November 11, 2024 • 29 mins
Welcome to "CEOs You Should Know," where we uncover the stories behind the trailblazers shaping industries and driving innovation. In this episode, Bob sits down with Chris Watters, the visionary founder of Waters International Realty, to delve into his incredible journey from humble beginnings to becoming a real estate powerhouse.
Growing up in Austin, Texas, Chris has witnessed firsthand the city's dramatic transformation over decades. He takes us back to the days of two-lane highways and warehouse-filled downtown streets, painting a vivid picture of a city that has evolved alongside his remarkable career. Starting as a lawn care entrepreneur during college, Chris shares the pivotal moment when a client pushed him toward real estate—a decision that changed his life forever.
From navigating the challenges of the 2008 financial crisis to building a network of contractors who trusted his vision, Chris reveals his formula for success, encapsulated in his "Three P’s"—Product, Promotion, and Price. Learn how he turned the Great Recession into a springboard for opportunity, mastered the art of selling "unsellable" homes, and developed a unique approach to tackling even the most unconventional challenges, including a house with 60 cats, eight dogs, and a donkey.
Chris’s story is more than a tale of real estate success—it’s about grit, innovation, and mentorship. He opens up about his leadership style, the high standards that define his team, and the satisfaction of seeing his colleagues thrive and retire early through smart investments. Whether you're interested in entrepreneurship, real estate, or personal growth, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration.
Growing up in Austin, Texas, Chris has witnessed firsthand the city's dramatic transformation over decades. He takes us back to the days of two-lane highways and warehouse-filled downtown streets, painting a vivid picture of a city that has evolved alongside his remarkable career. Starting as a lawn care entrepreneur during college, Chris shares the pivotal moment when a client pushed him toward real estate—a decision that changed his life forever.
From navigating the challenges of the 2008 financial crisis to building a network of contractors who trusted his vision, Chris reveals his formula for success, encapsulated in his "Three P’s"—Product, Promotion, and Price. Learn how he turned the Great Recession into a springboard for opportunity, mastered the art of selling "unsellable" homes, and developed a unique approach to tackling even the most unconventional challenges, including a house with 60 cats, eight dogs, and a donkey.
Chris’s story is more than a tale of real estate success—it’s about grit, innovation, and mentorship. He opens up about his leadership style, the high standards that define his team, and the satisfaction of seeing his colleagues thrive and retire early through smart investments. Whether you're interested in entrepreneurship, real estate, or personal growth, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, the name of the podcast CEOs you should know
I'm Bob pickting with us right now is Chris Waters
Waters International Realty. Chris. You you just mentioned to me
that you grew up in Austin, so I'm not even
going to ask you what decade or what year you graduate.
You've seen a lot of changes in the Austin area,
especially when it comes to real estate.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, that's right. I mean, even going back to elementary school.
I went to Cyprus Elementary off El Soledo in six twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
That's where my wife taught.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, that was, you know, thirty some odd thirty plus
years ago and one eighty three. Back then was a
two lane road and there was a big debate about
the time I was going into high school about demolishing
what later became Lake Glenn Mall because of some endangered bug.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I remember those days.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, yeah, you know, the UH.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
War, what was it, the Warpno. Eight, the blind salamander
I think, or something like that, or cheap something like that.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I don't know it, but yeah, I mean it's it's
changed immensely. I grew I lived in Cedar Park, played
baseball at LCP as a kid. In elementary school, and
then went to h We moved up a little bit
closer in Austin. I went to Deer Park Middle School
and then McNeil High School. Graduated from McNeil High School,
and so even you know, back I graduated. When I
(01:24):
graduated from McNeil, Uh, you know one eighty three, the
toll Road was, you know, wasn't there. The downtown Austin
scene was very different. We did not have condo high
rises and you know all the office buildings we have now,
a lot of there were a lot of warehouses still downtown, right,
and just a very different scene. You know, it's twenty
(01:46):
years ago, so.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So certainly a lot different than now. But when did
you first get involved in real estate?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So when I was going through college, I had a
customer and if he hears this, I'm I'm quite okay.
If if he hears me saying this out loud, he
was probably one of the biggest pains in my ass.
I don't know if I can say that in air, you
can say in the podcast it's okay. But Patrick, if
you're listening to this, his name was Patrick. His wife's Catherine.
(02:14):
They are amazing. Patrick's probably one of the best sale
one of the best salespersons I've ever met. And you know,
I think I can call Patrick a pain in the
ass because I also owe a great deal to him.
When I was, you know, going through college, I'm mow
INA's yard to you know, pay for school and whatnot him.
(02:35):
And you know, I was doing like close to one
hundred houses a week to pay my way through school.
But when I was, you know, I got to know
him pretty well because I took care of his house
every year, every week, and was, you know, taking care
of his lawn for you know, all through college. And
he knew I was getting close to graduating. He asked
me what I was going to do when I graduated.
I was getting a degree in finance from the mccomb's
(02:56):
School of Business, and I started going on job interviews,
and you know, I just I didn't feel like that
was where I was supposed to be. When I was
on these interviews, it was a very uh, you know,
I don't know, this might come off the wrong way,
but when people were interviewing me, it felt really weird,
like like I should be interviewing them. I don't know
(03:18):
how to describe it, but I just, you know, I
kind of figured going into my senior year college, you know,
I was gonna own and run my own business, and
I wouldn't do well going to work for somebody. And
so Patrick had a real estate group under Keller Williams,
(03:38):
and you know, he encouraged me to learn more, and
so he recruited me as a salesperson within his real
estate group. That was, you know, gosh, seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Ago, that's a big jump up from owing his lawn.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That was. That was a big jump up from owing
the lawn. And and so that was a very that
was a key inflection point for me. And that's what
got me in real estate. I didn't grow up in
the business. I you know, grew up primarily with a
single mom who was a school nurse, and you know,
didn't come from a family with a lot of money
and didn't have some big database of a bunch of
(04:11):
rich people. I just knew how to work really hard.
And I met Patrick and Catherine and they brought me
and I started learning a lot from through them, and
then you know, as I progressed, I kind of scaled
up from there.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
When did you decide to go out on your own
though for your own business?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
You know, I think. I think so twenty ten is
when I started the brokerage, and you know, I kept
feeling like I had too many controls around me and
things limiting my ability to be creative from a marketing perspective.
