Speaker 1 (00:00):
Andrew Duncan is a car guy, so it makes sense that as he's describing his vision for the next five years of the team team, Richard Brokerage, he goes to the car dealership as an example. It's a fantastic metaphor and it's a very provocative idea. I won't attempt to summarize or explain the idea here in this introduction, I'll just say that it has clear benefits to the business, to the agent, and most importantly to the client. And Andrew explains all of that. He also shares key decisions he's made with regard to leadership changes, marketing changes and buyer agency changes. He's shifting his agents and he's shifting his training. He's shifting his coaching to be more listing based and listing oriented, so you'll get some practical tips on that. This is a fantastic conversation. I know you'll enjoy with Andrew Duncan on Real Estate Team os,

Speaker 2 (00:50):
No matter where your business is today or where you want to take it, you'll get there faster and more profitably with an operating system. Welcome to Team Os, your guide to starting, growing and optimizing real estate team. Here's your host, Ethan Butte.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Andrew, I'm so excited that we reconnected in person just like a month ago. So excited to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, happy to be here. It's great to see you at Che Black's event and always learning just like all the best team leaders in the game.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I am still typing out, I think I had 54 pages of handwritten notes and I'm still, I'm just chipping away at typing 'em out so I don't lose them to all times.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
I literally keep moving it on my calendar. I have implementation notes from the event and I'll get to three or four of 'em and then I'll move it a week and then I'll get to three or four of 'em and move it a week. So yeah, I still have a lot of notes to implement as well.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Cool. Opening question standard on real estate team OS is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team?

Speaker 3 (01:49):
I would say a leader with resiliency. I think the leader has to have resiliency. They have to lead by example. They have to show they're willing to do the work and I also think they have to be willing to change and pivot with the marketplace we're in today.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, when I hear resilience, I think about there's a little bit of a toughness to it and I think that's going to be a theme through this conversation. You've taken your personal real estate business and the team and organization that you've built through a lot of different stuff. So I'm looking forward to getting into that and I feel like you just foreshadowed where we're going. So with that just kind of tee us up a little bit on how'd you get into the business, what's your journey been, what's the duration been? And we'll get into some of the details from there.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
So I started real estate just short of 20 years ago. I got my license while I was working for a Fortune 500 company in sales. I was traveling back and forth to Southern California and I did that for five years. I became the number one salesperson in the company, but it got to the point where I was hating my job. I was a road warrior. I traveled two weeks a month and when I first started the job it was amazing. I mean early twenties traveling to LA like two weeks a month, I mean who could ask for a better job, but it started to wear on me. Got to the point was I wanted to start a family. I wanted to have a better home life and so I got my real estate license after I started buying rental properties and my purpose initially for getting the real estate license was just my own personal transactions. I was going to be my own agent and then the company got bought out and absolutely everything in the company changed the compensation change, the culture, the structure, and I just knew at that point that it was time for me to do something else. I'd kind of gotten the real estate bug, I was enjoying it. I saw realtors driving nice cars and I said, you know what? This is what I'm going to do next.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
What were the first couple, few years, when did the team model come onto your radar and when and why did you pursue it?

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, so the first year I sold one house to my parents and literally I gave them part of the commission back because it was a VA loan and the lender made a mistake. So I mean it barely should even count. And so I really didn't started getting traction. I think the first year for me, I'd done well in my prior career, so I had a little bit of a nest egg and I cut my expenses down and I really just absorbed as much information as I could. I went to every free event that I could. I did every type of free advertising that I could. I hosted open houses, I posted free ads on Craigslist. I did everything free I could and just kind of grinded. And by year two I started to figure it out. And then year three is when kind of the team concept. My ex-wife came to work with me and she was really great at operations and very analytical and systematized and I was a great salesperson, so we balanced each other well. She would run the back of the house and I ran the front of the house and that was pretty much how we grew from there. And we grew through the great recession. Some years we were growing 50 plus percent a year, and now here we are today, we've been on the real trends top teams list for 15 straight years and over 3 billion in sales.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Awesome. Congratulations on all the success. This idea of partnering with an operator is obviously a key theme that we hear on the show and we'll get into what that looks like today probably. But going to your resilience piece, you mentioned getting through the great recession, your team has been much larger than it is today. Talk about some of the ups and downs. What were some of the turning points and what drove some of those?

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, so I think a major turning point for me was early on in my career I realized I couldn't serve all the people that were raising their hand and I had to figure out a way to help them. I had more customers that wanted to work with me and my company than I could personally keep up with. So my, again, Angela ran the back of the house. She was originally the operations manager and transaction coordinator and did all the details and the numbers. And so as we grew, we staffed up on both sides. We hired more salespeople, we hired more operations people, and ultimately the goal was continuing to provide the best service to both the agent and the customer as we grew and scaled. But it was also about giving myself a better quality of life because at the time I was working 365, 24 7 people asked, what was your day off? And it was like Christmas. That was my day. What day off do you have? It's like Christmas. And they're like, no, what day off a week? I was like, oh, you mean I don't have a day off a week,

