November 29, 2024 • 54 mins
How do you scale a real estate business from 10 deals to over 200 annually while maintaining balance and focus? In this episode of The Mindful Agent, I sit down with Tom Heuser—top-performing broker, co-owner of Magenta, and a mentor who has mastered the art of real estate success through systems, leadership, and mindfulness. Tom shares his inspiring journey from his early days in hospitality and mortgage to building one of Las Vegas’s most productive real estate teams alongside his wife Serena. We dive deep into his strategies for leveraging coaching, mastering lead generation, and scaling with intention—all while staying grounded through mindfulness, exercise, and prioritizing family time. 💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: • Tom’s insights on focusing on one area of expertise instead of being a "jack of all trades." • How to build systems and accountability to scale your business. • The importance of mindset, affirmations, and balance in achieving success. • Lessons in leadership, teamwork, and transitioning from agent to broker-owner. • How health and wellness play a critical role in sustaining high performance. Whether you’re a real estate agent, entrepreneur, or sales professional, this conversation offers actionable strategies and a fresh perspective on blending business success with personal growth. ✨ Ready to elevate your real estate career and mindset? Tune in now! 👉 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share if you find this episode valuable! 📌 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:30 Tom’s career journey from hospitality to real estate 06:45 Building a team and scaling to 200+ annual deals 12:15 The role of coaching and mastering lead generation
18:40 Balancing success, mindfulness, and personal wellness 25:00 Tom’s advice on focus and avoiding burnout 47:43 Quickfire Wisdom 52:44 Mindful Moment 🎙 About The Mindful Agent Podcast: The Mindful Agent explores the intersection of real estate success, mindfulness, and personal growth. Host Michael Coxen brings together industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and mindfulness practitioners to share insights that help you thrive in business and life. 🔗 Resources & Links: • Learn more about joining Magenta Real Estate: https://www.joinmagenta.realestate • Book Mention—Die With Zero by Bill Perkins: This book presents a provocative philosophy on maximizing life experiences over accumulating wealth. https://www.diewithzerobook.com/welcome • Discover our Lead Pillar Webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXQfsDJXfLE&t=1s
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to The Mindful Agent, where real estate
success meets health, mindfulness, and personal growth.
Join me, Michael Coxon, top performing agent, growth
director, and co-owner of Magenta Real Estate,
as I explore the intersection of wellness and
business excellence, helping you thrive in both real
estate and life.
(00:23):
Today, I'm thrilled to introduce a guest who
has not only shaped the trajectory of my
own career, but has also set an extraordinary
example for agents and brokers across the real
estate industry.
Tom Huser is a brilliant real estate broker
and co-owner of Magenta Real Estate, known
for his meticulous attention to detail, exceptional negotiating
skills, and deep understanding of economics and market
(00:45):
trends.
He understands the industry like no other.
I know that firsthand.
With his wife, Serena, Tom built one of
Las Vegas' top performing real estate teams, achieving
remarkable success before co-founding Magenta to elevate
the brokerage experience for agents and clients alike.
His leadership blends professional excellence with unwavering support,
(01:05):
fostering an environment where agents thrive.
In this episode, we'll dive into Tom's incredible
career journey, from navigating challenges in the mortgage
industry to building a team and brokerage from
the ground up.
Tom strongly believes in the power of focus,
advocating that agents who avoid being a jack
of all trades and instead master one area
(01:26):
of expertise will not only stand out in
their market, but also achieve greater success and
fulfillment in their careers.
Plus, we'll explore Tom's approach to balancing high
performance with mindfulness, health, and family life.
Because let's face it, success is meaningless if
we don't feel fulfilled.
Without further ado, let's jump into the conversation
with my mentor, business partner, and friend, Tom
(01:48):
Huser.
We've had a hundred of these conversations.
Now we're actually recording that.
I'm just going to start off with introducing
the guest, Tom Huser.
He's the broker of Magenta, partner of mine
and mentor of mine, was a colleague, then
a mentor, still is a mentor.
I'm honored to have you on the podcast.
You and I have these conversations offline constantly,
(02:12):
and now we're just recording one.
Well, thank you for that nice intro.
I have a lot to live up to.
I do.
No pressure.
You're the man.
How did you get into real estate?
I know it, but tell our listeners how
this all started.
That's definitely a long story.
I originally was in the hospitality business for
about 14 years.
(02:33):
Then I got interested in the mortgage business,
so I became a loan officer.
That was at a wonderful time from 2004
to 2007 before the world melted down in
Las Vegas.
Every short sale came out, so I actually
went back into the hospitality business for a
couple of years.
Then when I decided that I wanted to
get back in to the real estate market,
(02:54):
I was going to be a loan officer.
I said, I don't want to do that
anymore.
I hated sitting behind a desk.
I hated losing deals over a quarter of
an interest percentage or an eighth.
I actually decided I wanted to get on
the more fun side, which was real estate
sales.
When I get back into the business, that
is when I said, I'm going to do
real estate sales.
I've enjoyed it a lot more than the
(03:15):
mortgage side of the business.
You thought it would be more fun and
you'd have maybe more control over the process?
Yeah.
Then a little bit deeper layer to that
was what got me into the mortgage business
is I was buying houses as an investor.
I always struggled finding a knowledgeable loan officer
that could actually do my deal easily.
(03:37):
Even though I had plenty of money in
the bank, I had a great job, I
had assets, but it was like a struggle
every single time.
I realized that loan officers were lacking knowledge
in the industry and that's what attracted me.
Then when I was thinking about getting into
the real estate business with selling a house
and buying a house in another state, agent
(03:58):
was terrible.
I went, hey, there's a gap here also
that is needed.
As I just looked more into it, I
realized how little bit of business a lot
of agents did and they just weren't good
at what they did.
Noticing a trend, you saw weaknesses in these
positions as you were a consumer of them,
(04:19):
both loans and agency, and you attacked them
with, I can do better.
Good mindset.
How does your knowledge of loans affect you
as an agent and a broker today?
It helps me immensely just because there's so
many, especially right now in the market that
we're in, we're in a potential assumable loan
market for FHA and VA loans.
(04:40):
I just understand that and I can help
the agents walk through transactions with debt to
income ratio.
I get it all.
It's been a monumental help, but I'm so
happy I made the transition from mortgage to
real estate for sure.
I've seen in myself and agents, you're able
to explain complicated financial concepts and what happens
(05:02):
in the mortgage market in a way that
we as agents can relate it to our
clients.
Yeah.
That's important.
I think that was well said that you
can have all this knowledge up here, but
if you can't dumb it down, like some
doctors I go to and they're like, this
is what's wrong.
I'm like, I have no idea what you
just said.
It's not helpful.
Can you speak English?
