The Emory Group's 600-home success wasn't built on luck, but on consistent action and service.

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back to another episode of Key Factors
Podcast Real Estate AF, wherethe AF stands for and finance,
and I'm your host, mark Jones,and we are powered by
ReviewMyMortgagecom, the largestindex of mortgage programs in
the nation, and on today'sdiscussion, we're going to be
sharing some insight with anindividual who has grown a team,

(00:25):
a powerhouse and essentially,in my opinion, helps out the
community that most don't tendto pay attention to.
But before we do, I've got achat GPT bio that I've been
doing and I really like thisbecause it kind of hones in on

(00:46):
the guest without the guestactually telling me.
It's pretty cool.
So here we go.
Devin Resendez is a San Antonionative and bilingual real estate
professional known for hispeople-first approach and
commitment to service.
In 2016, he founded the EmoryGroup, now a 40-plus agent team
that closed over 600 homes in2023, earning national

(01:10):
recognition for Keller Williamsand Real Trends.
Devin blends data-drivenstrategy with the purpose-driven
leadership focusing oncommunity impact and housing
solutions for families acrossall stages of life.
His work continues to shape theTexas real estate landscape
through innovation, integrityand heart of service.

(01:31):
Without further ado, I'd liketo introduce Devin Resendez how
you doing, I'm good man.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Thank you for having me.
Absolutely.
That sounds so good, right, god, I love that chat All of a
sudden.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm reading this.
I look over my guest's head islike it was growing.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I saw the eagle.
I love it, as it should.
Man, I have to keep my headcontained inside of this
building.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
As it should.
So, devin, some folks out therehave heard of you, have worked
with you in the past, butthere's plenty of them that tune
into this show, that have noclue who you are, and I first
want to give you an opportunityto tell us who you are, where
you started, where you came fromall that good stuff.
So, being that you grew up inSan Antonio, let's start there.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, so I grew up in the inner city of San Antonio,
that's the west side, 19th andHidalgo.
My mom had me when she was 16.
She was pregnant at 15.
This is before they made theshow 16 and Pregnant, so it
wasn't really glorified, um.
So she was young, makingdecisions.
So we live with mygreat-grandmother, okay, um,
because her parents passed whenshe was two, so her mom, her
grandma, took her in, which ismy great-grandmother.

(02:30):
So we live with her?
Um for most of our life in ashack.
It was a two-bedroom, one-bathold house and it was kind of
like the reset house for many ofthe people in our family.
Sure, when things would go back, they'd come to the grandma's
house and then they get back ontheir feet, they move on.
So when my mom was like 22, 23,we finally got our own
apartment, we kind of movedaround a little bit.
I went to Carver Hall in Tafoya,which are schools that are on

(02:51):
SAISD.
We ended up going to WarrenHigh School is where I ended up
graduating from, and what.
At the time you didn't realizeit, but what you're learning is
I knew I didn't know what Iwanted to do out of life, but I
know what I didn't want.
Okay.
So I knew I was like this isnot the lifestyle that I want
for myself.
Yeah, and so, seeing my momstruggle, working multiple jobs,
I knew that whatever I wasgoing to do, I was going to try

(03:12):
to find something that I wasgoing to be able to be
successful at and give myselfand the people that I love the
better life.
So we started there, fastforward, graduated from school
it wasn't a poor student, I knowyou hear a lot of that.
I was actually a decent student, a lazy student, but I was good
.
I was smart, I understood it,didn't go to college, joined the

(03:32):
Navy in 2019.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Thank you for your service.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Thank you, and then kind of moved around with that.
When I got back home I was herefor a little bit, decided to go
to LA try to pursue some acting.
That didn't work out.
Came back home yeah, youdefinitely have the face for
acting.
Oh thanks, it looked a lotbetter man A long time ago.
Put on some weight since then.
But came back home and was kindof trying to figure it all out,

(03:55):
kind of bounce job to job tojob.
A little bit of everythingsales, production management,
order selecting, and that's kindof where I found myself.
Last was in order selecting,which is I worked for Cisco.
It was the last job I hadbefore jumping into real estate.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Okay, okay, so Devin quick question before you
continue, being that your lastname is Resendez are you mixed
race or are you?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
completely.
I am.
I'm mixed race, so my mother'sHispanic.
I have her last name.
I'm named after her dad, tomasResendez.
I'm Devin Thomas Resendez.
My dad's last name is McCoy.
I didn't meet my dad until Iwas seven and then my uncle was
very close in age, so we becameclose and my grandmother would
come around.
We're working on a relationshipnow.

(04:40):
He spent 15 and a half years injail or 16 and a half years in
jail.
It was a while.
The day I left for the servicehe was on house arrest.
He had just gotten released.
Oh wow.
And so at the time it was kindof when I got back from the
service, we were trying to builda friendship.
Of course, I didn't yet havekids.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
And so I didn't extend grace, I just felt what
you mean by that is, I didn'tget the perspective of loving
something so much and being ableto push aside the pride to
create that relationship.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Correct.
Right, that's exactly right.
I didn't know.
I didn't feel like I wasmissing anything.
My mother was incredible.
She shaped me with my morals,my values.
I think the reason I am theperson I am today is a lot of
because of the things that shepoured into me.
She made me believe I could doanything.
Ms Connell thinks he could doit.
That's awesome, and so I thinkhaving that person in your
corner is always important,right?

(05:32):
If someone believes that you'reable to do it and you respect
that person's beliefs, and thenwhen you go and try to achieve
it, you do achieve it Absolutely.
It's that sounding board thatpeople, I think, need to be able
to go and reach whatever theirheights that they want to
achieve.
You need someone rooting foryou that you believe is going to
give you honest feedback.
And so my dad wasn't around.
We met, we tried it out.
It didn't work for a while.

(05:52):
We just started reconnectingrecently, and again he had a new
son, so his son now is probablyseven or eight.
My kids are 13, 12.
Gotcha, I have a two-year-oldas well, so you got an
eight-year-old brother.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
I do.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's different.
Yeah, I bet it's different, butthat's what made me so I went
to reach out to him.
We had an issue.
He works in the legal space, sohe's in the law firm, and so I
needed some assistance and Ineeded legal advice.
So I went to him and so when wewere there he said he had to
run a pickup dom.
And I was like Because wehadn't talked in maybe 10 or 12
years at that time, and so I sawhow he was raising his kid and

(06:26):
I said let's meet up and talk.
And so we went and we had lunchand hearing how he was trying to
do the right things for hiskids now really made me feel
like, hey, I'm gonna give you asecond chance, because I met my
son late in life.
He was already four when I metmy son and didn't know that I
had him.
But when I learned about him,it was very challenging in the
beginning to build arelationship because I felt like
I was I wasn't present for thefirst few years of his life, so

(06:47):
I didn't know where my place was.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
How do I connect that's?

Speaker 2 (06:50):
it.
And then you want to come offand be that harsh dad hey,
you're doing that wrong, rightand, and so I didn't want to
come in and and insert myself asthat dad rolled off.
I want to earn that spot, sure.
And so I can only imagine mebeing 19 and my dad trying to
insert himself at that time intomy life.
I mean, I had a dad in my world.
My mom remarried.
My mom married First husbandonly husband when I was 14, she

(07:12):
met my stepdad, who I called dad.
So that was my dad, becausethat was the first real role
model.
I don't want to say real rolemodel because I've had other
people in my life my uncle, whoI call my, my grandpa.
He's like my father figure,who's who I grew up knowing, um,
and he raised his family, didall the right things.
So, as a person, when you'retrying to build and shape the
person you want to become,you're visualizing, you're
seeing how these other peopleare interacting and you're

(07:33):
saying, hey, I like that, I wantto do that, yeah, and there's
been a few great men who havecome in, but a lot of that for
me was like who's going to stayhere and do the right things and
raise the family.
So him and my mom have threegirls.
I have three little sisters.
They're not little anymore, butmy oldest sister is 22.
She'll be 23 this year.
Then I have an 18-year-oldsister and I have a 14-year-old
sister, so they're younger.
My son and my sisters arepretty close in age, and my

(07:54):
daughters as well, so we allkind of had kids at the same
time.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Makes sense, makes sense.
So question for you your dadlast name?
You said McCoy, right, yep,black, he's black.
Okay, and that's what I wrotedown here is, and for now I just
want a yes or no question.
Then we can get into the restlater.
Yeah, and you'll kind of seewhere I'm going with this.

(08:18):
In the end, would you say thatyou were ever held down by your
circumstances?
No, okay, great, now let's talkabout what you did prior to
real estate briefly, and thenwe'll jump into that real estate
piece and I will come back tothis.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Because, similar to you which I'd go as far as to
say folks out there, you lookblacker than me and my daddy's
black too yeah, White, halfwhite, half Hispanic mother.
But I'm just.
I hear too many things outthere of people holding
themselves down based on whatthey believe that the world is

(08:55):
thinking about them, versus whatopportunities they're not
getting into with the lack ofexposure to good things, to good
stories, to good victories inour community, and I hate to say
that but I'm saying it anyway,no, I agree, and so before we
talk about what I did before, Ijust want to say the

(09:16):
circumstances I grew up in.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
They could be chains for people that hold them back
from getting what they want orit could be the fuel that
launches you to whatever it isyou want to become, and I chose
to use it as fuel and not be thechains that hold me back from
going and getting what I want.
That's right Out of this life.
So what I did before realestate I pick boxes, that's just
go.
Order.
Selecting is the job title.
Okay, you get RF scanner, youpick up boxes, you pick things
up and put them down.

(09:38):
Yes, an oversimplification ofthe job.
While I wish it was that easy,it was challenging it takes.
It takes some skill, moremanual labor than skill.
But the better you get it, themore you can earn Efficiency,
that's it, the more efficientyou are, the better you're going
to do.
Before that, I was in a fewmanagement roles and they just
never really worked out for me.
I found that I was very vocalabout the changes I wanted to

(10:01):
see in organizations and itdidn't pan out for those that it
wasn't their idea.
And that's what I've learned asI've grown more in life is,
I've realized that people onlylike the ideas that they've come
up with.
If it's not their idea, it'snot a good idea.
And so I did that ended upmoving to New Braunfels, because
the company I worked for wasbased out of New Braunfels.
We wanted to buy a house.
That's what kind of led to meto become a realtor.

(10:24):
I went to an open house, met arealtor.
We wanted to buy the house andwe were still in the lease.
And he said well, if you buythis house, I'll buy you out
your lease.
And I was like cool, that willhelp us get through this process
.
I had already worked on my owncredit because I had some credit
challenges before.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Same here Before I bought my first house.
Same concept, yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
I was like in the four eighties I had to fix it
myself.
I called around and, and it wasexpensive to fix it and I was
like, well, if I'm going to paythat much, I might as well pay
the debt and start over.
And so I was asking what theywere going to do.
And they walked throughdisputing and Google was
existing at this time, so I wasable to put in Google how to
dispute your own stuff andrealized I could do it on my own
.
So I went through, disputedeverything, fixed my own credit,

(11:05):
got it to where I wanted it tobe, started the buying process.
When we ended up closing on thehouse, the realtor didn't show
up to our closing and he didn'tbuy us out of our lease.
And so when we learned that, Isaid I'm going to get my license
and I'm going to do open houseswherever this man does it, so
nobody else falls victim to thecircumstance, yeah.
It was more of a vendetta thananything.
I don't think I ever saw myselfjumping into real estate.