Speaker 4 (06:40):
It's Christmas and only if

Speaker 3 (06:42):
My phone doesn't ring that day. Yeah, and literally back then there were times where people would be like, Hey, I want to see a house and it's late on Christmas day. I mean there is no question. I showed homes on Christmas Day way back in the day. My work ethic was just I wanted to get to a certain level. I was certainly financially and freedom motivated. And so the bumps along the road were first off replacing myself because I had to get comfortable with someone not being me. They weren't going to perform quite at my level, but if I hired them and train them close enough that I could scale myself so that I could work on things in the business or on the business instead of in the business to find more ways to grow the company versus just being a great salesperson. So over the years there's been this constant kind of me stepping in and out of roles where the company needed me depending on the market, depending on how successful the company was performing.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
So we're in one of those now where the company hasn't performed up to my expectations and I've had to say, okay, let me really dive deep into this which I've done for the last 30 days, and figure out what it is that we're not doing and then make those necessary changes because I am someone completely comfortable with change. Most people that are more operators that are more day-to-day, people are completely opposed to it. They're against it. So I had to come in and kind of blow some things up to get the change needed to pivot the organization based on all the changes that are going on right now. But other pivots were short sales and foreclosures obviously we see some of that starting to come back now, which my experience is coming in handy. We had a client walk in last week for a short sale, and then of course we had hedge fund stuff back in seven, eight years ago.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
We had these hedge funds come into our market that were buying thousands of homes a year and we built out a division to help them and then that business went away and we had to replace it with retail clients. So there's always been a little bit of a pivot every few years depending on what's happening with the market. I think now the pivot is going not necessarily abandoning the buyer side of the business, I don't want to say that, but pivoting resources to be way more focused on the listing side because you make more on a listing, you have more control and leverage and there's less barrier to being compensated. Your agents already trained how to present. So if you're going to train them to present and they have the opportunity to earn more as a listing agent, then why not pivot every good salesperson I can over to the listing side. So that's a pivot I'm going through now.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Really good. I think we'll get into a little bit more detail on that. I know you're hands-on really figuring out how to push through whatever this next season is yourself, but I don't want to miss this really quickly because of the way that you got into the business and the way that you grew your business and your particular role in it, which is a very common one so far, 60 plus episodes into this show, which is I was selling tons of homes, I created a ton of opportunity, I couldn't handle it all. So we started bringing people around us, first agents, then people to support the operations, probably some fits and starts throughout all of that. But what I want to key in and hear a little bit more from you on in this moment is I stepped into roles as the company needed it. I stepped out of those roles probably when I could leverage it effectively, a variety of things would drive that result

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Or to elaborate on that or because the market was so hot and maybe I was a little lazy, I'll own that. There were definitely times where it was just printing money and sales were happening like crazy and I was like, ah, I don't have to do this right now. Everything's going great. And unfortunately, that mistake for me has led to things that we used to do to a 10 out of 10, we're doing to a seven out of 10 now. So those little gaps that instead of an agent being trained by me, they're being trained by someone that was trained by me, that was then that person trained someone else. And that 10 level step that you did got cut down because stuff got lost in translation and there wasn't enough accountability or enforceability to make sure that the full process was taught. So that's what I'm finding too, certainly accept responsibility for everything that happens in the company. And one of those actions that led to me making changes was just me not being as locked in as I needed to be.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Great. And you actually just kind of teased the question I was meandering my way toward, which is a personality type like yours isn't necessarily the best person to train someone because you have high expectations. You're probably operate at super high speed, exactly what you're doing, and maybe you don't have the patience and I'm, I'm not projecting onto you personally, but onto the personality type. No, it's true. It's true. So give folks a couple of tips who identify with you from the way that you work and your work ethic and your past experience and your expectations for yourself, the desires to grow your business, a couple tips for how to maybe slow down and get a little bit patient so you can train people to successfully take over the pieces of business. I'm sure that was a learning process for you over the past several years. A

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Hundred percent. And I think for me, the other side of that, so I don't have patience and so I relate it to, I know you're a sports fan, so I relate it to, and again, no hate on Michael Jordan, he's the goat basketball player in my opinion, but as an owner and an executive, he had an expectation as a player where he would come in and try and teach people when they didn't have his work ethic. It was a problem for him. He had a hard time leading people from that standpoint. So what he needed was people kind of in between him and the players that wouldn't feed him BS basically. And I think that's where ultimately every organization succeeds, is that the person at the top has core competencies that they're excellent at, and the more they get away from those, the more their business stops mirroring them and the less successful it is.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
And so for me, knowing what my core competencies are, my core competency is not training a brand new agent from scratch to production. However, the person that leans in and becomes productive and has the right habits, I can take them to another level so I know what I'm good at and what I'm not, and I think I just have to put the right people around me so that agents get the right training, coaching clients, get the service, but then I'm able to insert myself where needed to be able to take people to another level. But similarly, Michael Jordan would probably be a really great coach and instructor for that player like a Kobe Bryant or a Dwayne Wade or a LeBron that really has that high ceiling. But for anyone that's just there, fourth guy off the bench, he's probably going to come off like a jerk.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
I would love for you, before we dive into what your role looks like and some of the things you're working on and why you're working on them and where you want to go over the next, just say 24, 48 months. I dunno how far out you plan. I don't know how far out anyone can plan.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Well right now my goal right now is I have a 12 month plan, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Great. So we'll get into that, but I'd love for you as a bridge into that, characterize your team as it is today, however you like, size, market structure, culture. Give us a snapshot of what you've got today and then we'll move forward from there.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
So productivity based culture goal is to sell 450 homes in the next 12 months. We've been as high as 900 and as low as three 50 in different markets as far as the size. We're in the mid thirties now, including staff agents. Staff and agents been as high as in the mid fifties. So we're definitely less on agent count today because again, it's really focused on being more lean and mean. Right now if something doesn't make a positive or when I was in growth mode, I would spend money and not necessarily hold it accountable because I was all about growing and now I'm more still in growth mode, but I'm definitely holding the money more accountable to a return and if something doesn't make a return, I cut it. Similarly, if an agent doesn't perform, I give them less opportunity. So I would also say that, so from a team perspective, I'm kind of in between the a hundred person, mega mega team where it almost operates like a brokerage and then a SEAL team.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
I have friends that operate 12 person teams that do massive amounts of business. So I'm kind of in between those two models right now. And also doing a little bit of personal production on the high end, like our customers that are $2 million plus buyers and sellers. For me, I've just learned through the years that we convert those at a really low percentage and it's because so many of them want to work with me, they want to work with the guy. And so I've just realized and built out a revenue pillar where I'm not afraid to go out and rub elbows with wealthy people such as myself. I can talk that that some of my agents can't necessarily

