March 24, 2025 • 55 mins
Imagine taking the chaos of running a property management or real estate business and transforming it into a laser-focused operation that practically prints money. That's exactly what Sean Moudry, bestselling author and one of the top real estate coaches in the industry, unpacks in this riveting conversation.
Sean's journey from selling 72 homes in his first year at age 21 to building multiple successful businesses offers a masterclass in strategic specialization. "When it comes to marketing and attention, it's like a laser," Sean explains. "If I'm shining my light with a wide beam, I might light a room up, but if I narrow that beam super tight, I can burn a hole through something." This principle of niche marketing becomes the cornerstone of sustainable success in any real estate venture.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is Sean's unflinching honesty about both his triumphs and failures. After achieving mega-agent status for over 15 years and becoming a top 10 team leader at Keller Williams nationwide, Sean left to start his own brokerage with an innovative coaching model. While the venture ultimately didn't scale as planned, the lessons he learned about systemization versus personality-driven business are pure gold for anyone building a company.
You'll discover practical strategies like the "Financial Freedom in Five Years" program that property managers can implement immediately to connect with realtors and investors, creating steady streams of business while establishing themselves as the obvious experts in their field. Sean also shares his current approach to social media marketing, focusing on views rather than engagement metrics, which removes ego from the equation and forces continuous improvement.
Ready to transform your property management business from a scattered operation trying to please everyone into a focused powerhouse that dominates its niche? Listen now, and then join us in implementing these strategies to build the business you've always wanted.
Join fellow property management entrepreneurs and 6 expert coaches in a small, private high level event at a mansion style venue with a private chef and personally selected attendees to maximize the value you receive while at the event.
Join the waitlist for additional information here: https://ONYXwaitlist.com
Save the dates! July 13th - 16th, 2025
visit pmsuccess.com for more value packed property management related information or to hire Tony as your property management coach.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But when it comes to marketing and attention so money
and time, money and time,marketing and attention it's
like a laser.
So if I'm shining my light andI have a wide beam, I might
light a room up, but if I narrowthat beam super tight I can
burn a hole through something,and that's what niche marketing
does.
That's what working in theniche does.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to the Property Management Success
Podcast, where we interviewleaders in the industry to
uncover the secrets toprofitability, efficiency and
achieving true freedom.
Whether it's your time, moneyor lifestyle, I'm your host,
tony Klein, and I'm here to helpyou build a wildly successful
property management business.
Let's get to it.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Property Management
(00:40):
Success podcast.
Today, I am joined by SeanModry.
Sean is the author of the bookthe Ultimate Guide to Building a
Real Estate Brokerage astep-by-step guide to becoming a
successful real estatebrokerage owner.
Sean, welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Thanks, tony, it's good to see you.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, it's good to see you and, in full disclosure,
sean is a good friend of mineand he's also one of my favorite
people to follow in the realestate space, and not just
because he is a bestsellingauthor, but also because he is
one of those people in theindustry that likes to take
risks, make bold actions, andwe're going to dig into that a
(01:20):
little bit, but before I do Iwant to give people a little bit
more of an idea of who we haveon the podcast today.
Sean is one of the top realestate coaches in the industry,
as designated by Inman News.
He started his career in 1995at the age of 21, selling 72
homes in his first year andbeing honored with the Hall of
(01:43):
Fame at REMAX, which is the $1million in gross commission
income earned in just four and ahalf years.
He's featured in RealtorMagazine's 30 Under 30.
And then he also maintainedmega agent status for over 15
years, consistently, with annualindividual sales of 150 sides
(02:08):
and team sales of over 600transactions a year.
So I'm excited to get yourperspective on just business in
general real estate propertymanagement, and so thanks for
hopping on with us.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oh yeah, it's my pleasure, man, all right, thanks
for hopping on with us.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh yeah, it's my pleasure, man.
All right, let's give them alittle bit of background,
because I know just from you andI, talking over the years,
you've had a little bit ofhistory with real estate, which
I talked about you getting in atthe age of 21, having some
immediate success selling 72homes I know some real estate
agents that have not sold 72homes in their entire career,
(02:44):
let alone in the first year andthen you went on and became a
real estate investor and we hadsome successes and some lessons
that we learned through that.
And so just tell me a littlebit about what drew you to real
estate in the first place.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Well, you know you're talking about investment.
It was when I was probably 18or 19,.
I saw the Carlton Sheetscommercial, the infomercial, and
it was how to buy houses withno money down, and he talked
about becoming a millionaire andstanding in front of his
limousine and his you know thejet in the background with his
(03:24):
name on it, which was probablyjust a sticker that they put on
it for the for the episode.
And he talked about buildingwealth through real estate.
And so when I was 18 or 19, Iput on a credit card $275 for
Carlton Sheets, vhs tapes andhis booklets Sheets, vhs tapes
and his booklets and I watchedhim and then I did it Because
(03:46):
it's funny, because I've talkedto a lot of people I'm sure
there's people on here that thatgot the Carlton Sheets tapes
and then watched it and thoughtthis isn't real.
Honestly, I was just too dumbto know better.
I grew up in a trailer park inIdaho Springs and Colorado, in
the mountains of Colorado.
I needed to believe insomething honestly, and so I
(04:09):
would go out and I would doorknock houses and ask them if
they would sell their house tome with a non-qualify assumption
.
And one of the other techniqueswas to walk into real estate
offices.
No appointment, you would justwalk in and talk to a real
estate agent and say, hey, I'mlooking for a non-qualified
assumption.
And in that process I cameacross a real estate agent who
(04:31):
said if you're willing to dothis, you'd do really well in
real estate.
She's like you'd kill it.
And I said really.
I said how much money would Imake?
And she says you can make about$4,000 a month and I was like
what All my dreams I mean thiswas 92, 93, right, all my dreams
(04:54):
will be accomplished.
I could have a house and a car,you know.
And so I went to work for herand she paid me $500 a closing.
That was the deal.
And she was really smart.
She was running ads in the forrent section that said, why rent
, buy a house with no money down?
And she was running downpayment assistance programs.
She said, well, all you have todo is sell eight a month.
That's all you got to do tomake your four grand.
You just got to sell eight amonth.
(05:15):
So she was good at marketing.
So the phone rang.
There was no shortage of leads.
There was a lot of work ofgoing through the prequels and
finding people that weremotivated, and then we would
play a game called Dr Pepper.
So if you remember the DrPepper bottle, is like 10, 2,
and 4 on the.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Do you remember that I?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
remember, yeah, 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock and 4.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So we would book appointments 10 o'clock, 2
o'clock, 4 o'clock that was ourappointment schedule and we
would answer the phones and say,okay, we'll pick you up at your
house at 10 o'clock.
We're going to take you out andshow you some homes.
And we'd take them out and wewould show them anywhere from 7
to 14 houses and then we wouldclose, close, close, like that's
(06:01):
what we did and that's how we.
That's how I sold 72 homes myfirst year, right Is.
Was that process?
Um, so then I worked for herfor about a year and I went.
Then I went out on my own.
I already learned the system.
So we did 104, I did 104transactions my second year and
(06:22):
144 my third.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, so I think one of the big takeaways that I got
from that is that you sawsomething on TV and you bought
it and you immediately tookaction.
And in my coaching business Ihave a lot of people that will
call me and we try to see ifwe're a good fit for us to work
together, to do businesstogether, and they talk about
(06:48):
all of the things that they'reafraid of as they sit on the
sidelines and invent this stuffin their heads, of all the
things that could go wrong, andyou were able to just dive in
and take action.
And I think that's such a keyto people's success is take
action and figure it out alongthe way, versus try to figure
everything out and then takeaction because you'll just be
(07:11):
frozen in fear.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, I think intelligence can be a curse,
right Like I have a guy on myteam, very intelligent gentleman
, and I keep telling him yourchallenges is you're too smart
because you're trying toanticipate.
You know three moves, fourmoves ahead of the game.
It doesn't matter, like whatyou think is going to happen
(07:33):
four moves from now doesn'tmatter until you take the first
step.
And to your point is I didn'tjudge Carlton Sheets' process.
I was a pizza cook, right Like.
I knew how to make pizzas.
He's telling me how to become areal estate investor.
I didn't pizza cook, right Like, I knew how to make pizzas.
He's telling me how to become areal estate investor.
I didn't know anybody else whowas in real estate.
I didn't know, I barely knewanybody who owned a home that
didn't have wheels on it.
I mean, the rich kid in myschool had a double wide.
(07:57):
Okay, that was the rich kid.
So for me it was like I didn'thave any other distractions or
anybody else saying, oh, you'redoing it wrong or try it this
way.
We didn't have YouTube to go onto do more research.
That would conflict with whathe was teaching.
And I think it's important tosay I've bought many, many homes
(08:23):
with the techniques he's taughtover the years.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, that's the second big takeaway that I got
from.
It was first one is you had anidea.
You immediately took action andyou figured out along the way
how to improve that.
But the second big takeaway isthat you found a mentor, or a
mentor found you.
You found somebody that youcould follow in their footsteps,
somebody that already had itfigured out.
And I'm not necessarily talkingabout Carlton Sheets at this
(08:50):
point.
I'm talking about the brokerthat said hey look, I've got
this system, let's plug you intothis system and I can help you.
It's proven.
I can help you be successful inthis.
And again, you bought in andtook action.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, her name was Sheila.
She's amazing and I'll tell youin 1994, her commission income
was $435,000.
That was like drug dealer money.
In fact we got pulled over ondriving down Wadsworth because
the cops pulled us over and herbeautiful Cadillac and they
(09:28):
frisked us on the side of theroad because they said we've
been watching you and we knowyou're drug dealers.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So let's, let's actually fast forward a little
bit and we're going to skip oversome stuff and we'll we'll come
back Cause I know we had somechallenges from the time you got
into real estate, but I want toflash forward you.
You became the leader, the teamleader, at Keller Williams, and
you grew a market center andyou grew it profitably year over
year and recruited over 115agents and that was during the
(09:56):
Great Recession and this landedyou in the top 10 team leaders
in Keller Williams nationwideteam leaders in Keller Williams
nationwide, and that was over700 team leaders.
And I want to a lot of times,small business owners.
They have a lot of ideas intheir head.
(10:17):
They have a hard timecommunicating those out to the
team and it sounds like you hada lot of success of building a
vision, building a story andsaying come join me.
And I want to dig into that alittle bit because I think
that's an area where a lot ofsmall businesses just miss the
mark.
They're like I have a desk,maybe you bring your own
computer, maybe you have acomputer, I don't know.
(10:38):
I know what I'm doing.
I need some help, so I hiresomebody.
Now that I've hired you, I'vechecked the box and you go do
your thing, but I don't reallyknow what to do and there's no
buy-in, there's no cult in theculture.
So tell me how you were able todo that, to where you were able
to recruit 115 agents onto yourteam.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
There's no cult in the culture.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I'm going to write that down.
I'm stealing that.
I've trademarked it TM at thebottom.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
You and I think so similarly, tony, like I love
that.
How you frame that up, it's100% first, identifying one of
two things Either what you wantor the business you want to own.
Right, because the last thingyou want to do is build a
(11:26):
business that you're not happywith or happy around the people
that you built it right.