(11:27):
I also don't know how manyother people found this as a
business that.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
I'm going to be a realtor when I grow up.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, I don't think it's something you aspire to be
growing up.
Unless you're probably exposedto it beforehand, you may
understand what this could beSure.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
But I had no idea.
Right, I can tell you one thingBoth of my kids say we don't
want to be in real estate ormortgage because y'all worked
way too much.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yes, and I find the same thing with my kids.
Neither of them have anypassion for real estate, at
least yet they're young.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
They don't know, they don't know.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
And so go clean your room.
Yeah, and so I.
When that happened, I did aglass door search and realized
and realized that realtors onlymaking 40,000 a year and it
wasn't enough.
But my thought was, if I can doit part-time and do a few here,
because on our sale he had madelike $12,000.
Wow, and I was like that's notbad money.
For what I felt like he did wasnothing at the time.
Um, it was a new home, so weended up buying a brand new

(12:17):
build and so there wasn't muchwork, in my opinion, beyond the.
You open the door, you're atthe open house and that's kind
of where it went.
So there began the journey.
This is 2015.
I was doing classes that night,so it took me about six months
to complete the courses.
It wasn't top priority.
But when I finally did, we'renow 2016,.
I ended up getting hurt on thejob.
They put me out of work on FMLAand I start interviewing

(12:41):
brokerages and, ironicallyenough, fun story.
So in 2012,.
And I start interviewingbrokerages and, ironically
enough, fun story.
So in 2012, I wanted to getinto flipping.
So back then, craigslist was athing and I was looking for real
estate space where investorswere seeking people who wanted
to come and learn, whether thatbe door knocking, calling on
house, whatever they need me todo, I was willing to do if I
could get the experience oflearning how to go about doing
it Right.
And so I ended up landing atSell Smart on Callahan with a

(13:07):
broker named Joel Corwin, andhe's had this program that said
earn while you learn, and so Icalled him.
We met.
My first question was do you doflips?
And he was like, if you comesell with me, I will help you do
flips.
Wow, so he essentially had mepracticing real estate without a
license, well, shadowing.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Shadowing and I've mentioned it before on previous
discussions with other guests,that we graze over this topic,
but the idea of our generation,the next generation, getting the
concept of working for free.
But you're not really workingfor free.
You're gaining so much in wayof the knowledge and experience

(13:40):
by seeing somebody else gothrough it.
Yes, you know, it's just lost.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
And we had had a conversation surrounding what
compensation would look like ifI was able to perform Right and
I felt like I was.
I was bringing people in.
They were bringing checks.
Yeah, at the time I didn'trealize the checks were earnest
money.
There was no one sitting medown to educate me.
To tell you what this is so.
I see them making money.
Then, hey, man, I brought a fewpeople in.
I haven't gotten paid.
And they're like, well, whenpeople get money, baby, this is
how they move.
And so you hear this outsidenoise.

(14:06):
I was like, okay, thisopportunity is not for me.
And at the time, we find outthat I'm having what I believed
was my first baby with my wifeshe was pregnant and I'm like,
well, I got to go get a jobthat's going to make me some
money.
Today went back to what I knew,started working.
So fast forward in 2016, when Iget my license and I have it

(14:27):
now and I'm out of work, I'mdriving around the square in New
Braunfels and I see, sell,smart, okay.
And I say, well, now this manhas to pay me because I'm now
licensed.
So I walk in the door.
He remembered who I was, um,and he gave me the opportunity,
and that's where I startedFebruary.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
So that was how many years later we were.
Four years later.
Four years later, huh Wow.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
And he brought it up.
He said you're probably moremature now.
And he was right.
I really was.
I was 22 at the time and now Iwas 26 years old jumping into
this business, wow.
And so I made it very clear tohim what the expectations were.
Like, hey, I'm out of workright now if I'm not going back,
right.
And so he.
And then Monday morning I showup to work bright and early, 8

(15:03):
o'clock, it's probably 8.15,because I assumed all realtors
showed up at 8.30.
Right, right, it's kind of likethe first day of school.
You don't want to be late, youwant to be on time, you want to
make a good impression.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
You want to be the cool kid, but you don't want to
be the nerd.
That's it.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Suit and tie at the time, right, yeah, um, so I I
show up overdressed, nobody'sthere.
Um, the second I walk in theoffice, there's a couple that
follows me in, um, and so theyhad the card stacks back then.
That would have the agentsdisplayed and they were asking
for a chris.
And I'm like let's look throughhere.
And I was like I don't see achris.
I'm so sorry.
I said, if you want to waittill they open, I'm happy to get
with the, with the officemanager, and see if she can get
us that information.
She's like well, can you helpus?
And this is day one, this isday one.
She's like can you help us?
And I said what do you needhelp with?
They want to sell our house.

(15:45):
Didn't yet have MLS, didn'tknow I needed it Right, had
nothing.
So we go behind the computer.
I'm just typing stuff on thecomputer, taking down notes.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Let me get your address.
My name is Devin.
My name is Devin.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yes, yes.
So when the broker showed uplater on that day, we went
through it.
We ended up getting the listingthat would be my first sale
Fast forward.
I show up the next day and I'mhaving questions with the office
manager, like where's everyoneat?
Because this is day number twoand nobody's here, and this is
back in 2016.
This is 2016.
Wow, and so I'm just confusedas to why no one's there.
She's like without me.
They're customers getting thosecustomers from.

(16:26):
Yeah, and she didn't have agood answer.
Um, she was just like well,they're just getting them from.
Where they're getting them from?
Yeah, and I was like how couldsomeone like me, who's brand new
, acquire customers?
Yeah, and she said, well, youcan do open houses.
I'm like where's the broker?
How's he getting business?
Because he was still a workingbroker.
So he was I won't call himcompeting, but he was out there
working still.
That's how you provide to getthe lights on right.
And so I was like where's hegetting leads from?
She said, well, he pays forleads.
And I said does he have any oldleads that I could call?
So she called him, got approval, gave me some old leads,

(16:47):
started dialing, called an oldman.
His son wanted to purchase.
He had already bought so he wasno longer looking, but he said
his son was.
So timing was just perfect andI just kept dialing and every
day I was showing up.
So from the days we did fourtransactions so two a week
roughly for those for those two,two weeks, and then at the end

(17:08):
of the month, every month, thatoffice would give an award for
the agent of the month.
And so I got agent of the monthand everyone was like, oh my
God, who are you?
Who is this guy?
Who are you?
What did you do?
Did you come from real estate?
What office are you moving from?
No, I used to be an actor.
I don't have the answers tothat.
I really didn't know what I wasdoing.
And right around that same timeI was doing a new home at Perry

(17:30):
Homes and the sales rep, afterwe did the deal, invited me to
lunch, okay, and in the car hewas discussing like, hey, man, I
see a lot of potential in you.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
What side of town was that this?

Speaker 2 (17:39):
was in New the Perry homes, it was Mill Creek, okay,
um, so it's 46 going back thatway.
That's where I was at at thetime.
Sure, that's where I was doingmost of my business.
And so, um, as we're driving,he brings up a man.
He's like hey, I want you to bethis agent.
Um, I think he can help takeyour business to the next level.
He's very successful.
Are you open to it?
I was like, absolutely.
Um.
So he gave me his number, Icalled his assistant, picked up
the phone.
He ended up, ironically enough,this agent had also been burned

(18:03):
by the same broker I wasworking for.
So there was a oh, wow, if Icould take from his plate, I'm
going to take it.
So when he found out who Iworked for, he called me
instantly.
Yet they recommended that toyou.
They did I don't know.
They knew that that was thesituation.
And so when he called and wemet, I went in with the same
thing.
I had told George Cohen like,hey, the goal is I'm going to go
back to my job.
And he said if I can have youearn as much money as you earn

(18:23):
in a year between now and then,would you stay?
And I said 100%.
I said if you just give me tothe same amount in a year I
would stay no brainer.
And so Ben began the process ofreal estate and we began working
and every day I would just showup and I would do what I had to
do.
And I had no understanding thatother people weren't having the
same success as I was in thisbusiness, because in our office

(18:46):
everyone was successful.
They were all doing a lot ofdeals and there wasn't a lot of
people in there, and because wekept the outside noise in, we
didn't know that somebody atanother brokerage was struggling
because in ours there weren't.
And so it kind of goes to thephrase of high tide rises, all
ships.
That's right.
And it wasn't until the end ofthe year that real producers
that put out the count of theagents and we realized that we

(19:07):
were ranking the top 100 agentsboth of us and so I was like,
wow, we're doing that good.
That puts it in perspective.
It does.
And so I think, because Ididn't know that there were
agents that were struggling andbecause I got moved so early, it
allowed me to build this workethic and continue to work
without having to be pulled downby the lazy by the ordinary by

(19:28):
the.
I totally get what you're saying, because that could have became
me right it could have beenlike hey, well, I don't need to
be at the office this early, andand it and.
When the year ended, I realizedI was getting lazy at the end
of my very first year because Iwas like, well, nobody else is
in the office, I could stay home, but I was still facilitating
business and I was working a lotof hours, but I wasn't spending
the time.
I should have been where.
I'm like, hey, I'm in theoffice every day, I'm doing the
right thing.
So in 2017, that was my goal Itold everybody like, hey, I'm

(19:50):
done.
And we had a poor business model.
We really did in 2016 becauseof the way that I was trained.
It worked.
You could sell a lot of houses,but we're without needing it to
be given away.
Sure, I mean, that was themodel that I was taught, and I
went to a training at the end ofthat year and I had done the
most business in this trainingbecause they went around as a

(20:11):
small mastermind and so, as wewent around, they were like well
, how'd you get the business?
I was like well, I get a lot ofit off of Zillow and we offer a
rebate to the buyers who chooseto transact with us, just a
gasp of no way Like it was taboo.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Why would you do that ?

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, it was so taboo and I was giving away your
money, yeah, and I didn'trealize that it was not normal,
right, because this is all Iknew, absolutely.
And so they started goingaround the the Nate.
They were really honed in on Pand L Like, are you a profitable
business?
And I felt very profitable,right.
Um, I felt like I was making alot of money compared to what I
was earning before, and so,after that class was over, I

(20:44):
texted my team lead the owner ofthe company hey, I'm switching
my business model in 17.
It's going to look a lotdifferent.
And so, in 17, that's what Idid I really honed in on
treating this like a business,really more like an efficient
job.
I don't want to call it abusiness because it wasn't that
yet.
It was just a great job that Ienjoyed, and I was willing to
come in early and treat it likean eight to five type of thing,

(21:06):
but I would work later hours ifneeded and that's.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
I'm glad you said that, cause I wrote this down
the idea that you were justspeaking about, or the concept
of your first year.
You started getting lazy at theend of the year, why?
Because everybody else is kindof doing it, and when an agent
gets in their first year, eventheir second year, it doesn't
really click that you're runningyour own business just yet.
So it's, it's what keeps youmotivated.

