Speaker 1 (00:00):
About four and a half years ago, just before the onset of the pandemic, he started his real estate team with an admin and with two agents he'd mentored earlier in his career. Today, Kyle Draper and Serene team are more than 40 agents strong in those three original team members are still contributing. Kyle joins us here in this episode to share the various paths and playbooks that make up that journey. He shares specific challenges in that seven to 12 agent range, which tools and tech are vital to turning online leads, past clients and sphere opportunities into closed transactions, specific staff changes to the structure of the team in order to support a new transaction management process and something near and dear to my heart, the role of video in helping build relationships, demonstrate expertise and advance opportunities. Here's my conversation with Kyle Draper on Real Estate team os,

Speaker 2 (00:53):
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 (01:08):
Kyle, you and I connected by way of John Zambrana who helps bring to life real estate team os every week a great partner of mine and I know you've done a lot of work with 'em as well. Really glad we got introduced and excited for this conversation. Welcome to Real Estate Team os.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, we are going to cover a lot of ground here. You're in a really interesting spot in your team journey, a spot where a lot of people find themselves and decide do I step on the gas and go forward or do I let up and get back to this kind of smaller team where I felt like things were more manageable? So we're going to cover a lot of ground here, but we're going to start where we always do, which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. What comes to mind for you Kyle?

Speaker 3 (01:48):
I would say standards of accountability and just general performance expectations as we've really dialed those in for our team that's really helped with the growth.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Expectation management I think is so underappreciated in almost any business in almost any industry and almost all stakeholder groups, but this idea of team leader and staff setting expectations with agents about what's expected and perhaps even what's required I think makes everything go easier. Give me a little bit more on when this occurred to you. I don't know if there was a painful experience behind this, but I've learned this the hard way as well is to set expectations in advance in the case of an agent before they're even on the team so that there's no misunderstanding and that we just get off on the right foot.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Absolutely. I think for us, there was a big shift that happened a couple years ago where we decided to really hit the accelerator on growth and scaling and that meant just kind of being a little more liberal on the recruiting side of things and we've had a lot of success with giving people opportunities and it's really gone both ways. I've had some interviews where I give the opportunity and in my head I'm like, man, am I being a little too liberal with this right now? And then they turn into just these absolute rock stars. It's a great example of maybe prior failures in their career. They just weren't in the right environment. So we've had great success stories on that side, but then there's been countless ones where people talk a big game and then join the team and the numbers just, and you can see in follow-up boss, I mean it's like the call attempts, like the conversations, it's all right there.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
So there's really no fudging that stuff and I'd say that we're in a good place now because we're very strict on what our expectations are. We do take on new agents, but they're basically in a trial period before we officially have 'em on the team, before we assign them a mentor on the team. And in that trial period, it's a 21 day process where they need to make at least 300 calls, which is really not that much. That's about 20 a day calls, not conversations. So that's really just a basic metric for somebody to hit. We want them to do one AI role play training session per day, and then we also want them at the end of that period to have at least 100 contacts uploaded into the database, including email, which for a lot of rookies is a little tricky. Most people are exporting their contacts from their phone and they only have name and phone number, so this really forces that for them to call so that they can then ask for that email.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
So those are really not tough metrics to hit, but we've recently implemented this and because without something like this, people will join your team and especially if they're a rookie, you almost give them more leeway because ideally we want them in production in three months, but there's probably not a huge crisis alert if they get a deal into escrow on month five or month six or so. But still, we do not want a six month period before we're evaluating whether somebody is a good fit in our organization or not. And it's really, really telling. For me, before we had this, I used to tell people when we were onboarding, I'm going to know who's going to succeed and who's not based off of how quickly you're getting your people uploaded. I teach on sphere script training right at the jump because the goal is to just get people into production as quick as possible and that's the lowest hanging fruit.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
They know and trust these agents and because they know and trust 'em, they also know that they're green in their rookies. But that's the benefit of joining a top producing team. So I've just been doing this long enough to know what I need to see at the very start to know whether it's worth it to really pour in on that investment. I mean especially with a mentorship program, that was an issue that we were having is rookies would join the team and I was obligated to assign mentors and the mentors are some of the top agents on the team who are very willing to help, but if the mentee is not taking it anywhere near as seriously as the rest of the organization, that's really not fair on my mentor to be asking them, Hey, take time out of your day to be coaching these agents along. So now it's more of a you earn your spot, you earn your mentor, so that allows us to still recruit a little liberally and then just give people the opportunity to see if it's a good fit.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
I appreciate that you took what you've learned over the years and implemented something that's aight. Three weeks is tight,