So creating that, the mission,right, where are we going?
Right, or the you know, whatare we doing?
What are we here to do or servethe vision, where are we going?
And then the values are thestandards of which you're going
to perform right, so you have tostart there.
So there's only one or two waysto do.
That is.
One is what is the businessthat I want to be part of?
Okay, and can I attract enoughpeople, customers and or agents
(11:51):
to that?
I want to be a part of this,because there's some people
their whole thing is I want todo, put in the least amount of
work with the highest amount ofreward.
That's a great thing, okay, foryou as the owner, for the
people around you, it kind ofsucks.
So, yeah, you're going to havea great business of one.
So then, secondarily, is whatis the mission, vision, values
(12:13):
that your customers can getbehind, and I think that's what
we're talking about when we talkabout scaling a business,
because in brokerage, yourcustomer is the agent, right,
like my job is to serve theagent, the agent's job is to
serve their clients or theirconsumers, right?
So what is a mission, visionand values that I can provide or
(12:37):
that I see that will attractthe number of agents that's
going to serve my market?
So, in 2011, I think it was 2010, 2011,.
The market was tough and therewas a lot of people getting out
of the industry, and one of thebiggest challenges was training
a seasoned agent to adapt to ashifting market very similar to
(12:59):
today.
Right Today, you need to beversed in assumptions.
You need to be versed in, youknow, stressed situations,
people who are financialdistress, short sales, bridge
loans, like you've got to haveall of these, these, these,
these tools that you didn't needfive years ago, four years ago,
in 2010, 2011,.
(13:22):
What I did is I realized thatthe market we're moving into was
a heavy short sale market, andso what I would do is I would
print out every day the list ofthe foreclosures that came that
day, and then I'd staple ascript to it right to the top,
and agents would walk in thedoor and I'd hand it to them and
I'd say, here's your list today, go door, knock these houses.
(13:45):
And so we became a team ofpeople that were proactively
prospecting.
Now here's the important pieceNot to get people to list their
house with us, but to providethe consumer, the customer, the
client, the community, the sevenoptions they have when they're
behind in payments.
There's seven things that aregoing to happen from this point
(14:05):
on, one of which is you mighthave to sell your house.
Now, our job is to maintainhome ownership in our
communities.
Can I share with you how youcan keep your house?
And so we became like, you know, kind of I don't want to say
the heroes, but that our missionwas to really engage the
community and educate them.
And so we did, we did seminarson it, we did, we would, we
(14:27):
would do it at the library,community centers, all that kind
of thing.
And you know I think you knowwhat was about 50% of the
listings you had would sell backthen, you know, because it was,
it was tough, and so that'swhat we were, um, and if you
love that and you were somebodythat want to make an impact on
(14:48):
your community, then we were agood fit for you.
If you were an agent who waslike I want to do million dollar
properties and sit on the beach, you weren't a good fit for us,
right I think.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I think it's so smart that you coached you, you
created that system and saidhere's, here's your scripts and
go, go, hit the.
So you, you gave peoplesomething to plug into.
Yeah, you gave them the roadmapto take action, but you also
gave them a message of education.
So they they weren't going outand hardcore selling, they were
(15:22):
going out and educating, and oneof those seven options was hey,
if you have to sell, we canhelp you with that.
But here are the other sixoptions that you have.
So I think it's really smart toposition it as you're educating
the marketplace and if businesscomes out of that which
obviously is a goal, but ifbusiness comes out of that, it's
(15:45):
natural, as opposed to let meknock on your door and see if
you want to sell.
So I want to.
But even that, though, evengetting people, people have
these fantasies about being goodsalespeople, but being in sales
is really really hard.
It's a hard job, it's a lonelyjob.
You can have a highest of hightoday, you sell something today
(16:06):
and tomorrow you're technicallyunemployed until you get
something new under contract.
And so how did you convincethose agents?
Because I really want to diginto like, you had a system.
But how did you attract them?
What was your messaging?
And not necessarily specificfor that brokerage, but how did
you get 115 people in therecession to say I believe in
(16:31):
Sean, I believe in where he'staking this brokerage, this
company?
I want to follow him, I want toput my efforts and align my
efforts with his.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Well, I'd love to tell you.
It's that glamorous, but thetruth is, back then,
unemployment was really high,right?
So a lot of these people didn'thave another choice.
It's not like they had anotherjob that was going to pay them
$30,000, $40,000, $50,000,$60,000 a year.
They didn't have an option.
Most of them got laid off.
(17:02):
We were running a real estateschool, or we were going to the
real estate schools and tellingpeople our expectation of us is
that you're going to have a dealwithin your first 90 days.
And if you interview a companythat says anything different
than run, right, like you'regoing to starve to death if you
don't have something pending in90 days.
And we took that on as ourexpectation.
That's still my expectationtoday.
(17:22):
Like I have two productivitycoaches, I tell them look, if
you don't, if they're not doinga deal in the 90 days, you're
failing them.
Like this is on you Eitheryou're not setting the
expectation correctly or oryou're not holding to them
correctly.
Right, like there's only one oftwo things, because if somebody
fails out, it's, it's us.
They don't know.
They don't know what they'recoming into.
So one of the things that wasdifferent back then is the
(17:44):
unemployment was high.
So we were really working withpeople who they were like me
when I was new.
They didn't have a preconceivedjudgment about the market.
You know, of course we had somepeople who were in the business
that adapted, but I would saythe majority of them that were
in the business prior to therecession struggled through the
(18:06):
recession.
Here's another reallyinteresting story In 2006, I was
probably top 100 real estateagents in the nation.
In 2010,.
I was pretty much bitched LikeI wasn't doing any deals.
Really, I met an agent in 2006who was brand new, Brand new 20,
(18:34):
24 years old by 2011,.
He was the number one agent inthe entire United States and the
reason is he didn't come inwith any preconceived ideas
about the market.
He just accepted the market forwhat it was.
He saw the opportunities and heembraced those opportunities.
(18:55):
We're still good friends today.
He and I are still good friendsand I've made him probably
close to $600,000 over theseyears.
But coming in with preconceivedhabits, preconceived judgments
in a shifting market will killyou.
They'll kill you.
I see agents struggling rightnow.
Right, the market shifted andthey're still waiting for the
(19:15):
phone to ring and they'reputting their glamour shots on
Instagram.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, I kind of equate that to rearranging the
clutter on your desk, waitingfor something to happen, as
opposed to going out.
And the game has changed.
You do have to be moreproactive.
You do have to be moreintentional with your
communication and stackingaction.
A business card, which I don'teven know.
If people have business cardsanymore, I don't, because you
(19:43):
give a business card to somebodyand that's it.
But if you get their contactinfo now you're in control.
But anyway, that's a tangent, soyou can't just say I'm in
business and hopefully businesscomes to me and we work through
with a lot of our clients.
We work through how to create abrand that makes you unique.
(20:04):
And I can't imagine with theamount of real estate agents
that you've trained over theyears and that you've been in
contact with.
Frankly, real estate agents areall the same until they're not
right, and we're all the sameuntil we've done something that
separates us from the crowd,rises us above the noise, and
it's the same thing in propertymanagement from our client's
(20:27):
perspective.
Right, they have nothing elseto judge us on because they
don't know how we're different.
So it all comes down to price.
What do you charge?
And you've spent a lot of timetraining real estate agents to
become a category of one or tobecome somebody that stands out
from the noise, and tell me alittle bit about your experience
(20:50):
as a trainer nationwide in theKeller Williams organization.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Well, like what do I specifically train on?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
What you've trained on.
You know, I know that you for awhile were doing some
nationwide training andtraveling and and you know what,
what were people looking for?
Not just the how to work atransaction, but really more on
the marketing side, the brandingside, the how to be unique, how
to make it in the business.
(21:16):
I'd love to get some tips fromthat.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I agree with you a thousand percent.
And you know, when I, when youand I first started developing
our relationship, I remembertalking to you about your
property management company indowntown Denver and one of the
things you said was no yards, noroofs Right.
And I was so weird to mebecause every other property
manager I knew would pretty muchtake anything in anywhere Right
.
And your point was is I can'tservice somebody who's in the
(21:45):
suburbs of town?
That's just not my specialty.
If you have a condo in downtownDenver, I'm your number one
choice.
And because of that you had avery successful business and a
line of people ready to sign upwith you.
And I think real estate's thesame way, like as a real estate
agent, if you say I help luxury,I help condos, I help
(22:06):
first-time buyers, I helpinvestors, then your voice is
not.
They don't hear you.
Right, you can't because youcan't help everyone.
It's not real.
So I always think about it,like in accepting a deal.
I have a wide net and that netcomes in and anybody who comes
into my net I'm going to help,either through my services that
(22:26):
I can provide or throughconnecting them with somebody
who can provide that service forthem.
I got an intake call yesterday,somebody with a $2.2 million
fixer-upper in Greenwood Village, and I was like I Google it, I
look at the Zillow and I'm likethis is an amazing house.
I'm not your guy, this isn't me.
I said I have the perfect agentfor you.
(22:47):
Let me connect you with her.
She specializes with high-endremodels because it needed
updating at $2.2 million.
That's not my wheelhouse.
I could do it, but I'm notgoing to do a great job at it.
She's going to do a great job.
She's going to do a great job.
This is her wheelhouse.
So I have a wide net.
Any customer comes in, I'mgoing to service them and get
them in the right direction.
But when it comes to marketingand attention so money and time,
(23:11):
money and time, marketing andattention it's like a laser.
So if I'm shining my light andI have a wide beam, I might
light a room up, but if I narrowthat beam super tight, I can
burn a hole through something,and that's what niche marketing
does.
That's what working in theniche does.
So when we go back to like whenI was closing 100 plus
transactions a year, it wasn'talways first time buyers that
(23:34):
started off.
With first time buyers that Iwas closing, like I said, about
140 deals a year Well, thosefirst time buyers started, their
houses started going up invalue, they started to develop
wealth.
So then I pivoted to workingwith investors, but it was a
very specific type of investor,which was a buy and hold
investor that would agree to buyone home every single year.
(23:57):
We did a training on it.
This is what we're going to do,and it was called Financial
Freedom in Five Years Right,your guide to building wealth
through real estate.
And so this was a program thatwe worked.
So the clientele would say,yeah, I'm interested in that,
and then we would follow theprogram and they would buy a
home every single year andthrough that we got up to over
(24:17):
600 sides because we wereworking investment seminars
where we had investors coming tous, and then we had an REO
account on the other end becausethe banks were like, well,
let's go to somebody who knowshow to sell houses to investors.
So we were picking up both endsof those transactions, both on
(24:38):
the REO side and then on theinvestor side, but it was a
super narrow focus.
So if you would have called mein 2005 and 2006 when we were
working those accounts and yousaid, hey, I have a luxury house
in Ken Carroll, will you listit?
No, no, let me get you with anagent in Ken Carroll who will do
a great job for you, becauseI'm selling houses for $80,000.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
That's such a hard lesson for people to learn,
though.
How do I turn away opportunity?
But yet, when you do, it allowsyou to become so much better at
the thing you're good at thatit just accelerates you past all
of the competition Instead oftrying to keep your eye on
what's happening in 360 degreesall around you and trying to be
(25:26):
good with that.
