Speaker 1 (00:00):
For insights into starting, growing and optimizing your real estate team. We're talking with Emily Smith.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
What do you need out of this? Listening to your people and really asking, are you chasing a dollar? Are you chasing recognition? Are you chasing some award? I'm not aware. You're chasing a few

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Fun facts before we get going. She serves as Chief Operating Officer at Weimert Group Realty in central Florida.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I've been with Jenny eight and a half, almost nine years. It'll be nine years in May. Jenny and I, they call us Gly. Sometimes it's a joke because we've sort of melded into a human for us. It's not just what Jenny's building, it's now what Emily's helping Jenny build and as a leader, I can't imagine how that feels when this has been her thing for over 20 years.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
She like me and team leader Jenny Wemert, who is our guest on episode four, is a native Michigander and Emily, like me, has a degree from the University of Michigan. Thanks so much for talking team OS today. Emily.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Oh, go blue. Ethan, it's exciting to be here. I'm honored. You've had so many fantastic guests over the last several episodes. I always feel like I need a pen when I sit down to listen because of the wisdom that you're able to pull from your guests, so I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Awesome. I appreciate the positive feedback. I'm super glad to hear that it's so useful with regard to your time and energy and attention. There are a lot of demands on those things for you personally as there are on most folks as accomplished as you, and so it's just a privilege to be of service to you in that way. Appreciate that. So I guess I probably don't need to ask the opening question. I think it's coming, but I will anyway. Emily, what's a must have characteristic of a high performing team?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
So I spent some time thinking about this knowing it was coming and so many of your previous guests have listed some amazing qualities. Jenny Weimer, I'm a little biased. I work with her and I do believe she's the best in our industry saying servant heartedness. I'd agree with that. I also really loved Howard Teer talking about having a diverse community around you to really help you think. I loved Lauren Bowen talking about consistency and I think all of those things are so important, but what I'd like to add to the conversation is that I really believe you need to be solution based. And so for me, no matter what seat you are sitting in being solution-based means you are working in collaboration to fix the things in front of you that need to be fixed to get deals to the closing table. That can be systems, that can be people, that can be anything. If you are a solution-based person, then you are seeking outcomes that are going to build that collaborative environment around you and are ultimately going to get things done. And so I'd like to add solution base to the already amazing list that's been growing from these sessions.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Really good add and I feel like a lot of my favorite answers to that question, not that I don't love them, all those episodes are like children, you love the ball. Something that I really appreciate about that response is that it applied so many other good ones is that it applies to our whole lives. It applies not just to our role as leaders and coaches and managers, but also as parents and leaders of ourselves and all these other things. That solution orientation honestly came late to me. I was that person that was like, this is problematic, this is unfair. These kinds of things deeper into my life than I would like to confess. When did this occur to you and what was that process? Was it a self discovered thing or was it an observation of others' behavior? When did this come onto your radar as so fundamentally helpful?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
I think I was raised in a household where we were sort of asked to be solution-based, not using those words. So if something was going wrong or if something wasn't maybe going the way that you were wanting it to, my parents were good at asking questions about what is your part here or what could you do to contribute to the solution? And so I think a lot of that was being fed into my life early on and over time I've developed language around it and so within the business observing and realizing that there are people that have this gift and there are people growing into this gift and there are people that don't have it at all has been interesting just to observe. And so I watch for it now, especially in maybe the hiring process or as we're discussing with agents a new partnership or bringing someone into the brokerage and we'll ask some questions about, we like to do this in interview processes any anyway to figure out who's across from us, but asking them about things that are broken and how did you handle that or times that have been tough, how did you handle that?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Tells you a lot about their mindset. Are they blaming other people? Are they talking about collaboration? Are they using language that shows that they're willing to accept their part of the responsibility for maybe what went wrong in that? And I think that shows you a lot about who someone is and how they're going to be if it's in an agent seat, in a transaction dealing with another agent or dealing maybe with a client on your behalf, if it's a leadership seat, are they going to be compassionate to people living in those agent seats who live in very different universes, then maybe somebody that sits behind a computer all day. So depending on the spot that we're hiring for, asking those questions on purpose and looking to see are the answers showing me that this person is to go back to our word solution based or at least collaborative or at least willing to authentically own their part shows us a lot about who they are and how they're going to show up in our universe.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
So much good stuff in there and I have a feeling we're going to double back into this based on some areas I want to get into, but I want to walk in with you in particular, but I want to walk into it a little bit and start with your own journey into real estate. How and when did this start for you? You're not a realtor by background, which some other COOs are. Just give us a little bit about your background and how you found your way into Wemert Group Realty and then we'll get into how you got into the COO role.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Sure. I kind of fell into it, if I can be honest. I owned a wedding photography studio for a number of years and I flew around the country almost every weekend. I was getting on and off planes at the time. I had two young children and I was getting tired of leaving them every weekend and I was feeling that little pull of what's next in my universe. And so I was realizing I was coming to the end of my passion for that. I couldn't just to be blunt staring at people during their first dance. So I was like, I don't know if I can smile anymore at these people while they're having their first dance. And at that point the passion has sort of left you and you're in the wrong seat for your career. It's time to do something else when you don't want to be doing what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
And so I was lucky at the time to be able to take some time and really think about what could be next, what are my gift sets, what could I bring to the universe? And while I was kind of in this reflective space, a friend said to me, Hey, there is a realtor that I happen to know in our community that's hiring and she needs a photographer. And I happened to see her list on Facebook and she had sort of thrown spaghetti at a wall of all these random things. It's kind of like we do when we're trying to hire a position where, ooh, what else could they do? They could do photography, they could do staging, they could do graphic design, they could do website work. And she's like, I just felt like your face kept coming to mind. I felt like maybe this would be a good transition step for you in the universe while you were trying to figure out what you want to do next.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
And so I responded to the ad and the ad said she was looking for a unicorn. And so I responded and said, I think I might be your unicorn. And I've got most of those skills in my back pocket. Owning a business like a photography business, you have to become skilled at a lot of things like doing your own marketing, creating a website. I am a jack of all trades master of absolutely none and I enjoy that. That's fun for me and it keeps things interesting. So weirdly enough, everything she had put on her list was something that matched. When I met Jenny Weemer, I really connected with her vision for the team and what she was trying to build. You could hear her heart when she talks. She was a teacher before she was a realtor and she talks, it's just very natural for her to speak authentically about caring for people and wanting to do the right thing by people.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
And so I attached to the vision and said, okay, great, I'll come in as photographer. They were kind enough to hire me as that, but very quickly it became this collaborative journey of I have more skills than that, so what else can I bring to the table? Where are the holes in this organization and in this place that you're trying to grow? And so it was, I would say a two and a half year journey of photographer For we joke, it's like two weeks. It was a little longer than that, but it was photographer to marketer where then I was then helping find the photographer and I was doing more of the marketing and asking questions like, well, why does your website look terrible? Can we fix that? Or for example, the agents would have these meetings where they would talk about their listings every week and they would talk about what they were doing to market those listings.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
So I would sit in on those meetings and I would try to learn as much as I could by fire hose and then I would try to go create something to be able to prove to our sellers that we were doing something to market their listings. And it was again, this two and a half year process of real estate by fire hose for me because the team was already very successful before I stepped into being a part of the team. In my mind they were very successful. They were just about to break a hundred million a year in sales, which was a very big deal about eight and a half years ago for them. And so just a side note to that, even today when people start with us, one of the first things that we do on their day one is talk about how they're entering in the middle of this already great story, but there is still room in our story for them to find success here and for them to be a part of helping us continue to create something great.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
So I'm always grateful that Jen opened the door for me to come in as a very niche specific part of the organization and then as they realized I had gifts that I could contribute, they allowed me to keep plugging holes and find those spots and create those things to move the business forward. We went on a little bit of a fast forward journey, I think around two and a half years in because it was at that point that we stepped away from at the time we were with Keller Williams to become our own independent brokerage and it was really by fire hose at that point. I had a pretty good handle on our processes and our listing marketing and all of those pieces, but we had to get really good at building out the who are we? What is our mission statement? What's our vision statement?

