RE/MAX CEO-Adam Contos-This Market- LABPOD087

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Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Get ready for me to elevate yourfuture, your thinking, your wife,
one relation, one thought, onedecision, your closure. Then to the
walk, make a decision and decidethere to be inspired. Welcome to the

(00:48):
show like a boss. I'm reallyreally excited to have our guest today,
Adam Cantos. He and I goway back and he didn't know it,
but Adam, welcome to the showtoday. Thank you for being here today.
Thanks for Andy. It's great tosee you. Great to see you.
And I know we connected a coupleof weeks ago and I immediately was
drawn to you and your story andI'd love to have you on the podcast.

(01:10):
So thanks for doing that with us. We really appreciate it. And
you know what we love about thisand I put in here former CEO of
Remax, serial entrepreneur and business advocate, straight from your Instagram could have had
a better honestly. And when wechatted Adam, we talked about a couple
of topics that I think would bereally really good for the audience today.

(01:32):
And for the most part, there'sa lot of moving parts going on in
the industry right now, but Iwant to highlight you for a minute,
if that's okay. And I'd likeyou to brag. I'm asking you,
I'm begging you to brag on yourselfa little bit. I know you to
be a humble human being, butyou know, I want to take you
through some of that and the listenersthrough some of the experiences that you've been
through. And we met back inI believe it was two thousand and four

(01:56):
and I was with Cole Banker forvery short few months and I went to
Remax, loved that brand and gotto meet you and Dave Liniger and some
of the others through that Remax journey. And that was twenty years ago,
May years ago. And so you'vebeen in the business for a while.
But if you could, why don'tyou take the listeners through a little journey

(02:17):
of what your background is as faras it relates to real estate. And
then you became the CEO of Remax, one of the beamoths in the real
estate space, and we'd love toshare that and get that from you.
Sure. So I mean my youknow, Remax is my second career.
My first career, I was inlaw enforcement. I was I worked under

(02:38):
cover a couple of years, sellingNAR contects every day. So I looked
the part and everything like that.Oh yeah, yeah, I was a
great drug dealer. In fact,Randy, this plays into real estate because
that's where I learned sales. AndI actually taught a class called narc marketing
and how do you go out andthink about this as a real estate agent,
how do you go out and meetpeople that you don't know, earn

(03:00):
their trust and confidence, and thendo a life changing deal with them.
And that's really what working narcotics was. So I actually I went to the
DEA Narcotics Investigator School and I learnedsales that way. They would just drop
us on a street corner and say, go find somebody and meet them,
and we would go do that andtry and buy drugs. But I grew

(03:21):
up in law enforcement. Yeah yeah, it was a good time, but
I grew up in law enforcement.I ended up becoming a swat team commander,
which has a lot of strategy,you know, the chess board type
environment, which really is what businessis about. Also it's a chess board.
I started a couple of businesses.I started an online business in the

(03:43):
late nineties when the internet was ababy, and it was a little difficult
to sell things during that time,but it was a lot of fun.
It was a great learning experience forme. And then I started a consulting
business doing security and safety consulting.I was a counter terrorism instructor and homeland
security instructor. So I actually createda real estate agent safety program called Safer

(04:03):
Safety Aware. I remember that.Yeah, yeah, and that was your
baby, you created that. Yeah, that was mine. I built that
one hundred percent and worked with Remaxand some of the other brands and Women's
Council, realtors and n AR andthings like that on and it was a
lot of fun. Actually had realtorscome up to me and say, you

(04:25):
saved my life, which was reallycool to hear that. So, yeah,
I mean it touches you right inthe heart. I didn't give you,
yeah, totally. I didn't knowthat somebody was standing there that wouldn't
be standing there if they hadn't takenmy class and employed the different techniques that
I taught them. But so startedworking at Remax after that. Dave Leneger

(04:46):
became my mentor. So I was, you know, blessed to have a
mentor. Yeah, exactly. Youknow, if you're gonna pick somebody in
the industry to be your mentor mightas well be that guy, so he
he became my mentor. I startedat Remax. I started as a business
consultant, working directly with brokerages andagents, and worked my way up in
the business, took over different territories, took over franchising, marketing HR it

(05:13):
got into the c suite, andthe board of directors looked at me eventually,
because we're a public company, andsaid, hey, you're a college
dropout. You don't have a collegedegree and we're a public company. And
I said okay, and Dave goes, yeah, I don't have a college
degree either, and they said,yeah, but you started the company,
so you get an exception on thatone. So I went and I got
my MBA from a University of Denver, Daniel's College Business. So that's actually

(05:38):
a strange thing. I'm a professorthere now I teach that same course.
So I went and did that andgot into the c suite chief operating Officer,
co CEO and CEO of Remax,and about twenty months ago I left
Remax. I retired from there onmy terms to go partner with Dave to

(06:00):
buy some businesses and continue to workwith different entrepreneurs around the world and in
reural state as well as other franchisingtype environments. So that's where I'm at
today. It's amazing. So howdid that transition work for you in the
franchise because Remax is a franchise model, so there's a lot of skill set

(06:20):
that you had in the franchising envelope. What excites you franchise opportunities now?
Because I know there's an opportunity thereand what's that look like from a thirty
thousand foot elevation view. So rightnow, the franchise companies that we're working
with are all food related. Sowe've got a couple of sandwich companies,

(06:41):
ones called Port of Subs. It'sone hundred and thirty five hundred and forty
units and seven Western states. We'reactually taking that nationwide right now. And
then the other one is Daddy's ChickenShack, which is a fried chicken sandwich
concept, and we have about thirteenterritories that are being developed around the US
right now and that's growing pretty wellas well. And it was interesting because
I never thought I'd get into food. I didn't know anything, Like,

(07:02):
what's the transition there? Are youa cook? You love it? Or
is it more of a business counityyou know, light bulb. Well,
a third of franchising. So thereare eight hundred thousand franchises in the US,
internet thousand franchise units franchise locations inthe country, and thirty percent,
roughly thirty two percent of them arefood related. So when you think about

