Podcast appearances and mentions of kevin i'm

Rob follows up with Kevin on his homework and if the changes had an effect.    Together, they decide on the best hashtags to use and agree on a solid show description.  Kevin's question this week has to do with audience engagement.  The answer lies in this week's topic - social media basics.   Each week, Rob answers questions from Kevin Long and offers advice for how to have a successful podcast.  Good for newbies and seasoned podcasters alike!   Learn more, subscribe, or contact us at www.southgatemediagroup.com.  You can write to Rob at southgatemediagroup@gmail.com and let us know what you think.  Be sure to rate us and review the episode.  It really helps other people find us.  Thanks!      Kevin's Twitter @TheSwamppit Facebook The Kevin Long Show Rob Southgate’s Twitter @RSouthgate Email  southgatesmallbusiness@gmail.com Website  www.southgatemediagroup.com/newmedialab Patreon  www.patreon.com/newmedialab Pinterest www.pinterest.com/SMGPods/new-media-lab/   SHOW HOSTS: Rob Southgate SHOW EDITOR: Rob Southgate PRODUCER: Rob Southgate   #NewMedia #Podcasting #Business #YouTube #Blogging #Vlogging Transcription 00:00:00 This is a really difficult question. Oh, that's a great question. That's a good question. That is a great question. It's a really good question. I love this question. And I think this really is going to help me kind of meditate and grow on it. Want to hear the answers checkout season two of new media lab with Robert Southgate new episodes every Tuesday available on Spotify. I tunes. Google hod Cass and wherever you subscribe to your favorite podcasts. Welcome back. Everybody to the second episode of new media labs, creator lab with me, rob Southgate and with having long. Hey, kevin. Hey, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. Thank you. You're going to be doing a lot better in a second. When I start talking about what has happened with your show this week. Okay. So let's go back talk about we'll do a little recap of what we did last week. I've got some suggestions before it gets suggestions, though. I do wanna talk about what happened which you don't know about. So first of all last week. What we talked about was I gave you homework. I wanted you to write a detailed description, and I wanted you to come up with a tag. And I wanted you to get me some hashtags that we could use for Nautilus social media for tagging the show. You did not send me the. The tag yet. Which is okay. I just hold on. I took with you wrote. You sent me a paragraph, and actually I'm going to pull that up to and that way we can read your paragraph than I'll I'll explain what I changed a little bit. And actually, it's any of these kind of things and this is an important point. Should be looked at as a living document. It shouldn't be the kind of thing that you go. 00:01:53 Yup. I did it done. You know what I mean? Right. That's where we run into trouble. So here's what you wrote your description that we were adding as they showed description, not an individual episode. It said there was a rich history of tabletop gaming and in the Kevin long show. Kevin and his guest talk about all the additions of dungeons and dragons in some of the shows Kevin builds characters after reading the complete handbook and other weeks, he talks about character concepts and other story outlines not bad, not bad. I made some tweaks to it. Basically what I? I did do it is. I wanted it to flow a little bit better. I also wanted to get a well, let me read it. I got a couple of things out of there that were unnecessary words, necessarily language. So that we can actually make it read a little bit better and add a little bit more to it. And in fact, even reading it now, I want to add a couple of things that we could do later. So here's your description. There is a rich history of tabletop gaming and on the Kevin long show. Kevin and his guests talk about all the additions of dungeons and dragons, Kevin and his guests build characters after reading the complete handbook talk about character concepts and discuss various story outlines. It's it's a little more defined like it more to work from what I want to add as I was reading it. I was Kevin and his guests twice. I'm going to change that I also wanna get in some of our keywords. Now. 00:03:18 This is where we went into the hashtags, and you came up with four now where did you find those? I I don't. I think I typed in the right address that you gave me, but I typed in hashtag of fi. And it brought me to like a little huddle. Like a bid me where I in dungeons and dragons in. That's what gave me right? You did you were in this place. I'm sure okay. So here's what you missed. And this is something that is good to know. Because is probably because I've done it enough that I figured out. Oh, don't forget this part of it. You typed in dungeons and dragons and did search in your hashtags. You did not write dungeons and dragons guess what word probably needs to be there, dungeons and dragons, right? So so the other thing, and this is the part that that I figured out a while ago because I wasn't paying attention. I was like, oh, I want to do dungeons and dragons, boom, here's what I got defy E D, R, PG and tabletop. And then I'm like, wait a minute. Each of those should type in and see what it gets because what if something is bigger. Right. So I went through all the different iterations. And here's what I came up with going off of what you had. Oh, what you had those weren't the ones you gave me you gave me five eighty dice five fantasy and gaming. 00:04:48 All excellent. I added to that deity five eight dungeons and dragons DND RPG and tabletop and the way I came about those was by typing in like, I typed in DND, right? I got some different ones. I typed in RPG was terrible. It just gave you like Asian letters didn't really do it. But typing in five AD and defy it gave me a couple of different things. Wonderful. So now, we have eight in fact, let's see if I have any others. On here. I did put dragon magazine because that is actually another potential one. I think that's the only one I added. So we have nine different tags. We can use those went in tags and keywords on Lipson. But Kevin those are not those are not really valuable. I tunes doesn't use tag tag tags and keywords what they're valuable for. Is. You wanna have that list? And when you do your social media throughout the week to promote this episode you want to use those hash tax. So we came up with your description. We came up with a good set of hashtags a solid set of hashtags. Okay today. I posted an episode. It was of your your Monday. I can't think of the name because I'm drawing a blank as it Monday. Magic monday. I posted magic Monday today, and do you mind to be giving how many downloads you get on an episode? No. That'd be an easing. Okay. We'll get there. 00:06:28 So I posted a magic Monday today and on this episode. I did these things I not only changed your description this week and updated it an added those tags. On the description this week when I posted I added those to the specific episode. I also took something you said in your description and made that your subtitle. So now on every episode, we publish your subtitle says Kevin and his guests talk all about the additions of dungeons and dragons, so now dungeons and dragons hits as a single word as multiple words if somebody is searching for it shows up as an important word to Google. So now Google knows this show is about dungeons and dragons, so we eat. Okay. So now, we are in a much better place. We've niche down like we talked about we've gotten those keywords in here. And the other thing I did then was the stuff that was my part of this. So I went in to your to the settings. And I made sure you were updated on. Various platforms, and guess what? I found. Well, I dropped. I dropped the ball. So I did not have in here some of the different things. So I added your Facebook. This is in settings on Lipson, you if you go to settings you can put in keywords and Email and all that stuff. I put in the Facebook URL, I put in your Twitter handle what I found was you were not posting too. 00:08:08 I put an I tunes to even though it was posting the I tunes. I put in that address goes faster, you were not posting to tune in radio. You are not posting to Stitcher. You're not posting to Google play or Google podcasts or Spotify. You are now. So I went through and I made sure every one of those even though technically they don't add up too much for most shows you're there now or you will be in the next couple of days. Those even though you think well if apple is ninety five percent of the downloads. Why do I need to be on all of them? You do you need that all of them? Because what if your show what if the people that listen to tune in radio or totally into your dungeons and dragons show, and you get four hundred dollars on that on tune in radio. And I tunes gets you twenty. We don't know. So the point is for everybody making podcasts out there get him in every channel you can unless that channel is paying you have Stitcher says we want you to be exclusive. And here's a bunch of money to do it. Heck? Yeah. I'll be exclusive. But if they haven't done that. Why would you stay with one put it everywhere? Get it where the customer is getting in front of them that was something I hadn't done it's done. Now, let's get into the thing. You really want to hear about town stew? 00:09:28 Today. We post this episode right on average when we post a new episode you get about twenty downloads of that particular like that day. Okay. I'm not going by particular episode. I'm going by downloads on your feet. Okay. This is an important thing to clarify because the number. I'm going to give you is. Not today's episode did this number. It's your feed to this number today. And if you look at your feed average, it's it's you know, a couple of day, and then I'll post road you'll get like twenty okay? Which you and I have been happy with so far. We're like, hey, why not it's twenty people urge you that's pretty rock and great, right? Yeah. Okay today. I edit those keywords I updated the description, I added into those other things, but that's not live yet. So the only one that was really live was I tunes you had one hundred downloads today. Wow. And it's only one o'clock Austin, Chicago. So yeah, man, I think it had an effect will find out tomorrow. If it right. If it continues if you if we start seeing that. Everyday. Let's say it goes up to twenty a day would we're not posting something guess what those little tweaks had an effect. And if they didn't I'll eat my hat because I'm telling you. I know it did. Right. So there you go. We are. We are on our way to building audience now before we move into the next thing. 