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Which I like. As you mentioned, the hurdles aren't gigantic, it's not super difficult to jump over them, but they're high enough to have someone identify like, am I really going to do this because that's a deal. Everyone on the way in is like, oh, I think I can do this. Realtors drive nice cars, or my friend made a killing as a realtor or whatever, opened them up to this opportunity, especially as a brand new agent. But those initial hurdles that you set up, I think you mentioned three of them in particular before you're getting any investment from your mentors, which would be very frustrating from their seat as well and reflects kind of negatively on you at some level with that person who

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Is

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Devoting time and attention that would be better spent somewhere else if the person kind of flames out or doesn't step into it or people come to you, I'm sure with stars in their eyes of how successful they're going to be and they think they can do it, but these hurdles allow them to self-identify like these activities are very uncomfortable and I'm not going to do them. Okay, good. Glad we know this in three weeks or less. You mentioned you've been doing this a while, so I'd love for you to share really quickly some fast version of your real estate journey. I believe it's the family business at some level. And so just kind of walk us up to getting into the business when you realized a team was for you and that you wanted to lead a team and then we'll kind of pick up from there.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, totally. So I kind of backed my way into real estate initially. I was working in music in college and almost was then going to be an attorney in the music industry. And long story short, I'm sitting my parents down at the dinner table explaining to them that I'm not going to go to USC law, which was the path that I'd been on for a minute because I was getting back into music. There were artists that we were recording and I was doing artist management, all this fun and exciting stuff and that's when my mom, who was a real estate agent and my dad's a real estate attorney, so they both were very supportive, got to give props to the parents for not freaking out when I was pulling the plug on law school, but my mom was like, Hey, why don't you get your real estate license that way?

Speaker 3 (08:44):
I'll throw you on a deal or two. And so you have some income coming in while you're figuring out how to make money in music. Well, fast forward 10 years later, I never really cracked the code on how to make money in music. I got really good at making money in real estate though, and it was this kind of evolution where it initially started where I was selling houses to finance this independent recording studio and record label. And as I got better and better at selling houses, the music video budgets got bigger and bigger and bigger. We did a lot of cool stuff, did some major festivals, toured a little bit, so really good life experiences, but the business model of it I never really cracked the code on. And there was this shift where music was more of something that was dragging me down, especially financially and real estate was what I was passionate about.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
I really, really enjoyed it. I love working with the clients love how every day is different, every client's different, every property is different, just love everything about it. So it was this weird shift of my passion was then real estate and I had to get rid of music. So when I turned about 30, that's when I was like, okay, it's time to officially make these changes. And I kind of just bounced around different offices rising to the top as a solo agent in each office, but I knew that the next level was creating the team. I was definitely at the point where I could not handle the amount of business that I was naturally attracting, but I couldn't really start the team until I shut music down. I didn't want to be an aloof leader who's just checking out and going on tour for weeks at a time and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
So yeah, turned 30 and started the team. And that was also right when Covid was hitting so really wild times. I reached out to two agents that I mentored at a prior office. We were friends. I also knew that their way of doing business was my way. I taught them my kind of approach to things and asked them to take a chance on me and they did. And so that was two agents. We had an admin as well, and I'm very proud to say that all three are still with us as top producer leader roles on the team. And I had a vision of we were going to be a very in-office every morning for a morning huddle. We're going to be just really, really extreme and covid hit and there were a lot of horrible things that came out of Covid. One beneficial thing that came for us was that it kind of forced me to take our morning meetings virtually.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
And to this day we have a morning zoom every morning from nine to 10:00 AM and it's virtual though. And that really changed the fabric of our team because agents were starting to come to me from all over town, including as far as the Inland Empire. Our current offices in Culver City, that's about an hour and a half or two hour drive depending on traffic, so not very close. And I was like, well, I don't know a whole lot about Inland Empire Real Estate, but I do know a thing or two about systems and online leads. And so we're also very virtual right now. So sure I'm super down to take on agents who are just geographically spread out and we've just grown over the last four years that way and it's great. We have agents really that cover as far north as Palmdale Lancaster. We do deals as far south sometimes even in San Diego County, not very often, but we can cover a lot of territory, which is really fun as a team leader, especially a team leader that goes to the national conferences and is trying to network on more of a national scale because we can get a lot of referral business and we're not just one little niche market that we're good in.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
We really cover a lot of territory. And I think from a culture standpoint on the team, I think that's a big part of why our agents are as collaborative as they are. Because if we are at a hyperlocal brick and mortar, big, big broker kind of office, which I've been in a lot of those over my career, you're friends with your agents, but are you really sharing all of your tricks because you're probably mailing and door knocking the same sellers as the other agents and whatnot. So I think that just from a culture of collaboration standpoint, it's been really, really nice to be geographically diverse. And we still do get together for some fun events. We will do team top golf or ax throwing. We've got a pool party coming up in a week or two, so people do kind of make the trek when it's like culture events and whatnot. But I don't know, that's just kind of been the fabric of our team and it was just a situational circumstance that we had, but it's been great and something that we're continuing to really lean into.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
First of all, so many really great pieces of information and nice accomplishments in what you shared there, particularly of course kind of the initial group that joined you four and a half years ago with that idea. Here's my idea, believe in it that they're still with you today and learning and growing along with the team. Obviously the slightly different nature, even like a super healthy brokerage, it's still different than a team in some ways that you already identified, which I love. Give us a snapshot of where Serene Team is today, how many agents, staff, you already touched on culture a bit, you already touched on geography a bit, but anything else you want to share to characterize the team?