(07:26):
that, you know, if youthrow a dart at the dartboard, you're
going to hit a food franchise whenyou're talking about franchising. So we got
into that knowing franchising and franchising isa very specific model. It's not an
industry, it's a it's a businessformat, and that we knew very well.
I mean, I'm on the boardof the International Franchise Association and I

(07:50):
speak franchising. I mean it's franchisedisclosure documents, it's understanding same store sales,
and you know, you get downinto small business aspects of it,
and it's what realtors are dealing withevery day and running their own small business.
That's what we do enfranchising is wehelp people grow those things. Doesn't
matter what industry you're in. Itcould be haircutting or making sandwiches or so

(08:11):
in real estate, there's a foundationto how to run a business and how
to make that profitable every day,and that's you know, obviously what you
coach is getting people to that point, but ultimately it comes down to understanding
how business models work. I lovethat. What do you think is the

(08:31):
greatest opportunity in the franchising world rightnow? I mean, obviously the food
side of it is thirty percent ofthe business, that's you know, two
hundred and forty thousand plus units orwhatever the number is. I think that
there's COVID's changed a lot of things, in my opinion. COVID shoes a
lot of belief systems, a lotof what they thought was normal. You

(08:52):
know, we even in the realestate space, we went away from the
offices, which you know led ledto almost an evolution of the industry.
And then now we're going back tothat. We're going back to basics and
many regards. I think franchising forme is a leverage opportunity. That's the
way I see it. Is thatreally your take on the franchise opportunity or

(09:16):
is it scale through territory and growth? What does that look like? Well,
the foundation of franchising is having atested business system, so it doesn't
matter if that is you know,being a real estate agent and being a
real estate agent is a tested businesssystem. We know how that's done,
and we know if you do thesethings, you get those things. That's
how it works. Same thing withrunning a brokerage. That's why brokerages are

(09:39):
so heavily involved in franchise because fundamentally, the framework of how to run a
brokerage is not vastly different from oneto another. In the franchise space,
you know, a brokerage is alot of times a brokerage is a brokerage.
And that's why agents can unplug andplug into another one so easily is
because the framework is very similar.But when you look at fran chising and

(10:00):
you ask yourself, okay, whereare the opportunities in franchising. You know
we have we have asset heavy franchisesand we have asset light franchises. You
know, asset heavy franchises are moresomething with brick and mortar, so you've
got in person brokerage or in personrestaurant or something in that nature, be
hair salon. Asset light a lotof times are more service oriented and you

(10:22):
could see the crossover where real estatecould fall under either of those, But
realistically, there are a lot thatare very asset light, and they call
it like chuck in a truck typething. HBO might have a factor plumbers
and exactly age. Yeah, yeah, exactly randy. But you also have

(10:43):
other forms of asset light franchises thatmight be like a massage therapist or home
healthcare or you know, somebody doeslashes or who knows what it is.
But ultimately, what we're finding isthey're really two sectors that are growing massively
right now, and franchising that arereally being pushed hard. And obviously one

(11:05):
of them is a small restaurants.You see those. You see small restaurants
in a franchise brand popping up allover the place right now, especially as
we're building mixed use facilities, youknow, and where you've got both housing
as well as retail and things ofthat nature and new shopping centers. So
when you see those or a remodelshopping center, a lot of times you
see franchise brands pop up, anda lot of them have to do with

(11:26):
food or self care. So youtake a look at those two. Those
are both food and self care,both growing substantially right now. In the
self care space, it's anywhere fromyou know, diet drugs and different you
know, two different types you knowexactly yeah, or you know you eat

(11:46):
like hormone treatments or ivy bars,weight loss. There's just never ending amount
of that, you know. Me, COVID changed everything. COVID changed the
mentality of how we work and howwe look at our jobs, also how

(12:07):
we look at our lives. There'sa lot of people stepping back from the
corporate structure going into being their ownboss and their own entrepreneur. And I
think we're seeing all these different trendschanges. It's just my you know,
perception of this, But I thinkthe malls are struggling because of you know,
the retail space is really a challengespace. So all of a sudden,

(12:28):
you have all these mom and popsand entrepreneurs and people that could start
having these spaces and then layering intothe franchise opportunity just makes complete sense,
right you find a model that works. I just immediately think of missus Field's
Cookies and all these you know,opportunities that were just probably born out of
a passion for baking, a passionfor this and then being able to scale

(12:52):
that when they find a model thatworks yep, one percent. And what
you find is a lot of peoplewill get into those and they'll open one
and basically by opening one, theybought a paycheck, so they've they've replaced
their income somehow with a heavier investment, and they're like, how do I
get rich doing this? You know, we all want to know that.
And you when you think about it, and like, even in the real

(13:13):
estate space, you look at Okay, you're a real estate agent and you're
doing well, how do you scaleyour business? Well, the answer is
you build a team typically, soyou get other people doing the work for
you so that they're compensated fairly.But also you're the one who's taking on
the risk because you own the businessitself. You own the overall umbrella entity
there. So like for Missus Fieldsor you know, our sub sandwiches or

(13:35):
whatever it might be, you say, Okay, what happens if I open
another one? And then I openanother one, and then I open another
one. And what we find infranchising as well as you find this in
real estate also, you know enfranchising, it's okay, I get another location
built and I get the doors openand people are trained, and it's at
a run rate. Right now I'mgoing and starting another one, so they

(13:56):
start overlapping these these growth entities.Just like when in real estate, you
know, as the market starts tocome back, you're going to You're going
to know what your capacity is forhow many buyers and sellers you can work
with. And then when you reachthat capacity, you know, Okay,
I need to bring on a teammember when I start getting close to that,
so I can train them up sothey operate the way that I want

(14:16):
them to operate. But I'm scalingmy revenue in doing so, because now
they're responsible for going out and fillingin that gap that Okay, I took
a step back to hire somebody,Now I need to get them to leap
forward in order to create more revenue. And then you keep engaging in that
cycle, and next thing, youknow, you've got a scaled business that's
also probably diversified in the event ofany changes in the marketplace. Yeah,

