Episode Overview:
In this dynamic episode of One Big Fire, John Kitchens brings together two of the most influential voices in real estate—Tina Caul and Al Stasek—for a powerful conversation that cuts through the noise and delivers actionable insights for agents, team leaders, and brokerage owners.
The trio explores the impact of recent tariff pauses on new construction, Zillow’s surprising path to profitability (and what it really means for agents on the ground), and why culture is the often-overlooked X-factor that separates struggling teams from thriving empires.
They also celebrate the return of the iconic Honey Badger of the Month Award, diving into its origin, legacy, and why resilience, grit, and relentless action still define success in today’s shifting market.
If you want to future-proof your business, lead a high-performing team, and dominate in this evolving landscape, this episode is essential listening.
Key Takeaways:
1. The Tariff Pause: Why It’s More Than Just a Builder Boost
The 90-day pause on tariffs is providing more than temporary relief to builders—it’s fueling broader market confidence. Al Stasek breaks down the ripple effect from builder operations to the job market, consumer sentiment, and the overall health of the housing economy. For agents, understanding these macroeconomic moves helps sharpen their conversations with buyers and sellers. Builders need agents more than ever to help maintain velocity in their projects, creating new partnership opportunities for savvy teams.
2. Zillow’s Profitability & What It Means for the Industry
Zillow has turned a profit for the first time in years, but the reason may surprise many. Tina Caul outlines how Zillow’s aggressive push into mortgage services has become a key revenue driver, while also highlighting their strategic shift to a remote-first model (Cloud HQ), driving operational efficiencies. The real takeaway? Teams leveraging Zillow Flex understand that the cost of leads isn’t an expense—it’s an investment in lifetime client value. Leaders must understand the math, manage the accountability, and double down on the opportunities Zillow provides while using those profits to diversify into other lead sources like Realtor.com.
3. Culture as the Non-Negotiable Profit Multiplier
While many leaders obsess over splits, leads, and transactions, Tina and John emphasize that culture is the true profit lever in any team or brokerage. They share how clearly defined, lived, and enforced core values create alignment, drive retention, and boost per-agent productivity. The discussion highlights the danger of tolerating toxic producers and why organizations with strong cultural foundations outperform their peers—especially in volatile markets. Al reinforces that accountability must be built into the system and that Zillow’s backend reporting helps take some of that burden off team leaders while raising standards.
4. The Honey Badger Award Returns: A Legacy of Resilience and Grit
The episode celebrates the return of the Honey Badger of the Month Award, honoring those in the Honey Badger Nation who embody the spirit of resilience, grit, and relentless pursuit of excellence. The award isn’t given lightly—it recognizes those who push through challenges, innovate under pressure, and lead from the front. Tina, a past winner herself, reminds listeners that the award is about more than production—it’s about how you show up when things get hard.
Resources Mentioned:
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HoneyBadgerAward.com — Nominate your Honey Badger of the Month
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Seven figure success starts whenyou start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcastexperience as your host, John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger andtransform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
Here we go.
Happy Tuesday everybody, man.
(00:20):
Thank you guys.
Tuning into another episode ofOne Big Fire and we got a massive
fire in the house today, Mr. STAs.
Welcome.
Good to see you buddy.
And, uh.
The one and only Miss Tina Cole.
Hello, Tina.
I'm so excited.
Hello boys.
What's going on ladies?
Like I don't get into politics, I don'tget into sports, but there is one thing we
(00:41):
know she knows, and that is how to build ateam and how to be an absolute rockstar in
real estate and sell thousands of homes.
Yes, it is.
Thank you.
Very remarkable.
And, uh.
So awesome to, to see you, Tina.
So awesome to have you on.
And, um, you know, we've got somethingpretty cool that, uh, we've started
(01:01):
to push out and this will be ourfirst month that we will recognize
a Honey Badger of the Month award.
Whoa, that's pretty cool.
I know, I love it.
Yeah.
Yep.
So, and, and we can goto Honey Badger Award.
Dot com to nom, nominate anyone thatyou, you feel, uh, deserves that.
(01:23):
And, and you might be saying, well,how do we know they deserve it?
Well, the traits of a honeybadger is, they are, you know,
honey badgers are are smart.
They're fierce.
They're relentless.
They're good looking.
You're good looking.
I mean, look at you guys.
You, you know what, you know what thething with the honey badger and, and you
(01:45):
know the whole symbolism behind that.
You can see it here on the hat,by the way, speaking of which,
we got a new legacy Honey Badger.
That's sharp.
That's sharp.
Lucky March.
Yep.
Honey badger nation.com.
You can get your merch.
But you know, the, the whole thing aboutthe honey badger was all about mindset.
Mm-hmm.
It was all about how are youapproaching your business?
(02:05):
And we have a lady badger on here thatis like, nah, I'm not going small.
I'm not putting one foot in the water.
I'm going all in.
I'm going big or nothing.
And you've built a, a multi-milliondollar business and you've done it with
grace and it's been so fun to watch you.
Um, so if you wanna nominate thislady right here for Honey Badger
(02:26):
of the Month, I love reward.
Does it come with cash?
Because then I'll promote it even more.
Yeah.
Is there cash behind sport?
Um, there, there I could,I could promise you this.
There's gonna be some merch.
Ooh, I like it.
Sweet merch behind the winner.
Okay.
And also the, you know, we could talkabout it, John, because, uh, this is
(02:49):
something that we, we brought back.
Originally the HoneyBadger Award was given.
Here's mine.
Ooh.
I like it.
Before I could grow a beard.
Yeah, I was gonna say you're like 12.
Look at that guy.
Look at that guy.
The young Fat Albert right here.
No, but I won the award and, andit, and you guys, John, you could
(03:11):
really tell this story better becauseyou, you know, you were behind,
like ultimately who you guys picked.
Out of all of our masterminds to winHoney Badger of the um, yeah, yeah.
In fact, I, in fact, I didpick the last few years.
Um, and, and just because I was so intune to, you know, every, everybody
and their situation and, and stuffthat was really going on and, you
know, we got to a point, right?
(03:33):
We would acknowledge, you know,it was our King Kong award
who had the most production.
We also had one that who really embodiedthe spirit of what NAEA stood for.
That was the Eagle Spirit Award.
And then, um.
We, we found this, uh, uh, remarkablevideo with this, um, you know, spirit
animal of, of a honey badger, andafter we died laughing, watching it.
(03:58):
Too many times we're like, you know what?
That's the award.
That's the award that everybody wants.
And it really, um, you had to go throughsome stuff to be able to even get
nominated and it was all about resilienceand how you, you know, you figured out,
and obviously, you know, during that timeit was really hard for a lot of the things
that we were going through and a lot ofthe things that we were dealing with.
(04:19):
I mean growth.
Right.
And Tina, you know thisand you know, growth sucks.
Cash growth, right?
Yeah.
It's just, it's just, it's, it'sa tough, it's a tough climb and
really it was looking for thatjust what we embodied, right?
And it's like, that's us.
Right?
You know, by definition, honeybadger is, is what we believe in.
That's just how we operate.
There's always a way.
And I think too, reading, um,Horowitz's first book at the time,
(04:41):
hard thing about hard things.
It was just kind of, everything kind ofstarted to line up and make sense and.
And um, that really just.
Would always put a smile on ourface when we were thinking about it.
And then we started throwingthe award out there.
You know, Jeff Cook, um, youknow, honey Badger number one.
Um, you know, Kristi Moore was ourfirst, you know, lady Badger, uh, Chris
(05:03):
and Chris and Harley outta Seattle.
Um, Al um, Michelle TrostHall, like there was just.
Things that, um, people had to, had togo through and navigate and it was like,
you really embody what, what it means.
Actually.
It's one of those awards you,you really everyone wanted, but
you didn't wanna go through whatyou had to go through to get it.
Yeah.
(05:23):
Get it.
Yeah.
I love that.
Love that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And vote for your honeybadgervote vote honey com.
Just go there and throw the votes in.
Um, and um, I guess the merchthing too, you can go to, um.
Let me just grab that exact Yeah.
Honey Badger merch.
Honey badger merch.com.
Get all the new merch.
And then, uh, so Tina, to your,to your answer, what is the prize?
(05:46):
Well, the Honey Badger Prize, an award wasalways customized to that individual, so
that's why Al being, you know, the, theRock and Roll Hall of Fame, he got his.
He got his, he got hisrecord and he got, yeah.
So it's cool.
Congrats friend.
Congrats.
Well, thank you.
Well, let's dive in.
I love it.
Let's, uh, we've got,we've got a lot of topics.
We've got a lot oftopics we can dive into.
(06:06):
Um, obviously, you know, what's,what's happening, um, and the word
that he loves the most, right?
The most beautiful word in the dictionary.
Um, and, and you nailed it too, Al right.
It's, it's all.
Part of the deal.
It's all to get people talkingand all to bring them back
to where we want 'em to be.
(06:26):
And you know, obviously with, with,with tariffs and the pause, what
has that done, you know, for thenew construction side of things.
So Al you wanna kind of start tounpack and let's, let's dive into topic
number one around new construction.
Yeah.
So, you know, um, obviously thisisn't a, a, a political podcast,
(06:47):
but politics have a big swing inwhat happens to our daily lives.
And, um, one of thosebig things are taxes.
Nobody wants to pay high taxes.
Taxes come in all forms and, um,one of 'em is the form of a tariff.
And, um, you know, I, I've beenpretty confident that our, that, that
President Trump was using this as a,as a negotiation out of the deal type
(07:11):
of thing to get, um, fair trade backin the hands of the US or instead of us
getting ripped off and one of the biggest.
Countries that we've allowed, I'mnot gonna talk victim talk here.
Look, we've had, every presidenthave had the chance to fix this.
Mm-hmm.
They just don't.
Uh, China's, China's the, you know,been the, the worst culprit of getting
a better side of a deal on these things.
(07:32):
And we are the number one consumerof Chinese goods across the board.
Yep.
So we have leverage and, uh, many,many presidents might be, think,
be thought of as good politicians.
Uh, our current president'snot a good politician.
He is a businessman.
He's an excellent, outstandingbusinessman, and he looks at things
through that lens, and that's important.
(07:54):
He's not looking at it through like,well, does this make me look bad?
Good.
Sure he is got a big ego.
Everybody knows that, but he'smore interested in the result.
He's a winner.
He wants the US to win andthis is what he's done.
So we got this 90 day pause.
Builders are loving this becausethey are now confident they could
take a a sigh of relief knowing thatwhatever materials they're getting,
(08:15):
metals, whatever it is from appliancesor anything that's being made in
China, that at least we're not there.
There's not a hundred and.
40% additional tax put on there.
So it's been a huge thing.
So obviously with builders, it'sgonna give them confidence to build.
We know that we have less inventoryhere, we need inventory in this
country, so that's a good thing.
(08:35):
Uh, we want builders.
We need builders to keep building.
What about the consumers?
This gives consumer confidence.
You don't believe me.
Look at what the market didwhen there was an announcement
before the market even opened.
So, you know, it's, it's really abouta, a consumer sediment of confidence
because if we have confidence, that meansbuyers, they're, you know, let's say
they're like, you know, we really do needto move honey, but gosh, I just don't
(08:59):
know what's gonna happen with all this.
