Podcast appearances and mentions of kevin welcome

Kevin and Aislinn talk about Wanderstop, the new game from the creator of The Stanley Parable Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:23: What Have We Been Up To 00:11:58: Game News 00:29:07: New Games 00:31:44: Wanderstop 01:15:33: Outro Links Pixelshire Release Date Honeymancer Early Access Release Date Space Sprouts Release Date Dave the Diver “Ichiban’s Holiday” DLC Another Harvest Moon G-Mode Game Cattle Country Optional Combat Funguys Swarm Contact Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Kevin: Hello farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Kevin (0:00:34) Aislinn: And my name is Aislinn. (0:00:35) Kevin: And we are here to talk about cottagecore games supposedly that’s a little box. It’s whoo (0:00:40) Aislinn: Woo! (0:00:42) Kevin: I forget about that. Well, I always try to be a bit of a smart alec and adding nonsense there, but whoo (0:00:49) Kevin: Although I’m although I don’t know how much I like wooing at this game. I’m very hesitant about whoo (0:00:50) Aislinn: Woo! It’s cute, I like it. (0:00:56) Aislinn: That’s true, that’s true, you make a good point. (0:00:57) Kevin: I’m kidding. I love I love (0:00:58) Aislinn: Spoilers! (0:01:00) Kevin: We’re here to talk about wander stop the tea shop game by the I forget the actual dead team name the Stanley parable people (0:01:09) Kevin: Brace yourself because anyone who’s familiar Stanley parable knows that means things (0:01:16) Aislinn: I wholeheartedly agree. (0:01:17) Kevin: But (0:01:18) Kevin: Okay, but before we get to those things let’s talk about other things (0:01:23) Kevin: Aisling what’s what’s up? What’s been going on tell me about your sky high life? (0:01:26) Aislinn: Um, I think you already know what’s been going on. (0:01:30) Kevin: You (0:01:31) Aislinn: We’ve been very busy with work and when not working, (0:01:36) Aislinn: I’ve been very busy trying to make as much progress as humanly possible in Wandershop. (0:01:42) Kevin: Yeah (0:01:42) Aislinn: And when I’m not doing that, then I’m doing the usual like dailies on my phone of like (0:01:48) Aislinn: Pokémon Sleep, TCG Pocket. I’m hard into Neko Atsume right now. (0:01:50) Kevin: Uh-huh (0:01:52) Kevin: Okay (0:01:56) Aislinn: It’s just the original, and I want to try and get everything in Neko Atsume as much as possible. (0:01:57) Kevin: Okay, wait, what is that one do tell the name escapes me (0:02:03) Aislinn: It’s a cat collecting game. It’s a cat collecting mobile game, (0:02:07) Aislinn: and it’s literally just cat collection, and it’s so cute. It’s so cute. And there’s a new Neko Atsume (0:02:08) Kevin: oh yes okay i’m familiar with this one yes it is (0:02:14) Aislinn: that came out somewhat recently, so I’m like, I’m not gonna play that until I finish the original. (0:02:20) Aislinn: So that’s what I’ve been doing. And then if I’m not doing any of those, (0:02:22) Kevin: Sure. (0:02:25) Aislinn: that I’m doing a lot of wedding planning. (0:02:26) Aislinn: So that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to, yeah. (0:02:27) Kevin: Ahhh! (0:02:29) Kevin: Has that been on the show? Wait, has that been discussed on the show at all? (0:02:32) Kevin: I don’t, I don’t know if it… (0:02:32) Aislinn: No, it has not been discussed in the show, so. (0:02:34) Kevin: Ahh, okay, how far are we? What’s, uh, what’s our target date here? (0:02:39) Aislinn: Our tar- actually, I have not announced to, like, everyone the target date. (0:02:43) Kevin: Oh! (0:02:45) Aislinn: I’ve been keeping that, like, more on a personal note, but I can tell you June. (0:02:47) Kevin: Okay, well you got a range? (0:02:49) Kevin: Sure. (0:02:50) Kevin: Okay. Okay. Well, sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. (0:02:52) Aislinn: Yeah, so we’re almost there. (0:02:52) Kevin: Yes. That’s correct. That’s correct. Very, um, very, very, uh, impressive dedicated you to to playing your wedding during the, the, the Go Fest this year, or whatever the thing’s called. (0:02:56) Aislinn: Yeah. (0:02:57) Aislinn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. (0:03:00) Aislinn: Literally, we’re not quite there yet. (0:03:06) Aislinn: It’s, yeah, no, each month that progresses closer and closer. (0:03:08) Kevin: Yes. That’s correct. That’s correct. Very, um, very, very, uh, impressive dedicated you to, to playing your wedding during the, the, the, the Go Fest this year, or whatever the thing’s called. (0:03:09) Aislinn: I’m like more and more just panic, panic, panic. (0:03:22) Aislinn: Well, that wasn’t that wasn’t in the works (0:03:22) Kevin: The, um, all right, but, uh, good stuff. Okay. So let’s see here. Okay. Just, just a side note on that. Have you, uh, I’d play a different kind of cat collecting game. Have you ever heard of the battle cats? (0:03:25) Aislinn: That wasn’t that wasn’t supposed to happen, but it just happened to happen and I was like well (0:03:29) Aislinn: We’re gonna see what happens with that (0:03:46) Aislinn: Um, no, what is that? I’m looking that up right now. (0:03:46) Kevin: Oh, I think I’ve talked to that on the show, but, um, (0:03:52) Kevin: you know, I’m going to tag you an image on the slack. I’m creating the, the live slack thread of me. (0:03:58) Aislinn: Wait, this looks so cute. (0:04:04) Kevin: What are you, you googled it. (0:04:04) Aislinn: I’m looking at it right now. (0:04:05) Aislinn: Yeah, of course I googled it. (0:04:08) Kevin: Okay. Because I was going to show all, but did you see the freaky ones yet? Um, yes, those are legs. Did you see the one with the buff one? That’s the last four legs. (0:04:10) Aislinn: Oh, those are legs. (0:04:19) Aislinn: I have not seen that yet. (0:04:22) Kevin: Yes. They’re kind of cute, but also terrifying. Like it’s, it’s a very cheek cheeky, like comical tone. Um, yeah. Yeah. There you go. There’s good old fish cat. And those are just the basics, right? Like this, it’s a gotcha game. (0:04:30) Aislinn: It’s a it’s a good aesthetic. I like, oh, I found the buff one. I found the buff one. (0:04:40) Kevin: So, and it’s, I think 10 years old now and they actually get a lot of crossovers. They’ve crossed over, they cross over like Hatsune Miku every six years. Um, Street Fighter was one. (0:04:50) Aislinn: Ooh. (0:04:54) Kevin: Um, Konosuba, I think lots of animes. I don’t know. Um, but it’s yeah. And on the best part, the best part about their crossover is you get both ways. You get Hatsune Miku as a playable character and then you get a cat that looks like Hatsune Miku. (0:05:00) Aislinn: You got me with Miku, that’s it. That’s the end-all for me. Miku or boss? That’s it. (0:05:13) Aislinn: Oh my god. That is wonderful. (0:05:14) Kevin: Here, I’ll see if I can find it. Um, I play that one on and off. My brother is a big, um, is a big, uh, (0:05:22) Kevin: battle cats fan more than ISO. Um, uh, but, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s a great one there. I posted a pic. You want to see it. Um, there’s your Hatsune Miku cat. Um, they literally just used the standard cat and put the costume on it. It’s, it’s hilarious. Oh, one of my favorite ones. They did Evangelion. (0:05:34) Aislinn: Oh my god! It’s so cute! It’s so good! (0:05:40) Aislinn: That’s wonderful! (0:05:46) Aislinn: Ooh, that’s sick. That’s really cool. (0:05:50) Kevin: That was a good one, that was a good one. (0:05:54) Kevin: Anyways, so anything else, I’m sorry? (0:05:55) Aislinn: Well, I will be checking out this game. (0:05:58) Aislinn: I will be checking out this game. (0:05:58) Kevin: Oh, it’s free, be warned. (0:06:02) Aislinn: Oh, perfect! That’s all I need. Free is for me. That’s it. (0:06:04) Kevin: There you go. (0:06:04) Aislinn: um that’s pretty much been it I guess actually one one little thing that I can kind of announce (0:06:06) Kevin: Aw, sick, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Battle Cats. (0:06:08) Kevin: It’s pretty fun. (0:06:10) Kevin: Anything else you’ve been up to? (0:06:19) Aislinn: and we’re really really hoping the best so like you know how I kept saying for today like oh i (0:06:21) Kevin: Yes, to be fair, you’re always busy so that wasn’t out of the ordinary. (0:06:23) Aislinn: have i’m busy earlier in the day and that’s we’re recording at 9 p.m eastern um yeah but it’s more (0:06:33) Aislinn: fun news so hope (0:06:34) Aislinn: we will have a new kitty or two in the household here so that’s what we were doing earlier today so i’m like I i’ve been holding that like i’ve been withholding that just for like a I wanted to get your genuine reaction like first reaction to it so (0:06:42) Kevin: Oh, oh hot off the press (0:06:54) Kevin: Oh (0:06:55) Aislinn: pause cast exclusive (0:06:57) Kevin: Podcast exclusive you heard it first here. Oh, that’s okay. Okay. You said possibly multiple. Well, yeah (0:07:05) Aislinn: yeah we’re just waiting on what I i’m not saying too much just because there’s a lot of logistics which I can tell you about later there’s a lot of logistics that we’re currently figuring out but it should hopefully work out tomorrow question mark. (0:07:11) Kevin: Sure (0:07:14) Kevin: Okay (0:07:15) Kevin: Yeah as (0:07:18) Kevin: You know, well, that’s that’s exciting. I can’t wait to hear and see them and so on but but that’s good (0:07:22) Aislinn: yeah. (0:07:24) Kevin: There should be logistics involved unlike us who a guy just kind of said. Hey, you want a free cat and handed us two kittens? (0:07:26) Aislinn: absolutely. (0:07:33) Kevin: Okay, oh they they are very love yes (0:07:33) Aislinn: but they are loved and that’s all that (0:07:34) Aislinn: matters but otherwise that’s it no not by any means (0:07:40) Kevin: Yeah that and let’s be honest cats are not the hardest to take care of (0:07:44) Kevin: You know that the hard part is cat. No, no such thing as catproofing but bracing for the uncommon storm, but (0:07:52) Aislinn: Yeah, we are definitely bracing here. (0:07:54) Kevin: Oh (0:07:55) Kevin: That’s exciting. I can’t wait to hear more. Um, congratulations. Very very excited about that (0:07:57) Aislinn: Yeah! Thank you! (0:08:00) Aislinn: What about for you? (0:08:01) Kevin: Okay, um (0:08:02) Kevin: so I will (0:08:02) Aislinn: I like your just Chicago man. (0:08:04) Kevin: Yeah, so I I don’t know if I mentioned it on this show, but I started a new job (0:08:12) Kevin: About a month and a half ago started February (0:08:15) Kevin: and (0:08:18) Kevin: I’m hit the ground running. They sent me to a trade show to man a booth (0:08:22) Kevin: and that was (0:08:24) Kevin: I was there all week this past week (0:08:26) Kevin: my feet are dead (0:08:28) Kevin: I’m ready to be chopped off (0:08:30) Kevin: not my first time in Chicago (0:08:32) Kevin: I actually went to that same event (0:08:34) Kevin: two years ago but (0:08:36) Kevin: as an attendee, not an exhibitor (0:08:38) Kevin: so yeah (0:08:38) Aislinn: Uh-huh. (0:08:40) Kevin: my role is partially sales now (0:08:42) Kevin: so I actually have to go up (0:08:44) Kevin: and pitch and talk to people and so on (0:08:46) Kevin: and so forth and try to get leads (0:08:48) Kevin: so that was (0:08:50) Kevin: busy, excited, it was good work (0:08:52) Kevin: Um, yeah. (0:08:52) Aislinn: Yeah. (0:08:54) Kevin: Um, I, I, I learned a lot trial by fire, absolutely, but good times. (0:08:58) Kevin: Um, and, and there was other enjoy it. (0:09:00) Kevin: Well, it was, it was like 90% work, but there were some nice dinners. (0:09:05) Kevin: One night we hit a piano bar. (0:09:07) Kevin: That was quite fun. (0:09:08) Aislinn: Ooooh, that’s really cool. (0:09:09) Kevin: Uh, it wasn’t, it wasn’t even, it wasn’t a super classy one. (0:09:12) Kevin: Um, it was very more bar than piano, if that makes sense. (0:09:15) Kevin: But you had the guy up there playing the songs and, and, and you can make requests (0:09:19) Kevin: and there was enough space to dance, which I did. (0:09:21) Kevin: I am a dancing machine. (0:09:22) Aislinn: Bye! (0:09:22) Kevin: fun fact. (0:09:24) Kevin: so yeah so which after a full day of standing and exhibiting wasn’t the best (0:09:30) Kevin: idea of my I pre bled my feet for the next day but but so worth it yeah yeah (0:09:34) Aislinn: Eh, it’s all in good fun. It’s all in good fun! (0:09:37) Kevin: um yeah that was uh that was fun I tried the deep dish that was good weather (0:09:44) Kevin: weather was insane it was it was snowing when I landed and like the next day we (0:09:50) Kevin: We hit 70 degrees and then two days later it hailed. (0:09:50) Aislinn: Oh, my. (0:09:54) Aislinn: Oh, my. (0:09:54) Kevin: It was a roller coaster. (0:09:56) Aislinn: Oh, my. (0:09:56) Kevin: Oh, a life first. I had a hailstone land directly into my mouth. (0:10:02) Kevin: As I said, was that hail and the duke just right in there? (0:10:06) Aislinn: Why do I feel like that’s like such a you thing? (0:10:10) Aislinn: That feels like such a you thing. (0:10:10) Kevin: Yeah, that’s… that’s correct. (0:10:12) Kevin: That is 100% correct. (0:10:16) Aislinn: I’ve never heard that before. That’s amazing. (0:10:18) Kevin: Yeah. (0:10:20) Kevin: Yup. (0:10:20) Aislinn: So it sounds like you had a great time in Chicago. (0:10:24) Kevin: Yeah, it was a lot of work, but it was a legendary time. (0:10:28) Kevin: We’ll be back in two years. Next year there’s a different trade. (0:10:30) Kevin: So actually here, right here in Atlanta, home turf. (0:10:34) Kevin: So at least I don’t have to do the major travel bit, but I’m sure it will be just as busy. (0:10:40) Kevin: But yes, good times were had, success was had by kind of me. (0:10:46) Kevin: Baby salesmen on his training wheels did little salesmen. (0:10:46) Aislinn: I’m sure you did great. (0:10:52) Kevin: Aside from that, obviously (0:10:54) Kevin: not a lot of time for games. I snuck in a few of the regulars. Marvel, Snap, Rivals, Unite, here and there on different occasions and so on. (0:11:00) Kevin: That’s all fine and all. (0:11:04) Kevin: Wander Stop, like you said, trying to squeeze in as much time humanly possible. (0:11:08) Kevin: And not even just because I want to play for the show, because I just want to play more Wander Stop. (0:11:08) Aislinn: No, me too I feel that, which we’ll definitely get into. (0:11:16) Kevin: And also, for the Mario-verse over there on the other show of Rainbow Road Radio, (0:11:22) Kevin: I play (0:11:24) Kevin: I did the same Kingdom. That’s not the little Mexican (0:11:27) Kevin: Kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey good times (0:11:30) Aislinn: Oh, sick. (0:11:31) Kevin: Yes, good. I love you mate. It’s all a replay (0:11:35) Kevin: But super enjoyable. I’m Mexican. What can I say? I’m super biased. They did I did Mario, Mexico (0:11:38) Aislinn: that game in general was just fantastic so i’m glad to hear that too that that section is like (0:11:40) Kevin: I have no complaints. They got him into sombrero (0:11:45) Kevin: It is yeah like (0:11:47) Kevin: What can I say what? (0:11:48) Aislinn: enjoyable for you (0:11:49) Kevin: She’s shocking this revisit to Super Mario Odyssey. Yeah, I’ve determined. It’s a good game (0:11:57) Kevin: Alright. (0:11:58) Kevin: Speaking of good games, I say that with an asterisk, or you have no idea. (0:12:02) Kevin: laughs Let’s talk about some game news. laughs Let’s talk about some announcements and such. (0:12:05) Aislinn: yeah (0:12:07) Kevin: Alright, take us away Ace with our first one. (0:12:09) Aislinn: all right so in game news the first game that I am looking at is pixel shire that’s going to be (0:12:16) Aislinn: releasing on the 8th of may and from what i’m looking at on the steam page it says that it is (0:12:22) Aislinn: an adventure farming sim 2d single player game from the developer capibits and it it really does (0:12:30) Aislinn: seem like a adventure farming sim 2d single player 2d single player game it also has notes about unique (0:12:37) Aislinn: RPG sandbox. (0:12:38) Aislinn: Which mixes Lifesim elements with town building, exploration, and combat. (0:12:46) Aislinn: And you can trade, you can do all the things that are normally in most farming sim games. (0:12:53) Kevin: that’s correct (0:12:55) Kevin: uh… I would (0:12:55) Aislinn: But it looks really cute! (0:12:56) Kevin: okay cs the first of all okay up (0:12:59) Kevin: the name I would imply it’s to be pixel art and it is cute (0:13:02) Kevin: uh… it is a a bit more chibi ask or or eight-bit than say uh… (0:13:05) Aislinn: Yeah. (0:13:08) Kevin: uh… stardew valley (0:13:09) Aislinn: It’s more round. (0:13:09) Kevin: uh… so you know (0:13:11) Kevin: uh… it’s a it’s different flavor (0:13:13) Kevin: uh… but there are some actually notable elements I think in here that (0:13:16) Kevin: they were talking about on first of all like you mentioned (0:13:18) Kevin: uh… sandbox as in (0:13:20) Kevin: I would say Animal Crossing New Leaf or Minecraft. (0:13:23) Aislinn: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s really, really cool. (0:13:24) Kevin: I would say Animal Crossing New Leaf or Minecraft. (0:13:32) Aislinn: Yeah. Mm-hmm. (0:13:53) Kevin: I would say Animal Crossing New Leaf or Minecraft. (0:13:53) Aislinn: Oh, I didn’t realize that about this game too! That’s awesome! (0:14:08) Aislinn: I agree. Yeah, I like the art style. I like the kind of, I guess you could say animal (0:14:14) Aislinn: crossing aspect, but more so, more generally, the sandbox aspect of being able to, as it (0:14:20) Aislinn: says, re-sculpt the world through terraforming. I think that’s really, really cool. And honestly, (0:14:23) Kevin: Yeah, yeah, they they emphasize on the yeah, yeah, so. (0:14:25) Aislinn: any game that has animals that you can raise to, they are so cute in this game. I love (0:14:31) Aislinn: it. So, but it looks, it looks great. Like as someone, as someone has been in a stance (0:14:36) Aislinn: of like being overwhelmed constantly by (0:14:38) Aislinn: farming games. This is this is a farming game. I know. This (0:14:40) Kevin: Welcome, welcome to the show, Eastland. (0:14:45) Aislinn: is one farming game that actually does peak more (0:14:47) Aislinn: interest versus other farming games. So yeah, big props to (0:14:48) Kevin: Yeah. (0:14:51) Aislinn: them. Looks really, really cool. (0:14:53) Kevin: I have not facepalmed the one watching the trailer. (0:14:56) Kevin: So good on you. (0:14:58) Kevin: That’s a thumbs up. (0:15:00) Kevin: No, and you know what? (0:15:02) Kevin: I’m, I may jinx it, but I didn’t see any romance in there. (0:15:06) Aislinn: I’m sure there’s romance. There’s no way there’s not. There’s no way there’s not. (0:15:06) Kevin: Free free from the shackles. (0:15:08) Kevin: No, well, either way. (0:15:13) Kevin: Oh, oh, okay. (0:15:15) Kevin: Wait, hold on one second. (0:15:16) Kevin: I just want to say, okay, sorry about that. (0:15:16) Aislinn: Yeah. (0:15:18) Kevin: The jaws theme played as my puppy entered the room. (0:15:21) Aislinn: Oh, no. (0:15:21) Kevin: Um… [laughs] (0:15:23) Kevin: Um… [laughs] (0:15:25) Kevin: Okay. Alright, what’s up next? Do tell me. (0:15:28) Aislinn: All right, so the next game that I’m looking at here is Honeymancer, and it’s coming soon to Early Access. (0:15:36) Aislinn: It’s currently on March 27th. (0:15:38) Aislinn: So, yeah, or actually, yeah, that’s what it seems to look like. March 27th, Early Access, coming soon, and also another Pixel 2D-looking situation, but this is more so the tags are Indie, RPG, Pixel Graphics, Tower Defense 2D, and it looks like this is not really a farming game at all. (0:16:01) Aislinn: And when I first looked at it with the just because of the art style alone, I was like, oh, it’s another far (0:16:06) Aislinn: I’m again, I’m like, oh, wait, no, it’s not. Wait, that’s really cool. And it’s got bees and we love bees here. So (0:16:09) Kevin: Yeah (0:16:12) Kevin: Yeah, all right, so there’s a few few things going on here right first of all the premise of bear wizard (0:16:19) Kevin: That’s pretty strong already right you’re you’re setting its own bear witch excuse me (0:16:25) Kevin: You have a one you’re shooting things in combat (0:16:28) Kevin: You’re fighting off robots invading the forest with other cute neighbor animals (0:16:33) Aislinn: which the robots look so cute by the way I just again the art style I’m just like gosh I love (0:16:35) Kevin: They do (0:16:38) Aislinn: this art style it’s so cute I’m such a sucker for good art styles yeah they do it’s so cute (0:16:40) Kevin: I (0:16:41) Kevin: Yup, it is a it is a very strong art style. Absolutely. I’m again 2d pixel, but it’s a very strong one (0:16:47) Kevin: I like how even the trees kind of look like beehives. It’s a very cute little touch (0:16:53) Kevin: yep (0:16:54) Kevin: there looks like there’s (0:16:57) Kevin: Management of some kind you’re growing flowers for bees making potions. So, you know, there’s elements of cottagecore