some solutions for my business and my personal finances and really taking a look at that I have a coach and I asked her I said this is everything I'm trying to figure out. I need a roadmap. And initially I said my intention is to stay at KW okay so will you help me figure it out? And she said I'll help you figure it out. But if you're open to this kind of removing your blinders a little bit so we can really objectively analyze your options. That's it that's fair. Was that fair enough. So so it really initially was my intention to stay stay where it was. But as I allowed myself to be objective and look at my choices the EXP opportunity and the solutions it provided for me and my business and my personal life became so clear really fast and I tried to poke holes in it because I didn't want to make a mistake. I really tried to poke holes in it. I even challenged my coach said am I making a good decision here. You just play devil's advocate with me and help me be extremely sure and confident with what I'm doing. And it passed all of those tests. KEVIN: No and that's a great point. So I want to come back to talking about your book because before we wrap up I think this is a valuable tool. Whether you're looking to make a change or anything like that this has nothing to do with that Julie's book is something I would highly recommend. I want you to be able to at least plug it will have a link in the show notes to it as well. JULIE: Thanks. One day I did when I left my leadership position is I felt like I had so much information and knowledge in my head. As far as helping agents and particularly what I call new and emerging agents but especially this group and I was in this group of what I call relaunching agents. So maybe agents I don't care if they're three years and or 13 years and for one reason or another they're in a position where they're kind of re launching their business. In my case I had been in leadership and was moving back into production. So I was really launching my business. Sometimes it's an agent who just isn't particularly happy with how their business is running or the money that they're making. And the beauty of that is they can actually start over. You could just start over today in this business. So call that relaunching. So I wrote this book it's called Success Faster. Quickly launch or relaunch a real estate career. It's on Amazon so you type in Julie Nelson Success Faster it'll pop up on Amazon and is getting some really good reviews it's helping a lot of people. And that's my goal. It's just for content to help people that help realtors be more successful and really enjoy their businesses. There's an entire chapter in the book on evaluating broker choice. So someone who has a brand new agent or somebody who is in the process of getting their real estate license nobody has taught them what options are out there and how to make an objective analysis. So we take a look at that and then part of the chapter is for somebody who is mid career and reassessing their broker choice. So that's the book Success Faster. KEVIN: Excellent. And again I would highly recommend it for anybody regardless of where they are in their career. There's one in there for you regardless of where you are on your 10 year in the business. Julie if somebody is listen to this what's the best contact information for you. JULIE: I'm really easy to find online. SO if you can't find me need to try just a little harder. But as Julie Nelson you can find me on Facebook and my e-mail is TheNelsonProject@gmail.com or you can find me on Facebook if you type in Julie Nelson Austin Texas or Julie Nelson EXP Realty. KEVIN: Excellent. Julie thank you so much for coming on the show. JULIE: Of course. My pleasure.

Interview - Jay Kinder In today’s episode we have Jay Kinder, who has been in real estate for 20 years and started his own independent brokerage company prior to transitioning to eXp Realty. We hear about Jay’s previous experience, why he chose eXp Realty, how eXp differs from other companies and how you can learn more about opportunities with eXp. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Recruiting and retention challenges as an independent brokerage or large mega agent team Why Facebook comments are not the best way to reach people How many agents the number one franchise system in the world is netting vs. how many agents eXp Realty is netting Agent attraction Importance of speed to market Company culture Roadmap for vetting Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or one of the contacts below to inquire or ask questions. If you are seeking further information, eXp has Lunch and Learn opportunities, weekly live webinars and other resources such as pre-recorded videos that can be sent to you. YouTube videos are also available online. Contact Jay Kinder, email at Jay@Jaykinder.com Contact Gene Frederick, text 703-338-1515 Noteworthy “It just seems more real so we just thought all in all it is a better platform. It just made sense to us to be at eXp.” “I think people think, you know, it's all about how much you're putting into it. It's incredible how quickly it grows underneath you with people that you're not talking to every single day.” “Essentially, if you look at a cloud-based brokerage like eXp Realty your single cap gives you access nationwide because it's a single brokerage, not each office is independently owned and operated like in a franchise system.”   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION KEVIN: Welcome to the show. Jay how are you. JAY: I'm doing great. Kevin how are you doing buddy. KEVIN: Fantastic looking for this conversation. I think a lot of people are when they listen to this. Before we get into sort of the meat of the topic on the eXp for agents that may not know your background why don't you give a quick bio and background before we jump into the details. JAY: Yes sure. I've been doing this 20 years now so I got into a real estate a pretty young age. My dad owned a, bought actually in 1997 a Coldwell banker franchise from being an independent. And then I got into a real estate late that year. And so about 20 years now that I've been selling real estate I was very fortunate to invest in myself go to every conference anybody who sold anything for real estate agents. They have my credit card. That's for sure. I was fortunate to be pretty successful early on. My first you know four five years were pretty good. I ended up I think number two in the world for Coldwell banker for several years. Selling I think at the peak of my career five hundred and something homes kind of went on to start a coaching and consulting company with my business partner Mike Reese who is also a real estate agent. I kind of got him into real estate and we just found that we really enjoyed helping real estate agents grow their business. That was something we were very passionate about. We started our own company together as well probably in 2014. I think officially we restarted up and brand new brokerage together. We both had our company separate but we put one together and started growing that in about 2015 16 17 and then obviously last year we joined the eXp. KEVIN: So for listeners I want to give some context to this Jay and I think first met we were trying to figure it out before we started recording somewhere around 2004. We were both in Austin, Texas. I was living in Austin at the time. Jay was down from Lawton, Oklahoma and Chad Goldwasser had put together, I can't remember what Keller Williams event it was but there was an event and there were about 15 or 20 of us at dinner and Jay happened to be sitting across from here next to me because I remember you made this comment and I think it's very very apropos for the conversation today which is you've been successful like you just talked about Coldwell banker. You made the comment. You said I'm happy to come learn. I get invited every time there's an event. It may have a mega camp or something like that by Gary Keller. You never changed and I want for listeners to say that again. I mean from 2004 when Jay and I first met he had already been courted by Keller Williams and Gary Keller personally for years and now it's 2017 all of a sudden after what you just described and the coaching and consulting business you and Michael launched a brokerage business. You made a hard turn and double down so to speak on the eXp realty. Let's talk about why. What was the genesis for that decision. JAY: The genesis for that decision was you know as an independent you know of course if you would asked me if I was interested in joining any brokerage I would have been adamantly opposed to it. I consider myself lucky that I was even open minded enough to consider it as an option because I wasn't certainly looking to join any other brokerage once we went independent and 2011 and then we started our own brokerage that was independent. There were just you know that was a direction that we were going and we had a brand that we were building and we wanted to expand that brand across the country and we weren't looking to join a brokerage that wasn't a problem that we were trying to solve what problem we were trying to solve. And I think what really made us have to really consider eXp was the recruiting and retention challenge that you have as an independent brokerage or as a large mega agent team however you want to look at us was something that we just consistently fought you know year in and year out. And when we look at the eXp model it really was just a better platform for us to kind of expand our real estate business across the country as we were intending to do. It just made a lot more sense to do it at the eXp. There was a better value proposition that we could align to what we were already offering in terms of value. And there was just a better business model that was already in place with publicly traded company, having shares and ownership in equity which we wanted to incorporate into our model that we really didn't have a good way to do that. And I think most agents don't really buy in for the long term of an independent because there's never really you know what's the true value of that independent. You know if you were to even implement some type of equity you know opportunity or whatever there's limited value to that because it's not real. And I think eXp became very obvious which the stock trades for you can go look that up and sell it you know. Obviously after you've invested you can go out and sell that stock. So it just seems more real so we just thought all in all better platform it just made sense to us to be at eXp. KEVIN: You know it's interesting. I ran across the same comment from an independent broker in the Portland area that converted his 30 plus agents in the eXp and I had originally approached him to look for potential acquisitions and or people that might be interested in eXp. Not initially even on his behalf. In other words he made the comment to me send me the information. Let me understand what you guys are all about and what was interesting I sent to him on a Friday. Even before Monday arrived I had some text and call saying hey I'm going to get another call with you. And I got on the call and his comment was the same thing you said which is I don't know how I remain viable as an independent when there is this alternative value proposition. I think that is the big wave that's coming. I know you're seeing it not only with mega mega agents and teams but the independent brokers people that have built solid businesses and we already have numerous examples. I've got a number of them that I've already recorded and will be recording of independents coming into the eXp and everybody says the same thing. And something like to this effect not only retention but the guy in Portland said when I started doing my due diligence I started calling people and when I got to some big franchise recruits that I thought I could get into my firm within the next 12 to 18 months. These are the people that you typically have to court for a while. Every one of them either was already in play for eXp or told them if I move anywhere I'm moving to eXp and that's happening every market across the country. It's an interesting prospect. So Jay if you look at this from the standpoint of equity and you know most agents and I want to kind of let you expand on that. Most agents have either been sold a bill of goods of especially recently that you want to be part of a private company not a public company. I will make the comment I did nine startups out of Silicon Valley including two that went public. That is the most asinine comment by that leader that I've ever heard. I mean unless you are passing out equity like a law firm does two partners where they divvy up the pool of income and profit at the end of the year you're being sold a bill of goods. There's no easier way to say it. If you're drinking the coolaid so strong that you're waving the flag now. Yeah yeah. Private private private. I am so sorry. Go run around Sandhill Road and talk to the venture capitalists and the entrepreneurs that tried to do it privately. Competing with companies and that's not to mention in the real estate space all of the venture funded entities. If you're the lone private entity who is run by the largest shareholder that's trying to tell you that private is good, just go do some due diligence. Go talk to somebody that works for a law firm that's highly profitable that is private and ask them how they participate in that profit and then go back and see if you have an opportunity do that because the last time I checked there is no profit other than profit share being handed out in that large franchise system. I come from it. It's a great company. But Jay, don't you think that once agents do their due diligence and some of them are doing it in a week some are taking 6 months but when they look at this and they start thinking about building wealth and they start thinking about retirement, other streams of income there really isn't a second choice in this. Is there? JAY: There's not a second choice and it's fascinating to me. If you go back and live 30 years ago it was "Keller who" you know when they were first taken off as an example the influences really kind of drive the growth of the company. And I got two messages today literally since right before and probably in the last hour or two that are agents that you know they basically watch the webinar, a they are interested in. One guy said he's 95 % there and the other guy actually said something very similar to that in his comments. And I think when people you know what's really you know we're just at the you know the tipping point you know getting close to 10,000 agents and you know I've always heard that is the tipping point but I've never felt anything like a tipping point like this. I mean it is incredibly interesting how many influences, mega agents, independents see the value proposition they see that's real and I think the other agents you know that are leaders maybe in their marketplaces but they're doing a good business and they're happy where they're at. You know that's going to be the next big wave in the next 12 to 18 months of agents that just this is obviously there's a lot of smart people that moved over here. I get it. I'm moving over here. I mean I can only expect that that would be the case. KEVIN: Gene Frederick and I have coined the term super influencers. We're going through a phase now and you certainly qualify in this category Jay where you get people that have both on their network and also on their social media following Super influence. They're disrupters, when they move especially in the context of what I said about you were you being courted for more than 10, 15 years and then you made a move and those people in the industry that didn't realize that was even a possibility. It was highly disruptive in the market. I know that you've had some huge success. You've had a bunch of people come over afterwards and I think that last time I saw your numbers and I'll just ask you for an update it's been about 100 days hasn't it? When we recorded this and how many people are in your revenue share group? JAY: We partnered obviously me and Michael and Stacey who brought me on board and I think you know all together we are now at just under 300 in total in our revenue share group. And I believe like my personal line it's something like 25 or something like that 27 I think actually now. So yeah. I mean it grew super fast. I think people think you know it's all about how much you're putting into it. It's incredible how quickly it grows underneath you without you know.. with people that you're not talking to every single day. I've a lot of conversations about eXp every single day. I'm happy to have the most fun I've ever had in my life. Having those conversations all day. The bottom line is people tell people who to tell people who tell people and your revenue share grows without much effort beneath you is what I experienced thus far. KEVIN: It's the viral nature of real estate. Now people have people in the real estate business that they are personal friends with or they are in their network. It could even be in their city or their part of their referral network much like what happened to you when a brokerage change occurs. They're like well why did you go to eXp or what's up with eXp. And like you were discussing you'll have them watch a quick intro to eXp or a webinar. It's a little crazy silly. How much traction there is. Because as a former team leader for Keller Williams I can tell you I haven't tried to recruit Jake Kinder but trying to recruit a Kapper or a mega agent was a six months to a six year arduous process. In other words it was a huge win. If somebody like Gene Frederick or I got a mega mega agent and you just look at the last seven days at eXp you know and there's like 500 million dollars worth of production and teams coming in in a week. And for context and the reason I bring that up is it's easy for people to get confused especially because there's a lot of noise and information in the market that it's not very very viral. I know of a franchise office I was told about on the East Coast where not only the team left but all 1 through 5 left in one week. And this is happening for context for listeners to this without Nine hundred team leaders, without managing brokers going out and doing recruiting on a basis. Now you've got people like Gene Frederick, Jay, myself and a whole bunch of other people including agents they're just talking to as Jay described agents in their network. You know maybe somebody did a cobroker transaction with and then they decide to join. But it's very viral at this point isn't that sort of the feeling that you were describing earlier as never felt like it. JAY: That's exactly what it is. It's a completely viral. I found it interesting. There's kind of a unique balance of people who still have never heard of eXp which is a huge opportunity because most people have never been even exposed to what it is and then it seems like there's another subset of the market that were exposed to it didn't really probably weren't properly