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Sure. We're at now, I believe 43 agents, very active in recruiting. We're kind of constantly onboarding and offboarding, so that number fluctuates a lot, but right around 43 agents and then five staff members on the team, two being international support help. So three us and then two international.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Cool. What have you opted to source offshore and what have you opted to source locally?

Speaker 3 (15:16):
So our three local support staff, one is our director of agent success, who's also a producing agent, but she was actually our original admin, so she produces as an agent for herself, but she carries the role of before we get into escrow, all the just real estate specific help, I need help pricing this property, can you look over this contract, all that stuff. She gets paid basically to help with on the team. And then we have a operations manager who's also stateside covers onboarding, offboarding does our database management, all our online lead partner reporting, whole lot of other operational stuff. And then we have a transaction manager, so Transac and this is all stateside still. So Transaction Manager is a TC on steroids basically. And that's something we're really dialing in is there's not a one size fit all approach to what agents really want some really handing the baton over when we open escrow and letting our transaction manager really run the show and others still running the show and leaning on the transaction manager is more of support for them running the show.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
So that's our state side staff and then overseas, our transaction coordinator is overseas and basically serves as the right hand of our transaction manager and they also cover our listing coordination as well, our transaction team. And then our other virtual assistant helps with our property tour scheduling, which is really, really, really helpful. We've got him really dialed in on that. That takes a lot of admin time off the agents, which is always my thing that I'm trying to always contribute and help with. He does some graphic design for us, does some skip tracing for us. Just a lot of odd jobs and then our operations manager also delegates to him with some stuff that is delegatable basically.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, really good. I appreciate you sharing that and this idea that you're constantly thinking about what to take away from agents so that they could be a dollar productive activities is essentially the name of the game

Speaker 1 (17:34):
And how to do that profitably, what roles in what order. And you also mentioned one of the constant challenges too, which is some people like it this way, some people like it that way. At 40 plus agents, you've got a lot of diversity. That group, even if you kind of hire them through a same set of values, there's still a lot of diversity in terms of what they want, what they expect, especially as you're blending brand new agents with they've been doing it for two years somewhere else, never really got that productive. And so you've helped unlock something in them through your systems or accountability or the way that you manage leads or source them, these kinds of things. I would love for you to share one of the biggest challenges for someone who is about where you were in let's just say mid to late 2020, small team, A lot of energy, a lot of passion, a lot of excitement, some early wins, where are we going to take this thing to where you are now?

Speaker 1 (18:25):
A lot of people struggle with how do we preserve what made this team great out of the gate and gave us those early wins and gave us our early success and built the momentum and allowed us to be the kind of organization that had people from an hour and a half away proactively reaching out and saying, can I be a part of this? Was that just good fortune? Was that just good people or was there some level of intent or design behind locking up essentially the best cultural components in preserving them through this growth that you've had over the past four years?