Maybe we should just stay put.
So we need that confidence in of, um,in knowing that the, the economy's
strong job market's super strong.
By the way, the rates did not come down,but that's because, you know, Paul fails
that, you know, the, the economy's strong.
The job reports keep coming back strong.
(09:20):
So that's stability and that givesconfidence to, um, you know, buyers
to, to go ahead and, and wannabuy and start looking again and,
and builders to keep on building.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, it just, if I were abuilder right now, I'd say,
okay, I can continue my projects.
I'm not gonna be, it'll, it'lljust stabilize for a little bit.
So, 'cause I think, you know, beforeyou, they would've passed all that cost
(09:40):
on to the sellers and to the people orthe buyers, the people that are buying.
So, I like it.
It's got, it's got someconfidence behind it.
Yeah.
I think that the thing too that,that, um, I see with it, right,
to your point, Tina, right.
It keeps the projects going.
Mm-hmm.
Therefore, keeps the jobs going.
Mm-hmm.
Because, 'cause like the rippleeffect of, of a new construction,
(10:02):
think of about how many jobs, right?
From, from the, you know, the,the, the planning to the dirt, to
the build, to, you know, the, themaintenance to the after effect.
Just, there's so many.
Bites of that apple when onehome gets built and how many jobs
that, that, that, that creates.
So, you know, one, one of the, one ofthe many lessons of, of Gary, right,
(10:26):
um, was, you know, the one thing toalways pay attention to is what he would
always harp is just, I, I don't know.
Tell me what jobs are happening.
What, who's, who's, who isputting new jobs in place.
Mm-hmm.
And.
That was the indicator for usbeing in a small military town,
knowing, you know, Goodyear onlyhires so many people each year.
Right.
There's other, other, you know,plants and stuff like that, but
(10:49):
what, what's Fort Sill doing?
Right?
Are they bringing in, arethey creating more jobs?
Right.
That would tell us how, howour market was gonna shape out
for, for, you know, mm-hmm.
The, the, the foreseeablefuture all around jobs.
So that's, that's what I lovewhen I hear that and get excited
about new homes going up.
I I have a question for you, Tina.
Yeah.
In your market, um, you know, youhave a strong market where you're
(11:12):
at right now, it's very desirable.
People love moving there.
Um, would you kind of break down,what would you say the percentage of
new construction sales on your team?
I mean, you're selling literallyhundreds and hundreds is what, a thousand
homes a year or close to that anyway.
I mean, it's a huge volume.
What would you say?
Like the new construction makes up?
Seven, 800 homes a year.
(11:33):
Um, I, we looked at this stat,I don't know what exactly, but I
would say that it's, uh, 20%, youknow, is, is new construction.
So we do a lot of resale homes.
Yes.
But we're in an area in Raleigh where,you know, you drive 35, 40 minutes
any direction from the center andyou're in new construction land,
you know, so, um, so yeah, I mean,we've got tons of elders coming down.
(11:54):
I just had a, a guy last weekthat was Mo uh, from Florida.
They run this huge, massive, uh, senior.
Housing.
So 55 plus communities, andthey were looking for tons of
acreage just to build here.
And, you know, most people weremoving from the north to Florida.
Now they're coming,they call 'em halfbacks.
So they're coming herelooking for land and invest.
So tons and tons of developers,um, you know, just buying up land.
(12:17):
So if you fly over, like I always, you're,you're, you're in North Carolina, are you?
We're in Raleigh.
Raleigh.
Raleigh, yes.
Raleigh, North Carolina.
So you think about flying over likeAtlanta and you just, you don't see
many trees and you fly over Raleighand you feel like it's so, you know,
congested, but it's not, I mean, it'sjust literally a canopy of green still.
So we've got a, a plentyto build, plenty of room.
(12:40):
So you're moving just, you, youknow, you're just one team and of,
of, of many, many teams in the US.
Almost a hundred new construction sales.
Just from, from your group alone?
Per year.
Yeah.
And we just, um, just recently, youknow, I, I don't know if builders
are looking for an elevated levelof service, but we have four
different builders that reached out.
So we have a 56 unit development coming.
(13:02):
We've got.
24 units coming over a million dollarstownhouses, like all of a sudden we're
getting all this attention from buildersand it's like, well this is cool.
You know, so really we're looking.
So we opened call group newhomes division because of it.
And, uh, you know, I would loveto get into that game like Mr.
Andrew Franklin down inwhere, Houston or Dallas.
I mean, you know, it's, it isbecause you have the attention
(13:25):
and, and that's what they want.
You know, builders, builders areonly as loyal to the person that
can bring them the attentionso they can turn their money.
And when you understand the gamethat they play, you can play
the game right along with them.
And they need us now more than, than they,than they have in the last five years.
They do.
So being able to really stepin, in, in there, I mean.
New, new construction was, I mean,it was a critical part of our, of our
(13:49):
business and the development phasesand everything that we did towards
the end of our, of our time in Lawtonwas really heavy around dealing with
builders and the way they think.
And the way, I mean, it's howI, it's how I survived oh 7, 0 8
and oh nine is I latched on to abuilder and I became his, his Aaron
boy and I did everything for him.
Um.
And, and so, I mean, I got it.
(14:10):
I understood that the, the reallydeep inner workings and so seeing
a pause right here, I mean, thisis a good thing for, for the
builders and the builder community.
Heck yeah.
Yeah.
And I remember, you know, when wewere interviewing with, you know, the
different builders, they came in andthey said, we want stone cold killers.
Like, they were like looking forsalespeople because they, you
know, a lot of us have coasted,you know, 20 19, 20 20, 20 21.
(14:34):
Like, you didn't really needto do much to sell a home.
And I think they've,they've felt the difference.
And they're looking forprofessional salespeople.
And we have the sale, you know,we have 45 agents on our team
so we can operationalize themarketing piece of it for them.
And I think they, they love that piece.
Yeah, they do.
They love that.
They, they love that.
And they love the love the attention.
(14:54):
Exactly.
I love it.
So good.
So 95% of the funnels we build for ouragents, the lead generation funnels.
Mm-hmm.
Um, the Braden kicks out isthe new construction funnel.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
The idea came back in,I think 20 or 21 maybe.
Maybe it was 19, maybe it was 2020when the I inventory levels were so
low that buyers were just giving up.
(15:17):
They're like.
I'm just tired of looking at homes.
I'm tired of writing five offersgetting beat out by, in multiples.
And they, they, they were goingto new construction for certainty.
Yeah.
They knew that they went andsigned a contract with a builder.
At least they wouldn't have to be battlingover that house with three other buyers.
Four other, six other buyers.
So that's all we've been building.
(15:37):
We, even today we are, we are probablykicking out 20 to 30 per week new, new,
new construction funnels for our agents.
We're just building 'em out and,and it's the lowest cost per lead.
Shouldn't even giving this out.
But we're, we're giving it all away today.
Lowest cost per lead.
We gotta get back and it's thehighest working funnel we build.
(15:59):
And why does it work?
For the reason that I just gave you,because there are certain areas, and
I don't know if it's Raleigh's one of'em, but where inventory's still are,
inventory's still an issue in Dallas,you know, and some other, you know,
really, really heavily, um, you know,where there's a lot of turnover going on.
Inventories are, levels are goingup in, I, I guess Florida, but
there's still other areas where we'regetting multiple, multiple offers.
(16:22):
So buyers want certainty.
We're looking to build.
So this, this, um, pauseon tariffs is a good thing.
So yeah, I, I agree.
Let's move on to topic number two.
Let's talk about, um,let's talk about Zillow.
Let's talk about Zillow for a second here.
So, you know, showing, youknow, profitability, but it's
always layers deeper, right?
(16:43):
Like, what's the real root cause of this?
So, you know, Tina, you, you see thislike what immediately comes to mind when
you see Zillow finally turn into profit?
I mean, you know, I workside by side with Zillow.
I mean, we've, I've been with Zillow,uh, since 2014, so before they were,
Zillow and realtor.com was the giant.
Um, I've watched every littlemove that they've made and, and
(17:07):
have always been offered theopportunities at the forefront.
And, um, so we are a Zillow flex team.
And I saw their biggest push in the lastthree years or two years, um, was to
push their mortgage part of the business.
And so their revenue rightnow is up, I think, I don't
know, 30, 40% year over year.
So they made another $140 million,$130 million on the mortgage side.
(17:29):
So they are pushing that heavy.
And I'll be honest, I didn't thinkit would work because you look at.
Companies like Keller Williams whenthey tried to do Keller Mortgage, and
here you have a sales force of 175,000agents and Keller Mortgage flopped.
I mean, it flopped because.
Because people want to use the lenderthat's gonna bring them, the brownies,
the lender that's right there in house.
And so I really, you know, as muchas we wanted to help them with it,
(17:53):
um, I, I thought it would flop.
And so now it's working andthat's really where their profit
is coming from that I can see.
Um, and then I read something about thempartnering with Redfin and realtor.com
with the rental side of the business.
Like they're, they're doing somethingwith rentals, so maybe there's a
little profit there, but I thinkthe biggest thing is mortgage.
So Al to, to, you know, knowing themoves that people are, are, are jockeying
(18:20):
and positioning in the industry, right?
I think, we'll, we'll see.
Um, you know, Glen, Glen saidsomething at, at the Seattle
rally, uh, a couple weeks ago.
He said he projects two, two bigthings to happen in the next 12 months.
He goes, I don't knowwhat they're gonna be.
He goes, but I just, I foresee two reallybig shakeups in the next 12 months.
Obviously we see what.
What Rocket did with Redfin?
(18:42):
Mm-hmm.
Like what are you feelingthe move Zillow might make?
Man, I don't, I don't know.
The move Zillow, I, I thinkthat, you know, they, they,
they, they acquired, what is it?
Dot Loop and, um, and showing timeand, and to be honest, other than the
(19:02):
data plays on those, um, obviouslythey, you know, they're, they got a
lot of data, you know, can follow.
And follow up boss too, right?
So, great.
CRM.
Yeah.
Arguably maybe one of the, the, themost darling of all CRMs mm-hmm.
Right now, um, that are out there.
There's a lot of great CRMs, but whatI've seen Zillow does super interesting.
(19:24):
You guys remember back, um,maybe this was 10 years ago.
This is when I still had my team.
We were, you know, on Zillow paying forfive zip codes, six zip codes, whatever.
My rep was great.
Um, and it was funny becausemy rep who was selling me zip
codes was a stone cold killer.
You, you said about the stonethat, you know, the builders
are looking for stone code.
This guy was.
(19:45):
And um, 'cause in evidence of that,I ended up buying like 10 zip codes.
This guy just, you know, everytime he got me on the phone, he
closed me on another zip code.
Well, he ended up leaving Zillow.
I'm confident they were, he was theirnumber one rep. And the reason he left was
he went and started a real estate team.
He goes, I can, I can closethese things with my eyes closed.
Right?
He started noticing, so whatZillow was doing was they're like,
(20:07):
how do we get more conversion?
How do we get people to stay on,like if, if an agent's paying me
for the zip code, how do I continuegetting them to pay for the zip code?
Mm-hmm.
Well, they, well, let's,let's put a, a group of ISAs.