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Who are we going to be beyond what the brokerage we were always with had told us we were going to be? And we had to build out processes for ourselves at that point to do transaction management the way we would want to do it, not the way again that the brokerage kind of dictated that we would need to do it. And so it was at that point that I always say we sort of fast forwarded my own education in real estate because just by fire hose, again, we had to, but b, I think that was the time that we had to make decisions and I got to flex my gifts a little bit in that season to show that I could help collaborate with them on vision and move the vision forward and sell the vision forward to the team with them next to them as a leader, but also that I could continue to take bigger pieces than what I was handed at the beginning. And so that first two and a half years, it really was photography into marketing, into understanding real estate as a whole, being able to speak as well as an agent that's in the field. That was always really important to me. And then slowly over time continuing to just collaborate with the leadership to be able to share vision together to move those pieces forward on behalf of the team.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Really, really good. And you closed a lot of gaps in my own mind. Of course, I had the privilege of researching your story, talking with you in advance, doing that episode with Jenny and all the work that goes into that as well. And you just closed a number of interesting gaps for me, but I want to close them a little bit for the listener as well or the viewer. I really appreciate this. First of all, your summary at the end that was you're just a great communicator and that's where I'm going right now is it makes sense for me why from a marketing seat in this transition into an independent brokerage or a team orage that you needed to establish for yourselves, who are we, what are we about? Why are we here? Which is something that you were wonderfully prepared to do, especially as an expert communicator.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
In addition though, this layer of we need to design some processes to fulfill these promises that we're making to ourselves and to the people around us, whether it's an agent we're recruiting, whether it's an agent on another side of the deal, whether it's a client, whether it's a community member who never does business with us, but we're still in service of them in some way just based on how you all live and work in your communities. Talk a little bit about your own background relative to that transition to the operation side of it, designing some systems and some processes, probably even a tech stack to support and fulfill some of this language that initially brought you in this direction. So that's one part of it. And then the other part is define and scope a little bit. What does the role look like today now several years after that transition?

