#88 Director of Growth-eXp- Russ Laggan

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Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Get ready for change to elevate thefuture. Your thinking, your life,
one relationship, one thought, onedecision, your culture then can be block,
make a decision and decide there toinspire. What's up? What's up?

(00:41):
What's up? Good morning everybody.It is Randy Bird and I'm here
for the Lack of Boss podcast andwe're going to do it lack of Bouse
today. So I'm really really excitedto bring in my next guest on the
podcast. His name is Russ Lagan, and I'm going to see if he
if I pronounce that correctly when hecomes on. But Russ is the senior

(01:02):
director. I'm gonna read this soI get it perfectly right. He is
the senior director of growth for allof exp and exp Realty is a national
company, a multi billion dollar NASDACtreated company. But with no further ado,
let's bring in the man, themyth, the legend. Russ.
Hey there, how are you brother? How you doing good? Man?

(01:23):
I'm always good. I mean it'syou are always January. I got older
already this year, which is great. At a birthday last week, my
father was always say what day mygirls was? Friday? January ten?
For me? Okay, she's twelveWednesday for you, she was Friday.
That's awesome. My father always says, right, like, getting old sucks.
I'm like, not getting old sucksmore, right there, dude.

(01:49):
I love that, man, Ilove that. I'm super pumped to have
you here. And honestly, youhave really been a game changer for me.
The last time we were together wasin let's San Antonio. Probably physically
you're in the swimming pool with shortson and that outfit. You had your
freaking shirt, your tie, yourvest, and you're in the swimming pool
and I go, this guy's aballer, I like. But honestly,

(02:12):
we'll known each other prior to that. We've we've shared cigars, which is
the sacred brotherhood, right, thesharing of cigars. It is. But
the reason I asked you to comeon today, and I think it's really
really an important topic. I thinkit's a timely topic, and it's that
of brokerages. And you're, youknow, the senior director of growth for
all of us for all of theXP. How many areas, territories states

(02:35):
do you handle? Yeah, Ithink it was thirty three. So I'm
West, I'm technically West and CentralUS, so You've got Sean Murphy VP
over the West, Amy Weavers East, and I work with both of them
and get I get on the ground. So like if it's Colorado, it's
Utah, if it's Montana and NorthDakota, southa Coast, so I have
pretty much everything is not on theEast Coast, and I don't touch Texas
anymore. We got a special you'vegot a dedicated person perfection. I had

(03:00):
a specialist for California. So that'shuge because we've got twenty thousand agents just
between those two states alone. Nuts, isn't that those California is like the
fifth biggest brokerage in the country.Yeah. I think it's a thousand agents
now in California's crazy, right,So yeah, California is actually dividing up
into smaller sections because there's just toomuch for one. So it's it's kind

(03:20):
of doing its own thing. Sopretty much everything else, if it comes
in, it kind of gets funneledto me. And I support, you
know, support all the growth acrossand pretty much anybody's like, hey,
I want to talk to you.Yeah, We're not territorial like that.
Like I love Frank on the EastCoast. I love Felix running floor.
Those guys like, let's get theright person for that person and en roll.
Yeah, we're not territorial like that, so whatever you need. I

(03:44):
love that. And I've been licensedin California for twenty years and it's it
was a hot mess when they madeus break that up. It was like
too big to fell or something.XP was so big they were like,
no, no, no, no, we're going to break this up.
And it was a hot mess becausewe had people, you know, going
who do I lie with? Andall this stuff. But it's settled down
now, and you know, withgrowth comes pain, right sometimes always Yeah,

(04:06):
I mean remember when you were akid, right and you're like,
mom my, legs are killing meand she's like that's good. That means
you're gonna get taller, and I'mlike, it still sucks, that's right.
I think it was Jocko the NavySeal was like, you know,
we're out of material good, we'reout of food good. That's just going
to make us stronger. You know. That's what it reminded me of when
you said that. You know,like fasting makes you better, totally.

(04:29):
Eating a ton doesn't make you betterfasting, it makes you better all the
time. So sometimes is what wetake away that actually gives us the biggest
gains, And we got to rememberthat sometimes It's so true. And I'm
really excited about this particular segment becauseyou know, brokerages are something that I've
always been passionate about. I owneda small brokerage. I then went to
Kellowhims built a big, a bigoffice, and you know, been through

(04:51):
both sides of that. Almost awashing machine feel is sometimes what it felt
like. Yeah, sure, Andyou know when I look at brokerages now,
with all the lawsuits and all thethings going on, there's just more
pressure than ever to have consolidation.I believe or and or they're not going
to be able to stay in thebusiness. You know, it's just there's

(05:12):
such a fine line anyway, Andin my experience, and you could correct
me anytime, is when you getto about forty agents, that's when a
brokerage really starts having a profitability pointwhere the owners, not the team leader,
are not the icon or the ringleader or the you know, the
one income earner that's covering the wholebusiness, which is most brokerages are designed
that way. You know, Iknow mine all my commission income really supported

(05:38):
the office. And then there's flop, right, yeah, and if they
can pay for the copy machine andthe rant man I was, I was
in tall cotton and you get towhere you know, I had an assistant
in the front desk person all thatthat I'd be able to leverage myself.
Well, that typical model, andI just don't think that model is viable
anymore, you know. So here'sa little history lesson for you. And

(06:00):
very seldom I actually named brands,but you know, let's say Remax.
Okay, so your typical Remax.Everybody knows what that is, right,
your typical Remax office. So Ihad run, I had run somebody else.
I got into real estate. No. Five, I'd run somebody else's
brokers. By eight they asked meto run one of their offices. Took
one of their offices from losing abunch of money to making a bunch of
money. And the twelve I realized. By twenty twelve, I realized,
and I'm making somebody else rich.I want to make myself ritch. This