Let's just call the leadsfor them and then transfer.
Remember, they weredoing the live transfers.
They're still doing that.
They still do it.
Yep.
Depending on where, youknow, what city, what town.
(20:30):
Right.
But.
Th this was just part of their,their, their climb toward iterating
on getting to where, where theywanted to be as a business model.
So that was their first step.
Then they started discovering nomatter how many leads they called and
distributed, if you give a, a, a goodlead to five bad agents, guess what?
(20:50):
It's not gonna convert.
Correct.
And then you're gonna get, oh,these leads suck, and this and that.
And then people cancel.
Right?
So then they, they thought like, wellwhat if we only gave them to the best?
So they started to get real,you know, real focused on we're
only giving these to the best.
And of course now you know, ofcourse, 'cause you're a Zillow flex
team, they switched from, what isthat Premier agent Yeah, Mar market.
(21:13):
Broke market something.
Pricing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
From, yeah.
Now they're, they're, they're,they're basically gambling.
And by the way, they're notgambling 'cause they have the data.
They know how many converted and did notconvert based upon whatever team it was.
So they're, they want, they wanna workwith, correct me if I'm wrong, Tina, you
may know this, the least amount of teamsas possible, but the best in every market.
(21:37):
And they're right in our business with us.
I mean, they're like, if youdon't, every week we get reports.
Literally, your agent A didthis, your agent B did this.
Turn 'em on, turn 'em off.
Like our team knows, like it'scalled a Zillow strike team.
Like we fired all of our agentsoff our original Zillow team.
'cause we just let everyone be on it.
And we're like, this is a, this is,you know, a premier lead and they
(21:58):
want you servicing it a certain way.
And if you can't service it acertain way, you're not on that team.
Because think about it.
Wherever in our realm, you know, we'veall been in the business 20 years or more.
Did the phone magically ring and abuyer was at the end going, I'd like
to see this million dollar home today.
Like it's frickingrainbow bright over here.
Like that's, that's like, come on, there'slike gold at the, the end of the rainbow.
(22:21):
And so I'm like, that's not reality.
And, and so I think they're amazing leads.
Yes, there's a 40% bump on 'em, but Itold our team, I'm like, the goal is
you're in front of, you've got a wide net.
You're bringing in all these customers,it's a customer acquisition cost.
Who cares?
Because I give them 40% now and a,we just closed a $5 million deal.
A $4 million deal.
You take that customer and you turnit into two or three deals down the,
(22:44):
I mean, yes, please lack the value.
Yes, please, and the value is the list.
If I'm, if I'm with a company that has225 million eyeballs a month versus
homes.com that has 30 million eyeballs,I'm gonna get a majority of the customers.
And then that's my list that I'm growing.
Another thing, uh, guys that I forgot,um, that I read in, in an article about
(23:04):
Zillow's, uh, being profitable, this wasreally cool 'cause it's like, uh, like
us, like at exp, um, they shifted to aremote first work model known as Cloud hq.
Did you know that?
Oh, no.
Interesting.
Look at them in the cloud with us.
So they're very, well, I'm justsaying, they're, they're, they
fired a bunch of people, so theywant operational efficiencies.
(23:27):
So they shifted to their workmodel that's called Cloud hq.
So they reduce a ton of officeexpenses and that's how they
also improve their margins.
You know, one thing that, that,that, uh, uh, that's interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Um, to, to think about there, the.
Back to the customer acquisition.
Right?
Yeah.
And, and this is where I thinka lot of, a lot of agents could.
(23:50):
Use a little help in understanding this.
Mm. And it's, it's thetwo numbers that matter.
What does it cost you to acquirethat opportunity and what is the
lifetime value of that opportunity?
Exactly.
And as long as that LTV is three tofour times greater than the acquisition
cost, you do it all day every day.
Yeah.
And, and so when you really know themath Right, and that's the thing, right?
Know the math, and let's go back to, and Iread something a couple weeks ago, Al. We,
(24:15):
we've all, when, when we really startedfocusing on lifetime value, and this was
a big push that, that we brought with theNAEA days that we got everybody thinking
about get off the transaction treadmill.
It's all about LTV lifetimevalue, lifetime, lifetime value.
And the book that triggered that for uswas Hug Your Customer by Jack Mitchell.
That was the book that tripped,that triggered the way we
thought about everything.
(24:35):
Mm-hmm.
And.
Um, when you, when you look at it,the, the math used to be 70% would say
that they would use the agent again.
Mm-hmm.
But, but yet.
10% did I read something?
It's about 6% actually reuse the agentagain in the next transaction or refer.
It's, it's down even further.
(24:56):
Mm-hmm.
So what does that tell youabout where people's focus is?
And I think there's a lot of agentsthat are starving so bad that
they're only they, that they're,they need the transaction more
than the buyer or seller needs it.
And so that's repelling instead oflike, listen, like this one transaction,
especially if I'm gonna ride inthis game for the next 20 years.
Yeah.
I mean, this is only 4%.
(25:16):
Of the total lifetime value,this one transaction, and you're
talking about a $4 million deal.
The commission on that?
Yeah.
Just imagine, just imagine if thatwas only 4% of the total lifetime
value, just that one transaction.
Like yeah.
You going, yeah, you're gonna, you'regonna spend that 40% on Zillow.
Every day.
Oh, yeah.
And I, I tell our team, I'm like, theamount of leads, like we paid Zillow $1.4
(25:37):
million literally off the top last year,but for me, I used to spend 40,000 a month
to buy the leads and to buy the amountof leads that they give us because we're
top performers and we have good metrics.
I would have to spend, I think we addedup, it was like 160, 170 grand a month.
To buy the amount of leads.
And so yes, they, they're giving themto us with that cut on that, but, but
(25:59):
it alleviates the stress of a teamowner or, or any, you know, small
business to have to go and buy those,those really good quality leads.
It's funny you say that.
I, I coached a team thatpaid 160,000 a month.
I believe it.
Absolutely.
And you know what, they sleptlike a baby every night.
Yeah, yeah.
You know why?
Because they, they knew thereturn was there because they
paid attention to the metrics.
They knew their numbers, correct.
(26:22):
It's an earned opportunity.
The better you are, the betterthe opportunities you get.
And I bet you the culture of that teamis, is really high accountability because
when a team owner's paying 160 grand,they're not letting you be willy-nilly.
Where we were paying less thanthat and we were a little more
willy-nilly in the beginning.
There ain't no Willy Willy about it.
No.
It bill's like if you're gonna haveour leads, you know that we're gifted.
(26:45):
There ain't no willy-nilly about it.
24 7 observation is what's happening.
Hundred percent.
So check this out.
It should be so you, you are actuallypaying a 60% tariff for these role.
I paying a tariff and you love it.
Bring me more.
I love it.
Love it.
You know, every top agent, and Idon't, I'd love your opinion on this.
(27:07):
And to John, you, you coach so many ofthe top teams around the world, you,
you're gonna know this too, but everytop team I talk to that's on Zillow Flex.
Or let me take that back, that theywere paying, like you were paying
30, 40, 50,000 a month, right?
I just did the quick math.
That's how I figured out that's a 60% bumpin your expenses, but you have no risk.
(27:29):
There's two things that I love.
One, everyone that I talk to istaking that 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 a
month, and they're buying realtor.comleads, so they're actually more than
doubling the number of opportunitiescoming into their team without.
Having to dip into their own pocket.
Yes, they're paying 60% higher,uh, expense for those Zillow leads,
(27:51):
but you're getting more of them.
And like John, you talked about,it's a cost of doing business.
And when that Zillow lead that youjust closed for 2 million bucks,
when they refer their sister, theirbrother, their mom passes away.
You have to sell their house.
There's, there's no tariff on those.
Yep.
Yep.
Yeah.
And I mean, and realtor com just went to.
Zillow's old model, which was mm-hmm.
(28:11):
You buy this zip code for thou,you know, like one little zip
code in our town was $11,000.
And so they're trying to figure outhow to become more profitable too,
and not charge on the backend, butthey're just one step behind Zillow.
And you know, Zillow gets demonized.
Because obviously, you know,that's the narrative that everyone
pushes out, but there's hundredsand hundreds, if not thousands of
(28:32):
companies that sell leads back to us.
They just happen to have a monopoly on oureyeballs, and they're the most well known.
They own the consumer.
And, and, and to your point,Al, and this is, and this, I
mean, Tina Tina's proof, right?
That the, the great teams.
Just all they're gonna dois just getting bigger.
Yeah, they're getting biggerand they're getting bigger.
(28:53):
And they're getting bigger.
The team that I told you that wasspending, you know, six figures a
month on Zillow, they were about75 to 80 agents at that time.
They're doubled that size now.
Yeah.
And, and it's because to yourpoint, they're taking the money.
They're not just, they're not justlike stuffing it in their sack, they're
taking the money and reinvesting andthey're creating more opportunities.
Correct.
And that's what, you know, wetell our team all the time, like,
(29:13):
we're getting these opportunitiesbecause of our sheer size.
That's because you guys have decided.
To get together as a team.
And I think, you know, John Shela saysit all the time, the biggest army wins
and really we're running, we're runninga brokerage, an old fashioned brokerage.
When you look at the 1980s and 1990s,people ran brokerages like this, 50
50 splits, and the brokerages offeredhigh levels of service, more training,
(29:38):
but then as these other brokerages cameand dangling that 90% and that 95 5.
The agents started to leave for that.
But what started to happenwas their production tanked.
They were not operationally drivenand they sucked in the business.
They sucked running the business,but they got to keep more.
And then businesses couldn't afford tokeep the operations going at a high level.
(29:58):
And they started to, you know, justbecome broker houses to collect people.
And so now we're going back to ahighly leveraged business where.
I show our agents everything that we bringto the table helps 'em sell more homes.
That's just the reality.
And they could go make more on their own.
But you know, like when I have mysalespeople making three to 500,000
a year and they have zero expenses,that's a really great profit margin.
(30:22):
It's more than 50%.
Mine is 15.
There are no risk.
You know?
There's no risk.
And so that's why I told 'em as we grew,I went from keeping 70% down to 50 down
to, you know, but I could only sell130 homes myself and make 700 grand.
Today I can sell seven 800 homes andmake more than 700 grand, but the risk
is higher, and I have to learn howto build this brokerage, basically.
(30:46):
It's not a team, it's a brokerage.
And let's go to ourthird point right there.
Right?
And, and, and like, what is the thingthat's moving the profitability the most?
Go ahead, Al. What was that?
Yeah.
What did you say?
Yeah, I'm sorry.
My internet is cutting out.
Is it on my end or is it, isit, I'm getting it chopping up.
Is it, it's, it's you.
Am I good on my end?
(31:06):
We're good.
Probably.
Yeah.
You're not, to me, the, the segueinto this with the whole Zillow thing.
Now I wanted to mention this guys,because we talk a lot about accountability
and, and one of the biggest challengeswhen, when I started, you know, I
think Jay was the first person thatshowed me the video of a hundred zero.
A hundred percentaccountability, zero excuses.
(31:28):
And so I started implementingthat into my business.
And in 2015 I went to ShepBlack's, uh, lake Tahoe Mastermind,
and I was in the mountains.
It was beautiful.