Speaker 2 (13:21):
I think in the beginning it really was just about plugging holes, so it was see a need. Am I the best person to fill it? Is somebody else? Do we need to collaborate on this with someone else? And I want to be clear that everything was done in collaboration with Mike and Jenny Weamer as the leaders of the organization in the world of when we talk about COOs or we talk about people that are helping run our teams in these second seats, I think there's a myriad of kind of titles that people either have along the way or they don't, but you're kind of inheriting the pieces. I went straight from marketing director to COO of the organization, but in that time period I was wearing any hat I needed. I was making calls as the marketing director and having those conversations as I was pulling in every other hat I needed to have.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Eventually I took the title of COO because it made more sense for the organization. I was spanning something broader than just marketing and the team needed that. And frankly, sometimes you just need a title to be able to make a phone call or to talk to an organization outside of your organization so that they'll take the call. And so the title came because I had taken enough hats along the way and plugged enough holes that the title came with it, but in the world that we live in in real estate, I see administrative assistant, I see executive assistant, I see director of operations, I see COO, there's all kinds of titles, and I separate those things a little bit as executive assistant, administrative assistant or task oriented positions. And those could be even TCS sometimes, depending on how they're structured, they're not in our world.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
In our world, we can't live without them. They're some of the highest regarded positions on our team. But I think that more task oriented position versus director of ops or COO where again, you're starting to collaborate on the vision or you're starting to help even be the one that's casting vision to the team alongside of your leadership. I think in that gap I was taking those titles without taking those titles. So I was first doing the tasks as marketer or grabbing the extra hat and doing the task or saying, who else should be doing the task? Do we need to hire this out or do I need to bring somebody in on the team to help with this? And again, all with Jenny Weemer or Mike Weemer, and then eventually it became a lot more of the three of us in sharing the vision, crafting the vision, creating the vision, and now we're trying to bring other people up into those roles with us to be able to share that not just across the team, but like you said, kind of the spillage or the overage out into your community or out into the people that you're serving.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
So over time I think you start as a whole plugger or a person who carries duct tape around with you and tries to figure out what systems need the help and over time you find that the holes are filled more and more and it becomes more about, well, where are we going and how can we get there? Instead of just plugging the holes as you go. Those early days, there was a lot of hole plugging. It was, shoot, we don't have a process for that and we just ran into that hole, so we should probably go build that this afternoon because we need it today. Or an example was we ran for a long time without a new construction TC checklist. It was like, it's not the same, the process isn't the same for them, but they could hobb a little long with what they were doing for a normal buyer, but it was like somebody had to stop and slow down and build that process and it was just involving enough TCS to say, well, you guys are the one holding this and asking the agents, okay, what do you need on this side?

Speaker 2 (16:53):
And collaborating together to create a process that was going to work, but somebody's got to slow down and know you have a hole number one and then work in collaboration to fill it.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Okay, so much good stuff there. This is actually very specific follow-up question and I'm asking on behalf of a team leader or perhaps even a solo agent who obviously doesn't have an operations person or any of the other titles that you listed out. I feel like the titles that you listed, the title is going to depend on the stage of development of the team at some level. My imagination is that a lot of people when it comes to documenting things or developing a new process or creating that in the example of a new construction situation, it shares some kinship with what we're doing. We can get away with, I think you might've even said hobble along. We can get away with the system or the process that we have now, but we do actually at some point need to truly adapt it to that situation.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
And my imagination is that that growing list of things we can or should do from an operational perspective in order to create and deliver better experiences for every stakeholder in a process probably paralyzes some folks. Where are you or where is Wemert group overall with how many of those things do you have on your list of things to do and or what advice do you have for the person I just described who may be a little bit frozen on I need to do all these things, but there's the tyranny of the urgent and there's a lot of stuff in front of me right now.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, I think that's definitely a multifaceted question because it's going to depend on where you are in the universe, like you said, what's coming at you right now that needs to be fixed and what kind of help you have next to you in order to solve those problems. In our world, things are not falling apart, things are not breaking because, and it is taken us, I've been with Jenny eight and a half, almost nine years, it'll be nine years in May and it has taken us that long to build it to where I feel like I can sleep and not worry that things are falling apart. And it's just because we've taken small actionable bites of our processes and our systems and we do sit down and say, what do we need to fix? What do we need to look at? And we also ask, when is a super important piece of the puzzle in our world?