stuff (0:17:03) Kevin: But it’s not your standard you have grandpa’s farm or whatever on which is fun (0:17:09) Kevin: Special shoutouts to the as they describe it the bee dog. There’s a large bumblebee flying you around. It’s more bee than dog (0:17:17) Kevin: we the the big question which (0:17:20) Kevin: You know, we’ll have to wait is where does it land on the Cody scale of acceptability? (0:17:25) Aislinn: I know, we’ll have to stay tuned to find out, right? (0:17:28) Kevin: Is it is it is it Cheeba fight is it cartoonified enough? (0:17:34) Kevin: But I mean, it’s a pretty big bee. So I think she’s gonna be on (0:17:36) Aislinn: It is a very big B. (0:17:39) Kevin: Bigger than you. So I think I think she’s gonna be on board with this one (0:17:40) Aislinn: It really is. (0:17:44) Kevin: But there are other non giant bees that you are helping raise. So that’s fun (0:17:49) Kevin: You know, it’s hard to tell how deep they’re going into it and unexpected to be (0:17:53) Kevin: You know for on be sim but but it looks good enough. It goes into the bear honey (0:17:59) Aislinn: Yeah, no, it looks it looks really cute. It’s hard to get much information based off of just (0:17:59) Kevin: So yeah (0:18:03) Aislinn: the Steam page, but like it looks generally really cute. We’ll see you soon in early access. (0:18:04) Kevin: Yeah (0:18:06) Kevin: Yeah (0:18:09) Aislinn: If this is your type of gameplay, I think it’s worth checking out because it just the (0:18:09) Kevin: March 27th (0:18:13) Kevin: Yeah (0:18:13) Aislinn: colors alone are like really pretty too. Yeah, I love that. Uh-huh. Yeah, they feel very anime. (0:18:15) Kevin: The colors are very well done (0:18:16) Kevin: I like the expressions on the characters and the little portraits when they’re speaking they get exaggerated in cartoonish. That’s that’s (0:18:24) Kevin: Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s fantastic (0:18:26) Kevin: I’m right because I think that’s probably a big criticism (0:18:30) Kevin: You have a lot of these cottage cores like the this character portraits are somewhat muted a lot of times (0:18:35) Kevin: I would say this one’s going for the anime eyes and everything (0:18:39) Aislinn: Yeah, I like it. I really do like it (0:18:39) Kevin: It’s great. I have one big criticism against it though (0:18:45) Kevin: And it’s nothing the game itself done, but unfortunately the title of honeymancer actually (0:18:45) Aislinn: Oh, okay (0:18:52) Kevin: I think it’s honey wizard has already been claimed by Winnie the Pooh in the Lorkana (0:18:57) Kevin: Card game have you okay? I posted it in the thread if you’ll take a look Aislin (0:19:01) Aislinn: Let me see. (0:19:02) Kevin: Lorkana the Disney TCG came out with a card called Winnie the Pooh honey wizard and (0:19:03) Aislinn: Oh my gosh, I’ve never, (0:19:07) Aislinn: I’ve never seen Winnie the Pooh look so magical. (0:19:09) Kevin: It’s pretty amazing. It’s (0:19:12) Kevin: Possibly the best card. They’ve ever come out with and so (0:19:15) Kevin: you know you do a lot of great things honeyman sir, but (0:19:16) Aislinn: Was that a pun? (0:19:20) Kevin: You got a tall tall bar or tall bear. I guess to cross to overcome there (0:19:24) Aislinn: What was that a pun though? Is that possibly you get it the pun because you said possibly possibly (0:19:28) Kevin: Do what oh (0:19:31) Kevin: Yes, yes (0:19:35) Kevin: Okay, I guess all right there all right beautiful (0:19:37) Aislinn: We got it we got we got there one way or another we got there (0:19:39) Kevin: I like this shot of the raccoon screaming in the trailer just eyes fisheyes in different directions with full vertical mouth. It’s great (0:19:52) Kevin: Yeah, all right (0:19:55) Kevin: What a speaking of moods. What do we actually I do have a mood. I don’t know what’s next. What’s next? (0:19:58) Aislinn: The next game is the next game is Space Sprouts, an exploration puzzle physics simulation 2D (0:20:01) Kevin: No, it’s (0:20:09) Aislinn: game are the tags, and it does primarily look like it’s a puzzle game where you bend the (0:20:17) Aislinn: rule of physics, experiment with unusual gadgets, and toss everything around. (0:20:23) Aislinn: I think out of the three games that we discussed so far, I think this game feels mostly up (0:20:28) Aislinn: because I’m always down for a good puzzle game, and the fact that there is physics in this too (0:20:31) Kevin: Uh huh. Yeah, in a good way. Yeah, that that that is a very specific alliterative title (0:20:33) Aislinn: really also intrigues me. It looks like it also kind of infuriates me, but I’m kind of, (0:20:38) Aislinn: oh perfect, cozy cosmic chaos feels like the perfect description for this game. (0:20:47) Kevin: and it works. Right, so space is the key thing right here, right? We’re not we’re managing (0:20:52) Kevin: a space station. And so you’re going to have gravity physics and light bending and all (0:20:56) Kevin: sorts of nonsense. There’s all in the trailer, you see the water floating around, you have (0:21:01) Kevin: a push it or whatever. So expect space shenanigans. Um, that sounds kind of cute. Like a very muted (0:21:09) Kevin: storybook looking design for these characters. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, it is a very nice looking (0:21:12) Aislinn: Yeah, I like the colors. (0:21:15) Aislinn: I’m all about the colors of all of these games so far. (0:21:18) Aislinn: All of these games look really, really nice. (0:21:21) Kevin: game. Demo out now if you are curious and full release date in just a little over a (0:21:28) Kevin: for a week on March 31st. (0:21:30) Aislinn: Almost there! (0:21:32) Kevin: Yup, so, uh, good on you space sprouts. (0:21:35) Kevin: Um, yeah, I’m sure some people hint, hint on the show. (0:21:39) Kevin: Might like, I don’t, I, I have no idea who, but I feel like somebody (0:21:42) Aislinn: I mean, I like it, I’m interested in it. (0:21:43) Kevin: on the show will want to play. (0:21:48) Kevin: Well, oh, there we, okay. (0:21:49) Kevin: That’s one down. (0:21:50) Kevin: Let’s, let’s get another, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll see. (0:21:53) Aislinn: I might be infuriated, I don’t know, but I’m also like, it’s a good type of infuriating (0:21:57) Kevin: Well, yeah, and that’s fine. (0:21:57) Aislinn: and that’s what this game looks like, so I’m into it. (0:22:01) Kevin: I’ve had the bad period on the show many, many times, possibly more than not. (0:22:07) Aislinn: It’d really be that way. (0:22:11) Kevin: All right, next up. (0:22:12) Kevin: Ooh, this is a good one. (0:22:14) Aislinn: You take the floor. (0:22:14) Kevin: I think they’d announced it. (0:22:16) Kevin: Yeah, I think they announced it during the game awards or no. (0:22:20) Kevin: Was that the jungle DLC? (0:22:21) Kevin: I feel like this was announced at some point, but if not, we got a full, (0:22:25) Kevin: uh, a more proper breakdown of Dave, the diver DLC can’t. (0:22:31) Kevin: Stop won’t stop. (0:22:32) Kevin: I mean, I mean, they’re made by the maple story desk, so they have (0:22:35) Kevin: the money to actually never stop. (0:22:37) Aislinn: Just keep going. (0:22:37) Kevin: Um, yeah, basically. (0:22:41) Kevin: Um, and so it is a, not that it is the second, um, crossover DLC this time (0:22:46) Kevin: with the like a dragon series, AKA previously known as the Yakuza series. (0:22:51) Kevin: Um, you are teaming up with itchy bond, um, and doing all sorts of shenanigans. (0:22:57) Kevin: Are you familiar with like a dragon at all? (0:22:59) Aislinn: I am like not I’ve never played the games, but like I am familiar and I remember when I heard about this (0:23:05) Aislinn: Because I heard about this like a while ago. I don’t remember how long it was long ago. It was but I was like, what? (0:23:10) Kevin: Yeah (0:23:10) Aislinn: I was like, how did the two these two worlds collide? I need to know how these two worlds collided. This is so cool (0:23:15) Kevin: Well (0:23:19) Kevin: It is and at the same time that feels appropriate for both franchises how on earth did this happen (0:23:25) Kevin: Um, I have never played one myself, but I am also familiar very familiar with the series (0:23:30) Kevin: so introduced we have (0:23:33) Kevin: Included in all these features. We have a genuine 2d beat ’em up side scroller where you can play as Ichiban and (0:23:41) Kevin: Cobra yeah, I think it plays Cobra Wow Oh Cobra’s playable. I didn’t catch that. That’s so cool (0:23:47) Kevin: There is a karaoke minigame because if nothing else what if that was included how could this be called like a dragon? (0:23:56) Kevin: We have let’s see what else here (0:23:59) Kevin: We’ve got we got several characters from the like a dragon series as staff members for your restaurant. It’s fun (0:24:07) Aislinn: I like that there seems to be the karaoke minigame. I feel like that fear feels very, like, Yakuza-esque. (0:24:08) Kevin: Ah, junk. (0:24:11) Kevin: Yeah. (0:24:15) Kevin: Oh, yeah, it is. (0:24:17) Kevin: Um, yeah, that land that launches, uh, April 10th, not terribly far away, about two weeks away. (0:24:26) Kevin: Um, so there, there will probably be a return to David diver sometime in the future. (0:24:32) Kevin: Uh, because I’m playing this. (0:24:34) Kevin: Absolutely. (0:24:36) Kevin: Um, that looks great. (0:24:36) Aislinn: It looks great, it really does look great. (0:24:40) Kevin: So I keep an eye out and then the jungle DLC is still being worked on and coming in the future. (0:24:45) Kevin: So again, can’t stop, won’t stop. (0:24:49) Kevin: Um, Dave keeps diving and doing everyone’s work. (0:24:52) Kevin: Um, all right, let’s see next up. (0:24:55) Kevin: Another series that has not yet stopped as of now. (0:24:58) Kevin: Uh, we’ve got story of seasons or I guess this one is like harvest moon proper because it’s, it’s in Japanese as of now, um, a harvest moon G mode game. (0:25:10) Kevin: Um, it, it is a port of a phone game from, what was it like 2008, I think on the harvest moon series. (0:25:16) Aislinn: Yes, it says 2008 on the Steam page, and yeah, it’s a port coming to Steam, but… (0:25:21) Kevin: Yup. (0:25:22) Kevin: Yup. (0:25:23) Kevin: So it’s a early mobile farming game and you know, that’s, that’s cool. (0:25:27) Kevin: You can see it, you can feel it kind of GBA S graphics, um, which is fun and cute. (0:25:34) Kevin: Um, you know, too bad it’s all in Japanese. (0:25:36) Aislinn: I, you know, cause I’ve been telling myself for the past like couple weeks, like I really (0:25:36) Kevin: So, this one I won’t be playing, probably. (0:25:45) Aislinn: should actively get back into learning Japanese. Cause I was learning Japanese at one point (0:25:50) Aislinn: when I was in like first grade and then I fell off cause I was a stubborn kid, long (0:25:54) Kevin: Hmm. Okay. (laughs) (0:25:55) Aislinn: story short, but like, I don’t know. Maybe if I get back into actually learning properly, (0:26:00) Aislinn: maybe I’ll pick up this game. It looks cute, but I don’t know anything about it because (0:26:02) Kevin: yeah it does (0:26:06) Kevin: yeah we can’t read a thing on it we just (0:26:10) Kevin: it’s all I can do is point and says that looks like a harvest moon game for a (0:26:14) Aislinn: I was like, “That’s a cow! That’s chicken! That’s all I’ve got!” (0:26:14) Kevin: phone (0:26:18) Kevin: there are anime pretty people that you can probably romance (0:26:22) Kevin: yeah uh… (0:26:24) Kevin: but uh… (0:26:26) Kevin: yeah uh… releasing on steam do we have a date for that (0:26:29) Kevin: And it’s coming soon. Yeah. (0:26:30) Aislinn: As of now, we do not have a date, but regardless, if you are interested in this and you can (0:26:33) Kevin: But yeah, we, yeah. (0:26:36) Aislinn: read Japanese, even if you can’t read Japanese and you are interested in it, it is coming soon! (0:26:41) Kevin: Oh man, go back to those early 2000s when you have the fan translation from GameFacts. (0:26:47) Kevin: Good times. (0:26:50) Kevin: But but yeah, you know, one thing to note, this is a second port that they’ve done in the series, (0:26:55) Kevin: which is interesting to me, suggesting that the first one was successful enough to warrant it. (0:27:00) Aislinn: I guess so. (0:27:01) Kevin: That’s pretty cool. (0:27:02) Aislinn: I’m glad. (0:27:02) Kevin: Yeah, I know nothing either. I should’ve picked up Japanese. I’m too big of a weeb not to. (0:27:03) Aislinn: I’m glad for the people that do care about this. (0:27:05) Aislinn: I know nothing about it, but I am happy for those that care about it. (0:27:12) Kevin: I mean, I know some Japanese words. I want to make them echo the journey one day, but in due time I guess. (0:27:20) Kevin: Alright, let’s see here. Next up we’ve got info on cattle country. Yes, not Kent County. Country bigger than that. (0:27:30) Kevin: We have got (0:27:33) Kevin: They say so what interesting thing (0:27:37) Kevin: The thing probably the biggest note is, you know, they’re talking about some features and whatnot, but combat is totally optional (0:27:44) Kevin: Which is kind of wild to see in these games right cuz (0:27:48) Kevin: You know most cottagecore games following the stardew template (0:27:53) Kevin: How you know have some kind of? (0:27:56) Kevin: combat stuck in there, right (0:27:58) Kevin: And it’s you know, just because it’s optional. It’s not bad here. I’m looking that you got bows and arrows (0:28:02) Kevin: And guns and all sorts of stuff (0:28:05) Kevin: But the fact that it’s optional and they’re advertising that that’s uh, that’s pretty fun (0:28:10) Aislinn: I think it’s great yeah I i don’t know why that would put that would it’s a great it’s (0:28:15) Aislinn: it’s a great thing honestly like I have nothing else to say besides like this is something that (0:28:19) Aislinn: is a great feature because if you want to do it you can do it if you don’t want to (0:28:22) Aislinn: you just ignore it’s a win-win (0:28:24) Kevin: Yup. Yup. This is another game where it looks like you can partner up with some of your neighbors or villagers and whatnot, so that’s, that’s fun. (0:28:32) Kevin: There’s, yeah, I think we’ve talked about it before, but there’s, if you look at the trailer, there’s square dancing. They’re playing a nice Western medley song. (0:28:40) Kevin: Um, you’re, it’s very, how, it’s, it’s HANU. Um, that’s what it is. We got state coaches, we got trains, all the good stuff. (0:28:40) Aislinn: Very, it’s definitely very howdy partner. (0:28:52) Kevin: Um, they’re good at ge– (0:28:54) Kevin: Hey, howdy, hey, get your snake in your boot and keep an eye out for cattle count–country. (0:28:57) Aislinn: I mean, there’s even a character named Bandit, so take that as you will. (0:29:00) Kevin: Um, again, I don’t– (0:29:02) Kevin: Yeah, there you go! Eyes required. (0:29:07) Kevin: Alright, next up, a new game, we’ve got, uh, okay. (0:29:10) Kevin: So I started looking at this, and, you know, pre-recording, you know, going over, preparing, whatnot. (0:29:15) Kevin: And I stopped because I just kept saying, “What is this?” I needed to– (0:29:20) Kevin: to put some of that energy into the recording. (0:29:24) Kevin: We are looking at a game called “Fungi’s Swarm.” (0:29:24) Aislinn: It’s so silly. (0:29:28) Kevin: Um, so, you know, G-U-Y-S, “Sworn.” (0:29:32) Kevin: Um, it is a bullet hell game. (0:29:36) Kevin: Um, it is their first dev, uh, like, dev blog. (0:29:41) Kevin: Um, and they are showing it’s– (0:29:44) Kevin: Kinda what the whole thing, right? It is a cartoony, survivor bullet hell, where you become a fungi, (0:29:49) Kevin: wield forest-crafted weapons and unleash bonkers powers against the fire killer. (0:29:54) Kevin: So you there’s a lot going on here. There’s a mushroom guy running around. There’s pumpkin vegetable monsters and bears and like vegetables. I don’t an apple bear and an apple. (0:30:08) Aislinn: There’s a there’s an easter egg for from Coral Island of a waterfowl and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen (0:30:14) Kevin: What I didn’t see that’s incredible. That’s incredible. (0:30:20) Kevin: incredible you’re running around is your little fungus guy with (0:30:24) Kevin: giant watermelon acts like the waterman slice is bigger than you are (0:30:27) Kevin: it’s enormous there’s a great blaster gun thing you’ve got the powers like oh (0:30:34) Kevin: oh yeah that’s uh this is some good stuff there’s what is going on with this (0:30:40) Kevin: apple teeny it’s a half-eaten apple with a warm a very buff warm popping out of (0:30:45) Kevin: it you know there’s runs it’s oh it’s colorful it’s wacky it’s cartoony it’s (0:30:54) Kevin: magnificent I don’t what are these little for sanctuary pals you got like (0:30:58) Kevin: buzz balls with fruit stems there’s all block (0:31:00) Aislinn: I have no, not a single clue, but it looks like, it looks cute and fun, cozy and fun. (0:31:08) Kevin: yep yep (0:31:08) Aislinn: It looks like it’s a good balance of that, I feel like. (0:31:11) Aislinn: I feel like it does somehow fit into the Cottagecore game. (0:31:14) Aislinn: It just, it just somehow does fit, yes it is like a bullet hell game, but it still feels, (0:31:20) Aislinn: it feels like it’s going to be accessible enough to fall into the category of Cottagecore. (0:31:20) Kevin: Oh, yeah for sure. Um, it’s certainly caught my eye (0:31:27) Kevin: Obviously, we’re gonna be a ways off from this bad boy coming out, but I’m definitely keeping my out that is again fun guys swarm (0:31:35) Kevin: They’re good on you a lot of good news stories this week. Nothing. Nothing. Give me any heartache or anything (0:31:38) Aislinn: Honestly, yeah. (0:31:42) Kevin: That’s exciting stuff. Oh (0:31:45) Kevin: All right, and with that let’s talk about some let’s move on to something else exciting. Let’s talk about (0:31:50) Aislinn: Yeah. Oh my gosh. (0:31:50) Kevin: Wonder stuff, huh? (0:31:53) Kevin: Okay, so again, this is the tea shop simulator created by the Stanley parable dev team (0:32:01) Kevin: If you haven’t played Stanley parable (0:32:04) Kevin: You might want to pause go listen because I think we need to talk about it because that’s important for context (0:32:09) Kevin: and (0:32:10) Kevin: So important that acelin has actually played Stanley parable prior to the gay wonder stuff in preparation (0:32:17) Kevin: So let’s hear some thoughts (0:32:17) Aislinn: I did. Yeah, so I, yeah, once I found out that this game was being created by the people (0:32:25) Aislinn: that made Stanley Parable, I very much was like, I’ve always wanted to play Stanley Parable, (0:32:31) Aislinn: but I put that way up on my, I moved that way up for my backlog, because I knew and (0:32:35) Kevin: Uh-huh (0:32:37) Aislinn: I’ve heard great things about this game, which I think everyone knows about. If you haven’t (0:32:41) Aislinn: played the game, you still know the premise of the game and what the game is all about. (0:32:43) Kevin: John (0:32:44) Kevin: Yep for for (0:32:45) Aislinn: And I was very curious to check it out. (0:32:46) Kevin: Yeah for clarity. I have not played it myself, but as you said, I am very familiar (0:32:50) Kevin: I know all the secrets. I don’t feel free to let out whatever you want. Um, you just listener assume we’re spoiling whatever. Okay, it’s (0:32:53) Aislinn: Yeah, I played as many, spoiler warning for Stanley Parable, a very long time. (0:32:59) Kevin: Yes game that’s been out how long now (0:33:04) Aislinn: But the thing is, before I played Stanley Parable, I knew it was a strange game or a (0:33:08) Aislinn: very interesting game that a lot of people liked, but I didn’t know what the premise (0:33:11) Aislinn: of the game was. (0:33:12) Aislinn: So I went in pretty blind and it was an experience for sure. (0:33:17) Aislinn: It took me a while to get into because I was like, “What is happening?” (0:33:21) Kevin: Ha ha ha ha! (0:33:23) Aislinn: As I continued, I was like, “Okay, I’m starting to get it. (0:33:26) Aislinn: I’m starting to understand.” (0:33:27) Aislinn: And it was a very, very fun and fascinating and silly game. (0:33:33) Aislinn: And I did pretty much almost all of the endings except the ones like the, what was it, like (0:33:40) Aislinn: the baby one with like the dog and like the, you have to like stand up. (0:33:42) Kevin: Yeah, that’s correct. (0:33:44) Aislinn: You know that one, that one ending, we have to like be in the game for like three hours (0:33:47) Aislinn: or something. (0:33:49) Aislinn: I refused to do that one. (0:33:49) Kevin: Yeah, that’s correct. (0:33:50) Aislinn: I just watched it on YouTube. (0:33:51) Aislinn: I was like, “There’s no way I’m doing this.” (0:33:54) Aislinn: But just like that absurdity and like that confusion, I’m just like, “Yeah, no. (0:33:59) Aislinn: Okay. (0:33:59) Aislinn: I understand why people like this game now. (0:34:01) Aislinn: Like I have not