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Yeah, it's a really good question and I think the first piece of the answer is that I think a lot of people think, oh, we just have to grow a team as big as we can grow it, and that's just the path to go on. And that is so not true whatsoever. I think there's a lot of teams that should stay lean and nimble, especially if the agent is a huge, huge piece of the production piece and whatnot. So that's the first thing for me. My mentors are Mark Patterson who runs Porch Light down in San Diego. Kyle Whistle run the Whistle Realty Group. Colton Whitney's a mentor of mine and they all run the large team model, and so I'm very familiar with it. We mastermind together, so I'm fortunate enough to basically have their playbooks to follow. And so for me, I know that it is the right path for us to hit this accelerator really scale.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
Has it been hard? Absolutely. From a financial standpoint, you also go through this really kind of messy middle that you are going to be a lot less profitable, quite frankly than you were before. I mean, it's kind of crazy when you think about it. Most team leaders get to the point that they're at because they were just rockstar agents. And so if you start a team, especially if you pull yourself out of production, which we will get into that in a second, that's the equivalent of this all-star player on the field stepping off, putting the coaching hat on and then putting basically bench reserves onto the field and just really, really, really hoping that everything goes the way that it used to go. And that's tough. That's tricky. And for us, when we first started when we were basically just a four person squad, like three agents and an admin, it worked really, really well.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
And I was basically very much in production and we were partnering on every deal basically. I would handle a decent amount of the showings, very much just our duties were very much split. And then that continued to work as we added a few more agents, but then we hit just this kind of breaking point I want to say, when we were around seven agents, because that model does not scale. I can't continue to be a partner and continue to take on that same responsibility with that many more people. You just can't duplicate that way. So that was, I'd say our probably biggest inflection point really was when was it? I want to say it was the back half of 2021 going into 2022 is where we started to have these kind of growing pains, some kind of kinks in the armor. And I went to, actually, it was the Y OPO conference in Vegas, I think spring of 2022.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
And I realized that I had the wrong CRM. We weren't with FAB yet at the time, and it was very clear at that conference that I had years prior, just picked the wrong pairing with YPO and that fab is the horse I should have picked. So I was like, okay, shoot. We got to switch our CRM. I made a decision to switch my coaches at that time as well. And it also was clear that I really need to step out of production or at least in a different sense than where I was at the time. And then we really scaled, we were able to recruit a bit more aggressively. My current coach is very growth-minded and was just encouraging too of me stepping out of production a bit. And so things got better after that, but it still is very tricky. That kind of seven to 20 agent threshold is hard because you basically need the same amount of staff and resources, so your overhead is high.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
And so you're just kind of in this thing of I need more agents because I can't really cut my overhead right now. The more agents we get 'em into production, the more this will make financial sense once again. And so we did, we continued to just grow and just we went from 20 agents to 30 agents to 40. Now we're hovering a little over 40. And it's definitely getting to the point now where it's like, okay, this is why I went through all that. This is why I gave up being a super profitable solo agent with no overhead to taking on all this responsibility, all this overhead, managing so many different personalities and all the fun that comes with that. And I'll say another part of it is I've stepped back into production a little bit, which has been really, really, really, excuse me, helpful.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
I mean even from a personal fulfillment standpoint, it's very fulfilling to be hands-on with your buyers or your sellers. So some of my closest friends past clients that I've worked with before, especially with all the infrastructure that we have as a team, it's very doable for me to produce a little bit again now. And we're, right now, I don't have a true showing partner model of there's one person that I'm leaning on the team to help with the more in the field stuff. But so far it's been pretty doable to depending on where the business is. Like I said, I have agents all over SoCal, so just letting somebody know, Hey, can I pay you 50 bucks to go open this door for, they wanted a contractor out to measure something or something. So that way I'm just not driving around town constantly and that is just way, way more profitable than bringing in an agent for splitting the deal like 50 50 or something like that when there's certain clients that I know I'm already going to have to be way more hands-on with just because of the nature of our relationship and I don't mind it either.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
So that's been huge because as a team leader, yeah, your checks are, you get a lot more, but they're a lot smaller and especially with running a big monthly overhead, sometimes it's like, whoa, we're working really hard here, but the business has its overhead. My personal living has its overhead too. It was pretty nice when I would have a check that was 30,000, 40,000, 50,000. That's just to me rather than 3000, 5,008. It's all depends on price point obviously, but it's been really nice to get back into some of that production again.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Love it. Okay, so there's a lot there. I just want to double back a little bit. Putting the bench on the field, it's not just expecting equal production or hoping for equal production from a team that hasn't quite done it before. You also have never stepped off the field, and so it's like a rookie coach

Speaker 1 (26:17):
With some of the starting lineup, but also some of the bench lineup mixed in. That's part of the challenge, getting back into production. When did that occur to you? What was that about for you? I mean you already explained a lot of the benefits of it and another benefit that I'm sure you've experienced that a lot of folks have shared on this show is I never left and or I got back in. Not just because it's helpful to the team and to myself, but it also allows to coach agents a little bit more effectively. The market is always changing even when it doesn't feel like it's changing dramatically or super quickly. It's changing all the time and there's no better way to be a value and service to the agents that you're in directly engaged with in terms of coaching, guidance, language in these types of things. Then having a sense of what's going on out there yourself. But what was that decision about for you? And I guess one more to kind of tack onto that, what did a good day, good week, good month look like for you when you were right before you got back into production? What does that look like today? What were you doing that you were able to maybe set down or delegate that allowed you to spend some more time? Or did you just eat that time instead of working 60 hours a week? Now I work 70.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Well, quite frankly, a lot of, I was afraid to take on any client by myself just because of how spread thin I am. So there was a component of that why I was bringing agents on files that now I would just be working myself. There was also a component of I really want to make sure I'm retaining top talent and there's definitely that kind of balance of everything that we're providing as a team. So now we've got a ton of staff systems, up the wazoo, all that good stuff. So I'm a little less self-conscious of, okay, I have to at all times make sure that the kind of team business and the splits on all that is really justifying people who have really strong solo production on their side because at the end of the day, there's something always going to be in the back of their head where it's like, would I be making more money if I was a solo agent?