Speaker 2 (19:19):
We're a brokerage of just a little right now over 80 people and we always say it's like turning a cruise ship. I can't launch a brand new system or a whole new process for these guys when they're in the middle of busy season and they're not able to pay attention because they're dealing with daily fires like you were mentioning. It's not fair to them, it's frustrating to them. It's our job as a brokerage, I believe we run as a team. It's probably important to say that. So as a team and a brokerage, we are trying to make things easy for our agents and we want them to feel like it's, I think frictionless is the big hot button word these days, but we want them to feel like it's easy that they can interact with our systems and not feel frustration over them. So if I try to design something and build something and launch it in the middle of April, there's going to be an uprising because they're solving day-to-day fires with their people.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
So when you build and when you decide to launch, the changes you're trying to make really matters for your team. If something is broken, that's different. So if we're talking band-aiding or correcting or changing a system just because you want to where you think you can make it more efficient, that's more what I'm talking about. If something is absolutely broken and you need it to function, fix it and launch it, that's okay. But asking and putting yourself in the seats of your agents or pulling in a couple of your users that give great feedback. I have a couple of agents I always go to when we launch something new that we say, can you look at this? Can you offer me feedback on this? Are we missing anything from an agent's perspective or from a TCS perspective or from a listing team's perspective? What are we missing here?

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Before you launch something from a limited set of knowledge or from that knowledge bank that maybe you think on the other side of this equation, if you are a single agent or running a very small team and you're just trying to figure out how to get your ducks in a row, I would sit down and fix one thing at a time, identify what it is that's going to move the needle for you and fix it. So if you are, just as an example, if you are running listing heavy or if you are focusing on listings right now, look at your listing process first and start at pre-list and work in one section at a time and say, okay, from the start of pre-list, do I have everything that I need from an agent's perspective to prepare for that appointment or be ready to attend that appointment and look like the expert that I am?