(14:41):
and you're moving out of one quadrantinto the next. When you look into
that entrepreneur leverage component of it.Right, that's kind of my favorite favorite
couple words on the planet is leverageand you know, finding ways to take
your business and scale it. Youknow, I'm just a personal growth junkie
when it comes to books on that. I'm reading how to buy Back Your

(15:01):
Time right now and they talk aboutthat specifically and finding out what your buy
back rate is, right, thatstuff just completely intrigues me. You're making
a million dollars a year, yourbuy back five hundred dollars an hour,
you know, mathematically than leveraging anythingthat doesn't come near that, And all
of a sudden, when you,even when you talk to agents, are
making one hundred grand a year andyou start doing the math, it's like,

(15:22):
well, you know, you're stillin the fifty dollars an hour range
and you're doing eight and ten andtwelve dollars and sometimes even five dollars an
hour work. Now, with theadvent of vas and all the abilities that
we have out there, I lovethat space. The fact that you and
Dave Lineger are focusing on franchising,it's just to me, it's just in
aha right. To me, it'slike, I like watching smart people and

(15:43):
what smart people are doing, andI definitely put you and Dave into that
category. And so I'm more intriguedwith that than I am thinking that I
wanted to have chicken shacks or something. Right, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I mean a lot of people lookat it and they're like, I
don't want to get into the foodspace, so how about into the food
scale space? That's right? Andthey go, what does that look like?

(16:03):
I said, it's you're not buyinga store, You're buying a territory.
And you know, if you thinkabout ten stores, that's where the
leverage is. In fact, it'sit's interesting, Randy. I had somebody
from the real estate space who ownedmultiple franchises come to us and say,
hey, you guys are selling territories. I want to buy some of those
from you because I know what franchisingdoes, and I know what you guys

(16:25):
do in franchising. So it's actuallybeen catching on quite a bit, and
I think twenty twenty four is goingto be a great year for you know,
regional franchise growth. So you'll seea lot more single stores popping up,
but those are probably falling under aregional umbrella. I love that.
I want to transition, but beforeI do, how can people get a
hold of you in that particular spacethat they want to just so I don't

(16:48):
forget later. Well, we havea website here Area one five ventures dot
com, so Area fifteen ventures dotcom, or you can find me on
any of the social media networks atadam com to CEO. You just type
that into the Google bar and I'llpop up and you'll be able to contact
me through any of my social mediaplatforms. I love it. I love
it. Well, let's transition alittle bit to real estate. You and

(17:11):
I met a long, long timeago when I was looking at a Remax
Remax franchise myself, and I rememberthat conversation. I wouldn't expect you to
at all, but I remember beingimpacted by you and your passion for it
and the way that you were reallylaying this out to understand the benefits of
not only just a Remax opportunity,but franchise opportunities and growth opportunities. And

(17:34):
that's what always was valuable to me. It's on my marriage side, but
the co founder of Carls Juniors ismy grandfather through marriage. Wow. So
Carl Karcher and Phil Smith founded that. If you look at all their hot
dog carts around the world and thepictures of every Carls Juniors on the planet
as a picture of them, andmy aunt is in his arms. And

(17:56):
so my very first job was atCarls Juniors. I got zu special treatment.
Matter of fact, I don't thinkI even knew it at that point.
I just knew that I was goingthat direction as one of my first
jobs when I was sixteen or something. But from very early age, I've
been an entrepreneur. I just didn'tknow any better. It doesn't excite me
to think about an hourly wage.It just, you know, I'm just

(18:17):
not wired that way. And I'vesaid it a lot of times. I'd
rather have a hot dog stand,and I'm saying that from Carls Junior story
now, but this is, youknow, I'd rather have a hot dog
stand from a home depot that Icould make the best hot dog stand,
make the best food, and thenget it to another home deepot and get
three hundred food carts. Then workat the post office for four hundred grand
a year. It's just me right. It's that entrepreneur fire that burns in

(18:40):
the belly. And when I lookat your career, you've been extremely successful
up through the CEO ranks, ofRemax and you're still teaching, You're still
on your social media, you're stillteaching, You're still adding value. Does
that get out of your blood?Is that just something that is you know,
going to be there until you leavethe radio someday or what's that look

(19:00):
like? That's a great question,Randy, And I mean this is I
look at you and I'm like,coach, Randy, you know the answer
to this, But you want toknow my answer? I do? You
know as well as I do.Leaders learn and learners lead. And what
we're doing is we're fulfilling a specialpart of our heart by continuing to help

(19:21):
other people learn what we've learned.Now. Leaders are givers. And I
got advice long ago from my mentorDave Lineger when I said, what is
the what is my goal in business? What should that look like? In
order to create great success? Hesays, you have to help other people.
I said, well, how doyou do that? He says,
you have to be a sponge?I said, so, I need to

(19:44):
go out and just soak things up. He goes, No, a sponge
does more than just soak things up. When you see a sponge work,
it soaks things up and it givesthings back. So you need to be
out soaking things up so that youcan give them back. And you need
to intentionally do that every single day. And that's one of the habits of
the very top leaders in this world, and one of the habits of the

(20:07):
very top entrepreneurs in this world isthey're willing to give without question. So
what is giving without question unconditionally?That is love. That is love for
the people that you serve. Wehave fear, which is taking in and
keeping, and we have love,which is giving unconditionally. Lack and abundance

(20:29):
as well. Yes, yes,exactly exactly. I mean they all run
parallel on those two tracks. Youknow, it's it's that, you know,
it's abundance and love, or it'sfear and it's it's taking. You
know, it's minimalistic in things likethat. And it's during these tough times

(20:51):
that we get to hold up amirror and say, all right, where
am I at? Because during thetough times, if you default too,
I give up. I just wanta nine to five job. I'm thrown
in the towel. Things like that. I don't know that you had that
entrepreneur piece in your heart to beginwith. You were. You're dabbling in
it, but are you all in? Because I can tell you one thing