Like you said, being laserfocused on this this is my
mission, this is who we are as acompany, and this is what we do
, I think just makes you so muchbetter think about an athlete
right, take david beckham.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
All right, most people like david beckham.
I was gonna say tom brady, butI didn't want, I didn't want the
judge.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Don't bring that into my house.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So think about David Beckham, right, he's all soccer,
soccer, soccer, soccer, andhe's a player and that's all he
cares about.
He's not focusing on anythingother than his ability to play
that game on a high level, right, that game on a high level,
right.
And then as soon as he's out ofthat, then he pivots into his
other careers, right, you know,either as a TV host, or his new
(26:10):
soccer league that he's settingup, or football, his new
football league that he'ssetting up.
He can do it all.
You just can't do itsimultaneously, right?
So, yes, you can become a highend luxury agent, but if you're
an REO agent or an investoragent now, then your next
(26:31):
chapter might be to become thatluxury agent.
But they rarely overlap.
It's not like David Beckham wasplaying high level soccer
football and hosting a sportsshow.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, absolutely you can't.
If you try to be all things toall people, you're nothing to no
one.
And to go back to the examplethat you brought up, with me,
specializing in downtown, one ofmy lines that I said multiple
times a week was if it's too farto walk from my office, then
it's too far.
But if I could walk to it frommy office, why would you pick
(27:06):
anyone else?
I can have either myself, amember of my team or one of my
agents be there in under sevenminutes.
Like why would you go withsomeone else?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And for anybody who's listening, I want you to know,
during this time I was sellinginvestment property and I was
happy to refer, refer them toTony and he would turn them down
all the time.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
But that's because my story of what my system.
So I had a, I knew who mytarget client profile was, I
knew who I wanted to attract andthen I knew who my business was
set up to serve long term.
And if I would have had tofigure out, OK, I need to
remember, and we did adjust aswe grew we were able to bring on
(27:47):
people that specialized in thesuburbs and we rebranded our
company that allowed us to goout into the burbs and that.
But you know, I didn't, Ididn't start that way and if I
would have had to remember onthese three houses, you have to
remember in the fall to blow outthe sprinkler system so the
pipes don't freeze that mysystems weren't set up for that
(28:08):
right, so I got reallyspecialized.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
You told me there was another thing that you talked
about back then too.
We're going to flip this tointerviewing Tony.
There was another thing that wetalked about back then too,
which was the clientele thatowns a condo in Denver is a
higher net worth clientele thanmy clients who were blue collar.
That I taught them how to buy ahouse and if they didn't get
(28:30):
that $200 a month cash flow itwas going to wreck their world.
And you're like look, I don'twant to deal with your people
because if a water heater comesout, your people are going to
complain about spending 800bucks on a water heater.
My people don't complain aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Right, yeah, it's just identifying your market.
I want to circle back around tosomething, though.
You said something that I thinkperked the ears up of probably
everybody listening, which wasyou created a program to work
with investors.
Now, remember, most of ouraudience is property managers.
They are working with investors.
So you came up with a plan tocreate financial freedom in five
(29:06):
years, which I think is a lotof Fs, and it's freaking awesome
.
I love it.
I want to take that and sayokay, I'm assuming that a lot of
those people didn't know thatproperty managers existed.
They probably managed thosedoors themselves.
But I could see where propertymanagement companies could do
(29:26):
that same exact program thatyou're preaching and say look,
and we're going to take thehassle of what you do with these
properties after you buy them.
We are going to continue tomanage those for you.
It's sort of mailbox money atthat point.
It's sort of mailbox money atthat point.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I mean to make it really simple, right, like so.
So all you do is once a monthyou have and go to a library.
They'll rent you a room for 20,they're happy.
Nobody comes into a library,right?
They're happy to see a human.
You they all have like littlerooms.
Once a month, don't ever moveit, just leave it the same spot.
(30:03):
Once a month, don't ever moveit, just leave it at the same
spot.
Once a month you do a meetup atthe library and start off with
your friends and family and thenyour vendors Invite your
plumber, invite your electrician, invite your realtor, whoever
Just have them start showing up.
And then it's a 20 to 30-minutepresentation about
understanding real estate.
So you might do a cap rateanalysis and pull up a property
(30:25):
and actually work them throughit.
You might do one on short termrentals and, where you can do it
, where you can't do it, thebenefits and the risks.
If you're not specialized in it, there's somebody out there
that can help you walk throughit.
So it's a 20 to 30 minutepresentation and then 30 minutes
of conversation and questions,and their questions that they're
going to ask you are going tolead to the next class.
(30:47):
So you don't actually answerthe question in the class, you
go that's a great one, tony.
Next month we're going to coverTony's question because that
gets them back, and I'm notkidding, if you do that within
six months.
I mean, these groups are small,they're five to maybe 20 people,
like.
I think the biggest one I hadwas maybe 30, 35.
(31:08):
One class, not a group as awhole, but one class was maybe
30.
And we were still selling fivehomes a month out of it.
So I think you're right.
I think if I'm a propertymanager, why wouldn't you?
Because you're educating thereal estate agents too, who are
going to refer you, right, Ithink it's a great I love that
If you position it especiallyfor agents.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
A lot of our clients and a lot of the people that are
listening to this, they get alot of their business through
the realtor referral programsthat they establish.
So it's how do I connect withreal estate agents who have
people that are looking to buynew investment properties or
have a property?
It doesn't turn out that it's agood time to sell and that real
estate agent wants to continueto be in the conversation, so
they want to be the expert thatis the connector, and connect
(31:56):
them to a property manager.
I think, as you mentioned, notjust inviting the public to
these, but inviting your realestate agents, who could invite
their clients and then they canshow up together, and that just
now you're a team.
It's you, your real estateagent and their investor and
you're figuring out how to howto move forward to get them to
(32:17):
that five-year financial plan.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Well, remember what 65% of real estate agents don't
own a home, don't own aprincipal residence 90%.
Or it's like estate agentsdon't own a home, don't own a
principal residence 90%.
Or it's like 87% don't own aninvestment property, like they
don't understand cap rates.
They don't understand rentallaws.
They don't understand theeviction process, like they're
trained to fill out the blankson a real estate approved form.
(32:41):
That's it.
Like they don't understand it,even though we had to take it to
pass the test.
But you know what?
I took a civics exam in highschool.
I couldn't answer thosequestions today, right?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
All right, let's take it.
There's one more topic that Iwant to make sure we get to and
we can cover other things if wehave time, but I talked about
how you went from being one ofthe top 10 team leaders in the
country in Keller Williams,nationwide and over 700 team
leaders.
So obviously you're creatingthis culture, this team, this
(33:17):
momentum, and then you say youknow what?
I think I'm going to throw allthat away.
And I'm going to throw all thataway and I'm going to go out on
my own and I'm going to createmy own thing.
I'm going to do it better thanKeller Williams.
I'm going to take the brandthat is a national brand that
has so much momentum, and Ithink I can do it better by
(33:39):
doing my own thing.
So tell me about that.
Thanks, tony Sure.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Just for the record for you listening, if you look
in the background, I'm back atKeller Williams.
That's what's funny, okay.
So here's the thing For me Idon't want to die with regrets,
right, and that's my biggestfear is sitting there when I'm
85 years old, if I'm lucky tomake it that far, thinking if I
had only taken that shot, right,if I only believed in myself.
(34:07):
So for me, I remember I was onan airplane one day and I was
thinking I can build a company.
I can build a company andfranchise it.
Because, at that time, I was anational trainer for Keller
Williams, traveled the countryand I could see that Keller
Williams was built on models andsystems right and I thought, oh
(34:29):
, if you have a solid set ofmodels and systems, you can
scale your business.
So I had an idea for a realestate brokerage, and the idea
was is that coaching wasincluded, meaning if you sign up
with my brokerage, you won'thave to pay $1,000 a month for a
real estate coach?
We're actually going to meetwith you once a week to coach
you through your business.
(34:49):
So we launched in 2014 with Idon't know eight agents when we
launched and we quickly grew toabout 45 agents within six
months.
We grew super fast.
Over that five-year period, weopened two offices that I owned
and then we had three that wefranchised out.
(35:09):
So we scaled really fast.
Here's what I learned Scalingcoaches is really hard, right,
because coaching requires theright person.
They have to have the heart inthe right place, right?
You know, as a coach, likeyou're giving and giving and
giving, and sometimes you'retheir therapist, sometimes you
know you're there.
They're heavy, right?
Speaker 2 (35:31):
It's so frustrating when you're working with a
client and they're like threefeet from gold and you can't get
them to dig that last threefeet, and it wears on you
because you care so much abouttheir success and it wears on
you because you care so muchabout their success.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, so the challenge I had wasn't
attracting agents.
They loved the vision, lovedwhere we're going.
The challenge I had was scalingthe coaching.
And because that was our numberone value proposition, that's
what differentiated us againsteverybody else, because all the
other brokerages, if you wantedreal one-on-one coaching, you
had to go pay for it.
Right, and that was ultimatelyour demise was I wasn't able to
(36:07):
scale me.
I trained one other coach whowas great.
She was good, she had the rightheart, right place, right
mindset.
She's good at it.
But beyond that I couldn't find, I could not find another coach
and I just ran myself into acorner and wasn't able to scale
that.
So I would say, if any of youlike, if you're building your
(36:31):
business around you or yourhere's what I say now to clients
like real estate clientsspecifically you can't scale
your personality, right.
You know, even like?
One of my favorite speakers isphil jones, right, phil m jones,
who wrote the book, exactlywhat to say.
Right, I've met him a coupletimes.
Great guy.
He says when I'm the speakerand the author, I'm phil jones,
(36:56):
but I'm phil jones and those aretwo different people.
And he learned really quickthat ph M Jones is scalable,
right, because it's a brand,it's a message.
But he says Phil Jones doesn'tdo everything Phil Jones does.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Sure Makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, you got to create thatsystem around the proven
processes, methodologies,policies, all of that, and take
the personality out of it sothat you can have a system that
people can plug theirpersonality into and still see
success with it.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, because Phil M Jones is the brand.
Right, he's not the brand.
Because as soon as you becomeyour company, as soon as your
company and you, there's nodivision between it.
One, you're limited.
Two, you're going to burn outand God forbid you get sick,
because then you're done, right?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Well, you know my story from years back of that's.
What happened to me was I wasthe brand and I wound up getting
sick, and then we wound uphaving to figure out how to keep
the business in survival modefor six to eight months while I
was down and out, and that'shelped me actually create the
framework and the structure thatI've created.
Now them out of the day-to-dayoperations of their business so
(38:15):
that they can be the strategist,the visionary, and then have a
system that we can plug otherpeople into, where they take
those systems and run with it.
Yeah, all right, I want to goahead.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Let me add one more thing to that, and I think of
the book E-Myth right, michaelGerber, right Gerber, right
that's who wrote that?
Yeah, and his e-myth is theentrepreneur myth, which is like
, just because I'm a goodplumber doesn't mean I should
own a plumbing company.
I think one of the mistakesthat brokerages make, coaches
(38:55):
make, is that everybody shouldbe at this bigger scale, or
everybody should have employees,or everybody should have these
big businesses, and that's nottrue.