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Talk about being in the middle on the show as someone who has not built a real estate team but has talked with,

Speaker 3 (16:26):
But it helped a lot of real estate teams. You didn't build it, but you've assisted a lot. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (16:32):
This spot that you're in is a really interesting one. I mean the way that I describe it in pretty simple terms to people that don't know this in and out like you and the folks that we were with at that mastermind several weeks ago is you've got these small teams that start with one or two agents alongside you, then you start building out the op side and it kind of peaks at that Navy SEAL team. We've got a core group of highly productive agents, a really lean operations function that serves them, and it's generally through most markets pretty profitable. And then on the far other end, as you already said, mega teams that the profit margin is much thinner, but you make it up on volume. But in between those two, a lot of people get stuck. And I've talked with people who are like, they start going to where you are now and then they double back to that SEAL team. But then I've also heard about, well the SEAL team, you lose two or three people and all of a sudden 35% of your production's gone correct. So then they want to push through.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
It really depends. Like I said, I think a lot of it goes back to the team leaders core competencies, what they're good at, what they enjoy, but secondarily, over a long period of time, like I said, I've had to insert myself, I was at the seventh level for more than a decade where I might've been in my office eight to 12 hours a week at most. I had other businesses, I still have many of those other businesses. I'm an investor, I own a lot of property, so I have all of those things going on. But I think that this market really woke me up to say the agents need me. They need a higher level of accountability, they need a better salesperson coaching them. They need someone who is sold in a challenging market. So few of my agents have, because a lot of them have only known this crazy built my coach Bill Pipes calls it, he calls it, but unicorns jumping over rainbows while pooping Skittles except he doesn't say poop, so I'll keep it PG 13. That was fantasy land. And so a lot of agents only know fantasy land and they've got to, you either have to coach those agents to a new mindset of a different market or you have to find people that are willing to do what it takes today to succeed because anyone that succeeded the last few years and hadn't been in a bad market, a lot of 'em have really bad habits.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
By the way, if anyone is watching and listening, they want a lot more On that topic, I'm going to point you to episode nine with Daniel Dixon. We called it Be the Lighthouse, which is a phrase you did pick up from John Chela, but it really speaks to a lot of this getting back hands on and getting back hands in. So for you, when we chatted, you were talking about some changes in leadership, some changes in the way that you're thinking about marketing, you already referred to ROI and being a bit more aggressive about what's going on and making each dollar more accountable. And then of course, over top of all of this, we have changes in buyer broker agreements and things in that zone. So in whatever you order, you prefer kind of break down some of what you're working on. Why did this area need change and what does that change look like?

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah, so I think number one, we'll talk about the buyer agency change. So the change that I'm making is just moving more of my agents to be listing based. We'd always had it where agents were buyer agents or seller agents, and unfortunately I just don't think that serves us anymore at the level that we need to when we know that we're going to see some downward compression on buyer agency commission revenue. There's no question that a consumer isn't used to signing a buyer broker agreement from a market standpoint. There's no question the media has put some downward pressure on buyer agency commission with how they've portrayed the changes coming. And so for me, I have thousands and thousands of seller leads and why if I make more per seller and so does my agent based on what we charge and what our splits are, why should I not move more resources over there to a less barrier of entry? So that's ultimately what I'm doing now is moving more resources to the seller side and then secondarily, why the business needed my insertion. I would say some of it was my own desire to change things quickly because I felt like the change I was attempting to get done in the organization was just too slow A day-to-day leader I felt like was a barrier and resistant to change and wanted to keep things the way they'd always been and it wasn't working anymore.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
So I knew it was necessary for that change because that's what I knew me back in a day-to-day seat would move the needle more than it had been moved and it would move it quicker. I felt like the changes that I wanted to implement in January were just struggling along and there just wasn't enough oomph behind this needs to happen now. The urgency wasn't there. And so that was an instantaneous move that had to be made. Then I think the other thing for me was just I've spent a month in the office every day nine to five and just the feedback and the communication I had with agents and hearing what was working and what wasn't working, hearing what they needed and knowing where those gaps were, and again, it just prompted me to say, I have to jump back in. They're not getting what they need and I want to serve 'em at a higher level.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
And for me, when I go back to the profit, like I talked about, I've won all the awards, I've got the trophies, I've been on top 10 lists and top five lists, and frankly I just don't give a shit about 'em anymore. I just don't, at the point in my career where I'm not going to take one of those trophies to my grave with me, I need to run as profitable as a business as I can. And I've always been very profit focused and paid attention to my p and l and looked at numbers and measured ROI. But I'm even more so today and I think again, I don't care about having the biggest largest team. I don't care about doing so many transactions. If so many of my friends who we share p and ls and I look at it and I see them having all this extra expense and operating and all this and then making less money than me. To me, I'd much rather have a lean mean business that makes me more profit than the ego of the ranking. So that's part of some of our compression in terms of number of units is we're doing business that just isn't profitable when you're paying out 35% referral fees on a 2% buy-side commission. That just isn't good business. So just making business decisions.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, man, there's a lot in there. I guess I'll jump to just to double back