It's probably when I reallyfell in love with Tahoe.
I was there prior to that, but Iwas there in the summer and, and
that's when Shep Black started.
You know, introduce the ideaof, eliminate the word why.
(31:50):
Mm-hmm.
I'm sitting here with100 zero, uh, slogan.
It's all over my walls in my office.
And then when, when an agent wouldn'tfollow up on a listing appointment, I
would say, well, why didn't you follow up?
And we all know from followingShelac, John, you know, why
is a word of, of judgment?
Yeah.
I say all that to saywhat Zillow also has done.
(32:11):
Is that he, they've taken a bitof that accountability off of the
shoulders of the team leader becauseif you don't get on that lead, you
are not the bad guy saying, alrightJohn, you didn't follow up with this.
This, you know, you haven'tfollowed up in a week.
We're taking you off Zillow leads.
No, Zillow takes you off of Zillow leads.
I love back back up accountability.
(32:31):
It just kinda leads into ourthird topic, um, which no one
does it better than you, Tina.
Um, really with, withjust nailing the culture.
Yeah.
It's so hard.
It's not the easiest thing to do.
Um, John, you've built big organizations.
You know how tough it is.
I know.
I struggled.
You know, even with a. 30, 40 person team.
(32:52):
Um, and, and, and the differentdynamics that are going on with this
camp versus this camp, you know, and,and, and, um, and trying to, you know,
what you had said earlier about tryingto make everybody happy to try to
do that, you're making nobody happy.
And that's when actually peoplestart to leave you because you
just don't have a standard.
Your standard is, I wanna try to reallyfill the gap on what their standard is.
(33:13):
Um, John, you, we know all about the, youknow, the, the ins and outs of culture.
I mean, one of the.
Most impressive was what you guyshad at NAEA because at least when
I went and visited you guys, Iwas literally blown away about how
people work together as a team.
And you really embodied these corevalues weren't just up on the wall.
I. People lived them.
(33:35):
Yeah.
They could recite 'em offthe top of their head.
And, um, you guys nailed it too.
So we got two, two great examplesof people at organizations.
Um, tell us why you become more profitablebecause you nailed your culture piece of
your, your, your team slash brokerage.
I. Um, well, I think, you know,going back to, I, I think you
know, the team leadership piece.
(33:55):
Whenever I like coach, other teamleaders or we collaborate, what I
find is the team's essence comesfrom obviously John or Jay or whoever
was literally in the trenches withthe most important thing to them.
And I think a lot of times team leaderswill be like, this is what I'm about,
this is this, this is that, and it'seither too aggressive or too one way.
(34:15):
To, to sustain, you know, for a long time.
And I think a lot of us, in thebeginning, I was, I'm a terrible manager.
I know that.
And when I was just myself selling 130homes with two agents and I wanted to
grow the team because I needed leverage,it wasn't because I wanted a team.
I was like, oh, let's, let's allbe happy and, and come together.
It was because I needed the helpand I needed leverage, but I
(34:36):
was at least new in my heart.
I was a terrible manager,so I hired somebody.
That could operationalize thebusiness while I was funding the
business with my, my deals, and whatI saw with this woman that came in
was she came outside from pharma.
She learned, she knewhow to run sales teams.
She was more accountable.
She held them accountable, which I didn'tbecause I can held myself accountable.
(34:59):
Like in my mind I was like,why do you need accountability?
Aren't you an adult?
Like, that's not a great manager.
That's like.
Do your effing job, you're an adult.
Like, so that was my attitudein the beginning, which would
not have built a great culture.
And so as I watched her and, and then,you know, really studied leadership
and John Maxwell and you know, I thinkin the beginning you're more like,
(35:20):
not selfish, but you're more justlike how we're trained as agents, solo
agents, and just get the job done.
I was driven by fear.
Fear of not having enough money,um, once I was safe and kind
of felt like, okay, I'm safe.
Like, I've got money.
I've got money in the bank.
Now I need to getserious about leadership.
I think I'm not great at it.
I'm a forever student of it,so I'm actually crappy at it.
(35:42):
But I'm, I'm still in the trenchesevery day, learning, every day
I lead, read something aboutleadership to, to expand my mind.
Um, and so now I went through the whole,give them what they want so they don't
leave, you know, uh, you know, get,raise their split so they don't leave.
All of that was wrong in my opinion.
And now the last several years,um, we adopted more John Shep
(36:04):
Black style, which is exactly that.
Like what are our standards?
We wanna be around excellence,we wanna be around grit, we
wanna be around failing forward.
We're fun af like that'sone of our standards.
Like we have fun.
Like we're not just crotty old.
You know, curmudgeons,like we have fun here.
And I think now that we, like yousaid, we live them, we breathe the core
values, we can look at a person and say,do they live by our six core values?
(36:27):
And if there is a no in acouple of them, they're out.
I don't care what they produce.
And, and so now all of a suddenpeople are seeing us fire a
top producer and they're like.
Whoa.
Like we're not untouchableand there is a standard here.
So I either adopt to this 'cause Itruly do believe in it or I don't.
And I always tell our, our team,I'm depending on you to co coexist
(36:50):
in this environment and kind of.
Co-create it with me.
If you don't believe in what webelieve, then there's the door.
And that's literally how we, wespeak to them because we don't want
them in here bitching and moaningabout what they don't believe in.
Why are you here?
Then?
There's no handcuffs.
The door's wide open and, um, and sothat's just going back, it's like what
I, I guess the point I'm trying tomake is the heart of the leader is.
(37:12):
Typically the essence of the team.
And I love helping othersand collaborating and, and
having a low ego around here.
You know, I fluff the pillows and cleanthe, the carpets just like anyone else.
And so nobody's above anybodyelse, and they carry that on.
Yeah, I love, I I love it.
And, and it's why I mean.
The results is just the, thedownstream ripple effect, right?
(37:36):
Mm-hmm.
Of, of the consistency in the work.
Um, just you being you and not allowing.
You know, those that, thatdon't align to, to our values.
And, and you know, the rule of thumb onthe core values is so if you have six,
then everybody has to have at least fourand they're working on the other two.
Yeah.
If, if it's, if it's threethere, it's not gonna work.
(37:58):
If it's two, it'll never work.
One, you should have neverhired 'em in the first place.
Correct.
So.
That's, that's kind of your barometer.
And what I would challenge anybodylistening in to this, that if you don't
have concrete core values that you lookat every day, you make decisions off
every day, your people make decisionsoff of every day, then that's the number
(38:18):
one thing that you've got to get right.
Um, and there there's a lot of greatexercises to come about your core values.
Um, Jackie, Jackie Bowman gaveme, um, an exercise to where.
It's basically, you answer 11, 12questions and it's like, like, you know,
do you have trophies or do you havepictures around you in your office, right?
(38:40):
Mm-hmm.
You know, like I havebooks everywhere I go.
Like, I mean, it's like, it's absurd.
Books everywhere and I mean, I'll justput books down just as a reminder to
see it, but I'll also do it sometimes'cause I want the kids to see it.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Just little triggers.
Well, that says somethingabout my values, right?
Yeah.
With, with the books or thepictures and things like that.
So there's ways to go about it to,to really uncover it and, um, the
(39:02):
worst thing you could do, and thisis what we did, Chad Goldwasser,
um, good, good friend of ours.
Um, I mean the reason Al doesrock and rock and rescue's gonna
be rock the spectrum this year isbecause of Chad Goldwasser and.
Chad was number one in the world forK for kw, and we had the very first
rate conference in our office sincewe started Rate and Chad's in there,
(39:24):
and he's talking about core values.
We're like, what core values?
What are those?
And Jay and I look at eachother and we start laughing.
We're like, well, he's numberone in the world for kw so we
they, they've gotta be good.
We'll just, we'll justuse his, that's right.
And we, they didn't mean anything, right?
Yeah.
They were just Chads.
Then when we first, when wereally started to understand it,
(39:46):
I mean, everything changed for us.
Yeah.
And goes into the culture that Al wastalking about in a ea and that was us.
I mean, that was just truly born out ofwho we were, how we showed up every day,
um, and, and really embodying and, andliving in, that's just kind of my, you
know, my definition of culture is just.
Your values plus how you behave, andthat's really the culture you have.
(40:10):
Funny enough, we did that samething when we first, like we did,
we started EOS like six years ago.
We're like, these, these look good online.
Like these values great.
I like those values.
Like, no, make your own.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Something, um, Jay and, and maybe John,you've done it too, but, um, he had told
me a few years ago, him and Amber andthe kids actually did their own family.
(40:35):
Core values and laid those out,and I thought it was a brilliant
idea that I never went ahead anddid myself, but I That's good.
So it's so good because everythingreally carries over a lot of the
things that I feel like, you know,maybe I haven't nailed it fully,
but you know, I'm, I'm really makingprogress on and I'm improving a
(40:57):
certain area of my business life.
I, I bring over to my personal life andI don't know why, but it's been in that
order, not the other order, like whereI'm nailing it on my personal and I
bring it into my, and they carry it over.
Yeah.
Almost always carry it over fromsomething that I've learned trying
to grow a business and failing there.
In fact, I'd rather fail in businessthan personally, you know, so it's
(41:17):
a good little, little barometer, alittle, little testing ground, right?
So when you think about it, I mean,that's the next thing for us is we're,
you know, what are our core values?
The funny thing is they start to appear.
Whether you're gonna sit downand, and identify 'em or not.
They appear all, they're the time.
They're there, they're there.
They appear in, in, when, when we have ourlittle disagreements, you know, we, they,
(41:38):
they appear when we're all laughing sohard and having just one of those amazing
evenings where, you know what I mean?
Like we just can't stop laughing andit's been like a great, so whether
you're, you're gonna struggle or not.
Those core values will start to,we just, you just have to have the
awareness of like finding them, youknow, and, you know, you know that
exercise al that, that's from, um, DarrenHardy's book, uh, the Compound Effect.
(41:58):
So if he still gives away his resourcesfrom the compound effect, uh, the core
value exercise, 'cause what it doesis it distills down to your three.
So in a, in a, in a, in, you know,in a relationship or whatever,
it would be your three values.
Their three values.
Now we have our six valuesfor, for the family.
So it's a great, it'sa really good exercise.
(42:19):
There's a bunch of different What if,what if you're, you're, you're her three.
You know, you're, you're in disagreement.
Like those aren't my, twoof those are not my values.
What?
Well, you have your three and one isfour, so you've got four of the six.
You're good.
Okay.
So got four of the six.
You're good, you're good.
We would argue about that, but yeah.
No, well, thank you.
(42:40):
That advice, sir? Tina,you're absolutely amazing.
You're, you're definitely a trueinspiration and, and really leading,
not only, you know, your, your, yourteam, your organization also leading,
you know, the exp organization aswell as leading in the industry.
So we, we thank you so much for,for all that you do and being able
(43:00):
to jump in here with us and justadd, add a ton of value as always.
Thank you guys and go to, to tina calldot honey badger award.com for my award.
Just kidding.
Yes, yes.
Honey badger award.com.
Go nominate Tina.
Go nominate tina honey badger award.com.
Um, but yes, to echo what John'ssaying, I agree with all that
you've been, become a really bigdeal right here in Cleveland, Ohio.