Speaker 3 (28:28):
So because of that, I was very much just like, okay, all of my business, I'm partnering with you on it, we'll do it 50 50 and that's great. But the reality again is that with these clients, I can't take the same backseat that I would with a different team provided lead on the same splits, which would be an internet leader, something like that. I realized that I'm still very, very involved in the work and especially like I said, we have a transaction manager now. So running escrows is very simple. I know that I'm not going to miss anything because I'm so scatterbrained and have so many things on my mind, which was a huge fear before why I was like somebody else needs to be responsible, but just the cost of that now I can manage way better with our transaction manager. She's paid a flat fee at closing and it is really not that much additional work that I realized, and I know I'm providing a lot lot to all the agents, so I'm a bit more just confident when there's opportunities that just make sense for me to work it myself. I'm confident doing that now. So it's not really more or less work for me really, which is the crazy thing probably why I should have done it earlier. And I just know from masterminding with so many other team leaders like Colton Whitney for example, he's a huge proponent of the showing agent model and just seeing him present on it, it's one of those things where I've known I should do it. It just took me a minute before I really executed. Now that I've done it, oh, it has made the world of a difference.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
You mentioned when we first connected that you were working on some staffing changes. I'd love for you to share as much as you want to or can. When did you become aware that you needed to make some changes? What were those changes and where is that in flight? How did you become aware that I should probably switch some of this stuff up?

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean a lot of it is just feedback that I'm getting from the team, able to recognize just certain areas of improvement that we can do, and I really wanted to have a model of this transaction management system that we're talking about. So the original vision is different than where we're at now after I've kind of learned a lot from it. It's a very tricky model to run. But I did know that I wanted for, and again, some agents like it, some other agents, but we were running into an issue with some of my top producers about the amount of deals that they could basically put into escrow at a time just because of the amount of escrow involvement that was needed and to what we were talking about earlier. If there's anything that I can make a tweak on that is going to allow agents to just really not have that ceiling on their production, just really spend their time stacking the deals.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
If I can provide a team that is not just TC files but is rather doing the whole escrow basically for the agent, the agent still shows up to the inspection in the field stuff, but they can take a backseat if they want to, our transaction management role. So that's really what it was, is just kind of having this vision that there's a different way that I want to try this and I see the benefits really long-term and we're I guess what, five or six months into the transition and we're still refining it, we're still improving it. And again, my biggest takeaway is that there is not a one size fits all approach even per agent because I've noticed this with myself. Some clients are just going to demand way more of the agent and other clients are going to be fine with being introduced to this new player in their escrow basically.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
And there's so much too that we're refining to improve the process on at what stage are we introducing the client to our transaction management staff. So rather than when we open escrow, we're sending these emails out with explaining the process, explaining who they are when they're submitting offers. Same with how do we introduce our transaction manager to the agent on the other side of deals. We've had some agents that have no issue having her as the main point of contact, and then other agents that no matter what we say, they're still calling the agent and the agent's like call our transaction manager. So it's definitely a work in progress still. But I do love the service that we offer to the agents. There's a lot on the team that are like, oh my God, I could never go back to the old way of doing things. And then again, there's a lot of agents that I've learned don't want to do things where they're in control of everything. So yeah, it's a nuanced model I'm learning. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (33:31):
And also it goes back to where you started this conversation, which is expectation management, managing the expectations of clients. Who is this person and what is their role? And can I still talk to the agent why and how? And for some of these side cases, the exception to the primary rule, how do we facilitate that so everyone knows what's going on and everyone knows who needs to contact who. I could see how there's a lot of, there are enough moving pieces there. You want to honor some of that variability that either the client or the agent prefers, but that also then breaks some of the expectations that are set or a particular email, for example. It may not apply in this case because the agent wants to do it differently. So yeah, it is a lot to manage. So you mentioned how much you're providing agents in general.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
You just shared a really, really good example of that. I would assume that another one is online leads marketing is a passion of yours, it's a skill of yours. There's some tech kind of rolled into that. You mentioned, for example, spending time on the national scene going to events like Y lopa, which is a marketing slash tech type of event. But you've also mentioned to me, I forget whether we've covered in this conversation or not, that the majority of your team's deals are still sphere deals. So talk about this balance between investing time and energy and resources into online leads and online lead management versus the fact that still the majority of your actual closed deals are coming from sphere, which also requires time and energy, but in a different way and maybe requires different tech. So I know I asked kind of a big messy bundle there, but talk about lead gen and where your deals are being sourced and how you're getting those desks