00:11:04 Okay. I want to ask one thing. Yeah. On the show. I like to get whatever question you have before start giving out assignments. So what kind of questions do you have the question today is going to be how do we get more involved with our audience, and and the new media lab, you talked about engaging your audience, and I want to know how to be better at here's the topic. We have this week. Let's do it because I know how to engage the shows that I'm listening to on social. Oh media. I just don't know how to get people to engage Mike show. Excellent. Oh, Kevin you made by day. What my assignment is this week ties into this pervert? Okay. So we're gonna jump ahead from like normally what the idea of the show was was I was gonna help through these little building walks to try to help make your show a brand and build it up. Right. And after we talked last week, I thought okay. Well, these were some really basic things getting those those notes, right and everything getting the tags. Then I thought well, you wanna see more motion. Even though I think what we had today was pretty darn good motion five times. We just went up by five hundred percent. That's good. I wanna see it keep going. So you're right engagement is a keyed everything. Now, this is going to be a slower burn. But we're going to try something K. So first of all, let's go over what social media platforms. You have the show on what do you have? 00:12:41 I'm on. I do Facebook and Twitter are the ones that I most active on, but I do have an Instagram account. Okay. And the Instagram account is that four swamp. It is at four the come long show. Or is it your personal? It's a personal. It's a personal. Okay. Let's take that one off the table. Okay. That's not what we need to use. Although I would suggest thinking about at some point getting an Instagram that is the Kevin long show. Okay, instagram. Okay. Here's why with these different platforms. If you have a Kevin long show Instagram when we post something you can post like seventeen hashtags, and it's not weird. Okay. And this is something that I've said before to people, and I get brushback. I don't get brushback from people that actually know the social media kind of etiquette and rules. I get it for people that are like, no, it doesn't really matter. Or no, I do it this way. We'll great. There are no hard and fast rules. But there are some things that do make a difference. So first of all, let's let's talk about these Instagram you could do up to seventeen hashtags there is a trick to get more. But if you have seventeen good hashtags you're off to the races. Okay. When you're using Instagram, and let's just talk about that for a second. Then we'll move onto what matters to you Instagram is a visual medium. So you want to make sure you take like the artwork from the show if you have some if you don't let's start. We'll talk about that on another episode. Kevin k-. 00:14:20 If you if you have behind the scenes pictures, or like in your case, you do gaming throughout the week. Take pictures of like your books. Take pictures of your dice take pictures of things related to DND, even if it's a page out of the book or a quote out of one of the books, or when you do your monster of the week or magic Monday, you take a picture of that from the book and you posted on Instagram and you're like, hey, it's the bag holding. That's what we're talking about this week that works beautifully oppose hashtags or things people are looking for. And you put it a good amount of them. And it can be like like I do things when I post because I'm kind of a coffee addict, I take pictures for Instagram where I'm holding a coffee Cup, and I'm like podcasting today. And I'll bet hashtag podcast podcasters, Chicago podcasting media new media coffee coffee addict. Like all these things. And you'd be surprised I have a huge amount of followers that are like these coffee bloggers IB huge amount that are podcasters like because I use those hashtags it gets noticed. Okay. But you don't do Instagram yet. So we're not gonna worry about that for this week. What I want you to do is. We're going to do a Facebook and a Twitter strategy. Okay. You wanna put the pick those you've got those nine hashtags right right now on on Facebook. I know they take hashtags, but it's actually been tracked. If you read some of these sources about social media about you know, what works and what dozen this hashtags don't really work on Facebook. In fact, the the the post without hashtags tend to do a little bit better the ones with I don't know why it makes. 00:16:12 When you click on the activity, tag and type in listening to gaming with Scott are the this old good. So so it's just like I said if you can be everywhere with your podcast feel free to use hashtags everywhere with this. Okay. All good stuff. And when you say, you're listening to gaming Lescot. That's an excellent thing. I wish everybody did that for every show there listened to because it sells people where you are. It might entice them to listen, I know that I've clicked on shows when I've seen that pop up. So that's an excellent practice from a personal standpoint. And also from your show because it says Kevin long is listening to me. What Scott anyone that follows? You is going to see that be like a look, there's another gaming podcast. This is cool. You want to build it like reciprocity between the podcasts. And if you mentioned a podcast, make sure you tag them put an at gaming with Scott when we do this. We need. Make sure we put hey gaming at giving. What Scott we talked about you on today's show. Right. Okay. So I've got thoughts here with with Twitter with Twitter you wanna use no more than two maybe three hashtags. I know you can use more it starts to cluttering people. Don't look at them. Sometimes when it has too much starts to look like a bought. Okay. So if you have to hash dad's, you're in good shape. Now, you have nine hashtags to work with what that should mean to you is, hey, every time I post maybe I wanna switch up those hashtags right guy and easy way to do. 00:17:48 Do. It is to use a an app called tweet deck where you can go in you sign in you've got your Twitter account when you you can go in and say, here's what I want the tweet to say, here's the image. I wanna use with always use an image on Twitter if tax people go right past it. Okay. So they they see the image. They read the thing. On tweet deck. You can say you can schedule it. So now, you can say, you know, what I wanna make sure that my show is hitting on Tuesday. I wanna make sure that that between seven AM and noone like once on our a tweet goes out. That says, hey, we've got to do episode today. You can send the same tweet all five times. Let's say you're doing five on that day. Okay. And it said the same tweet just change the hash tags on each of them or you can change your verbiage a little bit. So it's a little bit more interesting. If if you're doing like, the the bag of holding maybe there's a couple of different images of bags of holding or images that would be kinda cool that you'd be like, yeah, I could put this on air it or even the the show logo for one of them changing it up a little bit. You don't have to do twenty tweets a day. Okay. But the day launches maybe five would be really good. 00:19:08 Okay. The other thing you can do that. Let's say as we're starting. In fact, we will do it this way for this week do five on the date launches you had a magic Monday happened today. Figure out five tweets. Okay. And space out like once an hour. Then we can get into timing. And all that another time. I don't care what it is right now five tweets different hashtags, use them up. Okay. And if you wanna do if you more you can keep in mind that a tweet has a twenty minute lifespan at best. So don't worry that. Oh my gosh. I'm tweeting too much the person looking at the tweets unless they're only looking at your feed your going to go away. They're not gonna care that. You're tweeting every hour, right? Make sense. So let's start with Twitter with that. And then said another thing today is is Monday your show hit today. So setup five tweets I want you to do the exact same thing on Thursday with the same show. But now put ice e or I see why am I in case you missed it in all caps. Why do it with the hashtag? And put that I so it's in case you missed it. I had a new show boasts new magic Monday posted on Monday. Check it out or we did a magic Monday about blank today. Check it out and then use your hashtags. So getting your doubling up you're getting double the hit. And it is a people that you have this show out there and what it's about. 