And so in the summer of twenty ten is when
(04:47):
I got licensed as a broker and started the company.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Any regrets, No first year had to be rough, though, right,
you know, I mean, is that about the same time
that Austin went through another boom with real estate.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You know, I mean two thousand, two thousand and six
when I got licensed is right when the Great Recession started. Yeah, timing,
So you know, like I didn't know any different though,
you know, like everybody else was telling me how easy
it had been to be in real estate in two
thousand and three, four or five, and so in two
thousand and six when I got started, like I just
(05:22):
didn't know any different, and you know, the market was
pretty tough, you know. We I would go on appointments
and meet homeowners in two thousand and seven, eight nine,
and these people had gotten these zero down home loans,
these no dock home loans where you know, basically if
you had a pulse, they'd give you home loan, and
so I'd go meet these homeowners and because they had
no they put no money down, and because home prices
(05:44):
had gone downward, you know, they would have to bring
a check to the closing table to sell their own
house because they were upside down. And so you know,
I was just, you know, I didn't know any different.
And so, you know, the opportunity that got created for
me as a result of the challenging market. It was,
you know, there were thousands and thousands of homes failing
(06:04):
to sell every month that had been listed by lots
of other real estate agents. And so, you know, as
somebody who grew up in Austin but didn't come from
a family with a ton of money, and I didn't
have a big database. Besides the people who I know
took care of their lawns all through college, you know,
the people that had their homes on the market and
(06:26):
failed to sell. That created a prospecting list for me
people to call and you know, try to solicit my
services to help sell their homes. And so that was
an amazing opportunity that came out of the Great Recession.
For me personally, it was just the abundance of people
that couldn't get their home sold. And so you know,
(06:47):
I went on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of listing
appointments where you know, the house had failed to sell
by all the big name brokers in town and all
the companies everybody's heard of, and you know, I was
like the third or fourth person they'd you know, hire
and out. They're kind of like, well, what do we
have to lose at this point? And so you know,
I started, I started selling them. I started having a
(07:10):
lot of success selling expired listings. So two thousand and eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
I mean, I mean, I don't even know how many
absalt hundreds and hunreds and hundred of them?
Speaker 1 (07:19):
What was it? Can I ask you what the secret was?
Do you want to reveal what the secret was to
make it a big difference back then if you were
a number three on the list. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
So it's not you know, it's it's not like any
one specific thing. What I learned is there's three things
that three overarching things that would cause a home to
fail to sell. One is the product itself. Potentially it's
inferior to other competing homes for sale. So that's one
potential problem. And there's some things you can do to
(07:48):
navigate that to make it look better. And there's some
things you can do for folks that don't have money
to cover repairs. Like I started, I built a network
of you know, contractors that trusted me that I get
it sold and then how overnight, But I started building
this rolodex of guys that said, hey, if you take
the if you get the listing and you and you
tell me, hey, there's equitying the deal, and I'll get
paid as a contractor to get it fixed.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I won't I won't charge the homeowner up front, just
make sure I get paid on the back end. So
I built this big rollodecks of contractors that'll do work.
They don't charge anything upfront, they get paid at the
closing table size. Doing a lot of that, having vendors
repair things for sellers so we can get the thing
to sell for more money. So product P that's the
first P. That the second P is is promotion. There's
(08:31):
three p's, by the way, and so you know, the
promotion side is probably one of the most challenging parts.
You know, the average role SEDA agent throws it for
sales sign in the yard, puts in the MLS. The
MLS system automatically distributes it to lots of websites online.
But you know, a lot of these search engines and websites,
you know, they all have their own algorithms as to
(08:52):
how they rank properties, and so there's a lot of
nuances to getting your listing to rank higher, to get
more eyeballs, and you know, ultimately, you know, is a
function of supplying demand. So my job as the agent
is to drive as much demand as possible in the
house to you know, accelerate how fast it sells and
help it sell for more money and get it to
sell faster than the one down the road. So the
(09:14):
second P is promotion and then the third P is price.
And so what I discovered back then is there's a
lot of creative ways to get a home to sell
even over market value. So I met people that were
upside down on their homes and they needed to sell
the home for you know, five ten percent above market value.
(09:36):
You know, we're talking a pretty significant amount of money.
And so something I discovered, you know, again this was
seventeen years ago, was how to sell a home with
seller financing and so we would we would do something
called a wrap where the seller kept their existing mortgage
in place, and then we sold the home to a
new buyer, and then we would draft a new mortgage.
We use a title company and attorney to do all this,
(09:58):
and I was able to sell the home significantly above
market value to a buyer that had the down payment,
but they didn't qualify to get a bank loan because
like a lot of the folks that would buy homes
with seller financing are self employed. So self employed business owners,
they try to write off as much as humanly possible
in their taxes. It's on the tax return, which is
what the bank wants to see. They want to look
(10:19):
at that number at the bottom, the adjusted gross income,
and a lot of self employed folks, they're just a
gross income looks really really low because they write so
much off, and so then they can't get financing. So
I sold a lot of homes back then using seller
financing to people that would put down like a lot
of money, fifty two hundred thousand dollars cash down. So
it gave the insurance to the person that was selling
their home, like, hey, this person's serious, they're going to
(10:40):
put a lot of money in and then we you know,
help them get the financing using what it's called a wrap,
and you work with the title company to help facilitate this,
and there's some other little nuances to try to minimize
some of the legalities of it. But you know, key,
you work with an attorney, a good attorney that knows
how to do this. But there's you know, I found
a a big population of self employed folks, and you know,
(11:02):
I was able to tell a lot of homes back
then that had previously failed to sell. So the the
last p is priced. And so again there's ways to
sell something above market value. It's not quite as convenient
as selling it traditionally where you just outright cash out.
But yeah, and then you've got you know, I'd meet
folks that have houses that were complete distress. You know,
(11:23):
they were so far beyond repair. You know, nobody wanted
to buy them. So I started building a database of
all the cash buyers in Texas, and I started distributing
the properties to cash buyers. And you know, these are
people that are willing to take on a home that
has significant, you know, distress. And I'm not saying the
(11:44):
sellers in distress I'm saying the house is in distress, right, Like,
I mean, I can tell you about a house in
Georgetown I sold, I walked in, I wal. I got
out of my car to go on the appointment. I'd
never met these homewners before. The house had failed to
sell by three other realtors prior to me, and I
started getting it tacked by geese and I was like,
oh my god, this is going to be one of
those houses and.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Like occupacial hazard. Never heard of that before.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, I mean it was, it was, it was, and
so you know, I I but and I was like, man,
this is going to be an interesting one.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And you know, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Well I walked into the house and there was this
this odor that was so foul like it it was like, yeah,
but this I had never smelt anything this fallum, I
mean ever, it was so strong. It was like burning
the hairs and the nostrils of my nose. It was
(12:39):
so strong. And as I like looked around this house,
I saw cats everywhere, Like I mean, on every ledge,
on every piece of furniture. I mean, I have never
seen so many cats in my life. There were no
less than fifty to sixty cats in this house. I
mean it was like like if you if I took
(12:59):
a step for it, I would accidentally almost step on one.