Speaker 3 (35:12):
Grow. Yeah, absolutely. It's so funny because our first year as a team, when we were looking at our numbers, that's when we had this big aha moment of, oh my goodness, I forget what the exact numbers were, but sphere and past clients was just the dominant source. I would say it's probably the dominant source for the majority of teams. Maybe Zillow flex team's excluded, but so we realized, oh shoot, we have this great, great source of business that is really more like an afterthought for us and we are spending all of our time and energy talking about the online leads, our systems chasing them. So we've gotten a lot better at keeping that perspective and we're very intentional with Sphere Outreach. Like I was saying earlier, onboarding is very sphere script training based and whatnot. So yeah, it is definitely a blend and there's some really good tools that are helping us a little bit with the online lead management and taking a little bit less of the time sync off of our team and Staff Maverick is a product that is really, really, really great on that side of things because we can basically just from a super zoomed out overview, we can see if there's rule violations in follow-up boss, which basically just means the agents are tardy on doing outreach they're supposed to do.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
So rather than having to go through all these smart lists and having to individually let agents know, Hey, you need to do this on this, you need to do this on this with basically three clicks of a button, we can do that at scale to our whole database. So that's been a really helpful tool in terms of, to your point, yeah, making sure we're not spending all of our time and energy and focus on this one lane of our business that other lanes we definitely want to be able to give that focus to. So yeah, it's about just keeping that perspective really, I would say.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
But the thing about our sphere, and part of why I love the follow-up boss, why lo o combination is that the nurture and retargeting the ai, all of that helps with every single book of business that we close. It's funny a lot of, because a lot of people know I'm a pretty big Y lo O follow-up boss component, and if they're taking a meeting with Wlo O or something, they're like, how many of your deals did you close from Wlo O? And I'm like, a hundred percent because yeah, I buy pay-per-click leads from Wlo O, and we close a decent amount of those, don't get me wrong, but that remarketing engine, the ai, the Nurture, the seller, a VM reports that are sent out, being able to put our buyers on drips and then having the system notify us through people's behavior when it's time to be a little bit more aggressive with our outreach for them because they show us through their behavior that works with our entire database, including sphere, including past clients and including internet leads we are chasing and we haven't even spoken with yet.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Case in, we had a listing agreement signed about a week ago, and it was the funniest thing, this was a super, super long time ago, past client that shame on us. We hadn't really communicated in a minute, but one of the top agents on my team, he got that a VM hand raise coming from the seller report that YPO is sending out. And so he called her and she was basically like, wow, this is just so crazy that you're calling me how serendipitous, because yes, I do want to talk to you. And it's so yeah, that's not an internet lead. That's somebody that our tech and our systems really, really, really helped us just know when to get back in front of people. So yeah, we apply it to everything.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Cool. A lot of really, really good tips and examples in there. Quick cross promo right here. We're fresh out of Tech 10 a five episode series on the show. We talked a lot about transaction management, a bit about marketing. There were some tools mentioned. The way that you described the specific value that Y LPO brings you paired with Follow-up boss. So we got a five episode series that we're just fresh out of and we're like two weeks away right now from launching a nine episode series Inside Whistle Realty Group. You mentioned Kyle Whistle earlier. So we're deep in with that team and talking to the variety of team members. It's something we've only done once before with the Lawton team in Phoenix. We have an inside the Lawton team series too. So thanks for your patience having that Kyle

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Awesome

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Video. I know that video has been important for you all. It's only come up a few times on this show. I still think that it's massively under leveraged. When did video come onto your radar? What role has it played? And I think probably the biggest challenge for team leaders is I don't think you can expect every agent to participate in video because some of them just aren't going to do it. And even if they do, they might not be very good at it. It might actually be a detriment. It is a developed skill, but for you, when did you get turned onto it? What role has it played and how are you maybe helping some of your agents leverage it as well?