(05:25):
They're using all this medical jargon while it's
the same way in real estate, it's the
same way in mortgage.
You have your own professional jargon that we
can use between agents, but when you're trying
to dumb down things to help people understand,
it has to be simplified.
Just because you understand it means really nothing.
It's like, can you communicate it?
Can you teach it?
Yeah.
And help people make decisions.
(05:45):
Yeah.
It's complicated.
You grew from mortgage agent, mortgage broker, real
estate agent.
Next step was team leader.
Yep.
Then team leader.
How about that jump from agent to team
leader?
What made you do that?
As my wife and I got into the
business, Serena, we always had the desire to
(06:05):
build a team.
I knew that I didn't always want to
be 100% in production myself.
I wanted to have a team.
So we went in, we signed up at
this particular brokerage.
We went in and we met with the
broker at that time of a very large
brokerage here in town.
Serena and I were both in that room.
(06:27):
I told him that we were going to
do 100 transactions a year and he laughed
me out of the room.
Then when we left, Serena said, you are
so embarrassing.
I cannot believe you told him we were
going to do 100 transactions a year.
He practically laughed us out of the room.
Well, that inspired me to prove him wrong.
(06:48):
Yeah.
So two years later, I proved him wrong.
We were doing over 100 transactions a year.
You didn't do it the first year.
We didn't do it the first year.
Yeah.
So that's incredible.
So this was part of the plan, start
a team to get to that 100 transactions,
or did you and Serena do 100 transactions
all by yourself or did you use the
leverage of people and a team to get
(07:09):
there?
We used the leverage of a people and
a team.
Now, of course, any agent can do whatever
they want.
If you're willing to dedicate your life 16
hours a day, seven hours a day, 16
hours a day, seven days a week to
doing nothing but production, you can do 100
transactions a year.
You'll have no life.
What do you think is the max number
one solo agent can do?
(07:29):
No TCs, no assistants, no team?
I would say 40.
I mean, that would be 40 in a
year, solo agent with no life.
No life.
And is that a healthy choice, would you
say?
Each person has to make their own choice,
right?
Everybody has to make their own choice of
what's important to them.
If you had kids or you had a
(07:51):
significant other, I don't see how you'd get
a lot of quality time with them.
Maybe that number's 50, it depends on the
market, what's happening.
You and I have been through markets where
you've got to put seven offers in for
a buyer.
Those markets, it's a lot harder to get
40 deals done.
Yeah.
I think when I was on your team,
(08:12):
I'm trying to remember the max I did
in a year, and it may have been
close to that.
I think you were around 40.
But we had a TC for sellers, a
TC for buyers, and that was exhausting with
TC help.
And I really feel like 40 for me
with TC help was the max.
And frankly, I reached burnout.
So I don't know how much more sustainable
that was until I pivoted and switched.
(08:34):
Well, I should say in my case, the
market did it for me and transactional volume
came down.
But did you have a plan to say,
hey, I want work-life balance, I want
a team to help me hit my numbers,
or did you max yourself out before getting
a team?
No, we did not max ourselves out.
We were probably 80% maxed out.
(08:56):
And then we started transitioning to the team.
When you started the team, what was your
first hire?
Was it a buyer's agent, a TC, something
else?
Yeah, I believe it was a buyer's agent.
And really what we did was we knew
we had been a couple of years of
just being slow, 18 months of just being
slow.
And we realized that this was never going
(09:18):
to turn into a business if we didn't
get some form of leads.
I'll pause you there because you said something
that's important to me.
You said it's never going to turn into
a business.
What was it before it was a business?
It was just trying to make a few
bucks.
It wasn't a business.
That's the problem is agents don't think of
(09:40):
it that way.
You are a 1099 independent contractor.
This is your business.
And the sky is the limit.
You can do whatever you want.
So some of them keep it simple and
just be a solopreneur and just do a
few transactions a year.
There are multiple examples of this.
(10:01):
Multiple examples.
In all business.
Yes.
And yeah, there's roofing companies that it's the
owners.
That's it.
The husband does the work.
We work with a lot of sign companies.
There's a lot of small companies in the
world.
The McDonald's brothers, they had a burger shop.
Ray Kroc had a business and turned it
into what it is today.
(10:22):
You can only flip so many burgers.
Yeah, that's it.
And to your point, you don't have unlimited
time.
So once we got this lead source, well,
we realized we needed a lead source because
we were never going to be able to
do enough business without a lead source.
Which was?
At that time, it was called Boomtown.
And so that brought us in about 300
(10:43):
leads a month.
And we realized that we couldn't handle this
ourselves.
Where are these leads coming from?
Yeah, internet leads.
So they had a website, call it Google,
Google pay-per-click ads, brought them to
the Boomtown website.
People had to register.
So they were not, we had a low
(11:05):
conversion rate on it, but it took a
lot of manpower to manage this lead volume
300 leads the first month, not a big
deal.
Second month, not terrible.
As you get to the third month now,
you've got 900 leads in the database that
are new and you're trying to follow up
with all of them.
So how many people were fielding these?
That's 10 per day at 300.
(11:25):
Yeah.
So that's where we had to start growing
and we had to add two more buyers
agents quickly.
But then as we were going through this
process, we learned a lot and a lot
of it was failing our forward.
It was, we didn't know that these leads
weren't that great quality.
We didn't know that we didn't have the
right scripts.
(11:46):
We didn't know what to say on the
phone.
We didn't know how quickly to follow up
with them.
So this took this whole, like just getting
punched in the face day after day, week
after week to say, what we're doing isn't
working.
We've got to change something.
So how did you know it wasn't working?
Just no one was buying anything?
Nobody was buying anything, no contract.
(12:07):
So then I realized that I could do
this from scratch and try to figure it
out all on my own.
Or I could say, hey, somebody has been
there, done this, and I don't want to
reinvent the wheel.
And I could hire a coach.
And that's when we decided to hire a
coach because we were just doing everything.
(12:27):
We were trying to figure it all out
and it didn't make sense.
So roughly, rough numbers.
How many years were you in the business
before you hired a coach?
The real estate sales business?
I think I would say about 18 months.
Yeah.
How many deals roughly had you done at
that point?
10, 12.
So I mean, 10 deals in 18 months
is still well above average.
(12:48):
Yeah.
And a lot of people would be happy
with that.
Yes.
You were not.
Not at all.
And was it because you realized you're investing
this money and you're not getting a return
or you weren't going to hit your goal
of 100 deals?
Like what made you go, we can do
better?
Well, I think that every agent gets a
license and the day that they get that
license, they go, all my friends and family
(13:08):
are just going to rain clients on me
and I'm going to be so busy.
And then after about six months, there starts
to be some clarity that that's not going
to happen.