(21:11):
about being an entrepreneur and making payrolland you know, going out and eating
what you kill and things of thatnature. Whatever cliches we want to put
on this, Ultimately, you gotto be willing to take it during the
tough times and the good times.The tough times are when you figure out
your survival skills the good times andwhen you figure out your growth skills.
So and they do have overlap,like right now, you know, everybody's

(21:33):
like, this is really tough.Right now, I'm like, go out
and grow right now, intentionally growbecause then you're focused on growth instead of
surviving. And we have a different, different way of looking at that.
So ultimately it comes down to howdo I give as much value as possible
to people right now as I everhave? And that's you know, really

(21:55):
one of the questions we're facing rightnow in the real estate space where people
are going, oh, okay,what should a buyer's agent make? How
should they be paid? And youknow, it's on the top of everybody's
mind. Am I going to beable to survive as a buyer's agent?
You know? We're doing sub fourmillion deals at a run rate right now
as of like November or something likethat. So how are we going to

(22:18):
survive with a million and a halfpeople doing four selling four million houses.
Well, it's time to time todig deep, time to get creative,
get really aggressive, and get reallygood at your leadership and your influence out
there in the marketplace in order tosurvive this. And you only accomplish that
by giving unconditionally, instead of goingand hiding everything you have because you're afraid.

(22:41):
You know, how long am Igoing to make it? At this
point, it's go out and give, and that's when you get Hey man,
you know Jim Brown helping up peopleget what they want and you'll get
all you want. And that's literallyon the back of my business card for
the last decade. It's just somethingthat was like that is the battle cry,
right And you know, when welook I don't remember the article.

(23:03):
I don't want to name it incorrectly, but it was something I read just
a couple days ago that forty ninepercent of every of the one point five
million agents did one deal or less. Behalf of those did zero. And
so when we look at that,you know, we're bloated right now.
Let's be honest. You and Iwere through the market of twenty eight nine
to ten, when we went fromone point five million to one million approximately

(23:23):
agents, we had a significant youknow, overturning the industry. We've bloated
back up to one point six theythink at our highest and now we're you
know, coming down on the numbersthis year. But we're obviously having attrition
in the industry and will continue todo so. I think that so many
things have changed, and I'm gonnasay the word lawsuit, right, we're

(23:44):
going to talk about that. I'dlike to have a little conversation around that,
because I think it's changing the industry. Sure that not only is it
rattling the cages of many, right, I think there's so much fear because
it's onnon on certainty, all thesethings that and pull into that fear,
you know, And that's kind ofwhy I avoid the news. The news

(24:06):
is made to keep you in aplace of the past or the future,
not in the present, right,And so when we look at that,
I think that it would be valuableto talk about where you think the industry
is going, what the future ofthis looks like you literally were at the
pinnacle of you know, the topof the industry and then arguably one of
the number one companies in the world, and what Dave has created, and

(24:30):
you know, I think there's anytime this happens again. It might be
I'm wired differently, and it mighteven be um blind, but I look
at opportunity when I see big,drastic, crazy things going on, I
go opportunity. There's going to beopportunity for the ones that go after it
and are willing to do the work. And there's going to be the ostriches
that put their heads in this handand wait for the time to pass.

(24:52):
You know. Number one Remax Ithink was the very first one to get
in front of the lawsuits. Andif you can't talk about something, I
respect that, you know, ifthere's something that we shouldn't go into detail
of. But I remember personally,and again it's a little vulnerable maybe,
but in the beginning I was like, no, we're setting precedents. And
then after the fact, I'm like, Okay, brilliant, you know,

(25:14):
visionary, brilliant that they were ablethat Dave or whoever was able to look
in the front of that. Becausethere's a lot of companies that love to
be in your place. Now withthat going on, right, what what
can you talk about? What areyou willing to talk about? What?
What is something that people that youknow, a significant amount of our listeners
are agents and lenders and title people. What's going on in the industry?

(25:37):
Where are we going, where arewe coming from? And what do you
see happening in this space? Soin order to kind of dig into that,
I think we need to understand kindof the history of the industry.
So you know, when you havea sub agency and how that used to
operate way back in the day,and if what's that one hundred years or

(26:00):
something that's been Yeah, I meanit's it hasn't changed, right, So
there are two parts to kind ofhow this operates. And this is all
my hypothesis based upon first of all, you know, yes, I was
named in one of the lawsuits asthe CEO Remax, I was deposed things
like that, and so I havea deep understanding of how that whole process

(26:22):
works. But keep in mind alsothat I have literally been on the phone
talking to person to person a lotof my past colleagues, a lot of
the CEOs and key leaders in prettymuch every real estate organization in North America
since then. So I I mean, it's that's after I left Remax,
but you know, just catching upwith all of my friends, because as

(26:44):
you know, I stayed incredibly agnosticand friendly with the entire industry. I
spoke at different industry events that werenot Remax based, that were about helping
people. I don't care who youare. It was about helping you do
more and better business because I wantto see real estate industry incredibly professional and
very good for those people that qualifyto be in it. So you know,

(27:07):
I'm stressing a few of those wordsbecause I feel it boils down to,
yes, we are bloated. Icompletely agree with you, Randy.
The industry has too many people init. When you look at the number
of transactions and a number of relters, that does not jive in my mind.
When it comes to hey, canthese people run a professional business?
The answer is no, you can'tbased on the number. So what do

(27:29):
you need to do? You needto jump into that top twenty or even
ten percent of the industry, andthere are ways that you can do that,
and a lot of that has todo with coaching and accountability. And
having a really good game plan thatyou can talk to Randy about aside from
this podcast. So and you know, and if Randy's not your coach,
find one. There's got to beone out there. But we can't function
as an individual without being held accountable, and we can't hold ourselves as accountable

(27:53):
as somebody else can hold us.Okay, let's just face it, people,
So let's dig into the lawsuits herequick. The lawsuits came about because
there's been this transition in the industryover the years where and I'll say this,
we've kind of gotten into this phaseof learned helplessness. Okay, Learned
helplessness is a psychology principle where whensomething's been that way for so long,

(28:18):
you're just used to it and tolerated. And the industry has evolved around the
real estate agent who said, oh, okay, as long as I continue
to make commissions and make a littlemore money and things like that, I'm
fine with it. And we haveNational Association Realtors, which when you look
at the NAR, the NAR isa fabulous lobbying group who's done incredible things
for housing, you know, forflood insurance, for the industry, for

(28:41):
the real estate transaction itself in orderto simplify and you know, create some
consistency and some legal boundaries around it. But also you kind of have to
wonder, Okay, we still havesome parts to this that are a little
archaic. You know, MLS isyou know how long MLS has have been
around, right? They were namedmultiple Listing Service in like nineteen oh seven.