Like I have agents that workfor me that are really good
agents that don't have a team.
They don't have an admin, theydon't have, you know, all this
stuff behind them and they'rerunning really good businesses
and having a really good lifeand that's okay, there's nothing
(39:17):
wrong with that.
And then I have people who aretrying to do all the agent stuff
and they have a personality ofa leader and they need to grow
to achieve, ultimately, theirhappiness.
Right, what's going to makethem happy?
Like, for me, I don't want towork by myself Like I could, I
don't want to Like, I like to bearound people and I like to
(39:37):
challenge them and I want to bechallenged.
So I need to be in that type ofenvironment.
I would hate doing real estateby myself.
I would hate it, I wouldn't doit.
The reality is, I just wouldn'tdo it.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I think that's really key too when we're working with
people.
When they first come into ourprogram, we get really clear on
what are their personal goalsthat they want to get out of
life, so that we can figure outhow to create the business that
will help them achieve those.
And then we inside the businesswe have to have our goals that
we're shooting for to make thepersonal goals achievable.
(40:08):
And people, you know, one ofthe problems in our industry is
people will compare how manydoors do you manage, how many
properties do you have?
And they compare that.
And it's an absolute irrelevantstat because I can make more
money managing 80 doors thansomebody else managing 500 doors
if I know how to manage itefficiently, effectively and
(40:31):
profitably.
Where it's my systems runningthe show versus each one of
those individual landlordstelling me how I'm supposed to
run my business.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Well, that was a point I was going to ask you
earlier, right when we weretalking about your niche-based
business right versus yourscaled-up business.
For you personally, which onewas more profitable?
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Absolutely the niche down business, because now I'm
an expert in that.
What we talk about a lot iscreating, determining the target
client profile, and you canhave more than one, but most
people don't even identify one.
So you get really clear withthat.
Then you say, okay, based onthis profile, and we dig deep,
we go deep with it, we create anentire persona around it and
(41:15):
then we say, okay, what arethose people's pain points?
What are the things that areimportant to them?
It's like if you were in acrowded restaurant and you hear
your name.
You can be full on incommunication mid-sentence.
You hear your name from behindyou, a couple of tables away,
and you hear it.
It registers All the otherwords for the last 45 minutes
(41:37):
didn't click, but your namestands out.
It's because that is importantto you.
It made it through yourreticular activating system and
it's one of your key areas ofimportance.
We need to find what their painpoints are.
I can't find everybody's painpoints and speak messaging
directly to those, but I can getreally specific about the pain
(42:00):
points of my target client andbe really good at identifying
and then solving those andbringing a solution to the table
, versus just hey, I have awebsite and I do property
management anywhere in the state.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, I'm coffee.
I'm a commodity.
Yeah, management anywhere inthe state.
Yeah, I'm coffee, I'm acommodity, yeah, by the cheapest
pound you can versus you know,you know roasted.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Cuban.
What's that coffee that, uh,that those wild cats eat and
then they eat the beans and thenthey poop them out and then
they roast those.
There's a.
It's like one of the mostexpensive coffees in the world.
That sounds so good.
I haven't tried it.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I'll try it, dude, you buy it, I'll drink it dude,
you buy it, I'll drink it yeah.
Well, you buy it, I'll drink it.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
That's not how this works.
I want to let you off the hooka little bit.
You said that at Steps RealEstate that you opened up in
Boulder, colorado, you said thatthat was ultimately your demise
.
I know you learned a lot oflessons in that transaction or
in that phase of your life, butI know that you also had some
success there.
You guys closed over $500million in real estate volume in
that time and then you took noin one year.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
That was a year yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Yeah, and then you took that and you took those
lessons, brought those back toKeller Williams with you.
You're now back home and doinggreat things.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
I definitely fit in here.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, all right, as we close up, we're kind of
coming to an end.
One of the things I wanted toask you about, because I know
you're really good at this, islead generation strategies, or
how to create leads whenessentially everybody knows five
or six real estate agents.
It's similar to propertymanagement.
If somebody has a property thatthey're looking for a property
(43:42):
manager for, they're going to goonline unless there's some
other reason for me to have aconnection with somebody, like
that realtor referral programwhere I've got a realtor that's
going to refer me to a propertymanager or something like that.
But I want to give you anopportunity.
Is there any lead generationstrategies that are just top of
(44:04):
mind that you think we got toknow in the last few minutes
here?
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, here's what I'll tell you is, and I hate
this, right, and it's hard, andyou've seen me this year, right,
I have made a consciousdifference on my social media
this year.
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah.
So I think I did my best toignore it as long as I could,
you know, and it's just come tofruition when I start to see all
types of personalitiesintroverts, extroverts, people
that are analytical thinking,people that are feelers and I
see that engagement to yourpoint on social media and them
attracting an audience that'sinterested.
Here's the difference that Isee that has shifted in online
(44:46):
and this is something that we'rereally taking in this year is,
instead of thinking about onlinelike a funnel, right, somebody
who's traveling by and they youmight have a video that piques
their interest, and then theysubscribe, and then you've got a
call to action, and then theycall to action.
Then you're calling them andyou're following up.
Today we think about it like anonline, like a community.
(45:07):
Okay, so they're entering, theysee your social media, they
don't do anything, you justscroll by it.
Right Now, let TikTok, letInstagram do the heavy lifting.
They know they watch the video,tiktok, instagram's going to
put it in front of them.
So the only thing we're gradingourselves on right now on our
social media is number of views.
Number of views, because if Ido a video that gets 50 views
(45:29):
and my goal for the month is10,000, 1,000 views across all
the platforms and I get to do avideo that gets 50, then I only
have two choices either do morevideos or get better at my
videos.
So most of the people theymeasure like shares and comments
.
We're not.
We're measuring views, becausewe're trying to improve our
(45:51):
videos, right, and so that's thething that says your videos are
getting better.
You're getting more views.
That being said, once theyenter the ecosystem which for us
, is a newsletter, that's ourecosystem.
In that ecosystem, we're goingto give them an opportunity to
participate in many ways.
Watch this podcast, watch Tony'spodcast.
Right, sean's on Tony's podcast.
(46:11):
Take a look at it.
Hey, here's an article thatSean wrote Like.
Read this article.
Hey, here's a class that wehave coming up next week, if
you're interested in coming tothe class.
But what we don't do is we don'tpull back the trap and snap it.
We wait for them to set anappointment with us, right, so
(46:33):
that's the big shift, right, sothat's the big shift.
So we're no longer and this istrue for real estate agents too
you can sit there and pound thephones and call expires and
fizzbills and I have agents thatdo, and they're very successful
at it.
However, it's a lot better whenthey're contacting you saying
come list my house right, or Iand there was a, there was a,
(46:54):
there was a.
I think national association Ithink National Association of
Realtors did a study that saidthe average buyer today would
rather work with an influencerthan an expert.
And so the joke is around hereis nobody cares how long you've
been in real estate, sean, andnobody cares about what you did
20 years ago.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Great, there just went my whole podcast.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Seriously, it's true, and they don't.
What do they want to know?
They want to know about what isimportant to me today.
That's it Right.
So so that's the thing I'lltell you is, if you're not on
social media, you've got to dosomething on social media,
you've got to engage, you've gotto put yourself out there.
Yes, it's hard, it's stressful.
(47:36):
It's as stressful for me to dothat than it is to make cold
calls Like I get the sameanxieties, same fears.
I get the sniffles before I domy recording.
I get the sore throat.
Oh, I think I'm getting sick.
I can't do it today.
Same thing right.
But you got it.
It is the future, right, becauseeven even if you make contact
(47:58):
with them, they're going to lookyou up on social media today
and if it's not there thatthat's part of their decision.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, I like the fact that you've you've almost
tricked your brain into, becauseyou're not tracking shares and
likes and comments, you'retracking views.
It's almost you're trickingyour brain to just get it out
there.
And I have this debate when Iget deep and philosophical about
social media and the marketingaround it.
(48:26):
I have a couple of friends thatare leaning heavy into that as
well, and one of the other guyshis name's also Sean and we have
this conversation about is it?
Is it better to do quality orquantity?
And I know that you know theanswer is both, of course.
But there's that study and Iwish I could.
I'm going to find the study andI'll I'll quote it, but there's
(48:48):
this study of there was acollege term and they were
judged by one group, by thepottery.
One was judged by the submitone pot that was your perfect
pot.
The other one was judged by thegroup, by the pottery.
One was judged by the submitone pot.
That was your perfect pot.
The other one was judged by thenumber of pots you created over
the term of the semester.
And it turns out that thepeople who created more pots
actually wound up creating abetter pot in the end than the
(49:11):
ones that were just focused onthat quality.
So I agree, you know it's thequantity.
Get the reps just put it outthere.
Work on improving.
So the quality comes along withquantity.
But you can't just wait on thesidelines until you're good at
it, because you'll just alwaysbe waiting and you'll never be
good at it.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Another great analogy of that is what the number one
best-selling cars for many, manyyears was the Toyota Camry.
Right.
Number two was the Honda Accord, two of the most reliable cars
ever made.
Right and you look at, thehighest quality car is probably
like a Mercedes Benz 600, sl 600.
Today, if you bought a20-year-old Mercedes Benz 600,
(49:50):
you'd pay five grand for it.
That Toyota Camry you'dprobably pay six because it's
more reliable.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
The thing about me for the views is it takes my ego
out of it, because if I'mtracking comments and shares and
likes, then it's about me.
If I'm tracking views, it'sabout the customer Right.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Did they view it?
I want to try to tie thistogether and then we'll wrap up,
but I want to.
How do we get from views todollars?
Speaker 1 (50:22):
My theory and this is a theory okay is that if I have
250,000 impressions, 250,000people have looked at my social
media in a year I'm probablygoing to set somewhere around
1,000 appointments from that andfrom that I'll achieve my goals
(50:46):
of the recruits that I need torecruit right or attract the
people I need to coach in mycoaching business, so which, you
know, I kind of have on hiatusright now.
So that's my theory.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Not those 17 people probably, but they didn't like
that.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
But yeah, I mean it's an interesting story and I just
was sitting there tellingsomebody about it and I was like
I got to go record this and Ithrew my camera up and I
recorded it.
Now, six months ago, would Ihave done that?
No, I would have had, like, thelighting.
I got to get the lighting rightand, oh, who's going to edit it
?
And am I going to have thesubtitles?
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Just press record Just press record.
Yeah, all right, sean man, Iwish we had another hour.
We could go on.
I will tell you.
The one thing that is kind of abummer for me is that I have to
request you to hop on a podcastin order for us to chat, and we
live like 20 minutes from eachother.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
So yeah, you've gotten all popular and famous
and left the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
I was waiting, I was waiting.
Just keep building it up.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
That's all I got.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
All right, All right.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Sean.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Thanks so much for hopping on and sharing your
wisdom and your insights witheverybody and sharing your story
of the ups and downs and what'sworked and what hasn't, and I'd
love to have you back on atsome point for us to dive a will
.
I'm going to implement this.
We're going to figure out thefive years to financial freedom.