(06:21):
is crazy. So I went outand sold a bunch of houses. In
thirteen, popped one hundred and fiveclosings, by the way, not a
bad year after being an un competingbroker. Not bad. And then fourteen
I bought fifty percent of a realestate brokerage because I thought that was the
next level of next level of successfor me, right and sold that in
twenty fifteen as a fix and flipper. And that company that bought our company

(06:44):
asked me to run the lower halfof the country for them at one point,
so I had twenty eight offices underme with you know, just under
billion dollars in sales every year,and I was going into you know,
fifteen, sixteen, seventeen into eighteen. So one of the things I learned
as we were going through that iswe were starting to talk about growth,
and I'd met a guy that wasselling franchises for Remax, and we did
the math, and basically a shortstory goes like this, the typical Remax

(07:06):
office going into ten, eleven,twelve thirteen, they were when you get
to twenty agents, you broke even. So if you ran a normal small,
not a big rematch is normal twentyfive hundred square foot, keep it
simple, fifteen hundred, twenty fivehundred square foot, not class A stuff,
Class B, class c commercial you'reso you're in a smaller strip multipe

(07:27):
scenario. When you got to twentyagents, you were break even. So
then the problem is now in twothousand and you know, seventy eight,
nine, ten, eleven, twelve, the world shift in the market shifted
and remax even started doing like someof the agents would be on eighty twenties
and not just on they twelve hundreddollars a month flat fee thing and then
paying their additional five percent. Soit shifted so that they had to be
at like thirty and forty. Sotheir their process is very similar to most

(07:50):
small boutique brokerages. They need twentyto thirty agents just to break even,
and now it's more like thirty toforty to break even. So your math
is really on that and with theupward pressure of commissions from agents, because
an agent can go out there andget one hundred percent split anywhere, they
get a five hundred dollars flat feeone hundred percent commission split, so they're
not doing sixty sixty forties. Thenseventy five twenty fives is often now the

(08:15):
typical brokerages are are are south oftwenty percent company dollar to run a traditional
brokerage, you need to be attwenty twenty one to twenty two percent to
break even. So you look atlike a prudential back in the day and
you see twenty ones, and yourcolal bankers and all of GMAC's and all
of those types of normal brands,they need to be around twenty twenty one
percent to break even. So whenyou look at the typical brokerage, when

(08:37):
we're looking at brokerages and pulling apart, I was pulling apart p and ls,
the profit and loss statements, guys. I was looking at those,
and I look at the bottom lineon these brokerages and the ones that are
thirty forty agents. If they're threeand four percent, if they're five percent
profitable, that's a rock star.And most of them are like break even.
If it wasn't for the mortgage andtitle and the other affiliate business or

(08:58):
property management, they were losing moneyevery year. I know, I saw
at times hundreds of them. Soa lot of people believe these brokerages that
are making real money and they're likethey're doing great, but realistically, until
they get to that thirty forty agentrange, they're lucky. If they're breaking
even, and then like they're breakingeven, and now all of your sales,
Randy get to pay your bills,not pay the brokerage bills. Like,

(09:18):
wow, we're winning, right,So these boutique brokerages are just a
dog fight. And then the problemis the real problem. Randy becomes this
the typical real estate agent that becomesa team lead and then a good team
lead. So the food chain lookslike this. I'm an agent selling houses,
right, My time is to sellhouses. That's level one, and

(09:39):
then level two is I build ateam. And then when a team is
successful, they think the next thingis to become a brokerage. Right.
This is the typical food chain.It's like, I'm successful agent, so
I build a team, and thenI'm successful team. So I got to
build a successful brokerage. And whathappens, Brandy, is I get these
people that sit in front of metimes twenty and thirty of these brokerages a
month now to us saying rust,somebody needs I need to get somebody talking

(10:01):
to twenty of them. And Isaid, with this broker and I said,
what do you love to do?I love to teach, train and
coach and love people. Succeed.That's why I started the team to help
me make more money and help otherpeople be successful. So I want to
make more money and work less hours. That's why I started a team.
And then I wanted to make moremoney and work less hours, which is
why I started a brokerage. Andwhat happens is they're working way more hours,

(10:24):
making way less money, and they'renot in charge of anything. They're
like, this isn't freedom, thisis a gilded cage. They can fly
around in their gilded cage as muchas they want. And by the way,
the bigger their brokerage gets, theless they get to do what they
love. Because what happens with abrokerage, Randy, is that the more
people you get, the more timeyou spend on the back end of the
business. So as a tea asas an individual agent, you're spending ninety

(10:48):
percent of your time working on thestuff you love and ten percent on the
back end of the business. Asa team, you're spending fifty percent of
the time working on the business andfifty percent of the time doing the stuff
that you love. As a brokerage, you're working ninety percent on stuff you
don't love and ten percent on stuffyou do love. This is why we
see a bunch of brokerages get stalledat thirty forty fifty agents because they don't

(11:09):
have the time to go out andthe build the build the brokerage and love
people. They're spending a time oncompliance and paperwork and bookkeeping. So one
of the things that we talk about, Randy is going like, how do
I get you back to doing whatyou love you when you're in your own
system? Here you're you know,I was just talking to a C twenty
one guy. He's like, Russ, I literally just got off the phone

(11:31):
with a big one and a bridgeright as we got on the podcast together.
Guys like, listen, you're underyour own unbrother. You got your
own thing. And the fun partis is you got your own thing,
you got your own flavor, right, And the problem is now, how
much of your time are you gettingto do spend on doing the stuff you
love? And he's like, aboutten percent, I said, and ninety
percent of the stuff that you don'tlove to douse, I asked him.