experienced this in a game in a very, very, very long time.” (0:34:05) Aislinn: And it just took twists and turns and I was like, “Huh.” (0:34:09) Aislinn: And I was happy that I got to experience that before playing this game. (0:34:13) Aislinn: Cause I was curious if they were going to do things in this game that also (0:34:16) Aislinn: kind of caught me off guard and surprised me and that definitely did happen. (0:34:18) Kevin: All right, yep. (0:34:23) Aislinn: As a general notice, we’re not going to spoil like main plots of the game. (0:34:30) Aislinn: We may talk about a little bit of hint towards a little couple of things here (0:34:33) Aislinn: and there, but we’ll try our best to not spoil the game because both of us are (0:34:37) Aislinn: just about at the same point in the story and we both kind of share the sentiment (0:34:40) Aislinn: that we want y’all to check out the game and experience the not absurdity, but (0:34:47) Aislinn: just like the twists and turns of the game that also surprised me. (0:34:49) Kevin: Yep. (0:34:53) Aislinn: I was playing Wanderstop as I continued into it. (0:34:55) Kevin: Uh-huh. (0:34:56) Aislinn: Like it took me a while to get into Stanley Parable. (0:34:57) Aislinn: It took me a while to get into Wanderstop. (0:34:59) Aislinn: And as I continue, I was like start, I felt the same feeling that I felt when I (0:34:59) Kevin: Yeah. (0:35:03) Aislinn: was playing Wanderstop versus when I was playing Stanley Parable, but in just (0:35:04) Kevin: So. (0:35:07) Kevin: Mm-hmm. (0:35:08) Kevin: Right. (0:35:09) Kevin: Okay, so. (0:35:11) Kevin: Again, if someone who- so, that’s all great. (0:35:13) Kevin: And I appreciate you played it, ‘cause at least one of us can speak to it, but, um… (0:35:15) Aislinn: Well, you know about it too, you know. (0:35:19) Kevin: And so. (0:35:21) Kevin: Like. (0:35:22) Kevin: Maybe I don’t fully have heard everything, but the tone of Stanley Parable is almost… (0:35:29) Kevin: It’s very absurdist, very- almost adversarial in times, right? (0:35:32) Kevin: Like the narrator is constantly fighting against you, or you’re being sent down roads that are unpleasant, or so on and so forth, right? (0:35:39) Kevin: Like, it’s an enjoyable experience and a lot of fun, don’t get me, like, clearly, but… (0:35:45) Kevin: It is a very different vibe from a Cottagecore game, right? (0:35:49) Aislinn: Yes, very much so. (0:35:49) Kevin: So, when you- (0:35:51) Kevin: Right? (0:35:52) Kevin: And so when you hear they’re doing this- a tea shop simil- and they’re, you know, outright saying it’s gonna be a cozy game, like… (0:36:00) Kevin: What am I- what am I gonna do? I’m- I’m on guard, like, you’re the Stanley Parable people. (0:36:02) Aislinn: I know! (0:36:04) Kevin: I don’t believe a word you say, I am- (0:36:06) Aislinn: It literally says on the Steam page, “From the creator of the Stanley Parable.” (0:36:11) Aislinn: It’s the first line! (0:36:11) Kevin: Yep, so. (0:36:12) Kevin: Yup. (0:36:13) Kevin: So, I’m, you know, I’m coming into Wanderstop armed with a knife, just ready to fight back whatever this game’s- (0:36:19) Kevin: he’s gonna throw at me, right? (0:36:21) Kevin: Um… (0:36:22) Kevin: And, um… (0:36:24) Kevin: Well, I mean, shocker, it’s not the Stanley Parable, right? Like, some things carry over, like, it’s quality-quality writing. (0:36:31) Kevin: Excellent writing throughout, absolutely. (0:36:33) Kevin: There are some twists and turns, but it’s- it’s not in the insane, zany Stanley Parable way, it’s- it’s all, you know, in a narrative structure that- that fits it and whatnot. (0:36:46) Kevin: Um… (0:36:47) Kevin: I can confirm. (0:36:49) Kevin: I would call this a cozy game, but it’s a cozy game that sometimes pulls out a knife on you because sometimes I’m not ready for it. (0:36:54) Aislinn: Yes. (0:36:59) Aislinn: Yes. (0:37:00) Aislinn: Yes. (0:37:02) Kevin: I’ll get to that in a second, but the point being, there’s no secret endings, there’s no crazy insane tasks. (0:37:13) Kevin: And I tried, like one of the first things I did, like when you start the game you can run back into the force. I ran into the force like ten times. (0:37:19) Kevin: I was expecting something and nothing happened. I looked it up and there’s nothing, no insane hidden things like Stanley Parable, right? (0:37:30) Kevin: There’s some stuff, but nothing just completely insane. (0:37:36) Kevin: So yeah, it’s wild to see that they’re actually playing it straight. We’re getting a “cozy game”. (0:37:44) Kevin: So with that in mind, let’s talk about the premise, because I say (0:37:49) Kevin: “cozy” but there’s a big asterisk here because it is possibly one of the most “uncozy” openings to any game ever. (0:37:52) Aislinn: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. (0:37:57) Aislinn: But I loved it. I genuinely loved it. (0:37:57) Kevin: And yes, yep. So this is, and you’re not an avatar, you’re not a Stanley, a blankly avatar more or less, you are playing a character named Alta. (0:38:09) Kevin: She is a fighter, a warrior, goes into tournaments. The story starts with her description of her wanting to be the best. (0:38:18) Kevin: she’s undefeated for like three. (0:38:19) Kevin: and she just totally off her game so what does she do she seeks out help she (0:38:21) Aislinn: Very, very long time, but yeah. (0:38:45) Kevin: He seeks out Master Winters, a legendary warrior. (0:38:49) Kevin: Who she thinks can help her get a groove back. (0:38:52) Kevin: So, Alta runs through the forest, but then at some point, her body starts to fail her. (0:38:59) Kevin: She collapses, and she wakes up in this clearing in the forest, in front of a tea shop called “Wanderstup”. (0:39:06) Kevin: She meets the proprietor, a man named Boro, who is a fantastic… (0:39:10) Aislinn: Oh, he’s wonderful. I love him. (0:39:13) Kevin: He is the complete, I would say foil, like opposite foil to Alta. (0:39:16) Aislinn: Yeah. (0:39:17) Kevin: She is the most chills (0:39:19) Kevin: Zen just goes with the flow kind of guy. He’s happy. Good luck. He always cracking jokes and whatnot. Um (0:39:24) Aislinn: So sweet (0:39:26) Kevin: He’s a wonderful man. Um, he is the one who rescued Alta (0:39:30) Kevin: explains where she is and (0:39:33) Kevin: and basically suggests for her to take a break because (0:39:38) Kevin: One of the first thing she does is try to pick her her sword and she can’t (0:39:41) Kevin: Why meanwhile borrow can pick it up. No problem. And it’s just something (0:39:46) Kevin: Something going on with Arthur. She can’t fight. She can’t… (0:39:49) Kevin: She can’t lift her. (0:39:50) Kevin: if you run back into the forest like I did you just collapse and are sent back to the clearing so (0:39:54) Aislinn: I did too for context. I also did the same thing as you, because I was like, I just need to know. (0:39:57) Kevin: Yeah (0:39:59) Kevin: Yeah, it’s though it would be that (0:40:00) Aislinn: Especially again, coming off of Stanley Parable, I was like, I just need to know. (0:40:02) Kevin: it (0:40:04) Kevin: It would be the most Stanley peril thing in the world right the run out you get it ending (0:40:08) Kevin: like absolutely, so (0:40:10) Kevin: So yeah, so that um so with you know after repeated attempts if you do or you just give up (0:40:17) Kevin: Boro suggests to Ulta to just stay there (0:40:20) Kevin: and the tea shop to help out to try to rest and recover (0:40:23) Kevin: because she’s clearly suffering from over exhaustion. (0:40:27) Kevin: And and so that and already at this very 10 minute initial premise, (0:40:33) Kevin: the game is is is going at me like directly targeting me bullseye because. (0:40:39) Kevin: So, OK, you are a hard worker. (0:40:42) Kevin: You probably relate to this. (0:40:44) Kevin: I think a lot of people from our generation, how we were raised, like, (0:40:48) Kevin: you know, we a lot of people, (0:40:50) Kevin: we’re raising the very drive, like driven generation, right? (0:40:54) Kevin: Work hard, work hard, succeed, go to the next thing, right? (0:40:56) Aislinn: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (0:40:57) Kevin: Be the top, be first in class, right? (0:40:59) Kevin: And and I personally like my I was in the warrior, (0:41:02) Kevin: but like I graduated salutatorian in high school. (0:41:05) Kevin: Like my academic pursuits were like everything to me. (0:41:08) Aislinn: Mm-hmm. (0:41:10) Kevin: So I can relate to that very much so. (0:41:13) Kevin: And then there comes a point when life just punches you in the face (0:41:17) Kevin: And you, you know, you just, you’re, you’re knocked out a few. (0:41:20) Kevin: Notches. So I get this and I’m already very not comfortable with how personal this story has gotten. (0:41:26) Aislinn: Yeah, yeah, I really felt the anger that Alta was feeling in the beginning, not to the fullest extent, because I’m just generally not a very like angry person. But like, what, like the underlying emotions of that anger, I genuinely felt because I definitely also feel that in the sense that as a person that considers myself very hardworking as well, to be working so hard, and then to be knocked down like that, it really, really, really sucks. I get that. (0:41:34) Kevin: Yeah. Right. (0:41:54) Kevin: Yep (0:41:56) Aislinn: I definitely really felt for her right off the bat. Like immediately, I was like, Oh, this is one of those games. Oh, no, my heart. I was like, Oh, no, they really did. (0:42:00) Kevin: Yeah (0:42:04) Kevin: Yup (0:42:10) Kevin: Yup, yup. Yup. They have set the stage (0:42:15) Kevin: and and and again in right there in contrast with Boro a wonderful truly cozy character and then also the most (0:42:24) Kevin: I have possibly seen in a cottage core game (0:42:28) Kevin: But (0:42:30) Kevin: Like for me that one of the bits that really resonated is just running through the forest right getting back up going back (0:42:36) Kevin: Like I relate to that very much so to to maybe not on well (0:42:42) Kevin: Okay, I’ll say someone on the healthy levels, but or it’s let’s say it’s affected me right like I’ve definitely (0:42:47) Aislinn: We all go through it. We’re human. We all go through it. (0:42:48) Kevin: Right, right. Yeah (0:42:51) Kevin: Um, and so being forced to stop. (0:42:54) Kevin: That out of your control, that’s something I wouldn’t handle. (0:42:57) Kevin: Well, I&am

Kev and Spencer talk about Paleo Pines Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:02:21: What Have We Been Up To 00:14:37: News 00:37:08: Paleo Pines 01:45:09: Outro Links Garden Buddies Release Garden Buddies Release Trailer Ikonei Island Friends Pass Farming Simulator 22 Carrots Preview Garden Galaxy Autumn Update Mineko’s Night Market Patches Paleo Pines Patches Animal Crossing Lego Paleo Pines Contact Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:31) Kevin: Welcome farmers to the harvest season! (0:00:48) Spencer: Spared no expense. (0:00:49) Kevin: Hello. See what I wanted… I would have preferred the kazoo version. Have you heard that one? The kazoo version of Jurassic Park? Oh, I’ll have to send you a (0:00:50) Spencer: I have not heard that version. (0:01:00) Spencer: Aha. (0:01:01) Kevin: link. It’s an amazing one. I’ll do that right now. But in the meanwhile, hello listeners, farmers. I’m your host, Kevin, and with me today is Spencer! (0:01:14) Spencer: Yes, they thought they could get rid of me after the last episode I was on, but I’m back, (0:01:21) Spencer: so deal with it. (0:01:22) Kevin: And why? Because dinosaurs, of course, um, we are here to talk about, uh, (0:01:32) Kevin: Heliopines and Spencer, our resident dinosaur lover, alongside me. (0:01:40) Kevin: Um, I’m also a big fan. Um, we’re, uh, we were both very excited for this one. (0:01:46) Spencer: Yeah, I remember seeing it and I was like, “Oh man, I gotta wedge my way, force my way in with Al this time again.” (0:01:50) Kevin: Yeah. (0:01:53) Kevin: Yup, yup. (0:01:55) Kevin: But before that, um, you know–oh, see, I sent you the kazoo cover of Jurassic Park. (0:02:03) Kevin: Um, but before we get into paleopines, as usual, we’re gonna cover some news and other stuff. (0:02:11) Kevin: As usual, you can find the show notes and the transcript on the website, as always. (0:02:20) Kevin: Alright, but what we- (0:02:23) Spencer: Ah, games I’ve been playing. Well, I was playing Tears of the Kingdom for a while, and then, honestly, I’ve been playing a couple mobile games, so I started playing Monster Hunter now. (0:02:35) Spencer: Are you playing that? (0:02:36) Kevin: Oh, I am not okay first off for have you played Monster Hunter not mobile version Okay Uh-huh, right Okay Okay, but you hunted some things you have familiarity, okay, okay (0:02:37) Spencer: Oh, yeah. (0:02:45) Spencer: So I have Rise, and I also have Worlds, I think it is, for PS4. (0:02:51) Spencer: I just barely scratched the surface of both of them. (0:02:55) Spencer: I think it got a little bit farther in Rise than I did in Worlds. (0:02:59) Spencer: Oh yeah, I definitely hunted some things. (0:03:05) Spencer: See, the issue with me in those kind of games is like… (0:03:06) Kevin: Uh huh. (0:03:07) Spencer: The feedback loop for that kind of stuff is actually really… (0:03:12) Spencer: I like really enjoy it, but I get stuck on like (0:03:15) Spencer: the first level, because I’m like, “Oh cool, I hunted this monster. Let me like, hunt it again. Let me hunt it again.” (0:03:21) Kevin: Uh-huh, right. (0:03:21) Spencer: I just keep on hunting the same thing over and over again, and I never end up proceeding to the next level or the next area or wherever. (0:03:23) Kevin: I mean, that’s fine. You’ve got to do that at app points. (0:03:29) Spencer: Yeah, that’s true. So I am familiar with the series a little bit, but yeah, it’s been playing a lot of now. (0:03:41) Spencer: Well, I was playing a lot of now. (0:03:42) Kevin: Oh, okay, so tell me about now, because I’m fascinated how this works, but this is by Niantic, the Pokemon Go people. (0:03:43) Spencer: kind of… (0:03:49) Spencer: Yeah, so… (0:03:53) Spencer: So basically, like, while you’re walking around, you know, there’ll just be like, monsters kind of out where you are. (0:04:00) Spencer: Um, god, I think someone pointed out… (0:04:02) Spencer: It’s almost like the movie, in that it’s our world, but the monsters have now kind of like, invaded our world. (0:04:10) Spencer: Um, so you’re just walking around, there’ll be like, lesser monsters, you know, (0:04:15) Spencer: and like, ones that would actually be like, a hunt in the real game. (0:04:18) Spencer: And, you just fight ’em, you’re kind of timed, similarly to how you would do like a, say like a raid in Pokemon Go. (0:04:26) Spencer: Um, a lot more… (0:04:28) Spencer: Intensive than Pokemon Go, if you’ll believe that. (0:04:32) Spencer: You’re still basically clicking. (0:04:34) Spencer: But you can like… (0:04:35) Kevin: Okay, sure I right you’re you’re on mobile there’s only so much you can do right uh-huh (0:04:36) Spencer: Yeah, you can like, swipe to dodge. (0:04:40) Spencer: Yeah, you can swipe to dodge, you can get perfect, like, you know, perfect dodges and stuff. (0:04:45) Spencer: Um, and then there are some combinations. (0:04:48) Spencer: ‘Cause I’m using, um, what is it, Greatsword? (0:04:51) Spencer: And you can like, kind of do this thing where you like, if you start swinging and then you swipe, you’ll do kind of that shoulder, you know, shoulder charge attack. (0:05:03) Kevin: - Yeah, yeah, right. (0:05:03) Spencer: So there are definitely like, combos and stuff that you can figure out. (0:05:06) Spencer: It would benefit from a like, tutorial, you know, like in a fighting game, you have your little like, tutorial, you know, practice area. (0:05:15) Kevin: - Right. (0:05:15) Spencer: Or something like that, ‘cause you can like, then you could figure out, yeah, training room. (0:05:16) Kevin: - Oh, okay, yeah, training room, yeah. (0:05:20) Spencer: Um, but yeah, so you walk around, you fight monsters, you collect, uh, collect different resources, your little, um… (0:05:29) Spencer: What are the little cats called? (0:05:32) Kevin: Uh, the Palicos? (0:05:33) Spencer: Palakos, yeah, you have one, so it runs around and collects resources for you. (0:05:34) Kevin: Right, right. (0:05:38) Spencer: Um, it’ll also mark monsters too, so you can like, come back. (0:05:41) Spencer: back. Yeah, it’s pretty, my understanding is it’s a little bit more leaning. (0:05:45) Spencer: towards the world’s aesthetic. So the different monsters from there and stuff. (0:05:48) Kevin: Yeah, okay, sure. (0:05:50) Spencer: It’s fun. You kind of plateau a little bit if you aren’t able to go out and get resources. I’ve needed to upgrade like my weapons for a while now but I just simply can’t find find the resources I need. So it is what it is. But yeah, it’s been fun. (0:06:00) Kevin: Ahh. (0:06:02) Kevin: Okay. (0:06:04) Kevin: Have you tried any other weapons? (0:06:09) Spencer: Well, in Rise and in World I was using Swishax, which is not in this. (0:06:14) Kevin: Right what what (0:06:15) Spencer: Unfortunately. Yeah, they left it out. So I had to go with the next best thing. (0:06:22) Spencer: They do have, you know, your like kind of daily challenges that give you experience for your rank and some of the challenges will ask of you to do things with other weapons. So they do try to like kind of get you to branch out. It’ll be like, “Oh, (0:06:40) Spencer: kill three monsters with like a hammer or something like that.” So you will inevitably have at least one of each weapon somewhat, you know, upgraded and stuff so that way those little challenges won’t be such a pain. (0:06:40) Kevin: Okay. Okay. (0:06:52) Kevin: Uh-huh okay okay I I asked because so for people who aren’t familiar with monster hunter as the name implies right you’re just out hunting monsters but there’s different types of weapons and they all play significantly differently so I wonder like is that the same here does a bow hunt player feel different (0:07:20) Spencer: They definitely do. The, you know, like the sword and shield is a lot faster. You start off with that too. (0:07:27) Spencer: So you kind of like, I think you don’t even get to choose a different weapon until you reach rank 10. (0:07:33) Spencer: Which can go by pretty quickly depending on like the area you are and you know how close you are. (0:07:40) Spencer: Much like Pokemon Go, you know, it’s a lot of it’s dependent on how close you are to like stops and other points of interest, right? (0:07:46) Spencer: So, you know, if you’re close to things like that… (0:07:50) Spencer: …you’re ranking probably go up pretty quickly within the first day. (0:07:54) Spencer: And you can get to the other weapons. (0:07:56) Spencer: But yeah, there is definitely a different playstyle to each one. (0:08:00) Spencer: You know, for as much as it is just tapping and swiping. (0:08:04) Kevin: Okay, all right, that’s interesting, but the fact that they don’t have the Switch X weapon I’ve played for Decade Plus, yeah, I know that game goes in the trash. (0:08:18) Spencer: Yeah, it was kind of a bummer when I saw that, I was like, “Oh man!” (0:08:24) Kevin: Alright, what else have you been up to? (0:08:25) Spencer: Umm, that and, oh god, this is so embarrassing for me to admit, but have you ever seen the ads for uh, that mobile game, Raid? (0:08:35) Kevin: Rage Battle Legends! (0:08:37) Spencer: Shadow Legends, yeah! (0:08:38) Kevin: Did you get your 300 free heroes? (0:08:39) Spencer: I was just, I was like, I… (0:08:43) Spencer: I did not, I just downloaded it, I was like, “What is this game about?” I keep seeing (0:08:48) Spencer: it, let me just try it, you know, if, for those of you who don’t know me, I download too many mobile games, and then my phone is just like full of them, and I don’t play them, (0:08:59) Spencer: and it’s just, it’s a bad habit that I need to stop and break, but I was like, “Whatever, (0:09:04) Spencer: they have money to hire all these famous actors to promote their game, so maybe it’s good.” (0:09:11) Spencer: And it’s not bad, I’ll be honest, you know what, it’s not bad, it is definitely a mobile game. It has everything you’d expect from a mobile game. It has… (0:09:18) Spencer: you know, timed items, rechargeable energy, you know, all the little… that bombards you with buying packs and stuff, but you know, whatever. (0:09:30) Spencer: I’m not into PvP too much, so I’m not concerned about having the best champions right away and stuff, but you know, it’s a mobile game. (0:09:40) Spencer: I don’t know what else there is to say about it. You wait for things. (0:09:43) Kevin: Okay, like okay, what do the it’s a is it a it’s it a gotcha game? I’m assuming it’s a gotcha game right to get your (0:09:52) Spencer: yeah so there are there are these like hero crystals or something I’ve only