Speaker 3 (23:28):
And one last thing please. One last pivot because I think this is really important. This is the conspiracy theist theorist in me going to come out and not politically, I don't talk politics. I mean from a real estate perspective, I have a hard time believing that NA and MLS in five years are going to exist in the framework that they exist. Now I think we're going to see some transformational change to how real estate brokerages operate, and I think the people that are going to be most successful in real estate the next few years are going to have an investment business. They're going to have a flip of business they're going to take, think of a car dealership, take houses in on trade, buy the house so that they can buy another. I think they have to monetize the seller side of the business as much as they can.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
And I think agents that don't have a solution to say, I make way more when I renovate and resell a property than I do on a commission, so how can I do more of that has been a major goal of mine, which has also caused some of my sales numbers to drop, but then I'm making more money because I'm doing more of that. So I think every smart real estate team leader, if they put all their eggs in the hat of real estate commission and real estate commissions continue to get pressed down and they don't build out an investment business either for rentals or for fix and flip renovations or wholesaling, they're leaving a lot on the table. So for me, my business sacrifices some in units and vanity of awards because I've taken some of those resources and said, if I make $50,000 on a flip and essentially, and I have the capital and it's some of the same work except hiring out some contractors and managing them, why not do more of that? So that's another pivot that I think a lot of team leaders need to look at right now that I was ahead of that. A lot of them, if they don't do that again, there's going to continue to be a downward pressure on commissions.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Really good. I hear three particular things in there, so I'm just going to say 'em and then feel free to react or correct one. We need more about that last piece that you offered there. One, we need more seller solutions and you are going to benefit by having a tool like this in your pocket. Two, I think this also falls into the category of you used the word pillar earlier and I think that's one we can all understand and relate to. So I'll use that one too, which is we need to diversify the way that we're monetizing our time and our attention and our skillset, and this is another pillar we can have. And then the third one is more of an operational thing is that it does change. The reason I think a lot of people won't get into this perhaps, is that it changes financial management, it changes timing of cash, cash in and cash out, but for those you have the capital you have have a better

Speaker 3 (26:11):
Down the line. I've a long time before I did that, but I do think there are ways you can find investors to do that for you can either, again, there's people out there that will loan you money if you can show them that there's a path to profit and you've done some, or secondly, offer a solution where you're just bringing those homes to another investor. You advertise a cash offer or a trade-in program, but you have someone else fund it. I mean, look, I've said this and I'll say it again. I would be highly surprised if real estate, the top real estate teams on the selling side of the business don't operate more like car dealerships in five years than they do the present iteration of a real estate team simply from the trade in buyout instant cash type, which consumers want the convenience of that.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
Just like why consumers? I'm a big car guy, it's one of my passions. There are plenty of consumers that take their car and trade it in and they take a hit. If they'd have sold it themselves and spent the time and energy and effort, they'd have put more money in their pocket, but there's a convenience factor associated with it. And that's where I think the same thing applies on the selling side. If you're not monetizing that and finding those diamonds in the rough every once in a while where you can have a huge bump in revenue, it isn't necessarily revenue to the team, it's another entity, but it's still personal income.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
So you've had for some period of time, essentially, I'm going to get it maybe a little bit wrong, so feel free to steer it in, but your home sold in 14 days

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Guarantee or an instant cash. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
So you've already got some toes in this water. The thing I'm particularly interested in besides anything you want to share about that, when did it start, how does this change the way that agents on your team are trained to have some of those early conversations with sellers, potential sellers and or any buyers that also have a home to sell?