(43:24):
Whether you know it or not, you got fans.
Oh, I got some fans there.
You have big fans here.
You know, I've, you've donesome, some stuff with, um.
Mike and Caya and yeah.
He just can't stoptalking about Tina call.
Tina called that Tina call, andI'm like, yes, she's awesome.
I told you she's awesome.
She's awesome.
Well let it go, Mike.
(43:45):
Is what?
You guys have something?
Is there a teaser?
Or, or do we have to keep this long?
Oh, you mean John and I?
No, we gotta keep it, we gotta,there's gonna be a teaser keep.
Okay.
Okay, good.
Cool.
Whatever you guys first, Al one of ourfirst guests, whatever y'all got cooking,
I'm gonna be in line with my bull first.
It's tough because Iknow it's gonna be fired.
(44:06):
It's, it's, um, it is, it is fireand it is, it is cooking and I,
I am beyond excited about it.
It's gonna be really great.
Really great.
Yeah.
So I love it.
Well, thank you guys.
You're amazing.
Yep.
Vote for me com.
Get your, get your fresh merchand vote for your honey badger
of the, uh, the monthly award.
(44:28):
Right.
Uh, that would be a wonderful candidate.
And we will see you at the top, everybody.
Bye y'all.
See you guys.
That's a wrap for today.
I hope you got somethingvaluable from this episode.
If you did, hit follow andvisit John kitchens.coach for
more ways we can work together.
See you on the next episode.
Seven figure success starts whenyou start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcastexperience as your host, John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger andtransform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
Here we go.
Happy Tuesday everybody, man.
(00:20):
Thank you guys.
Tuning into another episode ofOne Big Fire and we got a massive
fire in the house today, Mr. STAs.
Welcome.
Good to see you buddy.
And, uh.
The one and only Miss Tina Cole.
Hello, Tina.
I'm so excited.
Hello boys.
What's going on ladies?
Like I don't get into politics, I don'tget into sports, but there is one thing we
(00:41):
know she knows, and that is how to build ateam and how to be an absolute rockstar in
real estate and sell thousands of homes.
Yes, it is.
Thank you.
Very remarkable.
And, uh.
So awesome to, to see you, Tina.
So awesome to have you on.
And, um, you know, we've got somethingpretty cool that, uh, we've started
(01:01):
to push out and this will be ourfirst month that we will recognize
a Honey Badger of the Month award.
Whoa, that's pretty cool.
I know, I love it.
Yeah.
Yep.
So, and, and we can goto Honey Badger Award.
Dot com to nom, nominate anyone thatyou, you feel, uh, deserves that.
(01:23):
And, and you might be saying, well,how do we know they deserve it?
Well, the traits of a honeybadger is, they are, you know,
honey badgers are are smart.
They're fierce.
They're relentless.
They're good looking.
You're good looking.
I mean, look at you guys.
You, you know what, you know what thething with the honey badger and, and you
(01:45):
know the whole symbolism behind that.
You can see it here on the hat,by the way, speaking of which,
we got a new legacy Honey Badger.
That's sharp.
That's sharp.
Lucky March.
Yep.
Honey badger nation.com.
You can get your merch.
But you know, the, the whole thing aboutthe honey badger was all about mindset.
Mm-hmm.
It was all about how are youapproaching your business?
(02:05):
And we have a lady badger on here thatis like, nah, I'm not going small.
I'm not putting one foot in the water.
I'm going all in.
I'm going big or nothing.
And you've built a, a multi-milliondollar business and you've done it with
grace and it's been so fun to watch you.
Um, so if you wanna nominate thislady right here for Honey Badger
(02:26):
of the Month, I love reward.
Does it come with cash?
Because then I'll promote it even more.
Yeah.
Is there cash behind sport?
Um, there, there I could,I could promise you this.
There's gonna be some merch.
Ooh, I like it.
Sweet merch behind the winner.
Okay.
And also the, you know, we could talkabout it, John, because, uh, this is
(02:49):
something that we, we brought back.
Originally the HoneyBadger Award was given.
Here's mine.
Ooh.
I like it.
Before I could grow a beard.
Yeah, I was gonna say you're like 12.
Look at that guy.
Look at that guy.
The young Fat Albert right here.
No, but I won the award and, andit, and you guys, John, you could
(03:11):
really tell this story better becauseyou, you know, you were behind,
like ultimately who you guys picked.
Out of all of our masterminds to winHoney Badger of the um, yeah, yeah.
In fact, I, in fact, I didpick the last few years.
Um, and, and just because I was so intune to, you know, every, everybody
and their situation and, and stuffthat was really going on and, you
know, we got to a point, right?
(03:33):
We would acknowledge, you know,it was our King Kong award
who had the most production.
We also had one that who really embodiedthe spirit of what NAEA stood for.
That was the Eagle Spirit Award.
And then, um.
We, we found this, uh, uh, remarkablevideo with this, um, you know, spirit
animal of, of a honey badger, andafter we died laughing, watching it.
(03:58):
Too many times we're like, you know what?
That's the award.
That's the award that everybody wants.
And it really, um, you had to go throughsome stuff to be able to even get
nominated and it was all about resilienceand how you, you know, you figured out,
and obviously, you know, during that timeit was really hard for a lot of the things
that we were going through and a lot ofthe things that we were dealing with.
(04:19):
I mean growth.
Right.
And Tina, you know thisand you know, growth sucks.
Cash growth, right?
Yeah.
It's just, it's just, it's, it'sa tough, it's a tough climb and
really it was looking for thatjust what we embodied, right?
And it's like, that's us.
Right?
You know, by definition, honeybadger is, is what we believe in.
That's just how we operate.
There's always a way.
And I think too, reading, um,Horowitz's first book at the time,
(04:41):
hard thing about hard things.
It was just kind of, everything kind ofstarted to line up and make sense and.
And um, that really just.
Would always put a smile on ourface when we were thinking about it.
And then we started throwingthe award out there.
You know, Jeff Cook, um, youknow, honey Badger number one.
Um, you know, Kristi Moore was ourfirst, you know, lady Badger, uh, Chris
(05:03):
and Chris and Harley outta Seattle.
Um, Al um, Michelle TrostHall, like there was just.
Things that, um, people had to, had togo through and navigate and it was like,
you really embody what, what it means.
Actually.
It's one of those awards you,you really everyone wanted, but
you didn't wanna go through whatyou had to go through to get it.
Yeah.
(05:23):
Get it.
Yeah.
I love that.
Love that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And vote for your honeybadgervote vote honey com.
Just go there and throw the votes in.
Um, and um, I guess the merchthing too, you can go to, um.
Let me just grab that exact Yeah.
Honey Badger merch.
Honey badger merch.com.
Get all the new merch.
And then, uh, so Tina, to your,to your answer, what is the prize?
(05:46):
Well, the Honey Badger Prize, an award wasalways customized to that individual, so
that's why Al being, you know, the, theRock and Roll Hall of Fame, he got his.
He got his, he got hisrecord and he got, yeah.
So it's cool.
Congrats friend.
Congrats.
Well, thank you.
Well, let's dive in.
I love it.
Let's, uh, we've got,we've got a lot of topics.
We've got a lot oftopics we can dive into.
(06:06):
Um, obviously, you know, what's,what's happening, um, and the word
that he loves the most, right?
The most beautiful word in the dictionary.
Um, and, and you nailed it too, Al right.
It's, it's all.
Part of the deal.
It's all to get people talkingand all to bring them back
to where we want 'em to be.
(06:26):
And you know, obviously with, with,with tariffs and the pause, what
has that done, you know, for thenew construction side of things.
So Al you wanna kind of start tounpack and let's, let's dive into topic
number one around new construction.
Yeah.
So, you know, um, obviously thisisn't a, a, a political podcast,
(06:47):
but politics have a big swing inwhat happens to our daily lives.
And, um, one of thosebig things are taxes.
Nobody wants to pay high taxes.
Taxes come in all forms and, um,one of 'em is the form of a tariff.
And, um, you know, I, I've beenpretty confident that our, that, that
President Trump was using this as a,as a negotiation out of the deal type
(07:11):
of thing to get, um, fair trade backin the hands of the US or instead of us
getting ripped off and one of the biggest.
Countries that we've allowed, I'mnot gonna talk victim talk here.
Look, we've had, every presidenthave had the chance to fix this.
Mm-hmm.
They just don't.
Uh, China's, China's the, you know,been the, the worst culprit of getting
a better side of a deal on these things.
(07:32):
And we are the number one consumerof Chinese goods across the board.
Yep.
So we have leverage and, uh, many,many presidents might be, think,
be thought of as good politicians.
Uh, our current president'snot a good politician.
He is a businessman.
He's an excellent, outstandingbusinessman, and he looks at things
through that lens, and that's important.
(07:54):
He's not looking at it through like,well, does this make me look bad?
Good.
Sure he is got a big ego.
Everybody knows that, but he'smore interested in the result.
He's a winner.
He wants the US to win andthis is what he's done.
So we got this 90 day pause.
Builders are loving this becausethey are now confident they could
take a a sigh of relief knowing thatwhatever materials they're getting,
(08:15):
metals, whatever it is from appliancesor anything that's being made in
China, that at least we're not there.
There's not a hundred and.
40% additional tax put on there.
So it's been a huge thing.
So obviously with builders, it'sgonna give them confidence to build.
We know that we have less inventoryhere, we need inventory in this
country, so that's a good thing.
(08:35):
Uh, we want builders.
We need builders to keep building.
What about the consumers?
This gives consumer confidence.
You don't believe me.
Look at what the market didwhen there was an announcement
before the market even opened.
So, you know, it's, it's really abouta, a consumer sediment of confidence
because if we have confidence, that meansbuyers, they're, you know, let's say
they're like, you know, we really do needto move honey, but gosh, I just don't
(08:59):
know what's gonna happen with all this.
Maybe we should just stay put.
So we need that confidence in of, um,in knowing that the, the economy's
strong job market's super strong.
By the way, the rates did not come down,but that's because, you know, Paul fails
that, you know, the, the economy's strong.
The job reports keep coming back strong.
(09:20):
So that's stability and that givesconfidence to, um, you know, buyers
to, to go ahead and, and wannabuy and start looking again and,
and builders to keep on building.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, it just, if I were abuilder right now, I'd say,
okay, I can continue my projects.
I'm not gonna be, it'll, it'lljust stabilize for a little bit.
So, 'cause I think, you know, beforeyou, they would've passed all that cost
(09:40):
on to the sellers and to the people orthe buyers, the people that are buying.
So, I like it.
It's got, it's got someconfidence behind it.
Yeah.
I think that the thing too that,that, um, I see with it, right,
to your point, Tina, right.
It keeps the projects going.
Mm-hmm.
Therefore, keeps the jobs going.
Mm-hmm.
Because, 'cause like the rippleeffect of, of a new construction,
(10:02):
think of about how many jobs, right?
From, from the, you know, the,the, the planning to the dirt, to
the build, to, you know, the, themaintenance to the after effect.
Just, there's so many.
Bites of that apple when onehome gets built and how many jobs
that, that, that, that creates.
So, you know, one, one of the, one ofthe many lessons of, of Gary, right,
(10:26):
um, was, you know, the one thing toalways pay attention to is what he would
always harp is just, I, I don't know.