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Does my admin team, if you do have anyone next to you, do they have what they need or how could they be prepping me for those appointments? And then take the next step, okay, I've gone to the appointment. What am I taking to the appointment? What do I need to be prepared to talk about at the equipment equipment appointment? And do I need to understand how we're marketing this property better? Do I need to practice speaking about that better? Do I need to build a system around that? But taking things as small actionable bits in each part of your process will make that way less scary. And if you have an assistant and it is someone who you feel could travel this journey with you and help you build, but they aren't there yet, I would highly encourage you to invest time in that relationship Early.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Jenny Weamer and I for the first two and a half years sat next to each other and my job really had nothing. I mean I was running marketing for her team, but I was listening to every phone call she was making. I was hearing her problem solve with every agent that called in with a question and my vocabulary and my understanding of real estate and how it all connected so much faster because of her willingness to just let me sit near her in the office and hear her. So if you are someone with an executive assistant or an administrative assistant and you're like, oh no, they just check my email or Oh no, they just manage our office calendar, I would challenge you to ask yourself, is there more this person could do if I were willing to invest the time in just sitting next to them and help build their knowledge bank or help grow them into that next level of person that I'm going to need? If you want someone to think like you speak you, that is the fastest way that you can get someone to share a vision with you is for them just to be able to observe and be a part of learning your language.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
That is why we have back buttons on our podcast apps and in the YouTube app if you're watching on mobile. So much good advice in there, super practical and I love where that last piece went. If you have an assistant alongside you, I was like, that's a future COO, and it turns out that that's the story you were telling. Absolutely. So good. Okay, lots of directions I could go here, but you've mentioned twice something that I really want to hear you out on. I'm paraphrasing now, but I think it could be a direct quote from you in this conversation already, which is it's important to point out that we're a team and I think I know what that means, but I want to separate team as a concept and as a business model versus team as a general principle versus what I think you all are doing, which is it's cultural, it's embedded, it is both of those other things, but it's also more when you use the word team or even team Orage, talk about it from a super basic perspective like a business model perspective and then talk about what it means to you all and how that affects the day-to-day experience of everyone involved in your business.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Sure. So in real estate as a whole, we see teams in maybe larger real estate offices that they are a group of folks that have agreed to kind of run under the same brand, run under the same reputation. They're building towards something together. And really at Weimer Group Realty, it's the same concept. We just happen to be a brokerage that completely functions as a team. So rather than an office that might have several teams or single agents that also work out of their structure in our office, if you join the brokerage, you are agreeing to join the team and abide by what I would say is a shared set of cultural ways in which we approach the business. And so for us, we call each other mates instead of teammates. We don't have a shared mission statement, vision statement, there's none of that. Just mates and mates is a concept for us.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
The quick version is always we never I. So as a team, it's right there off the beginning of our structure. We learn to speak in we language, we care for each other, we talk about our clients as a we effort, so the transaction manager, the agent working with them, the listing director, we are all working in collaboration to help that particular client. We are also working in collaboration with the co-op agent on the other side of every deal. So we are on their side, we are there to help educate, grow, move forward, problem solve with et cetera. And that's the first concept of what it means to be a we mate and then mates as masters of our craft accountable for our actions, teachable, we're going to elevate others. And then my keyword here is solution-based. So it comes back full circle today in this interview.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
So when I call someone a we mate, it's calling them to our standard of how they're going to show up in the business. For us. That also means that they don't have individual branding and so they all fly under Weimer Group Realty flag meaning their signs in front of their listings even though it does have the agent's name and phone number, it's still going to say Wimer Group Realty or online. When a consumer is researching, they're only going to see that agent attached to Wimer Group Realty branding because we believe our reputation rises and falls together. We're working towards something together and we believe that online presence is stronger together than apart. And so if you are a newer agent to the business and you're joining us, you are benefiting from years of work of other agents serving their clients at a high level, using their expertise, using their professionalism and their knowledge on your behalf to build that online reputation so that you out of the gate look more reputable and then we're asking you to do the same for those agents that come behind you in the next few years as well.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
But we are in collaboration working towards the same goal all under the same flag. And so that's what I mean when I say we're a team rich in our world too. That means you agree to use our tech, it means you're agreeing to use the systems we've put in place, you're agreeing to use the technology we have decided is the most effective for this season and that you're willing to make changes when we decide that the team as a whole needs to pivot and change how you're turning something in or if we were to decide to use a different signing platform or a different way to do something, then you are agreeing as a part of the team to trust that that is in your best interest and spend the time to figure out how to implement that into your own business world. Because agents really are independent contractors and so they don't have to do anything. But in our world, being a part of the team rich means you are building towards something bigger with us and agreeing to do that both by brand and by tech.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Awesome. I have a feeling that in the markets that you serve, your reputation precedes you. Where I'm going here is kind of like into a recruiting and interviewing conversation. I have a feeling that a lot of this is probably known or felt and so I feel like my assumption is that a lot of the people you're in conversation with are approximately the right people because this isn't for everyone. Talk a little bit about A, is recruiting your responsibility or where does that fall in the organization like recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, speak to that process a little bit relative to your vision of a team and communicating that and getting some agreement in advance on it and maybe even who it's for and who it isn't for what type of, because I have a feeling it has nothing to do with the agent's level of experience. I have a feeling that there are circumstances or personalities or styles that this is just a fantastic fit for. So I know there's a lot packed in there, but take it however you wish.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
I'll do my best to answer all of that. So first and foremost, we are super lucky that we don't have to do a lot of recruiting. We have a bench built already sort of in the background of agents that over time we've been in conversations with or maybe have been on the other side of a deal or we've met at networking events that see what we're doing, understand what we're trying to build and already want to be a part of it. One of the things that we have said is that as a team reach, we are not for everyone and I think that is a really important thing to note. I think a lot of teams and brokerages try to be all things to all people and it's not possible. You want to find like-minded people that want to run in the same direction as you are so that you're not pulling each other out of your lane.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
That's really important. And so for us, we know that we don't hire often on purpose number one. We have to do right by the people that are at the brokerage already. And so we are in communication with the people in our brokerage about their goals, not our goals for them, but their real true goals for their own families, for their lives. And we just came out of an end of year set of weeks where we met with every agent on the team and had those conversations about how would you like to build, how do you see the structured? Because I believe that brings trust that we are going to do our part and they need to also do their part. It's a partnership, but that brings trust when we're bringing in the next teammate that they feel like we have them in mind. We're not bringing them in and planning to not give them enough or not help them enough or it's a different mindset already from the jump, but we are also training them to be on the lookout for like-minded individuals who would thrive in our environment and that are people that they're working with in the real estate universe that they would love to have be a part of the team.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
That's typically how we find our next teammates is they come from teammate recommendations more often than not or they come from a TC or a transaction manager in our world that says, I really loved working with this agent on the other side of the deal. I really feel like they embody those qualities that we talked about earlier in this interview of what it means to be a ate. So we're very lucky that we don't have to do a lot of recruiting partially because we're protective of that bench and protective of who comes in because it's important to us to feed the families that have entrusted us with their businesses first. We have also had to make some decisions about who we want to be in the real estate universe. We serve a very large market in central Florida. Last year we served 114 zip codes, so there's a lot of real estate to go get here still there's a lot of big teams down here, there's a lot of choice, but there's also still a lot of consumers to serve.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
And so we believe there's enough to go around for everyone and we had to make choices about do we want to be the brokerage that just hires agent bodies, just to have a lot of people to be able to say, we've done a lot of transactions, or do we want to stay smaller and do we want to be on purpose about helping the people here reach their goals and just be highly profitable and feel like we also have great lives on top of doing real estate? And I'm going to be honest, I don't think we have figured that out until now. I think we have been in a weird battle for the last, I would say, four to five years of trying to figure out which of those directions do we want to go, which of those directions is going to lead us down the right path. And I feel like all of a sudden it's been very clear that our path for now is to be a team, to run as a team, to take care of our people at a high level and continue to stay in our lane and help people have really great lives and do something that they're passionate about. So we're looking for people like that that want to also live in that same mindset.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Alright, I really overjoyed for you all that you came to that self-awareness, self understanding. I feel like even a decision around that, I imagine that that's a tension that most people watching or listening to, whether they're at three people or 30 people or 300 people or I guess 300, maybe the horse is out of the bar on that, but our wrestle with the same thing and I think a broader culture favors just from where we devote our attention and the stories that we tell is really in the opposite direction of what you all have decided. But I think you said a key word in there, which is profitability. It's something that Jenny and I talked about a bit on episode four and I mean that's the ultimate. I also want to plus up just for everyone watching and listening and just to validate how important I think what you said is and how much I respect the way that you're running your business around this is before we think about new, more new, more, we need to make sure that we're honoring the people who have already committed to who we are and what we're about and have helped us build this business for over 270 episodes.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
I hosted a show called the Customer Experience Podcast, and not that the agent is the customer exactly, but a constant, constant theme and a constant challenge for businesses of all kinds is this pursuit of essentially new revenue, new customers, new logos, new top of funnel versus honoring the customers who've been with you once, whether you're a recurring revenue subscription model and they just renew their subscriptions or whether it's really about generating more in bigger purchases in the future that is so overlooked by most businesses. We just have this kind of natural bias and tendency toward new, bigger, more at the top of the relationship. And I really think, and I know you and I are aligned on this too, is like when you take care of first things, the revenue takes care of itself. And I think taking care of your current agents and taking care of your current clients is the process by which we take care of the business as opposed to designing things really, really explicitly that are like, we need to take care of the business. We need to take care of the business. We need to take you take care of the people who've already made some level of commitment to you and things are going to work out pretty you. Well, anything you want to respond or react to there. Oh,