(21:30):
For sure, the money.
But if it's your first timemaking that kind of money, how
do you run your schedule?
What's most important, how toprioritize my day?
I mean, there's so many factorsthat go into that business, my
own business concept, that aremissed.
What was keeping you driventowards the end of that year?
Was it the fact that, oh shit,I'm on the?

Speaker 2 (21:52):
top.
I didn't.
Even then I didn't realize itand I was never chasing the
money.
Okay, I think I'm verycompetitive and so, while I
don't think it at the time, inthat moment, but maybe
subconsciously, I was truly justtrying to do more than the
person who brought me in.
So I was going to outwork him,I was going to do more deals
than him because if his numberwas successful when I came in,

(22:13):
he had talked about the yearprior making $400,000.
And I was like well, if I justmade 400,000.
So the goal was to get to him.
And if I just get to 400,000,then what's next?
It becomes a conversation, andso I did.
And in 2017, after that wordhad gotten out about the success
I had, a lot of the agents fromthe company I left were coming
in wanting to interview me firstbefore interviewing him.

(22:35):
But we're trying to figure outwas my success because of him,
and I was always like,absolutely, if I wasn't here,
the questions I would have had,the issues I was facing he was
able to help me understand whatI should be doing with my
business and get me to the nextlevel, so his business began to
grow.
So in mid 2017, we had adjustedour split model because I was
becoming successful and I waslike, hey, I don't want to

(22:55):
overpay, and so he agreed.
And as the year went on, thedeals became more, and so he
felt that I was no longer worthkeeping because of the cost to
have me, and so he decided tolet my license go.
We had a lot of deals pendingstill at that office, and so, as
I was looking for new places togo, I wanted to make sure the
next decision I made was theright decision for my business

(23:18):
and where I wanted to see thisgrow to, and I wanted to be
aligned with the right people,because the first two offices I
landed in I didn't know, Ididn't go and say oh well,
there's multiple places to go to.
You would almost think in thisbusiness, when you interviewed
and how quickly they hire you,that you must be some form of a
rock star right, because theyinstantly hire you.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
It's not even a hard interview.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
And so when I moved, I went to a friend's brokerage
who was a mortgage broker and hereally just wanted to get more
opportunities at our loans, okay.
And so he was like, come hangyhere, I'll let you stay for free
.
So while you pick out whereyou're going to go, he knew I
was going to move.
Sure, he fell off on here 30days or 60 days.
Yeah, if he can get a look atthose loans.
He also wanted opportunities totalk to our leads, of course,

(23:59):
and so he's like I can get achance.
So Callwell, remax.
And then and the reason why Ilooked at those places is
because at the time and this is2017 a lot of the successful
people were at these brands,right, and Keller Williams was
the last one, and that one cameabout because another agent at
the Keller Williams Heritagewanted me to interview for his
team.
Okay, and so we sat there, weinterviewed for the team,

(24:19):
realized it wasn't a fit forwhat I was trying to do, and so
then he set up the opportunityfor me to meet with Craig Owen,
and that's when the businesskind of shifted.
We sat for a one hour interview.
It ran six hours.
We ended up being there allnight and then he said let's set
up a second one, let's go todinner.
I want to meet your wife, okay,and so when we went to meet my
wife, he was selling her theentire evening on.

(24:39):
Tell me what you don't likeabout this, and he's good.
Have you ever got to see whatCraig?

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Owen, oh, 1000%.
Yeah, he's good that man cansell everybody.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yes, sir, and so my wife is now just like yes, yes,
he can go, you can take him.
And for me he brought up aconcept at the time.
He's like what are your goals,devin?
And I was like I want to be thenumber oneute my success based
on me.
Having some people helping meout Makes sense.

(25:06):
And at the time, in 16, thisteam concept was new.
But those who were the mostsuccessful had large teams.
That's right, and anytime youwould talk about their success,
somebody would make a remarklike well, they're only
successful because they have ateam Right.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
And I think the comment still probably gets made
, but teams are more common now,so they understand it better
and I agree with you on that thefacade, or that negative trait
that it carries over the top.
I think the shadow has goneaway or dissipated quite a bit,
because, you're right, a lot ofteams are doing most of the

(25:43):
business and it is all due tothe head of the snake, in
essence, that grew.
This thing, grew.
The brand is taking the risk tospend the money in order to
bring these leads in and buildthese relationships.
And then you get to a certainpoint and you go okay, now let
me duplicate myself the best Ipossibly can to give the
customer still this greatexperience and have the

(26:06):
knowledge and et cetera, alongwith me if they ever have
questions to come through.
And that being the case, I meanI, I had a team shoot.
I got in in 2012, 2013, 2014 iswhen I tried to start a team.
It was like me and my assistantat the time and.
I cannot stand the wordassistant, so that lasted very

(26:28):
short period of time.
It's like okay, I'm not callingyou my assistant anymore,
because I've had too manycustomers say hey, uh, why are
you giving me to your assistant?
Am I not good enough?
So now you're my partner?
Yes, and that changed theconcept of okay, now we can add
more partners to this.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
And you were early.
If you're doing that at 14, youwere ahead of the curve right
and you understood leverage atthe time in a way that nobody
did, and that's why I say in thebeginning that it wasn't really
a business.
It was a job, and a great jobright.
There's nothing wrong with notcalling this a business and
accepting that it's a great job.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
That's what it is.
That's what it was for me.
That's right.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
And so when we had that conversation, craig
convinced me that if I had ateam and I was able to help 10
people reach their goals ofreaching $100,000 and in return
still under a million dollars,would that not still be a great
life?
And he's like, and I saidabsolutely, I said I mean a
million dollars to 10 people, Iwould do that today.
Yeah, sign me up coach.

(27:21):
But it didn't seem possiblebecause my thought was, well, if
I was really making because Iwas making more than a hundred
thousand for 16, I think I didthat year 365,000 roughly and so
.
But Alex didn't earn a hundredthousand dollars off of me,
right, no?

Speaker 1 (27:31):
So how is that possible?

Speaker 2 (27:33):
So that's what I'm saying, like well, what am I
missing in this concept that Idon't understand?
And so when we left, we shutthe restaurant down.
When we ended up leaving, hiscar came first and he had a
Lamborghini.
Okay, and I told my wife whenhe got in the car if this man
has a Lamborghini, we shouldlisten.
Yeah, I'd already beenconvinced, or someone had
already started probing me.
The lender we worked with atthe time had been trying to

(27:53):
convince me to start a teambecause we had lost an
opportunity and I'm sure we lostmany others, but this is the
first one that we were aware ofthat I lost.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
And so you know what.
Can you give an example of theopportunity that you lost to
show the listeners that, hey, ifthis is happening to you, maybe
something to?

Speaker 2 (28:10):
consider yes.
So the client had flown in fromCalifornia.
There's an online lead.
We met.
I picked them up.
We went and toured the seven oreight homes that we had already
had scheduled that day, yep,prior to him coming in, we knew
we wanted to look at.
He loved one of them, so wewere going to place an offer
that evening on the house.
Well, the next day, saturday,he wants to see another one.
I was already fully booked upso I asked if we could do a
Sunday.

(28:31):
He said yes, sunday morningcomes.
I try to reach out to confirm.
He doesn't respond.
The lender calls me around 930and says that he's putting an
offer in with another agent andthey've reached out for a
pre-approval letter.
And he had asked what happened.
And I said I told him we couldwait till Sunday.
I thought we were going to meetthis morning.
What I learned in that momentis customers aren't going to
wait.
He was on a limited amount oftime.
He had to get back home and hehad to make a decision quickly,

(28:54):
and so I had lost theopportunity.
And in that moment the lenderhad said what if you had a team
and someone could have gone andhelped that person and you still
earned something and I was like, well, it was chalking up to a
loss.
That's evil getting in the wayyou realize.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
That's a rare occurrence, yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
And at the time there was probably countless others
that weren't as transparent.
They didn't impact me as muchMakes sense, but it happens.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Right, I don't care how good you are, you're losing
somebody, that's right.
And so we then fast forward.
He brings it up.
I call the lender back.
I met this dude.
He said I should start a team.
What hadn't been in thebusiness that long, I didn't
understand the business the waythat I do today, and so it was

(29:38):
premature.
Now my business was big enoughto support having a team.
That second year I was probablycoming off of doing over a
hundred transactions.
So I was doing a lot and therewas business to split.
But I didn't feel ready to lead.
But I realized I was losingopportunities because I couldn't
take them all.
And how many of those othersthat I didn't call or didn't
connect with that would havetranspired in transactions if

(29:58):
someone could have nurtured themthe right way and led to
business.
So we moved to Heritage.
We decided that that was theplace for us after interviewing
everyone.
After meeting Craig, he was theone who really did take the
most time to pour into us, so hemust have believed that there
was something here long-termthat I didn't see yet.
Something in you that I didn'tsee yet?
Yeah, right.
And so because the other oneswere just a quick interview like
hey, you want to come on board,come over.
And so this was the first onewho wanted to meet.
My wife wanted to take us outto dinner and there was a

(30:22):
connection in that moment.
And so 2018 comes, we start ateam, we hire our first agent,
the lender brings over somefriends, we interview, we hire
everybody.
So we, we grew quickly, so wehired our first agent.
She starts to have successright away.
A couple of weeks in gets acouple of deals.
So it was.
It was working.
Yeah, and, and there was notraining.
Because we didn't have anytraining.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yeah, it's like I didn't get much training.
You got a question to ask me.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
And that's, that's how.
I ran the business and we ran itthat way for so long.
But we March.
So I'm like, cool, we can justget this ramped up.
And so I started bringing onagents.
We get to four agents by Mayand the cap starts to hit for
the number of agents.
And so when we bring on ourfourth agent, the cap gets

(31:06):
higher, increases yeah, it does.
And so we were already cappedout.
But now the cap was reimposedbecause this new person and so
the next deal that closes, we'regiving money that we otherwise
wouldn't have to, and werealized that our fixed costs
were too high, and so we alsowant to hire again.
But now I'm like, well, hold up, I don't really want to hire
because I don't want this newcap to increase.
So we paused hiring and westarted looking to where would

(31:28):
we have to move.
I like the brokerage that I wasat and I've been there now at
that point maybe six or sevenmonths I did enjoy it, but I
realized that this wasn't goingto work for the way I want to
grow my business or the way Isaw it at the time.
Yeah, and so we ended upwanting to move to Legacy, so we
moved over.
We went to lunch, met a girl,well knew a girlfriend, who said

(31:48):
, hey, have you heard about me?
Not so much unhappiness, buthey, I can't grow the way I want
to because of this cost, right,I don't know where to go.
I do like Keller Williams, andshe had suggested me talking to
Legacy and I assumed KellerWilliams were all the same.
So I was unsure if that was theright move.
So I ended up talking to thebroker of Keller Williams Legacy
and he was like, yeah, you comeover.
The cap is this?