(11:52):
I'm like, what do you loveto do? I love teaching, training,
coaching, loving people. They're like, all right, cool, So
here's the thing here, the thingsyou didn't say, Randy, you didn't
say I love compliance, I lovebookkeeping, I love accounting, I love
attracting things. I love paperwork,I love technology issues. I love dealing
with e ando insurance, I lovedealing with websites and CRMs, and I

(12:13):
love dealing with toilet paper. Youdidn't say you love that stuff. So
here's the difference with what we're doingright now. If that's what you truly
love, look at it like this. Here's why EXP is different. We
can put you on the EXP platformand EXP is going to take ninety percent
of that stuff, and they're goingto take that on as themselves, and

(12:33):
we're going to get you back todoing the ninety percent of the stuff you
do love. You're still going tohave to do some back end stuff,
right, but if we can getyou in a spot where you're doing ninety
percent of what you do, lovethe teaching, training, coaching, loving
people to success. EXP handles aback end. They handle getting people paid,
they handle checks, they handle bookkeeping, accounting, technology problems. We
have a technology outpost. They goto them instead of going to you.

(12:54):
You just got to readrect go tothe technology outposts Okay, get you back
to doing what you love. Wouldyou like to do that? Oh yeah?
And by the way, this guyover here makes way more money than
this guy over here. That's whatI was gonna ask, because that's that's
the golden handcuff of most brokerages thatthey, especially you know, smaller they've
got this independent and this freedom.Yeah, but they can't let go of

(13:18):
the idea that they might lose thatten grand a month that comes in or
whatever the number is. The problemis they don't truly have freedom. That's
the problem. They don't truly havefreedom. Do they have control? More
so, they don't have somebody elsetelling what to do. But they're like,
here's the thing, Randy, Like, here's what it really looks like.
Okay, let me draw you alittle picture here. I'm really great
with stick figures. Right, thisis what it looks like. Okay,

(13:41):
here's you. You're your little birdie. Okay, and this is my brand.
Okay, my brand right here.So you basically built your own bird
cage. You can fly around anywhereyou want within that bird cage that you
built for yourself. So do youtruly have freedom or you have constraints?
But you've created the constraints you feelmore acceptable. So if I can free

(14:01):
you from this, like, here'swhat we're doing. We're eliminating the bar
so you can come out and like, here's your exit plan. The exit
plan is I can still have allthe things in the control. I can
build my brand, build my tribe, build my field, build my flavor.
I can have my own look,I can have my own feel,
I can have my own logo.And yet again, he just put this
little brokered by exp down to thebottom corner, and now you have way

(14:24):
more freedom because you don't have todo all the things that you don't love
to do. Also, because listenthat guy that calls you on Christmas Eve
on Friday before the Christmas holiday,I guarantee you somebody watching this had somebody
in their brokerage have a closing onFriday at five o'clock and it got delayed.
Next thing, you know, atsix o'clock and it's seven o'clock and
it's eight o'clock and then a titlecompany cut the check wrong and that person's

(14:46):
like, dude, like I gotthis. I need this money. I
need this check because I can't buyChristmas gifts for my family, because that
I guarantee that happened to somebody listeningto this this year a couple weeks ago,
right Beforechristmas. Because Christmas is ona Monday. So guess what if
that thing didn't close on Friday likeit's supposed to. That person can't get
that check, they can't deposit thatmoney, They don't have money for Christmas

(15:07):
gifts. That is a super supercommon story. So who do they call?
They call you at eleven o'clock atnight, Randy, Dude, like,
I can't buy Christmas gifts for myfamily, And you're like, listen,
I'm gonna give you. I'm goingto send you one thousand dollars.
I'm more wire one thousand dollars toyou. Right, I've done that myself,
Like I have to, and you'rebringing back some PTSD by But but

(15:28):
I have freedom. You're like,no, no, it's bs. You
don't really have freedom, right,So if you could have all the upside
with the less of the downside,do you want that? Like that's a
shift in the conversation. But Randy, when we're having this conversation, Begay's
like the recipe is really simple.It's like, where are you at now
where do you want to be?And then how are we going to get

(15:48):
you there? Right? Because listen, nobody's buying exp like. That's not
what they buy. They buy themgetting their life on this platform. They
buy that as the ability as aa vehicle to get their life where they
want it to be. So we'vegot to shift the way we communicate with
people and start to figure out howdo we get you back to what you
want to do, how do weget you going directly you want to go,

(16:10):
How do we get you to youwhat your next level is for you?
That's the key, that's the essence. So when you know, as
good as this sounds, and Ithink the lawsuits and the trickle down effect
of the lawsuits meaning that any brokerageis really open to get challenged in this
and you know, a small brokeragewould be destroyed by just the appeals process

(16:33):
and the and the the need togo through those processes. So that's scaring
a lot of brokers. I'm talkingabout how do they how do they leave
ego intact and leave maybe you knowfifteen twenty years of brokers that they built
and built from the ground up,and that seems to be a big thing.
You know we are all you knowwe have. There's egos at play
there, uh, fear at play. What what are you seeing like being

(16:56):
the big catalyst to getting people overthe hump and that particular situation. Well,
again, I think it comes backto there's a misunderstanding in what we
do and how we XP works versuseverything else, right, So Beth understanding,
Yeah, exactly myth understanding of whatare we really right? So so
again we go back to why didyou do this in the first place?