Speaker 2 (36:12):
A hundred percent. Jenny always says, take care of the person in front of you and the rest of it follows the money, the success, the whatever you're looking for out of this will follow if you just take care of the person in front of you. I do think it's our job as leadership to help the people in the organization feel safe and secure that they have put their trust in the right place that is going to continue to listen to them, hear them, build with them, grow with them, and allow them to also be humans who have seasons where they need to come in and out a little bit. Part of the intentional of sitting down with people is saying, what is going on in your world that we may not be aware of if I don't bump into you all the time in the office and they don't have any obligation to share with us, but just to say, how can we support or help you grow this year?

Speaker 2 (37:00):
It tends to be more about life, not just about business. When you're building the kind of team that we're building, and again, that is not for every agent. Some agents are like, I just want to run a solid business and go do my thing and I don't need somebody doing that or holding my hand or doing the thing. So for me it's knowing who you are is super important and knowing why our real estate universe is filled with shiny objects, shiny things, people trying to chase, being famous or being on stage or having opportunity. There's a lot out there to distract an agent or a team leader from the business of running a successful business and being profitable. To go back to that, you have to stop and ask, I actually coach to this a little bit with our agents in the office. Sometimes I'll stop someone and say, what do you need out of this?

Speaker 2 (37:54):
What are you looking to get out of this? And that for some people, is money, is that a number? Is that, what does my family budget look like? So is that a want versus a need? I need this much, but I would really love to get to this goal number and then we can know now the honest answer and we can help them chase the gap, if you will, or what do you need out of this? Sometimes agents do say, I need the recognition. And in a team model, sometimes that gets squashed depending on how you're structured. We don't talk a lot about awards or how people are doing individually because a lot of people that love team models that squashes their drive sometimes. So it's a balance, but listening to your people and really asking, are you chasing a dollar? Are you chasing recognition?

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Are you chasing some award? I'm not aware you're chasing maybe a 35 under 35 local young professional award. I met with somebody for these end of year meetings that said to me, I really want to be 3,535. I had no idea that was important to them. And we've been talking about her goals for a while, and so that's on me that I didn't ask the question in the right way to get her to share that with us. But now that I know I can come behind her, we can put some support around her in order to help her get to those goals. We also had to have an honest conversation about what it takes to get to that goal. And she's short right now there's a gap. So it's what does she need to do on her side to fill the gap and what can we do to help also fill that gap for her to get her to where she needs to be?