Tell me what jobs are happening.
What, who's, who's, who isputting new jobs in place.
Mm-hmm.
And.
That was the indicator for usbeing in a small military town,
knowing, you know, Goodyear onlyhires so many people each year.
Right.
There's other, other, you know,plants and stuff like that, but
(10:49):
what, what's Fort Sill doing?
Right?
Are they bringing in, arethey creating more jobs?
Right.
That would tell us how, howour market was gonna shape out
for, for, you know, mm-hmm.
The, the, the foreseeablefuture all around jobs.
So that's, that's what I lovewhen I hear that and get excited
about new homes going up.
I I have a question for you, Tina.
Yeah.
In your market, um, you know, youhave a strong market where you're
(11:12):
at right now, it's very desirable.
People love moving there.
Um, would you kind of break down,what would you say the percentage of
new construction sales on your team?
I mean, you're selling literallyhundreds and hundreds is what, a thousand
homes a year or close to that anyway.
I mean, it's a huge volume.
What would you say?
Like the new construction makes up?
Seven, 800 homes a year.
(11:33):
Um, I, we looked at this stat,I don't know what exactly, but I
would say that it's, uh, 20%, youknow, is, is new construction.
So we do a lot of resale homes.
Yes.
But we're in an area in Raleigh where,you know, you drive 35, 40 minutes
any direction from the center andyou're in new construction land,
you know, so, um, so yeah, I mean,we've got tons of elders coming down.
(11:54):
I just had a, a guy last weekthat was Mo uh, from Florida.
They run this huge, massive, uh, senior.
Housing.
So 55 plus communities, andthey were looking for tons of
acreage just to build here.
And, you know, most people weremoving from the north to Florida.
Now they're coming,they call 'em halfbacks.
So they're coming herelooking for land and invest.
So tons and tons of developers,um, you know, just buying up land.
(12:17):
So if you fly over, like I always, you're,you're, you're in North Carolina, are you?
We're in Raleigh.
Raleigh.
Raleigh, yes.
Raleigh, North Carolina.
So you think about flying over likeAtlanta and you just, you don't see
many trees and you fly over Raleighand you feel like it's so, you know,
congested, but it's not, I mean, it'sjust literally a canopy of green still.
So we've got a, a plentyto build, plenty of room.
(12:40):
So you're moving just, you, youknow, you're just one team and of,
of, of many, many teams in the US.
Almost a hundred new construction sales.
Just from, from your group alone?
Per year.
Yeah.
And we just, um, just recently, youknow, I, I don't know if builders
are looking for an elevated levelof service, but we have four
different builders that reached out.
So we have a 56 unit development coming.
(13:02):
We've got.
24 units coming over a million dollarstownhouses, like all of a sudden we're
getting all this attention from buildersand it's like, well this is cool.
You know, so really we're looking.
So we opened call group newhomes division because of it.
And, uh, you know, I would loveto get into that game like Mr.
Andrew Franklin down inwhere, Houston or Dallas.
I mean, you know, it's, it isbecause you have the attention
(13:25):
and, and that's what they want.
You know, builders, builders areonly as loyal to the person that
can bring them the attentionso they can turn their money.
And when you understand the gamethat they play, you can play
the game right along with them.
And they need us now more than, than they,than they have in the last five years.
They do.
So being able to really stepin, in, in there, I mean.
New, new construction was, I mean,it was a critical part of our, of our
(13:49):
business and the development phasesand everything that we did towards
the end of our, of our time in Lawtonwas really heavy around dealing with
builders and the way they think.
And the way, I mean, it's howI, it's how I survived oh 7, 0 8
and oh nine is I latched on to abuilder and I became his, his Aaron
boy and I did everything for him.
Um.
And, and so, I mean, I got it.
(14:10):
I understood that the, the reallydeep inner workings and so seeing
a pause right here, I mean, thisis a good thing for, for the
builders and the builder community.
Heck yeah.
Yeah.
And I remember, you know, when wewere interviewing with, you know, the
different builders, they came in andthey said, we want stone cold killers.
Like, they were like looking forsalespeople because they, you
know, a lot of us have coasted,you know, 20 19, 20 20, 20 21.
(14:34):
Like, you didn't really needto do much to sell a home.
And I think they've,they've felt the difference.
And they're looking forprofessional salespeople.
And we have the sale, you know,we have 45 agents on our team
so we can operationalize themarketing piece of it for them.
And I think they, they love that piece.
Yeah, they do.
They love that.
They, they love that.
And they love the love the attention.
(14:54):
Exactly.
I love it.
So good.
So 95% of the funnels we build for ouragents, the lead generation funnels.
Mm-hmm.
Um, the Braden kicks out isthe new construction funnel.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
The idea came back in,I think 20 or 21 maybe.
Maybe it was 19, maybe it was 2020when the I inventory levels were so
low that buyers were just giving up.
(15:17):
They're like.
I'm just tired of looking at homes.
I'm tired of writing five offersgetting beat out by, in multiples.
And they, they, they were goingto new construction for certainty.
Yeah.
They knew that they went andsigned a contract with a builder.
At least they wouldn't have to be battlingover that house with three other buyers.
Four other, six other buyers.
So that's all we've been building.
(15:37):
We, even today we are, we are probablykicking out 20 to 30 per week new, new,
new construction funnels for our agents.
We're just building 'em out and,and it's the lowest cost per lead.
Shouldn't even giving this out.
But we're, we're giving it all away today.
Lowest cost per lead.
We gotta get back and it's thehighest working funnel we build.
(15:59):
And why does it work?
For the reason that I just gave you,because there are certain areas, and
I don't know if it's Raleigh's one of'em, but where inventory's still are,
inventory's still an issue in Dallas,you know, and some other, you know,
really, really heavily, um, you know,where there's a lot of turnover going on.
Inventories are, levels are goingup in, I, I guess Florida, but
there's still other areas where we'regetting multiple, multiple offers.
(16:22):
So buyers want certainty.
We're looking to build.
So this, this, um, pauseon tariffs is a good thing.
So yeah, I, I agree.
Let's move on to topic number two.
Let's talk about, um,let's talk about Zillow.
Let's talk about Zillow for a second here.
So, you know, showing, youknow, profitability, but it's
always layers deeper, right?
(16:43):
Like, what's the real root cause of this?
So, you know, Tina, you, you see thislike what immediately comes to mind when
you see Zillow finally turn into profit?
I mean, you know, I workside by side with Zillow.
I mean, we've, I've been with Zillow,uh, since 2014, so before they were,
Zillow and realtor.com was the giant.
Um, I've watched every littlemove that they've made and, and
(17:07):
have always been offered theopportunities at the forefront.
And, um, so we are a Zillow flex team.
And I saw their biggest push in the lastthree years or two years, um, was to
push their mortgage part of the business.
And so their revenue rightnow is up, I think, I don't
know, 30, 40% year over year.
So they made another $140 million,$130 million on the mortgage side.
(17:29):
So they are pushing that heavy.
And I'll be honest, I didn't thinkit would work because you look at.
Companies like Keller Williams whenthey tried to do Keller Mortgage, and
here you have a sales force of 175,000agents and Keller Mortgage flopped.
I mean, it flopped because.
Because people want to use the lenderthat's gonna bring them, the brownies,
the lender that's right there in house.
And so I really, you know, as muchas we wanted to help them with it,
(17:53):
um, I, I thought it would flop.
And so now it's working andthat's really where their profit
is coming from that I can see.
Um, and then I read something about thempartnering with Redfin and realtor.com
with the rental side of the business.
Like they're, they're doing somethingwith rentals, so maybe there's a
little profit there, but I thinkthe biggest thing is mortgage.
So Al to, to, you know, knowing themoves that people are, are, are jockeying
(18:20):
and positioning in the industry, right?
I think, we'll, we'll see.
Um, you know, Glen, Glen saidsomething at, at the Seattle
rally, uh, a couple weeks ago.
He said he projects two, two bigthings to happen in the next 12 months.
He goes, I don't knowwhat they're gonna be.
He goes, but I just, I foresee two reallybig shakeups in the next 12 months.
Obviously we see what.
What Rocket did with Redfin?
(18:42):
Mm-hmm.
Like what are you feelingthe move Zillow might make?
Man, I don't, I don't know.
The move Zillow, I, I thinkthat, you know, they, they,
they, they acquired, what is it?
Dot Loop and, um, and showing timeand, and to be honest, other than the
(19:02):
data plays on those, um, obviouslythey, you know, they're, they got a
lot of data, you know, can follow.
And follow up boss too, right?
So, great.
CRM.
Yeah.
Arguably maybe one of the, the, themost darling of all CRMs mm-hmm.
Right now, um, that are out there.
There's a lot of great CRMs, but whatI've seen Zillow does super interesting.
(19:24):
You guys remember back, um,maybe this was 10 years ago.
This is when I still had my team.
We were, you know, on Zillow paying forfive zip codes, six zip codes, whatever.
My rep was great.
Um, and it was funny becausemy rep who was selling me zip
codes was a stone cold killer.
You, you said about the stonethat, you know, the builders
are looking for stone code.
This guy was.
(19:45):
And um, 'cause in evidence of that,I ended up buying like 10 zip codes.
This guy just, you know, everytime he got me on the phone, he
closed me on another zip code.
Well, he ended up leaving Zillow.
I'm confident they were, he was theirnumber one rep. And the reason he left was
he went and started a real estate team.
He goes, I can, I can closethese things with my eyes closed.
Right?
He started noticing, so whatZillow was doing was they're like,
(20:07):
how do we get more conversion?
How do we get people to stay on,like if, if an agent's paying me
for the zip code, how do I continuegetting them to pay for the zip code?
Mm-hmm.
Well, they, well, let's,let's put a, a group of ISAs.
Let's just call the leadsfor them and then transfer.
Remember, they weredoing the live transfers.
They're still doing that.
They still do it.
Yep.
Depending on where, youknow, what city, what town.
(20:30):
Right.
But.
Th this was just part of their,their, their climb toward iterating
on getting to where, where theywanted to be as a business model.
So that was their first step.
Then they started discovering nomatter how many leads they called and
distributed, if you give a, a, a goodlead to five bad agents, guess what?
(20:50):
It's not gonna convert.
Correct.
And then you're gonna get, oh,these leads suck, and this and that.
And then people cancel.
Right?
So then they, they thought like, wellwhat if we only gave them to the best?
So they started to get real,you know, real focused on we're
only giving these to the best.
And of course now you know, ofcourse, 'cause you're a Zillow flex
team, they switched from, what isthat Premier agent Yeah, Mar market.
(21:13):
Broke market something.
Pricing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
From, yeah.
Now they're, they're, they're,they're basically gambling.
And by the way, they're notgambling 'cause they have the data.
They know how many converted and did notconvert based upon whatever team it was.
So they're, they want, they wanna workwith, correct me if I'm wrong, Tina, you
may know this, the least amount of teamsas possible, but the best in every market.
(21:37):
And they're right in our business with us.
I mean, they're like, if youdon't, every week we get reports.
Literally, your agent A didthis, your agent B did this.
Turn 'em on, turn 'em off.
Like our team knows, like it'scalled a Zillow strike team.