(32:10):
We moved our team over and webegan to grow.
We moved over and brought onthree people the day we moved
over, so now our team is atseven.
Yeah, this is now mid 18.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Those couple of folks that were waiting on the
sidelines.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
They were ready, yeah , and so we moved over and we
quickly grew while we were there.
But surprisingly, even thoughwe were growing, we weren't more
successful than I was the yearprior.
Okay, we weren't earning moremoney, successful than I was the
year prior.
We weren't earning more money,we were actually earning less.
And so at the end of that year,we were at nine agents and this

(32:43):
is the end of 2018.
And I have another person whowants to come.
It's going to put me at 10.
And Legacy says well, how areyou hiring?
And I said, well, they're justcoming.
I really don't know.
And I didn't have the answers.
And so, when we talked toSteven, steven said, hey, man,
let's pause it, let me talk tothe leadership and figure out
how we're going to impose a cap,if we're going to increase it
or not.
And so, while he was trying tofigure that out, other people
were reaching out, trying to getus to move to their brokerage,

(33:04):
because at this point we weredoing really well I think that
year in 18, we probably did like160 deals maybe.
And so we were doing okay.
And so another broker juststarted now and they were like,
hey, would your team like tocome over and I said, well,
here's what I need.
I want to be able to growunlimited.
I want my numbers to match thenumbers that they currently are,
and they were game for that.

(33:24):
And this is place number three.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
This would be now my third brokerage.
Folks out there listening thatmay be in a situation to where
you might be able to help morepeople if you added others to
the equation and essentiallyduplicated yourself could train
them, et cetera.
You don't need to necessarilywait until you're 100% ready.

(33:53):
You've got all the answers toyour questions.
You've got the perfect equationof what you think it's going to
look like, because chances are,once you start doing it and
putting the wheels in motion,something's going to change and
you're going to have to modifyyour business structure and how
you go about things.
So, in short, what I'm tryingto say is there's never a
perfect time.
Get your ass out there and fail, and it will motivate you

(34:14):
moving forward.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
And that is exactly what happened.
I was failing.
I was failing as a leader.
I was failing as this new teamlead.
I didn't have all the answers,I was doing it wrong and I think
when I started and that's why Isaid I was premature and
jumping into starting a team butwere you, who knows?
Because it worked out While Iwas failing I will say the
people who chose to join usearly on were very gracious.

(34:35):
They were willing to extendgrace as I was getting it wrong,
because that makes a hugedifference, because they're the
ones imposed with the changes inour splits, correct.
This is going to look like thisnow.
Sorry guys, I promise that,yeah, and so it was a lot of
changing up things.
And then we moved to this lastplace, the third place that
we're at Now.
We it's a new shop, and they'regrowing quickly.
The leadership is veryambitious.
They want to scale and growfast, and I'm behind it.

(34:56):
However, I can't.
I want to see y'all do this, Iwant to see y'all win, and so
we're doing it.
We're growing as well, which isgreat.
So I think at the end of thatyear, we probably grew to 16 or
17 people, um, and the numberswere getting bigger, and so at
the end of 19, they have aleadership split.
So 2020 opens up in 2020 andthey're splitting, and we
already moved from the office.

(35:17):
At the end of the year, we hadgot our own place 2,000 square
foot office off of Bandera Roadonly because they were giving us
free space and I feel guiltyfor taking on the space.
Sure, because we had so manypeople and so we were taking up
office space that they couldhave rented somebody else, and
so we were taking too much.
At that point, I was like, hey,it's time we get our own place,
so we're already about to moveanyway, and timing wise and you

(35:37):
can call it God or something outthere in the world that just
opened the right timing for usto be out.
And so, when they split, wewere torn between the two, and
so this is 2020.
Covid ends up happening.
We're growing the world'sunknown right, so we're having
Zoom meetings with our team andtrying to figure out, like, what
the next step was going to be.
Um, but we knew we had to move.
So this is February, we let ourlicense go and we decided to

(35:58):
just open up our own place orsay, hey, at this point we'll
just do our own thing.
Um, so I called back my friendRich, the guy who had the
brokerage early on, and say, hey, let me buy yours and take over
and let me just own, go, takeit.
And so I was like, well, I wantto rename it.
So we renamed it.
We called it Live Realty and itwas ours.
We negotiated a split with thebroker who sponsored us.

(36:19):
That made sense, so it was morefavorable for him.
So now he's able to hang hislicense.
So if he ever did a real estatetransaction, it was now a free
deal.
Yeah, guaranteed money, like,hey, no matter what happens,
you're going to get this $18,000period.
And so he was on board.
So we started that and we ranit for a while.
We moved from the 2,000 squarefoot building to a 6,000 square

(36:40):
foot building, um, and the teamcontinued to grow.
Um, we ended up having a higherleadership.
So I in those series is I hadto get coaches.
Okay, um, I didn't think Ineeded coaches, I thought I had
the answers.
We never think we, by the way,I didn't.
I really felt like, what arethey going to teach me that?
I don't already know, or I'mgoing to figure out as I go
through it, but what it did wasit put fuel on it and it made it

(37:01):
grow faster.
It put me in the rightdirection and avoided some
potholes.
I might have taken other wayswithout it, and my only
requirement when hiring a coachis they had to still be in
production themselves.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
I like that, and they had to be doing more business
than we were.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
So I was out there looking.
It wasn't hard, it was, it was.
It was challenging at thatpoint, even though our numbers
weren't that big.
Right, but most of the peoplewho get big into coaching have
already stepped away fromproduction More of the time.
Yeah, you are correct.
And so I found the coaches andI was telling them my hurdles
and how we need to grow, andwhat we didn't have at the time
was somebody who wanted to sitthere and mentor the agents,
just bringing them in and givingthem the opportunity and say,

(37:34):
hey, y'all figured out the waythat I figured it out.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
And our agents were doing okay, but their numbers
weren't that big and I couldn'tfigure out why we were putting
metrics on like hey, everyoneshould do and now, when you say
they weren't that big, what areyou comparing it to?

Speaker 1 (37:47):
To your own numbers?
To the rest of the company?
To the world's number?

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Or At the time it was just to myself, right, and I
was like hey, your ambition andI was cutting it low for them at
the time.
Okay, okay, because I was like,hey, my first year I did 72
transactions, so I'm on 72 sides.
So I'm thinking, hey, maybethat's high, right, but if y'all
can do four a month, I'd becool with four a month, that
seems, with the Absolutely, andthey were falling short.
So we kept moving this goal,this number, down, like, okay,

(38:16):
let's do 36 deals a year, right,that's three a month, can y'all
hit three deals a month?
And it realized that maybe onemight get there and the other
ones were lagging behind.
In these early years of ourbusiness, the real aha came for
me was we had an agent who hadbeen with us for a while and he
was about to call it quits, andso when that time came, I gave
him a deal it was a small oneand then he asked if he could

(38:37):
shadow me on a showing and seewhat that was like.
And when he came out and he sawit done live, it clicked for
him that the things I wastelling him when we would sit
and talk we weren't reallyhaving meetings back then, team
meetings it was just kind oflike, hey, y'all go sell,
because I didn't want to put anyrestraints that I didn't have
on me.
I didn't want to put that onother people.
I didn't think they jumped inthis business to have a boss or
to have someone telling themwhere they need to be at what

(38:58):
time.
So I didn't want to impose thaton them, right, and so I was
letting them run Like y'all godo it Knockout sales, thinking
that everyone was going to bedoing the same things that I was
.
Yeah, point to the end of theyear he became the number one
sales guy, I think.
From in those six or sevenmonths he did like 25
transactions, so he was gettingit and I was like this thing's
working.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
And just think the level of humility that he had to
have to be able to approach you, not only to let you know, hey,
this isn't working out.
Number one then also the levelof humility on your side and the
level of belief that you havein people, especially those that
are around you, to give himthat deal that he could have

(39:47):
went, I'll take it, but I'mgoing to screw it up or not pay
too much attention because I'malready one foot out the door.
But then his also level ofhumility to come in and say, hey
, can I shadow you?
I think it would be best if weworked this deal together so
that I can see what the hell I'mmissing because you're being
successful.
I got into this industry aroundsame time concept and

(40:09):
something's just not clicking.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yes, and it's funny because when he came in, that
was his exact thought was if youcould do it, I could do it.
We both worked together atCisco, so he came up, so he saw
me in that space, and what I'velearned over the years is that
people always see for you, whoyou were, and not for who you
are.
So because we worked together,he must have assumed that our
skills and our gifts aligned andthey were the same.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, Funny when people say man, you've changed.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
That was the goal.
That's it right.
It didn't work this hard to bethe same.
So as I was doing what I wasdoing, I didn't know that people
didn't get it the same way thatI got it, yeah.
And so when we went out and hecame out and he saw it done, I
said what if I did this foreveryone, when will we all end
up?
And so that's where the clickcame in.
I knew the parts of the teamthat I didn't like was having to

(40:55):
deal with the emotions of theseagents who were doing really
well.
Then they go in months wherethey weren't doing great.
It didn't make sense to mebecause I'm just like keep
showing up, Keep working, it'sgoing to work.
And so I wasn't good at dealingwith those emotions, it was
often said.
And so when you had brought uphim approaching me, it did take
a lot of courage on his endbecause people said at that time
I was unapproachable, or theyseemed like I was unapproachable
.
And what I've learned over theyears is it's now a word that I

(41:18):
use more often is I'm kind, I'mnot nice.
And so when you had brought upthe deal, I immediately told him
like don't fuck this up.
Like that was the exact wordwhen I gave the deal.
And so I'm sure he's alreadygoing in with, and it's always
been hard for me to to toencourage mediocrity.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
I 1000 percent, not only agree with you, but also,
at the same time, guess whatfolks?
Life isn't easy, life isn'tnice, life isn't going to hand
you a bed of roses for you topad your bed with.
That's not how this game works,and I'm not talking real estate
game or mortgage game.
Life in itself, it is hard.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Yes, right.
And so when I tell them like Iam a kind person, so someone
like, so the agents would alwayssay, well, once you get to know
him, he's so nice.
It's like I'm not, I'm justkind, I'm not nice.
I'm going to be hard on youguys because of the expectation
that I have for you, but notonly the expectations.
It'll be one thing if I broughtpeople into my world and say,
hey, go figure it out, I'll doopen houses every Tuesday, every
Thursday, every Saturday.
You do those things.
Maybe it'll work for you thesame way.

(42:22):
It's no, I'm giving you leads20, 30, 40, 50 at some point a
month for you all to go and meetwith these people and put them
into a home.
So I'm already providing themthe people, right, because this
is a contact sport.
So if I'm giving you the peopleat a certain number, it's just
math.
Hey, when you attend people, Iexpect you to sell one house and
that number to grow as you getbetter at your conversion.
You're handling your objections.

(42:42):
That number should then grow totwo or three on the same leads,
because you're just gettingbetter.
And so we hired a lead on ourteam.
We made him a COO.
We wanted to hire outside ofour organization because we
didn't want the person whosigned up first to feel like she
was naturally entitled to theposition because she signed up
first to the opportunity.
So we looked outside of thecompany and we brought somebody
into our organization and intoour world and he helped run it.