Speaker 2 (39:22):
But as a brokerage or as a team or as a one, as a single agent, if you do not know what you need out of this business, the business will drive you. You will not know where you are headed and you will end up in this nowhere land of feeling unsuccessful and frustrated probably. And if you are leading people, you will feel frustrated at the people around you because you won't feel like you are getting to where you're trying to go together. And really it's because they don't know where they're driving to either. So it's worth in the season right now, in January, which is where we are now in the universe of stopping and asking where are we going? Who are we? What are we working towards as a team? And if that's too much, if it's much to think way out here, just think into next month, what do we need to have done?

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Where are we headed from now to next month? And take that little baby actionable step to get you there. One of my very favorite pictures in the universe is a man on a ladder with these huge rungs and then next to him is a man on a ladder with all these little baby rungs. And I think that is such a great picture of whether you're fixing a system, whether you're trying to define a vision, whether you're trying, whatever it is you're trying to do, just take the next right little baby step at a time and all of a sudden you will find yourself farther down that path or with better systems or with cleaner hiring processes or maybe with more aligned people because you kind of know where you're going and you're taking those little baby steps to get there along the way.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Really good. I would observe that years ago you could have said something like to yourself and to Jenny and Mike, you could have said something like, Hey, I'm the person who does all this marketing work. Let's go find someone to do this other stuff. So not to be too cliche, but I want to give you back your own question, which is what is this about for you or what has this been about for you? Why are you in the role that you're in when you could have just as easily said, I'm a photographer, I'm a marketer, I'm a designer. What is this about for you? What are you hoping to get out of it?

Speaker 2 (41:34):
So first and foremost, I'm a weird wiring. I'm a creative, but I also really appreciate and love a good system and seeing the whole picture kind of come together. So I love being able to live in the details and build something and kind of be in the beginnings of putting together how do we get to that vision? But I also really love handing the vision over and letting other people accomplish the vision and getting to move on to building the next thing. And I have been wired like that since I was a kid. I always joked that I have three sisters. And so growing up I would build these elaborate kind of playscapes for them, like restaurants or fashion shows, and I was really, really good at building the whole setup. There were place cards and menus and you name it. But when it came time to actually play, I was like, have fun.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
I don't want to do this. I was done. I was ready to move on to the next project and build them the next thing. And I think I'm still wired to want to function that way. And so I found within Jenny, I found this really, and Mike, I found a unique ecosystem in where we could build and then I could let go and pass off and let our team utilize the pieces and then I could stand back and go, what else could we go chase? What else can we go build or what do we need to go back in and tweak? Because one of my other gifts is I like to make things better. And so I love looking at what we're doing and going, okay, this is about a nine out of 10. How do we get that to be a 10 out of 10?

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Or how do we make that work better? I chase that excellence factor and I get bored really easily is the truth, Ethan, but I don't think I've gotten bored in real estate in eight and a half years because every new market hands us a new job. We have to go back and go back to work and relearn our tools and then we get to cast the vision for how to use those to the team. And so real estate has an energy about it. If you let it, that will carry you through the boredom if you're built like me. But I have found just a unique niche in Jen and Mike that they have trusted me to collaborate with them on where our vision is going and allow me to share in casting that vision to the team along with getting to build the systems and then getting to hand those off to the people that are going to implement those.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
And so I think of it as being kind of an intrapreneur in their business. They are the entrepreneurs, they really, as the owners carry the risk. And what you'll find, I think a lot with COOs, if you really dig under the surface, a lot of us are risk averse. And so I will take certain risks, but I love getting to be an intrapreneur and build in someone else's business where they ultimately are carrying the risk, if you want to say it that way. I think that there are a lot of us out there, very capable people who would come right next to you and want to live there for the long-term and help you build and grow and move things forward, but are afraid of the risks involved in that. And that's where we go back to the earlier part of this discussion of watch for those administrative assistants or executive assistants with potential that are still growing into the seats that they could live into if you gave them more time or attention or helped them think like you, there are really, really great people out there who don't have big or gregarious personalities, but who are amazing at building from their seats behind a computer or that maybe are great at casting vision and can build, but they can't stay on a checklist long enough for it to work as an executive assistant.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
So it's asking where are the holes in your business and figuring out how to plug those based on your own personality as a leader. But it's giving those people enough of you and enough time with them next to you where they can begin to really speak like you catch your vision and share that. And then Jenny and I talk about this in our office, but there's an ego piece involved for most leaders when they do find someone to sit next to them that you're now sharing the credit with someone so to speak. And so there's almost like an ego situation on both sides. Like Jenny and I, they call us Gly. Sometimes it's a joke because we've sort of melded into a human. It's kind of silly. But for us now, it's not just what Jenny's building, it's now what Emily's helping Jenny build. And as a leader, I can't imagine how that feels when this has been her thing for over 20 years.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
So you have to be willing as a leader to share successes with that person coming in the seat underneath of you. And again, like I said, sharing, collaborating on the vision. I can't imagine how hard that is as the person who has owned the business created and crafted this thing and it's been yours this whole time, but you grow when you allow someone else to come in and you put the ego down and you let them come in and share that space with you. And on the other side, you don't get to have an ego in my seat either because the original leader gets the credit, they started the story, they built the story before you even came into play. And so it is that shared vision of where you're going, shared willingness to collaborate with each other and live in each other's seats long enough to share worlds.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
So much good advice in there. It's especially toward the end there. And it applies to people in all sizes of organizations. This tension. I also, by the way, just I very personally identify with your own kind of personality type and this where you favor the intrapreneur opportunity more than the entrepreneur one. I was hearing you, I have a lot of that same quality and characteristic as you. This has been fantastic. I have so many other zones I would like to get into, but that is going to be for another conversation, whether it's on this podcast or whether it's just us on a Zoom call or something sometime. But I've really enjoyed this and of course I have a few standard closers and I can't wait to hear what you have to share on them. Emily, what is your very favorite team to root for besides Wemert Group or what is the best team you've ever been a member of?