been playing it for not too long so pardon me for any any hardcore raid players out there I just called the whatever you know these crystals and you like summon heroes and stuff and you know nine times out of ten you’re summoning one that’s gonna be used for fodder for something else but every once in a while you’ll summon some epic hero or whatever so yeah it’s a gachi game (0:10:01) Kevin: Okay [laughter] (0:10:20) Kevin: Okay, are there any cool designs? (0:10:23) Spencer: » They’re all pretty cool. (0:10:25) Spencer: If you are into like, you know, very like high fantasy and dark fantasy kind of stuff. (0:10:30) Spencer: They have some good stuff, you know, like Lord of the Rings or like, (0:10:34) Spencer: I don’t know what else, The Witcher. (0:10:37) Spencer: If you’re into that kind of stuff, then you’ll probably be drawn to the aesthetic. (0:10:39) Kevin: Okay, hi, Fanny. (0:10:41) Spencer: Yeah, there are, it is a little odd, some of the designs, (0:10:46) Spencer: cuz like they lean into like fantasy of multiple cultures. (0:10:52) Spencer: There’s like a whole subset of like, you know, (0:10:55) Spencer: clearly Asian inspired fantasy people and creatures. (0:10:58) Kevin: Oh, door. Okay. (0:11:00) Spencer: Which is kind of interesting to see with more European style, (0:11:05) Spencer: more medieval style fantasy. (0:11:08) Spencer: You know, you’ll have your like, knights of the round table style knight fighting alongside like a ninja, but I mean, (0:11:17) Spencer: I can see why they have enough money to make ads like that, so it’s very solid. (0:11:22) Kevin: Yeah? (0:11:23) Spencer: I will say that, yeah. (0:11:23) Kevin: And hey, now that it’s been brought on the podcast, I’m sure they’ll approach us for a sponsorship now. (0:11:28) Spencer: Hopefully, yeah, you’re welcome. (0:11:29) Kevin: There you go, Al. (0:11:31) Kevin: I can’t wait for Al to read how much he loves rage at relations. (0:11:37) Kevin: Um… (0:11:40) Kevin: Okay. (0:11:41) Kevin: Oh, hey- (0:11:41) Spencer: What have you been playing? (0:11:43) Kevin: Ugh… (0:11:45) Kevin: Mostly- (0:11:46) Kevin: Mostly paleopines, I don’t lie. (0:11:48) Kevin: Um… (0:11:49) Kevin: This week’s been a lot of paleopines. (0:11:53) Kevin: But, uh, before that, I’m going to plug the other show, Rainbow Road Radio, (0:12:01) Kevin: hosted by my- our mutual friend Alex, and I happen to be on it. (0:12:07) Kevin: We covered Luigi’s Mansion last week, we are back from our break. (0:12:12) Kevin: And, uh, to kick off Spooktober- (0:12:15) Kevin: Well, you know, Halloween, whatever. (0:12:18) Kevin: Uh, we played Luigi’s Mansion. (0:12:20) Kevin: Um, the original for the GameCube. (0:12:20) Spencer: Oh, okay, okay, I was going to ask, didn’t they re-release it for DS, correct, or 3DS? (0:12:22) Kevin: Uh, yeah. (0:12:24) Kevin: Yes. (0:12:27) Kevin: Actually, that’s interesting because Alex played it on the DS. (0:12:31) Kevin: He did the remake, I did the original version. (0:12:34) Kevin: Um, and it’s interesting to hear those comparisons, but I will say, overall, like, that’s still a really good game. (0:12:43) Kevin: I never ha- I hadn’t played it before, actually. (0:12:45) Kevin: This is my first time playing the original. (0:12:45) Spencer: Oh wow, really? (0:12:46) Kevin: Yeah, um, so no nostalgia rose-colored glasses or whatever. (0:12:52) Spencer: I think that was the first game I got for my GameCube. That and Wave Race, yeah. (0:12:52) Kevin: But I enjoyed it. (0:12:53) Kevin: Yeah. (0:12:57) Kevin: Ooh, waveries, that’s a good one. (0:12:58) Spencer: Yeah. (0:13:00) Kevin: Um, uh, yeah, it was a launch game, I think, for the GameCube, so that makes sense. (0:13:05) Kevin: Um, I was surprised- one thing I was surprised by, because I had seen- I played the second one, Dark Moon, (0:13:14) Kevin: and I watched my brother play Luigi’s Mansion 3. (0:13:18) Kevin: So what I didn’t expect is Luigi’s Mansion 1, boy that they… (0:13:22) Kevin: Saw Resident Evil and said “What if we do Resident Evil with the Luigi?” (0:13:27) Kevin: Um, because boy that feels like a Resident Evil game, both the tank controls and the aesthetic, um, but overall very fun. (0:13:36) Kevin: Uh, so yeah, uh, check that episode out if you want more details on that, um, (0:13:36) Spencer: Mm-hmm. (0:13:44) Kevin: But yeah, aside from that, uh, a lot of the usual stuff, uh, (0:13:50) Kevin: a holly right it’s october now so every (0:13:52) Kevin: thing’s getting spooky and whatnot masters has yeah masters has Pokemon masters has spooky costumes rock sand looks great in her witch outfit Pokemon unite is getting mimic you in a week or two and Marvel snaps getting all sort of spooky cards for this season and I love the dumb monsters that they have in Marvel so I’m really happy uh but yeah that’s what I’ve been up (0:13:55) Spencer: Yeah, all the spooky updates. (0:14:22) Kevin: to like I said though a lot of paleopines I don’t think I’ve played anything else on my switch this week of the paleopines right right ok and we’ll get into wide later but before that let’s talk about the news alright first up let’s see here garden buddies. This is… (0:14:31) Spencer: Yeah, that’s been consuming my time too, as far as actual console games go, it’s just (0:14:52) Kevin: This is our previously announced game, but regardless, we have a trailer for it. (0:14:59) Kevin: Let me actually take a look at it. We have it announced for October 20th. (0:15:05) Kevin: Oh boy, that’s quite an aesthetic. I don’t remember this game at all, but these are little (0:15:16) Kevin: crops and vegetables with faces… and a bat… uh… (0:15:22) Kevin: It’s really funny. (0:15:23) Spencer: Now I watched this trailer and the voices… Man, I don’t know if they’re gonna get a cease and desist from Rare, but boy oh boy do they sound like your typical Banjo-Kazooie, uh… You know, little babbles (0:15:37) Kevin: Yeah, yeah, they do they do or for people who haven’t played rare on Animal Crossing pretty close to that, too Yeah, so you don’t remember this what is this game exactly? (0:15:45) Spencer: Yeah, yeah. (0:15:53) Kevin: yeah, because I don’t remember the trailer here, but it is releasing the 20th of October I said which oh my gosh actually that’s gonna be like almost (0:16:07) Kevin: These people are listening to this podcast. It’ll be out and it will be on Steam and on switch So you can look forward to that. Let me double check (0:16:19) Spencer: Yeah, I was curious too, because I mean, the trailer that I got here was just the release date and as far as I can tell, you’re the vegetables themselves? (0:16:26) Kevin: Yeah Yep, yeah, you are it’s a unique blend of cozy gardening simulator and mental self-care that’s Okay, that’s a lot of buzzwords The art. I don’t know how I feel about the art. I kind of like it. I kind of hate it (0:16:55) Kevin: The eyes are very (0:16:56) Kevin: Very very like Toa’i baby eyes Umm But there’s a little mushroom guy riding a frog So that looks cool Uhh (0:17:15) Kevin: heartwarming story, players accompanied by Mutzi will explore the magical world creating and building their plant sanctuary. The relaxing storyline will be filled with uplifting narration as well as unexpected twists and turns. They will make lots of friends with animals and plant creatures they encounter. (0:17:37) Kevin: So yeah, okay, it sounds like a lot, but they’re really emphasizing the de-stress and cozy feeling and whatnot, uh… (0:17:45) Kevin: I’m interested to see how this looks like. (0:17:48) Kevin: It’s definitely not your average farming game, it doesn’t look like. (0:17:54) Kevin: Just seeing, uh… (0:17:56) Kevin: From the perspective of being these little crops and things. (0:17:59) Spencer: it gives me kind of like a not to bring a prayer again but like almost like a view of a pinata vibe like you’re caring for these vegetables as like creatures (0:18:00) Kevin: Um, but, whoop. Yeah, go ahead. (0:18:03) Kevin: Yep. Yeah, it seems like that. (0:18:15) Kevin: I didn’t play Viva Pinata, and I heard it was the greatest thing on Earth, and I missed out on it. (0:18:19) Spencer: I only played it a little bit. I just… yeah. (0:18:20) Kevin: Okay. Okay, well… (0:18:24) Kevin: Regardless, people can find out more! (0:18:28) Kevin: Uh, again, October 20th. Very, very soon. (0:18:31) Kevin: Especially for the people who are listening to this. (0:18:34) Kevin: Okay, next up, we have… (0:18:38) Kevin: Ikone Island News. (0:18:41) Kevin: We have the Friend Pass release. (0:18:45) Kevin: It is out now as of recording. (0:18:47) Kevin: And so, you can… (0:18:50) Kevin: Ah! Friends… I thought it was like a battle pass. No. (0:18:54) Kevin: It is multiplayer co-op with three of your friends. You can do it online. (0:19:00) Kevin: And… Oh, what? That’s so cool! (0:19:04) Kevin: If one… only one person has the full version, everyone can play indefinitely. (0:19:10) Kevin: Um, there’s like a demo that you can find out about. (0:19:15) Kevin: Play co-op for a few hours. (0:19:17) Kevin: Uh, two hours of play, it looks like. (0:19:19) Kevin: But, uh, if you have the whole game, everyone can just play. (0:19:22) Kevin: And you don’t have to buy it or four copies to have four people playing. (0:19:28) Kevin: Uh, that is very cool. (0:19:31) Spencer: Yeah, that’s always nice when they do some kind of like, as long as just one person owns something, you know, then everyone has access to it, at least via online, you know, like connecting to each other for multiplayer or something like that. (0:19:47) Kevin: Yeah, that is cool. There is a large list of patch notes. (0:19:55) Kevin: I invite people to look at the link because they are pretty in-depth with their patch notes. (0:20:02) Kevin: But the big new other big news is that this will be launching the full 1.0 version on November 9th of this year, (0:20:14) Spencer: All right around the corner. (0:20:14) Kevin: which will only be two or three. Yeah, two or three. (0:20:17) Kevin: That’s really impressive. Wow. What a feel-good announcement. (0:20:23) Kevin: Everyone can just play together and you not having to buy the game for everyone. (0:20:31) Kevin: That’s great. And so to remind people, IKONOI ISLAND. Let me see, I don’t remember. (0:20:38) Kevin: I talk so many games, I forget which ones are which. This one is… Why is there a shark man in this? (0:20:48) Kevin: Okay, so yeah, no, it’s very Minecraft-y. Gather resources, craft tools, build your base and whatnot. (0:20:59) Kevin: So basically very Minecraft survival type game on an island. The art is cute and there’s like a shark man. (0:21:06) Kevin: That seems cool. That’s exciting though. You know, Minecraft is… or the genre, whatever you want to call it, is great for multiplayer. (0:21:16) Kevin: So this is this. (0:21:17) Kevin: It really is exciting. (0:21:18) Kevin: And yeah, November 9th, that launches on Xbox, Steam, Epic Games, and PlayStation. (0:21:26) Kevin: Yeah, alright, there you go. (0:21:30) Kevin: Good job, Ikune Island. (0:21:32) Kevin: That actually might get me to play with multiple people. (0:21:36) Kevin: Uh, that’s so cool. (0:21:39) Kevin: Next up, we have news on… (0:21:44) Kevin: Oh, do the King of Bar Mee- (0:21:47) Kevin: simulators farming simulator 22 is that a weight? (0:21:51) Kevin: Yeah, okay 22. I thought they could wind up with the years, but I guess not I’m wrong, okay Okay, so it is An expansion okay. This is an expansion that will launch on November 14th They’re adding carrots. Why were carrots not available before? (0:22:10) Spencer: That, yeah, very odd. I had to reread that to make sure that was correct, because carrots are like the most basic crop, right? In just things, in general. You got carrots, you got like potatoes, and like wheat. (0:22:17) Kevin: Uh, in life? I can’t, like, yep, yeah, yeah, that’s really surprising, um, and it’s surprising because, like, looking, all the detail they put into these other machines they’re releasing and stuff like that, um, it’s okay, but, uh… (0:22:47) Kevin: There you go, carrots, um, they’re adding a few other things, what is it, parsnips and a few other crops, but, uh, yeah, I’m curious, yeah, more machines, crops, uh, oh, and there’s, (0:22:57) Spencer: And some more machines too. (0:23:04) Kevin: yeah, there’s new machines that specifically help with these crops, like carrots, oh my gosh, like, oh, this, this is intense, like, they have real intense machine names and stuff like that. (0:23:17) Kevin: But, uh, oh, redbeat, yep, there it is. (0:23:21) Kevin: Uh, anyways, that again is November 22nd. (0:23:24) Kevin: That is the premium expansion, uh, for farming simulator. (0:23:29) Kevin: 20-20, er, just 22. (0:23:32) Kevin: Okay, next up, ah, now this is a game I do know. (0:23:35) Kevin: We have Garden Galaxy, uh, for people unfamiliar. (0:23:40) Kevin: We did an episode on it. (0:23:41) Kevin: It is, uh, you’re building a little garden, (0:23:48) Kevin: everything’s kind of randomly generated, the items you get. (0:23:52) Kevin: Um, so it’s an interesting loop of trying to expand your item and trying to get your garden and get the items you want. (0:23:59) Kevin: Um, but, uh, they’re getting an update. (0:24:02) Kevin: I am pleased to see this game, uh, continue getting support because it is a fun game. (0:24:06) Kevin: I need to go back to it probably now because on October 16th, (0:24:10) Kevin: which means when people are listening to this, it will already be out, (0:24:14) Kevin: There is getting an update with all of the other videos. (0:24:17) Kevin: Autumn themed items, we got pumpkins, jack-o’-lanterns, (0:24:22) Kevin: your fall leaves, and whatnot. (0:24:25) Kevin: So yeah, I think that’s the first set of seasonal items they’ve done like that before. (0:24:32) Kevin: Oh, no, that’s not true, they did a summer update. (0:24:34) Kevin: Either way, that actually might get me back in because I’ve been meaning to check it out. (0:24:42) Kevin: I’m sure they’ve done a lot of patches. (0:24:44) Kevin: the 10 months it’s been out. (0:24:45) Spencer: So I’m looking at this. Are you on like an island or something or are you what exactly it’s like you said Just randomly generated (0:24:50) Kevin: So, you… yeah, so it starts off… you’re basically on a floating island or set… (0:25:01) Kevin: it’s a tile-based grid-type game, right? (0:25:05) Kevin: And so it’s just floating out in space. (0:25:08) Kevin: It’s basically like an island. (0:25:10) Spencer: Okay, hence galaxy. (0:25:11) Kevin: And you’re… yeah, yeah, that’s the name, right? (0:25:14) Kevin: Yeah, Garden Galaxy. (0:25:15) Kevin: And you’re just… you’re generating items to decorate your garden, but that includes… (0:25:20) Kevin: like, new piles of terrain and land to expand your area. (0:25:27) Kevin: So yeah, it is… it’s a fascinating little game because it’s… at least when I first played it, (0:25:28) Spencer: Ah, okay. (0:25:36) Kevin: it requires some patience. (0:25:39) Kevin: I remember calling it the most frustrating, cozy, or relaxing game I’ve ever played, (0:25:45) Kevin: because the loop of how things were generated was… (0:25:49) Kevin: » Thank you. (0:25:50) Kevin: » I recommend people do check it out because it’s only like 10 bucks and it is relaxing. At least when it wasn’t frustrating. (0:26:10) Kevin: Again, that is October 16th for the autumn update. Go get your spooky garden on and whatnot. Uh, oh god, oh no. (0:26:20) Kevin: No, this next news. I don’t like it. No, that’s why I don’t like it. Go ahead. (0:26:24) Spencer: Oh, I saw it. I’m excited. You want me to announce it? (0:26:31) Spencer: Alright, well, our next thing, Animal Crossing LEGO sets. (0:26:38) Spencer: This is an audio podcast, but I’m rubbing my hands together. (0:26:41) Kevin: Can hear it I can oh we have Okay, you’re already a Lego man, okay See that’s that’s a thing right cuz I’ve managed to not dive into Lego Like it’s it’s always been there. It’s tempted me But this is the one that’s probably gonna break me I’m I’m gonna be in (0:26:43) Spencer: If there’s one thing I spend more money on than video games, it is LEGO sets. (0:26:51) Spencer: Oh yeah, I’m looking at the Rivendell set right now. (0:27:11) Kevin: So to get more specific, there’s been rumors and leaks of this and whatnot. (0:27:15) Kevin: But we have official announcements that it will be releasing on March 2024. (0:27:21) Kevin: We have a handful of sets. (0:27:27) Kevin: They are Bunny’s Outdoor Activities, Cap’n’s Island Boat Tour, (0:27:31) Kevin: Nook’s Cranny and Rosie’s House, Isabelle’s House Visit, and Julian’s Birthday Party. (0:27:36) Spencer: So, my understanding is that these sets are also modular, this is what I’ve heard through the grapevine, and they are meant to be able to essentially create your own island as if you were actually making an island in Animal Crossing. (0:27:42) Kevin: Yes. That is correct. (0:27:50) Kevin: Yes, that is correct. They come, all the sets come on this flat base or whatever and yeah, (0:27:58) Kevin: you’ll just be able to swap the positions or interlock them. You know, LEGO your way through it and whatnot. (0:28:04) Kevin: Yeah, yeah. (0:28:04) Spencer: Yeah, I mean, they’re Legos, so, like, you know. (0:28:07) Spencer: Yes. (0:28:08) Spencer: But, uh… (0:28:10) Spencer: Which makes me feel like we can expect to see more than just what’s announced in the future. (0:28:15) Kevin: Yes, so one of the kickers the there’s minifigs right of course lego that’s one of the half the fun or whatever From what I saw they’re nothing too crazy. They all look pretty standard minifigs That look like Animal Crossing characters Okay, go ahead go ahead (0:28:26) Spencer: Yeah, now I have a gripe with these minifigs, I’m sorry, but the proportions look a little off in my opinion. (0:28:41) Spencer: When you’re playing Animal Crossing, the characters kind of look very like chibi-like and they’re very small, I guess. (0:28:47) Spencer: I mean, I guess they’re not small because your character also looks like it’s half the the size of a tree, but at the same time, everything is– (0:28:50) Kevin: Yeah. (0:28:56) Spencer: everything’s pretty trunk, you know, it’s just like you kind of have a big head, a little body, (0:29:01) Spencer: and they decided to make these regular minifigs size, so now this big head is on this kind of like elongated minifig body, and I don’t know, I think they should have gone with the shorter legs personally, or something, I just think they could have made it like half-sized minifigs. (0:29:11) Kevin: Yeah Okay I guess Yeah Well, I mean yeah, this is interesting because this is the merging of two very powerful vocal fan bases, right? (0:29:22) Spencer: I realized that would be an unpopular opinion. (0:29:39) Kevin: I will say though like I played since the original Animal Crossing right and they were even more chibi like back then they got a growth spurt (0:29:47) Spencer: Oh, for sure. (0:29:54) Kevin: So, I don’t know, maybe I’m just used to it because of that, but anyways, as for the sets, (0:30:01) Kevin: we have pricings for all of them. (0:30:05) Kevin: The most expensive one is Nook’s Cranny and the Rosy House, which is 75 bucks, which is forgiving for like, no sets, let’s say. (0:30:13) Spencer: Yeah, the LEGO sets are expensive now. (0:30:16) Spencer: So, 75 bucks for… (0:30:17) Kevin: Yeah. (0:30:19) Spencer: I mean you’re essentially getting two houses, right? (0:30:20) Kevin: Yes. More or less. (0:30:21) Spencer: Every other set is kind of more of one house, so… (0:30:24) Kevin: Yes. It’s still going to look small and I’m going to feel it’s way overpriced, but am I still going to get it? Probably. (0:30:32) Kevin: I want nookscranny. Oh, it’s not actually nookscranny. It’s one of the updated versions. It’s not the little shack. (0:30:37) Spencer: Yeah, it’s not the little shack, wow. (0:30:39) Kevin: Oh, that’s disappointing. Oh, well. (0:30:45) Kevin: But yeah, I’m really scared though, like, for myself because I’m worried. (0:30:54) Kevin: That this will be the gateway and I’m going to be buying my nookcranny set and I’m like, oh, you know what? There’s that Lego Green Hill Zone with Sonic. (0:31:03) Kevin: I could just put it right next to him, you know? Sonic could visit the cranny if I wanted to. (0:31:10) Spencer: You just, you know though, like in a year from now, they’re gonna have some, I’m gonna say almost $200 museum set, and it’s gonna have blathers, and it’s gonna have different sections of the museum, and little animals that you can put in there, little octopus, (0:31:23) Kevin: No! (0:31:29) Spencer: a little fish, a little frog, you know it’s in the pipeline. (0:31:33) Kevin: Why did you- I didn’t think about that. Why did you jinx me like this? (0:31:37) Kevin: No! That’s gonna be the best one! (0:31:40) Kevin: No! (0:31:41) Kevin: We don’t have Town Hall either. That one’s gonna be big. (0:31:41) Spencer: They