(17:18):
Randy, Yeah, why did youdo this in the first place? If
we can get to that, it'slike and if I can get you back
to that spot, like I thinkthe miss misconception is that XP is like
this, it's like every other brand. Well I got to talk under the
GMAC or the Cola anchor the Igot to talk under that brand, or
I have my own brand right thisso this is this is okay, So
we got we got the bird brandright, Okay, bird brand versus C

(17:44):
Like I've got my own bird brand. That's that's great. But in this
scenario, whether you're under a franchiseor you're under your own brand, you
still have one hundred percent of theresponsibility for the stuff you love and this
stuff you don't love, right,so what do you really love? But
dude, we got this cool lookingumbrella with a bird on it. Cool.
Well, so instead of being insteadof being the bird bird Realty,
you know, bird Realty or Birdreal Estate, go to you go to

(18:08):
Bird the Bird group, right,right, Okay, so by Bird Realty
group. Fine, So you changeone word, you add a sticker to
your side. You can still keepyour flavor, you can still keep the
umbrella, you can still keep thebird logo, and you just stick it
over here and you put the littlethings as broken by EXP Realty, right,
So you basically are like EXP doesn'twant to control you. Ideally,

(18:30):
what EXP is doing is providing theplatform for you to be the best you.
So you have the freedom to doyou and do your brand, do
your flavor, do your style,do your colors, do your logo.
I mean, here's how the rulesreally go. And maybe this is a
slight oversimplification, but not too faroff from the reality of the way we
roll and the way we push stuff. If it's legal, honest and ethical

(18:52):
in your state, boom, doit like I don't like I don't really
care what you do if it's legal, honest and ethical right and you're not
causing harm to other people in thecourse of doing business. Exp's like,
use our platform to stand taller.That's all we're doing. Align yourself like,
I've got my own little brand.You've got fifty thousand people. We've

(19:12):
got our own little brand. We'vegot ninety thousand. You've got ninety thousand
people to collaborate with versus having yourfifty So really are you doing your people
the most good and the most favors? You have way more options being over
here. You also have way moretime and for most of these guys.
Randy Hell I had a guy thatI was having a conversation with ce twenty

(19:33):
one. I'm not going to namehis name, Illinois and I having this
conversation. He's like, Russ.As we're going through the numbers, I'm
like, what do you really wantto know today? What do you really
want today? I said, Iwant you to make it hurt so much
I have to move Ooh. I'mlike, based on your brokerage, and
by the way, this wasn't abig brokerage. It was like forty or
so agents. I said, allright, So here's the deal. Let

(19:53):
me give you bottom line. Atthe end of the year, you're not
going to have your little they Youget these little trophies called Centurion trophies.
I don't even ever see them.They look like oscars. They're kind of
cool. Right, He's got awhole wall of them. I said,
here's the deal, dude. Overhere, you're not going to get that
little oscar thing. But but whatwe're gonna do instead is we're going to
give you a briefcase, which Ihad my briefcase. We're gonna give you
a briefcase. And what you're gonnado is you're gonna take that briefcase.

(20:15):
He also loves cars. By theway, you take that briefcase over to
your local Ferrari dealer and you're gonnaset it on the counter and you're gonna
be like, hey, I wanta new Ferrari four to fifty eight.
It's about three hundred fifty thousand dollars. By the way, you open up
the briefcase and you hand them threehundred fifty thousand dollars cash, and then
you slam the briefcase clothes and youwalk over back home and you say honey,
I just brought a Ferrari four tofifty eight. Here's the other three

(20:36):
hundred thousand dollars that's left, andyou let your wife do whatever she wants
with her three hundred thousand dollars.So sorry, you're not gonna get a
centurion. But you've got six hundredand fifty thousand more dollars in your pocket
every year. And he's like,how what that doesn't now was his specific
situation. That was his specific situation. I can name the guy. I'm
not gonna name him here because Idon't want to do it ta get for

(20:56):
him. With the amount of money, time and energy effort is putting in
the franchise fees and the cost ofdoing business and the way he had his
team set up. If he bringsit over here and runs it on our
platform, he can still keep hisname and he'll just add group to the
end of it. That's it.He's going to keep his same logo and
put a little stickers as a groupon the end of it. He's net
six hundred and fifty thousand more dollarsin his pocket every year. Now,

(21:18):
that's an extreme example, but thisguy just did this like three four months
ago. He just made the moveand I said, listen, man,
like, I don't know how manymore years are you going to be in
business? And he's like, well, Russ, I like probably twenty years.
I'm like, let's go with ten. That's six hundred and fifty thousand
times ten. That's six point fivemore million dollars in your pocket in ten
years. So now the question isdo you really want to go the other

(21:40):
ten? If you got six pointfive more million dollars, save all of
it, don't change anything, saveevery penny of it. You don't need
to work anymore. So, Randy, as we're going through this process,
here's here's really the game. Thegame breaks down into three pieces. And
I've been doing this more recently andI kind of quantified it with my little
my little slope curve. Yeah.I like that. I know you've seen

(22:02):
this in the first phase of thebusiness. Every single person that's going into
this business is their number one goalis how do I make enough money?
Right, It's that how do Iget to the cash number that I need
to be able to make the wordto move around. And then once they
get to the point where they gotthe cash that they need, coming in
every year. Then the second thingthey start to go to is like,
and I don't want my time back. Man. This guy's like, I'm

(22:23):
well, do whatever it takes.Man over twenty four to seven do get
to that number? Cool? Andthen you get to that number and you're
like, I don't want to workevery evening and I don't want to work
every weekend. I've just succeeded.Now what's the next step? Brand And
then now once we get these twoput together, then that person like,
I've got good balance of time andmoney coming in. Then that person was

(22:45):
like, Okay, the next stepis how do I get true freedom?
True freedom is I don't have totrade time for money doing this anymore.
Now I'm doing this because either Iwant to or because it feeds something else
my soul, So I have truefreedom. This I also like to call
this exit. And that's basically sayingI could stop now so this guy,