(52:40):
We're going to build thatprogram out and help our
audience and help our clientsreally leverage that, because
we're always trying to figureout how can we connect with
realtors, how can we providevalue to them, because you guys
are out there talking to peopleall day long and some of those
people that own homes they mightwant to sell, but it's not the
(53:02):
right time.
Or two people move in togetherand I have this house.
Do I want to sell it?
Maybe I should rent it, and wewant to elevate you in your
position with your client and soif we are a resource for you,
now you can stay in contact, youcan be the expert that's the
connector to other experts, andwe want to figure out how to
(53:24):
leverage that.
So I appreciate that yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
All right, sounds great.
Thanks for coming on.
You're welcome.
Thanks for tuning in to theProperty Management Success
Podcast.
We'll be back with anothervalue-packed episode to help you
level up your propertymanagement game.
If you've got somethingvaluable out of today's episode,
please share it with a friendor colleague, and don't forget
to subscribe and leave a reviewso you never miss out on future
(53:48):
insights and strategies andtactics.
Until next time, here's to yoursuccess.
But when it comes to marketing and attention so money
and time, money and time,marketing and attention it's
like a laser.
So if I'm shining my light andI have a wide beam, I might
light a room up, but if I narrowthat beam super tight I can
burn a hole through something,and that's what niche marketing
does.
That's what working in theniche does.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to the Property Management Success
Podcast, where we interviewleaders in the industry to
uncover the secrets toprofitability, efficiency and
achieving true freedom.
Whether it's your time, moneyor lifestyle, I'm your host,
tony Klein, and I'm here to helpyou build a wildly successful
property management business.
Let's get to it.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Property Management
(00:40):
Success podcast.
Today, I am joined by SeanModry.
Sean is the author of the bookthe Ultimate Guide to Building a
Real Estate Brokerage astep-by-step guide to becoming a
successful real estatebrokerage owner.
Sean, welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Thanks, tony, it's good to see you.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, it's good to see you and, in full disclosure,
sean is a good friend of mineand he's also one of my favorite
people to follow in the realestate space, and not just
because he is a bestsellingauthor, but also because he is
one of those people in theindustry that likes to take
risks, make bold actions, andwe're going to dig into that a
(01:20):
little bit, but before I do Iwant to give people a little bit
more of an idea of who we haveon the podcast today.
Sean is one of the top realestate coaches in the industry,
as designated by Inman News.
He started his career in 1995at the age of 21, selling 72
homes in his first year andbeing honored with the Hall of
(01:43):
Fame at REMAX, which is the $1million in gross commission
income earned in just four and ahalf years.
He's featured in RealtorMagazine's 30 Under 30.
And then he also maintainedmega agent status for over 15
years, consistently, with annualindividual sales of 150 sides
(02:08):
and team sales of over 600transactions a year.
So I'm excited to get yourperspective on just business in
general real estate propertymanagement, and so thanks for
hopping on with us.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oh yeah, it's my pleasure, man, all right, thanks
for hopping on with us.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh yeah, it's my pleasure, man.
All right, let's give them alittle bit of background,
because I know just from you andI, talking over the years,
you've had a little bit ofhistory with real estate, which
I talked about you getting in atthe age of 21, having some
immediate success selling 72homes I know some real estate
agents that have not sold 72homes in their entire career,
(02:44):
let alone in the first year andthen you went on and became a
real estate investor and we hadsome successes and some lessons
that we learned through that.
And so just tell me a littlebit about what drew you to real
estate in the first place.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Well, you know you're talking about investment.
It was when I was probably 18or 19,.
I saw the Carlton Sheetscommercial, the infomercial, and
it was how to buy houses withno money down, and he talked
about becoming a millionaire andstanding in front of his
limousine and his you know thejet in the background with his
(03:24):
name on it, which was probablyjust a sticker that they put on
it for the for the episode.
And he talked about buildingwealth through real estate.
And so when I was 18 or 19, Iput on a credit card $275 for
Carlton Sheets, vhs tapes andhis booklets Sheets, vhs tapes
and his booklets and I watchedhim and then I did it Because
(03:46):
it's funny, because I've talkedto a lot of people I'm sure
there's people on here that thatgot the Carlton Sheets tapes
and then watched it and thoughtthis isn't real.
Honestly, I was just too dumbto know better.
I grew up in a trailer park inIdaho Springs and Colorado, in
the mountains of Colorado.
I needed to believe insomething honestly, and so I
(04:09):
would go out and I would doorknock houses and ask them if
they would sell their house tome with a non-qualify assumption
.
And one of the other techniqueswas to walk into real estate
offices.
No appointment, you would justwalk in and talk to a real
estate agent and say, hey, I'mlooking for a non-qualified
assumption.
And in that process I cameacross a real estate agent who
(04:31):
said if you're willing to dothis, you'd do really well in
real estate.
She's like you'd kill it.
And I said really.
I said how much money would Imake?
And she says you can make about$4,000 a month and I was like
what All my dreams I mean thiswas 92, 93, right, all my dreams
(04:54):
will be accomplished.
I could have a house and a car,you know.
And so I went to work for herand she paid me $500 a closing.
That was the deal.
And she was really smart.
She was running ads in the forrent section that said, why rent
, buy a house with no money down?
And she was running downpayment assistance programs.
She said, well, all you have todo is sell eight a month.
That's all you got to do tomake your four grand.
You just got to sell eight amonth.
(05:15):
So she was good at marketing.
So the phone rang.
There was no shortage of leads.
There was a lot of work ofgoing through the prequels and
finding people that weremotivated, and then we would
play a game called Dr Pepper.
So if you remember the DrPepper bottle, is like 10, 2,
and 4 on the.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Do you remember that I?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
remember, yeah, 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock and 4.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So we would book appointments 10 o'clock, 2
o'clock, 4 o'clock that was ourappointment schedule and we
would answer the phones and say,okay, we'll pick you up at your
house at 10 o'clock.
We're going to take you out andshow you some homes.
And we'd take them out and wewould show them anywhere from 7
to 14 houses and then we wouldclose, close, close, like that's
(06:01):
what we did and that's how we.
That's how I sold 72 homes myfirst year, right Is.
Was that process?
Um, so then I worked for herfor about a year and I went.
Then I went out on my own.
I already learned the system.
So we did 104, I did 104transactions my second year and
(06:22):
144 my third.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, so I think one of the big takeaways that I got
from that is that you sawsomething on TV and you bought
it and you immediately tookaction.
And in my coaching business Ihave a lot of people that will
call me and we try to see ifwe're a good fit for us to work
together, to do businesstogether, and they talk about
(06:48):
all of the things that they'reafraid of as they sit on the
sidelines and invent this stuffin their heads, of all the
things that could go wrong, andyou were able to just dive in
and take action.
And I think that's such a keyto people's success is take
action and figure it out alongthe way, versus try to figure
everything out and then takeaction because you'll just be
(07:11):
frozen in fear.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, I think intelligence can be a curse,
right Like I have a guy on myteam, very intelligent gentleman
, and I keep telling him yourchallenges is you're too smart
because you're trying toanticipate.
You know three moves, fourmoves ahead of the game.
It doesn't matter, like whatyou think is going to happen
(07:33):
four moves from now doesn'tmatter until you take the first
step.
And to your point is I didn'tjudge Carlton Sheets' process.
I was a pizza cook, right Like.
I knew how to make pizzas.
He's telling me how to become areal estate investor.
I didn't pizza cook, right Like, I knew how to make pizzas.
He's telling me how to become areal estate investor.
I didn't know anybody else whowas in real estate.
I didn't know, I barely knewanybody who owned a home that
didn't have wheels on it.
I mean, the rich kid in myschool had a double wide.
(07:57):
Okay, that was the rich kid.
So for me it was like I didn'thave any other distractions or
anybody else saying, oh, you'redoing it wrong or try it this
way.
We didn't have YouTube to go onto do more research.
That would conflict with whathe was teaching.
And I think it's important tosay I've bought many, many homes
(08:23):
with the techniques he's taughtover the years.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, that's the second big takeaway that I got
from.
It was first one is you had anidea.
You immediately took action andyou figured out along the way
how to improve that.
But the second big takeaway isthat you found a mentor, or a
mentor found you.
You found somebody that youcould follow in their footsteps,
somebody that already had itfigured out.
And I'm not necessarily talkingabout Carlton Sheets at this
(08:50):
point.
I'm talking about the brokerthat said hey look, I've got
this system, let's plug you intothis system and I can help you.
It's proven.
I can help you be successful inthis.
And again, you bought in andtook action.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, her name was Sheila.
She's amazing and I'll tell youin 1994, her commission income
was $435,000.
That was like drug dealer money.
In fact we got pulled over ondriving down Wadsworth because
the cops pulled us over and herbeautiful Cadillac and they
(09:28):
frisked us on the side of theroad because they said we've
been watching you and we knowyou're drug dealers.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So let's, let's actually fast forward a little
bit and we're going to skip oversome stuff and we'll we'll come
back Cause I know we had somechallenges from the time you got
into real estate, but I want toflash forward you.
You became the leader, the teamleader, at Keller Williams, and
you grew a market center andyou grew it profitably year over
year and recruited over 115agents and that was during the
(09:56):
Great Recession and this landedyou in the top 10 team leaders
in Keller Williams nationwideteam leaders in Keller Williams
nationwide, and that was over700 team leaders.
And I want to a lot of times,small business owners.
They have a lot of ideas intheir head.
(10:17):
They have a hard timecommunicating those out to the
team and it sounds like you hada lot of success of building a
vision, building a story andsaying come join me.
And I want to dig into that alittle bit because I think
that's an area where a lot ofsmall businesses just miss the
mark.
They're like I have a desk,maybe you bring your own
computer, maybe you have acomputer, I don't know.
(10:38):
I know what I'm doing.
I need some help, so I hiresomebody.
Now that I've hired you, I'vechecked the box and you go do
your thing, but I don't reallyknow what to do and there's no
buy-in, there's no cult in theculture.
So tell me how you were able todo that, to where you were able
to recruit 115 agents onto yourteam.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
There's no cult in the culture.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I'm going to write that down.
I'm stealing that.
I've trademarked it TM at thebottom.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
You and I think so similarly, tony, like I love
that.
How you frame that up, it's100% first, identifying one of
two things Either what you wantor the business you want to own.
Right, because the last thingyou want to do is build a
(11:26):
business that you're not happywith or happy around the people
that you built it right.
So creating that, the mission,right, where are we going?
Right, or the you know, whatare we doing?
What are we here to do or servethe vision, where are we going?
And then the values are thestandards of which you're going
to perform right, so you have tostart there.
So there's only one or two waysto do.
That is.
One is what is the businessthat I want to be part of?
Okay, and can I attract enoughpeople, customers and or agents
(11:51):
to that?
I want to be a part of this,because there's some people
their whole thing is I want todo, put in the least amount of
work with the highest amount ofreward.
That's a great thing, okay, foryou as the owner, for the
people around you, it kind ofsucks.
So, yeah, you're going to havea great business of one.
So then, secondarily, is whatis the mission, vision, values
(12:13):
that your customers can getbehind, and I think that's what
we're talking about when we talkabout scaling a business,
because in brokerage, yourcustomer is the agent, right,
like my job is to serve theagent, the agent's job is to
serve their clients or theirconsumers, right?