Speaker 3 (28:01):
And I would say how it started was just me talking to people that do it and then looking at how they profit and then realizing I could bolt that on. And then two more and more of the entities that the offer a cash offer on a more national scale, moving into my market and competing as an advertiser because I'm a mass media advertiser, I've been on radio, TV and billboards, and so I realized that I needed to have an offering and my offering couldn't necessarily compete with them in some neighborhoods, but I realized what they don't buy. There's a lot of product that they won't buy that I'll buy the stuff that needs extra work or the quick closing or there's neighborhoods, there's product they won't buy. So there's that. That's kind of how it really started. And then secondarily how I train the agents is that they have to be really skilled at vetting out and ensuring the client is a viable cash offer perspective.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
If you say, Hey, it looks like you're looking to sell your home realistically, what do you think it could sell for? And they say, 500. And I'm like, well, if someone walked in with a briefcase of cash, what would that number need to be? If they say 500, they're not a cash offer person, they're a traditional seller. There has to be some motivation between what they think it's worth and kind of a wholesale price for that cash offer to work. Because if I can park my money in an account that makes 5% and I don't have to do anything, just sit there and live, there has to be a much greater return than that for me to put capital into a flip. I'm taking risk. I've got to go through all these steps. So the consumer, the seller has to understand that, look, I would happily be your convenience and be your cash and get you out, but certainly there's got to be a return on investment or else I'm not going to put up my capital.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
It sounds like you need to sell your home traditionally. Now there are instances where the person says, I've got a $500,000 house, but I just want out. I'll take 400. Those are the ones where it's okay, now let's have a conversation. Because they understand it. They know that the investor has to make a profit or else why would the investor put up money to lose money? They're not doing that. So you have to have a conversation with the seller and then vet out their motivation and then over time their motivation could change. They could get to the point where they put it on the market, it hasn't moved, and they say, okay, I'll look at a cash offer now. So the fact that you have it in your toolbox will find the motivated, whether they're motivated initially or motivated over time, you'll be able to pick up deals. And then those deals compound because not only do you buy them, but you turn around and list them. So that's an extra sign in er, that's an extra sale, that's more buyer leads. So you become, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because not only are you profiting on the flip, but then you're feeding your agents and you're giving your agents more opportunity.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
So good. And I mean one small detail that came to mind there right at the end is that not only is it more signs in the yard and more inventory and more just more market presence, I would assume that if you're doing a pretty good job flipping these places, the photos are better than average in that neighborhood or that zip code. It's a better looking house.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
Correct. You're improving a neighborhood and we have sellers that will come back to us after we fix up the property and just rave and be like, that looks amazing. I'm so happy you guys did that. You drove the values up in the neighborhood. We had one not long ago that we bought in the 500 range. We put about a hundred or so into it and ended up selling it close to 800. We made a great profit, but the home before we got on, it was an eyesore. Everyone in the neighborhood hated it. We improved that neighborhood. We improved values in that neighborhood, and the people around in that neighborhood noticed that and appreciate it. And you're solving a problem for someone. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
How important is that guarantee? I just want to double back for folks. The reason they want Andrew, besides that he can relate to them in a different way. High net worth individuals selling very high-end properties. There is that factor, but the other factor is, you already mentioned it, radio, tv, billboards, Tampa Bay Lightning, which anyone watching on YouTube can see. USF bulls, you're the guy, you're the face of the thing, you're the name of the thing. And so there's some of that allure too. So what I want to stitch together here is how important is that guaranteed offer if you're doing essentially kind of impression based marketing, right? It is really hard to say were those radio ads effective? You can through phone numbers and things, but how important is that guaranteed offer to advertising and marketing like that?

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, I think if you're a marketer, you have to have a call to action. You've got to have something to compel people. And for me, that's what has worked for me. I've had a lot of people help me with it through the years. I was a member of a bunch of different groups. I had a media agent that helped me get started in it. And ultimately, otherwise, you're just kind of one of many other realtors generating leads saying, I can sell your home for top dollar. So you've got to differentiate yourself. And we do a lot of the fun stuff with the marketing. We're on the lightning. I do these goofy fun billboards. We do tv and I'm certainly not spending as much on media today as I did maybe a year or two ago because there aren't as many transactions. And then secondarily, market changes, equity positions, there's just not enough available sellers, whereas the cost per impression doesn't drop.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
It's really expensive to do media, so you have to, and we're in a political market, so frankly in my market, my ads are just going to get bumped and I'm going to get gouged too much. So Robert Palmer, who's the founder of LPT, built an enormous mortgage company and he was spending an upwards of a million dollars a month on media in Florida, which was at my peak. I might've been a fifth of that. And so he's cut all of this and he basically said, until the pendulum swings and either media prices drop so I can get a lower cost per impression, or there's a lot more transactions out there, aka interest rates drop enough to knock enough of those two and 3% interest rates sellers off the market. It just doesn't make as much sense. But I've done it for so many years that even on stations that we're not presently advertising on, we still get leads from it every day.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
That's the net effect, and it's one of the reasons that ROI is so hard. Where does it fit in the attribution piece and what is the lingering effect of it? It's funny for anyone who's watching on YouTube, you can see that I'm recording in a different space. I'm living and working for my dad's house and I was helping him with something that he wants done, and I was looking for sources for a particular service he needs, and as soon as I was like, this seems to be the one with the most reviews and a good solid set of ratings, and I read some of the reviews seems pretty good. And he's saying they're jingle, and I don't know what the last time he heard it, but that's the effect. Whether it's a jingle or something else, it lives and it adds something to the, I need to make a decision. Who am I going to go with in a highly competitive space? So a follow-up question on media. Anyone watching or listening certainly hear the idea that especially if you're in a market where there's a lot of political spending, there're being markets where there's a lot more than others.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Of course

Speaker 1 (35:20):
That's going to drive it up, but let's say transactions come back up a little bit. We're kind of like wash back out into a more normal competitive environment. When does it make sense to do mass media or who does it make sense