(43:04):
And he came from a completelydifferent level.
He was far more compassionatethan I was to people, right, and
so he was able to give that yinand that yang to like oh
Devin's an asshole, I'll go tohim, and so they would go to him
.
And he ran that for a while andour business continued to grow.
We were getting bigger andbigger.
Then we did 300 transactionsand then we just kept growing
and as more people came to ourorganization, they will share

(43:24):
the goodness with other people.
And we kept growing and italmost felt like why is this
getting so big?
Right, covid happened.
The business just starts totake off, right, the world goes
and we're losing opportunities.
I remember, looking like man,how many buyers did not buy with
us this year that came into usand we couldn't help those
families for whatever the reason, right.

(43:44):
But a lot of times it was theconsumers that we chose to focus
on.
So when I got in the business,I guess you got to backtrack
slightly.
When I got in, the person Istarted with was handling luxury
price points.
His average price point wasprobably $600,000 or $700,000 at
the time.
And when I looked at those whowere in those markets as I was
trying to buy leads there, theywere all very successful agents
doing hundreds, 200, 300transactions.
I didn't want to compete inthat space and be the low man on

(44:08):
the totem pole, because backthen we were advertising on
Zillow and Realtorcom and theywould show sales at the bottom
and I'm just getting started.
So I had like 15, 16, 17 earlyon and these people got 280.
And I didn't want to competethere and I say, well, where are
the people not?
So where's this market gap andwhere could I bring the biggest
impact?
And this is even before I knewit was like market segmenting

(44:29):
and I didn't know thosebuzzwords because I didn't go to
college, so I'm not have a allme neither brother, the streets
me neither, and so, but it makessense, that's it to me common
sense like it makes senselike go where there's no one.
Yeah, but it happened to befish where the fish are, that's
it.
And it was the largest market.
So I said so when I had my repand I was like, hey, I want to
go in these markets, like, well,the price points are really low
, and I said how many leads aregoing to give you?
Like 100s?
And I was like that's perfect.
I was like that's what I need.

(44:51):
I need the opportunity, I needto be as cheap as possible.
That's right, I didn't have abig budget back then.
I think we were, as we startedoff, at 250 spend early on and
we grew it.
And we grew it organically aswe did more deals.
Even back then funny story Ihad to do a secure card.
I had to hide it from my wifebecause she didn't want me to
invest in leads.
I had to.
When I took a closing, I had itI 700 bucks and so I would put

(45:12):
the charges on it.
So she didn't know that I wasinvesting.
Hey, cats out the bag mama.
Yeah, and so I had to hide itbecause she didn't see it as a
value add to our business.
Of course not, and it was scaryat the time to be investing in
something that we didn't know ifit would work or not.
So as we kept moving it around,we grew, so I went into this
market and I realized that theunderserved slash, unserved, was

(45:34):
in this.
At the time, the prices werebetween anything sub 150 really,
and on occasion you might get abig one.
300,000 would be a big deal atthe time, and again, this is 16
and 17.
So the prices of San Antoniowere still pretty low at the
time, just to begin with.
And so that's where I chose toput my business, because I had
the biggest swings at bat andnobody was really fishing where
I was fishing.
So I had the biggest swings atbat and nobody was really

(45:55):
fishing where I was fishing,right, so I had all of them, and
then, as my sales began to growthe agents who would come into
our markets I'm now the big fish.
Yes, I had the most sales.
So people were then choosing.
So we were getting more organicbusiness because we were being
selected versus a dial-in call.
So it ended up growingorganically, no-transcript from

(46:41):
production in late 2020,completely where I was simply
helping our agents be successful, being present more for them,
helping them overcome theirobjections, finding out where
they're struggling in theirbusiness, and that allowed for
ours to grow and make it bigger.
And we've always really leanedon the agents to be agents.
In our organization.
We don't provide a lot ofsupport beyond the opportunities
, and the reason for that is Ididn't want to make lazy agents,

(47:02):
I want to make great agents,and so I make them do everything
, and a lot of them are very,very knowledgeable in this
business and they've stuck withus and allowed us to grow
together.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
So two things stuck with us and allowed us to grow
together.
So two things.
Did you even know at the timethat what you were doing was
building a recession-proofbusiness?

Speaker 2 (47:24):
No, At the time I just thought why does no one
else know that there's a bigopportunity here?

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Okay, and the reason why I say that is me personally.
Same thing I worked with andstill to this day, I would say a
third of my business that stillcomes in is credit repair.
First-time home buyer andpeople say why do you still work
with that?
Well, number one, it feelsgreat in helping them, for sure
when somebody says no and I'mable to not say yes right away,

(47:53):
but this is how, and then itactually happens.
It's the best thing,feeling-wise, without the money
portion, anything like that, andthe price point in itself.
There will always be a biggerpool in this price point than
there are in the luxury marketor anything else.
And I've got loan officers thatare like man, I wish I could

(48:15):
get my average loan amounthigher.
Well, that time will come,because what ends up happening
is you turn all of these firsttime homebuyers into homeowners
and not only are they going totell people around them, but
they themselves probably believein the things that you've
educated them on and fastforward two to three years.
They're going to do it again.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yes, that you've educated them on and fast
forward two to three years.
They're going to do it again.
Yes, for me, what I didn't knowwas recession proof Me and
another agent after my firstyear.
We worked a deal together andhe was also successful at his
firm and we were at differentcompanies at the time and he had
had a conversation with me reallate and he was like hey, man,
I think we're going to be thetop guys as time goes on,
because the ones above us weresignificantly older than we were
and he's like they're going to,they're going to find

(48:55):
themselves out because they'reolder than us.
We were so young, 26.
I think he was probably 28, 29at the time.
Yeah, so we were pretty young.
So for me it was like I just gotto hold out, I got to be able
to stay around and do it and itbecame to the business I never
thought it can grow to becomewhat it's become today and what
I think it will be as we go on acouple of more years and I

(49:17):
figure out the things that I'veyet to learn.
When I got in, I was just likecan this be enough to keep me
out of system?
For sure, and the rest of ithas just been gravy on top of
that and and I don't know what Idid to get to where I should
have but in the book theAlchemist it says when you align
with your purpose, the worldconspires to get you there.
That's right.
And what I found is, when I gotinto this business, when I tore

(49:37):
my rotator cuff after I had thelicense, it almost felt like
timing God, the world saying hey, you're now going to align with
your purpose.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Whether you knew it or not, this is where, bird's
eye view, talking about yourjourney thus far, you can
absolutely see that it wasaligned and whether at the time,
there were mistakes that youmade, failures that you made,
those two were a part of thatalignment.
In essence, it brought me hereright Now sitting talking with
you.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
But even beyond that, it took me to a place that I
didn't even know that waspossible and the right people
were coming in at the right time.
It's almost like now you needthis person, Now you're ready
for this person, and they allbegan to take chances on me at
the right moments, Right, and sonow we try to repay it back and
give it right.
We there's a lot of agents inthis business who are building
amazing teams on their in theirown right and they're very tight

(50:30):
on how they hire.
It's almost like they're goingto apply for NASA several
interviews to become part of thegroup, and that's great for
them and their business and forme.
All I want to do is provideopportunities for those who are
looking for it, because I felteveryone deserves a chance.
So when you come to Devon, I'mgoing to give you a chance.
I'm going to give you the sametools, the same resources that I
give to everybody, and it'sproven to be successful time and

(50:50):
time again for the people thathave chosen to join with us, and
all of them have found theirown version of success.
And I told you how tight wewere in the beginning with our
goals that we have for theseagents.
We've gone to now saying youtell me what you want and let me
help you get there.
Yes, and if you'd get to thatpoint and you realize you want
more, I'm willing to push you toget more.
But we stopped putting these.
I don't want to say they wereunrealistic, because they're not

(51:12):
, but they are difficult, right.
It requires a certaindiscipline that some may not be
willing to commit to because itdoesn't fit their lifestyle.
And I've had to become okay withacknowledging that not
everybody wants that forthemselves.
I could want it for them, but Ican't want it more than they
want it, and so we've had thesepeople come in and, at different
phases in their life, they'renow ready for whatever's next.

(51:34):
We have an incredible agent.
Right now.
I'm a female agent.
Her name is Catherine.
She's been with me since 2018.
She's one of the ones that cameover when we moved over, was
also referred by the agent Atthe end of that year.
We did our goals and her goalswas to do $40,000 that next year
.
And I brought her in and I saidhey, I'm gonna let you know
something.
These goals are too small tofit inside my goals.

(51:54):
And she was like, if I madethat, my bills would be paid.
She's now several years makingsix figures.
Right now, she's probably one ofthe top agents on my team at
the moment, and now we're havingconversations like hey,
whatever your life is at today,you're obviously in a new space
where you're able to take onmore work and we want to be able
to help you get there.
What do we need to do to pushyou to do more?
And I think it becomes scarybecause she's already doing way
more than she wanted to doInitially, yeah, yeah, and her

(52:17):
lifestyle has grown accordingly,right?
So she now has a house andshe's a single mom.
So it's great to see that ourbusiness can cater to those
people, because I was raised bya single mom and I would have
loved for somebody have taken achance on my mom the way that
I've taken a chance on thesewomen, because what could that
have done for our lives.
And so to me, it's my way ofpaying it forward in some regard
, to saying, hey, I'm going tohelp everybody if I can, and as

(52:38):
long as the opportunity thatwe're giving can stay big enough
to keep giving those to others,we're going to keep letting it
get as organic and as big as itwants to get so that those
people can come in our visionand fit in theirs, because my
goals are so big we can fit alot of people's goals inside of
mine and still be relativelysmall.
I like that because I want toachieve a lot, right and and
real estate has become theplatform that's allowed me to
say, hey, these are now possible.

(52:59):
When I got in, I didn't knowanybody making a million dollars
in real estate, but I saw TVand they're making a million
dollars Now.
Their price points are $30million house.
It's cool, right, ours weren't.
But when I realized it waspossible is when it shifted my
mindset, and so when I startedlooking around the room and
saying, well, that dude's doing300, he got to be making a
million dollars at 300transactions, because at my 72,

(53:21):
it was 365.
So you times that up, he's inthat range.
And so then, when I moved overto KW, they introduced me to the
MREA book Millionaire RealEstate Agent.
Well, I didn't agree with thoseprinciples because they seemed
old to me at the time.
And again, gary's realized thatas well and redone the book.
But what it said was there arepeople making a million dollars
doing this.
How do I become one of them?
Right.

(53:41):
And then what I realized andGary had told me this line a
while back is he said it takesno more time for me to be me
than it does for you to be you.
And he's like I'm just moreleveraged and consistent for
sure.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
So I've got a couple of questions for you.
In what you've just talkedabout, the idea and I'm huge on
it from day one 20% minimumevery month over month of
reinvesting in your business,and essentially what that is is
reinvesting in yourself.
How not only difficult is thatto do when you have very little

(54:15):
starting out, and you'vearticulated that in the sense
that you had to hide that cardto even leverage to make that
happen.
You had the credit issues, sothat was also a struggle, but,
damn it, I've got to put moremoney back into this.
Or I mean, where were you,number one, where were you
getting that idea from toreinvest?
Because many go through thisbusiness their first, second

(54:37):
year and spend what they get andthen they realize, oh shit, I
got to pay taxes and that's noteven in the account.
It's not, but how difficult isit?
Who did you get it from?
So, who did you get it from?
And then, how difficult is itto stick to that, regardless of
the current circumstances,hoping for the outcome?