00:20:46 Okay. So that's one thing. We'll try that. You're talking maximum of of or a minimum of ten tweets over the course of between now. And next Monday. Let's see what happens. And if you're like, man, I can't do that. Today set them for tomorrow tomorrow and Thursday. Okay. That was good for the regular Kevin long show. Do it. What do we post on Wednesday Thursday? So do I'm gonna switch it up on your man. Okay. Do either today or tomorrow for Thursday do five for the Kevin long show on Friday? Do in case you missed it for magic Monday and on Monday of next week do five in case you missed it for the Kevin long show. Okay. Let's see if these numbers change now Facebook this goes back to your question. Yeah. Finally, Mr long-winded got back to the question. You ask about engagement? So one way to do it or to try, and you may get some you may not. But on your Facebook page. We posted new episode today. Make sure you post a link to it. But you wanna say something? Engage as anybody used this. What what was the magic Monday today? Let's go look and see. One that hit today was the deck of many things are so is there a question related to the Decca many things that you could ask is. Against snow. So ask a question or say, you know, magic Monday deck of many things discussion threat, and then then put a description underneath it. That says like like, let's talk about the Decca many things. And then asked your questions what experience if you guys had what was the best time you used it or whatever it is. 00:22:33 Okay. And hopefully, you'll get somebody. That'll right now, here's the key. With all of that. You're you're chumming the water by saying, hey, I want you to talk to me as soon as somebody talks to you make sure it doesn't have to be in that minute. But before you go to bed at night. Make sure that every interaction has had a reaction from say something back engage with them. Get them in conversation. Okay. Okay. You may or may not get any. That's okay. You gotta keep doing it. You wanna know how those shows get interaction? This is exactly how they get. Interaction. Perfect. I have a lot more to say about how to been late all of this. But for now, I think that gives you a good solid thing to work from your homework is do those tweets and make a thread for this episode gets conversation going. Okay. Cool. Sounds great any other questions. Kevin not at the moment. All right. Why hope this is working for people? I hope they're getting some good information. Like, I said, the creators lab is a way more casual discussion. I try to come in with an idea that I wanna share a homework I wanna share and Kevin tries to come in with a question. I hope it's helping and I I hope it's going to help you Kevin because I'm telling you jumping up to one hundred downloads today that was shocking to me. So let's hope that rain continues. 00:24:05 Yes, for sure why don't you give your social media? You can find us on Facebook just type in the Kevin long show. And you can find us on Twitter at the swamp pit great. And he will have a thread for the episodes. You can get in conversation about this episode, and please do and Kevin I'm going to give you one more tip before I go. Yeah. And this is something that when I said, give your social media, you should have done, and I wanna make it. So that it's ingrained in you. And it should also be on your your show notes, which it's not give your Email K. So make sure you give your Email whenever you can. Because a lot of people even though you say, here's my Twitter. Here's my Instagram. Here's my Facebook. Here's my YouTube channel a lot of people engage through Email. So give it and make sure it's in your show notes, and actually your homework. Their last thing is text me or tweet me or. Message me with your Email, and I'll put it on your show notes going forward. Sweet. So what's your Email? Kevin you can Email us at the Kevin long show at gmaiLcom perfect city. We're gonna we're gonna get you in good habits. And I can't wait to see where this goes. Wouldn't it be cool? If we actually made this show rock the house that would be great. I think it can. I love the show. 00:25:29 All right. Kevin. Thank you so much and everybody else we will talk to you on Thursday with the next episode of new media lab. I hope you enjoyed this last one with Brent hand. So this week's guest is Andrea Klender. Andrea is awesome. She does a thing where she's your podcast, boss. I've been interviewed. Martha I got interviewed by her at a women in podcast festival. She was on the SIM G podcast festival out at blue-box. Cafe. She is really fantastic has wonderful ideas. And. You're probably gonna want to listen to her show in conjunction with this show as soon as you get a load of what she has to say. So the guest for this Thursday is Andrea Klunder from your podcast, boss. You're gonna love it.

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. Why EXP is growing fast Why Successful independent brokerages partnering with EXP Keep your Brand, grow your income with EXP Big benefits of being at EXP Earning publicly held stock. EXP listed on Nasdaq EXP innovating and game changing technology made simple   Stay tuned for Part 2   Transcription Kevin: Welcome back to another episode of the EXP explained podcast. I'm joined today by special guest John Sterling. John's been in a number of markets. He 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. He and I met years and years ago when I was a team leader at Keller Williams and he was doing some leadership expansion and attraction of agents. Certainly if you're listening to this and you're from Keller Williams you're more than likely will know John from 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 in my interview about his challenges in real estate and really not really getting EXP at first. So if you're a little bit skeptical and you want to hear from somebody who was right there where you were dug into it didn't pay attention to the rumors and misinformation in the market and did quite a bit of due diligence over about 15 months. 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. Stay tuned for my interview with John Sterling. Kevin: Welcome to the show John. John: Hey thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Kevin: I'm looking forward to it. We are reunited again and I'm sure we'll get into a lot of that on the conversation today but before we do for people listen to the podcast that maybe you aren't familiar with your background and history and real estate and all that you've done. What did you take a couple minutes and just give a little bit of your highlights in terms of some of the stuff you've done. Because I've known you a long time and I know you've accomplished a lot. John: Oh well thank you. Yeah I'll keep it short and sweet. So I started my real estate career in Chicago back in 2002 it was with a traditional firm then they had a great training program. So I got up and running very quickly. There were some changes there so I went off and started my own brokerage after about two years and then eventually merged that with Keller Williams back in 2004. My time at Keller Williams was mostly spent opening up new offices and markets where we didn't have them. And most of that work was before the financial crash and after the crash I was the guy who would go fix these struggling offices. So it involved a lot of moving. So I got to go all over the US and then even opened up our London office. So I was in the UK for two years. Packed my flat on Brexit vote day and came back to the U.S. and had been engaged in real estate and just sales in San Francisco and Denver ever since. Kevin: Fantastic. And you're very modest. I mean I first ran into you I probably was about two thousand five or six when I was in St. Lewis with Keller Williams And you were part of the group that was essentially acquiring market centers and expanding and you guys were rocking and rolling and obviously lots changed for everybody after the market shifted. I was excited and it was a long very detailed due diligence process before you moved over to EXP you and I had conversations over I don't know probably 15 months or so. And I think for people listening because the whole genesis for this podcast is to allow people you know it doesn't have to just be a Keller Williams but people that run their real estate business like a business and are seeing all of these agents like you were changing brokerages and coming over to EXP. I remember like you like everybody else had healthy skepticism. You wanted to understand it you were from the outside you were part of a gigantic franchise system and there was a lot of misinformation and noise out there in the marketplace. What is it that you learned that really caused you to start to shift your mindset and say I need to dig into this further. John: That's a good question. As you mentioned you know it was a long process for me it wasn't an overnight type of thing and I'd been paying attention to EXP for a long time. In fact I remember when Glenn the CEO was with Keller Williams back in the late 2000s and he left the start yet. And it was you know I just thought it was an interesting move and I was doing some unique things in the business but didn't really give it much thought. I was happy. Keller Williams still think they're an amazing organization. So I don't have any you know any issues with Keller Williams. It seemed like a better opportunity and fit for the future that I want to create and kind of where the business is headed so the things that got my attention over the past few months and ultimately led me to making the move is that you know I had ignored EXP for a long time as you mentioned a lot of people do this. And the people I've talked to who are in the process of joining you know people who are my friends who never would have given it a second glance if it wasn't me calling. You know it was or someone else. The gist of it was there is a lot like you said misinformation or half truth is I'd like to explain it which is understandable. You know it's like EXP has come out of nowhere. I have never seen growth like this in the real estate business and I was with Katie when I early days when it was growing like crazy. But even they didn't see growth. This is great. So there's just a lot of fear from the incumbents that they're going to get squashed because if he keeps up this pace then they're going to have some serious problems. Kevin: So it is interesting I want to touch on one point because that is something that you know you hear the comments of well they can't keep up growth at this pace or I can't believe they're growing that fast or there's no way they could be growing that fast. And I'm going to touch on something in the franchise system you know there's very well Gene Frederic knows it well I know well we'll come out of the same franchise system when somebody goes to expand a franchise system, this is for listeners to understand and why EXP can sand grow so much quicker. I'm