Speaker 3 (40:43):
So we're super video heavy in our onboarding. There's a whole section dedicated to just why we think video is so important, all the ways that we use it. How I got turned onto it, it honestly probably was Kyle Whistle. This was way before we were like masterminding buddies years ago when I was just a little scrub. Basically, I saw him speak on stage about how he has BombBomb incorporated into his business to the degree that he does. And I remember just being like, whoa, I get it. That's so cool. I don't think he knows that it was so long ago. But anyway, yeah. So since then we've just really leaned into it and we use it in all components. We just have one account that the whole team uses for BombBomb. It works really, really, really well for us. And I can't tell you how many times that clients that initial first impression because we do it for our comparable sales analysis. We don't just send PDFs and then, Hey, review these comps, and we think the offer should be this. It is like an eight and a half minute video where it shows exactly the thought process that we go when we're comparing their property to the comps price per square, just the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
Screen recording. So they're seeing what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yeah, screen record. Exactly. Exactly. Screen record. Quick story on that. We signed a listing agreement a few months ago, and this was a veteran united lead. It was a seller lead that when they initially came in, it was clear they were nowhere near being ready to list or anything like that. So I wanted to showcase our value from the start show that we're different. And so I told the client, I said, I know you're not ready to sell right now, but I'm going to send you a comparable sale analysis video pretending as if we were going to market tomorrow, basically just so you can see snapshot of where we're at today, and also to show off our skills and knowledge and all that. So we sent them the video and they responded very favorably, and then we were able to stay in touch and it was months later.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
And so we're finally at the listing table and the client and her husband, they just start laughing and they're like, oh my god, Jenny would be so mad if she knew that we were doing this right now. And my partner, er and I, we look at each other and we're just like, what? And we look at them, we're like, who's Jenny? And they're like, well, Jenny is the agent that represented us when we bought our house. She's also our best friend. We got really, really, really close with her after the transaction. We have dinner with her regularly still. And so LY and I were like, well, what the hell are we doing here with you signing this? And they said, they were like, honestly, when you sent us that comparable sales video six, seven months ago, however long it was, they were so impressed by it.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
And they had a conversation, husband and wife about, we love Jenny, but Jenny does not do this. Jenny does not provide this level of insight expertise. It is also even just selfishly for the agents, when you can really articulate why you think something should be the way that it is, the clients typically accept it. Because if you're making the argument very well, there's way less pushback and bouncing back and forth. So it's just really, really, really nice. There's so many other benefits to it. I mean, from a liability standpoint, what we do, we review seller disclosures via BombBomb. The first offer we write for a client, we will go through the RPA and explain it so there's a record of us going through this stuff with the client. So from a liability standpoint, that's very powerful and it gives the agents their time back. And so what I mean by that is when I was a solo agent early in my career, before I was leveraging this pretty much every night I was having 9:00 PM conference calls, 10:00 PM conference calls because that was the only time that the client was available and we needed to have this kind of lengthy exchange for me to transmit information to them.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
And we don't really have that issue anymore because during our time when we want to take the time to do a 20 minute analysis review of something, we'll do that during our workday, we'll send it to the client via video and we say, Hey, watch this. When you have time, let us know if you have any questions. We can jump on a call if you want to talk anything out. And just about 99% of the time they're like, that was so thorough. That was so helpful. We have no questions. Thank you. So we don't then have to take conference calls at nine or 10 o'clock, which is so nice. The client also then has something that they can go back and review, which is huge. And it's also helpful for me to have stuff to go back and review when I'm driving out for a listing appointment.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
I am playing the video that I sent a few days prior of pricing the home out and everything and going through the comps so that I can be like, oh yeah, I can't keep everything straight in my head. There's hundreds of properties that we're constantly running comps on and whatnot. So it's so nice that I can go back to work that I've already done to not have to do that work again, and I'm really, really current and I'm able to just spit out property addresses and numbers and pricing because I'm reviewing the video that I did on the way to the appointment. So there's just so many benefits to it. We love it,

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Man. That's a great go. I'm kind of glad we didn't start on this topic. We could have spent the entire, I got a thousand things to say right now, but for anyone that's not familiar with where we were there, a, there's a back button in your YouTube app or your podcast player. Go back and listen to some of those use cases and benefits again, but we're talking about simple casual conversational videos or screen recordings sent in place of what would otherwise A maybe not be communicated or B, communicated in typed out text that's faceless and doesn't have your personality, doesn't have your expertise, and all these other things that are missing from our faceless digital communication. So this idea that people feel like they know you before they meet you, or as you well described, they understand your thought process and your rationale. It positions you as the expert.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
You're welcoming them into the process in a way that they can watch, as you said, at a different time than you recorded. So we don't need to both be available at 9:45 PM to have this conversation. I can do it whenever I want. You can watch it whenever you want. You can rewatch it, you can share it with someone else involved in the decision-making process that maybe you haven't been communicating with. So it's like so many different benefits to it. So anyway, appreciate that. Go. Fun fact, by the way, when I was at BombBomb, we only did one conference. It was a big in-person conference in Denver, and Kyle was the opening speaker. He opened the whole thing and I got to close the whole thing. So anyway, I love that you shared that. For the sake of time, I'd love for you to give a quick go before our three pairs of closing questions to future of the team model. Are we going to see more? Are we going to see fewer? Are we going to see fewer but bigger? What do you think is promising about this? Or is this just kind of the way that we're doing business right now and a lot of people choose to do it this way? Thoughts about the present and future of the team model?