There were so many of them. And then I remember
going into the garage and there were like I think
six seven, eight big dogs in the garage and that's
where they kept their dogs. And then what the what
really shocked the heck out of me was the back
(13:20):
door was open and a donkey came into the house.
I literally wish I could make this up, but I
was making this up, but it was. It was the
craziest thing I'd ever experienced. So anyways, the house is
failed to sell by three people. It was actually a
really nice house, but it smelled horrible if you can
imagine all the damaged animals do like it had all
that going on, and you know, and so anyways, you know,
(13:43):
like that was one of those houses where I found
a you know, I found somebody that does like really
extensive remodels, and you know, they bought it, and you know,
we got the house sold.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I was going to say, you sold the house.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
We sold the house. I was the fourth agent. Oh boy.
The interesting thing is, though, you know, I remember taking
on there's.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
A new ad campaign before you're right there. You were like,
don't you yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I don't you know, it's not like I I I
don't like you know, people like Chris, what do you
specialize in? You know, I have over the years, we've
developed different marketing campaigns depending on the type of the house,
you know, so on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.
I remember I went on this appointment. It was a
house that failed to sell. It was on Lake Austin
(14:26):
and it was huge, ten thousand square foot house and
it was owned by this really well known designer in Austin.
Like she was this very she's a pretty famous interior designer.
She's retired now, but you know it just the house
was twenty years old, it was huge, over ten thousand
square feet, and they had hired all the big name
brokers in town, and it failed to sell. I mean
we're talking like seven hundred days on market, eight hundred
(14:48):
days on market.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
How can a house on Lake Austin not sell's That's
That's what I'm thinking right there.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I Mean it's you know, like you asked me. The
question you asked me is like what's the silver bullet?
And the truth is it's a lot of little things.
It's those three piece price, promotion, and product. And there's
a lot of nuances to each one of those little things.
And so you know, just the you know, the marketing
for example of like who's the buyer? How do you
(15:14):
find the buyer? How do you you know, how do
you market to them? You know, price based off the
seller's you know situation. You know, what's the best avenue
to sell the home to get them the result they want,
whether it's maximum equity or maximum convenience. So people ask
me what do you specialize in. I mean I've honestly
I've sold stuff from you know, a mobile home one
hundred thousand that's worth one hundred thousand dollars to you know,
(15:38):
selling something for thirty million dollars. And so you know,
there's a different marketing campaign for each type of property.
And you know, if you get those three piece in alignment,
price promotion and product, you can guarantee the house is
going to sell.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, well you are a legend when it comes to
selling houses. You know, well, I thank you, I appreciate it.
And you've worked your tail in off from from mowing
launs to get in attacked by geese. Yeah, there's a
reason that you're there. Uh, what's the thing that you're
most proud of about your company?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
You know, I think probably one of the things I'm
most proud of is at a certain point, I couldn't
you know, I couldn't handle all the leads coming in. So,
you know, we do all this advertising and I'd start
generating a lot of leads and there wasn't enough time
in the day for me to follow up with them.
So that's when I, you know, started the company. I
(16:27):
started recruiting salespeople to work with me, and I started,
you know, teaching them what I had learned. And one
of the early sales guys that I hired, his name
is Ray. He relocated here from California and just this
super hard working guy, and you know, he took advantage
(16:48):
of all the opportunities I was handing off to him,
and you know, he made a lot of money working
with me, and he worked super super hard. He you know,
was a really humble, modest guy, and even when he
was making a lot of money, he was really smart
with it. He wasn't going out and buying fancy cars,
and you know, he parlayed all the money he made
(17:09):
working with me and started buying an apartment complexes. And
he called me up in twenty fifteen and he said, hey, Chris,
I'm I'm going to retire. And I'm like, what are
you talking about. Ray, He's like, well, I've I've you know,
taken nearly every dollar I've made here, and I you know,
I've been buying an apartment complexes. And I had somebody make
an offer to buy one of the apartment complexes that
(17:32):
I bought. And he said, you know, I put in
one hundred thousand dollars to buy this apartment complex and
I'm going to make a million dollar profit on the deal.
And he said, I'm going to ten thirty one that
money into a much bigger apartment complex and I'm going
to take it over and totally turn it around. And
so in twenty fifteen, he, you know, for all intentsive purposes,
(17:54):
retired from selling homes. And now he you know, I
slowly built a portfolio of family apartment buildings around Austin,
and so I've got a lot of stories like that, Yeah,
with guys that have guys and gals that have come
to work with me, and they've you know, they've really
capitalized on the opportunities that exists within our company, and
(18:16):
you know, they've gone on to have a lot of success,
and that's probably been one of the most rewarding things.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Have you ever thought about writing a book?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
It's funny, it's funny you asked that. I did publish
a book in twenty seventeen which you can find on Amazon,
and it's it's called The Million Dollar Real Estate Team
How I went from zero to earning a million bucks
in three years. And so it kind of documents my
journey as a business owner in that three year period
of scaling up my brokerage.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And talking about the success and how you can achieve success.
Right is it? Is it also a motivation book?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
It's not motivation. I mean, it's more sound.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Like you great as a motivational speaker as well.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I don't know about that. I don't know about motivational speaker.