Speaker 2 (47:53):
So I think for me it's a real estate adjacent team. So this isn't necessarily a real estate team, but this is someone who's creating a partnership piece in our universe, and it's a woman by the name of Christie Belt Grossman. And Christie runs a tribe called Ops Boss community. And I've had the privilege of speaking for Christie twice now at events, and I just have really grown to respect what she is building and what she is building. She calls these folks unicorns, and I would agree they probably are, but these are executive assistants. These are Doos, these are COOs that she is training up in how to best support their leader, how to best collaborate with a leader. And she runs group sessions, they run trainings, but I have a deep respect for what she is building because I think so often the leader in real estate gets a lot of the accolade and a lot of public notice, but it's those folks living just next to them or just underneath of the surface and leading from their seat every day and really wrangling our systems or figuring out how to really implement the pieces on our teams that keep our teams consistent and keep our teams going and building.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
And so I have just immense respect for what Christie is building in that community.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Awesome. For folks watching or listening down below in the description of this episode, I will have linked up Christie and ops boss. Great call out there. What is one of your most frivolous purchases or a cheapskate habit that you hold on to evenly? You probably don't need to.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
I am not frivolous as a person other than we have more throw pillows than any person should be allowed to have on our beds and our couches. But I'm cheapskate about it a little bit because instead of buying holiday pillows or whatever, I just buy all the new covers. And so my husband laughs at our laundry room, has this stack of weird red pillow cases for Christmas time and whatever for Easter. They're not photos of Santa or cupid or anything but a color. And so he just laughs at me that he's really with the throw pillows lady, but not too frivolous over here.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
That's awesome. That's as practical as I might have expected. That's really good. What does it look like for you, Emily, to invest time and energy and learning, growing and developing? Or what does it look like for you to invest time into resting, relaxing and recharging?

Speaker 2 (50:15):
I am honestly not great at the last part. My little achiever brain and wanting to always know what's next and try to move things forward has a really hard time with relaxing, et cetera. I'm trying to be better about that. When I am trying to grow or learn, I am looking to hear from people that I feel like are smarter, wiser, know things more than I do. So I am looking for podcasts like the one that you host or I'm reaching out to industry leaders and asking questions or asking for a quick phone call and not afraid to collaborate with others. But I know that I don't know everything there is to know. I'm very aware of it. And so if I want to grow in an area. I'm looking for the expert in that area and not being afraid to make the ask to see if I can get time or finding, if it's someone that's a little unreachable, finding a podcast or finding something in the universe that they're speaking on and trying to connect with that. But it's generally around whatever topic it is that I'm trying to learn more about in that season.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Awesome. That's how I find books and podcasts as well. What is really top of mind for me and what can I chase down or who can I hunt down or what can I consume to fill some of my own curiosity and need? So with that, I'll flip it around. If someone has gotten here and they've learned a lot from you and they want to follow you or connect with you or learn more about Wemert Group, where are some places you'd send people?

Speaker 2 (51:40):
You can head to our website, weimer group realty.com. I'm right on our team page. My email address is there and my phone number is there. You're welcome to text or call me directly or you can find me on Facebook or Instagram as Emily Tompkins Smith. I'm one of the Smiths in the universe, so there are a lot of us. So Emily Tompkins Smith is how you'll find me.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Awesome. Emily, I appreciate you so much. I've enjoyed this conversation very much and I hope you have a great afternoon.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Thanks so much, Ethan.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Thanks for checking out this episode of Team Os. Get quick insights all the time by checking out real estate team Os on Instagram and on TikTok.