So what is a mission, visionand values that I can provide or
(12:37):
that I see that will attractthe number of agents that's
going to serve my market?
So, in 2011, I think it was 2010, 2011,.
The market was tough and therewas a lot of people getting out
of the industry, and one of thebiggest challenges was training
a seasoned agent to adapt to ashifting market very similar to
(12:59):
today.
Right Today, you need to beversed in assumptions.
You need to be versed in, youknow, stressed situations,
people who are financialdistress, short sales, bridge
loans, like you've got to haveall of these, these, these,
these tools that you didn't needfive years ago, four years ago,
in 2010, 2011,.
(13:22):
What I did is I realized thatthe market we're moving into was
a heavy short sale market, andso what I would do is I would
print out every day the list ofthe foreclosures that came that
day, and then I'd staple ascript to it right to the top,
and agents would walk in thedoor and I'd hand it to them and
I'd say, here's your list today, go door, knock these houses.
(13:45):
And so we became a team ofpeople that were proactively
prospecting.
Now here's the important pieceNot to get people to list their
house with us, but to providethe consumer, the customer, the
client, the community, the sevenoptions they have when they're
behind in payments.
There's seven things that aregoing to happen from this point
(14:05):
on, one of which is you mighthave to sell your house.
Now, our job is to maintainhome ownership in our
communities.
Can I share with you how youcan keep your house?
And so we became like, you know, kind of I don't want to say
the heroes, but that our missionwas to really engage the
community and educate them.
And so we did, we did seminarson it, we did, we would, we
(14:27):
would do it at the library,community centers, all that kind
of thing.
And you know I think you knowwhat was about 50% of the
listings you had would sell backthen, you know, because it was,
it was tough, and so that'swhat we were, um, and if you
love that and you were somebodythat want to make an impact on
(14:48):
your community, then we were agood fit for you.
If you were an agent who waslike I want to do million dollar
properties and sit on the beach, you weren't a good fit for us,
right I think.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I think it's so smart that you coached you, you
created that system and saidhere's, here's your scripts and
go, go, hit the.
So you, you gave peoplesomething to plug into.
Yeah, you gave them the roadmapto take action, but you also
gave them a message of education.
So they they weren't going outand hardcore selling, they were
(15:22):
going out and educating, and oneof those seven options was hey,
if you have to sell, we canhelp you with that.
But here are the other sixoptions that you have.
So I think it's really smart toposition it as you're educating
the marketplace and if businesscomes out of that which
obviously is a goal, but ifbusiness comes out of that, it's
(15:45):
natural, as opposed to let meknock on your door and see if
you want to sell.
So I want to.
But even that, though, evengetting people, people have
these fantasies about being goodsalespeople, but being in sales
is really really hard.
It's a hard job, it's a lonelyjob.
You can have a highest of hightoday, you sell something today
(16:06):
and tomorrow you're technicallyunemployed until you get
something new under contract.
And so how did you convincethose agents?
Because I really want to diginto like, you had a system.
But how did you attract them?
What was your messaging?
And not necessarily specificfor that brokerage, but how did
you get 115 people in therecession to say I believe in
(16:31):
Sean, I believe in where he'staking this brokerage, this
company?
I want to follow him, I want toput my efforts and align my
efforts with his.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Well, I'd love to tell you.
It's that glamorous, but thetruth is, back then,
unemployment was really high,right?
So a lot of these people didn'thave another choice.
It's not like they had anotherjob that was going to pay them
$30,000, $40,000, $50,000,$60,000 a year.
They didn't have an option.
Most of them got laid off.
(17:02):
We were running a real estateschool, or we were going to the
real estate schools and tellingpeople our expectation of us is
that you're going to have a dealwithin your first 90 days.
And if you interview a companythat says anything different
than run, right, like you'regoing to starve to death if you
don't have something pending in90 days.
And we took that on as ourexpectation.
That's still my expectationtoday.
(17:22):
Like I have two productivitycoaches, I tell them look, if
you don't, if they're not doinga deal in the 90 days, you're
failing them.
Like this is on you Eitheryou're not setting the
expectation correctly or oryou're not holding to them
correctly.
Right, like there's only one oftwo things, because if somebody
fails out, it's, it's us.
They don't know.
They don't know what they'recoming into.
So one of the things that wasdifferent back then is the
(17:44):
unemployment was high.
So we were really working withpeople who they were like me
when I was new.
They didn't have a preconceivedjudgment about the market.
You know, of course we had somepeople who were in the business
that adapted, but I would saythe majority of them that were
in the business prior to therecession struggled through the
(18:06):
recession.
Here's another reallyinteresting story In 2006, I was
probably top 100 real estateagents in the nation.
In 2010,.
I was pretty much bitched LikeI wasn't doing any deals.
Really, I met an agent in 2006who was brand new, Brand new 20,
(18:34):
24 years old by 2011,.
He was the number one agent inthe entire United States and the
reason is he didn't come inwith any preconceived ideas
about the market.
He just accepted the market forwhat it was.
He saw the opportunities and heembraced those opportunities.
(18:55):
We're still good friends today.
He and I are still good friendsand I've made him probably
close to $600,000 over theseyears.
But coming in with preconceivedhabits, preconceived judgments
in a shifting market will killyou.
They'll kill you.
I see agents struggling rightnow.
Right, the market shifted andthey're still waiting for the
(19:15):
phone to ring and they'reputting their glamour shots on
Instagram.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, I kind of equate that to rearranging the
clutter on your desk, waitingfor something to happen, as
opposed to going out.
And the game has changed.
You do have to be moreproactive.
You do have to be moreintentional with your
communication and stackingaction.
A business card, which I don'teven know.
If people have business cardsanymore, I don't, because you
(19:43):
give a business card to somebodyand that's it.
But if you get their contactinfo now you're in control.
But anyway, that's a tangent, soyou can't just say I'm in
business and hopefully businesscomes to me and we work through
with a lot of our clients.
We work through how to create abrand that makes you unique.
(20:04):
And I can't imagine with theamount of real estate agents
that you've trained over theyears and that you've been in
contact with.
Frankly, real estate agents areall the same until they're not
right, and we're all the sameuntil we've done something that
separates us from the crowd,rises us above the noise, and
it's the same thing in propertymanagement from our client's
(20:27):
perspective.
Right, they have nothing elseto judge us on because they
don't know how we're different.
So it all comes down to price.
What do you charge?
And you've spent a lot of timetraining real estate agents to
become a category of one or tobecome somebody that stands out
from the noise, and tell me alittle bit about your experience
(20:50):
as a trainer nationwide in theKeller Williams organization.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Well, like what do I specifically train on?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
What you've trained on.
You know, I know that you for awhile were doing some
nationwide training andtraveling and and you know what,
what were people looking for?
Not just the how to work atransaction, but really more on
the marketing side, the brandingside, the how to be unique, how
to make it in the business.
(21:16):
I'd love to get some tips fromthat.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I agree with you a thousand percent.
And you know, when I, when youand I first started developing
our relationship, I remembertalking to you about your
property management company indowntown Denver and one of the
things you said was no yards, noroofs Right.
And I was so weird to mebecause every other property
manager I knew would pretty muchtake anything in anywhere Right
.
And your point was is I can'tservice somebody who's in the
(21:45):
suburbs of town?
That's just not my specialty.
If you have a condo in downtownDenver, I'm your number one
choice.
And because of that you had avery successful business and a
line of people ready to sign upwith you.
And I think real estate's thesame way, like as a real estate
agent, if you say I help luxury,I help condos, I help
(22:06):
first-time buyers, I helpinvestors, then your voice is
not.
They don't hear you.
Right, you can't because youcan't help everyone.
It's not real.
So I always think about it,like in accepting a deal.
I have a wide net and that netcomes in and anybody who comes
into my net I'm going to help,either through my services that
(22:26):
I can provide or throughconnecting them with somebody
who can provide that service forthem.
I got an intake call yesterday,somebody with a $2.2 million
fixer-upper in Greenwood Village, and I was like I Google it, I
look at the Zillow and I'm likethis is an amazing house.
I'm not your guy, this isn't me.
I said I have the perfect agentfor you.
(22:47):
Let me connect you with her.
She specializes with high-endremodels because it needed
updating at $2.2 million.
That's not my wheelhouse.
I could do it, but I'm notgoing to do a great job at it.
She's going to do a great job.
She's going to do a great job.
This is her wheelhouse.
So I have a wide net.
Any customer comes in, I'mgoing to service them and get
them in the right direction.
But when it comes to marketingand attention so money and time,
(23:11):
money and time, marketing andattention it's like a laser.
So if I'm shining my light andI have a wide beam, I might
light a room up, but if I narrowthat beam super tight, I can
burn a hole through something,and that's what niche marketing
does.
That's what working in theniche does.
So when we go back to like whenI was closing 100 plus
transactions a year, it wasn'talways first time buyers that
(23:34):
started off.
With first time buyers that Iwas closing, like I said, about
140 deals a year Well, thosefirst time buyers started, their
houses started going up invalue, they started to develop
wealth.
So then I pivoted to workingwith investors, but it was a
very specific type of investor,which was a buy and hold
investor that would agree to buyone home every single year.
(23:57):
We did a training on it.
This is what we're going to do,and it was called Financial
Freedom in Five Years Right,your guide to building wealth
through real estate.
And so this was a program thatwe worked.
So the clientele would say,yeah, I'm interested in that,
and then we would follow theprogram and they would buy a
home every single year andthrough that we got up to over
(24:17):
600 sides because we wereworking investment seminars
where we had investors coming tous, and then we had an REO
account on the other end becausethe banks were like, well,
let's go to somebody who knowshow to sell houses to investors.
So we were picking up both endsof those transactions, both on
(24:38):
the REO side and then on theinvestor side, but it was a
super narrow focus.
So if you would have called mein 2005 and 2006 when we were
working those accounts and yousaid, hey, I have a luxury house
in Ken Carroll, will you listit?
No, no, let me get you with anagent in Ken Carroll who will do
a great job for you, becauseI'm selling houses for $80,000.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
That's such a hard lesson for people to learn,
though.
How do I turn away opportunity?
But yet, when you do, it allowsyou to become so much better at
the thing you're good at thatit just accelerates you past all
of the competition Instead oftrying to keep your eye on
what's happening in 360 degreesall around you and trying to be
(25:26):
good with that.
Like you said, being laserfocused on this this is my
mission, this is who we are as acompany, and this is what we do
, I think just makes you so muchbetter think about an athlete
right, take david beckham.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
All right, most people like david beckham.
I was gonna say tom brady, butI didn't want, I didn't want the
judge.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Don't bring that into my house.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So think about David Beckham, right, he's all soccer,
soccer, soccer, soccer, andhe's a player and that's all he
cares about.
He's not focusing on anythingother than his ability to play
that game on a high level, right, that game on a high level,
right.
And then as soon as he's out ofthat, then he pivots into his
other careers, right, you know,either as a TV host, or his new
(26:10):
soccer league that he's settingup, or football, his new
football league that he'ssetting up.
He can do it all.
You just can't do itsimultaneously, right?
So, yes, you can become a highend luxury agent, but if you're
an REO agent or an investoragent now, then your next
(26:31):
chapter might be to become thatluxury agent.