(29:04):
Okay, you could pick whether ornot you got in the horse drawn
carriage or I was gonna say theywere delivering sheets by horse drawn carriage.
Yeah, exactly. I mean that'swhen multiple listing service the term was coined.
So I would encourage everybody go andlearn about the industry. Now,
during that process, you know,you got into this agency piece, and
there were you know, the onlypeople who were realtors way back in like

(29:27):
the seventies were brokers. There werelike thirty thousand and your sales agent couldn't
be a realtor. And I'm nottrying to get into the deep, deep
history of this, but ultimately thisthing evolved, but the way we paid
ourselves didn't necessarily evolve. They triedto fit it into how they evolved.
The titles and the names and agencyand things like that, and I think

(29:48):
what's happening is we're seeing this thisjunction where you know, we've got people
on the outside of the industry whoare trying to adjust how things are happening
on the inside of the end.And really a lot of that happens through
class action lawsuits, unfortunately, andwhether or not they end up prevailing overall
after appeals or whatever it might be. I think some change needs to happen,

(30:11):
and I think we need to updateourselves because we're still operating under this
principle of all these small groups sharinginformation. Where we live in a blockchain
world now for crying out loud,when things can be different and more updated
and more secure. You know,you look at totally. You know,
we're talking about the supply chain ofthe country here fifteen percent of the GDP,

(30:33):
the supply chain for fifteen percent ofthe GDP for the United States,
and it takes an act of Godto make changes in that. I mean,
how long does it take to makean MLS rule like one to three
years for crime olty? Right,I mean, let's talk about full of
bureaucracy and I'm sorry, but lackof internal policing and I'm just calling it

(30:56):
out because you know, I canread the articles just like anybody else does.
I'm not throwing stones at NAR,but let's hold up the mirror and
be transparent with ourselves here. You'rephenomenal lobbying people, but do we have
we kind of not evolved as amembership organization or the only membership organization.

(31:17):
The banking industry has like six orseven membership organizations, but you're tied to
one. Why So you know,what NAR's been able to accomplish for us
over the years has really protected theindustry. And you know, I'm not
on one side or the other onthis. I'm seeing writing on the wall.
Basically, I think it's a perfectstorm for NAR that they've really got

(31:38):
to re identify themselves with who theyare, what the value proposition is.
And many of the agents that youknow haven't been around even even ten years,
so they don't understand what the importanceof their you know, lobby and
power in their and their protection is. But I think we've got a perfect
storm. I think they've really gotto rebrand themselves or they're going to themselves

(32:00):
fighting a battle for survival. Andthat's just me, my one vote.
But when you have companies, youknow, saying that they can move away
from NAR now, which has neverbeen an option company is requiring you to
move away from NAR, which isyou know, within some of the brands.
And I think that in combination withall the other you know, sexual
harassment claims and different things, Ijust think it's a very challenging time for

(32:24):
them to reboot. Yep. Andagain, I'm all for change, right,
entrepreneurs, we embrace change and changeis good, even though it's painful
and scary at times. Right,Well, let me ask you this,
Randy, Okay, what happens whenwe don't change? Yeah, we don't
involve We die exactly, That's right. I mean, you know the Darwinism,

(32:46):
it's not the strongest or the smartestthat survived, it's the one most
adapt to change. That's true.The theory of you know, of evolution
and things like that is all aboutadapting to the needs of the future.
And if if we're not willing todo that, then we we have a

(33:06):
little bit of a problem. Andsometimes, you know, we we get
comfortable in our own ways. Andit's what's the thing that agents hate the
most? Change? You know,what's the other thing they hate the most
accountability, you know. But butultimately it comes down and that's why you're
independent contractors, you're entrepreneurs. Isyou're like, I found a way,
leave me alone. I'm gonna,you know, don't move my cheese.

(33:28):
I'm gonna I'm gonna be good thisway. But ultimately, we've hit this
this point where change occurs so quicklyin society now that we need to get
ahead of that change. And Iyou know, I hope the best for
the professionals in the space. Ihope those that are not engaged in the

(33:51):
highest level of professionalism or doing thisas something that showed, you know,
let me ask you this. Doyou want your heart surgeon to just be
a part timer? I mean,for crying out loud, or your attorney
who's going to keep you out ofprison to be a part time They're like,
oh, no, I'm working anotherjob right now. Let me get
back to you when I have time. No. Do you want your largest

(34:12):
investment to be handled by somebody who'snot fully invested in that career? No.
So I'm a firm believer that wehave some bloat. We need to
trim down this industry. It's anerror. Listen to me, It's not
about headcount. It's about professionalism andhow effective you are at helping the consumer
find their home. That's what theywant and that's what they need, and

(34:35):
we need to make sure we're doingit the right way. And I know
there's a lot of people like,ah, yeah, we got it,
we will do that anyway. Butthe reality is this is also about peer
accountability, folks. And if you'renot willing to look both ways down the
aisle and say step it up orstep out, then I think, okay,
it's time for some you know,some cleaning to happen within the ranks.