(23:07):
I could stop at the ten yearmark not have to do anything else,
and I got six point five moremillion dollars in my bank account just if
I don't make a dime on investments, I got six point five more million
dollars. That guy literally can chooseto exit, not that he wants to,
not that he's going to, buthe can if he wants to,
which really is true freedom. Andthen once that person gets to the point
where they have that moment of freedomand they're like, listen, you're still

(23:32):
young, Randy, Like you havefreedom. Now, now what are you
gonna do? And we got abunch of people around us, they go
to that fourth level, which Ilove. This fourth level here is is
how do you build a legacy?Like how are some of the things that
I'm doing going to last past thetime that I live? And we have
this great example right now of RickGieha, I know, you know the

(23:52):
story of Rick Rick passed away suddenlywent to a celebration of life. Dude,
like just ripped everybody's heart out,right, because this guy, this
guy was in that freedom mode.He had the and he was doing what
he was doing not because he hadto, because he wanted to and he
wanted to leave a legacy. Andlet's be clear, he want he He
won on that one, right,he left a legacy, right, and

(24:15):
then you got people like you know, like we got people like Jean Frederick.
Right, he's already got He's hada legacy for years already, So
what does Gene want? So thenthere here's a fun part. There's this
fifth level for guys like that,they've already built a legacy. And then
here's the fun part. That fifthlevel for somebody that's already here. You're
like, what does a guy likethat want? Russ, I got this

(24:36):
guy, He's like, Russ,I'm already there. Man. I've got
fifty agents that are successful under me. I've changed their family. I've got
their kids joining our brokerage. NowI know all their grandkids. Like the
stuff that we did help those familiesget to the point where they could have
kids. And then know I knewall the grandkids. I said, great,
cool, So here's the next levelfor you. How about you show
them how to do what you did? So now you got legacy the too.

(24:59):
So it doesn't matter where you areon this curve, if you're still
alive and breathing, most of thepeople that got here when I say your
next legacy, your next legacy twopoint oh? Right, the two point
oh is to help one hundred peoplehave what you have. I love this
and this was summed up and you'lllove this. This was summed up by

(25:21):
one guy that said this out loud, and I thought, wow, all
right, this guy's legacy two pointoh. He's like, my goal now
is to help one hundred people makea million dollars a year. That's that's
a guy showing other people how tobuild a legacy, showing people how to
get where he was right, Andthat to me, that so there's always
more. Right. The people thatget here are so driven they're not gonna

(25:44):
stop. They're just gonna do somethingdifferent. So now it's like, not
focus on me, focus on everybodyelse, right totally. You can start
that here, right, because itreally is that out we're focusing to remember
that broker's thing. That broker's thingis because they wanted to help other people.
But the problem as they get stuckin this trade and time for money
cash, they never get to thetime where they have enough money and they

(26:04):
have the time. Because I don'tknow many brokers are like you know what,
Russ, I really don't work thatmany hours. I don't very many
of them to do that. Well, what's in a blue moon? You
do? But those are people thatlike ten ten agents and they don't actually
do anything for their agents. Youknow, some of them are doing,
but they still have to sell houses, right, So how many of them
are really at freedom? Very veryfew, which is why we say,

(26:25):
hey, move over here, andwe can put you in a position where
you keep doing what you're doing andyou can get yourself out for freedom.
Yeah, been there, done that. Thought I had freedom. And I
remember going on vacation for seven daysand telling my assistant, don't get a
hold of me unless it's like anemergency. And I got called like seven
times and seven days and then Icame home and broke everything, including firing
some people that were obviously I couldn'tleave alone, right, And then so

(26:48):
we went down the road about ninetydays, one hundred and eighty days maybe,
And then I went on another vacationfor a month and I literally locked
the door and I said, we'regoing to do a test and whatever burns
down, and we're going to fixwhen I get back. And that was
my version of creating time and financialfreedom. And you know, I had
twenty five agents. It was awesome, yes, but that was my litmus
test was can I shut the doorfor thirty days for me? It's still

(27:11):
operating, still running, But canI do that and have it not be
smoldering embers when I get home andwe were able, We were actually able
to leave for thirty days with lesstrauma and drama and everything else in the
business than seven days. And itwas on purpose. It was very very
cool. I hear so many ofthese people are here, like, but
Russ, I really love being anowner, got it. I mean it's

(27:33):
a great ego stroke in a lotof ways. It's my things, a
pride in that. I totally getthat, right, But if it's not
serving you, like, what's theultimate goal is thing? It's to make
money. Since you have the abilityto get to this point, and if
it's not doing that, let's changeit. You can still have that it
feels good, but you have theability to actually get to that freedom thing.
Thirty days pass test? Is itright? If you get to thirty

(27:56):
day, If you can't walk awayfrom thirty days, right, you're not
an owner employee that's one hundred percentright, Yeah, still an employee.
So you got to get to thepoint where you have the parts and pieces
and systems in place where you walkaway from thirty days. And here's really
great. If you got the rightpeople, you get out of their way
for thirty days they actually accelerate withit. Now you know you're right,
So let's talk tactical because this isyou know, this is amazing, maybe

(28:19):
even a little pie in the sky. For some of the people that might
be watching this, they're own abrokerage of five, ten twenty. I
meet with a guy that's got fiftyagents. I met with another one that
has forty five, and they've beenaround for fifty years, right, and
they're in Washington. Just so Idon't embellish anybody's model in business, but
what does this look like for thebrokerage that is wondering how they do this?