But they rarely overlap.
It's not like David Beckham wasplaying high level soccer
football and hosting a sportsshow.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, absolutely you can't.
If you try to be all things toall people, you're nothing to no
one.
And to go back to the examplethat you brought up, with me,
specializing in downtown, one ofmy lines that I said multiple
times a week was if it's too farto walk from my office, then
it's too far.
But if I could walk to it frommy office, why would you pick
(27:06):
anyone else?
I can have either myself, amember of my team or one of my
agents be there in under sevenminutes.
Like why would you go withsomeone else?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And for anybody who's listening, I want you to know,
during this time I was sellinginvestment property and I was
happy to refer, refer them toTony and he would turn them down
all the time.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
But that's because my story of what my system.
So I had a, I knew who mytarget client profile was, I
knew who I wanted to attract andthen I knew who my business was
set up to serve long term.
And if I would have had tofigure out, OK, I need to
remember, and we did adjust aswe grew we were able to bring on
(27:47):
people that specialized in thesuburbs and we rebranded our
company that allowed us to goout into the burbs and that.
But you know, I didn't, Ididn't start that way and if I
would have had to remember onthese three houses, you have to
remember in the fall to blow outthe sprinkler system so the
pipes don't freeze that mysystems weren't set up for that
(28:08):
right, so I got reallyspecialized.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
You told me there was another thing that you talked
about back then too.
We're going to flip this tointerviewing Tony.
There was another thing that wetalked about back then too,
which was the clientele thatowns a condo in Denver is a
higher net worth clientele thanmy clients who were blue collar.
That I taught them how to buy ahouse and if they didn't get
(28:30):
that $200 a month cash flow itwas going to wreck their world.
And you're like look, I don'twant to deal with your people
because if a water heater comesout, your people are going to
complain about spending 800bucks on a water heater.
My people don't complain aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Right, yeah, it's just identifying your market.
I want to circle back around tosomething, though.
You said something that I thinkperked the ears up of probably
everybody listening, which wasyou created a program to work
with investors.
Now, remember, most of ouraudience is property managers.
They are working with investors.
So you came up with a plan tocreate financial freedom in five
(29:06):
years, which I think is a lotof Fs, and it's freaking awesome
.
I love it.
I want to take that and sayokay, I'm assuming that a lot of
those people didn't know thatproperty managers existed.
They probably managed thosedoors themselves.
But I could see where propertymanagement companies could do
(29:26):
that same exact program thatyou're preaching and say look,
and we're going to take thehassle of what you do with these
properties after you buy them.
We are going to continue tomanage those for you.
It's sort of mailbox money atthat point.
It's sort of mailbox money atthat point.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I mean to make it really simple, right, like so.
So all you do is once a monthyou have and go to a library.
They'll rent you a room for 20,they're happy.
Nobody comes into a library,right?
They're happy to see a human.
You they all have like littlerooms.
Once a month, don't ever moveit, just leave it the same spot.
(30:03):
Once a month, don't ever moveit, just leave it at the same
spot.
Once a month you do a meetup atthe library and start off with
your friends and family and thenyour vendors Invite your
plumber, invite your electrician, invite your realtor, whoever
Just have them start showing up.
And then it's a 20 to 30-minutepresentation about
understanding real estate.
So you might do a cap rateanalysis and pull up a property
(30:25):
and actually work them throughit.
You might do one on short termrentals and, where you can do it
, where you can't do it, thebenefits and the risks.
If you're not specialized in it, there's somebody out there
that can help you walk throughit.
So it's a 20 to 30 minutepresentation and then 30 minutes
of conversation and questions,and their questions that they're
going to ask you are going tolead to the next class.
(30:47):
So you don't actually answerthe question in the class, you
go that's a great one, tony.
Next month we're going to coverTony's question because that
gets them back, and I'm notkidding, if you do that within
six months.
I mean, these groups are small,they're five to maybe 20 people,
like.
I think the biggest one I hadwas maybe 30, 35.
(31:08):
One class, not a group as awhole, but one class was maybe
30.
And we were still selling fivehomes a month out of it.
So I think you're right.
I think if I'm a propertymanager, why wouldn't you?
Because you're educating thereal estate agents too, who are
going to refer you, right, Ithink it's a great I love that
If you position it especiallyfor agents.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
A lot of our clients and a lot of the people that are
listening to this, they get alot of their business through
the realtor referral programsthat they establish.
So it's how do I connect withreal estate agents who have
people that are looking to buynew investment properties or
have a property?
It doesn't turn out that it's agood time to sell and that real
estate agent wants to continueto be in the conversation, so
they want to be the expert thatis the connector, and connect
(31:56):
them to a property manager.
I think, as you mentioned, notjust inviting the public to
these, but inviting your realestate agents, who could invite
their clients and then they canshow up together, and that just
now you're a team.
It's you, your real estateagent and their investor and
you're figuring out how to howto move forward to get them to
(32:17):
that five-year financial plan.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Well, remember what 65% of real estate agents don't
own a home, don't own aprincipal residence 90%.
Or it's like estate agentsdon't own a home, don't own a
principal residence 90%.
Or it's like 87% don't own aninvestment property, like they
don't understand cap rates.
They don't understand rentallaws.
They don't understand theeviction process, like they're
trained to fill out the blankson a real estate approved form.
(32:41):
That's it.
Like they don't understand it,even though we had to take it to
pass the test.
But you know what?
I took a civics exam in highschool.
I couldn't answer thosequestions today, right?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
All right, let's take it.
There's one more topic that Iwant to make sure we get to and
we can cover other things if wehave time, but I talked about
how you went from being one ofthe top 10 team leaders in the
country in Keller Williams,nationwide and over 700 team
leaders.
So obviously you're creatingthis culture, this team, this
(33:17):
momentum, and then you say youknow what?
I think I'm going to throw allthat away.
And I'm going to throw all thataway and I'm going to go out on
my own and I'm going to createmy own thing.
I'm going to do it better thanKeller Williams.
I'm going to take the brandthat is a national brand that
has so much momentum, and Ithink I can do it better by
(33:39):
doing my own thing.
So tell me about that.
Thanks, tony Sure.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Just for the record for you listening, if you look
in the background, I'm back atKeller Williams.
That's what's funny, okay.
So here's the thing For me Idon't want to die with regrets,
right, and that's my biggestfear is sitting there when I'm
85 years old, if I'm lucky tomake it that far, thinking if I
had only taken that shot, right,if I only believed in myself.
(34:07):
So for me, I remember I was onan airplane one day and I was
thinking I can build a company.
I can build a company andfranchise it.
Because, at that time, I was anational trainer for Keller
Williams, traveled the countryand I could see that Keller
Williams was built on models andsystems right and I thought, oh
(34:29):
, if you have a solid set ofmodels and systems, you can
scale your business.
So I had an idea for a realestate brokerage, and the idea
was is that coaching wasincluded, meaning if you sign up
with my brokerage, you won'thave to pay $1,000 a month for a
real estate coach?
We're actually going to meetwith you once a week to coach
you through your business.
(34:49):
So we launched in 2014 with Idon't know eight agents when we
launched and we quickly grew toabout 45 agents within six
months.
We grew super fast.
Over that five-year period, weopened two offices that I owned
and then we had three that wefranchised out.
(35:09):
So we scaled really fast.
Here's what I learned Scalingcoaches is really hard, right,
because coaching requires theright person.
They have to have the heart inthe right place, right?
You know, as a coach, likeyou're giving and giving and
giving, and sometimes you'retheir therapist, sometimes you
know you're there.
They're heavy, right?
Speaker 2 (35:31):
It's so frustrating when you're working with a
client and they're like threefeet from gold and you can't get
them to dig that last threefeet, and it wears on you
because you care so much abouttheir success and it wears on
you because you care so muchabout their success.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, so the challenge I had wasn't
attracting agents.
They loved the vision, lovedwhere we're going.
The challenge I had was scalingthe coaching.
And because that was our numberone value proposition, that's
what differentiated us againsteverybody else, because all the
other brokerages, if you wantedreal one-on-one coaching, you
had to go pay for it.
Right, and that was ultimatelyour demise was I wasn't able to
(36:07):
scale me.
I trained one other coach whowas great.
She was good, she had the rightheart, right place, right
mindset.
She's good at it.
But beyond that I couldn't find, I could not find another coach
and I just ran myself into acorner and wasn't able to scale
that.
So I would say, if any of youlike, if you're building your
(36:31):
business around you or yourhere's what I say now to clients
like real estate clientsspecifically you can't scale
your personality, right.
You know, even like?
One of my favorite speakers isphil jones, right, phil m jones,
who wrote the book, exactlywhat to say.
Right, I've met him a coupletimes.
Great guy.
He says when I'm the speakerand the author, I'm phil jones,
(36:56):
but I'm phil jones and those aretwo different people.
And he learned really quickthat ph M Jones is scalable,
right, because it's a brand,it's a message.
But he says Phil Jones doesn'tdo everything Phil Jones does.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Sure Makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, you got to create thatsystem around the proven
processes, methodologies,policies, all of that, and take
the personality out of it sothat you can have a system that
people can plug theirpersonality into and still see
success with it.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, because Phil M Jones is the brand.
Right, he's not the brand.
Because as soon as you becomeyour company, as soon as your
company and you, there's nodivision between it.
One, you're limited.
Two, you're going to burn outand God forbid you get sick,
because then you're done, right?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Well, you know my story from years back of that's.
What happened to me was I wasthe brand and I wound up getting
sick, and then we wound uphaving to figure out how to keep
the business in survival modefor six to eight months while I
was down and out, and that'shelped me actually create the
framework and the structure thatI've created.
Now them out of the day-to-dayoperations of their business so
(38:15):
that they can be the strategist,the visionary, and then have a
system that we can plug otherpeople into, where they take
those systems and run with it.
Yeah, all right, I want to goahead.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Let me add one more thing to that, and I think of
the book E-Myth right, michaelGerber, right Gerber, right
that's who wrote that?
Yeah, and his e-myth is theentrepreneur myth, which is like
, just because I'm a goodplumber doesn't mean I should
own a plumbing company.
I think one of the mistakesthat brokerages make, coaches
(38:55):
make, is that everybody shouldbe at this bigger scale, or
everybody should have employees,or everybody should have these
big businesses, and that's nottrue.
Like I have agents that workfor me that are really good
agents that don't have a team.
They don't have an admin, theydon't have, you know, all this
stuff behind them and they'rerunning really good businesses
and having a really good lifeand that's okay, there's nothing
(39:17):
wrong with that.
And then I have people who aretrying to do all the agent stuff
and they have a personality ofa leader and they need to grow
to achieve, ultimately, theirhappiness.
Right, what's going to makethem happy?
Like, for me, I don't want towork by myself Like I could, I
don't want to Like, I like to bearound people and I like to
(39:37):
challenge them and I want to bechallenged.
So I need to be in that type ofenvironment.
I would hate doing real estateby myself.
I would hate it, I wouldn't doit.
The reality is, I just wouldn'tdo it.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I think that's really key too when we're working with
people.
When they first come into ourprogram, we get really clear on
what are their personal goalsthat they want to get out of
life, so that we can figure outhow to create the business that
will help them achieve those.