(34:57):
So and every business goes through thisexcept for bureaucratics stacked businesses where they
protect their past. Okay, it'sgreat. Yeah I'm retired. I hope
that you know, the next CEORemax is fabulous and takes these things way
beyond where I was able to takeit. But ultimately, leaders bring the
next leaders to a point and cutthem loose to go and make the change

(35:20):
necessary for the proper evolution of abusiness. Yeah, absolutely true. I
love your insight and the way thatyou articulated. I feel one hundred percent
the same. I think that wecould probably stand to have fifty percent of
the agents we have now happily paidtwice as much in our commission or in
our membership fees and things to supplementthat. I think that's probably the numbers

(35:45):
where we're sustainable. Looking at theannual like you said, housing index and
growth, what do you see theindustry going and say in five years,
like what excites you about the futureof the industry and where do you think
we are in five years. Iknow it's a crystal ball, but it's
a crystal ball, and I thinkit's going to take a few years for
the any and all of the litigation. You know, I think we have

(36:07):
like eighteen lawsuits going right now,but ultimately, you know, we don't
know anything until at least the Burnettcase comes to we find out what the
injunctive relief looks like and what theDOJ is going to do and things like
that, and then we also seewhat the motions of the remaining defendants,
you know, Keller, Williams andhomes HSA and they are do as well

(36:30):
as these other follow on lawsuits,some of them are massive and a lot
of those being sued right now.You know that I would venture guess the
plaintiffs attorneys in those other lawsuits outsideof you know, the Gibson, the
Moral, the CITs are and allthose others that have been in place for
the past three or four years.Gibson was the new one October thirty first,

(36:51):
I guess that's the rest of theUS around the Citster Burnett case.
But ultimately, what we're going tosee is a whole bunch of attorneys come
in here and pull some cash outof the industry. And I think we're
going to see it on the state, the local, and the MLS level,
as well as the mid size brokers. The smaller brokers can't afford to

(37:14):
go in and write a check.You know, you're making rent every month.
You know, as the are themid size, it's margins are squeezed
in the space. But I thinkwhat you're going to see is as that
stuff all kind of plays out,we're going to see some evolution in how
the business works. Fundamentally, theframework is going to be relatively similar,
but I think you're going to see, uh, you know, the biggest

(37:36):
change obviously occur on the byside andhow the buy side compensation works. But
realistically, five years from now,if I pulled out my crystal ball,
I think we're going to see youknow, probably fewer and you know,
higher levels of production per agent.Also an increase in professionalism. We've all
been yelling raise the bar, raisethe bar for so many years well and

(38:00):
always looked at it as anybody canjoin NAR, you just got to get
your license. And I mean,why is that the entry threshold is very
low? Yeah, I think weneed to raise the entry requirements. Yeah,
and somebody's gonna send me hate mailon this killing I'm you know,
I'm happy. I'm a school teacher. I'm doing two deals a year.
I'm happy. Leave me alone.I'm like, we'll go work for somebody

(38:20):
who's doing two hundred deals a yearand still do your two deals, tour
and coach and support exactly, butlike four or five deals in that same
bandwidth of what they're doing, right, right, right, So I think
it's going to be evolved. Isit still gonna be here? Are we
going to still need agents and brokersand things like that? Absolutely? But
I would say get better, folks, if you want to be in that

(38:43):
remaining chunk, I love it.I think it's Jacko that that comes with
adversity and problems, and he goesgood. Every time you get all these
challenges, say good and embrace itand know that you're part of the future
of the change. Right. Whatdo you think the small indies? To
me, they're the most susceptible,the small indies that have maybe ten to

(39:04):
forty agents. They don't have theprotection of a franchise, they don't have
the band with the partnerships of alarger you know, support system. They're
really on an island. And Ithink if it may not and hopefully it
doesn't, but if it reaches thatgranular of a level where you could have
just somebody that's mad at you,sue your company over this and start trying
to class action suit these things,I just think it could change the industry

(39:28):
by itself. That one thing.Well, when you think about it,
Randy the you know, there's thereare one hundred thousand brokers in the US.
Okay, one hundred thousand brokerages forcrynell out. Now, I can't
see everybody, but raise your handif you think that's too many. I
mean, I'm sure everybody. Keepone hand on the wheel. If you're
listening to this while you're driving.But ultimately it comes down to I think

(39:52):
they're going to be at an inflectionpoint because what when you look at what
do the larger brands give And Idon't necessarily even mean a franchise brand,
but what does a larger local groupgive, you know, a mid size
if you will, And they giveyou technology, they give you more knowledge
and help with that, you know, the insurance and the oversight and legal

(40:14):
advice and all of those other things. I think we're going to start to
see some consolidation on the bottom endof the industry. And I think we're
also going to see some people decideto say, you know what, this
is getting too difficult and too expensivefor me to be part of. Because
you're right it all it takes isand we're seeing this, right, I
think we're about to see this.We're going to have the local ambulance chasing

(40:37):
you know, attorney, you go, all right, I've got precedent here.
I can go after these guys.I'm just going to round up,
you know, one hundred of thesethese indies. They can't afford to fight
me. All I have to dois file this once with everybody's name on
it, and then start deposing people. And as soon as these starts stacking
up, you know, let's sayyou settle for ten thousand or fifty thousand
each on them, and there's onehundred of them. That adds up.

(41:00):
Oh, I think we're going tostart to see the litigation continue to trickle
down. Twenty twenty four is goingto be the year of litigation in ourself.
Yeah, I do too. Andit's unfortunate because I know people that
have worked their whole lives for this. I talked to a broker the other
day just talking about a listing andtwenty eight years in the business, and
she's frightened. She's literally like,I'm interviewing people. I don't know what

(41:22):
to do next. This is goingto if this comes to my level,
we're just we've lost twenty eight yearsof you know, a legacy brand in
their families and so on. Andso there's a lot of turn out there
in this and it is getting Ibelieve it's going to continue to get more
granular. You know what, whenyou talk about an agent that's been in

(41:42):
the business one or two years,what advice would you give them? I
mean, you are literally, youknow, one of the top trainers and
leaders of the industry for decades,two decades. What advice would you give
somebody coming in the business one ortwo years and what is it for them
that's the big rocks, that thestones that are going to be their foundational