I love reading motivational books. You would recommend, uh, you know,
in in when When I remember when, I you know,
when I got started in the industry, and you know,
I'm going on just hundreds and hundreds of these appointments
(19:16):
with people that had had their homes on the market
and they failed to sell and you know, it was
it was a you know, it was it was a
challenging time. I mean, yes, the market was challenging, but
for me, it was just more of the internal struggles
of just like, you know, I'm starting my day at
six am getting ready for appointments. I'd go on appointments
(19:36):
from eight am until nine pm a night, I'd come
home at nine pm and then I'm doing all the
administrative work until like one or two o'clock in the morning,
and I'm living on you know, four hours of sleep,
and I'm going seven days a week, no vacations, no
days off, and I you know, my mental sanity was
(19:56):
after a little while was it was, you know, being stretched,
to say the least. And I was reading this book
Tony Robbins wrote, called to Waken the Giant Within, and
in that book, you know, he talks a lot about
how it's important when you're going through a journey to
be very self aware of where you are in that journey,
and most importantly to realize that you know, in those
(20:19):
those in those challenging times, it's just a small moment
in time when you think about things from a grand
scheme perspective, right, and so you know as I'm working,
I don't even know, you know, nineteen twenty. I mean
it sounds like an exaggeration, but literally, I mean, my
wife loves to tell this story. It was probably the
most difficult time in our relationship. But you know, I
(20:42):
was sleeping like four hours four hours a day at
most and did that for three years. And reading that
book really helped me keep my sanity because I just
kept telling myself. I remember, like coming home at night,
It's like nine thirty at night, o'clock a night, I'm
pulling in the driveway and I'm like, I'm so tired,
(21:03):
and I just like keep telling myself, like I'm telling
my subconscious mind, this is just the moment in time
and this and this this shall pass, but it's stuck
with you.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So, I you know, that was a that was a
really helpful book. I mean, I've read lots of others
Avid Reader, but that was a super helpful one.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Wow. What do you forecast for the for the Austin market?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Uh? You know, I think anybody that has the ability
should be going all in on buying Austin real estate
at the moment. You know what drives real estate prices
is you know employment and we have a tremendous number
of companies moving to Austin, and we've seen prices declined
(21:47):
significantly over the last twenty four months, and so this
is a this is a dip, and this is a
short moment in time. And you know, when we fast
forward ten years from now, people are going to regret
if they didn't take advantage of the opportunity that exists
to buy right now.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
On the flip side, I tell people if they need
to sell their home, like now is not the best
time to sell. You know, if you don't have to sell,
don't sell your house hold on to another you know,
two years, wait till interest rates come down a little
bit more. But you know, it's the the opportunity that
exists in Austin right now is grit is amazing. On
the buy side, we haven't had an opportunity to buy
(22:26):
real estate and Austin in like ten years, you know,
twenty twenty and nine to twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, that
was a great time period to be buying before price
is shot up. And so you know, since the summer
of twenty twenty two, prices have been on the decline
and you know, they just did the first big rate
reduction right last in the past month, and the Federal
(22:48):
Reserve has said, you know, there is a clear inflection
point where the trajectory of the market over the next
few years is going to be such that, you know,
we continue to see the Fed do rate reductions and
so we're probably at that bottom where you know, people
should be jumping in. And you know, I think we've
got maybe six twelve, maybe eighteen months of a bottom
(23:08):
ahead of us. And and that's and so that's that
short time window to buy.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Well, certainly nobody knows the Austin market like you do.
I'm gonna ask you one more question. Okay, management style,
what's it like with you? Is it a little bit
different than you'd expect?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
You know, I I have extremely high.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Sounding because of what you said, because the first guy
that you worked.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
With, Yeah, I have extremely high standards. So you know,
my I just I have incredibly high expectations, you know.
I you know, I hate hearing excuses from salespeople. You know,
I'm I'm probably just going to replace the person if
I hear any excuses from salespeople.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
My uh, you know, we have a pretty big operations
team that helps behind the scenes, you know, help our
agents do what they do. So we have a marketing
team that markets all of our listings, you know, an
inside sales team that manages all the calls that come
in to screen them and uh set appointments for our
sales team, and so across all departments. You know, I'd
say the standards are incredibly high. Our admin team, you know,
(24:16):
like it's not a clock in and out eight to
five job. I mean, if you know, we're dealing with
contracts and a huge asset for somebody, and so you know,
if something's gonna you know, take a couple hours past
five o'clock to get done. People need to stay on
the clock. Our our inside sales team, you know, we
just high expectations around you know how fast you have
to begin back to people, your follow up cadence. You know,
(24:39):
you've got to fall through with what you say you're
going to do. So I like to say our our
business model, it's it's like the Navy Seals of real estate.
And you know how we've kind of designed things from
a recruiting and selection process is all bring in ten
salespeople and we'll take them through you know, this very
(25:00):
intensive training. And to be I wish I could say
I came up with this, but I remember reading this
book called The Rare find by George Anders, and the
author studied all these these various industries where an organization
within that industry, you know, performs that, you know, a
(25:22):
ten x what everybody else does. So think like again,
military Navy seals. In the nonprofit world, there's an organization
called Teach for America. And so I read that about
ten plus years ago, and that was a really key,
you know, book for me because I put in a
I put in a similar type process you would expect
(25:43):
in some of these other industries. And so again, I'll
you know, we interview one hundred people, will hire ten
of them, and then they're on a ninety day probationary period.
Out of those ten, I only keep two. And so
that's kind of my funnel to find the best of
the best. And you know what what I learned does
the the interview process, for the most part, is a
(26:04):
bunch of bs. You don't actually know how someone's going
to perform until you actually see him perform. And so
that ninety day probationary period for us is you know,
to be able to see people perform. And we're looking
for three key things, the three c's in the first
ninety days. First, the first thirty days is are they
a culture fit? Ultimately, like how do they make other
(26:27):
people feel that they're around? And you know, you meet
people that are you know, just a holes to be
around in their negative nancies and they you know try
to you know, question everything you're doing, and so, you know,
culture fit. That's the first thing in the first thirty days.
We're kind of watching it from a distance to see
how they make other people feel. And then the second
thirty days is how coachable are they because we're going
to take them through role playing and extensive training and
(26:49):
have them shadow everybody on the team. And I always will,
you know, always have somebody like come up to us
and been like, hey, have you ever tried to do
ABC and D And they've been with us for less
than two months, and so you know, they're just not
very coachable. They want to like try to reinvent the wheel.
And then the third C is their their commitment level.
And so in the third month, we start seeing people
(27:09):
fall off the bus and they just kind of lose
the discipline of doing the things we just spent two months,
you know, trying to reinforce. And so that kind of
funnel is what's you know, helped us make sure we
find really great people on the team. That's that's specifically
what we do to find salespeople. And we have something
very similar for people on the operations team where they
kind of go through this ninety day kind of funnel,
(27:30):
if you will. They do very different tasks, but you know,
it's it. That's the I'd say, that's you know, the
big thing that separates us. As standards are very.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
High, how big is your team?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
So I think the thing that probably surprises most people
is it's a lot less salespeople than they think. You know,
you have to remember, like my average salesperson is is
selling like twenty x the average agents. So the average
realestate agent sells like four homes a year, and my
Lope reformers are selling twenty times that.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
And so.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I have in each city where we have a team,
we average about twenty to twenty five salespeople, and then
we have twenty to twenty five staff to help support
those salespeople. It's a big team. What cities are you
in besides Austin, so in Texas. We're in McCallan down
in South Texas. We're in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Colleen.