And then we inside the businesswe have to have our goals that
we're shooting for to make thepersonal goals achievable.
(40:08):
And people, you know, one ofthe problems in our industry is
people will compare how manydoors do you manage, how many
properties do you have?
And they compare that.
And it's an absolute irrelevantstat because I can make more
money managing 80 doors thansomebody else managing 500 doors
if I know how to manage itefficiently, effectively and
(40:31):
profitably.
Where it's my systems runningthe show versus each one of
those individual landlordstelling me how I'm supposed to
run my business.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Well, that was a point I was going to ask you
earlier, right when we weretalking about your niche-based
business right versus yourscaled-up business.
For you personally, which onewas more profitable?
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Absolutely the niche down business, because now I'm
an expert in that.
What we talk about a lot iscreating, determining the target
client profile, and you canhave more than one, but most
people don't even identify one.
So you get really clear withthat.
Then you say, okay, based onthis profile, and we dig deep,
we go deep with it, we create anentire persona around it and
(41:15):
then we say, okay, what arethose people's pain points?
What are the things that areimportant to them?
It's like if you were in acrowded restaurant and you hear
your name.
You can be full on incommunication mid-sentence.
You hear your name from behindyou, a couple of tables away,
and you hear it.
It registers All the otherwords for the last 45 minutes
(41:37):
didn't click, but your namestands out.
It's because that is importantto you.
It made it through yourreticular activating system and
it's one of your key areas ofimportance.
We need to find what their painpoints are.
I can't find everybody's painpoints and speak messaging
directly to those, but I can getreally specific about the pain
(42:00):
points of my target client andbe really good at identifying
and then solving those andbringing a solution to the table
, versus just hey, I have awebsite and I do property
management anywhere in the state.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, I'm coffee.
I'm a commodity.
Yeah, management anywhere inthe state.
Yeah, I'm coffee, I'm acommodity, yeah, by the cheapest
pound you can versus you know,you know roasted.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Cuban.
What's that coffee that, uh,that those wild cats eat and
then they eat the beans and thenthey poop them out and then
they roast those.
There's a.
It's like one of the mostexpensive coffees in the world.
That sounds so good.
I haven't tried it.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I'll try it, dude, you buy it, I'll drink it dude,
you buy it, I'll drink it yeah.
Well, you buy it, I'll drink it.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
That's not how this works.
I want to let you off the hooka little bit.
You said that at Steps RealEstate that you opened up in
Boulder, colorado, you said thatthat was ultimately your demise
.
I know you learned a lot oflessons in that transaction or
in that phase of your life, butI know that you also had some
success there.
You guys closed over $500million in real estate volume in
that time and then you took noin one year.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
That was a year yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Yeah, and then you took that and you took those
lessons, brought those back toKeller Williams with you.
You're now back home and doinggreat things.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
I definitely fit in here.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, all right, as we close up, we're kind of
coming to an end.
One of the things I wanted toask you about, because I know
you're really good at this, islead generation strategies, or
how to create leads whenessentially everybody knows five
or six real estate agents.
It's similar to propertymanagement.
If somebody has a property thatthey're looking for a property
(43:42):
manager for, they're going to goonline unless there's some
other reason for me to have aconnection with somebody, like
that realtor referral programwhere I've got a realtor that's
going to refer me to a propertymanager or something like that.
But I want to give you anopportunity.
Is there any lead generationstrategies that are just top of
(44:04):
mind that you think we got toknow in the last few minutes
here?
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, here's what I'll tell you is, and I hate
this, right, and it's hard, andyou've seen me this year, right,
I have made a consciousdifference on my social media
this year.
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah.
So I think I did my best toignore it as long as I could,
you know, and it's just come tofruition when I start to see all
types of personalitiesintroverts, extroverts, people
that are analytical thinking,people that are feelers and I
see that engagement to yourpoint on social media and them
attracting an audience that'sinterested.
Here's the difference that Isee that has shifted in online
(44:46):
and this is something that we'rereally taking in this year is,
instead of thinking about onlinelike a funnel, right, somebody
who's traveling by and they youmight have a video that piques
their interest, and then theysubscribe, and then you've got a
call to action, and then theycall to action.
Then you're calling them andyou're following up.
Today we think about it like anonline, like a community.
(45:07):
Okay, so they're entering, theysee your social media, they
don't do anything, you justscroll by it.
Right Now, let TikTok, letInstagram do the heavy lifting.
They know they watch the video,tiktok, instagram's going to
put it in front of them.
So the only thing we're gradingourselves on right now on our
social media is number of views.
Number of views, because if Ido a video that gets 50 views
(45:29):
and my goal for the month is10,000, 1,000 views across all
the platforms and I get to do avideo that gets 50, then I only
have two choices either do morevideos or get better at my
videos.
So most of the people theymeasure like shares and comments
.
We're not.
We're measuring views, becausewe're trying to improve our
(45:51):
videos, right, and so that's thething that says your videos are
getting better.
You're getting more views.
That being said, once theyenter the ecosystem which for us
, is a newsletter, that's ourecosystem.
In that ecosystem, we're goingto give them an opportunity to
participate in many ways.
Watch this podcast, watch Tony'spodcast.
Right, sean's on Tony's podcast.
(46:11):
Take a look at it.
Hey, here's an article thatSean wrote Like.
Read this article.
Hey, here's a class that wehave coming up next week, if
you're interested in coming tothe class.
But what we don't do is we don'tpull back the trap and snap it.
We wait for them to set anappointment with us, right, so
(46:33):
that's the big shift, right, sothat's the big shift.
So we're no longer and this istrue for real estate agents too
you can sit there and pound thephones and call expires and
fizzbills and I have agents thatdo, and they're very successful
at it.
However, it's a lot better whenthey're contacting you saying
come list my house right, or Iand there was a, there was a,
(46:54):
there was a.
I think national association Ithink National Association of
Realtors did a study that saidthe average buyer today would
rather work with an influencerthan an expert.
And so the joke is around hereis nobody cares how long you've
been in real estate, sean, andnobody cares about what you did
20 years ago.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Great, there just went my whole podcast.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Seriously, it's true, and they don't.
What do they want to know?
They want to know about what isimportant to me today.
That's it Right.
So so that's the thing I'lltell you is, if you're not on
social media, you've got to dosomething on social media,
you've got to engage, you've gotto put yourself out there.
Yes, it's hard, it's stressful.
(47:36):
It's as stressful for me to dothat than it is to make cold
calls Like I get the sameanxieties, same fears.
I get the sniffles before I domy recording.
I get the sore throat.
Oh, I think I'm getting sick.
I can't do it today.
Same thing right.
But you got it.
It is the future, right, becauseeven even if you make contact
(47:58):
with them, they're going to lookyou up on social media today
and if it's not there thatthat's part of their decision.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, I like the fact that you've you've almost
tricked your brain into, becauseyou're not tracking shares and
likes and comments, you'retracking views.
It's almost you're trickingyour brain to just get it out
there.
And I have this debate when Iget deep and philosophical about
social media and the marketingaround it.
(48:26):
I have a couple of friends thatare leaning heavy into that as
well, and one of the other guyshis name's also Sean and we have
this conversation about is it?
Is it better to do quality orquantity?
And I know that you know theanswer is both, of course.
But there's that study and Iwish I could.
I'm going to find the study andI'll I'll quote it, but there's
(48:48):
this study of there was acollege term and they were
judged by one group, by thepottery.
One was judged by the submitone pot that was your perfect
pot.
The other one was judged by thegroup, by the pottery.
One was judged by the submitone pot.
That was your perfect pot.
The other one was judged by thenumber of pots you created over
the term of the semester.
And it turns out that thepeople who created more pots
actually wound up creating abetter pot in the end than the
(49:11):
ones that were just focused onthat quality.
So I agree, you know it's thequantity.
Get the reps just put it outthere.
Work on improving.
So the quality comes along withquantity.
But you can't just wait on thesidelines until you're good at
it, because you'll just alwaysbe waiting and you'll never be
good at it.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Another great analogy of that is what the number one
best-selling cars for many, manyyears was the Toyota Camry.
Right.
Number two was the Honda Accord, two of the most reliable cars
ever made.
Right and you look at, thehighest quality car is probably
like a Mercedes Benz 600, sl 600.
Today, if you bought a20-year-old Mercedes Benz 600,
(49:50):
you'd pay five grand for it.
That Toyota Camry you'dprobably pay six because it's
more reliable.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
The thing about me for the views is it takes my ego
out of it, because if I'mtracking comments and shares and
likes, then it's about me.
If I'm tracking views, it'sabout the customer Right.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Did they view it?
I want to try to tie thistogether and then we'll wrap up,
but I want to.
How do we get from views todollars?
Speaker 1 (50:22):
My theory and this is a theory okay is that if I have
250,000 impressions, 250,000people have looked at my social
media in a year I'm probablygoing to set somewhere around
1,000 appointments from that andfrom that I'll achieve my goals
(50:46):
of the recruits that I need torecruit right or attract the
people I need to coach in mycoaching business, so which, you
know, I kind of have on hiatusright now.
So that's my theory.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Not those 17 people probably, but they didn't like
that.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
But yeah, I mean it's an interesting story and I just
was sitting there tellingsomebody about it and I was like
I got to go record this and Ithrew my camera up and I
recorded it.
Now, six months ago, would Ihave done that?
No, I would have had, like, thelighting.
I got to get the lighting rightand, oh, who's going to edit it
?
And am I going to have thesubtitles?
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Just press record Just press record.
Yeah, all right, sean man, Iwish we had another hour.
We could go on.
I will tell you.
The one thing that is kind of abummer for me is that I have to
request you to hop on a podcastin order for us to chat, and we
live like 20 minutes from eachother.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
So yeah, you've gotten all popular and famous
and left the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
I was waiting, I was waiting.
Just keep building it up.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
That's all I got.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
All right, All right.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Sean.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Thanks so much for hopping on and sharing your
wisdom and your insights witheverybody and sharing your story
of the ups and downs and what'sworked and what hasn't, and I'd
love to have you back on atsome point for us to dive a will
.
I'm going to implement this.
We're going to figure out thefive years to financial freedom.
(52:40):
We're going to build thatprogram out and help our
audience and help our clientsreally leverage that, because
we're always trying to figureout how can we connect with
realtors, how can we providevalue to them, because you guys
are out there talking to peopleall day long and some of those
people that own homes they mightwant to sell, but it's not the
(53:02):
right time.
Or two people move in togetherand I have this house.
Do I want to sell it?
Maybe I should rent it, and wewant to elevate you in your
position with your client and soif we are a resource for you,
now you can stay in contact, youcan be the expert that's the
connector to other experts, andwe want to figure out how to
(53:24):
leverage that.
So I appreciate that yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
All right, sounds great.
Thanks for coming on.
You're welcome.
Thanks for tuning in to theProperty Management Success
Podcast.
We'll be back with anothervalue-packed episode to help you
level up your propertymanagement game.
If you've got somethingvaluable out of today's episode,
please share it with a friendor colleague, and don't forget
to subscribe and leave a reviewso you never miss out on future
(53:48):
insights and strategies andtactics.
Until next time, here's to yoursuccess.
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Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com