And after about the first year, you go,
this isn't what I thought it was.
My friends and family are not sending me
so much business that I can, most agents
quit their other job, right?
(13:30):
Because they're working a job while they're trying
to transition into real estate full-time.
And that's a very hard thing to do.
So I tell people, you're in the hospitality
business.
I tell new agents, you would never go
open a restaurant hoping it survives all friends
and family.
That opening weekend might be great, but your
(13:51):
friends and family aren't going to eat at
your restaurant every single night.
Every night.
So have a plan.
Yeah.
As you mentioned, go in with, oh, my
friends and family will take care of me.
No, maybe once or twice a year, if
you're lucky.
If you're lucky.
Yeah.
So that's a business and something you need
to nurture, improve to friends and family.
This is a serious business.
It's not one dinner out.
You're helping them buy and sell a huge
(14:12):
asset.
Maybe they don't want to work with you,
but you're not skilled and prepared.
And that's, that's a hundred percent it.
And you know, we didn't, you know, understand
that when you first get in the business,
exactly what you just said.
Your friends, family, your sphere, they don't trust
you.
Nope.
You're new.
You don't know what you're doing.
Doesn't know you're new.
Yeah.
So that's where it's like, you have to,
(14:34):
you have to fake it till you make
it.
You've got to buy leads.
You've got to get business from somewhere else.
Then once you start doing business, your friends
and family go, oh, Hey, we're not the
Guinea pigs anymore.
Right.
He's not going to practice on us.
So that's when they actually start giving you
some business.
But again, I can't think of, I can't
think of a year that our sphere.
(14:58):
And I don't mean past clients that we've
bought through leads.
I'm just talking about our sphere or friends
or family never generated it from a lead
from anywhere else, which is now our database.
But we've never done more than five or
10% of our business from people that
we just know are our true sphere, not
past clients.
(15:19):
How many people can one actually know?
And I think if you ask anyone, how
many real estate agents they know, they're going
to probably list three or four.
So even though they may know you, they
probably know three others like you.
Yeah.
Then, then, you know, you'll get a smart
ass agent that says I do it, which
there are some that do it.
I say the smart ass because they're doing
three or four deals a year.
(15:39):
They have another full-time job in a
plumber.
That's their goal.
And so if you have another job doing
something else, that's not my definition of success.
My definition of success is I'm a full
-time real estate agent.
My whole livelihood is based on the income
that I get from selling homes.
(16:00):
And when I'm not doing real estate, I
get to spend time with my friends and
family and personal time, not working three jobs
because I'm not successful in real estate.
Yeah.
And this is one of the only industries
where it's almost common ground for it to
be a side business, where there's so much,
I think, at risk and so much legal
and financial seriousness to be had, yet we're
(16:23):
treating it often as part-time and you
never had that mindset.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's, I've never had that mindset because,
you know, I had those bad experiences early
on and it was crystal clear to me
that this, this wasn't, these are people's biggest
investments.
Like you can't, this is a, there's a
lot of legal paperwork.
(16:43):
There's a lot of things that go right
and go wrong in a transaction.
Every transaction is, you know, and you have
to have the skills to solve that.
Yeah.
And sometimes being successful is almost a curse
early on.
You go through one or two of those
deals and nothing bad happens.
And you're like, it's easy.
I can do this.
And you don't know what you don't know.
Yeah.
And you get into the mold that goes,
takes you down a two week rabbit hole
(17:05):
and 40,000 bucks.
And yeah, it's a disaster.
Yeah.
I mean, so that was me early on.
I had another business when I got licensed.
I just liked real estate.
Like a lot of people, I was, it
was a hobby in a way.
It was a passion I wanted to pursue,
but was I prepared?
Not really.
And thankfully, you know, I, I skated by,
did a few deals a year and that's
when we met actually was a deal with
(17:25):
you and doing a deal with you.
I went, Oh, Tom knows what he's doing
more than I do.
He has systems in place.
He had processes, the way you delivered paperwork
and had your assistance.
And I went, okay, there's a different way
to do this.
And that's when my mindset shifted and we
connected.
But that was years later.
So you had already been in coaching at
that point.
I remember learning a lot from you and
(17:46):
your coaches being part of the coaching program,
but used to rewind our conversation, jumped into
coaching.
You had eight, you were 18 months in,
you had done about 10 deals and you
wanted more.
So you did not settle.
You were still 90 deals away from your
transactions.
How'd you get from deal 10 to deal
100?
Yeah, that was hiring a coach, getting a
(18:08):
blueprint of systems, processes, and tools to implement
into creating a real business with people and
all these other things and scaling it.
Give me one example of a system or
tool that your coach gave you that changed
everything.
Well, lead generation, proper lead generation systems, but
(18:30):
more importantly, you can bring in leads, but
if you don't do accountability on those leads
and you don't follow up with those leads
and you don't have scripts, all those things
that I just said are all came from
the coach.
These are the scripts you need.
This is how quickly you need to call
them back.
This is how you need to follow up
over the next 30 days, 60 days, six
(18:50):
months, 18 months.
So it's like, wow, these light bulbs go
off and you go, I was doing this
99% wrong.
So you can buy all these leads and
you can spend $5,000 a month on
leads, but you're just flushing the money down
the toilet because you're doing everything wrong.
All you needed was leads.
Every real estate agent would be successful.
Yes.
(19:11):
And I think that's a fallacy.
A lot of agents are like, well, I
just need leads.
Give me leads.
I'll want to buy leads.
Well, it's frankly a waste of money if
you don't have scripts and systems.
100%.
CRM.
Boomtown is also a CRM.
Yep.
And our coach, if I just think of
the timeline, our coach was the one that
suggested Boomtown.
(19:32):
Yes.
So I guess we probably signed up for
some lead systems first and when they weren't
working, then that's when we got the coach
and signed up for Boomtown.
And I remember that was a big freak
out moment for Serena and I, because not
only now are we paying for coaching, but
Boomtown was going to be a minimum.
We had to sign a contract for one
(19:53):
year for $2,000 a month.
Cheap.
That's not cheap.
And I mean, now this was 12 years
ago.
This isn't today's money, right?
Yeah.
So maybe that's 3,000 today.
Yeah.
And that's not even a spend, a Google
AdWords spend.
So really you're at $3,000 a month
for one year.
That's $36,000 plus coaching.
(20:18):
Investing the equivalent of a year's salary.
For most people, average household salary.
Into your business with no guarantee of return.
Correct.
Into us.
And you were already quote unquote successful having
done 10 deals in 18 months.
Yes.
It wasn't good enough.
It wasn't good enough.
So you took that gamble.
Took that gamble.
Okay.
And then, so you attribute getting from 10
(20:40):
to 100 to lead generation, systems, scripts, and
follow-up.