(28:27):
I had a team in Aarmarillo. My cousin ran it
and I gave you know, gave her the business like
hand it over to her, let her take it over.
And then we're in Washington, d C. We've got a
group in Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Toronto, Canada, one in Bakersfield, one
in Modesto, California. I think I'm leaving.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
You're all over the place. The team markets.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Eighteen Marcus to eighteen markets.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
How can people get a hold of you?
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well, I mean I think if it's somebody interest in
selling their house, Yeah, so I'm talking about you know,
they can go to our website, Christopher Waters dot com.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
It's Waters with two t's, yep and uh.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
And then if you know, they want to reach out
to me personally for whatever, you know, send me a
DM on Instagram or social media or one of those.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Chris Waters Waters International Realty CEOs. You should know. Thanks
for taking the time to talk with us today.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, thanks for having me on Bob
Well, the name of the podcast CEOs you should know
I'm Bob pickting with us right now is Chris Waters
Waters International Realty. Chris. You you just mentioned to me
that you grew up in Austin, so I'm not even
going to ask you what decade or what year you graduate.
You've seen a lot of changes in the Austin area,
especially when it comes to real estate.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, that's right. I mean, even going back to elementary school.
I went to Cyprus Elementary off El Soledo in six twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
That's where my wife taught.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, that was, you know, thirty some odd thirty plus
years ago and one eighty three. Back then was a
two lane road and there was a big debate about
the time I was going into high school about demolishing
what later became Lake Glenn Mall because of some endangered bug.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I remember those days.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, yeah, you know, the UH.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
War, what was it, the Warpno. Eight, the blind salamander
I think, or something like that, or cheap something like that.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I don't know it, but yeah, I mean it's it's
changed immensely. I grew I lived in Cedar Park, played
baseball at LCP as a kid. In elementary school, and
then went to h We moved up a little bit
closer in Austin. I went to Deer Park Middle School
and then McNeil High School. Graduated from McNeil High School,
and so even you know, back I graduated. When I
(01:24):
graduated from McNeil, Uh, you know one eighty three, the
toll Road was, you know, wasn't there. The downtown Austin
scene was very different. We did not have condo high
rises and you know all the office buildings we have now,
a lot of there were a lot of warehouses still downtown, right,
and just a very different scene. You know, it's twenty
(01:46):
years ago, so.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So certainly a lot different than now. But when did
you first get involved in real estate?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So when I was going through college, I had a
customer and if he hears this, I'm I'm quite okay.
If if he hears me saying this out loud, he
was probably one of the biggest pains in my ass.
I don't know if I can say that in air, you
can say in the podcast it's okay. But Patrick, if
you're listening to this, his name was Patrick. His wife's Catherine.
(02:14):
They are amazing. Patrick's probably one of the best sale
one of the best salespersons I've ever met. And you know,
I think I can call Patrick a pain in the
ass because I also owe a great deal to him.
When I was, you know, going through college, I'm mow
INA's yard to you know, pay for school and whatnot him.
(02:35):
And you know, I was doing like close to one
hundred houses a week to pay my way through school.
But when I was, you know, I got to know
him pretty well because I took care of his house
every year, every week, and was, you know, taking care
of his lawn for you know, all through college. And
he knew I was getting close to graduating. He asked
me what I was going to do when I graduated.
I was getting a degree in finance from the mccomb's
(02:56):
School of Business, and I started going on job interviews,
and you know, I just I didn't feel like that
was where I was supposed to be. When I was
on these interviews, it was a very uh, you know,
I don't know, this might come off the wrong way,
but when people were interviewing me, it felt really weird,
like like I should be interviewing them. I don't know
(03:18):
how to describe it, but I just, you know, I
kind of figured going into my senior year college, you know,
I was gonna own and run my own business, and
I wouldn't do well going to work for somebody. And
so Patrick had a real estate group under Keller Williams,
(03:38):
and you know, he encouraged me to learn more, and
so he recruited me as a salesperson within his real
estate group. That was, you know, gosh, seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Ago, that's a big jump up from owing his lawn.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That was. That was a big jump up from owing
the lawn. And and so that was a very that
was a key inflection point for me. And that's what
got me in real estate. I didn't grow up in
the business. I you know, grew up primarily with a
single mom who was a school nurse, and you know,
didn't come from a family with a lot of money
and didn't have some big database of a bunch of
(04:11):
rich people. I just knew how to work really hard.
And I met Patrick and Catherine and they brought me
and I started learning a lot from through them, and
then you know, as I progressed, I kind of scaled
up from there.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
When did you decide to go out on your own
though for your own business?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
You know, I think. I think so twenty ten is
when I started the brokerage, and you know, I kept
feeling like I had too many controls around me and
things limiting my ability to be creative from a marketing perspective.
And so in the summer of twenty ten is when
(04:47):
I got licensed as a broker and started the company.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Any regrets, No first year had to be rough, though, right,
you know, I mean, is that about the same time
that Austin went through another boom with real estate.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You know, I mean two thousand, two thousand and six
when I got licensed is right when the Great Recession started. Yeah, timing,
So you know, like I didn't know any different though,
you know, like everybody else was telling me how easy
it had been to be in real estate in two
thousand and three, four or five, and so in two
thousand and six when I got started, like I just
(05:22):
didn't know any different, and you know, the market was
pretty tough, you know. We I would go on appointments
and meet homeowners in two thousand and seven, eight nine,
and these people had gotten these zero down home loans,
these no dock home loans where you know, basically if
you had a pulse, they'd give you home loan, and
so I'd go meet these homeowners and because they had
no they put no money down, and because home prices
(05:44):
had gone downward, you know, they would have to bring
a check to the closing table to sell their own
house because they were upside down. And so you know,
I was just, you know, I didn't know any different.
And so, you know, the opportunity that got created for
me as a result of the challenging market. It was,
you know, there were thousands and thousands of homes failing
(06:04):
to sell every month that had been listed by lots
of other real estate agents. And so, you know, as
somebody who grew up in Austin but didn't come from
a family with a ton of money, and I didn't
have a big database. Besides the people who I know
took care of their lawns all through college, you know,
the people that had their homes on the market and
(06:26):
failed to sell. That created a prospecting list for me
people to call and you know, try to solicit my
services to help sell their homes. And so that was
an amazing opportunity that came out of the Great Recession.