(28:44):
So mathematically, can you take usthrough how a transition would look like
this? There's some new programs toenhance the initial partnership with the XP.
What does all that look like foryou? Like, take us through that
if you wouldn't mind. Okay,So here here's the thing. We get
this, we get this messed up. We get this messed up a lot,
Randy. So here's really here's mythoughts on the process. Step one

(29:10):
Should I do this or not?Right? That's like step one is exp
a good fit for me or not? Because if it's not a good fit.
It doesn't matter what the numbers are. Okay, so let's make sure
EXP is a good fit culturally culturallyeasy for me to say cultfully culturally?
Are we a good fit? Doyou align with what we're doing and how
we're doing it. Does this makesense? Right? If this makes sense,
cool, let's talk again. No, let's talk about the numbers.

(29:33):
But if this doesn't make sense,to get you back to this, I
just really enjoy this. Like forsomebody loves compliance and bookkeeping and accounting and
so forth, and they're making money, fine, Like, don't do anything.
Okay, So here's the thing.Should I there's three types of people
that are thinking about doing something different. It's important we understand that. And
I think a lot of people missthis. Okay, there's three different types

(29:56):
of people that are going to doso okay, should do something? Need
to do something? Number One,I want out. I'm done with this.
I don't want to do this anymore. Okay. We get a lot
of people saying I want out ofthis business. I went out of this
brokerage. I'm out a lot ofdifferent reasons, medical, divorce, time,
other change everything. Seventy I gota guy seventy seven years old,

(30:18):
and he's like, Russ, I'mdone. Okay, cool, Okay,
So that's one. Number two isthey don't want to do it like this
anymore. They want to shift.Okay, So to is shift. So
one is they want out. Numbertwo is they want to shift. Randy,
I've been doing this for what.I don't want to do it like
this anymore. I need something tobe different. Okay, Right, cage
is great, but I'd like tohave my cage with a door whatever that

(30:41):
is. Okay, I'm not doingit like this anymore. It wasn't what
they thought it was. It didn'tbuild the way they thought it would.
They didn't shift with the market changes. The world changed and they didn't whatever.
Okay, they're done doing it thatway. The don' want to do
it that way. When they doit different, I'm gonna shift the way
I'm doing business. Okay. Thisis a shift, Okay, moving over
to the XP and doing it alittle different shift. Okay. The third

(31:03):
one and the one that I reallylove, is, Hey, Russ,
I need to level up my business. I'm stuck here, stalled here.
I haven't moved forward in the lasttwo, three, four or five years,
I don't know what the path tonext level is. I need to
align with other people. I'm bymyself, doing my own thing, going
my own direction. I really don'thave other people to run with. They
say, the old African proverb says, you want to run fast, go

(31:26):
by yourself, you want to runfar, go with a group. Right,
So there's a lot of people heresolo that are like they need to
run with a group. So like, I want to take this to the
next level. And by partnering withyou, and by aligning with you,
by aligning with the organization, byaligning with the XP, we're able to
take our business to the next level. So the first things first is That's
why I always ask them what doyou love to do? What do you

(31:47):
not love to do? What's workingfor you, what's not working for you?
What do you want your life tolook like? What do you want
to be doing? So once Iget really clear, I'm where they're at
now where they want to be,It's like, okay, let's talk about
how to get at you there,and if they fit into one of those
three categories, I want out,I want to shift, or I want
to level up my business shift andlevel up my business. Usually those two

(32:08):
are combined. If they want thesecond and third one, we've got some
really great solutions. If they justwant out, you know, col a
banker will give you a check andyou walk away. It's not going to
be very much. And there's abunch of companies. They'll give you thirty
percent year one of company dollar,twenty percent of year two company dollars,
and ten percent of year three companydollar. That's the other exit plan a

(32:29):
lot of people have. And here'sthe problem. If you do the math,
that's sixty percent over three years,and you still have to be engaged
for three years. You're better off. And I've given this advice way more
once, Randy, you're better offin that case. Instead of doing that,
run this business full throttle for oneyear, you're going to collect one
hundred percent, Slam it into abrick wall, light it up, fire,
walk away, close the doors,and you're actually ahead forty percent and

(32:50):
two years of your life. Okay, So the exit plans for most of
these brokerages don't actually provide them anexit. However, within the exp ecosystem,
if they aligned with a group likeyours, you can tuck their agents
under your organization and you can helpthat transition faster so they can get back
to doing what they love and theycan actually still get something long term out
out of it. It's going tobe a small check a bunch of times,

(33:12):
but you can have that small checka bunch of times for a bunch
of years. Yeah. Okay,So we have solutions for all three.
We just got to figure out whichone it is, and then we got
to show them how to get that. That's one Should I do this or
shouldn't I do this? Okay?Then the second section is once I say,
you know what, this makes senseand I can be here and I
can have what I want and youcan and that works for me. That

(33:32):
would make sense for me. Yes, that'll get me in the right direction.
Then the second conversation is, Okay, let's talk about how to structure
this guy so he has the freedomand what are those numbers look like?
I go back to that C twentyone story we had the first conversations like,
Russ, this sounds like I shouldbe talking more about the app.
So let me show you. Ifyou take your team and move it over

(33:53):
here and work them as a team, I'll show you three different ways you
can set your team up. Andall three of those ways have different numbers
attached to them, and you gotto determine which one of those three makes
most sense for this guy so hecan live the life he wants, and
then the numbers and money are acceptable. Almost all of these guys that come
over and become this guy have moremoney in their pocket. And for some

(34:15):
of them, like here's a realone, right, sometimes it's only forty
fifty sixty thousand dollars a year,right, I said, okay, But
this guy right here, if hedoesn't have to do all that back end
stuff, how much more time everyweek does this guy have? And this
guy I'll say, well, I'llhave twenty more hours a week, or
I'll have thirty more hours a week. Okay. And this guy wants to