Like we fired all of our agentsoff our original Zillow team.
'cause we just let everyone be on it.
And we're like, this is a, this is,you know, a premier lead and they
(21:58):
want you servicing it a certain way.
And if you can't service it acertain way, you're not on that team.
Because think about it.
Wherever in our realm, you know, we'veall been in the business 20 years or more.
Did the phone magically ring and abuyer was at the end going, I'd like
to see this million dollar home today.
Like it's frickingrainbow bright over here.
Like that's, that's like, come on, there'slike gold at the, the end of the rainbow.
(22:21):
And so I'm like, that's not reality.
And, and so I think they're amazing leads.
Yes, there's a 40% bump on 'em, but Itold our team, I'm like, the goal is
you're in front of, you've got a wide net.
You're bringing in all these customers,it's a customer acquisition cost.
Who cares?
Because I give them 40% now and a,we just closed a $5 million deal.
A $4 million deal.
You take that customer and you turnit into two or three deals down the,
(22:44):
I mean, yes, please lack the value.
Yes, please, and the value is the list.
If I'm, if I'm with a company that has225 million eyeballs a month versus
homes.com that has 30 million eyeballs,I'm gonna get a majority of the customers.
And then that's my list that I'm growing.
Another thing, uh, guys that I forgot,um, that I read in, in an article about
(23:04):
Zillow's, uh, being profitable, this wasreally cool 'cause it's like, uh, like
us, like at exp, um, they shifted to aremote first work model known as Cloud hq.
Did you know that?
Oh, no.
Interesting.
Look at them in the cloud with us.
So they're very, well, I'm justsaying, they're, they're, they
fired a bunch of people, so theywant operational efficiencies.
(23:27):
So they shifted to their workmodel that's called Cloud hq.
So they reduce a ton of officeexpenses and that's how they
also improve their margins.
You know, one thing that, that,that, uh, uh, that's interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Um, to, to think about there, the.
Back to the customer acquisition.
Right?
Yeah.
And, and this is where I thinka lot of, a lot of agents could.
(23:50):
Use a little help in understanding this.
Mm. And it's, it's thetwo numbers that matter.
What does it cost you to acquirethat opportunity and what is the
lifetime value of that opportunity?
Exactly.
And as long as that LTV is three tofour times greater than the acquisition
cost, you do it all day every day.
Yeah.
And, and so when you really know themath Right, and that's the thing, right?
Know the math, and let's go back to, and Iread something a couple weeks ago, Al. We,
(24:15):
we've all, when, when we really startedfocusing on lifetime value, and this was
a big push that, that we brought with theNAEA days that we got everybody thinking
about get off the transaction treadmill.
It's all about LTV lifetimevalue, lifetime, lifetime value.
And the book that triggered that for uswas Hug Your Customer by Jack Mitchell.
That was the book that tripped,that triggered the way we
thought about everything.
(24:35):
Mm-hmm.
And.
Um, when you, when you look at it,the, the math used to be 70% would say
that they would use the agent again.
Mm-hmm.
But, but yet.
10% did I read something?
It's about 6% actually reuse the agentagain in the next transaction or refer.
It's, it's down even further.
(24:56):
Mm-hmm.
So what does that tell youabout where people's focus is?
And I think there's a lot of agentsthat are starving so bad that
they're only they, that they're,they need the transaction more
than the buyer or seller needs it.
And so that's repelling instead oflike, listen, like this one transaction,
especially if I'm gonna ride inthis game for the next 20 years.
Yeah.
I mean, this is only 4%.
(25:16):
Of the total lifetime value,this one transaction, and you're
talking about a $4 million deal.
The commission on that?
Yeah.
Just imagine, just imagine if thatwas only 4% of the total lifetime
value, just that one transaction.
Like yeah.
You going, yeah, you're gonna, you'regonna spend that 40% on Zillow.
Every day.
Oh, yeah.
And I, I tell our team, I'm like, theamount of leads, like we paid Zillow $1.4
(25:37):
million literally off the top last year,but for me, I used to spend 40,000 a month
to buy the leads and to buy the amountof leads that they give us because we're
top performers and we have good metrics.
I would have to spend, I think we addedup, it was like 160, 170 grand a month.
To buy the amount of leads.
And so yes, they, they're giving themto us with that cut on that, but, but
(25:59):
it alleviates the stress of a teamowner or, or any, you know, small
business to have to go and buy those,those really good quality leads.
It's funny you say that.
I, I coached a team thatpaid 160,000 a month.
I believe it.
Absolutely.
And you know what, they sleptlike a baby every night.
Yeah, yeah.
You know why?
Because they, they knew thereturn was there because they
paid attention to the metrics.
They knew their numbers, correct.
(26:22):
It's an earned opportunity.
The better you are, the betterthe opportunities you get.
And I bet you the culture of that teamis, is really high accountability because
when a team owner's paying 160 grand,they're not letting you be willy-nilly.
Where we were paying less thanthat and we were a little more
willy-nilly in the beginning.
There ain't no Willy Willy about it.
No.
It bill's like if you're gonna haveour leads, you know that we're gifted.
(26:45):
There ain't no willy-nilly about it.
24 7 observation is what's happening.
Hundred percent.
So check this out.
It should be so you, you are actuallypaying a 60% tariff for these role.
I paying a tariff and you love it.
Bring me more.
I love it.
Love it.
You know, every top agent, and Idon't, I'd love your opinion on this.
(27:07):
And to John, you, you coach so many ofthe top teams around the world, you,
you're gonna know this too, but everytop team I talk to that's on Zillow Flex.
Or let me take that back, that theywere paying, like you were paying
30, 40, 50,000 a month, right?
I just did the quick math.
That's how I figured out that's a 60% bumpin your expenses, but you have no risk.
(27:29):
There's two things that I love.
One, everyone that I talk to istaking that 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 a
month, and they're buying realtor.comleads, so they're actually more than
doubling the number of opportunitiescoming into their team without.
Having to dip into their own pocket.
Yes, they're paying 60% higher,uh, expense for those Zillow leads,
(27:51):
but you're getting more of them.
And like John, you talked about,it's a cost of doing business.
And when that Zillow lead that youjust closed for 2 million bucks,
when they refer their sister, theirbrother, their mom passes away.
You have to sell their house.
There's, there's no tariff on those.
Yep.
Yep.
Yeah.
And I mean, and realtor com just went to.
Zillow's old model, which was mm-hmm.
(28:11):
You buy this zip code for thou,you know, like one little zip
code in our town was $11,000.
And so they're trying to figure outhow to become more profitable too,
and not charge on the backend, butthey're just one step behind Zillow.
And you know, Zillow gets demonized.
Because obviously, you know,that's the narrative that everyone
pushes out, but there's hundredsand hundreds, if not thousands of
(28:32):
companies that sell leads back to us.
They just happen to have a monopoly on oureyeballs, and they're the most well known.
They own the consumer.
And, and, and to your point,Al, and this is, and this, I
mean, Tina Tina's proof, right?
That the, the great teams.
Just all they're gonna dois just getting bigger.
Yeah, they're getting biggerand they're getting bigger.
(28:53):
And they're getting bigger.
The team that I told you that wasspending, you know, six figures a
month on Zillow, they were about75 to 80 agents at that time.
They're doubled that size now.
Yeah.
And, and it's because to yourpoint, they're taking the money.
They're not just, they're not justlike stuffing it in their sack, they're
taking the money and reinvesting andthey're creating more opportunities.
Correct.
And that's what, you know, wetell our team all the time, like,
(29:13):
we're getting these opportunitiesbecause of our sheer size.
That's because you guys have decided.
To get together as a team.
And I think, you know, John Shela saysit all the time, the biggest army wins
and really we're running, we're runninga brokerage, an old fashioned brokerage.
When you look at the 1980s and 1990s,people ran brokerages like this, 50
50 splits, and the brokerages offeredhigh levels of service, more training,
(29:38):
but then as these other brokerages cameand dangling that 90% and that 95 5.
The agents started to leave for that.
But what started to happenwas their production tanked.
They were not operationally drivenand they sucked in the business.
They sucked running the business,but they got to keep more.
And then businesses couldn't afford tokeep the operations going at a high level.
(29:58):
And they started to, you know, justbecome broker houses to collect people.
And so now we're going back to ahighly leveraged business where.
I show our agents everything that we bringto the table helps 'em sell more homes.
That's just the reality.
And they could go make more on their own.
But you know, like when I have mysalespeople making three to 500,000
a year and they have zero expenses,that's a really great profit margin.
(30:22):
It's more than 50%.
Mine is 15.
There are no risk.
You know?
There's no risk.
And so that's why I told 'em as we grew,I went from keeping 70% down to 50 down
to, you know, but I could only sell130 homes myself and make 700 grand.
Today I can sell seven 800 homes andmake more than 700 grand, but the risk
is higher, and I have to learn howto build this brokerage, basically.
(30:46):
It's not a team, it's a brokerage.
And let's go to ourthird point right there.
Right?
And, and, and like, what is the thingthat's moving the profitability the most?
Go ahead, Al. What was that?
Yeah.
What did you say?
Yeah, I'm sorry.
My internet is cutting out.
Is it on my end or is it, isit, I'm getting it chopping up.
Is it, it's, it's you.
Am I good on my end?
(31:06):
We're good.
Probably.
Yeah.
You're not, to me, the, the segueinto this with the whole Zillow thing.
Now I wanted to mention this guys,because we talk a lot about accountability
and, and one of the biggest challengeswhen, when I started, you know, I
think Jay was the first person thatshowed me the video of a hundred zero.
A hundred percentaccountability, zero excuses.
(31:28):
And so I started implementingthat into my business.
And in 2015 I went to ShepBlack's, uh, lake Tahoe Mastermind,
and I was in the mountains.
It was beautiful.
It's probably when I reallyfell in love with Tahoe.
I was there prior to that, but Iwas there in the summer and, and
that's when Shep Black started.
You know, introduce the ideaof, eliminate the word why.
(31:50):
Mm-hmm.
I'm sitting here with100 zero, uh, slogan.
It's all over my walls in my office.
And then when, when an agent wouldn'tfollow up on a listing appointment, I
would say, well, why didn't you follow up?
And we all know from followingShelac, John, you know, why
is a word of, of judgment?
Yeah.
I say all that to saywhat Zillow also has done.
(32:11):
Is that he, they've taken a bitof that accountability off of the
shoulders of the team leader becauseif you don't get on that lead, you
are not the bad guy saying, alrightJohn, you didn't follow up with this.
This, you know, you haven'tfollowed up in a week.
We're taking you off Zillow leads.
No, Zillow takes you off of Zillow leads.
I love back back up accountability.
(32:31):
It just kinda leads into ourthird topic, um, which no one
does it better than you, Tina.
Um, really with, withjust nailing the culture.
Yeah.
It's so hard.
It's not the easiest thing to do.
Um, John, you've built big organizations.
You know how tough it is.
I know.
I struggled.
You know, even with a. 30, 40 person team.
(32:52):
Um, and, and, and the differentdynamics that are going on with this
camp versus this camp, you know, and,and, and, um, and trying to, you know,
what you had said earlier about tryingto make everybody happy to try to
do that, you're making nobody happy.