Speaker 3 (35:33):
For? Another reason that I looked at it was I had some structural things I needed to improve in my business. I didn't want to dump more leads on some of the presentation, training and process stuff that needed fixed. So for me, it's like fix that or improve that as I step back in and then crank that back up. Get me wrong. I still do advertise on media. I'm just not spending what I used to. I'm on multiple radio stations, I still have the lightning deal. I'm still out there a lot, just not out there as aggressively because the market just doesn't warrant it. And so what I would say is that I think if you're going to do it, you've got to have a system. You've got to have a process. Look, it's no secret, I was in rate for a decade and I give a lot of props to Matt Wagner, Matt, when I was an agent starting out with media, and I'm not with rate any longer.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
I have my own media agent and I do local buys and I'm not as, I don't use the personalities for endorsements anymore, which is a lot of what rate does. And for me, it just got to the point where I needed to be the personality. I was already kind of celebritized. I was on billboards and TV and radio and I didn't need the celebrity endorsement anymore. I didn't need that extra cost, which was my decision. It's worked out great for me, but when I was a new agent and no one knew who I was when I didn't have a marketing budget to buy a lightning sponsorship or put my face on billboards all over Tampa, I needed those endorsers to make a splash and legitimize me. So if you're new to advertising on radio or tv, I tell people all the time, if you're new or thinking about it, definitely look at rate.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
The second thing is that, and look, Matt's a friend, I still root for him. I know his rate agent in Tampa. I'm friends with him. I'm in a mastermind group with him. I definitely am more of an abundance person now than I might've been a decade ago in terms of my mentality towards things that helped me get to where I am. You have perspective, right? Over time you're like, man, I'm really glad I did that. If I didn't do that for a decade, there's no way I'm at where I'm at. I wouldn't have the business I have. But kind of going back to that is you have to have systems and processes and you have to have help. I started on one radio station and within about a month I was overwhelmed with leads. I was getting calls from people and stuff that I just couldn't keep up with my normal day-to-day stuff. So I think you've got to have a system, you got to have a CRM, you've got to have, you got to have a little bit of leverage. If you're just an individual agent, you decide to start running radio ads, you're going to suffer in response time. You're going to fail. You've got to have some systemization. You've got to have a successful business and structure already before you sprinkle that on it.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Let's go to the leadership side or organizational and leadership side of things. How would you characterize your role today and what is kind of the core leadership team or structure of your organization as it is? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (38:35):
So I have a remote CFO, that's someone I know and trust financially. I have an operations manager that manages the staff and was my former broker when I was still a broker. She was employed as my broker, but now that I'm with LPT and not the broker, she's really still helps with compliance and working with LPT on stuff. I have a director of onboarding and recruiting, and then I did have a sales president and now I'm the sales president. It's like the old, the Tom Hanks movie. I'm the captain now, and I stepped back into that seat, whereas before I was the CEO and I was operating at a seventh level and the business was succeeding. And when it got to the point where the business wasn't achieving the success that I expected out of it, and that change that I know needed to happen in the business didn't happen and didn't happen the way I needed then I said, I have to step back into this role because I did it for 14 years prior to hiring people and leveraging myself out.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
So that's essentially where I am now. So if you kind of know Gary Keller's, MREA book, he talks about the seven levels. And so I spent probably a decade at the seventh level. Now I would say I'm in between the fifth and the sixth level, even though I have enough money to not have to ever work again. It's not necessarily about that. It's more about helping people doing what I'm good at and getting passion out of it, helping my agent succeed at higher level, serving the client at a higher level. Because again, like I said, while I want profit, it isn't profit because I need money in my pocket. It's profit so I can reinvest in them and reinvest in the business. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you answered one side of the question I wanted to follow up with, which is I know there are some things that are very satisfying about doing it because I know there's some personality types that are fifth or sixth level. Why do that? Especially with the idea that you don't need the money.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
I'll be honest, I was kind of bored truthfully. I was kind of bored. I was feeling like a lack of purpose. I felt like I didn't have enough. This is my baby 20 years into this and it's named after me and it's my baby. So when it wasn't achieving the success that I expected I had to do something about it, it was eating at my soul. It was just like I knew what needed to be done. I couldn't get it done unless I stepped back in. It just wasn't happening the way it needed to happen. And so I think that for me, I hate losing more than I love winning truthfully. And so just to me, and again, the company's been profitable, it's successful, but it wasn't operating the way it needed to. And frankly, like I said, I was a little bored and I knew the market changes.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
I knew my agents needed more from me and with me, and I knew the market changes were going to warrant that. So that's another reason I felt like I needed more of my purpose and I needed to grind a little bit more because the process is where the fun is. I think back to some of the most fun times in my real estate career, and it wasn't when I was making millions of dollars and buying cars and I got all that stuff, but the fun was like, you got 27 listings from a client. You got to figure out how to get 'em. It was you have this problem or you're changing brokerages or you're opening up with this new marketing thing, or the fun was in the grind.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