(34:37):
sell more homes. Great, ifyou had thirty more hours in a week,
how many more homes do you thinkhe could sell in a month?
And this guy I'll say two okay, so too. So it's twenty four
years. Your typical commission's ten k. So you're making twenty thousand dollars more
year a month plus the fifty thousand. So yeah, two hundred and forty
plus you're fifty, so you're threehundred thousand dollars a year head and you're

(35:00):
gonna be in business how long?Ten years? So that's three million more
dollars in your pocket. So whileyou still have your umbrella that you've created,
your whatever be, you still haveRandy Bird flavor, you still have
Randy Bird tribe, you still haveyou can still run the team, you
can still do but you're gonna you'regonna dedicate ten hours to the team.
You're gonna dedicate the other thirty toyou and get you back to doing what

(35:22):
you love. And net, inten years, you have three more million
dollars in your pocket, So don'tchange the way you spend a dollar.
And net you have three more threemore million dollars in your pocket. So
it's it's sometimes the cash, Likewe're not cutting checks like some of these
other companies, so like and mostthey cut me a two million dollar check
in twenty twenty. I'm like,good for you, and they get that.
He's like, the problem is theygot that two million dollars back over

(35:45):
the next three years during that contract. And I'm like, so, net,
how many dollars do you have rightright, he's like, you want
to do that again, No,let's make the move now, and then
you don't spend a dollar that netyou're three million dollars ahead. More importantly,
those those bonuses and incentives are tiedto so many contractual restrictions and resets,
and it's a short term it's ashort term check that creates a short

(36:06):
term solution and over the next threeyears. Listen, I don't know a
single company yet, and I've doneacquisitions with another company. We did a
number of acquisition We never set upa deal. We're like, Okay,
we're gonna give them money and inthree years they're gonna be ahead. Never,
not once did the attorney go,you know, if we tweak this,
we can actually lose money at thethree year mark. Never. Right,

(36:28):
So we always want to get themoney back by the time the contractual
obligation is up. And then bythe way over the next three years of
you stay now, we're ahead evenmore so, Like everybody that's cutting a
check is looking at getting that andmore back. That's what we call investing.
We're investing. We're giving the moneyto hope we get more back at
the three year mark. Not evenand there's there's certain scenarios where they can

(36:51):
take a short term loss in orderto have a longer term gain, but
they still have to retain those peopleand then the math doesn't work. So
a lot of people get an thesethree year agreements and at three year mark
they're like, I'm actually in thehole now, and we're moving them over
here and sending them up on apath where they can actually get to this
and build this. I love it. I love it. It's a mindset
shift. Yeah, and we've broughtin exp's partnered with some massive players even

(37:15):
as of late the Bain team,which was what six hundred agents or something,
A couple of teams in LA onehundred and fifty plus. It's really
amazing. I don't know of anyother companies that's attracting those kind of agents
without buying them, right, Andthere's an argument both directions. I get
it. I think it was Ithink it was really a brilliant plan by

(37:35):
Compass when they laid out that we'regoing to be twenty percent market share and
buy our way into these markets.Because now we've achieved those things, but
they're still not profitable, and theyweren't profitable in the best market. That's
the challenge I see with writing checksas partner and to move the needle.
And it's appealing for broker owners.Right. I'm battling with a gal right
now in Florida that was offered thatyears ago. Now they're not doing anymore,

(37:59):
so they're wanting it to be astep up and do that. And
I'm like, yes, that's nota model though. No, No,
there's just a lot of other waysto have this model be beneficial. So
if I have to pay you tobe here, isn't really that great?
Yeah, I get it, Andwe're looking at I still think it's attached
to ego. I think it's attachedto well, I built this brand for
twenty five years. It's got tobe worth something. And when you look

(38:20):
at it from an investor point,without it being even you know, in
a place of desperation or otherwise,there's hardly any value in a brokerage to
purchase, right, I mean,the team leader's volume out of it are
the broker owners volume. And youlook at the brokerage by itself, very
difficult to make those profitable. Yeah, I mean, and you look at
it like, let's say, youknow, I happen to be a rare

(38:42):
bird in that somebody actually paid meand my business partner three and a half
time multiplayer of my business. Andwhat we found out later is Number One,
they had to do that because theyhad they needed a company that actually
knew how to do real estate salesin that market at that time. And
also what I didn't realize after thefact was, and I can name names
on this person who's now president ofanother company, it's amazing, one of

(39:05):
my favorite people in the world.And she said something along the lines of,
we did that because we wanted you. They basically bought me right and
then I was with their company andhelped them build the lower half of the
country. So I had twenty eightoffices under me at one point with just
a hundred billion dollars in sales.We built it up and they went from
doing ninety percent ario business to doingeighty percent agent generated business within the span
of three years. But they neededsomebody to teach them how to shift to

(39:29):
get the right people on the board. We realized they had a whole business
and a whole company full of indoorcats. If you hand them business,
they were great at it. Butif you tell them to go out and
hunt. They had no idea howto be an outdoor that's such a it's
a great analogy. By the way, So boost thrive and you know,
let's talk about that, okay,So boost thrive, real simple, real

(39:49):
simple plan. In conversation in DC, had a bunch of the C group
got together and they sit down andstrategize. Once a quarter, it's like,
how do we make this company better? Right? Well, every quarter
they have a quarterly business review,and instead of just going through what did
we do, it's like what canwe do? What are we thinking about
doing? And they spit ball abunch of crazy stuff and sometimes they're like
no, like that's crazy, andother times like that's crazy. But maybe