going to contrast the two let's say that John and I are in the franchise system and we decide we're going to open up an office in Palo Alto California and we get a conversation going with a great great huge player hugely influential big producer and the producer says hey John and Kevin I'm ready to join. I want to do something with you. How do we get started in Palo Alto. And that starts the clock in the process right. And they have to go through the approval process and there's a whole bunch of steps involved in the point that I'm making here is from that conversation assuming you get some sort of a green light go I'm willing to do it. There are steps like getting an investor getting it approved getting the franchise awarded in the net net on it is on average it's 14 to 18 months before mega agent key influencer walks in the door of an office or can announce that they're part of that Palo Alto location hypothetically. Now when John and Kevin have a conversation with that same agent in Palo Alto. And assuming they're excited about the EXP and they due to due diligence. We're having them change brokerages in as fast as 10 days. I mean you listen to Brent Gove's interview. He made the decision in 10 days or less with one hundred and fifty million dollar team. It's unheard of. In the franchise systems. Now the follow on to that is when like we had in San Diego we had Daniel beer Carl Wessel and Mary Maloney and all of the others joined in it like a really short 10 day period EXP because they're influential has tons and tons of agents joined after it. So for somebody and I want to get your perspective on this from the outside we you're seeing these mega numbers of agents right. You know a thousand plus fifteen hundred plus agents a month and you are. In the franchise mindset or a bricks and mortar mindset where you're used to being in a physical location. Many many people. And this is why I think that they talk about this. Not being sustainable. Look at it and go. There's no way they're going that fast. We never did. We can't. How can they. And I think that that's the driver is John and I can go out and have hundreds if not thousands of conversations as well as every other agent that EXP. And if somebody says go. It's like when you say go it wasn't very long before you were alive and over at EXP. You actually were waiting for some things. To occur in your business world. But from the process where you're like OK good. I'm ready to go. It was fairly quick. It wasn't like the franchise world. John: Yes. All of that's true. Interestingly enough probably the most fascinating part to me is the large number of independent brokerages so they're not affiliated with any franchise or big regional company. You know he could be one person or a few dozen agents. You know it's typically the size of these things of those types of organizations that are going to need EXP. That was eye opener for me too because it's a fairly common thing in our business for people to get a little experience and then decide they'd like to be their own boss. They want to be their own broker so they leave the company that they started with they got some training or whatever else they're no longer working under someone else's brand they start their own. So it happens all the time. So the fascinating part is how many people have gone through that process achieve their independence so they have their own business with their own branding and their boss their names above the door. I can tell everyone in our neighborhood that they own the company and they're still coming to EXP. So they are profitable businesses that are doing well. They're helping businesses that are growing. Everybody's happy. And even with all that they're still choosing to partner with EXP. So they just see that there is more value with EXP you know from a small item I'd have to pay every year through their split the system was just good for agents at any level. But it's the big winners are the ones who were showing up with teams which are essentially you know they could be standalone brokerages but these big agent teams are like you mentioned they're moving very fast. Then you have the small brokerages who are looking for some more leverage because if you're a brokerage that has 20 or 30 agents you're probably still selling right. It's probably not making enough from the agents splits in order to support yourself. You're probably still selling yourself. So that's just a lot of work. Like you have to manage all these people and you have to do your own business well with the EXP you get to leverage a lot of the stuff that's already built in for very low costs. You can send your agents the training or bird virtual campus any time you are reading online. You can then go hire more people because you don't have to babysit them all day like there's no 30 or 40 training events we have every week. I don't think you can just sit down in front of the computer and say OK here are the training you need to go to go to these and come to me with questions. It's much more leverage and just a much better way to scale. So that was an interesting thing that I discovered just as I paid attention to all the people who kept showing up. Kevin: So absolutely and one of the things just to echo what you're saying and this is happening all the time in fact there's one by the time this goes live that's in the Dallas Fort Worth metro. They have ninety five agents. They're an independent and you know the model is almost this hybrid model which we're seeing pop up more and more where the broker/rainmaker is a weather pick your flavor. Right. Zillow preferred or premier whatever the program is and they feed their agents. And so the lead gen side they've got wired right they might be spending one hundred thousand dollars a month in this case. And what was interesting is she was so excited about EXP. Her biggest concern is I don't know if this is going to translate throughout my key people right? My leaders within my office and then the agents downstream. And what was interesting is Gene and the leaders were in town meeting with this Rainmaker and the key people and he called me yesterday afternoon and his conversation is "I only stayed half a day because they all get it. I met with a handful of people". I talked to him again this morning and he said we're done all ninety five or come and they're just basically working on the onboarding process with ninety five agents making sure everybody's applications and the revenue share piece is set up correctly. That is the wave of the future. I mean I've talked with people within the company they're talking to 25 agents smaller brokers and the driver for that. And if you think about the NRA numbers 55% of the agents aren't independents right. It's the biggest piece. We spent a lot of time talking about franchise systems. They're more in franchise system likes to tout that they're number one but you had the agents that are at independence. It's way bigger than they are. And so when you look at the opportunity this is the next big wave that's occurring. And you talk to these broker owners I'm talking to some in the United States in the southeast U.S. And the number one thing they say is they love being producers. They love mentoring and training agents. They love the Legion and helping people in the case of this this gal in the Dallas Fort Worth area. She'll be on the podcast shortly but what she's going to tell you is I don't like being a broker. I'd rather be brokered by EXP get out of compliance get all the systems and all of the things in place and just go do what we do well the brokerage stuff is not sexy. The brokerage stuff is not fun. The compliance stuff nobody enjoys. Previous to EXP it's been the necessity right. You didn't have somebody that said hey keep your brand keep your look and feel. Go do what you do well and then we'll take over all the other stuff. John: So it really is the best of all worlds. And I think that's really I mean just spending years and years.... I mean all again all over the US and even in Europe. One of the hardest things to overcome when you're having conversations with people about joining your company is it's really just ego. They like that their name is above the door. They like to tell everyone in their world that they own the company and the fact that that's happening at EXP is very telling. We've overcome that objection. You know people are like oh it's like well I could still on my company. It's just kind of you know using some of the EXP stuff too which is great. I mean this is it's a huge advantage for us just because it's you know the more or people show up the more examples we have to point to and say See we told you everything worked just fine except you're you're growing faster and you have fewer headaches. Kevin: Yeah. You know and part of what you did John is you talk to over the course of when you talked about turning around market centers and moving around there was a long period of time where I consider you a non team leader Team Leader. In other words you were having conversations with hundreds if not thousands of agents but virtually on the phone at conferences. So you've got a pretty good basically a take on mindset of agents. You personally were responsible for many many agents that went into Keller Williams When you look at this. John: You wanna know my number? Kevin: Yeah What is your number? I was going to ask you next. John: I had my office lady look it up before I left Keller Williams. I directly recruited sponsors like brought to the company just me but named me as the reason they were with Keller Williams one hundred and sixty two before I left. And there were many many more of those that like top of a hundred sixty two that I recruited on behalf of other people because that was my job right. So it was really just a hundred sixty two that I found on my own. And then as you know it's like hundreds or like you said I don't know how we'd be able to tabulate that but we'll just say north of a thousand. Kevin: You've got a great take on this you know so enjoining EXP and you know coming from a franchise system. If I'm an agent. Whether