This is the role that you're probably most familiar with and is the most natural to you, probably even more natural than CEO, arguably, just based on your history as a highly successful salesperson. Yeah. What was surprisingly challenging to you and what are you doing? What's a good week or a good month look like? I assume it's a lot of inspection. Inspection and coaching and accountability and these types of things. Yep.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
It's a daily huddle with my top agents. It's a leading a weekly meeting. I have four training classes I do every single week, which are buyer agent presentation, listing agent certification, current listing agent presentation improvement, and then I have a wild card where we do a bunch of different stuff. I lead our team meeting every week. I'm in the office nine to five Monday through Friday, with the exception of if I have a client, if I have a high end client that I'm going to work with. The other thing I would say is I still do manage a lot of this processes with the flip business. I think I have eight or nine homes right now that I own under different phases of renovation that are being renovated to resell, and then I own a title company and I do some coaching. And then of course with LPT, I recruit agents nationally, so I wear a bunch of different hats, but every day for me, it's scheduled, it's structured. I live by my schedule. I'm in the office nine to five, Monday through Friday. I will say that I have gotten to the point in my life where I do not work. Weekends in rare circumstances will I work on weekends, I might check a little bit of email or deal with an emergency type thing. But if I am going to grind and I do have enough money to not run out, weekends are mine. And so I do take them off.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Good for you. It's super helpful and I would argue necessary, but I've never been as aggressive or accomplished as you.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
Yeah, I've gone through burnout. I've gone through burnout numerous times over 20 years, and a lot of the times the burnout is I didn't take a Sabbath. I didn't take a day off. I didn't relax, I didn't chill. Right now, I'm not going to, I made a commitment to my coach that while I've kind of stepped back into this role, I'm not taking any time off. I'm not vacationing until September. So just to set that example and that tone for people that I'm there for them and that I'm here too, doing the work alongside them.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
That's great. Two questions in one here. You've talked a little bit about the future of the brokerage and it's a very compelling vision. I'm glad you introduced it when you did because I think it structured this conversation up really nicely. But what do you think is the future of the real estate team? What role will it play in, let's just say sales production in general, and do you agree with kind of a background theme? And of course I have a very biased sample of because I'm talking to real estate team leaders, the top team leaders, operator. Do you also agree that more agents could join a real estate teams as part of that future? So just talk about the future from a brokerage team, solo agent perspective.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
I think a lot of coaches have said this, and I think you're seeing a transformational change right now where teams are going to lead the way with professional training and coaching. And the reality is that a team that has a brand and has built a database and does a lot of marketing when the buyer agent side of the table is compressed and when the cost per lead continues to go up with all the companies that sell leads to us, the reality is that you can't compete from an advertising and lead gen perspective with somebody who has a 20 year PhD and marketing and lead generation. So I think teams are going to grow more dramatically over the next few years. I think in fact, it's one of the things that excited me about LPT and Robert Palmer is because he wants to be the place for top teams. He's building a business that's kind of geared around that.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
For me, there are so many agents that would make more money on a team and have a better quality of life. I think their unfortunately real estate, and I mean this is coming from the guy with his face on billboards, but it's very ego-driven, and there are a lot of real estate agents that care more about their face on that sign and the split. They get to tell their friends they're on than the money they bring home to their family. Oh, I'm on a hundred percent split. You did three freaking deals last year. You should have worked at Walmart. So I think that is, I think there's almost a glorification of teams that's kind of underway with coaches and different people propping them up that I think there's going to be a movement of pretty good agents that just get good enough at business and math to realize that they're not making more than their friends that are on teams that don't have all that cost expense and risk.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
So I think teams are going to grow. And I also think that as the business evolves to more of a listing based business and eventually see a bleed off of agents, the agents that want to be listing agents that really have focused only on the buy side, they're going to want to go to places that have listing presence and listing training. And the hope is that great companies like mine can then keep those people after they train them as listing agents instead of losing them, but ultimately to go somewhere where they can become a great listing agent. And we're seeing a lot of that right now. I'm getting contact from people that do 10, 15, 20 transactions a year that normally wouldn't join a team. They're saying, my business is all buyer business. I need to go somewhere where I can learn to list.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
You nailed the things that obviously everyone who's in this has experienced, which is it's either ego or I don't want to conform as well as the split, but more on a superficial level than a real cost benefit analysis. You mentioned. Let's train folks on listings and then figure out how to keep them. In my observation, there are kind of two key buckets to keeping that person who doesn't functionally need you but wants to say because of two things, financial and cultural, financial being, you've come up with an appropriate arrangement for someone of their caliber and experience that still makes sense for them to grow with you financially. And then it's also cultural. It's just like, I like it around here. I like who I'm with.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
It's fun. I enjoy going on cruises. You guys do fun, happy hours. We do monthly