go, “If it’s not in the pipeline, come hire me.” (0:31:44) Spencer: Ugh, yeah, town hall. (0:31:47) Kevin: Oh, it’s gonna hurt me. Okay. (0:31:50) Kevin: But, this is just the tip of the iceberg, because we’re talking Animal Crossing, right? (0:31:55) Kevin: There is very much room for the Animal Crossing blind bag minifigs or whatever. (0:32:01) Kevin: Um, or even furniture set. (0:32:03) Kevin: Animal Crossing has a lot of items, so I could easily dip into that. (0:32:07) Spencer: Yeah, everything in Animal Crossing could be a blind bag for this set. (0:32:08) Kevin: Right? And that terrorized me? (0:32:12) Spencer: It is a little, yeah. (0:32:15) Kevin: Oh, we don’t have a K.K. (0:32:39) Kevin: So yeah, stay tuned to see my demise as I finally dive into the LEGO world, and it all ends for me. (0:32:48) Kevin: All right, so again, that is 2024, still a few months before the end of that. (0:32:55) Kevin: Okay, you know what, I have a question for you. You say you’re into LEGO, (0:32:57) Kevin: I don’t know how hardcore you are, but do LEGOs run out of stock easily? (0:33:04) Spencer: Hear me sigh as I say that, um, trying to think. (0:33:11) Spencer: So in the past I used to just, you know, back, back in the day, you know, when they were still doing kind of just their, their own sets, which they still do. (0:33:20) Spencer: I know people complain that they have like too many licensed sets now, but they have plenty of unlicensed or, you know, only Lego sets. (0:33:29) Spencer: Um, you know, I kind of just got what was there. (0:33:32) Spencer: I was never particularly looking for any kind of (0:33:34) Spencer: set. There was this Mars like Mars set that they had that I really enjoyed that I did try to get like a couple of different sets from but nothing like you know going out of my way and stuff with the advent of the internet though and being able to look all this stuff up like I am now as an adult. There are definitely sets that do you know do just disappear because they’ve sold out of them or they just stop making them. I can’t imagine them doing this with the (0:33:46) Kevin: Okay. (0:33:48) Kevin: Yeah. (0:34:04) Spencer: Animal Crossing set. You know I got to imagine that this is something that they’re planning to continue to release you know new sets for and keep updating with the old sets. For instance the Mario sets I think you can still get a lot of those you know at least if you look you might have to look a little bit harder but they’re generally like available. The set that I totally missed out on and just kick myself every time I think about it is they had a Voltron set and it came with all the different all different parts and they all like you know they all transformed into Voltron together and stuff. Yes it was and I saw that and I was like one day I’ll get it and then I just waited too long and that’s what happens but. (0:34:15) Kevin: Okay. (0:34:16) Kevin: Okay. (0:34:20) Kevin: Sure. (0:34:40) Kevin: You could, in fact, form the head. (0:34:52) Kevin: Oh, I know that feeling um well, i’m just worried because Like I said, I don’t know how the inventory issues are dealt with um in lego, but They’re drawing in the animal crossing nintendo crowd, right? We look what happened with van gogh Oh, come on Look what happened with Remember when julian was a commodity or not julian. Whatever his name was the Pat with the heterochromia (0:35:21) Spencer: Oh, yeah, yeah. (0:35:23) Kevin: And when new horizons drop If anyone could make this is the inventory problem, it would be these fans. Um, but oh boy, here we go uh but maybe the well the price isn’t even the worst for all of them, but uh We’ll see. Um I just want them to bring back by onical. That’s the only lego thing I ever really got those were cool little robot dudes (0:35:48) Spencer: Hmm, interesting. I was somewhat into Bionicle. I had quite a few, but not as much as the regular sets. (0:35:58) Kevin: All right, um, two other pieces of news album and put them on here, (0:36:04) Kevin: but I do want to mention them. (0:36:06) Kevin: I hope I, I listened to the last episode, but I hope I’m not repeating anything. (0:36:10) Kevin: Um, there have been patches dropped both for Meneko’s night market and paleo pines. (0:36:16) Kevin: Uh, last two, well, the last game I covered and the one we’re covering today, (0:36:20) Kevin: um, the Meneko’s night market. (0:36:23) Kevin: I don’t know all the details, but I’m very thankful that they’ve got these patches (0:36:28) Kevin: out quickly and, uh, and they’re already available for switch and steam versions. (0:36:34) Kevin: Um, I hope Al will find the links and maybe put them in the show notes, (0:36:39) Kevin: but, uh, go check them out. (0:36:41) Kevin: I will possibly fire up Meneko’s night market again, see how much it’s improved. (0:36:45) Kevin: Um, because I very much liked that game, just hoping for few fixes and well, (0:36:50) Kevin: they roll some out, uh, paleo pines. (0:36:53) Kevin: I read the patch notes and it’s fascinating. (0:36:57) Kevin: Uh, at least one of the items is fascinating. (0:36:59) Kevin: In general, they just kind of, you know, polished up a few edges and, and did nice things. (0:37:05) Kevin: No major updates. (0:37:06) Kevin: Um, but, uh, with that said, let’s, let’s just get on into it. (0:37:13) Kevin: Uh, let’s talk about paleo pines. (0:37:14) Spencer: Yes, paleopines. (0:37:15) Kevin: Okay. (0:37:18) Kevin: So this is available on steam switch. (0:37:22) Kevin: I don’t know what else it’s available on. (0:37:23) Spencer: I think it’s available on everything. (0:37:24) Kevin: Uh, is it? (0:37:27) Kevin: Okay. (0:37:27) Kevin: Um. (0:37:28) Kevin: So, for people who don’t know, the elevator pitch is pretty simple. (0:37:33) Kevin: It’s farming, but you have dinosaurs. (0:37:35) Kevin: Um, it’s what’s on the box, and it’s what you get. (0:37:38) Kevin: Um. (0:37:39) Spencer: It’s… exactly what you get. (0:37:39) Kevin: Yup. (0:37:44) Kevin: Alright, so let’s, before we get into the nitty gritty, what are your overall thoughts? (0:37:51) Spencer: My overall thoughts and opinions, it’s good to start off with this because I’m someone that kind of complains about things even if I like them. So I enjoyed this game. I did have a thoroughly good time myself playing this game. There are plenty of things I would change about it but ultimately this is probably a game I will come back to I might even play it after we stop talking to be quite honest. (0:38:14) Kevin: Okay, I probably will see [laugh] (0:38:17) Spencer: yeah the last episode I was on (0:38:21) Spencer: I talked about parkasaurus I don’t think I’ve touched that game since we stopped talking about it yeah but this game this game was definitely enjoyable it’s got a lot of charm you know using the dinosaurs for farming is different I guess I mean I’m not as big of a farming game player has you know you guys are so maybe this is just exactly the same you just skinned as dinosaurs but it was fun (0:38:25) Kevin: Hahaha, well there you go. (0:38:39) Kevin: » Yes, right, yeah, yep. (0:38:51) Spencer: it has a collection element to it very much kind of like Pokemon or something like that you know so it scratches a lot of different itches for a lot of different people and I feel like you can get yourself lost without necessarily doing the main kind of quest so to speak yeah there are missions that you do too in this game and you know I spent plenty of time just fumbling around doing my own thing. (0:38:57) Kevin: - Yeah. (0:39:21) Spencer: You know, ultimately that’s kind of what I like in games like this, so yeah, I had a great time playing it, great, great might be a little exaggerating, so yeah, what did you think? (0:39:30) Kevin: Mm-hmm, okay All right, um So overall it’s a definite thumbs up and recommend for me This is hard for me because I love dinosaurs very much I Was a dinosaur kid growing up. I watched Jurassic Park when I was little dinosaurs were my Pokemon before Pokemon and (0:39:57) Kevin: And so, obviously I’m heavily biased toward a game that… (0:40:00) Kevin: …explores that, but as someone who is relatively well-versed in farming games, I still think it’s enjoyable. (0:40:11) Kevin: All the points you made, I agree with. (0:40:15) Kevin: So, let’s get into the… (0:40:19) Kevin: But, overall though, I would recommend this to people to try out. (0:40:23) Kevin: If you enjoy farming games, I think there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy this. (0:40:27) Kevin: And if you enjoy dinosaurs, you will probably also- (0:40:30) Kevin: enjoy this. (0:40:31) Spencer: you might even enjoy it even more than if you were just a farming game person quite honestly. (0:40:32) Kevin: I actually agree, yes, because I do think the dinosaurs are done really well. (0:40:40) Kevin: Um, but okay, let’s start into this specific. (0:40:43) Kevin: So, I have three sections here. (0:40:48) Kevin: The bad, the good, and the ugly. (0:40:50) Spencer: OK. (0:40:51) Kevin: So let’s start with the bad. What complaints do you have? (0:40:51) Spencer: Complaints. (0:40:56) Spencer: So the biggest thing– my complaints are small things that add up, right? (0:41:04) Spencer: Accessing things. (0:41:05) Spencer: For instance, if you’re on a mounted dinosaur, (0:41:09) Spencer: for whatever reason– unless I’m just horrible at this game– (0:41:12) Spencer: you cannot access or interact with things other than the dinosaur’s interaction. (0:41:18) Spencer: So let’s say you start off with the parasaur. (0:41:20) Spencer: That’s just your dinosaur that you start off with. (0:41:21) Kevin: Right? (0:41:23) Kevin: Right (0:41:23) Spencer: And each dinosaur has a skill. (0:41:27) Spencer: They can clear debris, which is what the parasaur can do. (0:41:30) Spencer: And it can sprint. Two actions. (0:41:32) Spencer: But if you’re not doing that, you can’t interact with anything else. (0:41:38) Spencer: If you want to talk to someone, you have to get off your dinosaur. (0:41:41) Spencer: If you want to access your storage, you have to get off your dinosaur. (0:41:44) Spencer: Which just blows me away. I was like, (0:41:46) Spencer: “Come on, the person’s right there. Just let me talk to them. (0:41:48) Spencer: to them. Why do I have to get off my dinosaur? (0:41:49) Kevin: Yep, yep, absolutely, um Yeah, I I want to put just a little side note, um since we’re getting into it, uh Spencer and I are dinosaurs or nerds so we will be using dinosaur names Apologies if you if you listener might not be familiar. I invite you to look them up because dinosaurs are cool (0:41:50) Spencer: So, that would be one thing I would, you know, developers, if you’re listening, patch that, please. (0:42:17) Spencer: Indeed, and then you’ll see the name and then you’ll be like, “How do I pronounce that?” (0:42:21) Spencer: And quite honestly, we probably won’t pronounce all of them right, but it’s fun and trying. (0:42:25) Kevin: yep yes okay but um but yes that’s that’s a good point um that is annoying how you can’t talk to someone uh or gather certain points gather certain materials off foraging points and whatnot while on a dinosaur uh at the very yeah no judge say that I can kind of understand the the foraging part maybe you’re high up on a t-rex but come on (0:42:44) Spencer: That’s correct, because some… Oh, sorry, go ahead. (0:42:55) Kevin: can talk to someone while mounted on a t-rex I can say hey (0:42:59) Spencer: Yeah, I don’t really understand the decision, to be quite honest. (0:43:05) Kevin: Yeah, well, there’s a few things I don’t 100% understand, like, so there’s a handful of little things. I don’t know if they all add up to me something major, but like, one of my biggest gripes is inventory stuff. You can get big numbers of items, right? Like, you can get hundreds and hundreds of pieces of wood. (0:43:28) Kevin: Well, when you want to move between your bag and your storage or whatever, you don’t have the option of saying, “Okay, take out…” (0:43:35) Kevin: …20 or 30. You can only do the entire amount or half of it. And that’s frustrating. (0:43:38) Spencer: Yes, I was gonna ask this, I wasn’t sure if I was just like, not getting- (0:43:44) Spencer: Was there a tutorial I missed? Or if this is like, you know, just, but yeah, it’s only stacks, right? (0:43:47) Kevin: nope, or at least, I missed it too then. (0:43:51) Kevin: Yeah, you can, and what’s odd is, it exists because when you sell things at the trader or whatever, (0:43:52) Spencer: Like, I was like- (0:43:57) Kevin: you can select exactly how many you want to sell. (0:44:01) Kevin: But that’s the only time. (0:44:02) Spencer: Yeah, no, but then it’s and it gets even more deep than that because it’s Inventory management from your storage to inventory is only stacks, right? So like you have 300 wood in your storage and then you click on it and it’ll put all 300 in there but in stacks of a hundred and then now you have to go back in return 200 stacks, so you only have one stack and (0:44:23) Kevin: Yup, yup, exactly. (0:44:29) Spencer: Then when you go to sell that wood, here’s what get (0:44:32) Spencer: me. You go to sell that wood, and then you can select individually. You can select like I only sell two wood, right? And they do have a button for min and max. So like I want to sell the whole stack of wood, but they don’t have a button to increment it in tens. Also, which I feel like is something like, yeah, that really, that whole thing needs a lot of work. (0:44:56) Kevin: Yeah, it is wild and again, there’s even the trading like said it’s still missing that stacks of 10 which would be nice But the fact that that’s the only place where you can do Individual counts of whatnot. It’s baffling to me Let’s see what what other little complaints can you think of? (0:45:20) Spencer: So, I don’t know if this would be a little complaint. (0:45:25) Spencer: I don’t know where this falls on your good, bad, and ugly. (0:45:25) Kevin: Hehe. (0:45:29) Spencer: I will say there were a lot of things I was finding out about the game. (0:45:34) Spencer: I didn’t get, I’ll be honest, I didn’t get like probably end game, is there an end game? (0:45:39) Spencer: I don’t really know. (0:45:41) Kevin: I think there is. I mean, there’s the main quest. You have to find where the rest of the parasaurs are. (0:45:42) Spencer: There is, right? (0:45:44) Spencer: Yeah. (0:45:45) Spencer: Yeah. (0:45:46) Spencer: Yeah, you know, like I said earlier, I kind of… (0:45:50) Spencer: just ended up doing my own thing, which is, you know, it is what it is. (0:45:52) Kevin: Yeah. (0:45:53) Kevin: Uh huh. (0:45:55) Spencer: That’s kind of how it’s designed in the game. (0:45:57) Spencer: But so there’s a lot of things that I feel like I was finding out kind of on my own without… (0:46:06) Spencer: that would have been better maybe explained, you know, like I’ll be honest. (0:46:12) Spencer: I didn’t realize that holding what was the RZ was sprint for some of those dinosaurs. (0:46:18) Spencer: I was puttin’ around that whole area, and it was taking me forever. (0:46:18) Kevin: Yep Yeah, ha ha ha ha oh no Oh No Um, oh, that’s raw. I agree with you Um, this is a complaint I have about many games because I think it’s a critical thing to be clear and explain yourself well and whatnot Um, I am struggling to think of I had a specific example, but I can’t think of it right now (0:46:23) Spencer: It would take like a half day just to get across the place. (0:46:47) Kevin: The sprinting thing there is a (0:46:48) Kevin: prompt on the bottom of the screen, but if you don’t pay it, they don’t call it out or anything. (0:46:52) Kevin: So it’s easy to miss, because there’s other prompts that are there, (0:46:56) Kevin: and the sprinting prompt is added when you’re on the right dinosaur, (0:47:00) Kevin: but it’s not there when you’re not on it, so it’s easily missable. (0:47:04) Kevin: possible. (0:47:06) Spencer: Oh, and so here’s the thing with the sprinting thing, too. (0:47:12) Spencer: If you click on, I believe it’s just R, (0:47:15) Spencer: your character will auto run in that direction. (0:47:16) Kevin: Wait, what? (0:47:17) Kevin: I didn’t know that! (0:47:19) Kevin: She- what?! (0:47:19) Spencer: Yes, there’s an auto run button. (0:47:21) Kevin: Oh my goodness. (0:47:22) Spencer: So I was clicking auto run, and I was thinking it was the sprint half the time. (0:47:22) Kevin: Oh, there you go. (0:47:24) Kevin: Oh, case in point. (0:47:32) Spencer: And I was like, this doesn’t look any faster. (0:47:35) Spencer: I guess I don’t need to hold the button. (0:47:36) Spencer: I feel like there’s a lot of things that get fed to you at either inopportune moments or just as far as information goes. (0:47:50) Spencer: You’re just kind of like, “Huh, I could have used that information like three days ago.” (0:47:54) Kevin: Yup, there was oh the So there is I remember my example. Um, there is a help option in the pause menu and it does have some tutorials in there It doesn’t really let you know that they’re there Which is a shame because a number of them are very helpful. They explain how to use your tools The one I wanted to mentioned was the soil we’ll get into it into it in a bit but essentially how to properly fertilize and till the soil and stuff like that. (0:48:29) Kevin: That information, I didn’t realize how it worked until I happened to find it in the tutorial items in the help menu. (0:48:37) Kevin: It would have been nice if that had been called out earlier. (0:48:40) Spencer: It’s funny that you mention the soil because it wasn’t until only the other day that I was, again, I was just thumbing through the profiles of the vegetables and I was like, (0:48:51) Spencer: “Huh, they really want you to crop rotate in this game, don’t they?” (0:48:53) Kevin: Yep, yep. (0:48:55) Spencer: That would have been useful to know before I planted tons of vegetables in random areas. (0:49:01) Kevin: Yep, um, absolutely. (0:49:04) Kevin: Um, so yeah, that is a complaint, like I said, I have about many games, just lack of clarity or not explaining things well. (0:49:12) Kevin: Uh, one hopefully that can get updated because that’s not impossible to fix. (0:49:17) Kevin: Just add some more prompts at certain points, so. (0:49:19) Spencer: No. (0:49:19) Spencer: Yeah, and I will give them credit, right? (0:49:20) Kevin: Fingers crossed we get those patches. (0:49:25) Spencer: Like some games you sit through tutorials and they are like, you know, some omnipotent someone or other talking at you going, “Hit A to use the ox.” (0:49:31) Kevin: Yep, yep Yep Yeah, it does it is not very handhold be not at all you Yeah, that’s One of the pros in my book that it doesn’t really put any pressure on you in almost any way (0:49:35) Spencer: You know, and then you’re like, “Okay, like I get it.” (0:49:37) Spencer: And then you have to sit there for like an hour. (0:49:39) Spencer: Right? (0:49:40) Spencer: This game really does kind of let you play the game almost right away. (0:49:58) Kevin: And I’ll get into that later when we talk about quests I think in the more (0:50:01) Kevin: detail but one final item I wanted to add in the bad list well I guess this kind of goes in the ugly I’m not the biggest fan of the art style of the game so okay well let me be more specific I like the dinosaurs the dinosaurs look great they’re they’re very cutesy and the way they’re presented in this game where people are just hanging out they’re your pals and working with them (0:50:16) Spencer: Really? (0:50:31) Kevin: and they live on your farm they’re not intimidating or scary I think that was managed really well I think that works well and I think it’s fantastic my part problem is the people right the people also have this very cutesy art style and it’s this might just be a very personal thing but it is really (0:50:48) Spencer: Okay, okay. (0:51:01) Kevin: looks like a Disney Junior show basically that’s the way I describe it in fact I watch Bluey right so I’ve seen other ads for Disney Junior shows there is one actually called Dino Ranch and it looks a lot like this yeah (0:51:07) Spencer: Yeah, I mean (0:51:18) Spencer: Yeah, the people are, I mean, it’s an art style, that’s for sure. (0:51:24) Spencer: It’s a design choice that they made. (0:51:27) Kevin: Yeah, and everything is very saccharine, like very… (0:51:31) Kevin: Happy… (0:51:33) Kevin: No one gets angry or there’s big problems or anything like that. (0:51:38) Kevin: There’s a character who says “zippity” and it just feels very kid show… (0:51:42) Kevin: Umm… (0:51:47) Spencer: Yeah, well, eh. So there’s a couple characters. One that stood out to me as Pippin. (0:51:54) Spencer: He does kind of get a little grumpy. (0:51:54) Kevin: Yeah They they’re actually in be non-binary Which I just like a thumbs up. That’s all right. No, but I just thumbs up to the Devs for throwing that in there right and I’ll have Pippin Pippin’s a little bit of a gremlin Go ahead Oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that that. (0:51:57) Spencer: Oh, sorry. (0:52:10) Spencer: Ah, yeah, but they get a little like, onry about things if you ask them to make like a, they make these, yeah, they make these like treats that, that’s basically how you tame the dinosaurs and they have like very specific, “Oh, it’s my family recipe, like don’t, we don’t screw with it” and then you ask them to make other treats and then they kind of get all upset about it instead of like, “Ah, fine, take your, take your