exposed to it or maybe they weren't exposed to it in a way that they actually listen closely to what it was or looks closely at what it is. There's the people that had been watching closely bought this stock and are just waiting here just waiting for the right person to come on board it so that they know that it's a good decision. Maybe they're fearful or maybe it's just timing. You know those are the kind of the three different tiers that I tend to run into. It's just incredible opportunity. I think still with age I still really don't know anything about eXp or haven't even really heard much about it in some markets. KEVIN: And I would echo that I just had a conversation with about a 10 or 12 million dollar producer in San Diego and I happened to run across her and asked her if she had ever heard of the eXp and we were on a phone call much like the calls that you do Jay. She said it's the wildest thing I see it all over social media. I see it. You know when somebody post something about changing brokers in a Facebook group about real estate and there's 300 comments she said but I've never seen anybody talk to me about what it really means. And that's the opportunity. And you know I want to put a footnote in here and I know you'll probably echo the comment which is commenting for those of you that are already with a eXp and we'll have a lot of people listening to these interviews just for tips and thoughts and be able to frankly share it with other agents that are not here yet. The time to jump in and a 300 comment thread on Facebook is not the right way to get somebody's attention. It's about the one on one conversations. It's about building a relationship with somebody. It's about being purposeful about value and it's not a perfect fit at the eXp realty for everybody I'm sure you've had plenty of conversations like I have. Were the parties mutually agree that OK well it's either not fit now or just you know what. Thank you very much. Or not. I can tell you that I don't jump in those comment streams but I can tell you that invariably when I have a conversation with somebody about eXp that is active in one of those groups, they receive them fairly negatively. In other words I would encourage people if you're listening to this and you're with the eXp to stop the cheerleading in the comments and you know touting revenue share in these 300 comment threads and these Facebook groups. Get into a one on one relationship with people including people who are active in those groups and have a phone conversation. Let them watch the webinar and let them learn the true facts because all it comes across as is overly aggressive. People didn't like this when it happened at Keller Williams. Like I said before, I was a team leader for a long time I ran several market centers Gene Frederic was a team leader, the number one team leader in the country and we never did that. In other words there's plenty of agents that are all excited and you just talked about having somebody just this weekend. Reach out to you. I had two people this weekend as well. And it wasn't because I posted a comment on Facebook right. I don't never see you do it either Jay. JAY: All we've done actually.. we haven't done anything and of course we're you know by the nature of our business as we market the real estate agents all across the country and have been doing that since 2006 so I haven't sent an email talking about eXp or our move. I haven't done anything on Facebook other than doing Facebook Live to announce it and then using you know Facebook Live to interview other people have made the move as well. That's pretty much all we've done so far. And you know that's a good way to get the message out if somebody wants to tune in it can and will have to. But the thing you know that way you're not you know in their face you know trying to force it. I think you want to you know again it's age and attraction agents that are interested in it keep hearing about it are going to be more likely to snoop around a little bit more maybe ask a question are private messages or something like that. But you know just go out there and jumping into a forum using making comments you know about eXp definitely not the right approach in my opinion. KEVIN: I would agree. Now Jay let me ask you a couple of questions. Obviously one of the big things that I see a lot of people asking about is there's a lot of focus on multi market operations and expansion. Right? You know some franchise systems you know like to think that they pioneered this but if you look at the eXp value proposition because you do deal with in your business and I know you're relationships with a lot of the teams that either are already multi market or that's part of their business plan. How much of a game changer do you think that the two things ,the one the single rainmaker cap nationwide for eXp is and then to the fact that they have the team concept in terms of the capping including the mega mega team program how big a game changer in the industry do you think that is going to be? JAY: It's super interesting. For us, it's a huge deal I mean because we were independent so we didn't have you know I guess you know if you look at other systems or other franchises that have something similar. I mean there's way more cost associated with trying to you know expand into new markets with that business model then there is at eXp. There is clearly you know a huge advantage as far as making that an affordable opportunity. And it's interesting because I have got on a few conversations that probably my third or fourth weekend where I had an agent in Virginia that wanted to join my team. She had been on some type of an expansion team somebody at Keller Williams. I'm not sure who it was you know she was looking for some lead generation and things of that nature but she wanted to join on a 50/50 split. I had not been thinking about it that way because most of my conversations have been with influencers and things of that nature so I was just looking at you know I've been sharing over and over and over conversation after conversation you know just the business model and I wasn't presenting it from a here come join my team perspective and it kind of hit me is like my goodness. I mean there could literally be you know you could have a thousand agents on your team. I think you know 15 years of my career. Everybody was focused on how do you get to a thousand transactions and I think now that the opportunity for someone to have a thousand agents on their team that wants to control lead gen and bring agents in under a little bit stronger value proposition than just whatever the eXp is offering in order to help them be successful. You know that's a real possibility. It would be something that you know that I've never seen done before that's for sure. KEVIN: And I think that that is something that inherently, I have some people I'm interviewing about this but is inherently in some of the franchise systems the conflict right. Essentially if you look at a cloud based brokerage like eXp realty your single cap gives you access nationwide because it's a single brokerage not each office is independently owned and operated and franchise system. So the conflict that I see coming down the pike is you can have a national conference like happened recently and announce that you're going to do a virtual cloud based operation. Right? They didn't give a lot of details but now imagine you own the office in Oklahoma City and you're the franchisee and you used to get a cap when the expansion team opens up in your market right. You're going to get some amount of company dollar. Now income is virtual and you're not getting that anymore. I think it's going to be I guess I'll give it a nice pleasant turn but it's going to be very messy for the franchisees in the franchise or to sort through all of that. Silicon Valley approach to this, speed to market is the winner. You know and I think a lot of people are starting to wake up. Most people including a lot of people listening to this don't realize what a big ramp up that eXp is going through. Frankly Jay a big part of it is the momentum that you brought in because if they were running at 300 agents a month in September-October and they hit 988 in January that's a big part of what Gene and I have given the moniker super influence effect. And there's going to be a lot more of that. And for context the number one franchise system in the world netted 908 agents in January. You probably didn't never hear that figure before but I've seen it so with 900 offices they netted 900 agents. eXp did 988 without team leaders with a single nationwide footprint. And so what's ending up happening is what used to occur as they expanded in a franchise system. You know Gene and I did this. You get a bunch of agents excited. They want to join and then they have to wait till the franchise is awarded. They have to wait until the bricks and mortar acquired they have to wait until the office gets a core group and mix application including with the person who gets approved as the franchisee to run it. That takes 12 to 18 months. So flash forward Jake Kinder comes on board in October his phone rings off the hook for the first 30 plus days. Somebody is in San Diego. You know they have 15 agents. Hypothetically they get excited to watch the web an hour they want to join that maybe talk to some of the senior people who are accessible at eXp especially for people that have a substantive business that's a big deal like a list for you. And I know you did talk to Glenn and others before you came over. They come over and it takes 10 days, not 18 months. So for listeners that have been told especially if you work for a franchise system there's no way they can sustain this growth at eXp realty. Here's your wakeup call. It takes as little as a week to 10 days to bring over mega teams. In a franchise system especially if it's an expansion effort and there's a new market center involved is you're talking 12 to 18 months. That's their Achilles heel both for the virtual market center aspect as well as the other aspect we talked about earlier which is the direct conflict. For those out there that are wondering and scratching their head of how did this brokerage go from you know 800 or so agents to 66 hundred at the end of last year to break through 8000. Now as Jay mentioned at the top of this interview close to 10000 that's the clock speed that it's running out. There's no reason I'll put a stake in the ground. I don't what your prediction is but I think that will be at every bit of 22 to 25000 agents at the end of the year. What's your number. JAY: That was the number that I had been thinking to January. And I want to say I had a conversation with Glenn in December. The thought was maybe 13-14000 at the end of 2018 and then at the end of January I think that number is going up considerably closer 20000. I believe there would be more than 23000. The only question that I have is the onboarding process and it's super scalable what they're doing now. So it would stand to reason that they could continue to scale out that apartment and manage the you know the pace at which we're growing. There are some estate broker things that probably come into play there that need to be dialed in there to get more than 23000 but I would definitely bet my left arm on 20000 unless there's some type of internal reason for us to not grow that fast. I can't imagine not hitting 20000 at the end of this year. I just don't see any way especially with the influencers that I know that are on the new on the transition right now and the ones that have already come on board. It's just got too much momentum to not do that. KEVIN: Absolutely and my take on it to Jay is the fact that we've hit critical mass. In other words some in the marketplace and this is some of the noise and misinformation is that they can't keep scaling the eXp realty. There's no way they can do this. And there is a demand portion of that which we've been talking about right the super influencers, the influencers the momentum even down on the agent level worry they'll join and then two or three people will join and then they know two or three people and that's that frankly there's more agents joining from that than just the super influencers right. You look at since you've got here you know if you add 2500 agents and you talk about having 300 in your revenue sharing group. It's still growing much faster than even what you're doing. So the demand side is there. If you look at and I've worked for nine startups in Silicon Valley, the stuff that the marketplace doesn't understand is the systems will all be scalable. They're always going to be periods of time when demand outstrips the capacity of the entity. The difference is if I've got to open up bricks and mortar and hire people and stick them in offices and do things physically there's a meter on it as to how fast I can grow. So if you're just talking about building systems that are scalable that are cloud based, the cloud based model beats the bricks and mortar model every time. So Jay if you look at where you are getting most of the interest from obviously it's across the board right independence you get people from the big franchise systems when you look at an agent that's maybe listening to this. You remember they were involved with your association or something else like that. What's the advice you can give them as far as you know due diligence and vetting and the whole purpose of this podcast is to get it out in your words but also to give them a roadmap for vetting. What would you advise them to do? Obviously they listen to this potentially. Now they need to you know dig in and make their own decision on the eXp Realty. JAY: Do your due diligence. I would say you know talk to agents. One thing I would say not to do is you know don't look at just the agents in your marketplace that are have currently joined eXp and make a decision based on that. There's still a lot of marketplaces where the agents that came on board were super early adopters and maybe they were not doing a lot of transactions or whatever the case may be. I would say get in contact with you know someone that's at a high caliber and talk to them definitely keep listening these podcast. Definitely watch some youtube videos and things of that nature but talk to some agents that are here eXp now and that are doing production and ask them what you know. It's everything it's cracked up to be. I think that's one of the things that you can do that that the easiest and you know see what the truth is out there would be what my advice would be. KEVIN: Absolutely. That's good advice. Another thing I would say to echo what Jay said... We still have markets at the eXp where there are a look like Texas was three years ago when Gene Frederick first approached me about Texas. I want to say they had less than 25 agents in the entire state of Texas. eXp at this point has 1800 agents, they're adding way over 100 per month. The complexion of it and the difference in the brokerage operation is like night and day. Not only is the brokerage infrastructure in terms of the state broker and all the State Administrative brokerage team and I think it's close to 10 people at this point. Completely different. And that's the scalability as well of the business. That's the only thing that I'm glad you brought it up a run across. More people say well I can't look at the roster in my market and there's only a handful of people and I'm not sure you guys are going to do what you do in my market that you've done in other markets. Well it's just a matter of time in my opinion and that's what you just said Jay which is raise your hand and the other thing I would say as far as vetting is that you should, whoever brought eXp Realty has an opportunity to you. Ask them to get you in touch with some other people from a reference standpoint. The culture of the business is such that even if somebody is a fairly large producer or mega agent or they're in a different market if somebody pings them and says hey I've got this prospect, they're really interested in the eXp. They're a little concerned about their market versus what we've done in other parts of the country. We will absolutely get you connected with somebody. It doesn't matter if they are in our rev share group I would do it for Jay. Jay would do it for me. Anybody would do it. We can get you in touch especially if you're a larger independent brokerage and you know you're thinking this is strategic for me. I've got 30 to 50 agents, I've got 100 agents. We had one in the southeastern United States that approached us with 350 agents and five offices. If you're out there and this is strategic, you're listening to these podcasts episodes and you need help. There's plenty of help it's the culture of the business that's in our DNA. And I see you doing it all day long Jay. I mean you raise your hand and say look let me help you Gene and I do the same thing. We don't care and Gene frankly is the evangelist and the ambassador for eXp, he's out there running regional trainings and events all over the country and every once in awhile he'll say to me he goes I think they're in my downline. I think they're in my revenue share group but he doesn't really care. Most of us don't care. We don't care anymore. I know you don't care either. JAY: The culture is just incredible and you think OK well it's not you know there's no brick and mortar attack and you really have culture. This is probably the most culture rich organization I've ever been apart of there really is... It's just engineered into the DNA. When you come on board the eXp to help one another and you know there's not this oh well you're not my downline that's not at all the feel which is something I didn't necessarily expect but I've been really pleased to see that it really is truly you know a lot of givers in this company that are wanting to help one another grow and are willing to help anybody in the organization no matter where they're at. And that starts at the very top with leadership. Now all the way down to you know any agent in the company that's very special to be you know to be able to kind of see that and experience it. It's very rare I would say. KEVIN: Great. Well Jay this is another example of you giving in terms of coming on the podcast I appreciate it. Before we let you go any other final thoughts and then I'm going to have you give out your contact information in case I wants to reach out to you. JAY: No I don't have any final thoughts. I mean if you've been thinking about it you know take action. I think this is you know one of the better opportunities that I've seen since I've been in real estate and certainly think that you're going to be better off here than not being here. KEVIN: Fantastic. Jay if somebody wants to reach you and connect with you how would they find you either on social media or on the web. JAY: You could probably just Google me that's probably an easy way to find me but if you want to e-mail me you can shoot me an email it's my name. Jay@Jaykinder.com. KEVIN: Fantastic thanks for coming on the show. JAY: You got it thank you.