I'm a rainmaker on individual age a mega agent and I'm an expansion agent that's thinking about this. What are the two or three things that you think that. You learned about it that if you were on the phone with these people going forward you would say you really have a couple of options you could go to a franchise system or you go to EXP. And here are the big benefits of being at the EXP. John: Yep that's a good question. So if I had to put it in bullet form first the money has to work right. You know it's a Financial decision this is a business like we're in business to make money. So we do other things too. There could be a bigger purpose for our you know working in real estate but like the math has to work. So the. That was a good thing for me because you look at EXP everybody is on an 80 20 split the 20 percent caps at sixteen thousand dollars a year no matter where you are compared to my San Francisco office with Keller Williams where I was paying fifty thousand dollars she here is a cap. I mean that alone by you know in two hundred eighty dollars a month in an office these you know it's just a huge expense to be there now. Sounds like you don't have to do to any deals the same let's go to cap but still like I can have that same environments like comparable stuff or even better tools and only pay sixteen thousand here. So that seemed like a much better deal to me. So that was part of that. There's you know a small transaction fee after the after the sixteen thousand but it's nothing substantial nothing to worry about. In addition to that there are certain ways you can earn a publicly traded stock. So it's not privately held. There's not a king of EXP it's all up it's on the Nasdaq. It's a publicly traded company. So for longtime I guess it's a good side note just as far as this goes that EXP was traded on the OTC exchange. So it's just another stock exchange out there. But the trick with that is that it's there's not as much liquidity because it's not like you know we'll call Big Boy exchanges. So really it's like you got to be a publicly traded company you want to be on one of the big exchanges in the US. That's the New York Stock Exchange with the Nasdaq. I go to the two that are reputable and that's where you want to be. So earlier this year another sort of catalyst to me opening up the conversation to joining. Was when EXP was Listed as what they call it. You get up listed to the Nasdaq. So they went off the OTC. Exchange and onto the Nasdaq. You don't get to do that just by choice. I mean you have to be performing well and behaving well and. Know. The analysts and everybody else has to be compliance people the FCC everybody has to. Agree that everything is legit. So I like that. I like that there is some third [arty accountability to everything that we do. Versus you know it's like we have it we have a board of directors into the people on the board of directors are agents that real estate people so they're not just the financial types and the bean counters that you would find them on a traditional board of directors. So when the board of directors of stock analysts and all those people get involved. You know there's some accountability. Versus when you have a company controlled by essentially one person. There's not. Any real accountability I have no piece of ownership and that's I'm contrasting with where I came from. And it's more of a dictatorial sort of environments. So. You know being able to earn stock being able to purchase stock at a discount. I mean. The portion of my commission checks can go toward purchasing. This publicly traded stock and I get it at a 20 percent discount. So basically every deal that I do I'm getting a 20 percent gift from the EXP. It's like I mean you know it's like if you invest in stocks like 8 to 10% consider pretty great. So if I'm getting an instant 20% regardless of how the stock performs feels like likely going to continue to grow then that's good news for me. So those were the big financial components. Oh and then I almost forgot the getting into technology which I'll come back to in a second but the Web sites that we get I mean these are some of the best lead generation sites you can get for your business. We work with Konversion. You don't know them check them out. I think last time I looked to their retail prices were a thousand dollars to set up and then 500 a month just for the system and then you have to pay ads and everything on top of that. But at EXP that's all included in the 50 dollar month technology fee. So it's a 500 a month I'm paying 50 a month. So you don't like anything else about the EXP or you don't care about revenue share and you'll care about the training you care about the virtual world. If you don't want to do your own business whatever you could make an argument that it's just the Web site by itself basically pay for your affiliate vision with the EXP if you want to do any of the rest like you're going to stumble across other great thing that you expected. I'd like that by itself is a good enough argument to make the move so. So that was the money piece as far as the technology goes so we'll continue that thread just for a little background there. I've been involved with tech startups as both an adviser like a formal advisor and an investor for years. In fact I looked it up the first one that I did was back in 2007 was a property portal that was competing with like Zillow to really realtor dot com didn't make it as far as those guys did just it was funding and leadership and whatever else. But you learn a lot through that process. A lot of people understand kind of the dynamics. So I'm very comfortable vetting technology and more importantly not just the technology it's the teams working on the technology real estate in general as an industry as a late adopter for most technology things even today. So for example there's a zip code valuation thing that's clogging my Facebook timeline right now with people asking their clients you send me your zip code I'll give you a valuation. Well that technology has been around for about 10 years now for many years. I was a customer of the company that developed first just as a real time market valuation estimates are now 10 years later everyone's acting like it's some revolutionary thing. You know.. Give me break... it you know if it's fancy tech that's going to disrupt the industry and that's the fancy tech then there's not much concern for me that like that's what I'm competing with. So going back to the teams that worked with technologies I mean the technology itself is great. It's like there's the wonderful stuff I get to use. Everything works fine. I have to worry about it like of course the EXP is going to continue to expand those offerings of course are going to develop their own proprietary stuff. So right now we're just growing so fast that you know the priority it seems to be like we need to be sure our basic system scale. So the people that are joining to get deals done right. Like we'll worry about dressing it up later. But really the team behind the technology is the most important piece for me not just in real estate but like everywhere because technologies involving at such a rapid pace that we're going to have to pivot we're going to have to make changes we're going to have to make decisions that are going to alter the sort of trajectory of the technology that's being used and developed. And it's like I have the full faith in the team the technology team at EXP to get that done. Again it's like we're not a real estate company pretending to be a tech company right. It's like technology's been built in from the very beginning. Right. So it's like yes real estate sales is our focus but it's not a sort of copycat thing after the fact. Thinking hey we need to get on this tech train. I'd like to know I've been tech focused from the beginning. That's where the team's focus has been and so with the company's focus has been that's been our game from the very beginning. You know I trust the team to be able to make the right decisions and keep us ahead of the curve and those sorts of things. Kevin: A lot of people know this because I've mentioned it before. You know I was one of the first sites up on real geeks when Jeff Manson rolled that stuff out and S. Lewis from my team. So you know you and I are fairly tech savvy and we do this and that was a huge draw for me as well. I also find the whole post your social media and give me your zip code I'll give you a report. This just shows that the average agent who's wowed by that doesn't realize that as a member of the National Association of Realtors they have an RPR account and that functionality is built in there too. So everybody has this not just the EXP agents everybody has it. So it's fun for some of us to understand technology to kind of smile at that but you know a lot of agents are not as tech savvy and certainly when they look at the suite if you look at the you know the platform for conversion you look at the enterprise application all of the back office stuff the workplace platform and the collaborative tools. You don't have to be super tech savvy to plug into EXP. And then again that's another misnomer that you know this is for you know super tech savvy agents. We have plenty of agents come through the onboarding process hit the ground running and they're like very commonly saying Wow I had no idea I could use all these tools and you know raise my hand get answers that super easy if you could use an iPhone you can use everything we have. So it's not that big of a deal. Sorry. Or Android. For those people out there.. You know I'm not overly concerned with today's hottest apps on stuff. Right? It's like it's just not really that much of a concern for me. My clients choose me because of our relationship not because of my fancy shiny tools like shiny things are going to change my relationship. It's like Sure it might make it easier for me to keep up with all my clients. Like give me some leverage but it's really about me and the value I provide to my clients. It's like that's you know that's not going to go away. So that was the answer to the technology.