For me personally, it was just the abundance of people
that couldn't get their home sold. And so you know,
(06:47):
I went on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of listing
appointments where you know, the house had failed to sell
by all the big name brokers in town and all
the companies everybody's heard of, and you know, I was
like the third or fourth person they'd you know, hire
and out. They're kind of like, well, what do we
have to lose at this point? And so you know,
I started, I started selling them. I started having a
(07:10):
lot of success selling expired listings. So two thousand and eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
I mean, I mean, I don't even know how many
absalt hundreds and hunreds and hundred of them?
Speaker 1 (07:19):
What was it? Can I ask you what the secret was?
Do you want to reveal what the secret was to
make it a big difference back then if you were
a number three on the list. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
So it's not you know, it's it's not like any
one specific thing. What I learned is there's three things
that three overarching things that would cause a home to
fail to sell. One is the product itself. Potentially it's
inferior to other competing homes for sale. So that's one
potential problem. And there's some things you can do to
(07:48):
navigate that to make it look better. And there's some
things you can do for folks that don't have money
to cover repairs. Like I started, I built a network
of you know, contractors that trusted me that I get
it sold and then how overnight, But I started building
this rolodex of guys that said, hey, if you take
the if you get the listing and you and you
tell me, hey, there's equitying the deal, and I'll get
paid as a contractor to get it fixed.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I won't I won't charge the homeowner up front, just
make sure I get paid on the back end. So
I built this big rollodecks of contractors that'll do work.
They don't charge anything upfront, they get paid at the
closing table size. Doing a lot of that, having vendors
repair things for sellers so we can get the thing
to sell for more money. So product P that's the
first P. That the second P is is promotion. There's
(08:31):
three p's, by the way, and so you know, the
promotion side is probably one of the most challenging parts.
You know, the average role SEDA agent throws it for
sales sign in the yard, puts in the MLS. The
MLS system automatically distributes it to lots of websites online.
But you know, a lot of these search engines and websites,
you know, they all have their own algorithms as to
(08:52):
how they rank properties, and so there's a lot of
nuances to getting your listing to rank higher, to get
more eyeballs, and you know, ultimately, you know, is a
function of supplying demand. So my job as the agent
is to drive as much demand as possible in the
house to you know, accelerate how fast it sells and
help it sell for more money and get it to
sell faster than the one down the road. So the
(09:14):
second P is promotion and then the third P is price.
And so what I discovered back then is there's a
lot of creative ways to get a home to sell
even over market value. So I met people that were
upside down on their homes and they needed to sell
the home for you know, five ten percent above market value.
(09:36):
You know, we're talking a pretty significant amount of money.
And so something I discovered, you know, again this was
seventeen years ago, was how to sell a home with
seller financing and so we would we would do something
called a wrap where the seller kept their existing mortgage
in place, and then we sold the home to a
new buyer, and then we would draft a new mortgage.
We use a title company and attorney to do all this,
(09:58):
and I was able to sell the home significantly above
market value to a buyer that had the down payment,
but they didn't qualify to get a bank loan because
like a lot of the folks that would buy homes
with seller financing are self employed. So self employed business owners,
they try to write off as much as humanly possible
in their taxes. It's on the tax return, which is
what the bank wants to see. They want to look
(10:19):
at that number at the bottom, the adjusted gross income,
and a lot of self employed folks, they're just a
gross income looks really really low because they write so
much off, and so then they can't get financing. So
I sold a lot of homes back then using seller
financing to people that would put down like a lot
of money, fifty two hundred thousand dollars cash down. So
it gave the insurance to the person that was selling
their home, like, hey, this person's serious, they're going to
(10:40):
put a lot of money in and then we you know,
help them get the financing using what it's called a wrap,
and you work with the title company to help facilitate this,
and there's some other little nuances to try to minimize
some of the legalities of it. But you know, key,
you work with an attorney, a good attorney that knows
how to do this. But there's you know, I found
a a big population of self employed folks, and you know,
(11:02):
I was able to tell a lot of homes back
then that had previously failed to sell. So the the
last p is priced. And so again there's ways to
sell something above market value. It's not quite as convenient
as selling it traditionally where you just outright cash out.
But yeah, and then you've got you know, I'd meet
folks that have houses that were complete distress. You know,
(11:23):
they were so far beyond repair. You know, nobody wanted
to buy them. So I started building a database of
all the cash buyers in Texas, and I started distributing
the properties to cash buyers. And you know, these are
people that are willing to take on a home that
has significant, you know, distress. And I'm not saying the
(11:44):
sellers in distress I'm saying the house is in distress, right, Like,
I mean, I can tell you about a house in
Georgetown I sold, I walked in, I wal. I got
out of my car to go on the appointment. I'd
never met these homewners before. The house had failed to
sell by three other realtors prior to me, and I
started getting it tacked by geese and I was like,
oh my god, this is going to be one of
those houses and.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Like occupacial hazard. Never heard of that before.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, I mean it was, it was, it was, and
so you know, I I but and I was like, man,
this is going to be an interesting one.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And you know, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Well I walked into the house and there was this
this odor that was so foul like it it was like, yeah,
but this I had never smelt anything this fallum, I
mean ever, it was so strong. It was like burning
the hairs and the nostrils of my nose. It was
(12:39):
so strong. And as I like looked around this house,
I saw cats everywhere, Like I mean, on every ledge,
on every piece of furniture. I mean, I have never
seen so many cats in my life. There were no
less than fifty to sixty cats in this house. I
mean it was like like if you if I took
(12:59):
a step for it, I would accidentally almost step on one.
There were so many of them. And then I remember
going into the garage and there were like I think
six seven, eight big dogs in the garage and that's
where they kept their dogs. And then what the what
really shocked the heck out of me was the back
(13:20):
door was open and a donkey came into the house.
I literally wish I could make this up, but I
was making this up, but it was. It was the
craziest thing I'd ever experienced. So anyways, the house is
failed to sell by three people. It was actually a
really nice house, but it smelled horrible if you can
imagine all the damaged animals do like it had all
that going on, and you know, and so anyways, you know,
(13:43):
like that was one of those houses where I found
a you know, I found somebody that does like really
extensive remodels, and you know, they bought it, and you know,
we got the house sold.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I was going to say, you sold the house.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
We sold the house. I was the fourth agent. Oh boy.