Interview – Gene Frederick In today’s episode we have Gene Frederick, a current member of eXp Realty’s Board of Directors. After getting into real estate in 1984, Gene worked for a small independent and then transitioned to RE/MAX for a number of years before purchasing his first franchise. Additionally, Gene spent over 21 years with Keller Williams as a manager, team leader and regional owner of six offices across the nation until discovery eXp Realty. In this episode, Gene discusses how he found himself at eXp Realty, a revolutionary real estate brokerage model, why agents love this model, how eXp sustains 8,000 agents and why he compares eXp to Netflix. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Gene’s background in realty and why he transitioned to eXp Why independent brokers are taking a closer look at eXp Realty Why transitioning away from brick and mortar is sustainable The benefits of utilizing a Cloud Office What is a disruptive technology and why it is important The future of real estate from a broker’s point of view Why top agents are joining EXP Resources To contact Gene Frederick, text 703-338-1515 Gene Frederick on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/gene.frederick.750 Tweetables “If you are constantly having to think outside the box, maybe the box needs fixing.”   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION   KEVIN: Welcome to the show, Gene. GENE: Oh Hi Kevin. How are you? KEVIN: I'm fantastic. So you know before we dive in on eXp Realty and I'm going to ask you some questions specifically about eXp. Why don't you give listeners that maybe don't know your whole story your story leading up to before eXp and then we'll talk a little bit about what made you decide to do what you did before you joined eXp. GENE: Thanks Kevin for having me on today. I really loved telling this story because I've been in real estate since 1984, here in Texas. Most of my career has been in the Dallas- Fort Worth area. So when I got into real estate in 1984 I worked for a small independent and then went to Remax and I was at Remax for quite a few years and then in 1989 I bought my first franchise which was a realty executives franchise owned that for five years in DFW and I sold that in 1994 and in 1994 - Boy these years go fast let me tell you - 1994 my wife and I Susan I were two of the first ten agents to launch Keller Williams in the Dallas area and the first Dallas office. And I spent 21 years almost almost 22 years a little over 21 years with KW until I found out about eXp and that's what I want to talk to you about today. In other words I learned about this three years ago and my story is I was basically... I was basically retired as being a manager and team leader my wife and I both are and the team leader Hall of Fame at KW. We were team leaders for quite a long time, regional directors and we also owned at that time we thought we were retiring Kevin. We owned 6 Keller Williams offices across the nation; 3 in California, two in Texas and one on the East Coast and also a region. We owned the Keller Williams region for Northern California and Hawaii and we were basically retired here. We had moved to Austin, Texas 2010 and a couple of my past agents came up to me one day and said "Could you check out this new model?" And I said sure, I don't have anything to do with you. This will be fun. And a gentleman named Glen Sanford flew into Austin, met with me for a couple of days and it was just awesome to meet Glenn and the new model that he showed me and treat me so much. I spent five months researching it. I flew up to Boston to meet the CEO at the time still our CEO and been our CEO for right now eight years Jason Guessing. He lives in the Boston area and those two gentlemen showed me this new model. And after five months of researching it which is exciting. Not even looking I came back to Susan in the spring of 2015, not quite three years, and I told her I said Susan guess what. She goes "What?" And I said, "Well honey if you knew Netflix existed would you own a blockbuster?" She said, "Of course not." And I said "Well honey, we owned six of them." And she said, "Excuse me." And I said "I just found Netflix and that was the eXp Realty." And it was really funny at that time, it had about 400 agents and with the way Glenn's vision laid out in a way Jason was so convicted and Glenn is such a visionary. Seeing something that could go very very big and revolutionizing the way real estate brokerage was going to be run with agents as owners, not the brokers and owners, and I said Honey I think we got to sell all the blockbusters. And she says oh OK and just see you know Kevin try that out for size after 20 years of marriage and look at that and we're thinking we're just about ready to retire. And I said honey this is going to work. This is really going to work. So in the spring of 2015 we sold our six offices and our region and we join the eXp Realty right around May 1, 2015 and we've been with the company two years and 10 months and I can't tell you why I joined. I mean this is revolutionary to me because if you ever read Malcolm Gladwell's books, you know Tipping Point Blank and one of his books I remember one of the headings was and one of the chapters was if you are constantly having to think outside the box, maybe the box needs fixing. And as the real estate brokerage you know I've owned so many franchises I've been through so much of the franchise world I knew that the franchise world was it didn't just need fixing. It really needed a whole new broker box. And when Glen Sanford showed me this model and said Gene the agents, the agents are going to drive this model, not owners. Actually when I first met him, Kevin it was funny, he said and I looked at it and about a month later I called him up and I said "Glenn, I'm curious how much does Texas cost?" and he goes "Well Jean it's not for sale." So what do you mean it's not for sale. He goes well we're not selling franchises we're going to build through the agents and that's when I knew we had a new box and that excited me to grow through the agents with agents as owners rather than owners having to sign leases having to buy furniture having a certain territory which was to me always very very restricted from the owner's point of view, especially on the money side. So it's been two years and 10 months and I got to tell you it's it's like birthing a baby. It's my same for the last almost three years. Let's make real estate fun again. And I'm just having fun being attracted and what I found out Kevin which is funny. I've got to tell you in May of 2015 I started interviewing people in Austin, Texas. This is where I live. I had 20 interviews. Let me ask you this guess how many people of the 20 people and by the way are twenty one on one interviews 18 signed up. Guess how many of those 20 people asked me where the physical office was going to be. None of them. Not one not one. And that's when I went. Why are we building blockbusters. You know there was a reason in the 80s in the 70s that we went to a physical office right. There was a reason before the internet that we had phone numbers attached to the sign that we all funneled into one area and had phone time where agents we went into the back room and answered phone calls from people that drove by signs. And since the invention of course the Internet and the smartphone you know we have agents putting their smartphone number or whatever number they want to have called and straight into that. And there is no longer a reason for that physical office. By the way I had to 18 for 20 the first month. Of the two that did not join, one joined a month later and the other one joined like nine months later and that's when I came back to Susan I said Susan "This is it. This is the next real estate brokerage model that's going to work because I've never been 20 for 20 ever in my real estate career". By the way those were all all productive agents not news agencies are productive agents. KEVIN: You know the interesting thing about that is when you look at coming out of a franchise system you know you were doing that when the company had realistically about four or five hundred agents when you started right. GENE: Yes exactly. KEVIN: And so people like you and Mitch Riback and others have done a lot of heavy lifting. Right. The company is only you know was founded in 2009. At this point it's a whole different world isn't it. GENE: It's so funny because I look back on it. In fact I've got to tell you a story even today it's just makes so much sense to me. I texted, didn't text I actually did a workplace message to our founder our visionary Glenn Sanford today. I said glad you remember two years ago I said I got to tell you. February 29th which was a leap year two years ago. That was 2016. We're talking right now February 28 2018. I said Glen can you remember we were at a restaurant with Debbie and Susan and myself. We were in Austin,Texas at the Oasis Restaurant and Glen had his smartphone out, Kevin. And he was looking at it and I said "What are you looking at,Glenn". He goes "1996 1997 1998." I said "What's that?" He goes It's our agent count and I said we're going to go over 1000 and he goes thousand thousand?. We had a toast and we went crazy. This is just two years ago. So let's fast forward. I said Glenn that night was... To me the hardest thing is getting to 1000 agents just so you know this is 2018 in the first month of January of 2018. We added 1000 agents net every 30 days we're adding over a thousand agents right now. So at the end of 2000 yes, to give you updated numbers, at the end of 2017 we ended up with 6505 agents. Just a little bit over 6500 agents. That was the heavy lifting and now all of a sudden we did a press release just two weeks ago in the middle of February we hit 8000 agents. Kevin that is... and by the way again not with new agents experienced agents. If I had a nickel for every time an experienced agent I talked to says "Where have you all been?" You know when we go to a new town I've never heard of you but where have you been. And I said I don't know I just found them two years and ten months ago. I mean I just found them three years ago. I mean I said I'm like you. I didn't know it existed. But once I saw it I went new model new Model. It's going to work in the book Blink. You know Malcolm Gladwell talks about that there's a blink basically an emotional side of our thinking process. I'm very analytical because Kevin I used to be a financial analyst before I got in real estate. So I have more spreadsheets than anybody on earth. I love thinking analytically but when I saw this model my blink my emotional output was I went this is going to work and it has. And it's just exciting to me to have the Amazon of real estate in fact Stefan Swann Poole, the famous writer consultant that talks about real estate all throughout our industry in 2013. He did an article about us 2013. What a visionary he was. He says these guys are the Amazon of real estate and I don't think the bricks and mortar franchise owners understood what he was talking about. Well, I'm living. KEVIN: What's interesting about that is you talk about the momentum adding 1000 agents a month. It really I want to talk about a couple of different demographics and let you give me your opinion on why you think it's occuring you know Mitch Ryback and Florida was one of the first larger independent brokers that converted into eXp and at this point you myself and a number of other people at eXp are having conversations every week with independent brokers. Why do you think independent brokers have suddenly woken up and go I need to look at eXp realty. GENE: Well there's two things to me. Number one the Bricks and Mortar models the Bricks and Mortar model is dead Kevin. And when I say that if you are running a real estate brokerage especially independents it's hard to get over that 50 75 100 agents, right. You can't hit a level where you just stay there. I see so many of the firms and they think they're going to get to 500 agents or 400. They don't want to do franchises because they understand how hard that is and also pain that franchise fee off the top doesn't make sense to them and really 55% of our industry according to NAR I think at least 55 percent, over 50 percent is independent brokers. So they've struggled, they struggled they went through this last downturn you know 2006 to 2012. That was not fun. Now we've come out of it since 2012. But guess what? It still isn't where they are doubling or tripling in size. You know I met Mitch a year ago in Austin. He flew to see me in Austin. We spent some time together and you know he didn't own his company for 12 years. You know you own something for 12 years and it's you know you don't want to tell the agents that you're not making very much money. But it's a struggle. You know let's just think about it. Leases, furniture, phone systems and you know the independents. Kevin you and I have talked about this. Now they have to compete against the big franchises right. So the franchise rollout some big tech thing and they can't compete. They can't rule that out for all their agents. They don't have the money to do that. So it's very very restricted. We already got in January we got two small independents in Texas one with 40 agents in San Antonio just join us and one with 56 agents in McAllen in south south Texas near the border. That gentleman rolled his company in with 54 agents and we instantly became number two in the market boom! And I really think they're looking at 40 or 50 agents. Kevin you and I have talked about this. Now they can take those 40 or 50 agents and turn them into 100, 150 in their own little team through rev share, through revenue share. KEVIN: Well and one of the things that you and I have talked about and I want to make the point for anybody listening to this is even if you're an independent broker and you have some amount of expenses that can't just be x. In other words it costs you 30 40 50 60 thousand, a hundred thousand dollars a month. Do the due diligence people like Mitch and all these brokers don't necessarily make the expenses go away immediately but get with the right resources and gene you're certainly one of them that can help you do the due diligence because it's not a go no go. I have to make my expenses to zero to make it worth at eXp realty. There is a due diligence process and these independent brokers are figuring out that they can leave some amount of infrastructure in place and make the transition with their agents and then come out of it in 12, 18, 24 months. And like Mitch they've got a much bigger revenue share stream that exceeded what they were making as it had been a broker. GENE: Yes. And with that that was a perfect point to make. Kevin you and I've talked about it let's say that I think the one and MacCallum He had three offices he reduced the three offices down to one because he still had leases he was obligated to. But he got rid of a whole bunch of expenses and then you just gradually work into making sure that the agents get used to the cloud office. They're no longer going to come into the office they're going to go into our cloud office which by the way is the difference maker. The cloud office, we call it our cloud campus I call it a cloud office because that's where everybody is. That's where our accountants are. That's where our tech people are. That's where our onboarding people are. That's where our marketing people are. We have over 180 people right now in that cloud office, Kevin as avatars. And they speak to you just like I'm you know you just walk in and talk to them just like a video game. The cool part about it is when I saw that and when Glenn rolled that out to me I said Glenn I've always wanted to get rid of Bricks and Mortar as an owner. I mean there's not one owner in the nation that would love to get rid of that expense. Love to get rid of all that copiers everything. You name it. I ran it. I ran a couple of the largest offices for Keller Williams ever and those expenses just it's hard to cover those expenses and it just weighs on you even if you're making a little bit of money. Kevin you and I talked about it even if you make it a little bit of money. You're not making a lot of money and it just wears on you after a while. KEVIN: Yes. The message here if you're an independent broker is don't just discount conversion into eXp realty because maybe you've tried to talk to one of the big franchise systems and you couldn't make the numbers work. The independent brokers if they're running through due diligence with Mitch or with Gene Frederick or anybody else in the leadership are figuring out how to do this and understanding rev share and I want to talk about rev share for a minute before we talk about why mega agents and teams are joining. Rev share is something from my opinion. I want to get your concurrence on this Gene. When you were a regional owner you mentioned you owned Northern California and Hawaii. You got paid basically based on the agents in the region. Right it came off the top and you got paid out of the royalties and a franchise system but there was a stream of income that was very predictable. You knew if you had producing agents that would stay with the company. And every year you had x number of them you could predict pretty accurately how much revenue you'd have. Right? GENE: Correct and even in the downturn since the franchises they take money off the top we took money off the top. I was in two franchises. We knew the money off the top. We got that even in 2007 2008 2009 when we knew our owners of the offices were struggling. It was sad they weren't making money but as a region we got our money right off the top. KEVIN: And that for anybody out there you may have heard sort of the noise and information and sort of misdirection that revenue sharing is not sustainable from my opinion. I look at revenue share as exactly the way the franchises pay the regional owners. Do you agree? GENE: Exactly. When I talk to agents because they've never been owners of franchises Kevin like you and I have a ram franchises or ran offices they're just selling real estate. I said Let me explain to you this model would you rather have in your commissions money taken off the top and given to the owners are money coming off the top and given back to you the agents for helping us grow the company and they said was like the one where it comes back to me and I go. That's our system. We're just giving it to somebody different. I was really into this as somebody a couple of years ago and they said Gene you didn't change a sister you didn't change that part of it. You're just giving it back to someone else. Very very sustainable. We were sustainable at five hundred agents. You know now we just did a press release in the middle of February where over eight thousand agents just imagine Kevin could you imagine if you were running an office nationally with eight thousand agents with no bricks and mortar no cost. KEVIN: And that's why it's sustainable and profitable and for anybody listening to this. If you are under the misimpression that revenue sharing is sustainable there's a precedent for this and the franchise system don't let anybody confuse you that taking money off the top out of the revenue stream of the company dollar is not sustainable because the franchise systems take money off the top and they pay the original owners. eXp realty is doing the same thing. And so to tie down the independent broker conversation this is a big way that these independent brokers are figuring out as Gene said earlier to converting the eXp realty they can keep a lot of their systems in place. They can get all of the tools and technology of the eXp realty. They can provide a better environment from a technology standpoint for their agents and at the tail end of it you know if you listen to the interview with Mitch Riback he's making so much more money now than he was as an independent broker. If you're interested in the eXp. Get with the right members of the team do due diligence and understand why it is. Because as compared to things like profit share or other systems, the predictability of revenue share because it does come off of the top can be modeled. You can figure out exactly what your PNL is going to look like, what it looks like later. And as the revenue share grows it's predictable based on the number of agents and if you listen to Mitch's interview you'll see him say my spreadsheet was a big understatement for what I thought it was going to be. I'm actually making more money than I even model that I would do it. And that is why if you're scratching your head as an independent broker how would I ever do this. The piece that you're missing and you yourself if you're considering it to get in and dig in and understand how it works because it may not be apparent from the outside. GENE: And the two things brokers are concerned about Kevin we've talked about forever and I've been a broker of numerous franchises. You have to have a model that attracts people. First of all if they don't sell more real estate at your place than the other place they don't come. We've talked about this. Our technology is phenomenal. I mean Glen and Jason are just bonafide. We're going to have some of the best technology tools for people to get leads to the Internet. So everybody gets conversion for free, right? Sometimes I even get to the conversion part and they said wait it's free here because some of the small independents I talk to say well we do provide conversion for our agents but they have to pay for it. Are we you know 400 a month or 500 a month and I said what if all your agents came in got it free here and they go oh my gosh I can attract a lot more agents in my market and I go yeah we have that and also the second thing for brokers that they don't understand is once you let the agents in the game to help attract other agents they grow. Because most independents go I don't want my agents attracting people I want to track them make sure I do all the interviews and I go wow. Once you let the agents attract people the way they can their salespeople. Oh my gosh. And that's what Mitch told me Mitch didn't realize that his people could attract agents better faster quicker than he ever could because he's letting them into the ownership game. Kevin, like you and I talk about in the royalty game you know they're getting royalties off the top. Wait that's never been done that's never been done. That's why we're getting number one agent Louisiana. Darren James number one agent Tucson, Arizona. You know number one agent Richmond, Virginia I could name the town's number one agent Nashville. I won't name everybody's names I'm sorry but it's just like why are the top people why are they looking at us. And joining us in a week. 10 days from start to finish. Because it's a brand new model. You and I have talked about a lot of people come to me and they go well can you compare it to this company or the company that got started in the 70s the company that got started in the 80s and I go well they're franchise models and we just don't compare. I can't even compare it's a brand new. It is Netflix right. Just like Netflix and Blockbuster. You know I love using that