In this spectacular episode, our host Kevin Steinberger, has an informative conversation with Sameer Pangrekar, Director of Global Design & Construction and Strategic Projects, Real Estate and Workplace, at Twitter! Listen as they discuss the major focus Twitter has placed on their culture in their offices. How has Twitter effectively taken an understanding of both culture and real estate to better the functionality of their spaces? Is it easier to measure culture nowadays given the amount of industry services/solutions? What are Sameer's "must-haves" for his ultimate workspace of the future? Dive in now! Finally, it's not too late to book your pass to #FutureOffices Winter 2020 at Convene's brand new spaces at 225 Liberty Street, New York, NY and Convene at 530 5th Avenue, New York, NY from January 22 - 24 for even more discussions on the workplace as it relates to culture, sustainability, HR, leasing, coworking and more! Follow us on Twitter @OfficesOutlook for more real estate and workplace gems! #LoveWhereYouWork Full Transcript: INTRO: The Future Offices podcast, a series that brings you an all encompassing approach to the future of work. My name is Kevin Steinberger and as your host I will be speaking to the real estate leaders and workplace visionaries that are changing the way we think about where and how we work. KEVIN: Welcome back to another episode of the Future Offices podcast. You can find past episodes on our website at futureofficeswinter.com/podcast or you can search the future offices podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whatever your preferred platform i s for podcasts. We are everywhere. Subscribe, rate us, give us reviews, let us know. Let me know what you think of it. I've received an influx of LinkedIn messages concerning the podcast. Please feel free to reach out to myself via LinkedIn, but very excited for this episode because we had an all star guest here and it is my pleasure to introduce Sameer Pangrekar, the director of global design and construction and strategic projects with the REW, the real estate and workplace team at Twitter. Twitter is what's happening in the world and what people are talking about right now. As most of our listeners do know, if it's happening in sports news, TV, entertainment, it's happening on Twitter. KEVIN: The platform's purpose is to serve the public conversation and Twitter works to make sure their company reflects their services. And this means ensuring that their team makes Twitter as diverse as the people who use it. And I love that right there, but enough of me talking, Sameer, very excited to talk to catch up. I know it's been a while, it's been a couple of years, but welcome to the Future Offices podcast. SAMEER: Thanks for having me, Kevin. Super excited to be here. I'm going to talk a little bit about what Twitter's doing, both for our office space and how it impacts our culture and just, I personally actually have really gotten to a podcast lately. They're a really great way to, you know, if you're at the gym or commute to work or whatnot, throw one on and try to learn as much as you can throughout the day. So thanks for having me. KEVIN: Absolutely. And you kind of nailed it there. You man, you can take my job at this point. No, you're right. They're really short podcasts. They're micro podcasts. We've been pushing out only between 15 and 20 minutes. So again, just like you said, it's something you can catch at the gym, on your commute to work, whether you walk, drive, whatever it might be, maybe on your lunch break. It's definitely something you can just pop in and grab some really insightful and great information from some of the rock stars in that real estate and workplace space from some of the biggest tech brands, you know, and Twitter is one of them, some of the biggest brands in the world. So again, thanks for jumping on, but I would say the biggest reason I'm stoked about having you on this podcast and what we have learned from even past speaking engagements with yourself and your team at our conferences and even actually some of our past speakers on our podcasts is that culture has been a major, major focus when it comes to workplace strategies, real estate strategies, overall corporate real estate strategies and Twitter as I've seen firsthand within multiple offices of yours and what I've seen from even some of your thought leadership directly and some of the folks on your team, you guys are doing some really, really awesome things in your offices, especially aligning those types of strategies with the culture piece of the puzzle. KEVIN: Before we dive into that, please, first things first, tell our listeners maybe a little bit about yourself specifically in your role, do you have a very unique title and awesome title and sort of how you fit into the real estate and workplace part of the Twitter team? SAMEER: So my main focus is to head up all of our office projects around the world. So that's building out new space, modifying existing space and really providing workspaces that allow our employees and we call them tweaks here at Twitter to do their very best work possible. And I also focus on strategic projects that help our team real estate and workplace as a team and partner with other functions across Twitter or to help make our team more visible across the landscape of the tech environment and making sure that we do everything we can to support the business. As you mentioned, our our, our vision is to serve the public conversation and we want that to reflect in our company and in its diversity. Just like our service is super diverse, we try to make sure our employee base is like that. And I think when we talk about the culture piece, that's a big part of what drives our culture. And one of the things that I'm really focused on is how can we help our employee base continue to redefine how and where we work at Twitter and we partner both within our real estate and workplace team and with other key stakeholders across the business to further that goal. And company wide initiative that we're focused on this year. KEVIN: Amazing. And just right off of that. Another thing I wanted to to ask is, and this has been an ongoing trend within our podcast series from our first episode to even our last episode with with Don Watson from Merck and we dove into this with with Ruben Gots and Michelle Caldwell from Avanade as well in some earlier episodes. What other stakeholders does your team, the real estate and workplace team at Twitter work with at the company and has that changed over the years? Because we're starting to see folks, you know now working hand in hand with their HR team and now working hand in hand with their finance and their IT guys. Whereas in the past they may not have worked so often with these teams. Are there any other teams at the company that you have seen a growing relationship with? SAMEER: What I'd say first and foremost is that I think what we've done a really good job of is even within our real estate and workplace team working as one team, so we have five different functions within our real estate and workplace umbrella. We have planning and leasing, design and construction, workplace operations, food and beverage and internal events, and I think what we first did a few years ago when Tracy Hawkins took over the team and it was work that had started, but we continued to build on which really focused to ensure that within our own group, we're first working as one team and we don't have silos because I think it's important that all five of those functions work seamlessly together to deliver the workplace experience. And then we've since iterated on that and continue to evolve that into ensuring that we have strategic partnerships across the business. SAMEER: And it really is every business unit, it's not any one specific business unit because I think when we design and build office space, we have every type of function that sets in within that space. And so we need to understand what those different business units need. And I think why we've been so successful is it's not any one group that's responsible for that, but we tap into all the relationships across our global real estate team that they built. So if that's the office coordinator in Dublin or if it's the person that runs events in New York or San Francisco or Tokyo, you know, we leverage everything we can to understand how our employees use the space in order to help guide us, how we can continue to improve and what we design and build. And we also leverage those relationships to understand what the business units in those respective markets need to be successful in what they do. SAMEER: And also to understand the culture of that market. And I think one things that you know, you've seen when you visited a few of our Twitter offices is none of them are the same. And we really strive to make sure that they one feel like Twitter, but to represent the local culture. And one of the ways we've been able to do that is leveraging all of these relationships. And that takes time. There's not, you know, a one-stop thing you can do. You have to invest the time, you have to build the relationships and you have to continue to work on them as people, you know, maybe join Twitter, and leave Twitter, you know, you're constantly meeting new people and building those relationships. KEVIN: Absolutely and it was very noticeable and actually very refreshing being able to see the Twitter office in New York and then even being able to see the Twitter office in San Francisco and seeing the difference and the different style of the workplace strategy and design purely as it relates to the culture of those offices, which was something a lot of people who attend our conferences. A lot of people who I talk to have a very hard time understanding and look for a little bit more information because going back to that culture piece, it's something that has recently become a very important part of the workplace strategy, but it's also been, as you know, as anyone will tell you in this space, quite hard to measure sometimes. Now going back to the culture piece specifically, how has Twitter effectively taken understanding of both culture and corporate real estate or workplace to better the functionality of their spaces? SAMEER: We invest in those relationships and partnerships and we really tried to understand local needs. I'll give you a good example. We recently opened, opened a new space in older, some ground floor space and existing building and instead of just continuing what we had done before, which is traditional open office, we really partnered with the site lead to understand how his team works, and they had a very unique way in which they do something called pairing. And so people in the engineering group will work together and sit next to each other and work in tandem. And so we decided to not just build open office space in the ground floor, but we actually built these kinds of flexible team rooms such that you have maybe five or six people that sit in this room and it's not quite an enclosed conference room, but it allows for the flexibility through various materials to kind of open up the space should they want to be. SAMEER: If the want to have a little bit more openness throughout their environment or if they wanted to have a little bit more heads down focus, work and work on this kind of pairing exercise, they can kind of pull that material closed. It's essentially like an acoustical felt panel and they can, they can do their important work and so we're taking this approach across a number of projects that we are working on this year and we're not just applying Boulder situations to other offices. We're really taking the time to understand the local needs of how those employees work and how those functions work. And I think when we're able to do that successfully, we can then positively impact the culture because employees feel energized about what they're doing. I'm a little bit of what you talked about. More and more people have choice of what they can do with their employment. SAMEER: There are so many great companies out there and there's so many mission driven companies and you know, I'm actually celebrating my sixth Twitterversary again, another Twitter acronym for you. So it's like my work anniversary today. But I've chosen to stay here because of the mission that Twitter has and what it is doing for the world. And I think you see a lot of people really reflecting on themselves and picking companies that align with their value, personal values so that they feel like they're having an impact in the world. And so it throughout our office design, not just in the functionality, but again going to that local design, making employees feel like that they're immersed in their local culture. We recently actually today opened a small space in Korea that again, very much honors tradition of what Korea is as a culture and doesn't just have a cookie cutter Twitter feel. And I think blending those two things has made us really successful. KEVIN: That's amazing. First off, happy anniversary. That is very exciting. How long have you been at Twitter as of today? SAMEER: So six years internally, but I actually worked three years as an external design vendor and loved it so much that I wanted to get a job. Twitter applied an d was lucky enough to get a position and I've been here ever since. Wow. Wow. Long time. KEVIN: Wow. Long time. That's fantastic. Quick question, going off of what you just said, are there any, would you say specific metrics that you think companies should be very focused on tracking within their workplace, maybe with their employees to understand maybe their culture or their locality a little bit better. Are there any maybe specific metrics that you think are an absolute go-to for better understanding your culture? SAMEER: You know, I don't think that there's one specific metric and I think that's because culture is such a dynamic thing. It's always evolving and changing. And so I think you have to look at a number of different things across the board to evaluate your culture. Some of that, you know, is within our EDW and some of that might not be, but I don't think you can just tie one number to something as important as culture and something that it's not made up of any one thing. It's made up of your entire employee population and that employee population is constantly changing with people that join your company. And so I think it's important to consider when you're evaluating something like culture and and thinking about how the office space can affect that, ensuring that you're thinking about the people and not just viewing it as a metric because at the end of the day we're providing office space for people and it's important to understand their needs and what they need to be successful in delivering the product that is Twitter to the world. KEVIN: And it is. and Culture, and we've spoken about this at the conference a lot. I know Twitter has even spoken about it at the conference, which has actually been some of our top attended sessions from our San Francisco iteration, which is always very excited. But we hear that it's a challenge nowadays to effectively measure culture. And this kind of brings me to my next question as it relates to workplace strategy could be a push pull method of of yes it's harder and yes it's not. But do you find that it's harder nowadays to measure company culture because we're at a point in time where our workforce does encompass four different and distinct generations? Or would you say maybe it's getting a little bit easier to understand because of the amount of industry services now you know, surveys, workplace solutions. I know a lot of folks are coming out with different types of measurements for culture. Do you see the understanding piece of the culture for real estate and workplace strategy getting easier or harder? SAMEER: I think it's a balance. And the reason I say that is I think all the data that we can now collect is super insightful, right? I think data is a positive. I think whether it's surveys or you know, workplace occupancy sensors, whatever it may be, data is inherently a good thing because it helps as one input. And I think that's what I would stress from my vantage point, especially when you're talking about four different generations. You can have all the data in the world, but you have to know the people and you have to build those relationships across the board and I think that's what our team has done a phenomenal job in globally is that we understand our people and we understand the vision of the company and we can then try to ensure that we are being good stewards of that. So I don't think it's just about data. I don't think it's just about not having data. I think it's using both in tandem to make good decisions for your business and for your real estate and for your culture that hopefully enact positive changes. KEVIN: I couldn't agree more. It was a trick question. Onto a lighter question that we have been asking all of our podcasts guests. What we're doing is we're asking if you could create your ultimate dream workspace dream office, what things or what thing would be an absolute must for you...and I'll just let you know right off the bat. I have on past episodes requested for my dream office, a chocolate milkshake machine on tap. I've requested a planetarium where I can go and regulate my chi on stressful days. So with that being said, if there's, if there's anything that comes to mind that would fit in your ultimate or dream workspace, what would it be and why? SAMEER: Yeah, I mean, I, I think, we do a pretty good job here at Twitter of providing some amazing space. But personally I'm a really big sports fan, so TV's everywhere. Showing sports is never a bad thing, but honestly, I think we're doing a good job of providing optionality to our employees and I think that's really important. So many people have so many different interests and different things that they want to achieve within the workspace and even outside the workspace. And how can we support them in those endeavors that I think, you know, we do a really good job of balancing that. I think, you know, we always have things that we can research and do differently, but I think we do a good job of balancing that and an occasional sports TV here and there wouldn't hurt my feelings at all. KEVIN: Big sports guy myself. It would be nice to have some sort of dedicated sports room within our office to take a break and watch some games, especially around March madness. That would be amazing. KEVIN: Sameer, that concludes our podcast, but thank you so, so much for the insights to you and the Twitter team. You guys have been phenomenal speakers at our shows in the past, had multiple site tours at your headquartered offices, which have been absolutely phenomenal. You guys have been just, just amazing attendees, speakers and hosts all around and even supporters and even chairperson, you know, I know we've had some folks on the team as chairs in the past as well. So thank you so much and we appreciate you being on the show for this episode. SAMEER: Really appreciate you having me and been been really thankful to have attended your guys's conference and speaking. And I think you guys are doing some great stuff. You know, having a podcast. I think you're the first group that I know that's doing this, just been so appreciate all you guys are doing for pushing office environments and you know, having speakers on and sharing knowledge across the industry. OUTRO: Absolutely Samir and again thank you for tuning in with us. Ladies and gentleman Sameer Pangrekar, the director of global design and construction and strategic projects with the real estate and workplace team at Twitter. So that concludes our episode. Again, if you missed any of our last episodes please feel free to go listen at futureofficeswinter.com/podcast and again you can find us on any other of the podcast platforms we are on everything. Feel free to follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at future offices...but even more so feel free to follow us on Twitter @officesoutlook. But thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time.