(40:14):
if we did, you know.So this boost came out of that and
basically looks like this. One ofthe conversations went, how do we get
these people to move? I said, one of the problems is we had
the conversation said, one of theproblems is when a broker, it's painful
for the broker's move because they've gotspend where they move everything over, and
then they got to change signs,they got to change logos and change pay
order and change and all that stuff, ball and transition, right, So

(40:37):
if we could have a scenario wherewe could actually make that dip a little
less painful short term so that theyhave the ability to survive financially, because
some of them don't. Haven't listenwhen they're ready at the point they're moving.
They're not moving because they're making somuch money they got to move.
They're moving because they probably they're like, I've already sunk the boat. It's
underwater. We nicknamed it the Titanic, so we've got to bring the thing

(40:58):
back up, bail the water.So they don't have extra cash. So
if we could put a little cashin their pocket short term and then give
them the rest of it at theone year mark based on retention, because
I don't want to build a companythat gets a bunch of losers, right.
So the BOOST program is for companiesthat are fifty agents plus over one
hundred million dollars in sales, theyqualify for BOOST. These are for the
companies that there's substantial cost to makinga move like that, so we try

(41:22):
to offset that a little bit andtake a little bit of the sting up.
It's not a huge number, butit makes it so it's doable for
a lot of people versus completely notdoable. Many of them just have to
shut the doors and walk away.So it gives them an option to maybe
potentially make that roll in versus havingto shut the door and walk away.
And let's be clear, guys,if you've got any brokerage of any size
of it's less than fifty, bringit to us, because there's certain things
we could potentially work and find away to make something that makes sense.

(41:44):
We understand what it takes to makethat move, so if we can find
a way to make it make sense, we'll do that. But the BOOST
program is officially for fifty plus onehundred million production, and we have the
Thrive program, which is kind offunny. They're like, well, we
got brokerages, we got these teamsthat make this move too. So BOOST
is actually a cash incenti to Itgives them a little bit of cash up
front, and then the remainder ofthe cash at the one year mark,

(42:05):
and it's paid ninety days after theone year mark, and they have to
keep their people intact, and it'sbased off the year. It's based off
their previous production. Right, it'snot based off of P and L.
It's not based off of balance sheets. It's based off of product, previous
production okay, and what they wouldpay exp if they were here at that
time. Do the same thing forteams. Teams that would qualify for Mega
team. They're very similar as positions. They're not brokers, but some similar

(42:29):
issues. So it's ten agents plusforty million in production, okay, if
they fit in that Mega team size, then we have a stock incentive for
them to make the move. Sowe give them a little bit of an
extra push to make that move andmake it so it offsets some of the
time, energy and effort and costs. Well, that's a stock incentive,
not cash incentive, but that stockincentive. Usually these guys, if they're

(42:50):
doing pretty good, they're making money, so they don't really need the money
as much as it just offsets someof that loss of making that shift.
Okay. And then for everybody comingover any new age into EXD, we
have the Accelerate program and the Accelerateprogram basically they always say it opens up
level two and three for their revenueshare organization, but realistically it's one,

(43:10):
two and three because if you getanybody on level one you automatically qualify them.
But it also gets anybody that's onlevel two and level three. So
if somebody makes the move over andthey add a couple of people and they
do the right stuff, and acouple more people add because of the people
they added, just get some paidon those immediately. This kind of gives
you like a jumpstart. So let'ssay, hey, Randy, you and

(43:30):
I are going to run a fivek. You and I are going head
to ten. Yeah, I getto start a half mile ahead, right,
and at the twelve month mark.This just gives you an advantage to
get you as many people as youcan, give you an incentive to make
sure that you have the ten atone year mark so that you can still
cape keep being paid on all three. Okay, so it's a head start

(43:52):
basically. And like one of thethings that we did was this this program
called U plus two Them plus two, which you know, can you yeah,
no, decide Blue. There's watershooting out the side. I've got
water side of our house. Yougot to go do your thing. Man,
it's cold here too. All thetypes are rough, but dude,

(44:15):
it's been amazing. I really appreciateyou. I'm going to put some stuff
on the screen so people can getahold of us. But go handle that.
You got it. Brothers, let'sdo this again. We're right on
time, all right, have agood one, brother. Appreciate your brother's
here. Thank you well. Hehad a water emergency, and that happens
when you're live. You know,we're here in Oregon and we've got a

(44:37):
crazy freeze going on right now.Matter of fact, they don't have water
in half of my house. Theother half works where the shower is as
good. But if you enjoyed thistoday, reach out to me. I'm
going to put this back on here. If you're a broker really looking at
this information and wondering what you cando to maybe just get an idea of
what this may look like with theXP removing all the liability, the exposure,

(44:58):
all the management, all the hoentsof it. Even if you own
multiple offices, we can do thisfor you for free. We can very
quickly go through the numbers and seewhat this looks likes in you're one,
two, and three, So reachout to me if you're interested. I've
got my handle there. Coach RandyBird is Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and
all that, and then also youcan email me if you want to,

(45:21):
at teambird dot com or at teambirdat gmail dot com and we'll send you
the Boost, the Thrive, theAccelerate programs so you can look those over
and see what the details are ofthose. But I really appreciate you being
here. Thank you very much.It's Randy Bird saying, have an amazing
day. I appreciate you being herelistening to this content and information. And
thanks again Russ for being our guesttoday. And you had to run to

(45:44):
fix broken pipes, water scorting everywhere. It's the polar blast. All right,
you guys have a great day.I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
For now, get ready for shameto elevate the future. Your thanks,
your five ladyship, one God,one decision. You're closer than to

(46:07):
pig walk. Make a decision anddecide there to be inspired.