example because blockbuster both watching movies right. We're both watching movies. But let me ask you a question Kevin. What was the technology that did away with Blockbuster? Streaming video. So when that technology, it's called a disruptive technology, you hear it all the time on Shark Tank. When you hear somebody go I've got a disruptive technology which means it's going to change the way we do something right. And your first to market with it the fact that you have a disruptive technology plus your first to market with it boom right. Wow! And that's why I compare it does everybody gets confused because a they said well you guys don't have any offices. See we do. We have offices. In fact you can go to any Regis we have a national arrangement. Kevin with Regis across the United States. So in every town there's always a five or 10 Regis's if you want to meet a customer in an office, meet him right there. But I think everybody gets confused with the fact that we have a game changer and when Glen Sanford saw he caught it early late 2009 is when he started the company says Gene. I just went to everybody and said no more bricks and mortar. He had three offices. He says I'm shutting everything down. I mean man, that takes a lot of gumption to do that in 2009. But he says I believe in this model that agents will go to our office. I can get to the office with my iPhone now. I can go in just straight to my iPhone. Of course I can get it on my computer and boom don't have to get dressed, don't have to drive to the office. It is the way real estate is going to be run from the broker's point of view. I think the next 10 years. KEVIN: It's certainly as you described earlier a disruptive model and I agree with you. I think if you get to 21 22 in terms of 20 21 22 most of the bricks and mortar operations will have to go away. Same way the blockbusters went away. So let's tie down the agents obviously productive agents are joining eXp realty. There is no take away from the standpoint of the economic model right in other words people aren't joining hoping to do better. We talked a little bit a minute ago about tools and technology but from an economic model it's not a take away for an agent to join eXp is it. GENE: Oh my gosh no. We have the same cap for every single agent in the company. I love it. Everybody's on an 80 20 with no royalty, no royalties a biggie. So once they pay 20% and an equal sixteen thousand dollars. Kevin That's our cap. And then they go to 100%. So it's kind of neat. We're getting people that do over a hundred million a year, 100 million in production with big teams and they said what's the structure and I said well it's one camp 16000. You can go to as many cities as you want in your state. You can go across state lines and have agents in other states and they go what you mean I don't have to pay another cap in those cities are in that state. I go no because we don't have franchises. We haven't sold franchises in those cities like the other ones. So a lot of the other models we compare for the large large teams love the fact number one that they can expand their team only pay one cap for the lead agent and the other agents are a half cap. All right. And then here's the second thing that we're noticing Le Page and Johnson from Charlotte, North Carolina. They joined us last spring and she said Jane they brought over 16 agents with them they do over 100 million a year. And she said Gene what I realize now after being with the eXp for three or four months is I knew it would be beneficial for my team because I care about my team members but they love it more than I do. And I said What do you mean? They go. She goes oh my gosh they get all the benefits I do. So they can take for example on the stock they can take 5% of their commissions every month. The team members can as well as anybody and purchase stock every single month at a 20% discount. I mean they're creating equity in their lives. So they're team members are being able to create equity. They're team members are being able to help attract. We call referrer agents as they're doing transactions and now they're team members are getting revenue share stock and she told me she was I've never had a happier team members in my life because their teams just like brokers because the big teams Kevin are like small brokers right. They're concerned with how to attract agents to my team and how do I retain them. It's all about retention. And they said we're not losing anybody now because they're aquiring stock. They're acquiring revenue share and they're happy again. I can't believe I've got Brett Gove. I talked to a year ago year and three or four months ago I think is one of the top agents in Northern California. I talked to him on Thursday. He came and talked to Glen and Jason at our national convention. It just happened to be at that time he signed up the next Friday. Kevin I'm talking. One of the top agents in the nation joins in eight days. It's a compelling value proposition for sure. And he came to the convention I love it because all these top people come to the convention by the way we have two conventions a year, one in April which is our stockholders meeting every year. We believe in getting together and networking. And then of course we have one in October which is our national convention. Same thing. Great networking and learning things. But what's funny is when they came to these he brought two people with him. I love telling Brent's story because Gene I brought two people with me and I told him OK talk me out of this. Talk to everybody and find out what's wrong with this model. Of course he comes back and on Friday He's about ready to leave and he talks to those two gentlemen they were standing right next to me he said what did you find out in he. Man this model is real. This is working and he goes OK I'm in. KEVIN: What's interesting about that is you and I were both team leaders and we recruited a lot of agents in our day and the franchise system. It's unheard of to have teams and mega agents convert in that quick period of time and I think it's a testament to the value proposition and the fact that between revenue share and the ability to buy stock and earn stock based on the way EXP lays it out. What are your thoughts on the noise in the market about revenue sharing. Obviously we've got enough experience with it now and I interviewed Mitch a number of other people and as you mentioned people that are teams it's a huge retention item for mega agents and especially mega agents with teams because unless they're going to set up some sort of profit share and 401 K for their team members they don't have the ability to do anything close to this in terms of creating wealth. GENE: Well the same with small brokers. When I say small brokers any broker that has 50 agents or 100 agents or 200 agents, as big as a broker can get there really running their team. They don't want people to leave right. So I was talking to a broker just the other day and he says Gene the hardest thing is I train them, coach them. They stay with me for a couple of years and then they leave. Right when they're getting ready to be really really productive. And I said well you want to solve that. And he goes what. And I said get him into our system. It will retain them when they get stock. They want to see that stock go up. They have ownership in it because you've never give them ownership. So the same thing with the teams the small brokers what they're beginning to realize that I knew it would happen Kevin. I knew it three years ago. But now it's starting to happen. Even though they're doing OK. Right. We haven't had another shift yet in our market really nationally. But the brokers are going. You mean I can turn 50 agents into a hundred. I said Let me show you what Mitch Ribak did. Let me show you the small you know they're just getting it. They're getting it. And all of a sudden they're going Wow!!. And of course as a broker if you're tired of running that doggone office you're not the broker anymore. Right? That's a big thing. Our states are all run by a broker. We have supervisory brokers because in big states like Texas where we have close to 2000 agents we have a head broker and four supervisory brokers. So we have a lot of brokers to take care of that and they go, oh you mean I don't have to answer the broker questions. I said No I'll go to the broker. Just bring the agents let them run and let them produce. KEVIN: Absolutely. So if you're listening to this it doesn't matter if you're an independent broker or a mega agent or a team in a team lead you can go to the show notes and there's an intro video it's like seven minutes long you can get all the sort of facts and information that Gene and I are talking about. And then you really want to dig in and get due diligence. You know whoever introduced you to eXp realty can introduce you to whomever you know whether it's Gene or me or any of the other leaders around the country that can help you get the right information to make a good decision. Doesn't matter if you're a broker a mega agent or otherwise. If you're scratching your head as to why people are joining. That's the first step. Watch that intro video that's in the show notes and then go back to whomever introduced you to eXp Realty and say all right I'm intrigued enough. I want to dig into it and then they'll get you pointed in the right direction to get connected. Gene any final thoughts on that I want to get your contact info in case anybody wants to reach you. GENE: The only final thought I would say is I want to say something to everybody out there especially where we are not. First the market is everything. When you look at all the marketing books and I'm a, you know I graduated with a business degree and all the marketing books I've got an old marketing book and the number one thing in marketing is being first to market. That's why I have an iPhone. That's why a lot of us love Pandora. This is why you know what I look at first to market with anything, Netflix, Air BnB. When I see first to market even Uber right. When I see first the market, people don't really understand how huge that is to be first in your market to bring eXp to your area. You know we have the tools to show you how to explain the model. Kevin and I want to share them with everybody. And the fact is if are first to market I don't want you to wait two years, three years and say I'm just going to wait to see if it's going to work. It is working. It's working nationally right now. So get on board. I can't wait to work with everybody. I just don't want people to go well you know I'll just wait and see if they make it. Come on now. Just don't wait. KEVIN: Absolutely. I've had that same conversation with people were there like well I see a few agents in my market. I'm a mega agent and I've got a team I do 20 30 million dollars a year and you know I don't see the people that I mastermind with are my peers. That's not typical when Gene joined eXp in Texas he just mentioned there's 2000 agents are very close to him right now. I think there were five agents in the state and a few major decision like a mega agent would if they made a mistake they wouldn't even recognize what happened in Texas. GENE: Yes correct. And so that's what I always say to folks get rid of that fear. It's not really a fear at all. We're selling real estate just like you would anywhere else. If it doesn't work out you can always go back to your other company right. But but I can tell you once you come into our system and see the tools and the people because we're all made of people and the people just like you that you can mastermind with nationwide through the cloud collaborate so easily because I'm telling you right now. Kevin you know as well as I do there's a few people in my world that I talk to two and a half years ago. They are just now joining now. I said well it was available to you two and a half years ago and they go well I'm starting now. I'm going now and I go good. But if you're in a town where we're not even in yet, guys we can open immediately. We do not need bricks and mortar. We just need good quality agents. We talk about it all the time in our attraction. It's quality not quantity. We want quality agents so come join the explosion as we call it the eXp explosion. And it really is happening and I can't wait to work with everybody. KEVIN: Fantastic. Gene if somebody is listening to this and they want to reach you how do they get in touch with you. GENE: The best way to reach me guys if you want to is texting. Please do not e-mail me. You can. Really pretty much find me. I'm in Austin Texas. My name is Gene Frederick but my cell number and I'll give it to you so you can text me or private message me on Facebook you can private message me on Facebook of course just Gene Frederick is on my Facebook account but 703 3381 515 is my cell number 703 3381 515. Just text me. I really respond fast. I can't wait to work with all of you. KEVIN: Fantastic. Thanks for coming on the show. GENE: Thanks Kev. Take care.

Former Team Leader Brent Gove Joins eXp Realty from Keller Williams On Today’s episode we have Brent Gove. Brent has been in real estate for about 21 years. He spent 12 years at Remax and 8 years at Keller Williams before transitioning to eXp Realty. Brent’s business is currently in 37 states, and he has over 1,489 brokers and agent associates. In this episode you’ll hear about Brent’s experience with the market crash in California in 2005, how he found himself at eXp, his thoughts on the eXp business model and what’s taking place at eXp Realty. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Culture and growth at eXp Other companies in comparison with eXp  The transition to eXp Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Brent to inquire or ask questions. Contact Brent via text at 916-223-5555 Noteworthy “I saw the benefits; webinars that explained how to acquire stock, how to get leads, the five to 10 Cloud classes a day to train my team and then the revenue sharing component. Those four things, I was like wow this is this is shockingly better than I thought it was going to be.” “I am ten times more excited to be at eXp because of what it does.”   SHOW TRANSCRIPTION KEVIN: Welcome to the show Brent. BRENT: Thank you Kevin. KEVIN: Well for people that maybe haven't heard of you before which probably not very many. Can you give a little bit of your background in real estate because I know you and I both were team leaders at Keller Williams but you've done a lot team wise as well. BRENT: Sure yeah. Been in real estate since 1996 or 1997 I can't remember what year it's been about 21 years now and you know start off struggling like everybody else. Then he kind of figured out at the end of your first year in year 2 I did better three I think my fourth year I sold 48 homes. I kind of found my stride. Friend of mine talked me going to Toronto to hear Craig Proctor who at the time was the number one Remax agent in the world up in Toronto which Craig Proctor super conference loved it. Met great people like Jeff Williams and Jay Kinder and Todd Walters and all kinds of wonderful people spent years learning that system and I went from 48 sales a year which I was matched to over 400 sales a year then 169 million in annual volume. And really when you are about leverage and building a team and then of course the market crashed in summer of 05 in California. I remember June I closed on 55 homes in a single month, got paid 55 times in a month which is great. The guy netted about 288.000 net that month so I was a good month financially. But you know we bounced around you know it would go 55 45. You know it might drop five or 10 sales but the next month we closed on 19 Homes we'd never drop like 35 sales and I thought that maybe we were distracted with the Fourth of July and I took the team to Scottsdale go golf and how fine and then the next month 17 and 14. By December we closed nine homes and I had 47 buyers agents working for me and that was our total close volume by December forty nine for forty seven agents. Everybody went bankrupt. Everybody lost their homes their cars. It was brutal. And that happened this summer and fall 2005. So people said oh the market didn't crack until 08, 07 maybe around the country but in California it was 2005. And so from there things got worse. By 2009 it was just I was losing 30 40 50,000 a month for years and by 2009 Keller Williams came knocking on my door. They said hey we'll pay a base of 288 thousand plus bonuses up to half a million come believe Remax be a part of Keller Williams. You can keep running your team to normally do. But that's the only way I would come and I came and it was great experience for me of course Remax said it will be terrible you'll hate Keller Williams and you're making the biggest mistake of their life it didn't matter where I would have gone whether it was Coldwell Banker Century 21 or wherever they would have said it was a terrible idea because I was leaving their team and gone for the opponents right thing. They were wrong though Keller Williams was way better for me not saying they're better than Remax it is better for me personally. They were wrong. Keller was great. I was there for eight years. So 12 years a ReMax eight years. Keller that was my 20 years. Then about a year ago I left Keller and you know I didn't like Keller at that time I loved him. Was never ever ever going to leave Keller Willaims. What could possibly be better than Keller Williams used to run the number one franchise in America. We made more money in 2009 than Austin Texas. Our Roseville Keller Williams is markets and it was number one and profitability for the entire nation. And that was in 2009 and last year I left the company that I loved and I was of the value proposition for eXp was so powerful so amazing I had to leave when I did. Of course Keller Williams like Remax said hey it's a huge mistake you're making a giant mistake don't do it. And bottom line I was leaving their team for the opponents team and they were wrong. My last 16 months here at eXp has been nothing short of miraculous and life changing and unbelievable. So in 45 days I get to retire from real estate. I don't have to list homes anymore. I listed a bunch of homes this week. Presenting three offers now I've sold three to me personally not my team me I'm a very active agent. But in 45 days I get to retire I'll give all my listings to my listing specialist on my buyers and I'll just kind of run the team and keep an eye on it. But it was the eXp that got me to the point where I no longer had to bring in a sixty thousand dollar a month monthly income to keep the lights on you know to pay my home bills and the office bills and the overhead it was 60000 a month. Well because we don't need to govern that money anymore. It's been amazing. And now I'm at eXp and absolutely loving it. KEVIN: You know Brett what's interesting about your comment and I would echo what you said right. I was a team leader at Keller Williams and was there and a big team in St. Louis Missouri and the most common comment is what you just said which is most of us were extremely happy. We were very happy where we were. And it's almost like we were sort of astonished at this value proposition of eXp realty that came by and went Wait a minute. I can't not look at this because I'm a business person. I think you're like decisive like I am right. Driver personalities and I know you dug right into it and you made a decision pretty quick didn't you. BRENT: Ten days but I was fortunate enough when I saw the benefits webinars that explained how to acquire stock, how to get leads the five to 10 Cloud classes a day to train my team and then the revenue sharing component. Those four things I was like wow this is shockingly better than I thought it was going to be and wow I don't have those six ways to acquire stock Keller Williams so I don't have the ownership piece and the revenue share piece and that literally saw a way to earn over a million dollars a year outside which I will do twice that much this year. But outside of real estate sales to make a million dollars a year, I go that is significant. So the benefit I had just dumb luck was the very next week they were doing their annual convention in San Antonio Texas. They're like hey if you're crazy get yourself an airline ticket get out here next week and meet us meet the founder of the company Glenn Sanford. Meet the CEO Jason Guessing. Meet Vicki Bartolomé our president. Come out here and meet us. And I said I'm crazy and I bought three roundtrip airline tickets. Seven hundred each. Because it was last minute was 2100 dollars just for the airfare. Bought tickets to the event it was like 300 400 bucks for each person. I spent like four or five grand to come check out eXp as a Keller Williams agent. I brought my CEO chief operating officer who runs my company and I brought a local independent broker with me. I said look we won't be going to San Antonio if I wasn't excited I won't be paying for all this and do all this I am interested. I'm excited about the opportunity. So I don't want you guys to come here be excited. In fact I want you to come here and be negative. I want you to tear this thing to shreds. If there's a fly in the ointment let's find it. Either this thing passes the mustard test or it doesn't. And we must have interrogated a hundred people over that three days brokers from Colorado or New York or Florida agents that were brand new in Seattle that were brand new in Phoenix. The agents had been doing this for four or five years in different parts of the country six seven eight years and were like really did they do they pay like like they slow pay. They were bounced the commission check. Did they pay revenue share every month. Do they pay late and have they ever bounced the revenue share check and basically it came back roses after three days and so because I was able to see the Webinar, fly to Texas that next week I left Keller Williams. Never thought I'd do it. Loved Keller was a wonderful company. They just don't offer five to 10 training classes a day. They don't have the lead component. We're able to turn on people's phones and deliver 100 to 300 leads a month to their phones that will change an agent's life. The training and the leads are then finally six ways to acquire stock. I have about half a million. After 16 months after past 20 years zero I like my program better. I then find the revenue share to a company that would share revenue because we're cloud based they could do it. Are these other companies cannot copy the model because they are going to pay for these behemoth offices and so the whole cloud based things huge so I think that was a long answer to a short question. KEVIN: You touched on some of the stuff in the answer that I was going to drill down on. So for anybody listening to this you know Brent had this rocket ship ride and if anything it's accelerating even further now. So Brent you join and you were a team leader and granted the timing worked out and it was 10 days but you were a team leader at Keller Willaims before as I'm going to ask you a question that I know the answer to because I was a team leader just like Gene Frederick was for a long time for a guy like Brent Gove