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 this episode Erinn Nobel from Bellingham Washington joins us. Erinn has been a real estate agent for 20 years and she's a successful high volume producer.  She is one of the early members of EXP and today she talks about the growth and momentum build up from the early stages of EXP until now. She gives us her perspective on the power of EXP's technology and how it is being an industry game changer. She explains the myths about the EXP system and culture and touches on how fast EXP is growing through out Alaska and Canada. She gives us her advice on due diligence.   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 growth and monument buildup Real time support through Sky Slope and the EXP platform from assistant brokers. Access EXP technology throughout your own brokerage branding.  EXP's culture standpoint vs the classic franchise and MLM or Pyramid systems. Releaf from "bricks and mortar" and administration work through EXP's cloud based system and lead generation programs have groundbreaking technology programs that have transaction management tools. Revenue share,  team growth and the disinformation and myths about them. Attracting agents and growing your revenue share.   Take Away "We are not a recruiting company if we're recruiting company. We would be out of business. We are producing company. We want agents that are in production that are building the revenue so we can all take part of it and share the revenue revenues. Sure it's just for expense."   Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Tom to inquire or ask questions. Contact Erinn: Call at 360 398 3883 Email: Erinn.Nobel@EXPrealty.com  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ErinnNobel Voxer: Erinn Nobel. Links: www.EXPCloud.com     ERINN NOBEL FOR SONIX.mp3 KEVIN: Welcome back to another episode of "The EXP explained podcast" I am host Kevin Cottrell joining me today is Erinn Nobel from Bellingham Washington. A special guest she's been with EXP almost since the beginning. Not quite as long as Brian Culhane who you've heard in his episode share his story about the founding of the company but Erinn has been in regional leadership. She's a successful high volume producer including a member of the CRS community. And Erinn is going to have some great insight to share with us today for agents looking to understand a little bit more detail why agents are coming over from other brokerages and joining EXP realty. Stay tuned for my interview with Erin Nobel. Welcome to the show Erin. ERINN: Kevin thanks so much. KEVIN: Well looking forward to our conversation now they're going to be plenty of people that listen to the podcast that may be not familiar with you. And from the Pacific Northwest. Can you take a minute and give a little bit of your history and background in real estate and also touch on the early days of the EXP because you've been around for a while haven't you? ERINN: I sure have. Yes. It's been a fun ride. That's for sure. Yeah I'd be happy to. So in a nutshell this is my 20th year as a residential real estate agent right here in Bellingham Washington where EXP was founded back in 2009. I have been practicing residential real estate here in Bellingham Washington since 1999 and made the leap over to EXP four years ago as agent number 337. We were only open in 18 states at the time and it was just kind of a wild ride. KEVIN: Erin when the company started and obviously you knew Glenn because he's from the same town as you and you were familiar with him from his days probably back at Keller Williams is what would make you even take a look at EXP I know you were involve CRS you you're pretty well-known the Pacific Northwest and you had a successful real estate practice. What were the drivers for you if you look back in the early days of the EXP. Because it's a different company now and I know we'll talk about that that caused you to even look at it initially. ERINN: Yes it's a much different company. For me it was really just the vision that Glen had and the future of what the real estate model really looked like after coming through the recession and building my business back up in 2010 11 and 12. I was just really identifying what some key factors that were not working in the business anymore. I was working at a small local boutique brokerage and it was very well branded here locally. But I noticed that clients were calling in and they couldn't even pronounce the name of the brokerage anymore. They were really trying to just identify an agent and we didn't have the agents in the spotlight. Were at the forefront. It was all about the real estate broker or that brokerage. So I just noticed a shift in the thought. How can I align my business and my skill set and be in the forefront and be able to attract clients that I want to work with instead of having them funnel through my brokerage model first. So I sat down with Debbie. She had just made the leap over the EXP from a large local real estate franchise here in the Pacific Northwest. She and I were actually originally licensed together back in 1999 and I had known for her for quite a few years obviously but she was telling me about this new business model EXP and how it really is promoting the agent at the forefront. It's empowering the agents and showcasing the agents in a way that I had never heard of before so she really lined me out with that. And we met together with Glenn for dinner and he basically took me through the entire story in the process of how EXP came to be how he had been working through Keller Williams and running mega teams throughout the Northwest here and I believe in parts of the Southwest as well. But he was looking to expand and trying to find a solution for an expansion team that would not only financially be beneficial for the agents but helped to scale his business and scale through a basically recession proof model. That's what he created and I thought my goodness he's really on to something here and I want to be part of this. I joined immediately that day. That was four years ago. KEVIN: What's interesting about we're EXP is today and you know your interview and part of that discussion would be well for people listening to go listen to the two part interview I did with Brian Culhane because Brian was in fact working with Glen in the Southwest US and had the big teams down in Arizona and the markets there and so I think he was the first agent call it the sort of the de facto co-founder in the early days and you know right in the beginning and forefront he talks a lot about everything from the name of the company being selected in a lot of the early thoughts. And so it doesn't surprise me. You and I have interacted a fair amount that you had enough vision for this especially with your passion around the agents you've been heavily involved in stress and it's a different company today. You know if you look at Jean-Frederic and he came in I think it was agent for 77 or something like that was when he came out and he came in a little bit after you. Not much. And you know it was just over three years ago at this point. So what's happened since then and I know I don't want to talk about your role as an RTL and working with lots of teams and brokers and people that are interested in the EXP to talk a little bit about the early days versus now because you talk about a new business model and being more agent centric the offerings and the value proposition is so much more robust today. It's so much more developed the systems the cloud all of the offerings are such. How do you see it playing out in other words you are an early adopter. You came in early there wasn't a lot if any of the systems that are in place today. In other words there was a vision and the company certainly was operating in a you know a handful of states 16 or 18 states at that point versus where it is now. And so what were your thoughts on that versus what if you were talking to somebody who's listening to this today you know in other words there are still people out there especially compared as they're saying oh there's still a startup company they don't have anything together in terms of systems. Absolutely. And I wanted to be part of that momentum. I saw an idea and I knew it was going to be big and I wanted to jump in fully and help out you know contribute in any way or form that they could. And we did that fully. My husband actually left a 20 year career at Microsoft to come over as CEO for the company to build out our enterprise system with Glenn. We just loved the idea of the company and the promotion of the company and doing it in the right way. But especially it's achieving that momentum now which has really shifted the company. Everybody is talking about the EXP Realty. It's kind of the local latest buzz because it is real. It's providing agents with agent ownership it's providing a way for agents to not only excel in the business but to get out of the business at some point and retire and have a nice lifestyle. That's the type of momentum that we wanted to be part of in the early days we didn't have the momentum right. It took a massive had turn Turner agent or many brokerage to come over to the model and join with the EXP to get some local attention. And the frenzy going that other people would identify with and start questioning hey what is this. You know I want to learn more. Now it's almost on a hourly basis with people reaching out to me asking questions wanting to learn more about the model and the interest is peeked. Let's just say that. Well absolutely. I mean it's one of those things where you know to give people some perspective you know you were talking about you know being in the mid 300 ads as far as Agent count. You know when Gene joined I think it's 37 months ago 37 - 38 months ago there were just under 450 470 agents. Texas had I think if I know the number correctly I don't have every one of these numbers memorized but they're either at 7 or 12 agents in the entire state of Texas. You know now we're at about 2400 in less than 38 or 40 months. And so you know what Erinn is talking about is a massive amount of momentum the company has built out you know for all intents and purposes the entire North American content from the standpoint of United States as well as most of the provinces in Canada. When you look at the operation the footprint is at the point now where even if an agent who is listening to this know somebody in Kansas or know somebody in Florida or even in British Columbia which is a recent addition to the EXP's footprint they have the ability like you talked about from a standpoint of referring them in and having them join. That is much broader than it was when you were involved in other words you could do things in Washington state you could do things in certain areas. But both from an MLS footprint and a state being opened it was very limited initially. So for any agent listening to this it's a whole different world now and I'm seeing a shift and I'm wondering what your perspective is on this Erin. And people no longer thinking about this as early adopters in other words not only are all the top brokers from a lot of the big franchises joining. It used to be it would happen you know last fall Jay Kinder joint right? And there was a huge amount of momentum generated by that at this point. It's almost weekly that somebody is joining from a big franchise because I think that the risk either perceived or actual In other words for a while it was perceived. And then from an actual standpoint they can look at it and if they do due diligence and I'm wondering if you're seeing this change in the perspective agents now if they'll actually look into the due diligence the risk is out of the switch at this point. There aren't a whole lot of holes in the value proposition that they may have heard about that even exist anymore. Don't you agree. ERINN: Yeah absolutely. KEVIN: Well let's talk a little about some of the stuff you mentioned from the standpoint where you use terms about you know coming into the real estate business people might be sitting in independent like you were or a big franchise and they're thinking God the only way on a bill to retire is to sell my business my team or build it up to a certain size and replace myself or I might be able to make enough gross commission income and net enough that I can buy properties. EXP is different than that. So let's talk a little about your perspective on that. I know you have this conversation from a wealth standpoint quite a bit. ERINN: Oh yeah absolutely. And that's where I really see the model shine. We've got a lot of mom and pop businesses out here in the Pacific Northwest that are seeing the shift in the model and the change. And agencies are not coming into the office anymore. And here they've got so much money invested in not only bricks and mortar but in a phone line that the fax and the copy machines for the office staff that's sitting there to support our agents who are not going into the office. So they're trying to find a new way to invigorate that business by offering some education basically any sort of new technology to offer lead generation to their agents. But all of these are piecemeal add on products that those broker owners are having to absorb. This is where you can come in and power that company. It's basically like a bolt on product to a brokerage and power that brokerage where they keep their own branding. So say it's you know Thompson real estate. It would be Thompson real estate with the EXP realty or brokered by experience. They're able to fully branding in place and intact because they worked so hard to build that brand in their local area and add on our EXP product essentially which they can then offer to all of their agents. We have a lead generation programs have groundbreaking technology programs that have transaction management tools. We have education easily accessible through our cloud based environment. We have mastermind's lead almost daily. It's just incredible for these agents to now be able to access its technology throughout their own brokers that they're already familiar with. And this is where I'm really seeing the future of the real estate models as we know it make the shift and adopt the EXP technology. KEVIN: Well certainly the interview idea with Mitch Ryback he talks about that right here. He had Tropical realty down in Florida and he was going to do a seven figure sale and then stepped back from that and went with the EXP to be powered by EXP instead. And one of the things in addition to the economics of the change he talks about the brand he talks about the tools you know things like Cavey core and Web sites. And what's interesting about it is he also touched on something that is sort of the dirty part of brokerage I don't mean that in a bad way but just what they don't like doing right. They like to wash our hands of this which is the actual brokering compliance the in and out of licenses the transaction management looking at the contract review making sure ENO is in order all of the stuff that so many people who have built up these independent brokerages just don't like to do. Now this also applies and I don't know if you've seen this but Gene and I haven't heard this from a lot of the rainmakers because there's a logical progression whether you're a big rainmaker for a team at a franchise or you're independent quite often. You know if they're at a brokerage their next step they start thinking about hey do I go out on my own. And what they haven't thought through is exactly that. In other words you can do it and then they look at how much was I paying in company dollar to my company. But when you start to pull back the curtain on all of the steps needed and all the staffing needed to do all of that sort of the dirty brokerage part the compliance pieces all of the admin stuff they haven't thought that through and typically from a behavioral style right these are driver personalities a profile and they don't even want to touch that stuff and so I know one of the things that I'm seeing and Gene is seeing when we're in meetings is the rainmakers and if you're a rainmaker and you're thinking that's your next step. This is probably something you want to look at because the economic model and the way you EXP sets things up in a team environment even a large team environment and even if you're in multiple markets right you're an expansion team. The tools that Erinn is talking about provide you with a great platform where you don't have to staff up and handle all of that admin stuff because that's just a cost center. There's no there's no real value or leverage in that side of the business is there. ERINN: No. No there really is. And one thing I really wanted to touch on which is one of the most common questions that I'm asked is how does EXP provide that type of support. How are we able to review transactions. How are we compliance. How does this work. And really what we've created is the perfect system for transparency between that broker or managing broker or broker owner and the agents. We've created a system that is completely paperless which is also obviously economically friendly and we're using sky slope transaction management to review each and every file that transaction that an EXP agent is party to. So the broker has complete access to these files checked for compliance. Make comments and no edit anything in there as necessary prior to the agents closing or finding that file. We've also created a system for agents to get instant or immediate access to help with any sort of transaction where they can reach out to their broker where they can reach out to the assistant managing broker in place and just have instantaneous help there's no more waiting in the office or your broker to be free or to get back from lunch. You just reach out it's simply either through the phone app or EXP world and get answers at your fingertips. I think it's just brilliant. KEVIN: The other part of all of that is from a system standpoint and agents are painfully aware if they're at a franchise locations for example and let's say they're on the East Coast right or the West Coast right. Here's the two examples. And you go do a walk through on your property and invariably something comes up and you've got to do an adjustment. Something wasn't fixed. There is something that is still a defect or something that was discovered. And now you're going to do a 5000 dollar price adjustment or some other thing like that that affects your D.A the ability to have the transaction and the accounting team available in the cloud is a huge game changer. Right. Imagine you're in the East Coast. You do your walk through at six thirty or 7 at night and you discover this. Now you've got an agreement you've got an amendment and a modification. There are accounting and payment people in the EXP cloud so to speak just to use basic terms that are going to be available there are going to be less cost people because as Erinn talked about we're on Sky slope and a common system nationwide the ability to affect that change to a contract in a DA and have you not have it turn into a scramble to text major broker at night figure out how to do this and get it done for the title company in the morning is a game changer for a lot of people now if you put that in the context of high volume for a rainmaker. That stuff happens every week every month right there doing enough volume that that stuff's happening regularly. Now an agent doesn't do a lot of volume may not have that happen but once a quarter or a couple of times a year. Now the rainmakers and the big players and we have a disproportionate amount of those higher volume players coming in the EXP are painfully aware of what a huge value this is and the system you're talking about Erin is huge. The fact that Sky Slope is available nationwide the staffing is available in multiple time zones and we're not anchored to an old school model of a bricks and mortar location is a game changer like you said most agents don't go into the office a emergency which somebody will go to the office might be to go get a DA fixed. If they had to and they hate it. ERINN: Oh yeah yeah. And it just allows you to have the opportunity to scale their own business. It allows EXP to scale and expand. And quite honestly if we need more help if our brokers are needing support we add brokers we add assistant brokers we've got people in place there to support our agents just through EXP crowd and our other technology. And it's just fantastic it's a tremendous system. KEVIN: Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit more about well from the standpoint of revenue share and equity because I know this comes up right. The reason I want to touch on this in general terms is there's so much disinformation out in the marketplace. I know this was a factor for you. You're one of the early people that came on you've had this conversation hundreds if not thousands of time about what does this revenue share and why would I even pay attention to it. Tell me a little about the equity awards. There's so much. Even today I saw something posted on social media this morning about stuff it's just plain inaccurate and it's based on old information. They're talking about the fact that you know this is pre NASDAQ listing and the fact that there's all sorts of issues. What is your answer about revenue share in terms of how you explain it and why it's a big game changer for agents. ERINN: Sure. I mean I look at revenue share as the company EXP paying me a referral fee for bringing great quality agents to EXP. It's as simple as that. And I can build my revenue share family my revenue share trade as deep and as wide as I want to by attracting quality agents that all they want to do is sell real estate. It's pretty simple. KEVIN: And that's a good way to put it. I mean one of the things that I tell people that have broad reach. In other words sometimes people will show up and they're pretty active in the training community right they attend events because of their franchise or otherwise they know lots of agents all over the country. You know I talk about this being no different the payment methodology is different but it is like a referral fee and you hit that on the head in terms of the way I explain it but it's almost like your a virtual region. In other words when you hear people talk about like Pat Hayes or Mitch Ryback or Gene their region I mean in the case of some of these big revenue share groups they're in thirty forty or fifty states. Some people are five to six states pretty quickly because they end up knowing agents and then those agents no agents in other markets. And it didn't matter if it was a relationship that was done just on social media or it's somebody from an old franchise that's in a different market. It's one of those things where you know we're certainly not looking for people to come in and like in my old role at Keller Williams I was a team leader right. I'm not looking for people to become a team leader right. We're looking for people and the way agents are doing this is the natural progression of their business right. Either the fact that they have relationships and they do referrals for transactions or they know people because of previous trainings in that is the way that they attract agents right. They may attract a few or they may attract many. I mean Brent Gove is a perfect example of somebody who's got an enormous amount of agents in a short period of time. And I know you because CRS and otherwise have a lot of agents in different markets do don't you. ERINN: Oh absolutely do. I've got agents you know connected from Alaska to New York and my revenue share group and it's fantastic because it's a great way for me to build out my referral business which is a good 50 percent of my business that I generate every year. But now my revenue sharing group can benefit from that referral base business as well. KEVIN: For people that have heard that this is like some crazy MLM or a pyramid thing. This is no different than the franchise system that collects a royalty and gets paid into a pool and then it's paying regional owners. That's effectively a referral fee too. Right? Actually the same thing so if you've been misled to that you probably want to look back at this again. You know it's not anything that occurs or anything other than as Erinn said production right. The only way it works is if agents are with the EXP and they're in production and this is paid into a pool much like the pool that is paid off of the top with a franchise that's royalties. We don't collect royalties that he EXP. And so you can think about it somewhat similarly. And like you said it's a way to build out and grow your group over time and assist others to do it as well. I know I had a number of people on including an agent in Houston and he talked about the fact that a year into it that he was now starting to think about raising his splits for his team because the revenue share has grown to the point where he wanted them to get the reward on helping him build his business and he was helping them grow their revenue share as well. So for rainmakers listening to this if you think about this on a more broad basis this might prevent you from having that constant turnover and push poll conflict in the team environment right and a lot of the franchises I've had several guests on that said this is I never felt like I could retain people right. What was the next step for him if talent showed up. I'd always worried they'd leave. I want to go do something different in the EXP world. You hear person after person talk about the fact that they want team members to succeed. Brent talked about this tourney talked about this in Dallas and even if they want to go form their own team you help them. We're all shareholders. We're all based in the same direction and that's a big difference from a cultural standpoint don't you think? ERINN: It's a huge difference from a cultural standpoint and I think that's one key myth that is pretty prevalent with people are the naysayers about the EXP. We are not a recruiting company if we're recruiting company. We would be out of business. We are producing company. We want agents that are in production that are building the revenue so we can all take part of it and share the revenue revenues. Sure it's just for expense. KEVIN: Well and I think a big inflection occurred this spring when Brett Inman came up. And as you're aware was up in your town interviewed Glenn and a number of other people and the article came out and I think it raised more than a few eyebrows when he declared that EXP in his opinion based on his conversation with Glenn was going to be essentially the NRT of the cloud and you know put a stake in the ground and basically said 50000 agents. And I think what really blew people away was the 50000 agents and the date that he put in there and how fast it was occurring. You know with a company ending last year at 6500 and change being at 12000 now I think it's easy for people in the industry that have been around and seen this picture before to now look at and go yep 50000 agents this is in sight now. And if the company continues to execute they'll get there. And this is a whole different world right you at the top of this interview you were talking about three hundreds thinking about getting to 2000 agents was gone. How long is that going to take us. ERINN: Oh my gosh yes and that was painful work. People don't understand all the work that goes behind the scenes to build out EXP not only in a new MLS but in a new state. It's monumental. I mean it can take a year up to two years to open in states. I we're still one state that we're not open and yet because of regulations we do everything that we can to be compliant and make compliance not only for the local and state boards but the MLSes in Alaska for example they require a very small bricks and mortar office with a sign facing the street. So it can be a very long and painful arduous process to become open in every state and now we are not. This is another reason why we're seeing such success in such monumental growth. All of a sudden it seems it's because we're able to add agents and almost every single MLS across the nation and Canada. KEVIN: Well absolutely and I think if you look at the franchise system that has profit sharing right. There's enough former members of that company that are here now that have been here long enough. Sherry Elíott is one I did an interview with her and there's a number of others. There's probably hundreds at this point. Now we're making comparisons right. And so the conversation in the marketplace used to be it's not going to work. Nobody is going to make any money with revenue share it doesn't work. You know you're making a huge mistake and that was almost a quote verbatim from Sherry Elliott. Right. And she's now able to have a conversation and say here's why I used to make. Here's what I make now. And here's how I did it. And Brent Gove can do the same thing. You know a number of them can do that and there's literally hundreds of them. And I think that's helping as well and for scaling perspective we're throwing a lot of numbers around what you talked about having in the entire company four years ago. The company is adding more than that per week at this point right. Yeah. Way more than that at this point. And so some of that is the build out and the success we've had and all that hard work that's occurred. But I also think that we've hit that inflection point. You talk about the hockey stick where at this point especially after the Nasdaq up listing we've got enough disclosure information out there. We've been accepted on the Nasdaq. You can point people that are those S and C in the disk profile they say just go read the filings you'll see all of the data there you'll see all of the full disclosure and it takes away a lot of those concerns. Plus they can look in the marketplace and go wow that was the number one agent for that franchise that actually just left. Oh there's another number one agent Northern California for that franchise. There's a number one agent from San Diego. It doesn't take too many of those for the trickle down effect of you know ending up at 350 or more agents a week coming in nationwide and we're headed to a much bigger number than that. It's going to be the opportunity and the challenge for the company but the good news is you talked about the systems are all in place now to take advantage of that. So Erinn I have a question for you. Now there's somebody listening to this right. They've listened to the first part over 20 25 minutes of us talking. If somebody is interested in some of the key factor right they called you up on the phone and said hey why EXP what would be the two or three things from a due diligence standpoint you would say you definitely need to think about this this and this. ERINN: Oh absolutely definitely due diligence read about you EXP on the EXP world holding site. We have a lot of information there that talks about the very most specifics about the company about exactly how the revenue share program works about how agent ownership works look into our stock. It's EXP I is the ticker symbol. And we're now traded on the Nasdaq. Seek advice from your accountant or your CPA definitely have them look into the background of it. You know also meet with an EXP agent has been in the business for a while get perspective find out what their pain points might be. Find out what the huge benefits are for them about working with the EXP and just find the story learn the background. KEVIN: Which is fantastic. Erinn what I would like to reiterate and I've done this on every interview is it doesn't matter who introduced you to the EXP right. It could have been a fairly new agent. That was the same franchise you were and you're a mega agent ask that agent to get you in touch with Erinn, Gene-Frederic myself anybody. We have every guest on this podcast give their contact information. Doesn't matter how you heard about the EXP. We're all here to make sure you get connected with the right people to do what Erinn suggested and there are plenty of people some of them would be peers. Some of them maybe a little ahead in the business of where you want to build to that we'll be happy to share their story of coming over. It's not a matter of them having any kind of concern about the fact that they didn't introduce you to the company. That doesn't matter. As we've talked about there is a shareholder program and we're all shareholders. We want great agents to join the company so I know Erinn you have these conversations with people all the time you talk with somebody in the Pacific Northwest. For me the very first month I joined the company. And you know it's one of those things where it's just part of the culture of the business and this is something that from the outside I don't think it's very well known. So again if you've not been introduced to EXP you need to get in touch with somebody. Erinn will be giving her contact information at the end of this interview. You can certainly reach out to somebody in the marketplace if you look in your MLS and you see somebody you recognize may be happy to chat with you about it. If you have been introduced to EXP and you want to chat with somebody ask them to get in touch with their sponsor or go to the podcast look in the notes or listen in the end here where Erinn gives her contact information or any of the other guests on any other podcast interview. We're all happy to talk with you or get you pointed into the right direction if there's somebody else you should talk to beyond us. Anything you want to add to that Erinn before I get your contact info for and listeners? ERINN: I just have one favorite story that I love to share with people about the EXP. One of the biggest pain points for people is where do I go to work. What do I do without an office space. You are not bricks and mortar. Well I encourage them. OK get creative. Think about this. Why do you need to work in a real estate office in competition with other realtors. Rethink this. We have one guy with the EXP who did something bold and I just love it. He opened up shop in a car wash a drive through car wash. And I just think this is brilliant. He branded his cards with a car wash. Basically a little punched sticker thing and hands them out to people as they come to the car wash. Once they hit 10 he gives them a free carwash. He's got a constant steady flow of business coming through it's like a revolving door and he's actually built his business up through patrons of this carwash. So if you need bricks and mortar space. Get creative. Now part with an attorney partner with a title or escrow company or one of your local lenders. We encourage you to branch out reach out and really expand your network that way. KEVIN: Absolutely. That's great information and that's a good example. I mean we also have agents that are pulling together like in San Diego where they have 3 regional sort of we work type of locations that they've set up collectively between the entire big groups of rainmakers and teams and agents as they come in to join the EXP. It can get in and subscribe and get either a hot desk or a regular place to work. There's lots of solutions. I have yet to find anybody that's a hard stop for there are so few agents that if you don't walk through it they can't figure it out sometimes but when you talk to about it they're like oh yeah I could do that or I could do this and as you just described there's a great business case for why you would want to do something different. I mean sitting in an office where nobody is going to come in. So Erinn before we drop off help somebody reach you if they like to talk with you live about the EXP. ERINN: Oh sure plenty of ways you can reach me either on my cell phone which is 3 6 0 3 9 8 3 8 8 3. I'm on Facebook as Erinn Nobel. You can also reach me via email. It's Erinn.Nobel@EXPrealty.com and I'm also on Voxer as Erinn Nobel. KEVIN: Fantastic and just kind of a hint for listeners. Erinn didn't mention it but if you're looking schedule a call or connect with her one of the best ways would be to text. And then you can catch her that way and do it or send or an e-mail. We're all fairly busy but we're all of the culture that we want to make ourselves available and sometimes rather than leaving voicemails or chasing people around that Sims tends to be the easiest thing. Any final thoughts before we drop off today? ERINN: Not that I can think of top of mind but if you're in the Pacific Northwest Alaska Canada I'm local and I'm more than happy to talk with you. KEVIN: Fantastic thanks for coming on the show. Thanks so much. Kevin's great.  