In today's we have Nicki Gregory from Amarillo Texas. Nicki was previously with the franchise system first starting as Mom and Pop and further working with keller Williams. As a team leader she runs a real estate team. Nicki talks to us about her decision to move to EXP, why she did, she touches on equity and revenue share and explains how much of a game changer her transition has been to her 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 EXP as an Exit Strategy The EXP value proposition Equity and revenue share opportunities Marketplace disruption 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 Nicki to inquire or ask questions. Contact Nicki: Phone 806 316 4498 email. Nicki.Gregory@exprealty.com  Links: www.EXPCloud.com Takeway Everyday we say that we're just blown away. We say mind blown every day.  It's been a big blessing for my team and for my family. Now we're happy. Nicki Gregory Transcription Kevin: Welcome back to another episode of In The Cloud. The EXP Realty Explained Podcast. I am host Kevin Cottrell and joining me today is Nicki Gregory from Amarillo Texas. Nicki was previously with the franchise system and as a team leader she runs a real estate team made the decision to leave the franchise system and join EXP realty. It's going to talk about her decision to do that. What drove it how revenue share and equity in the EXP realty model is making a game changer difference in her business and her family's life and the ability for them to fund some charities they're interested in. I think you'll enjoy the conversation as Nicki shares why she made the decision to join you EXP realty. Stay tuned for my interview with Nicki Gregory. Welcome to the show Nicki. Nicki: Hello. Kevin: I'm looking forward to chat with you today. For listeners that may not know your name and where you work why don't you give us a little bit of background in terms of her real estate history. Nicki: Ok my name's Nicki Gregory and I'm in Amarillo Texas. I went to real estate school in 06 and I did not get my license until 2011. My husband and I flipped houses for landlords and I didn't want to get it until 2011 so I started selling houses for other people at that point. Started as a Mom and Pop here in town. And then I moved over to KW in 2012 and I've just been selling ever since. Kevin: We've actually had a couple of people on the podcast that started out in the investor side flipping property and working on that side of the business and that went into residential production. So let me just ask you some questions about your business because I know a lot of people listening to this will be real estate agents. Do you have a team. Are you an individual agent and kind of volume do you have. Nicki: I do. I have a team here. The Red Door group and we do about around 10 or 11 million. Kevin: Excellent. So you mentioned that you were with Keller Williams most recently before joining EXP. What led you to the decision to take a look at the EXP tell me about how that happened. Nicki: I kind of you know you start thinking should I look elsewhere or should I be looking at other options actually really exit strategy was probably the biggest thing that was coming into play with conversations with my husband and I and so we have a friend who does some mission work in Thailand and we have been fortunate to be able to bless them and help them a little bit. There she has homes for orphans. Well rescued kids from their rescued from human trafficking. And so we had been able to help her some but we really have been discussing more and more how could we do more. And also our exit strategy on same conversations and we were looking and thinking or towards us maybe opening our own brokerage me getting my broker's license. So I started researching that and looking into whether that would be a good fit for us and not just always seems like where everybody thinks they're going to end up. And so I started looking into that and in the process of looking into it I saw a video with Jay Kinder announcing that he had to EXP and Gene Frederik's video about him owning the blockbusters and several of those videos were coming across my news feed and I'd stay up late watching those and realized I don't think at my age that this is you know if this is what's happening to people who already own brokerage's that's not the right direction for me. And so I don't want to be in a year or two you know having to make the same decisions right after I just started up a startup you know brokerage so that is how it happened. So I just signed up under Jay Kinder where we are. Kevin: Excellent excellent. Well you know you echo what a lot of people say especially if they're in a franchise system you know if you're looking at exit strategy or what the next steps are usually it's sort of unidimensional and I'm sure you went through some of this challenge which is if you're coaching with somebody they want you to do more production and eventually figure out how to get out of that and have a team that you just lead and I think that that's sort of a challenge for many people. Right. You know I certainly had a team in St. Louis previously and we did like 250 transactions a year and I had lots of volume but it wasn't something that was going to be easily converted to me running it passively or just leading only. And you know what. So when you talk about exit strategy I wanted to tie that down for a lot of the listeners because there'll be plenty of them that are out there thinking "well I don't want to be doing listings" if that's what they do which a lot of our listeners will. "And I want to just be listening and selling houses 15 years from now" so exit strategy in my parlance and I'm assuming it's the same for you is trying to figure out how to not be so dependent on others if I stop working my income goes away or it dramatically reduces because team members are not as proficient as me and or if I want to start setting more money aside and net more I going to really ramp up my production and I would assume that's part of your challenge as well when you were looking at that initially. Nicki: That was the challenge that was presenting itself and that I was seeing people who were actually moving over to EXP because they tried to sell their brokerage's and or surprised at what they were the offers they were getting were not you know sufficient for retirement and so that became a concern for me. Kevin: So you're heading on another topic we're actually seeing and I've interviewed several of them lots of independent brokers who are decided to become powered by the EXP and so what Nikki's referring to is lots of the independent brokerage community is looking at exit strategy as well in other words. There has never been a time in which independent brokers unless they're enormous have gotten great offers. Right? You have to be of huge size to get anybody that excited and interested in you and other than that your margins and your income are to the point where you're going to get basically just somebody who says I'll do and earn now or I'll give you some nominal amount of money and you can stay around for five years and help us run it. And most people don't want to do it right? Nicki: Right. No thank you. Kevin: Yeah exactly so because of the branding and and you know Mitch Riback is an episode that somebody can go listen to out of Florida. Mitch had a huge multimillion dollar offer on his brokerage and he still elected to become powered by EXP. So what Nicki is talking about is something that's sort of an industry dynamic right now. You know if you own a franchise and you listen to this you've got a little bit of a different challenge right. You're going to have to make your own best decision on what to do. But everybody that was excited that I've ever met that actually opened a franchise location unless it's coming up for renewal and they're in the window in the last six months where they can get out. They're not very happy right because they're are sort of stuck with it unless they can find somebody to buy it. So we don't have a lot of great advice for you of your franchise so that although we would tell you that there are plenty of them who have decided to sell and cash out who have come over and join EXP. So there is a path for you to get out of it you'll have to do your own due diligence and figure out how to make that happen. But you're in a little bit of a different spot than an independent broker. So you know just work your way through that process will probably at some point in the near future have somebody that was a previous franchise owner and they'll talk a little about how they were able to unwind there by selling their operations. So Nicki I want to talk to you about the EXP value proposition because you know you you came through the process and you looked at wanting to be able to work with that organization and you know make donations and help them with that awesome thing they're doing to get people out of human trafficking. And then in addition to that you wanted to look at retirement. So how long was it before you kind of analyzed the equity opportunities and the revenue share that had kind of hit you up the side of the head and you went hmmm. This is completely different than when you know what I'm in now.. Nicki: A day or two. I mean it's like Jay says all the time when you see it you can see it. And I was one of those that had the EXP Somnia you know watching the videos the first night and thinking I mean I can think of a reason that you would not do that and then also to see that opportunity for the people on my team which that does exist really you know elsewhere for team members not just team leaders to the same level. And I wanted to be able to offer my team members more. And so yeah it didn't take me very long. Kevin: And what Nicky is talking about is the EXP insomnia or sort of just diving off the cliff into the information is a phenomenon we've seen. I've interviewed another independent broker who joined EXP where he was a previous client of mine on the consulting side. And I didn't go to him because of the way he ran his business. He wasn't potentially a good prospect. And his quote when I talked to him about it was he came to me on a Thursday. He knew I acquired a lot of independent brokerages and asked me who I knew that might be a good conversion fit. And I got a email from him and a text like midnight on Sunday and he's like I haven't slept. Can we do a chat tomorrow. It's interesting because as Nicki said the phenomenon is that once you get into this it's hard to fathom not digging into it and figuring out validating how you actually the world and I want to come back to something she said because we hear this a lot from rainmakers of teams. One of the challenges in addition to the one we already looked at is it's hard to think about an exit other than people and the this goes back to the star power days right. Everybody talked about will how much did you get for your business and what was in that era was selling your list than your database and they