and his team to move in 10 days when you were a team leader in a previous franchise system. Did that ever happen? BRENT: No no no it take months sometimes a year or more to get people to move. I know Keller Williams started talking to me in 2001 and it was only in 2009 in the bottom of the worst market correction since the Great Depression were they able to get me to move. It took them nine years to get me to move and eXp the value proposition was so great. Dave and Keller flew me to Texas took me out to steak dinners brought me all kinds of events and the last two years there was a hard push from 08 and through 09 or 07 and 08. So whereas eXp I paid for all my own stuff. I mean eXp didn't even buy me a cup of coffee. The value proposition was so powerful. I was gone in ten days so that we see that all the time. It's irresistible. KEVIN: Well for somebody on the outside that is now because we'll talk about what's going on 16 months later is what's going on now has to be shaking their heads right. If they're in a large franchise system whether they're in one of the big massive market centers or they're in a established Remax operation or even an independent they look around their marketplace and they're seeing massive movement. I mean I talked to somebody the day before yesterday and the comment was we're in San Diego and I've never seen anything like it. Right. Well you know Daniel beer comes over and then they go from like 10 or 15 agents at eXp in that market to 100 in less than a month. So yeah the comic you get on a rare occasion I know you have talked about how many states you have agents in a revenue share now but the comment that sometimes in I'm gonna make this statement people will say well in my market there aren't very many agents. Maybe it won't work here. What do you say to that. BRENT: My gosh escape your market. Here's a cool way I used to live in Chico California college town. And when I finally moved down to Sacramento a suburb of Rosewell my income went from you know I was making I don't know a 150 thousand a year 180 to over 400 thousand a year because I moved to a bigger market. But if you don't want to leave your town which many of you don't. Here's a way by telling people about the eXp you're able to escape your town. I have an agent who joined us up in Anchorage she has 60 listings now there are 60 eXp listings overnight in Anchorage. Talk about an expansion model. Honolulu Hawaii we have that number one Keller Williams luxury agent one of them doing one to five million. She moved the eXp. Now I get paid on wholesales in Honolulu where in 37 states they answer your question. But my first year I thought I think it's a work I got admit I like well it's either going to work or not I'll get me eXp six months. If it doesn't work I'll go back to Keller Williams, they'll take me back. Six months later it had worked beyond my wildest dream. Some people this is your stay at your company. I could have done that. I had the regional owners begged me to stay offer me ownership offer me. What do we have to do to get you to stay. Nothing. I know what Keller Willaims is it's great but he can't offer me this opportunity. I'm going to go try it but I'll be honest with you. Kevin I go six months it's either good work or it's not. And my first year I earned almost half a million in stock over 400000 and I got paid liquid cash over 500000 in rev share. When you combine the two that's 900000 dollars outside of my team I came to the eXp with 18 agents at the end of the year I had 18 agents. They were 100 percent retention. It was funky or weird. Some of them would quit. It's an important distinction to note. We had a 100 percent retention zero attrition because they're all acquiring stock. They're all acquiring revenue share they're getting more leads and they're getting training. They love to have 100 percent there year later. Plus we added five more buyers agents wasn't even trying to do that. So now 23 unbelievable by the way. We just had a star agent in the San Francisco Bay Area Los Gatos just leave Keller Williams. This year he'll do a quarter of a billion in sales. His name is Brett Jennings. Gary Kilar heard about it last week. He said called him up personally said get on a plane come see me in Austin. I've arranged for you to fly out tonight. First class ticket on a red eye. You'll get here tomorrow. Gary spent six hours with Brett and said hey here's what we're doing. It's amazing. Brett Jennings came back and he thought long and hard and that was this weekend and Sunday night he packed up his office with his agents and his staff. There were close to 20 there in Los Gatos this morning in Los Gatos the Silicon Valley the Bay Area. They come in their star who's doing a quarter of a billion. He the number one Keller Williams aged Northern California Hawaii. His office was empty and he Just in ya know some trash cans and desks and tables left in office. They were free. Talk about a mic drop where to go. People already call me he's at eXp. And if you listen this you need to investigate eXp, it's real it's the fastest growing most dynamic real estate company in North America. All the stars are coming. It is exploding I heard what people in the queue. We have ten thousand agents now. When I was here 16 months ago there were fourteen hundred and now we're at 10000. That's not doubling or tripling or quadrupling it's exploding it's it's unbelievable what's happening and we will be at 30 and 40000 agents in the next year or two and then we're going to 80 to 100000. I'll tell you this we're growing internationally across Canada we're going to open up Mexico we're going to open up the Philippines South America, Brazil, Chile Argentina. I'm going to get paid on home sales in South America and South Korea, Japan and China. It's going to happen Coldwell bankers worldwide Remax is world worldwide but we will grow faster and here's why there are 206 countries in the world. There are 25 million real estate agents and brokers and I'm telling ya eXp is going to have a couple million of those 25 million and I plan on having hundreds of thousands a part of my organization. I'm working hard for people. Kevin you're working hard for people. Gene Frederick is working hard. Rob Flixscott and Tracy Lewis there are so many amazing people at this company and it's just exciting to see what's happening. You know I was thrilled to be Kelly Holmes. I am ten times more excited at be eXp because of what it does. People have so much hope they like can't sleep. So excited I can't sleep. And it reminds me of Keller Williams back in the late 90s and they invented something that was better company exploded. They're a great company their a fine company. They just don't have six different stock awards. They don't have the revenue sharing components. They don't have five to 10 classes a day at least at this point that we have access to that eXp does in the cloud and they don't turn on agents phones and have the ability to deliver 100 to 200 300 leads a month through conversion and we're coming up with Cavey care. I think is it Cavey Care, am I saying it right. KEVIN: Cavey Core. BRENT: Victor Core which is like conversion times 10 with the tools it is unbelievable. Buckle up the world is about to see the most dynamic real estate company ever to hit planet earth like a Netflix like a Google like an Amazon. This is a game changer and it's for real. KEVIN: Well some of the stuff you touched on a lot of mega agents and mega mega agents and expansion agents are going to listen to this and I want to make something very clear that you touched on which is you're going to get called to Austin or wherever headquarters is for the franchise system you're in and they're going to offer you the world but don't get confused by waved caps right. If you look at it let's say they wave 200 300000 dollars where the caps for him how much equity you have. Right. BRENT: By the way Brett Jennings has offered four hundred thousand dollars by compass and turned it down. KEVIN: Sure. So you look at the value proposition but what I'm dealing about in the franchise system I want people to hear this pretty clearly they're going to attempt to lure you back with free caps so even if you've got in this case this mega mega team. A quarter of a million three or four hundred thousand dollars in waved caps which is why you're going to go to that's their only lever. Don't get confused with the fact that you are passing equity because here's what they're trying to do. They're looking to do a Silicon Valley play which is if you can keep a key executive off of the playing field so they can't earn equity and they can't earn incentive compensation until the opportunity is gone. They no longer have the incentive to leave. And so if they could keep them out of play for a few years by giving them a free cap he doesn't get to own the equity or the revenue share. So if you're hearing this and you're thinking about doing something we'll talk about due diligence steps here in a minute. Don't ever get confused about why they're doing this. They want you to get to the point where you don't have an opportunity for revenue share you have the opportunity for equity. Brent you said after 16 months what does your equity look like right now. BRENT: Close to half a million in stock. And this year my CO sitting over here will make close to 2 million liquid cash my second year. And if the stock does well who knows I won't go on record right. Definitely have my thoughts on how that stock's going to go. I can tell you this it was three dollars a share when I got in 16 months ago and it's trading at over 12 dollars a share today. You know what I'll trade at tomorrow but that's kind of interesting. What was it before that. Years and years ago it was 13 cents a share and 20 cents a share than a dollar of the two and then three and six then nine now it's 12. Who knows what the future will be maybe to go the other way. But I had 20 years of zero I do want to say this Kevin. When you go back to your broker and go well what do you think this is what I think your broker. And it doesn't matter where you go if it's eXp and you're a ReMax agent you're thinking about going to Coldwell Banker or Coldwell Banker agent and you're thinking about going to Better Homes or you're a better homes agent and you're thinking about going to Keller Williams. It doesn't matter where you're going your brokers even go that's so awesome. You're leaving our company Century 21 and you're going to Better Homes wow we're so excited. That's a that's a great idea. That is not going to happen. They get really negative. Every reason reasonable world why you shouldn't be at Remax why you shouldn't. Go to Coldwell Banker. Why Keller Williams is a huge mistake and Remax did it with me when I went to Keller. They were wrong. Keller was better and then Keller didn't tell me about eXp, passionately told me this was a bad idea and about a listen to him. I wouldn't be making a few million dollars this year. And I wouldn't have all the stock in it so great to see people's lives change. I have many people many many many many people making 5 15 20 25 30 thousand a month Revenue shares. Some of them just a lousy thousand 2000 dollars a month. I know my second month I earned five thousand dollars. Revenue sharing my first month 9800 by my third month I was making ten thousand a month. And by fifth month I was making 25000 a month revenue share outside of sales every single month compared to profit sharing which after eight years I was averaging four hundred a month. And because our office was no longer as profitable and if you're not as crud I'm making 2000 a month congratulations your office is running very profitable right now. I was no longer running the office wasn't in charge of the bottom line and mine had dropped to 400. But to be able a little point where I was knocking down 25000 a month every month like clockwork. Not a year but a month and then go to the point where I was making 40 50 60 and 70 thousand a month every month, not year. You're special. Come on. I mean that you know you do the work you earn the money. I went enroll 24 people in three and a half months. And it just went berserk. Go do that. Just go give it a shot. Learn more about the company but just remember your brokers not going yay that's so cool eXp such a great idea. They will offer you ownership. They will offer you money they will offer you free offices, they will give you 100 percent cap. They will do anything they can they'll offer to fly you to Austin first class and spend six hours with you. If you're a big enough player which is exactly what Gary Keller did personally with Brett Jennings and you know what after that Bret goes wow it's impressive thank you. He's grateful to Keller. But the value proposition is so powerful he had to leave the company he loved like me for eXp and he is excited. And today's his first day eXp there's a big huge empty office at Los Gatos Keller Williams homes and they're in shock that their star left their star agents are leaving the top brokerages nationwide. I'll just tell you this Kevin in Sacramento we pulled the numbers Coldwell banker is losing agents not gaining not for the month but for the year they're down Century 21 went down Remax down Keller Willaims down that number one company losing agents is Keller Williams actually followed by Coldwell bankers, Century 21 to Remax. Now the companies that are growing third place Homes Smarts second place Realty One first place eXp. 16 months ago not a sale today 10 percent market share. One of California's largest metropolitan cities was scratched the 10 percent market share. This year we're probably at a 20 25 percent market share eXp is coming on like a hurricane. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. KEVIN: You know what's interesting about this Brett. You got the red eye flights into Austin right. We're just talking about one example right Remax all the same thing. But the next card to be played. Mark my word is going to be pressure on the market center owners in the OPs to drop their caps to try and give people incentives to stay. They don't get it. They don't understand the market's been disrupted and all that's going to do and I'm tying this down to your point when you see that if you're at the franchise system where they just cut the caps in half. Brett what would that have done to your Roseville market center if somebody came to you and said you going half what happens to profitability. BRENT: Profitability was already totally hurt. So yeah I mean the way it decimates slopes are going to push back and they're in a tough situation they've got these commercial leases signed on these giant behemoth options that hold two or three hundred agents in some cases 4 5 6 hundred agents they've got 5 10 year commercial leases they're in big trouble. They'll say stuff like Well is it a sustainable model why don't you tell me when the market corrected last time at two thousand five six seven whatever you want to say till 2011 or 12. Who was hurting and people of big offices were hurting. eXp is cloud based. Now we have a joint venture with Regis, we have thousands of locations there are 12 Regis corporate suites in Sacramento. Some are amazing, some aren't as nice. Plus I have my own private office many agents have offices. So if you have an office keep an office just move out of where you are into some business park or corporate suite you'll be surrounded by people who aren't real estate agents or brokers. I mean it's so ironic well I like only the office really are surrounded by agents and brokers at my beautiful office I'm surrounded by a hundred forty professionals. You don't have real say license but they buy and sell real estate. List sell buildings. I mean it's been unbelievable for business, get out of your office and get out into a community and the best way to do that is be cloud based but if you like an office which I do. I have my own office you can afford and you get a pretty three hundred a month to work with your stockbroker your Allstate agent your nations wide insurance agent farmers financial planner a lot of these people have offices they're not even using. Hey can I move for free and you can still have an office environment but eXp doesn't have it. So when times get tough the model that's not sustainable or the old way of doing things just ask Blockbuster. Ask Toys R Us asked Yellow Cab ask the hotel industry that's given their fanny handed to them by air BnB I mean the cloud based technology driven is where it's at. We got here 9 years ago. We've got a nine year headstart they'll be competitors that come in but baby were publicly traded we're we're growing and it's going to be nothing short of amazing so I'm just stoked if can't tell. KEVIN: Oh I'm right there with you. So if somebody is listening to this Let's say I'm a mega mega agent or a capper and I want to do the right thing I need to dive in and do some due diligence. What are the two or three things you think they should do to get the right answer. Before you answer one of the things I'm going let's say this as a caveat and we've done this on every interview is it doesn't matter who introduced you the eXp you'll hear Brent give his contact information at the end. We don't care how you got to introduce the eXp. Everybody is here to get you the right answers if you need to talk to Brett Gene or me or pat Hayes or whomever. We're all here to help regardless of how you were introduced to eXp. So Brent would a two or three things be that you recommend. BRENT: Well number one whoever turned you on eXp they got to this point you owe them a big old fat thank you a hug and kiss on the lips whatever you want but you need to stick with that person that person in my opinion should be your sponsor your rolling sponsor at eXp. The kind of thing where you shop around. If it wasn't for them he would even know about the opportunity. So a) My sponsor was a single mom out of Texas I've never met but I've changed her life. She's I don't know. Last I heard she's making 40000 a month revenue share. That will change a single moms life. And you know she helped me for the first two or three months and we were off running. You know so a we were you always been that should be your sponsor so if you reach out to Pat Hayes or Scott Tracy Lewis or myself or Gene Frederick and you already talking to someone we will love to talk to you and tell you about this amazing company. But whoever turned you on to the company in my opinion that should be your enrolling sponsor. End of story. End of story. I've had nine people ask me to sign them up I'm like nope. Because you've thought about this through somebody else whoever it is you need to go back to them. They need to sponsor you. I don't know that well I didn't know my sponsor either. I met her one time for 60 seconds. Thank God she called me and turned me on to this. I knew I would be interested in the eXp. I mean my gosh what could possibly be better than Keller Williams. In my mind I'll be like your company. I didn't like mine. I loved mine and for this company to do what it did for me. I'm so grateful to her so it doesn't matter whether you know your sponsor but you should call people ask questions get going and if someone tries to recruit you away from ever turned you on to this I highly recommend you not enroll with them because they have no integrity and it's just it turns my stomach. So someone is trying to convince you to go with them over somebody else. They have a massive lack of integrity. MAJOR red flag. I highly recommend you not go with them and you go with the person who turns you on eXp in the first place. Yet owe it to them. So that's my two cents I got off topic on that one a little bit but I just want to cover it. KEVIN: I'm glad you did because for the vast vast majority this is a culture that is not visible to the outside world eXp. I mean we both came from a franchise system that talks about culture and win win and values. I can tell you haven't been and experienced it in that franchise system and here. The culture is amazing from a standpoint of people helping you know it and it doesn't matter if it's me or Jean or you Brent it doesn't matter how you came into the system were here all the way down to the agent in Anchorage you mentioned. Doesn't matter who gets tapped on the shoulder to help the culture of win inside of you eXp is amazing. So before I let you drop off Brent any final thoughts and then I want to get your contact information in case somebody wants to reach out to you. BRENT: You bet. I do want to say one thing about the culture of this company. It is amazing. It's always great people from all the greatest companies coming together. The culture is unreal. Well I'm doing four hundred million a year. I got you know sixty five buyer's agents. Why would I want to do this. Because 16 months ago I only had 18 and I was severed to the market conditions are Sacramento California now. My business is up and up throughout 37 states. I'm diversified and I now have as of today 1489 brokers and agent associates of the eXp that I get to share revenue on and they are thrilled to be here. So my team went from 18 to 14 189 across 37 states and throughout Canada. So I highly recommend you look at this because where we you 16 months ago. I don't know 40 50 agents what you got now 60 maybe that a hundred and look at how powerful this model it's not me it's the value proposition. How powerful eXp is. I hope you come to our next big annual conference which is in New Orleans in October. By the time this goes out we'll have past our shareholders meeting in Las Vegas which happens April 5th and 6th it's probably by the time this hits the open market that a year passed. But we do two events here the next on 22nd 23rd 24th double check the dates in October in New Orleans. It's going to be an absolute hottest ticket in real estate in North America the fastest growing most dynamic real estate company that is changing people's lives like I've never seen eXp come out there. Check us out. Bring people. I did. And I got an unfair advantage and my business exploded because of what I learned from that event. So that's all I've got to say. KEVIN: Fantastic Brent. Somebody who is listening to this. They want to get a hold of you, what's the best contact information for you. BRENT: I'd be happy to answer your questions and send it right back to them and they should be your sponsor. End of story. 916-223-5555 is my cell phone 916-223-5555. Text me not going to give out my email address because I gave up reading email last summer. My staff reads my email. I don't do email. Course I do email but my staff will be the talking to my staff not me. You want to talk to me. Text me. That's how I prefer to communicate. That's what happens when you're 59 and you're a baller. You get to call the shot. So the number is 916 223 5555. Text me your question if you want to talk just text me the words Call me and tell me who you are and where you're from and I'll reach out to you when I get a break. Probably the same day usually within an hour or two just depends on what I've got going so I hope this was helpful Kevin. KEVIN: Absolutely. Thank you for coming on the show. BRENT: All right take care. Bye everybody.