Speaker 2 (54:58):
I don't know who I got it from.
What I will say is I've alwaysbeen the type to watch, so when
I saw Alex investing in hisbusiness and how it's having
success, my thought was if I putmy money there, would I have
the same result?
And so that's where it began.
We weren't.
We didn't have any money, but Ithink having the right partner
is also important, and so whenwe started to make money, my

(55:18):
wife was wanting to save themoney because she didn't know.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Of course, she never had it before.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
We didn't, and I think a lot of it.
I think even I don't know ifshe'll admit it or not today but
I think we both were thinkingI'm just getting lucky, because
I didn't know what I was doingand there was no way that I was
good at something.
I just started.
And so I think we were boththinking this train is going to
run and you've been in thebusiness long enough.
In 16, people were jumping backinto real estate.

(55:42):
So there was a lot of fearmongering going on of like baby
save your money, Kid save yourmoney, man, because this is
going to go back to anotherrecession, because they just
came out of one.
So they were still scarred bytheir experiences that they had
in 2010 and 11 and 12.
So they were just coming backto getting back in the grind.
So they know that this couldhappen again.
That's right.
So we were both like, well,maybe we are just getting lucky,
maybe we should put a lot ofthis aside and save it for a

(56:05):
rainy day.
And that was probably the bestthing that happened to us,
because when we wanted to grow,we had the means necessary to do
it Absolutely, and so we wereable to grow at a pace and we've
still been great savers.
I'm cheap and I'm not right.
People are like oh, devin's socheap, because I'll say no to
some things that you think arerandom, but I'll say yes to all
of these.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
I'll buy that $100,000 car, but don't you dare
put that pencil in my shoppingcart.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
That's exactly right, I Right, and so for us it's
never been hard to invest in ourbusiness, right, and so we've
always been willing to give it.
At our peak, we were spendingabout $100,000 a month between
leads and softwares for theentire team.
To get the business to run andgrow.
It's not enough to just run.
That's exactly right, and wewant to continue to see our
agents be successful, and wedidn't want to dilute our value

(56:46):
proposition to the agents whosigned up first, to those who
signed up today.
So we had to keep spending tobe able to offer that to
everyone who's come on board,and so we were just ready to do
it, and so timing is importantas well, and I think when I
entered the business it was theright time.
Trade guidelines had changed sowe were able to get more time
with clients.
So when I want to serve asthose people, if they need a
little bit of work, I could getit done in the time and I was

(57:08):
fixing a lot of people's creditmyself because of what I did for
myself.
And now today you've grown into.
Now we have a credit paircompany that we pay every month
who does the work for free forall of our clients.
But in the beginning it waslike, hey, come by the office,
let me sit down with you.
Then it became like let's geton the phone call, let's log
into TransUnion Disputes andlet's go and target these items.
And we, you start to learn therules of the loans and then you

(57:29):
start trying to play within therules that you're governed by
and it was like, hey, all we gotto do is take off some medicals
.
We don't got to take them off.
The best lenders know how theydo, just so you know.
And so luckily, the rightlenders were giving me a chance
early and teaching me this sothat I could be a better
resource to my customers.
Because what I realized earlywas.
Every time I step with acustomer, all their questions
will be geared towards lending.

(57:50):
They didn't really havequestions about a house I've
never convinced and that isstill true to this day A hundred
percent.
And that's how we teach ouragents and what I've learned and
what I never wanted in thebeginning.
So let's backtrack to thisquick story.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Which is why you should visit reviewmymortgagecom
.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
There you go, Good plug.
But when I got in the business,the way the business was shaped
back then it was like you don'tgo out with people in your car
until they're qualified, andevery time I try to send those
people home.
I'm glad you learned that early.
An initial phone call to thepeople it was beating my
business up and so I would sendthem over.
They wouldn't talk to thelender.
I wasn't able to build enoughrapport, and so we took it to
one step further and said whatif we just move the buyer's

(58:26):
consultation over to somewhereelse?
And we discussed that inface-to-face, and so what I
liked about the online leads isit provided us an opportunity to
get in front of these peopleand see what they like, let them
tour.
And now we just changed thesetting Instead of being in an
office or a coffee shop, it's ata house.
We're able to discuss what theprocess looks like to purchase
and where you are now and thenour job as the agent on my team

(58:47):
is to meet the customer wherethey are.
That's right and is to meet thecustomer where they are.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
That's right and then figure out what the path
forward for them looks like.
And to add to that, one of thethings that I was teaching my
agents around that same timebecause we were doing a lot of
Boomtown leads things like thatwith Keller Williams agents.
We were very successful at itbecause we put a process into
place.
But the idea of the where was Igoing with that?
Where was I going with that?

(59:14):
Where was I going with that?

Speaker 2 (59:15):
I'm assuming you wanted them to meet the people
face-to-face, face-to-faceprocess.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
It'll come back to me .
Keep going.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Yeah, no for us.
We just had to getbelly-to-belly what I realized,
and so I had to ask the broker.
At the time, I was like, isthere a rule behind not being
able to meet people who aren'tyet qualified?

Speaker 1 (59:31):
is like is there a rule behind not being able to
meet people who aren't yetqualified?
Oh, I know where it is Boom,the idea of teaching the agent
and equipping the agent that aremaking the calls initially on
that lead generation processthat more times than not,
they're going to build a fasterrapport than going, hey, talk to
my lender.
And now we've got to start backover on that rapport.
And a tip for you guys outthere is have one of your

(59:52):
lenders paper applications withyou.
You've already built therapport with that consumer.
You've captured them on a phonecall.
You've met them at a house,coffee, face-to-face, Zoom.
What have you Built?
That rapport they trust you.
Now Go ahead and get theirinformation, Let them know.
We're going to get thisinformation and I'll get it over
to my lender to get back withyou for options.

(01:00:14):
Don't say approval, decline,pre-qualification.
I'm going to get, they're goingto get with you for options.
And the reason being is you'renot putting that close ended
concept of you have a potentialto be declined after doing this.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
That's not a bad idea For me.
I realized I need to be bellyto belly A.
I've always talked really fastand I found that over the phone
it's very challenging to buildsomething.
You have to get in front ofeach other, and so when we did,
I'm able to understand where youare and we don't believe in
saying no, because I've alreadyfeel like the people who are
calling home.
Shopping is the most windowshopped item in the world, so
it's taken courage already toeven want to reach out on the

(01:00:50):
house.
So the fact that they're here,I don't want to discourage them
at any point in the process.
To make them feel like thisisn't achievable for them, and
so we always say it's always ayes with us, it's never a no.
Sometimes it's just not rightnow and let's figure out what
that step needs to look like.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
And then, when I hit them with it, and it's one thing
to tell them that, it's anotherthing to literally show them on
screen what that's going to doand see their score pop up and
they go wait a minute that'spossible, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
And so we want a lot of people like that early on and
it became how we built ourbusiness and we were doing it
way different than what everyoneelse was doing.
It no-transcript feel like awaste of time versus sitting
here when it works and it beganto work right and and then when

(01:01:44):
it works, then it no longerfeels stupid.
It feels like that was geniusright and now everyone does it
that way and that's where itbegins and that's where most
people's buyers consults arebeginning, unless they were
referred some other way.
But for online leads, that'sbecome the standard of how to
work them and how to have themost success with them, and so I
don't know if I pioneered it ornot.
I'm not going to take creditfor it, but I will say that it

(01:02:05):
has worked for what we wanted toachieve in this business and,
as we look forward to what wethink it will look like, I think
those same rules will apply asconsumers become more instant
gratification people.
They want to see it now, now,now the world is just moving at
a fast pace today and we want tokeep up with that right.
You had to ask something earlyon.
Do I feel like color has heldme back?

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
I'm about to get into that.
Before you do, okay, hold thethought Putting yourself,
because you mentioned a momentago, were we just getting lucky?
You were having theconversation with your wife and
at that time you were doingsomething, but I don't think you
realized you were even doing it.
Fast forward now.
You absolutely know you weredoing it.

(01:02:46):
I'm sitting here listening toyou, knowing you were putting
yourself in a position to win,to have those opportunities and
a lot of things.
A lot of folks tend to be heldback by fear and even putting
themselves in the position towin, the idea of how do you,
growing up, the kids don'treally say I want to be a

(01:03:10):
millionaire, because they don'tthink it's even possible at the
time, until you actually meet amillionaire, sit with them and
all of a sudden you go wait aminute, that's a normal person.
This person is not a superhuman.
No, they're normal person thatlearned how to jump on their
passions, be consistent, havediscipline, work ethic et cetera

(01:03:34):
, and more times than not,they're willing to share their
stories.
They're sharing their secretsthat are not really secrets, but
the idea of that is getting indifferent rooms.
You've got to get into thisroom.
That makes your mindset, goholy shit, that is possible.
Then you get to the next phasein your life, in your career, in

(01:03:55):
your income goals, and you getinto the next room and you go
holy cow, this isn't the end forme.
Even that's possible.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Yes, getting in, I didn't know any millionaires
before I became my first myself.
Okay, I didn't.
I never became friends.
While I feel like I'm friendly,I don't socialize that much.
I'm not in the spaces to haveconnected with others who are
doing it, so I didn't know thempersonally.
But I saw them in my spaceachieving those numbers and
knowing like, hey, that person'searning 7 million, 8 million,
10 million.

(01:04:23):
There is a possibility that thisbusiness could become that big
if I just align myself in theright places with the right
people, and so those peopledon't necessarily need to be
making it.
And so I go to a lot oftrainings, and they're not
always the way you would think,because I take something from
everybody.
Okay, even if your business issmall, you're doing something
unique, sure, and I want to goand figure out is that scalable
for what we're trying to achieve, and can I bring that into my

(01:04:44):
organization and us scale thatbigger?
Because you're just doing itfor yourself?
Yes, right.
And so sometimes I'll sit witha lot of agents, or I'll go and
sit in trainings for a lot ofagents who have become
successful in their year, orthey're rookie of the year or
they've had a few years ofsuccess.
And I'll sit in and I'm oftensurprised at how many don't
really know what they're doing,but they're saying it without
saying it Right.
And so I'm catching it like,okay, the time that the true

(01:05:14):
constant is, they're justconsistently showing up and
putting themselves in positionsto win over and over again.
So you're spot on.
But I didn't know anymillionaires growing up.
When I say we didn't have much,we didn't have much and that's
why I knew I wanted to be thefirst.
That's it, and that's what Iwould tell my mom I'm going to
be rich, I'm going to be rich.
And I didn't have the answersas to how.
I just knew I was right and Itold her I'm going to take care
of you, you're going to havethis, you're going to have that.