would sell them and they would potentially get the effectively referrals or referral fees or other fees on the back and based on that volume and everybody a few years into that figured out that that wasn't very much money. But by the same token there wasn't anything available for team members. Right? You know if you're in a franchise system and there are some of them Nicki and I come from the same one right there all about teams. But what they don't talk about is sort of the dirty little secret which is it's all about conflict right. The Rainmaker owns the team the the team members are there. And there's a built in conflict if they get to be what you two like to be attracting which is talent. And now you can't offer them the huge opportunity in those cases that they want to go start their own thing. Then one of two things happens they either leave the market center and go do it on their own somewhere else in the marketplace or they stay there and there's a little bit of strife and conflict. Well in the EXP value proposition because of revenue sharing equity and the ability for teams to actually develop talent from within. We've seen people tackle this a couple of ways. I mean certainly with revenue sharing stacking I'm sure this is the direction you went Nicki which is you were able to actually create wealth for them in the process of attracting more and more agenta and well we'll get into sort of your success with revenue sharing a quick period of time in a second but the second thing that we're seeing people do and this is just meant to be a comment for people from the outside. And this may or may not surprise you. Nicki there are a lot of people across the country that I'm talking to that are going to above market average meaning typical for market splits with agents and this is one of the ways of rewarding agents in addition to revenue share because they can afford to pay it right there are some in Houston Texas where over time as their revenue share grows they're doing a retention strategy with team members where they're paying higher splits and this what's just keep going up because their primary wealth over time is not dependent on getting as much money as possible on their team production. Nicki: Yep. There's So many different opportunities that we can cover probably enough that we find new ones every day. I can tell you that. Kevin: It's something that in a production business and these are some of the things that are not intuitive to people while we have this podcast from the outside is not only do you have the non conflict right in other words there is equity opportunities and if you watch some of the information and there's a link in the podcast notes the shows an intro video when we're talking about ways that people are in equity and revenue share. Team members can actually start to create some wealth by helping attract agents to the company and they do that because they interface with a lot of agents so you have a prolific team. They're out there doing transactions with their agents on that on the team's business and or are meeting agents at events networking events or just out in the marketplace. And now is that a retention tool but it's a wealth tool for them isn't it. Nicki: Yes which is the exact opposite of what you were just talking about that we're finding now making friends with no direct competitor are now were able to work together as even a larger team in our community. And it's been pretty amazing to watch and to experience people that you've known for years but now it's a different thing it's a different relationship a different environment that we are all helping each other. It's pretty pretty cool it's fun. We're having fun.. Kevin: And that's something that if you listen to Gene Frederic or about 90 % of people that I interview on this podcast everybody uses the same phrase which is we're having fun again and again. And because it's disruptive and we're all owners of equity in the company we're agent owners if you will. It's causing a different dynamic. One the politics are gone and you know she just talked about this in her marketplace. I had a guest on that I interviewed recently and she was the number two team in a Dallas Fort Worth market center. The number one team came over like a week or 10 days before her. Right. So she made the comment she said We are collaborating so closely now in our marketplace and for the years that I was in that market center we didn't ever hardly ever talk if at all. And it's interesting because that's a dynamic that occurred moving from a franchise system and their culture and the way the business operates to the EXP system where people are all pointed the same direction. It's a culture that you shouldn't ever let anybody from the outside convince you doesn't exist. It is in one of the things that every guest on this podcast talks about is doesn't matter where you were introduced to the EXP by. If you listen to one of these episodes and before we wrap up today Nicki will give her contact information. Like every other guest does. It doesn't matter how you heard about it. If a guest resonates with you you want to talk to them and you want to get that you know and dive in a little deeper on it. It doesn't matter it's not a matter of you being sponsored by them or you being in their revenue share group. Everybody is pointed the same direction we all want to help each other and I'm sure as you said in your marketplace that's what's happening we're overall whether you were previous competitors or not you're disrupting the marketplace aren't you. Nicki: Yes we are. That's why we call yourself the disruptors club here. So that's exactly what we're doing. Kevin: And that speaks to the point of somebody listening to this podcast will be in a market you know whereas we're recording this the company between active agents and people and process onboarding is way north of 10000 agents. So we get a lot of well joining you might be on a state or a market where there's a handful of agents maybe looking around going well you know there's not a lot going in my market and I'm not sure what's going to happen. And I wonder if it's going to work here. You know it doesn't matter if you looked at two and a half three years ago in Dallas where Sherry Elliott talked about being the 16th or 14th agent when they have over 800 now. It's a matter of time in your market and I'm sure in your market things have started to accelerate since you've come over versus where it was when you first looked at EXP. It starts to go fast doesn't it? I know you said you've started to collaborate your marketplace. So with that as sort of a precursor to the conversation about revenue share even with the EXP for only a few months. Nicki: Right. Just under four months. Kevin: You came from a system like I did where you were and profit share system and it was hard to figure out you know when and if you're going to make money because it's a more complicated formula and it really varies by whether the franchise location is profitable and the person does production now in a revenue share model you and I first connected because I happened to notice that you were talking about the fact that you were blown away from your revenue share checks compared to what you used to see in the other world. Let's talk about that for a couple minutes. Nicki: Yeah my post that I made that I think your are referring to is.. I'm a little shocked because I you know I was at KW all these years. And the first couple of years I was there I worked really diligently on recruiting and I got a couple of good checks and then you know lead dwindled down to I think my biggest one last year I can't remember. It was like 120. I think under 150 most checks are my last one I got was 18 dollars. OK. So this system works a little differently in which you're getting paid off the top that's the revenue share. And honestly I underestimated what my checks would be. And my last I don't remember what it was when I posted it but it ended up at the end of the month being about 14.44. Right at that. So the way I'm looking at that. To me I'm working at EXP for free. It's you know you take your cap and you figure with that is per month. Again why would somebody not want to do it now. You know anything more than that they're paying me to work there to be there. To me he brokered by them so I was amazed. Kevin: Most people don't realize and people listening to this may not have a good perspective on and I come from the same franchise system and there's nothing wrong with Keller Williams it's an excellent well led company they have great agents there but they live by the formula and the structure they've set up. So the story you just heard is not an outlier. There are plenty of people even people with large amounts of people in profit share that don't make very much money. You're dependent on the particular market center or market centers to be profitable person and not be capped at it all to occur at the same time and it doesn't mean you won't receive profit sharing or certainly not representing that. But what I can tell you very definitively is there are plenty of people that have success in the profit sharing system that now come over and been around longer than Nicki has and they are typically at about 10 times the pay out. And you after a couple of months are already at ten times what you were making before. And it goes up from there. In other words because it's so much of a larger number off the top and it's certainly not representing that everybody gets the same results. Right. You know you have to have an agent. They've got to be in production. But this is not a typical right. You can look at the formula and you can make your own calculation. Her comment of it being a surprise as to how much bigger it was and how quickly is not anything other than her success in attracting people to the company and people asking that question because I'm sure your phone rang when you made that announcement you're moving in they're like whoa wait wait you're going to be why? And then that resulted in some initial retraction and then because you're visible in your market you have influence more agents came over and that number will typically for most of the people including everybody we've interviewed on these podcast episodes grow over time. But for tying this down it's not unusual that it doesn't happen very quickly right. If you're influential in your market or you are active in your market production you're going to have people right off the bat don't be surprised if it's not the first week or two that they ring your phone and say I want to talk to you. I don't know how quickly it happened for you but I bet it was quick. Nicki: A day. Kevin: I have another guest it's coming up in an upcoming episode. He's on the East Coast and he said if I didn't have a conversation with somebody in the first couple of days I was getting a text or another message saying well you don't like me how come you're not going to call me and talk to me about why you went over the EXP. Nicki: Yep. Well I don't know if it's typical but that is what happened to so. Exactly. Kevin: It's a pretty interesting and fun dynamic. And you know just for comparison I gave you the examples listeners that you know people were joining EXP in Dallas a couple of years ago and there were you know 16 14 15 agents something like that and now it's over a hundred you know they have markets like San Diego they went from somewhat the neighborhood of 15 or 20 to 100 in 30 days. So it tends to accelerate quickly. Don't get confuse that if you're a particular market whether it's large or small it doesn't have a big presence of EXP agents. That's not the norm for it to stay like that very long. In terms of any other things you want somebody to know about EXP and sort of what you know now that you've been here for a couple of months. Any other takeaways that if somebody... doesn't matter if they are at Keller Williams and a franchise like you and I were or they're just an independent agent what would you suggest that from a due diligence standpoint they should be paying attention to. Nicki: I mean probably a little bit more for team leaders but also solo agents and that's the fact that you are not you know with the profit share we weren't really you know geographically limited but it did have that going on as far as my experience a little bit more but the opportunity here where I think it's going to really.. I mean it already is taking off but I think.. I keep telling my team you watch when everyone starts to understand that they can grow that revenue share anywhere. They're not limited to their market. So yes the market locally here is growing fast and this is a huge opportunity for us. But the fact that we're not limited really to this market and that we can... I mean there's we can.. any agent anywhere you know you can put in your revenue share so. When people start to get that I think it's going to blow up when they really start to get that. Kevin: Absolutely I was a team leader like Gene Frederic in the Keller Williams system right so I can speak to this directly. I mean the norm for how I would receive an agent that would I'd be in discussions with me as a team leader was much more heavily weighted in the local market and in the process was set up and oriented around that. Right? I was in South Florida and I would from my own agents in my market center get the vast majority of any kind of referrals. Every once in a while they be somebody coming in that was referred from somewhere else. But that was certainly not the norm. Now if you listen to interviews on this podcast it doesn't matter if it's Pat Hayes or Mitch Riback or Gene they'll talk to you about the fact that their revenue sharing group if you will is now multi state and also in the provinces of Canada and in the case of many of them they didn't have any direct relationship with a lot of those agents. In other words Pat said I haven't directly interfaced with any of the agents although I've helped people that are in Canada for example or a lot of these states and he's that I think in his case he was in you know some worries about 800 agents now and his revenue share and they're in like 33 states including two provinces of Canada in addition to that. So what Nicki is talking about is a phenomenon that EXP is very distinctly growing agent agent. In other words the islands of a franchise system like I used to run of the market center where the vast majority of the opportunities are presented to a team later and they convert and it could take a while right. Or it may not convert. It's very different than for example Kevin or Nicki having somebody that we've done a referral with in Nebraska or Florida and or we know them from a C or S training event or some other thing or Gnomon line. Right. And they've they've heard about EXP and now they see that Kevin or Nicki announced they've joined the company and they ask questions. They're much more likely because of the process by which they're onboard it at EXP to convert. And it's a whole different thing than what occurs in a franchise system and so what what I've done is kind of restated the dynamic that Nicki is talking about and it is something that until you see it start to happen agent agent and sort of virally from a social standpoint I don't think you're going to have a good perspective on it. It is not unusual for somebody to be with the company for a year or two years at least half if they have a decent sized revenue share group. They've been purposeful about it. They brought in their own set of some number of agents. They then will have agents in multiple states. It's almost like they have their own little virtual region as a Gene Frederic and I like to call it anything else we haven't covered today and then I'm going to have you get your contact information in case anybody wants to reach you. Nicki: I mean again and or just everyday we say that we're just blown away every day like we say mind blown every day because there's so much more we could cover but we're talking about mostly revenue share right now. But I mean just the fact that they make the splits to where people can afford to be on a team you know which is where some people need to be to get the idea that they need you know to learn the business. I could go on and on. It's been a big blessing for my team and for my family. Now we're happy. Kevin: Great. I mean some of the stuff that like you said we can go on and on about is the company is highly highly focused like you are on productivity and lead generation right they're set up to support either solo practitioners or producers and teams both from the standpoint of the CAP system the splits and the ability to structure correct and then the tools right. As a matter if it's the technology tools including things like conversion are core or anything else is in my opinion second to none. So if you're an agent out there listen to this and you are productivity based and you are serious about your business you owe it to yourself to dig into it you know and go back to the person who introduced you to EXP. If you want to talk to somebody within the company ask them to find you somebody that's a peer producer whether you're a solo producer or a big producer or with a team you're a rainmaker or listen to this. There are plenty of us right does matter if I get the call. If Nicki gets a call or Gene Frederic or Pat Hays no matter who it is you'll hear it on every one of these guest episodes. We're all here to help you make the right decision. We're not perfect for everybody as far as a fit but we certainly are perfect for a large majority of the real estate producers. All right so once you give them your contact information just somebody listens and they want to reach you. Nicki: OK. You can reach my cell phone 806 316 4498 and you can reach me by email. Nicki.Gregory r@exprealty.com Those probably the best two ways to get me quickly. Kevin: Excellent well thank you for coming on the show. Nicki: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

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.    

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 – 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.

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.    

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.

Panel Kevin Harwood (twitter github blog) Jaim Zuber (twitter Sharp Five Software) Ben Scheirman (twitter github blog NSSreencast) Andrew Madsen (twitter github blog) Pete Hodgson (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 02:44 - Does iOS7’s NSURLSession obviate the need for AFNetworking? 03:20 - SSL Pinning Charles Multiple Certificates 08:09 - Reachability 10:24 - Is AFNetworking 2.0 based of NSURLConnection? AFHTTPRequestOperationManager AFHTTPSessionManager 11:52 - Serialization 12:18 - Session Manager NSURLSessionTask NSURLSessionDataTask 15:59 - Using AFNetworking Upgrading 18:11 - AFNetworking and iOS7 20:46 - Prefetching 22:00 - Contributors 22:37 - The three20 Library Category Methods BlocksKit 30:53 - Managing a Large iOS Open-Source Library Mattt Thompson @mattt Mutual Mobile 34:00 - Submitting a Feature to Mattt Picks Macintosh Software Business (Yahoo Group) (Andrew) Low -- Christmas (Jaim) Awful Recruiters (Ben) backup (Ben) Three Africans Coffee (Ben) The Mute Button in Gmail (Pete) P2 Magazine (Pete) Chasin’ Freshies: a fresh hop IPA from Deschutes (Pete) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Chuck) AFHARchiver (Kevin) Bamboo (Kevin) Next Week Streaming with Chris Adamson Transcript PETE: I actually don’t [unintelligible] that much. BEN: But you are British. You have to. PETE: Yeah. I'm a traitor to my nation. I also  don’t watch football that much.  And that’s why I use ‘football’, not ‘soccer’. CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to episode 33 of the iPhreaks Show. This week on our panel, we have Jaim Zuber. JAIM: Hello from Minneapolis. CHUCK: Ben Scheirman. Andrew Madsen. ANDREW: Hi from Salt Lake City. CHUCK: Pete Hodgson. PETE: Hello from my pajamas. CHUCK: I'm Charles Max Wood from devchat.tv, with a real quick announcement: if you are interested in learning Ruby on Rails, my Rails Ramp Up course; if you buy it at the beginning of the year… actually, I´ll give you a few days. If you buy it by January 4th, you can get 30% off. You can get that on railsrampup.com We also have a special guess, and that’s Kevin Harwood. KEVIN: Hey guys, from Austin, Texas. CHUCK: Is it snowing in Austin? KEVIN: It’s actually 79 degrees right now. I think the high, it gets up 75 today. So it’s a nice day here in Austin. ANDREW: That sounds nice. JAIM: Not bad. So you are an Auburn guy? KEVIN: I am. It was a pretty good weekend. Me and Tim Cook had a lot to cheer for on Saturday. JAIM: I can sense the glow all the way through the internet. KEVIN: I haven’t stopped grinning since Saturday evening. CHUCK: [Laughs] JAIM: Yeah, that Auburn virus really infected my timeline. Really, the only person on my timeline that was tweeting anything other than football was John Siracusa and he was talking about TVs or something. PETE: I totally tune out whenever time it is that people tweet about this. I think it’s like Sundays or Mondays or something. I get quite annoyed with Twitter and I just stopped using because I don’t know, they are talking about touchdowns and basket hoops or something. I don’t know. It’s all very confusing to me. KEVIN: I'm actually hoping Twitter releases some statistic like they do, like a super bowl halftime show or something and see if we can see an impact from that game and see the usage spike on Twitter. PETE: Someone should do some sentiment analysis on Twitter, where they like to find out… that would be really cool actually to map like… JAIM: Didn’t Apple buy a company that does that? PETE: Really? JAIM: Yeah, for like 200 million. What was it called, Topsy? Isn’t that what they did? KEVIN: Yeah, I think so. PETE: You are telling me I just came up a 200 million dollar idea? [Laughter] I'm not going to tell you guys my other ideas.