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Challenged by other really good players. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Challenged. And I think also accountability. I think there are a lot of people that frankly in real estate don't really want to work or me get to a place in their life where they're like, okay, now's the time when I need to step back in and grind more. I enjoy it. Or there's some sort of financial motivation that happens in their life where they decide to crank it up and go on a team where they know they're probably going to be held accountable more so than what they've been when they're on their own and they're playing what I call Polito, and they're watching reality TV all day and jamming in Netflix shows and making two calls a day. That's not going to cut it on most real estate teams if you're going to be successful, but you can get away with that at home. You don't have anyone telling you what you need to be doing.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
That's it. And I think we've used this term in this conversation as the industry continues to professionalize due to a variety of forces, the type of personality that would thrive in that structure and wants and needs, that accountability, knows that and is willing to react to it and receive it appropriately, that's where the production's going to come from. Okay. What is your very favorite team to root for besides the Dunkin Duo or what is the best team you've ever been a member of?

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Obviously the Lightning, but I'm not going to use that one. That's an easy one. I mean, I'm wearing their hat today. I've been with them for 10 years sponsoring them, so it's kind of like I'm a part of their team, which is awesome. They won two Stanley Cups and they're a winning team, and we've certainly worked with players and lots of the fans, coaches just been a great thing for us and a lot of great things for our brand. But I think that's an unfair answer because I'm biased. So I would say my favorite team to root for in sports would be the Golden State Warriors, and it's a really odd thing, but I played college basketball and I'm a three point shooter, so when they kind of evolved the game and turned into this rocket launching team, I just became an instant fan of them even before they were winning, just seeing them Jack threes how I like to play basketball, so I'm a fan of theirs. I've always also been a Lakers fan. I was a big Kobe and Shaq fan way back in the day. That was when I was traveling to la. Like I mentioned earlier in the interview, that's kind of when I got exposed to them, and I actually played against Kobe in AAU basketball, which is also a cool story. So it would be those two. I'm a basketball junkie, so I watch a ton of basketball, so it's always my favorite. Sports teams are going to be basketball,

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Frivolous purchase or cheapskate habit. Give me one of your most frivolous purchases or a cheapskate habit that you hold onto, even though you probably don't need to.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Cheapskate habit. I still search for a coupon code when I'm going to make an expensive purchase online. I don't like to waste money. There are a couple things. I spend a lot of money on cars. If you follow me, you're going to see that I have a McLaren and a Ferrari and probably a bunch of dumb purchases there, but there are things that I enjoy and that I'm passionate about because I love cars. But from a frugal standpoint, if I'm going to buy something online, I will search for a coupon code. So even today, can I afford to, not to? What's

Speaker 1 (52:02):
The bottom threshold? We talking a hundred bucks, we talking a thousand bucks, we talking 50 bucks.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
If I'm going to spend a couple hundred bucks, I'll search for a coupon code.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Love it. Okay, final one here. What does it look like for you, Andrew, to invest your time in learning, growing and developing? Or what does it look like for you to invest your time in resting, relaxing, and recharging? What are you doing when you're going in one of those directions?

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Yeah, so I mentioned both of those and I think I spent probably too much time, a few years back relaxing, resting. So now I'm kind of in grind mode, but I take weekends off. As far as self-education, I have a goal going into every year of going to six educational events. And I think that my goal in doing that is so that I can bring things back to my agents, but I can learn, but I can also get with and mastermind and hang around better players, people that are operating and I can learn from them or as I've done go into business with some of 'em. So I have multiple team leaders across the country where I'm an investor in something with them or where we've gone into business together. So for me, I think collaboration happens at the top. So building more of those relationships. And I had a goal of going to six and I've already done that, so I've already hit the six this year. Probably going to end up doubling it on and going to another handful of them before the end of the year. But I think it's super important that you do that, that you constantly focus on never ending improvement.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
I love it. I especially appreciate your, this isn't just about connecting and learning and being able to make a phone call or shoot a message whenever I have a question, but also actually turning it into joint ventures at some level or participating in

Speaker 3 (53:49):
What, yeah, I mean, literally they're at least probably seven, eight team leaders across the country that I've gone into business with and I have done business things with or brought business ideas to them. We help train and coach each other so there's a relationship build that's there, that's a value add when they decide to buy a vacation home here or when they decide to launch a tech company. I've got investments in some of those. So I think getting around those people, you learn of opportunities. I mean, I'll give you an example that kind of started me down that path. And so I've been with BoomTown for a very long time, and initially in the early days of BoomTown had an investment opportunity to invest in our company and I turned it down and I should not have, and now I just go open with opportunity to learn about new tools and learn about the different things that are out there. But that was something that opened my eyes to my influence and my ability in the real estate space, not just to use tools, but to have a say in how they perform and how they grow. And I think that's something I paid attention to over the years. And so while I'm not as happy of a BoomTown customer today simply because of some of the things that they've had happen recently, I was with them for a long time and certainly looked at them in the early days as an integral part of my growth.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
If someone has gotten to this point in the conversation, Andrew, they may want to learn more about you, your business, how you're doing some of your stuff, or even connect with you on social. Where are some spots you'd send people who have gotten this far into the conversation?

Speaker 3 (55:26):
So at the Duncan Duo, pretty much all the socials, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. My personal Instagram is the Andrew Duncan. I'm Andrew Duncan with the check mark on Facebook. And then I did launch as part of my move to LPTI built a website that's around agent education and it's at do over movement and it's obviously a spin on the Duncan Duo and the duo and kind of helping agents avoid do-overs or kind of be in the middle of one like I'm in now, and it's D-U-O-V-E-R movement.com. A lot of educational videos on there and tips for agents to be successful.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Great. All that stuff is linked up right down below. So whether you're watching in YouTube or you're watching or listening@realestateteamos.com or you've got this in your ears and you've got Spotify or Apple Podcasts open, there's a description down below. All that stuff is linked up. Andrew, I appreciate you so much. Awesome.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Thanks Ethan.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Continued success to you.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks

Speaker 2 (56:22):
For checking out this episode of Team Os. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up@realestateteamos.com.