And that's when actually peoplestart to leave you because you
just don't have a standard.
Your standard is, I wanna try to reallyfill the gap on what their standard is.
(33:13):
Um, John, you, we know all about the, youknow, the, the ins and outs of culture.
I mean, one of the.
Most impressive was what you guyshad at NAEA because at least when
I went and visited you guys, Iwas literally blown away about how
people work together as a team.
And you really embodied these corevalues weren't just up on the wall.
I. People lived them.
(33:35):
Yeah.
They could recite 'em offthe top of their head.
And, um, you guys nailed it too.
So we got two, two great examplesof people at organizations.
Um, tell us why you become more profitablebecause you nailed your culture piece of
your, your, your team slash brokerage.
I. Um, well, I think, you know,going back to, I, I think you
know, the team leadership piece.
(33:55):
Whenever I like coach, other teamleaders or we collaborate, what I
find is the team's essence comesfrom obviously John or Jay or whoever
was literally in the trenches withthe most important thing to them.
And I think a lot of times team leaderswill be like, this is what I'm about,
this is this, this is that, and it'seither too aggressive or too one way.
(34:15):
To, to sustain, you know, for a long time.
And I think a lot of us, in thebeginning, I was, I'm a terrible manager.
I know that.
And when I was just myself selling 130homes with two agents and I wanted to
grow the team because I needed leverage,it wasn't because I wanted a team.
I was like, oh, let's, let's allbe happy and, and come together.
It was because I needed the helpand I needed leverage, but I
(34:36):
was at least new in my heart.
I was a terrible manager,so I hired somebody.
That could operationalize thebusiness while I was funding the
business with my, my deals, and whatI saw with this woman that came in
was she came outside from pharma.
She learned, she knewhow to run sales teams.
She was more accountable.
She held them accountable, which I didn'tbecause I can held myself accountable.
(34:59):
Like in my mind I was like,why do you need accountability?
Aren't you an adult?
Like, that's not a great manager.
That's like.
Do your effing job, you're an adult.
Like, so that was my attitudein the beginning, which would
not have built a great culture.
And so as I watched her and, and then,you know, really studied leadership
and John Maxwell and you know, I thinkin the beginning you're more like,
(35:20):
not selfish, but you're more justlike how we're trained as agents, solo
agents, and just get the job done.
I was driven by fear.
Fear of not having enough money,um, once I was safe and kind
of felt like, okay, I'm safe.
Like, I've got money.
I've got money in the bank.
Now I need to getserious about leadership.
I think I'm not great at it.
I'm a forever student of it,so I'm actually crappy at it.
(35:42):
But I'm, I'm still in the trenchesevery day, learning, every day
I lead, read something aboutleadership to, to expand my mind.
Um, and so now I went through the whole,give them what they want so they don't
leave, you know, uh, you know, get,raise their split so they don't leave.
All of that was wrong in my opinion.
And now the last several years,um, we adopted more John Shep
(36:04):
Black style, which is exactly that.
Like what are our standards?
We wanna be around excellence,we wanna be around grit, we
wanna be around failing forward.
We're fun af like that'sone of our standards.
Like we have fun.
Like we're not just crotty old.
You know, curmudgeons,like we have fun here.
And I think now that we, like yousaid, we live them, we breathe the core
values, we can look at a person and say,do they live by our six core values?
(36:27):
And if there is a no in acouple of them, they're out.
I don't care what they produce.
And, and so now all of a suddenpeople are seeing us fire a
top producer and they're like.
Whoa.
Like we're not untouchableand there is a standard here.
So I either adopt to this 'cause Itruly do believe in it or I don't.
And I always tell our, our team,I'm depending on you to co coexist
(36:50):
in this environment and kind of.
Co-create it with me.
If you don't believe in what webelieve, then there's the door.
And that's literally how we, wespeak to them because we don't want
them in here bitching and moaningabout what they don't believe in.
Why are you here?
Then?
There's no handcuffs.
The door's wide open and, um, and sothat's just going back, it's like what
I, I guess the point I'm trying tomake is the heart of the leader is.
(37:12):
Typically the essence of the team.
And I love helping othersand collaborating and, and
having a low ego around here.
You know, I fluff the pillows and cleanthe, the carpets just like anyone else.
And so nobody's above anybodyelse, and they carry that on.
Yeah, I love, I I love it.
And, and it's why I mean.
The results is just the, thedownstream ripple effect, right?
(37:36):
Mm-hmm.
Of, of the consistency in the work.
Um, just you being you and not allowing.
You know, those that, thatdon't align to, to our values.
And, and you know, the rule of thumb onthe core values is so if you have six,
then everybody has to have at least fourand they're working on the other two.
Yeah.
If, if it's, if it's threethere, it's not gonna work.
(37:58):
If it's two, it'll never work.
One, you should have neverhired 'em in the first place.
Correct.
So.
That's, that's kind of your barometer.
And what I would challenge anybodylistening in to this, that if you don't
have concrete core values that you lookat every day, you make decisions off
every day, your people make decisionsoff of every day, then that's the number
(38:18):
one thing that you've got to get right.
Um, and there there's a lot of greatexercises to come about your core values.
Um, Jackie, Jackie Bowman gaveme, um, an exercise to where.
It's basically, you answer 11, 12questions and it's like, like, you know,
do you have trophies or do you havepictures around you in your office, right?
(38:40):
Mm-hmm.
You know, like I havebooks everywhere I go.
Like, I mean, it's like, it's absurd.
Books everywhere and I mean, I'll justput books down just as a reminder to
see it, but I'll also do it sometimes'cause I want the kids to see it.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Just little triggers.
Well, that says somethingabout my values, right?
Yeah.
With, with the books or thepictures and things like that.
So there's ways to go about it to,to really uncover it and, um, the
(39:02):
worst thing you could do, and thisis what we did, Chad Goldwasser,
um, good, good friend of ours.
Um, I mean the reason Al doesrock and rock and rescue's gonna
be rock the spectrum this year isbecause of Chad Goldwasser and.
Chad was number one in the world forK for kw, and we had the very first
rate conference in our office sincewe started Rate and Chad's in there,
(39:24):
and he's talking about core values.
We're like, what core values?
What are those?
And Jay and I look at eachother and we start laughing.
We're like, well, he's numberone in the world for kw so we
they, they've gotta be good.
We'll just, we'll justuse his, that's right.
And we, they didn't mean anything, right?
Yeah.
They were just Chads.
Then when we first, when wereally started to understand it,
(39:46):
I mean, everything changed for us.
Yeah.
And goes into the culture that Al wastalking about in a ea and that was us.
I mean, that was just truly born out ofwho we were, how we showed up every day,
um, and, and really embodying and, andliving in, that's just kind of my, you
know, my definition of culture is just.
Your values plus how you behave, andthat's really the culture you have.
(40:10):
Funny enough, we did that samething when we first, like we did,
we started EOS like six years ago.
We're like, these, these look good online.
Like these values great.
I like those values.
Like, no, make your own.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Something, um, Jay and, and maybe John,you've done it too, but, um, he had told
me a few years ago, him and Amber andthe kids actually did their own family.
(40:35):
Core values and laid those out,and I thought it was a brilliant
idea that I never went ahead anddid myself, but I That's good.
So it's so good because everythingreally carries over a lot of the
things that I feel like, you know,maybe I haven't nailed it fully,
but you know, I'm, I'm really makingprogress on and I'm improving a
(40:57):
certain area of my business life.
I, I bring over to my personal life andI don't know why, but it's been in that
order, not the other order, like whereI'm nailing it on my personal and I
bring it into my, and they carry it over.
Yeah.
Almost always carry it over fromsomething that I've learned trying
to grow a business and failing there.
In fact, I'd rather fail in businessthan personally, you know, so it's
(41:17):
a good little, little barometer, alittle, little testing ground, right?
So when you think about it, I mean,that's the next thing for us is we're,
you know, what are our core values?
The funny thing is they start to appear.
Whether you're gonna sit downand, and identify 'em or not.
They appear all, they're the time.
They're there, they're there.
They appear in, in, when, when we have ourlittle disagreements, you know, we, they,
(41:38):
they appear when we're all laughing sohard and having just one of those amazing
evenings where, you know what I mean?
Like we just can't stop laughing andit's been like a great, so whether
you're, you're gonna struggle or not.
Those core values will start to,we just, you just have to have the
awareness of like finding them, youknow, and, you know, you know that
exercise al that, that's from, um, DarrenHardy's book, uh, the Compound Effect.
(41:58):
So if he still gives away his resourcesfrom the compound effect, uh, the core
value exercise, 'cause what it doesis it distills down to your three.
So in a, in a, in a, in, you know,in a relationship or whatever,
it would be your three values.
Their three values.
Now we have our six valuesfor, for the family.
So it's a great, it'sa really good exercise.
(42:19):
There's a bunch of different What if,what if you're, you're, you're her three.
You know, you're, you're in disagreement.
Like those aren't my, twoof those are not my values.
What?
Well, you have your three and one isfour, so you've got four of the six.
You're good.
Okay.
So got four of the six.
You're good, you're good.
We would argue about that, but yeah.
No, well, thank you.
(42:40):
That advice, sir? Tina,you're absolutely amazing.
You're, you're definitely a trueinspiration and, and really leading,
not only, you know, your, your, yourteam, your organization also leading,
you know, the exp organization aswell as leading in the industry.
So we, we thank you so much for,for all that you do and being able
(43:00):
to jump in here with us and justadd, add a ton of value as always.
Thank you guys and go to, to tina calldot honey badger award.com for my award.
Just kidding.
Yes, yes.
Honey badger award.com.
Go nominate Tina.
Go nominate tina honey badger award.com.
Um, but yes, to echo what John'ssaying, I agree with all that
you've been, become a really bigdeal right here in Cleveland, Ohio.
(43:24):
Whether you know it or not, you got fans.
Oh, I got some fans there.
You have big fans here.
You know, I've, you've donesome, some stuff with, um.
Mike and Caya and yeah.
He just can't stoptalking about Tina call.
Tina called that Tina call, andI'm like, yes, she's awesome.
I told you she's awesome.
She's awesome.
Well let it go, Mike.
(43:45):
Is what?
You guys have something?
Is there a teaser?
Or, or do we have to keep this long?
Oh, you mean John and I?
No, we gotta keep it, we gotta,there's gonna be a teaser keep.
Okay.
Okay, good.
Cool.
Whatever you guys first, Al one of ourfirst guests, whatever y'all got cooking,
I'm gonna be in line with my bull first.
It's tough because Iknow it's gonna be fired.
(44:06):
It's, it's, um, it is, it is fireand it is, it is cooking and I,
I am beyond excited about it.
It's gonna be really great.
Really great.
Yeah.
So I love it.
Well, thank you guys.
You're amazing.
Yep.
Vote for me com.
Get your, get your fresh merchand vote for your honey badger
of the, uh, the monthly award.
(44:28):
Right.
Uh, that would be a wonderful candidate.
And we will see you at the top, everybody.
Bye y'all.
See you guys.
That's a wrap for today.
I hope you got somethingvaluable from this episode.
If you did, hit follow andvisit John kitchens.coach for
more ways we can work together.
See you on the next episode.
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