The interesting thing is, though, you know, I remember taking
on there's.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
A new ad campaign before you're right there. You were like,
don't you yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I don't you know, it's not like I I I
don't like you know, people like Chris, what do you
specialize in? You know, I have over the years, we've
developed different marketing campaigns depending on the type of the house,
you know, so on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.
I remember I went on this appointment. It was a
house that failed to sell. It was on Lake Austin
(14:26):
and it was huge, ten thousand square foot house and
it was owned by this really well known designer in Austin.
Like she was this very she's a pretty famous interior designer.
She's retired now, but you know it just the house
was twenty years old, it was huge, over ten thousand
square feet, and they had hired all the big name
brokers in town, and it failed to sell. I mean
we're talking like seven hundred days on market, eight hundred
(14:48):
days on market.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
How can a house on Lake Austin not sell's That's
That's what I'm thinking right there.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I Mean it's you know, like you asked me. The
question you asked me is like what's the silver bullet?
And the truth is it's a lot of little things.
It's those three piece price, promotion, and product. And there's
a lot of nuances to each one of those little things.
And so you know, just the you know, the marketing
for example of like who's the buyer? How do you
(15:14):
find the buyer? How do you you know, how do
you market to them? You know, price based off the
seller's you know situation. You know, what's the best avenue
to sell the home to get them the result they want,
whether it's maximum equity or maximum convenience. So people ask
me what do you specialize in. I mean I've honestly
I've sold stuff from you know, a mobile home one
hundred thousand that's worth one hundred thousand dollars to you know,
(15:38):
selling something for thirty million dollars. And so you know,
there's a different marketing campaign for each type of property.
And you know, if you get those three piece in alignment,
price promotion and product, you can guarantee the house is
going to sell.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, well you are a legend when it comes to
selling houses. You know, well, I thank you, I appreciate it.
And you've worked your tail in off from from mowing
launs to get in attacked by geese. Yeah, there's a
reason that you're there. Uh, what's the thing that you're
most proud of about your company?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
You know, I think probably one of the things I'm
most proud of is at a certain point, I couldn't
you know, I couldn't handle all the leads coming in. So,
you know, we do all this advertising and I'd start
generating a lot of leads and there wasn't enough time
in the day for me to follow up with them.
So that's when I, you know, started the company. I
(16:27):
started recruiting salespeople to work with me, and I started,
you know, teaching them what I had learned. And one
of the early sales guys that I hired, his name
is Ray. He relocated here from California and just this
super hard working guy, and you know, he took advantage
(16:48):
of all the opportunities I was handing off to him,
and you know, he made a lot of money working
with me, and he worked super super hard. He you know,
was a really humble, modest guy, and even when he
was making a lot of money, he was really smart
with it. He wasn't going out and buying fancy cars,
and you know, he parlayed all the money he made
(17:09):
working with me and started buying an apartment complexes. And
he called me up in twenty fifteen and he said, hey, Chris,
I'm I'm going to retire. And I'm like, what are
you talking about. Ray, He's like, well, I've I've you know,
taken nearly every dollar I've made here, and I you know,
I've been buying an apartment complexes. And I had somebody make
an offer to buy one of the apartment complexes that
(17:32):
I bought. And he said, you know, I put in
one hundred thousand dollars to buy this apartment complex and
I'm going to make a million dollar profit on the deal.
And he said, I'm going to ten thirty one that
money into a much bigger apartment complex and I'm going
to take it over and totally turn it around. And
so in twenty fifteen, he, you know, for all intentsive purposes,
(17:54):
retired from selling homes. And now he you know, I
slowly built a portfolio of family apartment buildings around Austin,
and so I've got a lot of stories like that, Yeah,
with guys that have guys and gals that have come
to work with me, and they've you know, they've really
capitalized on the opportunities that exists within our company, and
(18:16):
you know, they've gone on to have a lot of success,
and that's probably been one of the most rewarding things.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Have you ever thought about writing a book?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
It's funny, it's funny you asked that. I did publish
a book in twenty seventeen which you can find on Amazon,
and it's it's called The Million Dollar Real Estate Team
How I went from zero to earning a million bucks
in three years. And so it kind of documents my
journey as a business owner in that three year period
of scaling up my brokerage.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And talking about the success and how you can achieve success.
Right is it? Is it also a motivation book?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
It's not motivation. I mean, it's more sound.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Like you great as a motivational speaker as well.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I don't know about that. I don't know about motivational speaker.
I love reading motivational books. You would recommend, uh, you know,
in in when When I remember when, I you know,
when I got started in the industry, and you know,
I'm going on just hundreds and hundreds of these appointments
(19:16):
with people that had had their homes on the market
and they failed to sell and you know, it was
it was a you know, it was it was a
challenging time. I mean, yes, the market was challenging, but
for me, it was just more of the internal struggles
of just like, you know, I'm starting my day at
six am getting ready for appointments. I'd go on appointments
(19:36):
from eight am until nine pm a night, I'd come
home at nine pm and then I'm doing all the
administrative work until like one or two o'clock in the morning,
and I'm living on you know, four hours of sleep,
and I'm going seven days a week, no vacations, no
days off, and I you know, my mental sanity was
(19:56):
after a little while was it was, you know, being stretched,
to say the least. And I was reading this book
Tony Robbins wrote, called to Waken the Giant Within, and
in that book, you know, he talks a lot about
how it's important when you're going through a journey to
be very self aware of where you are in that journey,
and most importantly to realize that you know, in those
(20:19):
those in those challenging times, it's just a small moment
in time when you think about things from a grand
scheme perspective, right, and so you know as I'm working,
I don't even know, you know, nineteen twenty. I mean
it sounds like an exaggeration, but literally, I mean, my
wife loves to tell this story. It was probably the
most difficult time in our relationship. But you know, I
(20:42):
was sleeping like four hours four hours a day at
most and did that for three years. And reading that
book really helped me keep my sanity because I just
kept telling myself. I remember, like coming home at night,
It's like nine thirty at night, o'clock a night, I'm
pulling in the driveway and I'm like, I'm so tired,
(21:03):
and I just like keep telling myself, like I'm telling
my subconscious mind, this is just the moment in time
and this and this this shall pass, but it's stuck
with you.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So, I you know, that was a that was a
really helpful book. I mean, I've read lots of others
Avid Reader, but that was a super helpful one.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Wow. What do you forecast for the for the Austin market?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Uh? You know, I think anybody that has the ability
should be going all in on buying Austin real estate
at the moment. You know what drives real estate prices
is you know employment and we have a tremendous number
of companies moving to Austin, and we've seen prices declined
(21:47):
significantly over the last twenty four months, and so this
is a this is a dip, and this is a
short moment in time. And you know, when we fast
forward ten years from now, people are going to regret
if they didn't take advantage of the opportunity that exists
to buy right now.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
On the flip side, I tell people if they need
to sell their home, like now is not the best
time to sell. You know, if you don't have to sell,
don't sell your house hold on to another you know,
two years, wait till interest rates come down a little
bit more. But you know, it's the the opportunity that
exists in Austin right now is grit is amazing. On
the buy side, we haven't had an opportunity to buy
(22:26):
real estate and Austin in like ten years, you know,
twenty twenty and nine to twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, that
was a great time period to be buying before price
is shot up. And so you know, since the summer
of twenty twenty two, prices have been on the decline
and you know, they just did the first big rate
reduction right last in the past month, and the Federal
(22:48):
Reserve has said, you know, there is a clear inflection
point where the trajectory of the market over the next
few years is going to be such that, you know,
we continue to see the Fed do rate reductions and
so we're probably at that bottom where you know, people
should be jumping in. And you know, I think we've
got maybe six twelve, maybe eighteen months of a bottom
(23:08):
ahead of us. And and that's and so that's that
short time window to buy.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Well, certainly nobody knows the Austin market like you do.