And you coached that to, at this point
it was three agents.
Yes.
And then it just went from there.
Yep.
And then we started getting this machine going.
We got a TC in for the team.
So, because I wanted things done my way
(21:00):
and I didn't want to use like a
third party TC.
Lose control.
Lose control.
I wanted a hundred percent control.
I think we fired our first TC out
for two or three weeks.
She was so bad.
And then now we've had this one for
10 years.
Phrase, hire slowly and fire quickly.
Yes.
Yep.
And so that was huge.
(21:21):
Game changer for the business to take all
that paperwork off of the agents.
That's one major lesson I learned on your
team was to focus on what I do
best.
And that was being with people.
And talking with people and marketing myself.
Yeah.
And transacting and negotiating.
That was my highest and best use.
(21:41):
As soon as I had a TC I
could trust, thanks to one you had already
trained, a light bulb went off where I
could just take this entire section of my
business and move it out of my brain
90%.
Not only I have 10% on that
and I can go 90% on my
clients.
And I think that's what allowed me to
really grow.
That would be my number one tip I
(22:02):
learned.
Yeah.
We had leads coming in and all that,
but managing the leads, something I could focus
on and I knew paperwork was my weakness.
Before being on your team, there were many
times I failed to deliver the HOA resale
package on time.
Said, oh yeah, I forgot to do that.
I think knowing your weakness is critical.
That's huge.
That's your highest and best use, which you
(22:24):
were phenomenal at doing.
What was your weakness in real estate sales?
Or should I say is?
Mine would be follow-up.
Yeah, that's not my strength.
And that's why I allowed all the other
agents.
So another thing you learn in coaching is
disc profiles and certain disc profiles, personality profiles
(22:48):
fit with certain tasks in real estate.
So these people that are going to answer
the phone with new incoming leads have to
have a little bit fluffier personality.
You can probably tell from this podcast that
I'm pretty monotone.
My wife tells me this all the time.
So I don't fit that role of answering
(23:11):
that Paul coming in and being bubbly and
friendly so that people are like, oh, I
really want to work with him.
That's not my strength.
Yeah.
And that's maybe why not to put any
words in your mouth.
Is that why you chose to elevate to
the broker level where there is far more
need for analytics, facts, figures, law, methods, as
(23:36):
opposed to personality and being likable?
Yeah.
And you are a very likable broker.
Thank you.
Yes.
I just mean, is that why you decided
to go that route instead of team leader?
Yeah.
No, I mean, so the way the team
evolved was as we, as you know, now
in the business, it's a lot more demanding.
You have to have a lot more knowledge,
(23:58):
critical thinking skills on the listing side of
the business.
So when we first got the buyer's agents,
that's all they were allowed to do was
the buyer's side.
So I was the listing specialist.
And that's because you had to do all
these comps, all these analytics.
You had to go in and ask a
seller on a $600,000 house, right, for
(24:19):
6% commission.
That's $36,000.
Whereas a buyer's agent, all you're trying to
say is, hey, my transaction fee is 500
bucks.
But now things have changed, right?
Things have changed since the settlement recently.
But back then, more than 10 years ago,
it was very easy to not have to
(24:39):
ask a buyer for money.
It was you were paid for through the
MLS.
So that's why I went to the more
intricate listing side of the business.
So I would take all the listing leads
or if somebody had to sell by, I
would do that.
And then eventually I was able to find
some strong listing agents like yourself that were
(25:01):
cultivated up, be able to give those leads
to you.
Then I could then move to just team
leader and then I can move to broker.
Was that always the vision when you walked
into that broker's office and said, I'm going
to do 100 deals?
Did you want to be a broker then?
I didn't.
No, I didn't.
I never really had that goal to be
the broker.
I just, I wanted to be the team
(25:22):
leader.
Yeah.
I think we're always evolving in life and
we're getting faced with new challenges and new,
you know, sometimes getting what we want isn't
what we want when we actually arrive to
that destination.
Like you reach your goal of a hundred
deals and then you go, that was great,
but do I really want this?
Or now, or now, yes, I wanted it.
Check.
Do I want something else?
Like we need to constantly be reevaluating ourselves
(25:44):
and goals as we grow older.
I mean, circumstances change, your kids grow up,
we get older and it's totally okay to
pivot.
And I think sometimes it could be overwhelming
if you're a new agent to say, I
want to be a broker one day.
That's a huge goal and takes years of
experience to get there.
And I think it's wiser to say, well,
I want to do this many transactions.
And a hundred was a big number, you
(26:05):
know, like maybe it's wiser to take smaller
chunks, but you had one goal, get to
a hundred deals with a team, then be
a really good listing agent, be a great
team leader and then broker.
And that seems like a very organic path
that you've taken.
Have you always found yourself time for yourself?
We touched on it earlier today that you
(26:26):
never did 40 transactions in a year by
yourself.
You never burnt yourself out or have you
in this journey?
Oh, I've definitely burnt myself out.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, when we were running
the team, the maximum transactions we did in
a year was 235 transactions.
You know, we're spending $600,000 a year
on leads.
(26:46):
There's a lot of management and accountability and
numbers going on.
I was still overseeing, even though I wasn't
the broker, it was actually writing the checks
to the agents.
I was still doing the payouts in the
background.
So it was just like being the broker.
It's a lot of accounting.
A lot of accounting.
I just didn't actually see the money go
(27:07):
through our accounts, but it was still a
lot of accounting.
And so there was a ton of work
there.
And then as we roll through different markets,
you know, the accountability gets a lot more,
gets a lot less.
Turnover, agents leaving, agents getting burned out, agents
not working out, like those profiles, those disk
(27:28):
profiles.
Just because you have a certain profile doesn't
mean you're going to 100% work out.
There's like a 75% chance.
Then you had all the accountability of every
lead that comes in.
You're spending all this money.
Obviously you want to make sure it's being
invested and the leads are being repaired.
So yeah, there's different kinds of burnout.
You're talking more, this is executive level business
(27:49):
running type of burnout.
You never burned yourself out as an agent
because you kind of immediately went into let's
leverage people and have a team.
Yes.
Because at the peak we had, and I
say the peak because obviously COVID hit and
all of our businesses ramped up just magically,
right?
And we weren't some amazing business leaders, like
(28:10):
interest rates dropped through the floor and the
business took off.
So we were good business leaders, but it
made everybody look great for a couple of
years, no matter if you were brand new
in the business or if you were a
seasoned professional, there was a lot that was
masked there.
But in our peak, we had 17 agents,
we had 235 transactions, which that is unheard
(28:32):
of in the real estate business for agents
to be that productive.
We had two TCs, we had a full
-time marketing person.
You're talking about 12 deals per agent on
average, just rough math in my head.