(42:05):
you know, blueprint of their business. What's that look like? Well,
there's two parts to this. Thefirst of all, it's have a business
plan and have a framework for howyou operate your business. A lot of
people wing it in this industry.I would venture to guess that the majority
of people wing it in this industryagree and winging it is not a business

(42:27):
plan, folks. You know,hope is not a strategy and it won't
get you someplace good. So yougot to have a framework for this,
and you know, find somebody likeRandy or you know, go educate yourself
if you desire not to go seeka coach or something like that. I
mean, I've had seven business coachesover my time. A business coach is
incredibly invaluable, all right, Iwouldn't operate without a coach. I mean,

(42:52):
I you know, I've given coachingpermission to many people in my life.
And what does coaching permission mean?That means you give people permission to
give you feedback that you will follow. Okay, it's not a suggestion or
just straight talk exactly. So frameworkyour business is the first one. And

(43:12):
don't just get into this skill.Am I a real estate license? I'm
going to go talk to a fewpeople. No, when you're not talking
to somebody, you should be workingthat plan and knowing that that plan should
be on paper in a folder wheresomebody can walk up to you. If
I walked up and said, showme your business plan, you should be
able to go. Here. Itis, and it has everything down to

(43:34):
daily steps and activities that grow yourbusiness period and how you're functioning with your
funding, and you know, howdo you manage your expenses and your revenue
and things like that. So that'sstep one. All right. This is
not a business school class. Youmight need to go take one if if
you need to figure that stuff out, But go to YouTube if you want
to figure out what a good businessplan for a real estate agent looks like.

(43:57):
There's lots of people on there tolisten to, or frankly, listen
to Randy. He's got it figuredout. And here's the second piece.
Okay, the second piece is thisbusiness is not about transactions. It's about
relationships. Thank you for saying that. Okay, relationships create transactions, but
the activity of building those relationships issomething that has to happen all the time

(44:24):
to get to those transactions. Sowhen you think about this, my second
question besides pulling out your business plan, would be pull out your customer list.
You should be able to see yourcustomer list from A to Z.
You know, call it a CRMif you want, go hit print and

(44:44):
look at it and go through witha highlighter or a pencil or a pen
or just on your computer screen orwhatever. Make a new column next to
the names and put an indication ifyou've talked to that person in the last
two weeks or if you be zero. For most people exactly, unless they're

(45:04):
calling them or having an immediate need, right they're waiting for like some greater
being to drop this transaction in theirlap. And they're like, yes,
I got another listing or I gota listing appointment. To youa yay,
They run around the office. Igot a listing appointment, I got a
listing appointment. I got a listingappointment, And you know, everybody else
is like, I'm still waiting foryou know, the listing god to show
up and drop one for me,or I'm gonna you know, write a

(45:28):
check to a portal, or youknow, figure out some other way.
It's about relationships, the first andsecond level relationships. First level relationship obviously
is with the customer. Second levelwas with somebody who delivers you the customer,
and you know they're both incredibly important. Work your network, but know
who's in your network, and keepthat list clean and keep growing it.

(45:51):
You know, we always talk aboutyou know, back in the day,
the rule was take you know,ten business cards or twenty business cards and
go out and that must be handedto somebody individually where you get their name
and phone number in return, becausemost people didn't have emails then or whatever
it was. And once you've donethat with ten or twenty people, then
you can go do something else duringyour day, which typically was door knocking

(46:14):
or whatever it might be. Butultimately it came down to go build ten
to twenty relationships or begin ten totwenty relationships a day. People are still
buying and selling houses. I mentioned, you know, we're below the core
four that four million people that areselling a house. But Ultimately, we're
rebounding from that, folks, andit's January. So guess what, There's

(46:34):
more than that out there now.Twenty twenty four is the rebound year for
this because interest rates, you're goingto start inching down. People are comfortable
with where they're at right now,right right where we're comfortable. They're comfortable
with where they at. Do theywant them lower it? Yes, but
there's deals out there. So toget ahead of that other you know that
forty or fifty percent that Randy talkedabout, they're going to drop off out

(46:55):
of the industry because they're not doingthis today. Get your butt out there
and go build that list and getthose transactions. Because here's the thing.
The way the business runs, forthe most part is still the same as
it ran a year ago. That'sright. The changes haven't occurred yet in
the industry, So you need toget some business going instead of waiting for

(47:19):
the changes to occur, because it'seasier to change when you have transactions in
the hopper than it is without them, because you're evolving, you're not waiting.
So true, so true. SoAdam, I really really appreciate you,
and we're going to wrap up herein just a couple of quick questions.
But one of the things I liketo ask my guests or what are
you reading right now? And youknow, what are you consuming? What

(47:43):
are you looking at? And that'sthat's kind of an important one to me.
Oh dude, I brought it.I literally have it on my desk.
It's one of my favorites right now. All right, folks. You
know, every last year everybody wasstaying Atomic Habits by James Clear, which
is great. That's a great book. Yeah, I've read that like five
times and I love it. I'llstill go back to that, but I'm

(48:05):
I'm I'm done, you know,James, I love you, man,
but I'm done saying Atomic Habits onpodcasts because this is my new fave right
here. It's called essentialism. It'sby Greg McEwan. It's the discipline,
discipline, pursuit of less. Okay, the discipline pursuit of less. And
this thing is full of incredible quotes. I just finished this. This is

(48:29):
my first book of the new year. I love it. And I'll tell
you there's there's the difference between thenon essentialists and the essentialist and the non
essentialist, which is like somebody whotries to do everything, says all things
to all people, and the essentiallist is less but better. I mean,
the this that epitomizes everything in thebook totally best read. It's my

(48:52):
morning routine read now. Yes,yeah, I mean I'll tell you this.
Just go get it. I meanwe're finding out a loud people essentialism.
You know, you can get onAmazon, you can get the audio,
you can get the Kindle version.I mean, go get it and
read it. And if you don'twant to go buy it, something that