I'm gonna ask you one more question. Okay, management style,
what's it like with you? Is it a little bit
different than you'd expect?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
You know, I I have extremely high.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Sounding because of what you said, because the first guy
that you worked.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
With, Yeah, I have extremely high standards. So you know,
my I just I have incredibly high expectations, you know.
I you know, I hate hearing excuses from salespeople. You know,
I'm I'm probably just going to replace the person if
I hear any excuses from salespeople.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
My uh, you know, we have a pretty big operations
team that helps behind the scenes, you know, help our
agents do what they do. So we have a marketing
team that markets all of our listings, you know, an
inside sales team that manages all the calls that come
in to screen them and uh set appointments for our
sales team, and so across all departments. You know, I'd
say the standards are incredibly high. Our admin team, you know,
(24:16):
like it's not a clock in and out eight to
five job. I mean, if you know, we're dealing with
contracts and a huge asset for somebody, and so you know,
if something's gonna you know, take a couple hours past
five o'clock to get done. People need to stay on
the clock. Our our inside sales team, you know, we
just high expectations around you know how fast you have
to begin back to people, your follow up cadence. You know,
(24:39):
you've got to fall through with what you say you're
going to do. So I like to say our our
business model, it's it's like the Navy Seals of real estate.
And you know how we've kind of designed things from
a recruiting and selection process is all bring in ten
salespeople and we'll take them through you know, this very
(25:00):
intensive training. And to be I wish I could say
I came up with this, but I remember reading this
book called The Rare find by George Anders, and the
author studied all these these various industries where an organization
within that industry, you know, performs that, you know, a
(25:22):
ten x what everybody else does. So think like again,
military Navy seals. In the nonprofit world, there's an organization
called Teach for America. And so I read that about
ten plus years ago, and that was a really key,
you know, book for me because I put in a
I put in a similar type process you would expect
(25:43):
in some of these other industries. And so again, I'll
you know, we interview one hundred people, will hire ten
of them, and then they're on a ninety day probationary period.
Out of those ten, I only keep two. And so
that's kind of my funnel to find the best of
the best. And you know what what I learned does
the the interview process, for the most part, is a
(26:04):
bunch of bs. You don't actually know how someone's going
to perform until you actually see him perform. And so
that ninety day probationary period for us is you know,
to be able to see people perform. And we're looking
for three key things, the three c's in the first
ninety days. First, the first thirty days is are they
a culture fit? Ultimately, like how do they make other
(26:27):
people feel that they're around? And you know, you meet
people that are you know, just a holes to be
around in their negative nancies and they you know try
to you know, question everything you're doing, and so, you know,
culture fit. That's the first thing in the first thirty days.
We're kind of watching it from a distance to see
how they make other people feel. And then the second
thirty days is how coachable are they because we're going
to take them through role playing and extensive training and
(26:49):
have them shadow everybody on the team. And I always will,
you know, always have somebody like come up to us
and been like, hey, have you ever tried to do
ABC and D And they've been with us for less
than two months, and so you know, they're just not
very coachable. They want to like try to reinvent the wheel.
And then the third C is their their commitment level.
And so in the third month, we start seeing people
(27:09):
fall off the bus and they just kind of lose
the discipline of doing the things we just spent two months,
you know, trying to reinforce. And so that kind of
funnel is what's you know, helped us make sure we
find really great people on the team. That's that's specifically
what we do to find salespeople. And we have something
very similar for people on the operations team where they
kind of go through this ninety day kind of funnel,
(27:30):
if you will. They do very different tasks, but you know,
it's it. That's the I'd say, that's you know, the
big thing that separates us. As standards are very.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
High, how big is your team?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
So I think the thing that probably surprises most people
is it's a lot less salespeople than they think. You know,
you have to remember, like my average salesperson is is
selling like twenty x the average agents. So the average
realestate agent sells like four homes a year, and my
Lope reformers are selling twenty times that.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
And so.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I have in each city where we have a team,
we average about twenty to twenty five salespeople, and then
we have twenty to twenty five staff to help support
those salespeople. It's a big team. What cities are you
in besides Austin, so in Texas. We're in McCallan down
in South Texas. We're in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Colleen.
(28:27):
I had a team in Aarmarillo. My cousin ran it
and I gave you know, gave her the business like
hand it over to her, let her take it over.
And then we're in Washington, d C. We've got a
group in Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Toronto, Canada, one in Bakersfield, one
in Modesto, California. I think I'm leaving.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
You're all over the place. The team markets.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Eighteen Marcus to eighteen markets.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
How can people get a hold of you?
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well, I mean I think if it's somebody interest in
selling their house, Yeah, so I'm talking about you know,
they can go to our website, Christopher Waters dot com.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
It's Waters with two t's, yep and uh.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
And then if you know, they want to reach out
to me personally for whatever, you know, send me a
DM on Instagram or social media or one of those.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Chris Waters Waters International Realty CEOs. You should know. Thanks
for taking the time to talk with us today.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, thanks for having me on Bob
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