Yeah, that is rare.
So you were doing something, right?
Yeah.
And obviously you always have a bench, right?
(28:53):
So we had the agents like you that
were closing 30 to 40, but then we've
got the two new agents that just got
their real estate license.
So we're trying to get them trained to
get them on leads.
So they're getting three or five deals their
first year into the business.
And then they ramp up their second year
quite a bit.
Sometimes I guess we had some get 10,
(29:13):
but you've always got your bench that is
climbing this ladder to become better.
So you built a big business, over 20
transactions a month, managing and producing yourself.
You kept producing during that time.
How did you manage and take time to
reduce the stress?
(29:33):
Definitely exercise and some meditation, but I am
an avid gym goer, was an avid mountain
biker, hiker, walker, you name it.
Anything that puts physical stress on the body
is needed.
Snowboarding.
Snowboarding.
You've mentioned like kayaking through glaciers.
You're just like, bring it on.
(29:54):
Yeah.
Adrenaline.
Adrenaline.
Got to have the adrenaline because...
So mountain...
Welcome to The Mindful Agent, where real estate
success meets health, mindfulness, and personal growth.
Join me, Michael Coxon, top performing agent, growth
director, and co-owner of Magenta Real Estate,
as I explore the intersection of wellness and
business excellence, helping you thrive in both real
estate and life.
(00:23):
Today, I'm thrilled to introduce a guest who
has not only shaped the trajectory of my
own career, but has also set an extraordinary
example for agents and brokers across the real
estate industry.
Tom Huser is a brilliant real estate broker
and co-owner of Magenta Real Estate, known
for his meticulous attention to detail, exceptional negotiating
skills, and deep understanding of economics and market
(00:45):
trends.
He understands the industry like no other.
I know that firsthand.
With his wife, Serena, Tom built one of
Las Vegas' top performing real estate teams, achieving
remarkable success before co-founding Magenta to elevate
the brokerage experience for agents and clients alike.
His leadership blends professional excellence with unwavering support,
(01:05):
fostering an environment where agents thrive.
In this episode, we'll dive into Tom's incredible
career journey, from navigating challenges in the mortgage
industry to building a team and brokerage from
the ground up.
Tom strongly believes in the power of focus,
advocating that agents who avoid being a jack
of all trades and instead master one area
(01:26):
of expertise will not only stand out in
their market, but also achieve greater success and
fulfillment in their careers.
Plus, we'll explore Tom's approach to balancing high
performance with mindfulness, health, and family life.
Because let's face it, success is meaningless if
we don't feel fulfilled.
Without further ado, let's jump into the conversation
with my mentor, business partner, and friend, Tom
(01:48):
Huser.
We've had a hundred of these conversations.
Now we're actually recording that.
I'm just going to start off with introducing
the guest, Tom Huser.
He's the broker of Magenta, partner of mine
and mentor of mine, was a colleague, then
a mentor, still is a mentor.
I'm honored to have you on the podcast.
You and I have these conversations offline constantly,
(02:12):
and now we're just recording one.
Well, thank you for that nice intro.
I have a lot to live up to.
I do.
No pressure.
You're the man.
How did you get into real estate?
I know it, but tell our listeners how
this all started.
That's definitely a long story.
I originally was in the hospitality business for
about 14 years.
(02:33):
Then I got interested in the mortgage business,
so I became a loan officer.
That was at a wonderful time from 2004
to 2007 before the world melted down in
Las Vegas.
Every short sale came out, so I actually
went back into the hospitality business for a
couple of years.
Then when I decided that I wanted to
get back in to the real estate market,
(02:54):
I was going to be a loan officer.
I said, I don't want to do that
anymore.
I hated sitting behind a desk.
I hated losing deals over a quarter of
an interest percentage or an eighth.
I actually decided I wanted to get on
the more fun side, which was real estate
sales.
When I get back into the business, that
is when I said, I'm going to do
real estate sales.
I've enjoyed it a lot more than the
(03:15):
mortgage side of the business.
You thought it would be more fun and
you'd have maybe more control over the process?
Yeah.
Then a little bit deeper layer to that
was what got me into the mortgage business
is I was buying houses as an investor.
I always struggled finding a knowledgeable loan officer
that could actually do my deal easily.
(03:37):
Even though I had plenty of money in
the bank, I had a great job, I
had assets, but it was like a struggle
every single time.
I realized that loan officers were lacking knowledge
in the industry and that's what attracted me.
Then when I was thinking about getting into
the real estate business with selling a house
and buying a house in another state, agent
(03:58):
was terrible.
I went, hey, there's a gap here also
that is needed.
As I just looked more into it, I
realized how little bit of business a lot
of agents did and they just weren't good
at what they did.
Noticing a trend, you saw weaknesses in these
positions as you were a consumer of them,
(04:19):
both loans and agency, and you attacked them
with, I can do better.
Good mindset.
How does your knowledge of loans affect you
as an agent and a broker today?
It helps me immensely just because there's so
many, especially right now in the market that
we're in, we're in a potential assumable loan
market for FHA and VA loans.
(04:40):
I just understand that and I can help
the agents walk through transactions with debt to
income ratio.
I get it all.
It's been a monumental help, but I'm so
happy I made the transition from mortgage to
real estate for sure.
I've seen in myself and agents, you're able
to explain complicated financial concepts and what happens
(05:02):
in the mortgage market in a way that
we as agents can relate it to our
clients.
Yeah.
That's important.
I think that was well said that you
can have all this knowledge up here, but
if you can't dumb it down, like some
doctors I go to and they're like, this
is what's wrong.
I'm like, I have no idea what you
just said.
It's not helpful.
Can you speak English?
(05:25):
They're using all this medical jargon while it's
the same way in real estate, it's the
same way in mortgage.
You have your own professional jargon that we
can use between agents, but when you're trying
to dumb down things to help people understand,
it has to be simplified.
Just because you understand it means really nothing.
It's like, can you communicate it?
Can you teach it?
Yeah.
And help people make decisions.
(05:45):
Yeah.
It's complicated.
You grew from mortgage agent, mortgage broker, real
estate agent.
Next step was team leader.
Yep.
Then team leader.
How about that jump from agent to team
leader?
What made you do that?
As my wife and I got into the
business, Serena, we always had the desire to
(06:05):
build a team.
I knew that I didn't always want to
be 100% in production myself.
I wanted to have a team.
So we went in, we signed up at
this particular brokerage.
We went in and we met with the
broker at that time of a very large
brokerage here in town.
Serena and I were both in that room.
(06:27):
I told him that we were going to
do 100 transactions a year and he laughed
me out of the room.
Then when we left, Serena said, you are
so embarrassing.
I cannot believe you told him we were
going to do 100 transactions a year.