In The Cloud Realty Explained Podcast - Introduction Episode In this first episode Real Estate industry veteran and host Kevin Cottrell and co-host Gene Frederick introduce us to the In The Cloud Realty Explained Podcast and talk about why they are getting the word about EXP out there through this podcast. The EXP model is a breakthrough model offering agents real company revenue share and increasing sales and income. Popular and highly successful Real Estate Agents are more and more joining EXP and will be interviewed in the following episodes of the In The Cloud Realty Explained Podcast debunking all rumors and misinformation by sharing their personal experiences and talking about how and why they moved to EXP.  Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   EXP offers agents: Company Revenue Share Quick and easy collaboration between agents through the cloud based system Frequent detailed online training A community of Agents helping each other Benefits and growth   Take away EXP is agent driven, agent focused and is the fastest growing Real Estate company.   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION KEVIN: Welcome to the first episode of In The Cloud. The EXP Explained Podcast I am host Kevin Cottrell and I'm pleased to have my co host Gene Frederick here with me welcome Gene. GENE: Hey Kevin how are you. KEVIN:  I am well so this is our first episode where we get to let people know about this disruptive podcast that we're launching. So when you and I were brainstorming about how to get the word out about EXP in other words there's so much misinformation. What was it that you thought was so important about us getting the word out and why we should do this in this podcast. GENE: Well I think the agents that are joining us. Kevin you and I have talked about it. The quality of real estate agents that are joining us across the nation is just phenomenal. I don't think I've ever ever seen it in the industry before. And so the level the quality of professionals that are joining us from all other types of companies and independents. We felt you and I talked about it to hear prominently why they made the decision so quick and they're joining us so fast and again you and I have been attracting agents all our lives and we've never seen agents at this caliber make the decision in such a short amount of time in a week in ten days in two weeks. And they've been at other companies for oh my gosh 10 years 15 years 20 years. So there's no better way to do it than do podcasts and actually hear it from their own words as to why they made their decisions. Because it's going to vary from agent to agent. KEVIN: Well I think it's also important and we talked about this with the fact that as the number of agents per week or per month has ramped up there's been a lot of noise and misinformation in the industry and there's no better way to get things out than to hear directly from agents. In other words it doesn't matter if they came from a franchise system or they came somewhere else. There's a lot of that back channel chatter about oh you know John left for this reason are oh she or he left for this reason. And the agents in their own words. It's pretty incredible not only for the reason you just mentioned with them joining quickly but the level of due diligence. I mean these are people that are running big businesses. I mean we've got interviews lined up with people that you know maybe as a 5 or 6 million dollar producer maybe it's a brokerage that had 50 75 agents 100 agents. Maybe it's a 250 million dollar a year team that was the top team for their franchise. Across the board everyone looked at the value proposition and their own words they're going to share with you things like they they're blown away. "I can't believe it". "I've never seen anything like this". "I can create wealth for my team". And as you mentioned both of us were team leaders never in my career. Never in your career did we have a 250 million dollar producer go OK I'm in. I'm going even after you know as we know as team leaders they get wowed by their franchise don't they right? They get flown into the headquarters and they get the real dog and pony and we're still seeing them coming aren't we. GENE: Well what's excited about Kevin is our system our model is the same for everyone. It's just the opposite of what most companies do. Like you mentioned wine and dine them and offer them money and offer them freebies here and freebies there. What we're doing is exactly the opposite. This model is the same for a person that's doing three million a year that somebody is doing 300 million a year. It's the same exact model. And I really think that attracts every agent from a brand new agent all the way up to a mega mega agent and that's exciting to me is that they're looking at the model they're researching it. Some of them for months I have a lot of the top agents. They've taken a month out of their lives to research us and they've come back and go well it's real. It's working. And I said Yeah. And now again on the other flipside I've had agents go you know I've been at the same company for 20 25 years. I've seen every model out there. This is the first one that's intrigued me. Well it's because it's the first different model and you and I've talked about it and that's what's with these podcasts are going to show it's a brand new real estate brokerage model that Glen Sanford invented back in late 2009. It's just his brilliance and the fact that him and Jason guessing who's been our CEO now for you know since we started in late 2009. Those two gentlemen have brought this model to life and we're just here just can't wait to hear different agents describe what hit them. Boom agent ownership what hit them revenue share and like you said with big teams they really really care about their team members and they want their team members to have a better life and have equity in their lives and have a cash flow that maybe will continue in their later years so it's very very exciting I can't wait to the people we've got tap that you guys are going to hear are just the who's who of the industry and it's going to be exciting exciting podcasts that we're doing. KEVIN: I want to echo that because I can tell you in a lot of the interviews I did the whole team aspect people caring about their team members the normal cycle right? You know some of the franchises really focus on teams like those rainmakers will be going to a multi market, attract talent right they're focused on that laser focused. And then there's a built in conflict right. You get your talented person that's on the listening side of the buy side. They grow up they mature in the business and then the built in conflict is they want to go do their own thing. And when you hear these EXP agents that have been around for a little bit what they're doing is they're trying to nurture these people now to go do exactly that because the revenue share and the equity and everything is such a win for everybody. They want them to succeed. In other words you don't have that normal strife that occurs if somebody has a team and then the lead listings special's wants to go form their own team and then there's now strife between the original rainmaker and them. I've got interviews where people are telling me that's not what happened I'm encouraging my people to do that. The second thing they're talking about in many of these interviews is revenue share. They are working diligently with their team members to build them basically residual income and they're having success with that that helps with retention and helps with growth that helps with attraction for them as their value proposition as a team. It's as you said Gene it's a breakthrough model that eliminates so many of the problems right? There's franchise systems and you and I work for a great one right? They claim they were agent focused and if you look at this compared to that are not aged in focused. In other words all of the agents are pulling the same direction every agent that we interview on here gives their contact information and makes the statement I don't care how you learn about EXP. If you have questions and you feel I can help you make a great decision text me call me. Let's have a conversation about it. Other than being a shareholder and an advocate an evangelist for EXP those agents have no direct benefit. And you and I both know as team leaders in a franchise system. We didn't have that kind of culture and dynamic and that's one of the biggest ahas I've seen in the interviews that I've done where people are just blown away as they get inside the EXP with the culture. The fact that all of the agent owners are pointed in the same direction and willing to help and that's something that I know Gene you and I talk about a lot. It's a pretty incredible thing to witness isn't it. GENE: Oh yeah. It's so fun when when I first met Glenn three years ago Glenn Sanford's our founder and visionary. He said Gene we're going to create a collaborative model. And I heard that word collaborative and I said well it's collaborative mean? What does that really mean? Well when you get into our 3D dimensional world which is our cloud office it just comes to life. And the fact that you could meet someone in that model as a 3D dimensional person as an avatar and meet someone all the way across the United States in a span of minutes the collaboration that you feel. And then when you it's funny Kevin you and I've talked about it when you meet that person in person because we still believe in personal contact. Of course we have two big events a year that we get all the agents together. We do live training in our markets almost every single month in every single city. But when you meet that person and you've like maybe from Boston and you live in California and then you meet him in that event and you've only met them as an avatar and then you meet them in person you go Oh man I could feel that was you. And the connection and the collaboration that we're having so fast is just what's going on in the Internet age and it's what's going on in the retail industry with everything shutting down with Amazon. We've never had a disruptive technology like our 3D dimensional world in the real estate field and that's what I'm excited to share with everybody. I want you to hear the enthusiasm from these people that are your partners because we're true partners as we all owned stock together in this company and that's the biggest difference I can see. KEVIN: Well absolutely and I had an interview with a rainmaker from a team she does about 40 million a year and 200 transactions in the Dallas Fort Worth area and she made the comment coming from a franchise system she said I can't believe how much closer I'm working with the rainmaker from the number one team we were in the same market center. We never collaborated in a mastermind. We're now working together because we're both shareholders in the same company and we're focused she said. I see that across my marketplace and across the country and it blows me away. I mean she was on leadership committees she was fully bought in but she said the dynamic. I had no idea. I mean she's only been with the EXP for a couple of months but she said I am blown away by how much collaboration there is and she made the comment as well and I just want to tie down with this and get some final thoughts from you Gene is she said the cycle time of masterminding versus going to events only a couple of times a year right? All the big franchises and companies normally will get people together. There's not that online collaboration right in the cloud. She said "I'm able to collaborate with peers and others that I respect daily in the cloud" right the icon collaboration the masterminding and all of that occurs much more regularly than most people observe from the outside. So I think it's important for people listening to this to realize that if you look at the people were interviewing and the people in your market are across the they're joining EXP. Those are people you're going to mastermind with. And if you want to be part of that crowd that should be a big reason along with the words of these agents for why you want to take a good look at EXP. GENE: That's exactly right. Kevin I had a conversation just the other day with the gentleman that's been in the business 37 years and he's only been with EXP for a year. He says Gene you're going to think this is crazy but I've been masterminding with the different icons. We have an Eicon meeting once a week for the Eicon agents. He goes once a week I get in there for a half an hour and I mastermind with these other Eikon agents. He says I have learned more in the last year masterminding with these people than I have in the 37 years before I got to EXP. I said that's that's just phenomenal. And he goes I just can't believe it. It's just so much fun. Now again who would think that real estate can be fun again. You know it's your you and ours model, is making real estate fun again. Well being able to collaborate in a world like ours with our 3D dimensional world as we call it our office our campus our EXP world campus you're going to be able to mastermind with everybody all over the United States all over the world. And we're going to sell real estate quicker faster and better for our clients than anybody else. This is really really agent driven. Agent driven and agent focused. I'm excited. Can't wait to hear all the podcasts. KEVIN: Absolutely. It's going to be pretty exciting. I will leave this with this final thought unless Gene has something to add. If you and there'll be plenty of people that are the agents that will be listened to these episodes. If you have someone that you know in your market or across the country that's joined to that's got a great story get in touch with us there's contact information on the podcast page in terms of me interviewing them or Gene talking with them on the podcast. We're happy to were not doing just the initial interviews. This is going to be a regular podcast with three new episodes every week. Look forward to it. Thanks for coming on the GENE: Thank you Kevin. Looking forward to it.    

Interview – Robert Creamer & Les McDaniel On today’s Episode we have Robert Creamer and Les McDaniel. Robert graduated with a degree in Real Estate from the University of North Texas. He then joined Eddie Holiday in Dallas to start their commercial arm. Shortly thereafter he joined Keller Williams when realizing they were forming a bigger division prior to starting the CMO commercial group in 2011. This episode covers how Robert and Les reached 90 million in volume and paid out 150,000 dollars last year in referral dollars to residential Realtors, why they chose eXp Realty and how they are experiencing exponential growth. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Process of transitioning to eXp Realty The Texas market Residential referrals at eXp A look at the cloud environment Why the eXp system is set up for collaboration Where is the future going? The company culture at eXp Realty Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or one of the contacts below to inquire or ask questions. Contact Robert via email at creamer@cmocre.com Contact Robert via phone at 214-564-8909 Contact Les via email at les@cmocre.com Contact Les via phone at 512- 963-2973 Noteworthy “The global environment, the ability to reach out to everybody, where have meetings in the cloud where we see the environment of real estate going and then the revenue share on top of that was a no brainer.” “On the year that we had the largest commercial sale in history, and the second largest transaction in KW history we decided to make the move on top of the fact that since we were managing and helping lead a division we did have a sweetheart deal which was even more shocking to a lot of people.”   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Kevin: Welcome to the show Robert and Les. Robert: Hows it going. Less: How's it going. Kevin: It's going excellent. I've been looking forward to this conversation now for some of the listeners on the podcast that may not be familiar with you. I don't know who wants to go first but why don't you guys give me a little bit of the background on CMO and how you guys have been involved in the commercial real estate side of things. Robert: Well sure I'll go this is Robert Creamer got my degree in real estate from the University of North Texas in 2005. Jumped in with Eddie Holiday in Dallas to start their commercial arm. Learned that KW is forming bigger division. Jumped over in August of 2007 was there until end of last year. We formed the CMO commercial group in 2011. As my career progressed we reached up to 90 million in volume. We paid out 150,000 dollars last year in referral dollars to residential realtors which we are extremely proud of because that is our niche. Residential realtors we want them to be our partners in our business and that's pretty awesome we think. We have grown our team from 3 to 9 commercial associates. We have a huge track for growth right now and we have a lot of really awesome things that are really been official and we're super excited. Kevin: So if you look at that history and obviously you've got very very successful large commercial practice and you get referrals fed in. And you mentioned you get referral business out of the residential side of the house and you're at Keller Williams. How did you go from having a rapidly growing business and I know just for reference for anybody listening. You also had a very large transaction in the Keller Williams system, I think it was if not the largest one of the largest ever second largest highly successful business. You guys are humming along. Walk me through how you take a big team like that and you decide when you're an integral part of the Keller Williams commercial side of things to come over the eXp Realty. What was the process there? Robert: You know our team was doing phenomenal things at KW commercial and we heard about eXp. We were investigating it and we really wanted to bet the company because we didn't want to make a bad business decision and bring a lot of people with us right. On the year that we had the largest commercial sale in history, and the second largest transaction in KW history we decided to make the move on top of the fact that since we were managing and helping lead a division we did have a sweetheart deal which was even more shocking to a lot of people. We had a sweetheart deal the largest sales still left. So a lot of things happened. But let's talk for a minute. Less: There's another piece of this that is.. I'm not upset about or we're not upset about it but the reality is that KW is so big. You know the recognition that we need to continue to grow our business and sustain it wasn't something that was going to be happening at a large level, at the greater KW level. You know. We were trying to build a business based upon referrals which is what we've been... I was told from day one coming into commercial real estate was good residential referrals and we didn't have the support structure in place with them to actually provide that. And so that move, it made a lot of sense. When we were actually talking to the CEO and the president of eXp. We have their attention that they want to be family that they want to be available and so that was really attractive to us and we knew for a fact that with 8000 member strong company that we can get in there and we can become family with 8000 rather than trying to pick out and target 150000 or 40000 whatever agents and maybe get a few and do a good job at it. We're coming in and we're at the beginning of this as the commercial guys that have a lot of opportunity with 8000 agents and I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't want to be able to do that. And I believe that's how we're going to become the largest commercial and residential real estate company in the world is through referrals so that's kind of where we are at. Kevin: That's an interesting point because I think that for people listening there's nothing wrong with Keller Williams and I have a long history with Keller Williams and they're a great company. But what people in the industry