(01:05:34):
I just got to figure out howI'm going to get there.
And when the thought of what wethought was going to be the
vehicle to get us there and itwasn't came, I then didn't know
if it wasn't going to happen,because what we thought was
going to work didn't, and so Iwas like, well, how do we pivot
back?
If that's not the way?
Where is it going to be thisvehicle?
And my mom prays like no other.
And when I was making mistakesand I wasn't doing well, we

(01:05:58):
didn't think it was going tohappen.
And, funny story, when I met mywife, I didn't work.
She was the one taking care ofus in the beginning and we were
just dating and I would alwaystell her family like y'all just
hold tight, I'll just hold tight, I'm going to have this and one
of her uncles that come to thehouse not too long ago.
He's like Devin, you did allthe things you said you were
going to do.
And I was like well, I hope I'mnot done yet because I'm only
35.
And we had that conversation, mywife and I.

(01:06:19):
We were leaving the house oneday and I was like do you think
this is it?
Like?
Is this where it?
We designed it.
We love it, it's perfect for usfor now.
Yeah, I was like now, granted,for many others, this may have
been their dream, their dream,that's right.
And I said but it can't be forus, that's right.

(01:06:44):
And I was like but what is next?
I was like is it a 7?
Because we are really young,most people.
I'm 35.
I just turned 35 in November.
We are on the lower end of ourlife, and most people at this
point in their life are justfiguring out what's working for
them, yeah.
And so for us to feel like, isthis really where it ends?
Is this the peak?
Yeah, because it doesn't feelthat way yet, because I don't

(01:07:05):
feel like I've reached mypotential yet, and that's what
I'm striving to hit every singleday is how do I reach my
potential?
What does that look like?
And in the beginning I didn'tknow that's what I was doing.
I just wanted to be good atsomething.
Whatever it was.
Anything I did, I want to bereally good at it, and so I
spent my life in the beginningtrying to.
When I got into the business ofreal estate, trying to figure

(01:07:25):
out what are the best people inreal estate doing around the
world.
So getting on podcasts, readingbooks and really trying to
absorb as much information as Icould, because I want to be
better.
And then, when I got into theleadership role, I want to be a
better leader for the people whowere positioning themselves
behind me and they're, dependingon their lifestyles behind mine
.
That's a big task to ask ofsomeone.

(01:07:46):
So we have agents on my team whoare much older than I am, and
I'm leading these folks and Iwant to be the right leader for
them, because it may be hard forthem to view me as their leader
when they're older than mymother.
100%.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
I mean the idea of once you get to these peaks or
plateaus at the moment,especially for me.
I built this business, startedseveral businesses off of it and
pivoted while coaching andmentoring my loan officers, and
then, all of a sudden, themarket changes, so production

(01:08:21):
goes down.
I find myself going, well, shit, none of this other stuff works
unless this is working, pullingmyself away from the things
that I had built and thought Imade it, yes, and now doing
production again.
I get the opportunity to dothings over and people get to
say, oh, if I had a chance to goback and do it over again, I'd

(01:08:41):
do it this way.
I'm getting that opportunity asan originator, lender, mentor,
coach to my loan officers,creator of tech tools, things
like that.
Now, at this point,incorporating that into the
business, seeing how it's easyfor the newer to the business

(01:09:02):
loan officer agent to bediscouraged because it's
difficult, it is, and the timethey're stepping in.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
If you're stepping into the business today, I would
argue that it's very much likestepping into business in 2009
or 10, right out of thereception right out of the
recession because it has its ownfair share of challenges.
And when you bring up the havingto restart or redo something
all over again, I find that thisbusiness has allowed me to do
that and it keeps me mentallyengaged because it's always
faced with challenges.
When I got in the business, itwas only up, yeah Right.

(01:09:30):
And so then you hit the peak ofCOVID and it gets even crazier.
That's right.
And then it just goes down sofast and you're having to pivot.
So you're always like whatwould I do if I had to restart?
And you have to ask yourselfthat so many times.
And I find that the leaders whodo stay ahead of this recession
and where's at no-transcriptpage for the same, he's like

(01:10:00):
that's good news and I was likethat's not good because that's
not what you want right, um, weend up doing more volume this
year because the price pointsare just growing on their own so
it's not us, it's justeverything's still more
expensive.
And so, but we did almost theexact same amount of units.
I think it was actually likesix less homes, I think the year
prior we were a little over 600.
This year we're at 588.
Okay, and so it wasn't a lot ofdeals difference.

(01:10:21):
But what I told him is I wasn'tforward thinking enough to
figure out how do we overcomethat.
And I must have gotten stagnant.
And I read a book and I wentback from the book.
It had said for if you want torestart and you think to
yourself I have to redo it allover, what would I do if I'd
start all over?
He's like start all over today.
And so now, when we come andthe questions I'm posing to my
agents as we go better, it'slike what's your biggest
challenge that you're facing?

(01:10:41):
And then you let them solve theproblem for the longest time.
As a leader, I want to solvethe problem for my agents.
I relate to that.
I felt like A we're going tosay both save time.
Yes, if I give you the answer,you'll get it.
But the question is, if youdon't arrive on the answer on
your own, do you get it?

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
It won't stick.
And so Gary has allowed me tobe in his mentor inner circle,
which is like the top 50 agentsin our company, and in there he
poses these and he says well,the ones that I lead, which is
very few, he's like we juststart with one thing in the
morning.
He's like and that's what'syour biggest challenge you're
facing today, or this week orthis month.
And then they tell them and wespend 30 minutes unpacking that

(01:11:19):
for themselves and they walkthemselves through the answers.
And when they arrive at itthey're like I got it, I know
what I need to do today.
No-transcript unpack where youwant to go.
Let's start with what yourchallenge is today and how do we

(01:11:41):
overcome that.
And then you got to arrive atthe answer here's the answer,
here's the answer.
Then it goes back and it goeseven deeper and says am I
fathering my kids the same way?
Because my time is.
I don't want to say it's morevaluable than others, but I'm

(01:12:01):
limited, limited.
I have a limited amount of timeand so, in order to be as
impactful as possible, let'sjust skirt this whole, figure it
out and let me just give youthe answer.
You may not like the answer, sowhat ends up happening?
When you don't like my answer,you go start seeking it from
other people.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
On the money, yep, because it didn't suit.
So you find the answer that youwant, that you want, and it may
not be the answer that youneeded.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
So then you end up going and doing that.
Then it doesn't work.
And then we, when I was inthese businesses and I was
coming up with what I believewere successful solutions to
help improve the business itwasn't their idea, so it wasn't
a good idea.
That's right.
And so now we just let peoplearrive at the answer.
So I've been working reallydiligently lately on being the
right leader for the people whowant to align with me, so that I
can get them wherever it isthat they want to go.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
And it's funny that that that if you walk over to my
office right now, I got a glasswindow on the door and in
Sharpie marker it says nevertell what you can ask, not even
joking.
Walk over there right now.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Do it, and so it's wild right that we don't think
these ways.
And so when I met with Gary,his first question is like
where'd you go to businessschool?
And I said I didn't.
And he's like how'd you arriveat becoming a business person?
I said I didn't think I was.
I'm just a person who's managedto think of things that are
common sense.
That's right, and they feelvery common to me and it feels
like this should be generalpractice, like I don't feel any
more special when I, when I waschoosing where I want to target

(01:13:21):
my business, I was shocked thatnobody else was Right.
I was like, wow, really yeah,but for them their time didn't
feel.
It's a lot more work, right,when you get a hard deal, you're
fumbling through issues.
It takes a little bit more time.
It clogs up pipelines for somelenders For sure, right.
So we've often struggled withfinding the right lender partner
because our deals are morechallenging, so it clogs your
pipeline.

(01:13:41):
It's hard for them to meetsuccessful closing dates because
of the issues that are facedwith these people.
Right, the jobs don't quiteline up.
It's not 40 hours every week.
Now, we've got variable income,so as they start running into
these problems.
It's almost they always send methe shit.
Hey, thank you for mentioningthat stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
It does right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
And so on our team.
We really do believe in givinggrace to everyone, right?
If you're my partner, you're mypartner, I'm going to rock with
you.
We're not always going to win.
We're going to go down together.
They're still in my life todaythe closers, the escrow officers
, the lenders, insurance guys,the offices in my building he's

(01:14:20):
still around.
We still use the same peoplethat were here before.
We were successful before.
People knew and not everyoneknows, and we've stayed quiet
about our business.
For myself and a lot of peopleask why don't you do these
things?
I think when I got in thebusiness, I already had a big
ego.
I really did believe that I wasbetter than I was, and had I

(01:14:41):
allowed the external validationto come in, it would have made
my ego unattractive and almostlike man.
That guy's just so stuck onhimself.
And so I stayed down long enoughfor me to realize, like yo,
this isn't really me, it'severyone else, and today on our
business, that has helped usbecome successful.
And and I hope that I'm makingthe right choices.
And when I make the wrongchoices, they still say, hey,

(01:15:02):
he'll get it right next time andI hope that I do Right.
But there's been a lot of timeswhere I've made decisions that
not everyone agrees with in themoment and they'll come and
they'll vocalize it and I'll say, let's just, let's just try it,
yeah, because if it works we'llrevisit this conversation.
You'll think, man, he was right.
If it doesn't, I'll be the oneto realize like I didn't get it
right and I guarantee you'll behonest in taking that
constructive criticism andadmitting your fault.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
I'm getting better at it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
There was a time where I wasn't because, I've
always been the type to believethat you should defer to the
person who knows right.
And so, in in my world, I don'tknow anybody personally who
sold more homes than me in mybusiness right.
So for me it's like, hey, ifyou don't know the answer, just
defer to me.
Yeah, I got it.
And then, but there's peoplethat I go to in rooms and I'm
forced to defer because I reallydon't know.
Like, hey, you've done this.
So when I'm sitting with garyand we're having discussions and

(01:15:47):
he tells me something, whetherI agree or not, I'm like it's
the gospel, it must be right,the man has gotten it.
That's right.
And so I remember when I left.
So there was a moment where wewere interviewing with the CEO
of ROA.
He had flown in to see usbecause we had flown to Chicago
to visit him and we weren't ableto visit, and so, because we
didn't meet, he flew out tovisit me so we could have that
time that we're supposed to,which I thought was cool.

(01:16:07):
Hey, you're a CEO, you can comedown and visit.
And they were startingsomething new and cool and we
were on board.
We liked what they were doing.
It was new.
We wanted to be an earlyadopter.
We ran it by the team.
The team was on board.
We don't make a decision nowthat's this big without
consulting the group.
And so we discussed it.
Everyone was on board.
There was going to be somecompensation adjustments for
this new brand.