He practically laughed us out of the room.
Well, that inspired me to prove him wrong.
(06:48):
Yeah.
So two years later, I proved him wrong.
We were doing over 100 transactions a year.
You didn't do it the first year.
We didn't do it the first year.
Yeah.
So that's incredible.
So this was part of the plan, start
a team to get to that 100 transactions,
or did you and Serena do 100 transactions
all by yourself or did you use the
leverage of people and a team to get
(07:09):
there?
We used the leverage of a people and
a team.
Now, of course, any agent can do whatever
they want.
If you're willing to dedicate your life 16
hours a day, seven hours a day, 16
hours a day, seven days a week to
doing nothing but production, you can do 100
transactions a year.
You'll have no life.
What do you think is the max number
one solo agent can do?
(07:29):
No TCs, no assistants, no team?
I would say 40.
I mean, that would be 40 in a
year, solo agent with no life.
No life.
And is that a healthy choice, would you
say?
Each person has to make their own choice,
right?
Everybody has to make their own choice of
what's important to them.
If you had kids or you had a
(07:51):
significant other, I don't see how you'd get
a lot of quality time with them.
Maybe that number's 50, it depends on the
market, what's happening.
You and I have been through markets where
you've got to put seven offers in for
a buyer.
Those markets, it's a lot harder to get
40 deals done.
Yeah.
I think when I was on your team,
(08:12):
I'm trying to remember the max I did
in a year, and it may have been
close to that.
I think you were around 40.
But we had a TC for sellers, a
TC for buyers, and that was exhausting with
TC help.
And I really feel like 40 for me
with TC help was the max.
And frankly, I reached burnout.
So I don't know how much more sustainable
that was until I pivoted and switched.
(08:34):
Well, I should say in my case, the
market did it for me and transactional volume
came down.
But did you have a plan to say,
hey, I want work-life balance, I want
a team to help me hit my numbers,
or did you max yourself out before getting
a team?
No, we did not max ourselves out.
We were probably 80% maxed out.
(08:56):
And then we started transitioning to the team.
When you started the team, what was your
first hire?
Was it a buyer's agent, a TC, something
else?
Yeah, I believe it was a buyer's agent.
And really what we did was we knew
we had been a couple of years of
just being slow, 18 months of just being
slow.
And we realized that this was never going
(09:18):
to turn into a business if we didn't
get some form of leads.
I'll pause you there because you said something
that's important to me.
You said it's never going to turn into
a business.
What was it before it was a business?
It was just trying to make a few
bucks.
It wasn't a business.
That's the problem is agents don't think of
(09:40):
it that way.
You are a 1099 independent contractor.
This is your business.
And the sky is the limit.
You can do whatever you want.
So some of them keep it simple and
just be a solopreneur and just do a
few transactions a year.
There are multiple examples of this.
(10:01):
Multiple examples.
In all business.
Yes.
And yeah, there's roofing companies that it's the
owners.
That's it.
The husband does the work.
We work with a lot of sign companies.
There's a lot of small companies in the
world.
The McDonald's brothers, they had a burger shop.
Ray Kroc had a business and turned it
into what it is today.
(10:22):
You can only flip so many burgers.
Yeah, that's it.
And to your point, you don't have unlimited
time.
So once we got this lead source, well,
we realized we needed a lead source because
we were never going to be able to
do enough business without a lead source.
Which was?
At that time, it was called Boomtown.
And so that brought us in about 300
(10:43):
leads a month.
And we realized that we couldn't handle this
ourselves.
Where are these leads coming from?
Yeah, internet leads.
So they had a website, call it Google,
Google pay-per-click ads, brought them to
the Boomtown website.
People had to register.
So they were not, we had a low
(11:05):
conversion rate on it, but it took a
lot of manpower to manage this lead volume
300 leads the first month, not a big
deal.
Second month, not terrible.
As you get to the third month now,
you've got 900 leads in the database that
are new and you're trying to follow up
with all of them.
So how many people were fielding these?
That's 10 per day at 300.
(11:25):
Yeah.
So that's where we had to start growing
and we had to add two more buyers
agents quickly.
But then as we were going through this
process, we learned a lot and a lot
of it was failing our forward.
It was, we didn't know that these leads
weren't that great quality.
We didn't know that we didn't have the
right scripts.
(11:46):
We didn't know what to say on the
phone.
We didn't know how quickly to follow up
with them.
So this took this whole, like just getting
punched in the face day after day, week
after week to say, what we're doing isn't
working.
We've got to change something.
So how did you know it wasn't working?
Just no one was buying anything?
Nobody was buying anything, no contract.
(12:07):
So then I realized that I could do
this from scratch and try to figure it
out all on my own.
Or I could say, hey, somebody has been
there, done this, and I don't want to
reinvent the wheel.
And I could hire a coach.
And that's when we decided to hire a
coach because we were just doing everything.
(12:27):
We were trying to figure it all out
and it didn't make sense.
So roughly, rough numbers.
How many years were you in the business
before you hired a coach?
The real estate sales business?
I think I would say about 18 months.
Yeah.
How many deals roughly had you done at
that point?
10, 12.
So I mean, 10 deals in 18 months
is still well above average.
(12:48):
Yeah.
And a lot of people would be happy
with that.
Yes.
You were not.
Not at all.
And was it because you realized you're investing
this money and you're not getting a return
or you weren't going to hit your goal
of 100 deals?
Like what made you go, we can do
better?
Well, I think that every agent gets a
license and the day that they get that
license, they go, all my friends and family
(13:08):
are just going to rain clients on me
and I'm going to be so busy.
And then after about six months, there starts
to be some clarity that that's not going
to happen.
And after about the first year, you go,
this isn't what I thought it was.
My friends and family are not sending me
so much business that I can, most agents
quit their other job, right?
(13:30):
Because they're working a job while they're trying
to transition into real estate full-time.
And that's a very hard thing to do.
So I tell people, you're in the hospitality
business.
I tell new agents, you would never go
open a restaurant hoping it survives all friends
and family.
That opening weekend might be great, but your
(13:51):
friends and family aren't going to eat at
your restaurant every single night.
Every night.
So have a plan.
Yeah.
As you mentioned, go in with, oh, my
friends and family will take care of me.
No, maybe once or twice a year, if
you're lucky.
If you're lucky.
Yeah.
So that's a business and something you need
to nurture, improve to friends and family.
This is a serious business.
It's not one dinner out.
You're helping them buy and sell a huge
(14:12):
asset.
Maybe they don't want to work with you,
but you're not skilled and prepared.
And that's, that's a hundred percent it.
And you know, we didn't, you know, understand
that when you first get in the business,
exactly what you just said.
Your friends, family, your sphere, they don't trust
you.