fail to understand because Keller Williams is a large franchise system, Remax is a franchise system. There's everything prior to eXp was all franchise oriented. And so what ends up happening we going to dissect Texas for a minute. Right you have a presence in Dallas you have a presence in Austin in different markets and even within those markets there's different market centers and each one is almost like its own little island right. So if we translate that into eXp Realty and I'm doing this for listener purposes, the ability. We'll just talk about residential referrals for agents to collaborate mastermind and share in the cloud the way eXp is set up is much more dynamic, it's much more fruitful and it is happening a lot more continuously. In other words you can go into the cloud environment the eXp world and you would be able to interact with this larger volume of agents. Now if I take that in the franchise system, even though you guys were successful and you talked about paying out that large volume of referrals and Keller Williams system, I would imagine a big part of the calculus is when you looked in there and looked under the hood the system is set up for collaboration because we don't have islands that are market centers or offices. I've got to imagine that was a big part of what you guys figured out pretty quickly. Less: Oh it's huge. I also have to say that the first day that we joined we were introduced in the virtual world but it was still impressively powerful to 350 agents that were there. We've never had an audience of 350 agents where we get to talk about commercial real estate at KW. And it's not their fault, it's just that they can't there's not that system set up yet but this support to where that area where we have our meetings can truly become larger and larger and larger and we can still have that platform and others can have that platform. And it's across the nation. So it's a huge benefit to have that globalized society if you were no longer seeing the boundaries of states and all that and being able to collaborate with others basically feels like are in the same room they are, virtual. Kevin: Absolutely. So if you look at your previous operation and you're in multiple markets in Texas I think that certainly there'll be plenty of eXp agents and agents from outside that maybe are in a franchise. Your model is to operate multistate. So if somebody is listening to this and their adn EXP agent for example and they have a potential commercial transaction we'll get your contact information in here before we wrap up. But you guys are available to take a look at potential commercial referrals not just a market like Austin or Dallas. You're looking at operating in a larger environment. Robert: Oh absolutely. We loved our experience at KW. We had nothing but good things to say. We grew the team we had a lot of opportunity there. We loved it. One thing we saw was the future where is the future going. Do we need this office space? How can we really grow at an exponential volume and reach people because everything is going online. The business model is going global. So how can we reach agents in every state easily, efficiently and really help more and more people because the more people we can help it's just going to be awesome our business will grow. Their's will grow. We're I mean the whole real estate environment is going to change over the next three to five years. It's already changing. Kevin: Well absolutely and I'm glad you touched on the bricks and mortar attacks back because I know that you know in some of the meetings we've been in together that's a big part of the discussion. In other words in a franchise system, they are all oriented around physical locations even though you go to those market centers or those offices and there's not a lot of agents there. So it's sort of like a dichotomy right you've got this gigantic office in some cases in the franchise system you just came from. But yet. If you compare it to the overall agent count there's not a lot of agents there. It's more transient right. They come and go. Now in your world I know you're potentially going to have some physical Prem for the team and be able to have some aspects of that. Seems like the cloud environment allows you a much bigger reach. Less: Oh absolutely. I mean it's kind of one of those elements for me that kind of cracks me up about how the agentcentric concept is being pushed by so many of these franchise models with bricks and mortar and I can't think of anything that says your agents are number one more than when you're giving away ownership. And when you're giving away a benefit of paying them off the top for people that they bring in that are great you know real estate agents and not just any agent but top producing agents that are flocking over there right now. In my mind I look at that and go "How can anyone say that they're really truly agent centric when right now it's almost impossible for anyone coming in at the later stages to see much of a margin from profitability". To me this is just such a great model and it's one that really says you guys are important and we want you to be the owners, we want you to be the ones who direct the company and they're listening they're moving as quickly as possible to answer any questions we have and the availability is great because of the world Kevin: You guys have a unique perspective on this. Those of us that come out of the franchise system and I certainly used to not only understand it at a high level but taught market center financials. I mean when you've got a plug in Team Leader and administrative staff and actual and this is your world the physical space that could accommodate a large volume of agents your PNL is already heavily laden with expenses that in a model like eXp realty you just don't have. So as Agent shareholders in a business I'm sure it was really apparent from a PNL standpoint that this economic model for lack of a better analogy runs circles around the one where I've got to pay for space and people just to keep the lights on. Less: Oh yeah I think Robert talked about your experience as a managing director and recruiting you did. And ultimately what you get paid from that was not much in terms of your recruiting efforts. Small check one time you were so proud of. Robert: The idea of profit sharing is phenomenal. It's the companies giving back. You want to help them grow because you're excited the company gets excited everyone is making money together right whatever. We train and they produce we produce together. But we found the reality is you had to have a huge number of people in your downline to actually see an impact. I understand the tree concept where you get your first couple levels or you go deep there and those that go deeper you go wide there and they go deeper you later. But even then you need quite a considerable amount of agents to make an impact on your well-being, your life, your retirement. Where this model, because expense side is diminished so much they have the capability to pay at a much higher level and off the top that was icing on the cake. The global environment, the ability to reach out to everybody, where have meetings in the cloud where we see the environment of real estate going and then the revenue share on top of that was a no brainer. We really see some huge potential in our little over 8000 agents. Right now we are pretty sure we'll be over 20000 into the year. I mean this is happening. It's really exciting. We're super excited our team is excited. We cannot wait to see where we are in five years. Kevin: Yeah it's a game changer and that's the fun part on this, there's a lot of misinformation in the marketplace about revenue share not being sustainable, you can't pay money off the top. And what I always tell people and this will be no surprise to the two of you because you've heard me say this is for anybody that thinks that what you should probably ask if you're in a franchise system is how do the regional owners or owners of the company get paid. And they typically get paid off the top. It's either royalty and or company dollar and royalty and they get paid on Agent count. And so if you actually look at the model and the economics, this is 100% identical to how in a franchise system I'll just take Keller Williams because that's where I came from most recently, they pay the regional owners. So in other words if you own North Texas and you own all of those market centers, you're getting paid on the agent account off the top. Just like the equivalent of revenue share. Don't let anybody confuse you with the fact that this is sort of an unproven uncharted territory. This is exactly how the franchise systems pay the regional owners in the way that they can do it. What's viable is what Les and Robert just talked about where you look at the profit loss and not having staffing and the physical premises you have to pay for the economic model makes it that much more viable. I too like you guys am fully vested in the Keller Williams profit. I still get checks. I still am in the system so I get it, right? I've been on both sides of the fence. I would always challenge people that if I had my choice I would always want to be a regional owner instead of relying on profit share. You can make money in both but the regional owners are the ones that make the big money. Less: In the initial stages, even the owner of Keller Williams I just know Keller Williams well like you because I was there 10 years right. So we got to see a lot of growth and lot of exciting things but one of the things they said and I know is when you franchise it's because you don't have the capital to expand as much as you want. So you bring in other investors in your franchise. It's easier, you can grow faster. The problem is you give of ownership. Gary Keller himself said if I could do it all over again I'd create the largest real estate company in the world or the largest real estate team in the world. So he's actually said that. The other thing he did overseas which he altered from profit share was a revenue share model overseas where he went from 6 percent to 8 percent and never capped it which is pretty phenomenal considering we're here now in 2018 with a non franchise model and a revenue share model. Kevin: It is an interesting thing you know as they learn and they did things you know I think if it was back in the 90's Gary would do it completely differently. So I want to talk about your team for a minute. You mentioned something and I want to tie it down for listeners because we've had plenty of guests on the podcast talk about this from a retention standpoint because certainly revenue share will be a benefit for you Robert and you Less but you also have team members. You said everybody's pretty excited and I want for people listening to this whether they're in the commercial space or the residential to be thinking about this. What was your thought on that from a retention standpoint in other words revenue share for team members. Less: That's probably one of the driving factors for me is that in my mind it would be irresponsible not to give them the opportunity to be at the top of this company, to be somebody who can bring people in and be leaders because they all want to be leaders at some level. We don't have anybody on our team just like Hey I just want to make a living. I mean everybody is driven to seed and this provides to me a more organic means of leadership growth where a mistake can't be made of a leader that is placed in a position through any other way than hard work and proving themselves because they're either going to be a leader or they're not. Based upon what they're doing and my team can see that they already see the leadership that's in the company they see what's happening in the company with people who joined earlier and are showing up to help recruit in helping us to build our business. That's what leadership's about. And it creates this camaraderie that we don't have competition among market centers. It's a camaraderie that says we're all working together to see if we can't get this thing be giant. My team sees it and it creates that momentum for us when we're together just to continually put that vision in front of them. Let's go Big let's make this about the relationships we have and build upon those. For me it's a no brainer and it's an irresponsibility factor on my end, not only from my family to not do it but also for my team. That's huge. And anybody who won't listen to and I'll just be frank anybody who won't listen to the presentation and considered as a possibility is irresponsible, straight up irresponsible. Kevin: And I would tend to agree with that. And for anybody listening I mean the challenge with teams and this is not residential or commercial issue is just a team issue in the franchise system is retention. You'd spend a tremendous amount of time recruiting, building teams. You pour a lot of energy into training and getting people productive and that if you go into these mastermind meetings and I know you guys have been in there you know whether it's led by Gary at the top 100 or it's led by somebody else, you get these rainmakers that own these teams saying my toughest thing is keeping people on the roster, not getting them to do their own thing. Well in the eXp realty model, I want to get you guys perspective on this. Not only can they get revenue share but if everybody's a shareholder, we're all pointed in the same direction. It's a huge retention tool as well. But I also like the fact that you mentioned culturally whether people are in somebody's revenue share group or not everybody shows up to assist. It's an interesting culture. I mean I've seen people in the cloud or in the workplace environment go in and post they need help literally within 15 60 minutes they've got somebody somewhere else in eXp that has nothing to gain other them culture for the company, raise their hand and say I know how to fix this, let's get on the phone and me walk you through it. Could be allegiances them. It could be something they need to do to make their business work better. It is coming out of a franchise system it is one of the most surprising but pleasing things that I saw in there and I know you guys see the same thing. Less: Oh sure. We have a great example that is leading the way for us and that's Gene having Gene Frederick be the guy who is... I mean he hasn't even gone as wide as he could in this world. Some people get that. What he is doing is is he's helping everybody else build their downline. He's just saying hey if you need help, call me and the guy is busy helping other people more than he's even helping himself right now and it's paying off. That's all we're doing for our team. And I think when we create that value for our team they want to be around because they know that we're going to go and talk with people on their behalf. We're going to help them build that side of their business and we'll do whatever it takes to do that. I mean that's another leverage point that for keeping people around that it's hard to argue with when you are helping when you're literally actively helping your people grow that part of their business that creates that family that creates that bond that it's just special. Kevin: I'm glad you stated that way Les because I think the one thing I've observed is for people that are over either as an independent. It doesn't matter residential or commercial or they're in a franchise system that's not very readily apparent because even a franchise system is very culturally oriented right. They talk a lot about it. It's just not executed in practicality the same way it is at eXp realty. You have to experience it. You can hear and you're not the only one on a podcast interview that talked about this and everybody being pointed in the same direction and helping and people going out of their way to make sure everybody succeeds. But having experienced that there are plenty of great people in franchise systems including the one that I just came from. But you look at it as an overall organization, the level of collaboration and culture is amazing and Gene's a perfect example of that. But there's plenty of other it's like for example our conversation about podcasting. You guys raised her hand and said hey we want to do one too about what we do in our commercial world. And I'm like sure I'll be happy to help you. And that's just an example of how we would collaborate. But even on the real estate side whether somebody wants to learn best practices on how to help attract people for revenue share or they want to learn about commercial real estate. Let's say that they're looking to grow what they're doing and they know commercial people in their part of the world. That's where you guys were raise your hand and go hey let me tell you how to attract the right agent to come in because it's realty is going to have a big commercial practice much like what you were involved with Robert as what you built over at KW. I mean I imagine and I want to give you a shot to talk about this for a minute. If somebody is listening to this and they're either know a commercial party that either has a team or they're a producer or they are one and they want to find out more. You're the guy to talk to you. Any other specific thoughts or stuff you want. That I maybe didn't bring up and then I want to get your contact information so if somebody is an agent at eXp and they want to get a hold of you with a potential commercial opportunity or somebody maybe as a commercial broker or a team either themselves or maybe then again there's an eXp agent that wants to refer you somebody that potentially could come over and bring their practice over. How did they get a hold of you? Robert: Well I'll talk about the commercial first because we really want to be commercial point of contact we really want to help the commercial agents at eXp grow in the right way because we found that our previous company there wasn't enough collaboration. People weren't running in the same direction. We kind of separated ourselves by what we were doing. We'd like to create here as we're going to create a 10 12 step module on how to become a commercial realtor. How does it succeed in commercial real estate. How do you gain confidence how to get referrals from residential agents. All of those tools we want to provide because we truly feel that the cloud environment is so beneficial to a commercial agent. So anyone out there has any questions on commercial real estate. Please reach out to us. We'll show you why going and talking to people who are already talking to everybody about real estate right. They're your easiest target. That's what you need to be talking to. Give us a call. We'll help train you. Shoot us an email. It's either creamer CREAMER or LES les at cmocre.com is our e-mails and our number... Less: Mine is 512 963 2973 and texting is definitely the best way to get a hold to me. Robert: And mine is 214 564 8909 and usually we cover central Texas. We are looking for talented commercial agents to expand into the rest of the country. So if you do have questions we'd love to hear from you. Less: Yeah absolutely. Kevin: Excellent. Well guys I'm sure we'll have you back on again. Any final thoughts before we wrap up today. Less: At the end of day for me this is something that is just exciting. I got to tell one story about Gene this past weekend we had a team meeting up in Dallas. He came up and did a live presentation to someone who had not heard a presentation before. It was that kind of thing that I think people don't realize it's special and we were texting with the CEOs and I'm not saying that's going to be forever thing. But right now family is family and it is really tight knit and I'm excited about really kind of breaking down some of the BS that's out there being said about what this company is in order to really show what a family looks like. That's exciting and I appreciate you letting us have the opportunity to share that from a commercial perspective. Who knows what the future holds with regard to how our company plays out here. But I think it's going to be big. Kevin: Absolutely. Thanks for coming on the show guys. Less: Absolutely. Hey thanks man.