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

Marlin was diagnosed with ALL in December 2017. She was having pain in her hips, knees, shoulders and elbows. The doctors did a blood test and a bone marrow biopsy that determined she had cancer. The doctors at Dana-Farber put her on a two-year treatment plan. Marlin is currently undergoing treatment and has had several hospital admissions, weekly outpatient and home therapies.Marlin's family consists of her mother, Erika Baert, and her father, Kevin Welcome. Marlin also has grandparents and several cousins. Marlin's maternal grandmother passed away from multiple myeloma when Marlin was almost 2 years old.Marlin has hosted yard sales and a lemonade stand this spring where she raised $160 for a local animal shelter and $1,000 for Dana-Farber. She is always thinking of others and wants to help anyone who might be suffering in any way. She enjoys life and is a joyful, positive person who you rarely see without a smile on her face!Marlin enjoys swimming, skiing, and especially surfing. She hopes to be cancer-free and travel with her family.

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.

Will ChabDog pull another Tankpod reversal of ChabDognosticiation?Well-read tells us all about "Spaz" radioMarc recovers from his Dirty Water, and calls in for some raw meat.Tank tells us what to look in terms of NHL surprises ... how about those Golden Knights?Drew explains why he knew what was in store for the DodgersDylan Benharris rams the Rams down our throats once moreNCAAF RecapClips galore, including the bad boys of Hollywood, Kevin "Welcome into My Space" Spacey and Dustin "Get me off" Hoffmanand more

Will ChabDog pull another Tankpod reversal of ChabDognosticiation?Well-read tells us all about "Spaz" radioMarc recovers from his Dirty Water, and calls in for some raw meat.Tank tells us what to look in terms of NHL surprises ... how about those Golden Knights?Drew explains why he knew what was in store for the DodgersDylan Benharris rams the Rams down our throats once moreNCAAF RecapClips galore, including the bad boys of Hollywood, Kevin "Welcome into My Space" Spacey and Dustin "Get me off" Hoffmanand more

AFTS Cast: Mickie, JJ, Kurt, Chris, Joe, and special guest Kevin Welcome to the shed for our 2017 Halloween Special!  We’re playing the Star Wars Edge of The Empire Beginner Game this year!  We start off this first episode with Mickie, JJ, Kurt, Chris, Joe, and special guest Kevin learning about our characters.  Enjoy the … Continue reading AFTS-SWHE-Ep1-Escape From Mos Shuuta →

Kevin O'Brien, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at JazzHR, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss challenges when starting a channel program, scaling and tiering, creating a culture of partnership and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.  Jen: Hi, everybody, welcome to another episode of The Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer and today I am joined by Kevin O'Brien who is Vice President of Strategic Alliances at JazzHR. Welcome, Kevin.   Kevin: Welcome, Jen. It's great to be here.   Jen: Well, I'm so glad to have you on the podcast today. I think it'd be great if you could just tell us a little bit about JazzHR just so we have a frame of reference of what you do every day.   Kevin: That's great, yes. So JazzHR is a recruiting solution for small businesses. Small businesses all over North America are having the same challenges that a lot of larger businesses have in terms of how do they find talent, how do they get applicants to new roles that they're trying to fill, how do they screen them and interview them and ultimately bring them through to an offer. And Jazz has built an end to end solution that helps them get exposure onto a lot of the well-known job boards that are out there like LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor and more.   So, it allows them to power their own careers page so that they can actually get visibility into their open roles and then provide a series of tools and solutions so that they can easily screen and identify who to call, who the candidates are going to be and then bring them through in an interview process in a very collaborative manner. So, we've helped tens of thousands of small businesses hire about 300,000 employees over the course of our existence. And we're seeing great success in the market today.   Jen: That's wonderful. It's really wonderful to hear. Hiring, recruiting and onboarding are such big business challenges for organizations, so it's great that you're helping them alleviate a lot of those pains. I want to dig into JazzHR's partner program and also kind of frame the conversation. You and I met at that small business Web Summit and I was sitting in your session.   You were speaking about how to really grow a partner program and how to enable and support partners. So, I immediately went to your partner page on the JazzHR website. And first of all, it's great, it's so thorough, it spells out everything perfectly for any prospective partner hoping to work with you. I mean, it seems like that partner program is very well established. So, can you share a little bit about how long it took to ramp up to where you are now and what had to be in place to get to where you are?   Kevin: Yeah, happy to, happy to. Yeah, the program at JazzHR has been around for just about a year, coming up on a year in May or June. To us a small business is a company that has up to 500 employees. So generally, small businesses have anywhere between 20 and 500 employees to be able to have the need to use JazzHR for their system.   And what we found was a lot of these companies are already working with trusted advisors for their HR needs, so maybe they're working with HR outsourcers, maybe they're working with compensation consultants, maybe they're working with other technology providers like HRIS systems and so forth. And those companies and organizations tended to be in a great position to not only introduce their clients to sort of the next wave of technology that they needed to bring onboard, but also they needed to be able to answer the next question that their clients had which is, ''Hey, can you help me with my hiring needs and help me get my hiring needs from offline to online.''   And so, when we saw this at JazzHR, we knew that we had to have an indirect strategy. And so, we built out a program that was tailored to local consultants who had one-to-one relationships and face-to-face relationships with local businesses. We put a program in place so that it was easy for them to get educated on what are the challenges that their customers have with hiring and have Jazz help to solve them.   And then we also have an indirect strategy around integrations where we built out an API so that we could tie in some of the technology systems that we're bringing these solutions down to small businesses as well. And so, we had to have all of that in place and then we had to build in sort of a partner portal with a marketing portal so that they could get access to this information and track their customers and then get rewarded for bringing new customers into Jazz.   So, it took a good three, four, five months to get the infrastructure set up and then it's been in place since around May or June of last year. And so, we're 9 or 10 months into it and the program is really growing very quickly and we're having a lot of success in helping these partners bring hiring and recruiting solutions down to their customers.   Jen: Well, you guys have been really busy. You have accomplished quite a lot in a very short period of time.   Kevin: Yeah, yeah. I mean, luckily the solution set for Jazz has been built out over a lot longer period of time than that. So, Jazz is what was founded as a company called the Resumator in 2009. And so, it's a fully functioning end to end suite for recruiting solutions. The whole company really rallied around it and we had support from our executive leadership all the way down to our product, marketing and sales teams. There's definitely a need in the market for these local consultants and technology providers to help their clients move their hiring from offline to online. So, the opportunity was there, the solution was there and we were able to build up the infrastructure to connect the two and really start to ramp the program.   Jen: That's great. Not to go down like a memory lane with you, but you look at your career and you definitely have had a general focus. You were the VP of Partners at HootSuite, you were Senior Director of the app partner program at Constant Contact. I'm just curious, what do you feel you've really been able to bring with you from company to company as you work to scale a channel partner program? Because I see a lot of individuals, a lot of channel professionals and they go and they build something we create something in and they move on maybe to the next company, and I'm just curious from your perspective what you feel you really brought with you?   Kevin: Yeah, that's a good question, Jen. Thank you. All three of these companies have all been focused on delivering solutions into small and mid-size markets. And one of the things that I really developed an appreciation for at Constant Contact from being there as it was able to grow from 100 customers up to 600,000 customers was an appreciation for how small businesses really leverage their own networks and their own trusted advisors in terms of what they need to be focusing on next.   And so, building out channel in partner programs that are able to empower those trusted advisors to be comfortable with your solution to understand how it's going to solve their client's needs and to be able to easily fit it into their existing workflows is something that I think we were we were able to solve really well at a Constant Contact, and I also took that into HootSuite and now into JazzHR and that's the key. It doesn't just have to be a solution that they believe that their customers are going to be successful with, but it also has to have the features and functionality that make it easy for them on a day in and day out basis to see how their customers are operating with it and to understand the challenges they have, so that if they can help overcome certain areas of the product they're able to add value themselves.   And then to also achieve some status with the brand that they're working with so that they can get early access to the content or features or insights and so forth that they can bring it to their clients, and it helps them to strengthen their relationship there as well. So, I think bringing in an appreciation for how small businesses need to be hearing about these solutions from their trusted advisors, as well as some of the more traditional direct marketing that happens in terms of software today is something that I've leveraged and tried to bring with me so that we can scale these programs with different companies.   Jen: That makes perfect sense. I mean you really understand the day to day of that small business, the end user, end customer and you also can put yourself in those partnerships. So, it makes perfect sense to me. I want to dig in and get more nitty-gritty with JazzHR's partner program because whenever there's a successful program we want to look and see, “Okay, what can we learn from this and how can we apply it to other people's organizations?” You guys have three tiers of partners and it seems like those are based on the number of bookings. So, can you tell us a little bit more about the tier structure that you've built out at JazzHR?   Kevin: Yeah. Yeah happy to. So, a booking for Jazz is the total cost of a contract that a small business is signing up for. When you think about hiring and recruiting, and this is different than some of the other companies I've been at, some of the other companies have been more month to month, but at Jazz we look at it as a more annual contract because hiring is something that you have a hiring strategy for the year and so you need the software for the whole year and the value of that year is the booking. And what we want to establish we put these goals in tiers out on our website so you can see them at jazzhr.com.   And partners are able to come in and understand how much business that they would traditionally need to be bringing to JazzHR in order to be at a certain tier. That typically translates into how many new customers do you think you will be able to introduce JazzHR to? So, whether it's two, three, four or five throughout the year we have a tier for that, whether it's 20 to 50 throughout the year we have tiers to that, or if it's a 100 plus we have tiers for that. The goal is to really set the expectations for ''Hey this is what we think you need to be signing up for when you come to JazzHR, and here's the reward you are going to get for doing it.''   So being really transparent is important when you scale any channel program or partner program and it's something that we found to be helpful in getting the Jazz HR channel program off the ground as well.   Jen: Is it safe to assume that those same KPIs that you're using to measure partners are similar to what you're using internally for direct sales or is there a good alignment there as well?   Kevin: Yeah, there is and that's a great point because with any partner program it's always being measured against the direct sales initiative because you really need to be outperforming what a traditional single sales rep can do for the partner program to be successful. So, you really need an apples to apples comparison. So, you're right. The sales teams are measured by bookings, and the partners are measured by bookings, so that the company and the teams at the company are really able to see how one is performing against the other and what efficiencies are we getting through the channel strategy that we don't see necessarily in a direct strategy for this particular product set. And so, that does give us an easy way to measure how each of the programs are working.   There is a lot of cross promotion within the programs, like the sales team is very comfortable if they think that they're talking to a prospective partner of introducing them into the partner program so that they can be serviced a little bit differently and rewarded a little bit differently. But at the end of the day, we are looking at both programs to be able to accelerate the growth of Jazz, so we do try to keep the way that they're measured consistent across the two programs.   Jen: Excellent. Excellent. These are the types of questions that when someone is just setting out to build a channel partner program, these are the things that they've got floating around in their head. And so, I love being able to talk to people who are in the trenches like yourself and share that knowledge forward. Speaking of that, when you think about an organization that's just really embarking on building out a partner program, what do you think are some of the most critical elements that a channel leader should consider, particularly when they're really starting from scratch?   Kevin: Yeah. When starting from scratch, there's internal things and then there's external things that you really need to be looking at. So, externally you really need to identify if the product that you want to develop an indirect strategy for is something that the people of the ears of a small business can easily articulate to their client because that's really what's going to determine whether they're going to align with your product or not. And what I found is most small businesses business applications fall into that category. And so then it's really trying to identify who are the pockets of these different partners that you can easily go after so that they can adopt your solution for their customers.   The bigger challenges tend to be internally focused when you're getting a program off the ground. I think a lot of times people run into headwinds in a new program if they don't have the buy in and the visibility of the program that you really need. And what that means is a lot of people would want to take a program put it in a corner and give it some time to mature a little bit and keep it out of the way. But with a channel or an indirect strategy that's going to be a big part of the business, it really needs to be top of mind across the exec team and top of mind across the product team, the marketing team and the sales organization.   So, having top-level goals that are measured weekly and that are constantly in front of the functional leaders of each of the departments in the company is critical to keeping it at the forefront of everybody's mind. Now recognize it's going to take 12 to 18 months for a program to really start to achieve scale. But if it doesn't have the visibility throughout that period it's going to get left behind by product, it's going to get left behind by marketing and it's never going to be able to get that sort of the foundation under it that it needs to achieve the scale. So that's number one.   Number two would be investing in infrastructure early and I think a lot of it is easier now than it was say 12 or 13 years ago when we were doing it at Constant Contact. Now there are a lot of tools out there built specifically for indirect programs so that you can easily set up a partner portal or you can integrate it in an API set into the back end for companies to take advantage of it if you're looking to integrate your system. But investing in that infrastructure to be able to measure and help the partners manage their business with you is critical because if you don't it's going to be a lot of email and wait and email and wait, and they'll just get frustrated and move on.   So those are some of the key things that we try to do when we're setting up programs with high-level goals that are visible across the whole organization. We also measure them weekly so everybody can see how it's doing and invest in the infrastructure before the program actually launches. So you're really setting it up for success because you're trying to pull that 12 to 18 months data as quickly as you can, and that's the point at which it will start to drive and really accelerate sales for the business going forward.   So those are the things that I've tried to work on in the different programs that I've built. For the folks who have challenges, I think they tend to try to keep it outside of the limelight at the beginning, but it just gets a lot harder to integrate it later on as the program starts to mature. So, doing it right out of the gate is critical.   Jen: I think that's such great advice. When I look at partner programs that never really produced any real results, they were siloed. The organization has to have a culture of partnership, it has to embrace that, and that comes from the top. Right? That comes from the CEO, CFO and trickles down into every single person within an organization.   Kevin: Yeah, and being hand in hand with the sales team is critical as well and making sure that they understand it's a friend, not a foe is going to ensure that it gets the support it needs as well.   Jen: Yeah, and I know that could be challenging, but sales people we like to fight for our turf. So, it's a cultural wave to bring everyone together and work together collaboratively, which actually leads me to my last question for you about collaboration. I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you see vendor organizations face when they're trying to collaborate with their partners? And then this is kind of a bonus question, but I'm just curious if your partners have an opportunity to collaborate with each other? We're starting to see these partner programs really become ecosystems where different partners might be able to collaborate to solve a business challenge. So, I'd love to hear any feedback you might have on that as well.   Kevin: Yeah, let's take the first part of the question first, collaborating with the partners is critical. And it's such a great way to get access to new content, new ideas, new case studies and really get behind them and showcase them. In most cases with an indirect partner strategy, you're going to have access to probably more marketing resources than your partners are. So really pointing them out there and leveraging the partners expertise is a great option that we have.   We have a webinar that we're going to be running this Thursday. I don't know when this podcast is going to be accessible, but Thursday is 4/20 and 4/20 is a moniker for pro-marijuana and the partnership is actually with a partner who focuses on what are the rules around marijuana in the workplace for states where marijuana is legal. So, there's the fun play on sort of timing and content but it's really leveraging partners to bring their expertise so that you can educate the rest of your customers. And if you're open like that, more partners are going to be a lot a lot more interested in working with you if they can see that you're open to helping them demonstrate their expertise in growing their pie as well as growing your pie. That's critical.   And to the second point of your question, you're absolutely right, when your partner programs get big enough you can facilitate this sharing of ideas amongst your partners so that now you can get two, three, four partners involved in helping to solve a single customer's problem. At Constant Contact we saw this where we would have partners who would partner up together. If one was a web developer and another was a content writer they would work together to solve, and we would actually be building up the local networks of those partners through local directors we had. Those directors would work with all these partners and understand skill sets and who to refer customers to for what, but also build a working group so that they could team up and attack customer problems together.   We saw the same thing at HootSuite with technology partners. There are partners who are really good at deep listening and analytics and others who are good at content management and how that all works with the HootSuite platform and then bring them in to solve customer problems. We are not big enough at JazzHR where it's happened yet, but it's certainly where we're going and that's the point when the word gets out to partners that they can not only be rewarded for bringing in business, but also get new business from participating in your program, that's when it really starts to take off. So, that's another reason why it takes 12 to 18 months to get these things moving, but once they get moving it's like rolling a ball downhill, it'll pick up speed and start to manage itself on its own.   Jen: Oh, that's great. And that's very, very true. I think it's the changing buyer that's also dictating a lot of these collaborative partnerships that are happening because the customer has a challenge and partners can learn from each other and collaborate together. And with the Internet, you can't hide a partnership very easily right? So, the days of this is this exclusive partnership and we don't work with anybody else, today buyers have so many more choices, so, I think that the sun has set on that type of partner program.   Kevin: Yeah. In the small business world we like to say they are time starved and task focused these small businesses, because they also don't have a lot of time. So, if they are very comfortable working with someone and that person can bring another person in it just makes it easier for both for both companies. So, developing that trust is critical early on for sure.   Jen: Well, this has been so great. I've loved digging into this with you and hearing about what you're working on over at JazzHR. But before I let you go, I like to end the podcast with asking a couple of more personal questions so our listeners can get to know you a little bit better. Nothing too challenging as long as you're open to it. Does that sound okay?   Kevin: Sure, sounds great.   Jen: Okay. All right. So, first question is what is your favorite city?   Kevin: What's my favorite city? Well, outside of the city I live in, I live in Boston, but the one city that I've traveled to multiple times and I would love to relocate to at some point is San Diego. I love the culture and I love the location, so that would be the city I would prefer over Boston.   Jen: That's a great city. Every time I go there, and every time I land and I walk outside and I'm at the airport, I go, “Oh, this place is so beautiful.”   Kevin: Exactly, right.   Jen: Question number two, are you an animal lover?   Kevin: I'm an...   Jen: Is that a no?   Kevin: I have zero pets. How's that?   Jen: You have zero pets, all right.   Kevin: I've taken my kids to the zoo before.   Jen: That's awesome. Question number three, Mac or PC?   Kevin: Mac. I was a PC guy till 4 years ago, but now I'm Mac all the way.   Jen: They have a way of rewiring your brain, huh! It's unbelievable.   Kevin: It's more just how many times I've had to repair the PC and how many times I haven't had to repair the Mac, that was enough for me.   Jen: Yeah, absolutely I agree. Okay, last question. Let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses paid trip, where would it be to?   Kevin: That's a good question. An all-expenses paid trip probably Australia, I've never been to Australia, I've always wanted to go. And assuming that you can also carve the time off for me to get there for a month that's where it would be.   Jen: Yeah, but this is like a magical pretend land, so yes, I can do that for you. If I had unlimited money to send any podcast episode guest on any trip. So yes, in that world you can take as much time off as you'd like.   Kevin: Great.   Jen: Well, thank you. Thank you again, it's been so great spending some time with you today. If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally, what's the best way for them to do so?   Kevin: Yeah, that's great. So, they should reach out to me through my work email. It's kevin.obrien@jazzhr.com and I'm happy to collaborate on partnerships, make personal connections and help anyone out if I'm in a position to do so. I really appreciate the time you gave me, Jen, this has been great.   Jen: Wonderful. Well, thank you and thanks, everyone else for joining us for an episode of The Allbound Podcast, and we'll catch you next week.   Announcer: Thanks for tuning into The Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbound.com. And remember #NeverSellAlone.      

Wistfulness & Kevin - Welcome to improv4humans! Join us this week as Jill Donnelly, Colton Dunn, and Sean Conroy travel to Australia, light shit on fire, and have fun with accents while desperately trying to remember each other's names. Follow @MattBesser to tweet your suggestions and find music like the stuff you heard here from  Bobby Matthews  and  Dragoon .