Nope.
You're new.
You don't know what you're doing.
Doesn't know you're new.
Yeah.
So that's where it's like, you have to,
(14:34):
you have to fake it till you make
it.
You've got to buy leads.
You've got to get business from somewhere else.
Then once you start doing business, your friends
and family go, oh, Hey, we're not the
Guinea pigs anymore.
Right.
He's not going to practice on us.
So that's when they actually start giving you
some business.
But again, I can't think of, I can't
think of a year that our sphere.
(14:58):
And I don't mean past clients that we've
bought through leads.
I'm just talking about our sphere or friends
or family never generated it from a lead
from anywhere else, which is now our database.
But we've never done more than five or
10% of our business from people that
we just know are our true sphere, not
past clients.
(15:19):
How many people can one actually know?
And I think if you ask anyone, how
many real estate agents they know, they're going
to probably list three or four.
So even though they may know you, they
probably know three others like you.
Yeah.
Then, then, you know, you'll get a smart
ass agent that says I do it, which
there are some that do it.
I say the smart ass because they're doing
three or four deals a year.
(15:39):
They have another full-time job in a
plumber.
That's their goal.
And so if you have another job doing
something else, that's not my definition of success.
My definition of success is I'm a full
-time real estate agent.
My whole livelihood is based on the income
that I get from selling homes.
(16:00):
And when I'm not doing real estate, I
get to spend time with my friends and
family and personal time, not working three jobs
because I'm not successful in real estate.
Yeah.
And this is one of the only industries
where it's almost common ground for it to
be a side business, where there's so much,
I think, at risk and so much legal
and financial seriousness to be had, yet we're
(16:23):
treating it often as part-time and you
never had that mindset.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's, I've never had that mindset because,
you know, I had those bad experiences early
on and it was crystal clear to me
that this, this wasn't, these are people's biggest
investments.
Like you can't, this is a, there's a
lot of legal paperwork.
(16:43):
There's a lot of things that go right
and go wrong in a transaction.
Every transaction is, you know, and you have
to have the skills to solve that.
Yeah.
And sometimes being successful is almost a curse
early on.
You go through one or two of those
deals and nothing bad happens.
And you're like, it's easy.
I can do this.
And you don't know what you don't know.
Yeah.
And you get into the mold that goes,
takes you down a two week rabbit hole
(17:05):
and 40,000 bucks.
And yeah, it's a disaster.
Yeah.
I mean, so that was me early on.
I had another business when I got licensed.
I just liked real estate.
Like a lot of people, I was, it
was a hobby in a way.
It was a passion I wanted to pursue,
but was I prepared?
Not really.
And thankfully, you know, I, I skated by,
did a few deals a year and that's
when we met actually was a deal with
(17:25):
you and doing a deal with you.
I went, Oh, Tom knows what he's doing
more than I do.
He has systems in place.
He had processes, the way you delivered paperwork
and had your assistance.
And I went, okay, there's a different way
to do this.
And that's when my mindset shifted and we
connected.
But that was years later.
So you had already been in coaching at
that point.
I remember learning a lot from you and
(17:46):
your coaches being part of the coaching program,
but used to rewind our conversation, jumped into
coaching.
You had eight, you were 18 months in,
you had done about 10 deals and you
wanted more.
So you did not settle.
You were still 90 deals away from your
transactions.
How'd you get from deal 10 to deal
100?
Yeah, that was hiring a coach, getting a
(18:08):
blueprint of systems, processes, and tools to implement
into creating a real business with people and
all these other things and scaling it.
Give me one example of a system or
tool that your coach gave you that changed
everything.
Well, lead generation, proper lead generation systems, but
(18:30):
more importantly, you can bring in leads, but
if you don't do accountability on those leads
and you don't follow up with those leads
and you don't have scripts, all those things
that I just said are all came from
the coach.
These are the scripts you need.
This is how quickly you need to call
them back.
This is how you need to follow up
over the next 30 days, 60 days, six
(18:50):
months, 18 months.
So it's like, wow, these light bulbs go
off and you go, I was doing this
99% wrong.
So you can buy all these leads and
you can spend $5,000 a month on
leads, but you're just flushing the money down
the toilet because you're doing everything wrong.
All you needed was leads.
Every real estate agent would be successful.
Yes.
(19:11):
And I think that's a fallacy.
A lot of agents are like, well, I
just need leads.
Give me leads.
I'll want to buy leads.
Well, it's frankly a waste of money if
you don't have scripts and systems.
100%.
CRM.
Boomtown is also a CRM.
Yep.
And our coach, if I just think of
the timeline, our coach was the one that
suggested Boomtown.
(19:32):
Yes.
So I guess we probably signed up for
some lead systems first and when they weren't
working, then that's when we got the coach
and signed up for Boomtown.
And I remember that was a big freak
out moment for Serena and I, because not
only now are we paying for coaching, but
Boomtown was going to be a minimum.
We had to sign a contract for one
(19:53):
year for $2,000 a month.
Cheap.
That's not cheap.
And I mean, now this was 12 years
ago.
This isn't today's money, right?
Yeah.
So maybe that's 3,000 today.
Yeah.
And that's not even a spend, a Google
AdWords spend.
So really you're at $3,000 a month
for one year.
That's $36,000 plus coaching.
(20:18):
Investing the equivalent of a year's salary.
For most people, average household salary.
Into your business with no guarantee of return.
Correct.
Into us.
And you were already quote unquote successful having
done 10 deals in 18 months.
Yes.
It wasn't good enough.
It wasn't good enough.
So you took that gamble.
Took that gamble.
Okay.
And then, so you attribute getting from 10
(20:40):
to 100 to lead generation, systems, scripts, and
follow-up.
And you coached that to, at this point
it was three agents.
Yes.
And then it just went from there.
Yep.
And then we started getting this machine going.
We got a TC in for the team.
So, because I wanted things done my way
(21:00):
and I didn't want to use like a
third party TC.
Lose control.
Lose control.
I wanted a hundred percent control.
I think we fired our first TC out
for two or three weeks.
She was so bad.
And then now we've had this one for
10 years.
Phrase, hire slowly and fire quickly.
Yes.
Yep.
And so that was huge.
(21:21):
Game changer for the business to take all
that paperwork off of the agents.
That's one major lesson I learned on your
team was to focus on what I do
best.
And that was being with people.
And talking with people and marketing myself.
Yeah.
And transacting and negotiating.
That was my highest and best use.
(21:41):
As soon as I had a TC I
could trust, thanks to one you had already
trained, a light bulb went off where I
could just take this entire section of my
business and move it out of my brain
90%.
Not only I have 10% on that
and I can go 90% on my
clients.
And I think that's what allowed me to
really grow.