(49:14):
will make you want to buy itis go to chat GPT and say give
me the ten key points in Essentialismby Greg McEwan, and it will.
It will give you some key pointson it. You don't even have to
read the book to get the chatGPT key points. It might make something
up, who knows. But thereality is after you read that, you're
going to go I'm in this book. I'm gonna go get this. So

(49:35):
that's so good. I'm writing thatdown. I'm gonna do that. That's
that's a great, great takeaway.Well, last question, Adam, and
again, we really really appreciate youbeing here. I know when we chatted,
I was really excited to connect withyou and and you know you're you're
a visionary, you're a leader inthe industry. You're going to continue to
be that way. So my lastquestion, what impact do you want to

(49:57):
have as you leave this world,this industry and you move on, you
know what, what legacy? Whatimpact do you want to have? I
think when you you know, ifyou could sit up and look around the
crowd at your funeral and ask thatquestion, I think it's kind of fascinating
to to think about what you wantpeople to say. You know, yeah,

(50:23):
I think the standard is, oh, he's a great guy or whatever,
which we all give people the youknow, kind of the benefit of
the doubt when they're gone. Butultimately, I think I would like for
people to say that guy helped me. And I mean that's when you look
at it. Why do you dowhat you do? You should be doing

(50:43):
what you do because it's helpful toothers. And if we all gave in
society, I think it would bea better place. Was It was funny
my wife and I the other eveningwe went to q Doba for dinner and
you know, just something quick,you know, something with protein in it,
whatever it is, and we wentwhen we pulled up, there was

(51:05):
a bicycle sitting outside. It waslike twelve degrees out. By the way,
I live in Colorado. There wasa bicycle sitting outside. I'm like,
it's twelve degrees out, but ithad like, you know, shopping
bags hanging all over it stuff likethat. It's definitely a homeless person's bike.
And we went in and there waslike two other tables that had people
at and back in the corner wasone of them, and there was a
guy sitting there and he didn't haveany branded materials on his table, nothing

(51:29):
from Qdoba. And Kelly and Iwere we had dinner. I sat down,
I make eye contact with or Iat least check everybody out in the
room. Call me a cop still, but I checked everybody out the wall,
right, yeah, yeah, Ido. I totally from the military.
I got to see the door,Okay. So I make eye contact

(51:52):
with this guy and he kind ofgave me the head nod, and I'm
like, you could just tell hewears his feelings on a sleeves. Really
nice guy. And he just wentback to what he was doing, which
was sitting there looking at his phone. He had his headphones in and Kelly
and I had our dinner and thenwe left and we were pulling out of
the parking lot. We both lookat each other and we're like, I
feel sorry for that guy. Youknow, it's going to be four degrees

(52:14):
tonight. I feel bad for him. And he wasn't even eating dinner.
He had this like like a gatoradebottle or something from him. So I
make a you turn in him andall of the street and drive back in
there and walked up to the counterand the lady was mopping behind the cash
register. Again. It was emptyat this point. This guy was sitting

(52:36):
over there, and I said,she knew that I was just in there,
and you know, I'm sure she'sthinking, great, here comes to
them. So so I walk inand I smile and I go, I
see they had a little stack ofgift cards sitting there, so I put
one of those down. I said, whyn't you give me twenty bucks on
this? And she goes okay,and then I gave her a big fat

(52:57):
tip for it. And Gary,guy who helped us, I remember his
name because he was super nice.He turned over and looked real quick,
and then she I grabbed the cardand I walk over and I start giving.
I walk up to this guy sittingin the corner and I see over
my shoulder, I see her pointingat me and talking to Gary, and

(53:19):
she was kind of smiling a littlebit and they were nodding. And I
look at this gentleman and I said, excuse, excuse me, sir,
and he goes, yes, sir. I said, is that your bicycle
outside? He goes, well,yes, sir, it is. I
said, okay, well, whydon't you get yourself some dinner on me
tonight? And I just handed himthe twenty dollar gift card and his face
lit up and it cost me twentyfive bucks with a tip. And I'm

(53:43):
like, all right, this,I just you know, you could feel
your heart warming up. My wife'spractically in tears standing there. I'm practically
in tears standing there. And hereaches out and shakes his hand and says,
thank you, God, bless youto both of us, introduced himself,
and I'm like, and you cantell he's getting a little antsy and
a seat. So I'm like,all right, we'll have a good evening.
Enjoy your dinner. He's like,thank you. I've never seen somebody

(54:06):
walk to the order place at Qubadobaso quickly with a big smile on their
face. Is this guy and Garyjumped up and started helping him. Is
so good. I was just pullingaway so good. It felt so good.
Go do something for somebody, folks. Let's do something good for somebody,
and it could be little, itcould be little. I love that.
I'm so glad we ended on thatstory. Man, you are a

(54:30):
fine human being. I appreciate knowingyou and all the things you've been to
me, and you know, youreally were probably the catalyst of my direction
in the real estate business and twentyyears ago. I just appreciate you with
that, you know, Adam,thank you for being here. I know
you're a busy guy, and Ijust appreciate all you do and the things

(54:50):
you do to contribute and give back. And that final story is a great
way to leave it and go outthere. If you're listening to this,
go out there, listen to thispodcast, and go do something good.
It could be something as simple asgiving somebody a free lunch, or buying
them something, or giving them acoat. I love taking coats out of
my backseat and handing it to peopleduring the winter. It doesn't matter what

(55:10):
the coat meant to me. Itmeans everything to me and them at that
moment. So Adam, thank youfor being here. I thank you very
very much. Thank you for allyou do and all you do to contribute
to the industry. And again lasttime, how can people get ahold of
you? If they want to reachyou. You can find me on a
social media networks Adam Conto CEO's here'sone. Go to Adamcantos dot com my

(55:31):
website. You can find me everyplace there perfect an area fifteen ventures dot
com. Ye love you, brother, appreciate you, thank your happy holidays,
Happy New Year, we got Eastercoming up, Valentine's Day, everything
else, but thank you for beinghere. Thank you, Freddy and I
appreciate your time. Seey buddy,have a great day. Thanks you too,

(55:54):
Bye for now.