(01:16:29):
And I went and I told Steven.
I was like hey, here's whereI'm at, steven, I don't know
what to do.
And he was like why haven't youmet with Gary?
And I was like we set it up awhile back.
It just never came to fruition.
He's like you follow up on it?
I was like I didn't realize Ihad limited on time because I

(01:16:50):
had to get back for mydaughter's birthday.
He was like I respect that andwe can go and do that.
So I go, we meet, we're sittingdown, he brings a gift for my
daughter.
Wow, cool Right, because heknew it was her birthday and
we're talking, and, as we're inthe right place, Like this man

(01:17:22):
gets it.
And he was like you drank theKool-Aid.
And I was like there's alwaysthis, this, this.
It had a twist in it.
It does Right.
Everyone always talks about KWand drinking the Kool-Aid.
And I said I didn't drink theKool-Aid.
I just realized that this manis so much smarter than I am and
I have a lot to learn.
And in that moment, when we left, he's like, hey, I'm gonna put
you in my mentor program.
If you allow me, I would loveto mentor you, man.
And I was like, well, now I'mgonna get mentored by this

(01:17:50):
person.
Where could I go?
And Tim Howe, and how he'sopened up Homeward and all these
additional companies thatthey've built outside of the guy
who did fellow, he had broughtthem up.
They're all up in his andthey're all in his mentor
program.
Sure, and they're all buildingbig businesses that align within
real estate but aren't directlyrelated to their sales business
Cause they were alreadysuccessful realtors, right

(01:18:15):
businesses.
And he was like, let's go andbuild that.
And so I called him back and Iwas like, hey, guys, we're going
to pump the brakes on this roadthing.
We're in the right place.
And it really gave me clarity,but I had to defer a lot of
times because we were going andthere was a lot of things I
disagreed with.
But I'm like maybe I'm wrongand I just don't realize it
today because this man is somuch more knowledgeable than I.
So in those moments, as we lead,it took a lot for me to be able
to take constructive criticismand I'm still getting better at
it because there are people whofeel comfortable enough to say,
hey, devin, I don't agree withthat decision that you're making

(01:18:36):
.
And I got to go and say, hey,this is how I want to leave.
We're facing that today.
I have an agent because I toldyou, I'm kind not nice.
There's somebody who's beengood to me and I want to be
great to them.
And in that moment there's aclash between our moral compass
and the values that we have inour group that have been
instilled and been pushed intotheir heads, like this is what I
believe in, this is how I move.
It almost conflicts in someways.

(01:18:57):
But I told the person who cameto me and said hey, man, I don't
agree with that decision.
I think you're going the wrongway and it doesn't align with
what you said you wanted foryour company.
And I said well, the firstthing it has to align with is me
.
I got to be able to sleep atnight with decisions that I'm
making, whether they're right orthey're wrong for sure.
And I said and if I get itwrong, that'll be on me, but I
can't go and not give somebody achance, because they deserve it

(01:19:20):
and they should have it with us.
And so we're having to makethese kinds of sacrifices and
hard decisions, oftentimes asleaders that the world may look
at and say, man, that was stupidof him to do that.
And then, if it ends up workingout, now you're the genius down
the road and hopefully, whenthis is all said and done, I
could be one of those guys.
I remember when I met withScott to me, with Craig, he had
said he's one of the mostrespected people in real estate

(01:19:40):
outside of Deanne Harper, and Iwas like I didn't realize there
was people who were so big inthe industry that when they go
into rooms they're very wellreceived and respected because
of what they've achieved.
And I hope that one day, if wedo this the right way, someone
will say, hey, devin is wellrespected and what he's bringing
to the table is so good, and sohopefully I can become that

(01:20:01):
within our industry and thenaround the people, more
importantly, who are closest tome and are in my direct group,
and those are the people I wantto impact the most.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
That's badass, devin so many things and we're running
out of time here.
But one thing that I noticed inthat last segment there is you
mentioned your ego, but all I'mseeing is your humility and
humbleness in how you're goingabout things, how you conduct

(01:20:29):
your business, how you approachissues and problems and the
rooms that you're now gettinginto because of the way that
you're conducting yourself.
You may, on a micro level, be alittle egotistic, but at the
same time, I think we all haveto have that trait in order to
have the drive, the ambition,the level of tenacity that we

(01:20:56):
have to go about our business,or even go about life, to get to
what we want our goals to be.
These aren't your goals, theseare my goals, that's it.
I'm not saying you got to belike me, but damn it, I'm doing
it.
So if you want to kind of getwhere I'm at, you kind of have
to be on the same train.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
You hit it on the money.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
To add and to circle this back up with what I had
started this discussion with,and I don't want to get
political or anything like that,but I asked you a question has
anything held you back frombeing successful and
accomplishing your goals thusfar?
And a list your credit being asingle mom, you had low income

(01:21:43):
to start with.
Shit, dude, you're black andMexican.
We're supposed to be theminority.
We're supposed to be the onesthat are held down and back from
the white man or the whateverthat's holding us back.

Speaker 2 (01:21:54):
Those are self-restraints, right.
And so, yes, as I gained moreweight and got older, I looked
more Latino passing, but when Iwas younger I was more
African-American passing, and soit didn't, because people would
assume I was black and whiteand not black and Hispanic, and
so maybe they were letting me inbecause they thought I was half
white.
I don't know.

(01:22:14):
I've never allowed anything tobe a deterrent.
I feel like if I go in the roomand I can wow the room, I'm
going to win, and regardless ofcolor and the only color that
ultimately matters to the peoplewho care is green, is the money
moving, I'm moving, and so I'venever allowed anything to be a
restraint.
Me being raised by a singlemother.
I think I'm successful becauseof that, because I wanted to
give her everything first, andthe way I am as a husband is the

(01:22:37):
way I wanted my mom to be lovedby somebody.
So I'm doing it that way.
The way that I would have lovedto be raised by a father is the
way that I'm raising mychildren right, and the way I
would have wanted to be providedfor is the way I'm trying to
provide for the people that Ilove.
So I think all of thedeterrents are why I work so
hard and why I do those thingsis because of those.
In spite of these circumstancesthat you mentioned, the credit

(01:22:59):
going bad was on me right.
Being young and dumb, I lived aborrowed lifestyle.
I had enough to just pay thebills so I could have my shit.
And when I lost the job becauseI worked for somebody else, I
couldn't afford to maintain thethings that I had.
So I couldn't afford thelifestyle.
So I fucked my own credit up.
That's right, but I'm glad Idid it at 21.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
So at 27, it was all gone anyway, but there are
plenty of people out there thatwould blame something else
versus taking accountabilityjust like you did.
My credit wasn't bad becausethings were against me.
I fucked it up.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):
That was it Whoops, that was it Whoops.
I did Right.
And so, and today I'm findingmyself having to make all those
things right because I did themwrong early.
But I'm glad I did them young.
And I tell my mom when wediscuss it, because everyone has
a horrible time horizon, theybelieve it has to happen now,
now, now now.
And I tell her, like when I wasmaking those mistakes and she
might've questioned herself as aparent, like, did I do the

(01:23:47):
right things?
Was I doing it for my son thebest way I could?
It's like I let her know atwhat point are you able to be
young and make mistakes?
Now to do it at 40, I wouldquestion how I was raised.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
Grow up I was like, yeah, but I said at 21,.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
You should have allowed me to make mistakes and
realize I'm going to have totouch the stove a few times.
I know you told me it wasn'tthe way to go that way.
Right, I got a tattoo at 15.
I remember calling on the phone.
All my friends were going toget in there without telling
their parents and I called herup like hey, mom, we're gonna
get tattoos, you cool with it?
She's like yeah, go ahead.
When I came home, got thetattoo, she's like you did it.
I was like I did it.
You said it was okay.
But we always had such a greatrelationship and and when I told

(01:24:21):
her I was gonna do it, I meantit.
Yeah, it was inside a poor timehorizon of like, when I
believed I was old, right, right.
There was a time where Ithought being 35 was old.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
Same here and so I'm like I'm not rich by 35.
I missed my boat.
It's like, no, you haven't, andthere's still plenty of
opportunity.
So that listener who's outthere today, life is this
because of those lessons andthose things you've been taught
are shaping you for whatever itis you're going to become when
all those things had to happenin order for you to appreciate,
when you get to, whatever thatlooks like next.
And I tell people often amillion sounds great, but you

(01:25:02):
might be just as happy making$25,000 and you make more today
because life feels a little biteasier, and it may be $150,000
more.
Whatever that number is for you, you may realize, as you're
chasing whatever it is, you'rechasing individually because
goals are personal, right, andthere's no impact outside of us.
It's what do we want to achieve, and so it's inside of us, and

(01:25:22):
so not everyone's going to agreewith the direction you're going
.
No-transcript, I think it canhappen and for me, I just always
believed that I could, and so Idid.

(01:25:43):
And every decision I made Imade it quick.
When I joined the service, Iwent and I met the recruiter on
a Saturday, leaving the mallbecause my car broke down.
So I was riding the bus and Iwas sitting at the bus stop in
front of Ingram Park Mall andright behind us was the
recruitment office.
Wow, I walked up there and Isaid hey guys, I need to sign on
bonus because I need to get acar.
What can I do?
And so they took me to take myASVAB on Monday.

(01:26:05):
Did the ASVAB?
We went down, they wanted topick a, and he said why?
I said because if I don't, Iwon't do it.
And so he's like the earliest Ican get you out is Wednesday.
This is a Monday.
Wow, and I was like let's do it.
And so we left on a Wednesdaybecause I felt like if you give
yourself time, you will talkyourself out of doing the thing
you said you wanted to do.
And oftentimes people who aresetting themselves up for goals
they've already discouragedthemselves before they even put

(01:26:25):
the idea could go wrong, and notwhat could go right.

Speaker 1 (01:26:30):
Yeah, devin this was your first podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
My first podcast.
I did it for my man, herman.
He just passed away.
He would always say, devin, getin front of people, get in
front of people, and he's likethey got to hear your message.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
And I was like no, I can't do that man.

Speaker 2 (01:26:43):
I can't get in front of people, and he just passed
away recently, so when theopportunity came up, I couldn't
say no for him.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
Shout.
I couldn't say no for him.
Shout out to him.
I love him Absolutely.
Man, you got me there.
I want to thank you for this.
Thank you, this is not aconversation that I get to have
often.
Even though I get to do thisoften, this resonated a little
different.
This hit a little harder Forthose of you out there listening
.
I mean well, you've given us somuch, I don't even want to ask
Is there anything else you wantto say?

(01:27:13):
I mean man I think you did it,you, you did it.
Oh, thanks, um.
And that being the case, guys,the last thing that Devin
mentioned um, that can be summedup with time kills all deals.
But just know that you've gotplenty of time.
Until you don't, I'll leave youwith that, guys.

(01:27:36):
I'll continue to bring guestsjust like this, bringing
powerful messages that you cantake and incorporate in your
business, in your life, in yourfamily life.
Hopefully this stuff isresonating with you.
Hopefully you're taking thisand sharing it and using it and
giving yourself a differentperspective of what we go

(01:27:56):
through business owners gothrough, to know that you too
can be successful withconsistency, with enough passion
, with enough drive, with enoughdirection.
And if you find yourself in aroom that you're not getting
what you're looking for, move toa different room.
It is that simple.
It is.
In many cases, a lot of feargoes into it, but once you get

(01:28:21):
past that hurdle, that comfortzone that we talk about, that's
called growth, and nobody ishere to tell you what your
growth should look like as longas you're continuing to move
forward.
So I'll leave you with that.
I appreciate you guys tuning in.
We're now at just under 21,000subscribers on YouTube.
I'm still mind blown at howpeople are listening to this

(01:28:42):
stuff, but we were committed togiving you

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