That would be my number one tip I
(22:02):
learned.
Yeah.
We had leads coming in and all that,
but managing the leads, something I could focus
on and I knew paperwork was my weakness.
Before being on your team, there were many
times I failed to deliver the HOA resale
package on time.
Said, oh yeah, I forgot to do that.
I think knowing your weakness is critical.
That's huge.
That's your highest and best use, which you
(22:24):
were phenomenal at doing.
What was your weakness in real estate sales?
Or should I say is?
Mine would be follow-up.
Yeah, that's not my strength.
And that's why I allowed all the other
agents.
So another thing you learn in coaching is
disc profiles and certain disc profiles, personality profiles
(22:48):
fit with certain tasks in real estate.
So these people that are going to answer
the phone with new incoming leads have to
have a little bit fluffier personality.
You can probably tell from this podcast that
I'm pretty monotone.
My wife tells me this all the time.
So I don't fit that role of answering
(23:11):
that Paul coming in and being bubbly and
friendly so that people are like, oh, I
really want to work with him.
That's not my strength.
Yeah.
And that's maybe why not to put any
words in your mouth.
Is that why you chose to elevate to
the broker level where there is far more
need for analytics, facts, figures, law, methods, as
(23:36):
opposed to personality and being likable?
Yeah.
And you are a very likable broker.
Thank you.
Yes.
I just mean, is that why you decided
to go that route instead of team leader?
Yeah.
No, I mean, so the way the team
evolved was as we, as you know, now
in the business, it's a lot more demanding.
You have to have a lot more knowledge,
(23:58):
critical thinking skills on the listing side of
the business.
So when we first got the buyer's agents,
that's all they were allowed to do was
the buyer's side.
So I was the listing specialist.
And that's because you had to do all
these comps, all these analytics.
You had to go in and ask a
seller on a $600,000 house, right, for
(24:19):
6% commission.
That's $36,000.
Whereas a buyer's agent, all you're trying to
say is, hey, my transaction fee is 500
bucks.
But now things have changed, right?
Things have changed since the settlement recently.
But back then, more than 10 years ago,
it was very easy to not have to
(24:39):
ask a buyer for money.
It was you were paid for through the
MLS.
So that's why I went to the more
intricate listing side of the business.
So I would take all the listing leads
or if somebody had to sell by, I
would do that.
And then eventually I was able to find
some strong listing agents like yourself that were
(25:01):
cultivated up, be able to give those leads
to you.
Then I could then move to just team
leader and then I can move to broker.
Was that always the vision when you walked
into that broker's office and said, I'm going
to do 100 deals?
Did you want to be a broker then?
I didn't.
No, I didn't.
I never really had that goal to be
the broker.
I just, I wanted to be the team
(25:22):
leader.
Yeah.
I think we're always evolving in life and
we're getting faced with new challenges and new,
you know, sometimes getting what we want isn't
what we want when we actually arrive to
that destination.
Like you reach your goal of a hundred
deals and then you go, that was great,
but do I really want this?
Or now, or now, yes, I wanted it.
Check.
Do I want something else?
Like we need to constantly be reevaluating ourselves
(25:44):
and goals as we grow older.
I mean, circumstances change, your kids grow up,
we get older and it's totally okay to
pivot.
And I think sometimes it could be overwhelming
if you're a new agent to say, I
want to be a broker one day.
That's a huge goal and takes years of
experience to get there.
And I think it's wiser to say, well,
I want to do this many transactions.
And a hundred was a big number, you
(26:05):
know, like maybe it's wiser to take smaller
chunks, but you had one goal, get to
a hundred deals with a team, then be
a really good listing agent, be a great
team leader and then broker.
And that seems like a very organic path
that you've taken.
Have you always found yourself time for yourself?
We touched on it earlier today that you
(26:26):
never did 40 transactions in a year by
yourself.
You never burnt yourself out or have you
in this journey?
Oh, I've definitely burnt myself out.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, when we were running
the team, the maximum transactions we did in
a year was 235 transactions.
You know, we're spending $600,000 a year
on leads.
(26:46):
There's a lot of management and accountability and
numbers going on.
I was still overseeing, even though I wasn't
the broker, it was actually writing the checks
to the agents.
I was still doing the payouts in the
background.
So it was just like being the broker.
It's a lot of accounting.
A lot of accounting.
I just didn't actually see the money go
(27:07):
through our accounts, but it was still a
lot of accounting.
And so there was a ton of work
there.
And then as we roll through different markets,
you know, the accountability gets a lot more,
gets a lot less.
Turnover, agents leaving, agents getting burned out, agents
not working out, like those profiles, those disk
(27:28):
profiles.
Just because you have a certain profile doesn't
mean you're going to 100% work out.
There's like a 75% chance.
Then you had all the accountability of every
lead that comes in.
You're spending all this money.
Obviously you want to make sure it's being
invested and the leads are being repaired.
So yeah, there's different kinds of burnout.
You're talking more, this is executive level business
(27:49):
running type of burnout.
You never burned yourself out as an agent
because you kind of immediately went into let's
leverage people and have a team.
Yes.
Because at the peak we had, and I
say the peak because obviously COVID hit and
all of our businesses ramped up just magically,
right?
And we weren't some amazing business leaders, like
(28:10):
interest rates dropped through the floor and the
business took off.
So we were good business leaders, but it
made everybody look great for a couple of
years, no matter if you were brand new
in the business or if you were a
seasoned professional, there was a lot that was
masked there.
But in our peak, we had 17 agents,
we had 235 transactions, which that is unheard
(28:32):
of in the real estate business for agents
to be that productive.
We had two TCs, we had a full
-time marketing person.
You're talking about 12 deals per agent on
average, just rough math in my head.
Yeah, that is rare.
So you were doing something, right?
Yeah.
And obviously you always have a bench, right?
(28:53):
So we had the agents like you that
were closing 30 to 40, but then we've
got the two new agents that just got
their real estate license.
So we're trying to get them trained to
get them on leads.
So they're getting three or five deals their
first year into the business.
And then they ramp up their second year
quite a bit.
Sometimes I guess we had some get 10,
(29:13):
but you've always got your bench that is
climbing this ladder to become better.
So you built a big business, over 20
transactions a month, managing and producing yourself.
You kept producing during that time.
How did you manage and take time to
reduce the stress?
(29:33):
Definitely exercise and some meditation, but I am
an avid gym goer, was an avid mountain
biker, hiker, walker, you name it.
Anything that puts physical stress on the body
is needed.
Snowboarding.
Snowboarding.
You've mentioned like kayaking through glaciers.
You're just like, bring it on.
(29:54):
Yeah.
Adrenaline.
Adrenaline.
Got to have the adrenaline because...
So mountain...
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.