Interview – Pat Hays In today’s episode we have Pat Hays. Pat started out in medical sales prior to purchasing a senior home care franchise. After selling his franchise, he found himself in a boutique brokerage firm in San Antonio, Texas before discovering a life changing opportunity at eXp Realty. In this episode, Pat shares how he was introduced to eXp Realty. We hear about his experience and how he created a revenue sharing organization of about 685 spanning 32 states and Canada in just 26 months. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Why Pat ultimately chose eXp over Keller Williams Who the best prospects for eXp are What is revenue sharing and why it is a sustainable model How eXp is different from any other company The perks at eXp including stock ownership, revenue sharing and free conversion Information about resources to learn more about eXp including Lunch and Learns, weekly live webinars and prerecorded videos Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or one of the contacts below to inquire or ask questions. If you are seeking further information, eXp has Lunch and Learn opportunities, weekly live webinars and other resources such as prerecorded videos that can be sent to you. Contact Pat Hays, call or text 210-693-8711 Contact Gene Frederick, text 703-338-1515 Tweetables “I've been a part of a lot of Fortune 500 medical companies and owned my own business. I've sold my own business and truly this is something that I've never seen before.” – Pat Hays “I was blown away with the the model with the revenue share and stock ownership and with the training and the lead generation tools that he provided.” – Pat Hays   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION KEVIN: Hey Pat welcome to the show. PAT: Good morning! Thanks for having me. KEVIN: I'm excited to have our conversation. You know I always like to dig in and find out why people have joined eXp Realty before we get into some of the specifics about that. Why don't you for listeners who aren't familiar with you get a little of your background in sort of what led up to your decision to decide to join the realty. PAT: Sure yeah. So I've got a pretty life changing story so I've had my license in San Antonio from San Antonio, Texas had my license since the end of 2007 and actually got my license to do farm and ranch with a big broker based out of Hondo, Texas. I was doing farm and ranch part time I was doing medical sales full time in San Antonio. You know I did the whole traditional you know go to college and get a degree and get out of college and you know go get a good job in corporate America. So I did that for about five and a half years. And I really loved I was actually doing medical sales really love medical sales. You know a great income from it you know learning a lot and many a lot of great people and doctors all around San Antonio. You know. But I was just kind of grinding. I was making great money but you know really working hard, 60 70 80 hours a week, and you know was kind of getting burned out of the whole corporate America rat race if you will and so I was looking to find a way to exit corporate America. And I actually found a way that the.. I'd say in 2010. I was able to actually exit corporate America and by Senior Home Care franchise. My dad was the CFO of a large senior home care franchise in San Antonio and I had the opportunity to buy an underperforming office from the corporate office and turned it into a franchise owned office which I owned and I did that for an investment for about three and a half years. So I took it from a two hundred twenty five thousand dollars in annual revenue to about a 1.3 million dollars in about three and a half years and ended up selling it in wanting to move back to San Antonio and get back into real estate on the residential side and so I did so and also alongside of doing that in real estate I actually was an investor in a startup digital media company which in about six months I lost over 300,000 dollars in that investment. So I had to make real estate work and I didn't want to join a big you know... KW office, Century 21 office, Remax office anything like that I wanted to start small and my business partner at the time with that digital media company actually introduced me to some brokers in San Antonio that were wanting to kind of start growing their boutique brokerage firm and so it was a great fit. And so I did so joined forces with them and really found my passion and real estate help and you know what consumers are with the largest purchase of their life which is their home. So my first year in real estate I did 3.2 million dollars. You know again my passion wanted to start a team. My second year I started that team. We did 2.5 million in production, 61 transactions and you know was really wanting to take it to the next level having a lot of fun. And I got a life changing phone call by Scott Lewis my mentor and sponsor in San Antonio. One December Monday afternoon wanting to share EXP with me and at the time I wasn't looking to make a change. I was very happy I was comfortable and very loyal and wasn't really wanting to make a change. He called me and asked that I take a look at this business model and I did so two hours after I got the life changing phone call I needed to find another brokerage firm and I took a look at that business model and I was blown away. I was blown away with the opportunity for one. I was blown away with you know the model with the revenue share with a stock ownership and with the training and the lead generation tools that he provided. And so I actually called up Scott the next day and said hey listen you know on needing to make a change wanting to make a change. And I really like what I see. You know let's talk and so we ended up talking. And whenever I met Scott Lewis there was actually two other gentlemen there the name of Gene Frederick and Rob Flic at that table and so I ended up you know sitting down my dad that was with me. He's recently retired and my CFO of my real estate business and we went there and wanted to learn a little bit more about the eXp. And I was blown away by for one the eXp business model. For two what you know Gene Frederick and Rob Flic had done at a previous company. And you know why they came to eXp was just mind blowing. So I really wanted to listen and a 45 minute meeting turned into several hours and I was blown away with the numbers and with what they were wanting to do the eXp in the next several years and so I wanted to join forces with them and so I did that you know guys it got my attention. You know let's do this and after two hours after I left that meeting I got a call from a broker in San Antonio wanting to talk to me about kind of what he can do with me and for my team. And so we ended our talk and I said hey you know what I'm looking to make a change I'm going to be making a change probably over the eXp Realty and he said "hey listen give me at least one hour tomorrow. I want to talk to you about kind of what I can do and how I can help you with you and your team" so I said OK you know what I respect that. I'm open mind, I'll definitely listen to you I'm listening to eXp, I'll definitely listen to what you have to say in that company was known as KW. KW is a great company and I had the opportunity to listen to that broker and to kind of make a long story short you know he was.. you know wanting to give me a lot of perks to come over to KW And so at the end of the conversation I was really leaning still towards the eXp not only for myself but for my teammates and their fans. I knew I needed to make a right decision to come over the eXp and really had my mind set on that and at the end of the conversation with that broker there at KW and I said hey listen you know can you answer these three questions. He said What do you got? I said for one can you give me revenue share. Not profit share he said "no I can't do that. You know that's not a business model". I said okay can you give me stock ownership and he said "no you know we're not publicly traded I can't do that". I said OK great. Can you give me conversion for free to help me generate massive amounts of buyer and seller leads from my team. He said no again you know that's not our business model I can't do that it's very expensive. I said OK you know what you just have to make my decision you know I'm going to eXp. And he literally lift me he said man you're going to go. And I said you know what it's not about really doing good, it's about providing and having the best brokerage firm and truly you know why I'm so blessed to be a part of eXp. And I said you know this is... I can offer this to other agents you know we're truly the first agent own cloud based brokerage firm. You know that I can offer all these perks to you know these other agents all across the country and so fast forward to eXp, 26 months I've been here eXp. Super blessed super excited about the opportunity some success that I've had and I personally introduced eXp to 26 agents out of those 26 agents. I've built a revenue shore organization of about 685 spanning 32 states and Canada in the last 26 months so you know this is only the beginning. I'm super excited about this opportunity super blessed to be a part and be in business with a lot of legends in the industry like our own Gene Frederick and it's truly a game changer and you know I'm looking forward to a growing eXp alongside of a lot of other rock stars. KEVIN: Fantastic and then that's a great overview and for listeners I want to come back and touch on some things and get back to talk a little bit more about it. Because you're out there now talking about eXp you're traveling you're actually on the road today in Raleigh. You made a comment that you said you weren't looking to make a change when you were approached and you were happy.I can tell you that when Gene and I talk to just about everybody, that is the default position and not that we think that it's kind of like it's not like a retail store when you go in and somebody says can I help you say I'm just looking. Now we get it the best prospects that ultimately end up joining eXp are the ones that say just what Pat did. I'm happy I'm not looking to make a change. And then they become intrigued. I had a broker that was a good friend of mine. I was actually because I do a management consulting. It was a client of mine and I asked him to look at eXp for the purpose of the fact that I knew he was typically acquiring brokers and he would know of candidates and I said Have you passed on that you think we should talk to he said well send me some information. I sent him a couple of videos and some other information and he called me on Monday and said this is probably going to blow you away but I think that we're going to convert our brokerage to eXp. He was so far from a prospect right I respected the fact that we were a longtime client relationship and I wasn't trying to necessarily do that. I wanted to get his take on it as do I should talk to and that's fairly typical. Pat's story is typical and then the other thing I want to touch on because you talked about revenue share and I agree with you. Gene Frederick and I come from KW We were both in leadership. We both were team leaders. You know he had involvement as a regional owner you know for those of you listening regardless of what franchise system you're in - here's great places to work in real estate. You have to make your personal decision where you want to be. But when Pat's talking about how many states would you say it was 32 or 37?. PAT: That's right. Yes I'm actually in 32 states and Canada. KEVIN: Ok so 32 states and Canada. So what Pat has built as a business. And I want to translate that for listeners that are in a franchise system is he's getting paid like a regional owner would out of a franchise system. So if you're not familiar with let's say you're an agent and you're not familiar with how this works in a big franchise system the regional owners have purchased typically for millions and millions of dollars a region and the franchise royalties and or other compensation gets paid off the top and they get paid based on Agent count. In other words if there's a thousand agents in their region they get paid off the top. And essentially if I want to give it a different term other than the regional income stream I would call a revenue share right because it's coming off the top. It may be royalty but let's not get stuck on what it's called. So and I bring that up for a couple of points and I know Pat I'm just preaching to the choir with you because you get this. Don't ever let anybody tell you that revenue sharing is not a sustainable model. If you're sitting in a franchise system and your team leader or a managing broker is telling you that revenue share will never work. Ask them how do the regional owners get paid in my region. And they're going to have to essentially described your revenue share. And so what Pat has created in the span of less than two years or actually a little over two years at this point right. Is a almost 700 agent region in Canada and the United States. And I would imagine your region is growing pretty quickly. How many people are you adding on a monthly basis. PAT: You know what...? Yeah that's a great question. It's rolling honestly by about a 130 agents now per month. Just like anything you know I built a foundation. But you know what. It's been a lot of fun. Yes it's been hard work. It's not easy but you know I do a lot of presentations all across the country just like I'm getting ready to do another lunch alone today here in Raleigh with my leader here. It's truly made in real estate fun again. You know I was grinding for two years at that boutique brokerage firm on that hamster wheel as I call it just kind of tunnel vision just wanting to grow grow grow grow grow. And I was only as good as my last sale. And you know I didn't have an exit strategy I didn't even really know what an exit strategy was. Whenever Scott Lewis sat down with means that Pat you know you're two years into this role say business you know you're doing some good things you know you put up some good numbers for your second year in the industry you know 12 and a half million dollars in volume. What is your true exit strategy and I said you know Scott I don't have an exit strategy. Even know what an exit strategy is in real estate. You know I just sold my business I just invested into a startup lost a lot of money. You know I'm not looking to exit real estate that I'm looking to keep on growing. You know I'm a young guy. You know I said the only thing I could think of is you know I want to get my team's production in the next five to seven years up to 75 to 100 million dollars in production for a year so that I can afford to invest in real estate. I can afford to put money away. I can afford to slow down if I choose to. So I really wasn't looking to exit the industry said about you know take a look at this business model. I can show you how to do that in the next two to three four years alongside of your production in alongside of acquiring stock at eXp because we are a true agent owned brokerage firm. I was just blown away. So for me I'm building a massive exit strategy alongside of selling real estate. I've got a team in San Antonio. We do anywhere from about 9 to 12 million dollars a year every single year. In San Antonio in our production I'm looking to grow that as well because you know we are a brokerage firm first but you know what. You know we're a true agent owned brokerage firm that you know I can offer agents you know an exit strategy through the revenue share program the revenue share model with the agents that want to help us grow. You don't have to attract agents to the company but why wouldn't you want to attract agents to the company and grow this company that you're a shareholder of. And then another beautiful thing to is... At eXp you know you can acquire stock six different ways which I'm not a big stock guy but you know what the stock's gone from 6 to 2 cents a share Whenever I join twenty six months to go up to over 12 dollars a share it's gone as high as seventeen dollars a share. So you know that's truly amazing you know the agent count has gone from 800 agents whenever I joined 26 months ago to surpassing over 8000 agents just a few weeks ago here at a company and so you know the growth is there in the caliber of agents that are coming on board is just truly amazing just like the other group there in San Diego, California you know Carl Whistle and his whole entire group and then he's attracted a few other big leaders out there in San Diego California bringing over a half a billion dollars in production. You know that tells you something right there. KEVIN: And that's a great point. I mean it's one of those things where you know in my manager consulting practice and we also did coaching to brokers and large rainmakers from teams. There is a coming change in the production business where you know people have a successful business you talked about a three or four that joined the deal a half a billion in production. There's plenty of people that do 10 million 20 million 30 million a year. And there's the change that we see occurring and eXp realty is driving this is there is a another business model to look at other than just more production more markets more growth just in the team and people are looking at this as a business that is in addition to their production. And so you described a couple of things and I want to go back and make sure if somebody is listening to this and they want to basically dive in on eXp realty you should go back to whoever introduced you to eXp realty, ask them to plug you in with leaders. Before we wrap up today Pat's going to give his information and Gene Frederick, myself, Mitch all of the leadership in eXp Realty is available as a resource right. Doesn't matter how you got exposed to the eXp Realty. That's right. We want to help you make a good decision. Get the due diligence so whoever got you exposed to eXp Realty can get you connected with leadership people that can get you the right due diligence materials. Now one of the steps that we see a lot of agents go through whether they're a rainmaker for a team or just an agent is they go to a lunch and learn. So Pat will you describe what they're going to typically see in other words sometimes people are a little bit apprehensive right there like well I don't have my broker to know that I'm looking because you know that could have consequences. What is the process you walk somebody through let's say somebody is listening to this and they do 20 million dollars a year. They've got a team and they want to figure out about eXp realty. PAT: Sure that's a great question. You know we do lunch and learns you know every single week in San Antonio opening Friday at Ruth's Chris. And you know anybody that's listening that's in San Antonio definitely you know can reach out to myself loved to invite you as my special guest. But you know the lunch and learns are really for like an intro to eXp if you haven't seen the model you know come check it out. We do about a 45 minute presentation or so then we kind of open it up for Q and A. There's a lot of guests there each week. There's a lot of other eXp agents as well with their guest and it's a lot of fun. You know we've got videos that we can send you to you know take a look at the business model you know on your own. Obviously everything's confidential but if you want to come out and see a live presentation you're more than welcome we've got lunch and learns you know going on all across the country and on get ready day one here again in Raleigh, North Carolina today. One of my team leaders actually did a big lunch and learn in Miami, Florida on Tuesday. You know we've got our weekly one in San Antonio every single Friday. We also have live webinars every single week as well on Tuesdays. And so you can definitely come and plug yourself in. But you know it's a lot of fun. You know this a business model. Like I said it's getting agents excited. It's a lot of fun to share this model just like I got a life changing phone call by Scott Lewis 26 months ago. You know now I'm able to reciprocate and give that life changing phone call to other agents like I did here in Raleigh, North Carolina with one of my leaders about 16 months ago. Great agent came from local banker and you know what I shared with him 16 months ago out of eXp has truly changed his life, changed him families life, changed his financial future as well too so however you want to see it if you want to see it you know privately you can definitely see it privately. We've got a resource here where we can send you some you know pre-recorded videos like Jean-Frederic got awesome eXp explain video that he did several months ago I believe in Florida and then also we've got live webinars we've got live lunches and so how you want to see it. Now if it's you know confidential definitely you know confidential for you guys but come on out let us know we're here to help. We're here to have fun and you know basically just educate yourself on this business model that's changing and disrupting the real estate industry. KEVIN: Fantastic. For anybody listening for rolling down the road and listening in your car or away from your computer. The show notes for the podcast will have an introductory video you can watch about seven minutes or so on eXp Realty, the video that Pat references where Gene Frederick is presenting and it was in Florida I think it was last August will be linked in the show notes as well. Pat before we wrap up this session. How would if somebody is listening to this and they want to get a hold of you. What's the best way to reach you? PAT: Sure. You know the best way is just my cellphone number. You know I've got my cell phone glued to me every single day. My cell phone number is that area code 210 693 8711 again 210 693 8711. And just give me a call. Shoot me a text whatever it is and I definitely would love to answer any questions that anybody has. In that scene. Just like what you're saying you know this business model is so unique and so different that I help out everybody that's interested. In the opportunity and the business model with eXp I help out a lot of agents that are not even in my drug reps organization because you know what if I help them out and they end up joining eXp that going help the company grow and how I get a benefit from it while I'm at a benefit from it from the age of ownership can the stock side of it if they're in my revenue share organization that are benefiting from their success and revenue sharing. So I'd benefit either way. And so it's a great business model where the agents come together and truly want to help everybody grow. You know these agents are not my competitors these agents are my colleagues they're my shareholders. You know we're all shareholders together and we're all in this together so everybody wants to collaborate and help each other out. I've never seen anything like this. I've been a part of a lot of Fortune 500 medical companies own my own business. I've sold my own business and truly this is something that I've never seen before. You know the leadership alone at eXp is just truly remarkable. We've got a ton of great leaders we're adding more leaders to the corporate staff. You know every single month and so to be a part of this and the see eXp grow, it is just truly life changing. KEVIN: Well and we appreciate you coming on because I want to reiterate what you're saying which is it doesn't matter if it's Gene Frederick, it's Pat it's me or anybody else. We're available as a resource and it doesn't matter because we're all shareholders in this and I think I'm glad you brought that up because from the outside and from the franchise systems that doesn't normally occur right. You know you're going to get referred to a managing broker or a team leader and they're all little islands. Well what the market is starting to learn is eXp realty is all pointed in the same direction and we have one goal which is to make sure people if they are a good match for eXp realty because frankly not everybody is. That's right. We're certainly having a lot of people join we had close to 1000 agents in January of 2018 joined and you talked about having less than that in the entire company when you join. So again it shows you the growth. PAT: That's right. KEVIN: So Pat I appreciate you coming on and we'll talk to again soon I'm sure. PAT: You bet. Thanks for having me Kevin.