Speaker 3 (48:22):
Yeah, I mean it's certainly has evolved over the years. I would say that the team model is here to stay. I see teams only getting bigger and bigger, maybe not there being a million different big teams, but consolidation, even the NAR settlement is a great example of, I think why there's just going to continue to be this attraction for agents to join big teams is because especially if you're a newer agent, you're talking to a buyer for the first time right now, you want to work with them, you're going to ask them to sign a contract that says there's a chance that you'll have to pay our fee. So that's just an entirely different conversation than we've had before. And buyers are going to be scrutinizing who their buyer agent is different than ever before. And so if you're newer to the industry, like agents on my team, when they're at that buyer consultation while Lobo just put out an amazing buyer presentation tool, it's going to show all of our team's closings, how much activity we have in all the different areas, all of our team's, five star reviews that we have. That is a different presentation that an agent on a team is able to give compared to an agent who is not on a team. And I just see that only continuing that people are going to continue to be selective with who they work with. And so just really it's necessary to have all the other cool value propositions that big teams are able to offer to buyers right now that solo agents are not. So I see them continuing to really have their place in the market and grow even.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Cool. Well, I wish you continued success in the growth of Serene team. Before I let you go, Kyle first, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Again, I'm glad we didn't start on video. Thank you. There's a lot there, but I'd love for you to share, I've got three pairs of closing questions. The first is, what's your very favorite team to root for besides Serene team, or what's the best team you've ever been a member of besides Serene team?

Speaker 3 (50:24):
I got to give my flowers to Porchlight Realty and Whistle Realty. I'd say those, and it's funny because they're competitors in San Diego, but both of their whole team's infrastructures and then the leaders individually, I mean, I'm just tremendously indebted to, in terms of resources they've provided just roadmaps, introductions that have been made that have been highly beneficial. So I got to give love to those guys.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
That's great. And by the way, I'll link those up right down below. For folks watching listening, there's a description down below. You'll find links to this and to Kyle in a variety of spots down below in the description. So feel free to open that up. What is one of your most frivolous purchases or what's a cheapskate habit you hold onto, even though you probably don't need to anymore?

Speaker 3 (51:17):
I'm doing my best to lower lower expenses. Earlier in my adult life, I think I was a little too loosey goosey, so I'm definitely tightening the belt. I'll say this, I am super proud of myself that I recently purchased a car. It's a 2017 Jaguar F type, and I love this car more than I've loved any car I've had in a long time, and I've had cars that are way more expensive than it, but what I'm super proud of is that I cut my car bill from 1200 a month down to 600 a month. I think the out the door price was like 33,000 or something. So I am so happy that I have a car that is so affordable, but it gives me that excitement still. It's a convertible. I get to enjoy driving around and Los Angeles with the top down. There's nothing better than that, but it is not a, oh my God, look at how much money I spent kind of purchase, and I love that.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
That's really good. You had me at 2017. I'm in. Yeah. What does it look like for you? What are you doing when you're investing time in learning, growing and developing, or what are you doing? What does it look like when you're investing time into resting, relaxing, and recharging?

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Yeah, so the resting, relaxing, recharging for me, a perfect weekend. The weekday is just crazy. It's really hard for me to get into projects just because of all the stuff. It's appointment after appointment. My phone's ringing constantly. So weekends are huge for me. I take one day where I'm doing nothing real estate related. I want to probably be partying, laying by the pool, enjoying myself with my girlfriend, just totally checked out. And then the next day, that'll be Saturday. And then the Sunday will be just all day deep work, like all projects, probably way too many energy drinks consumed, and just getting that kind of deep work project level stuff in that I struggle with during the week, but I got to have that one day of just unplug and party.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Yeah. Yeah, we all do. This has been awesome, Kyle. I appreciate you. I'm glad John introduced us. Of course. Wish you continued success. If anyone has gotten to this point, they obviously enjoyed the conversation because you don't spend 50 plus minutes with us otherwise. So they may want to connect with you online or on social. Where would you send people to follow up on this conversation?

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Best place would be my Instagram. My handle is the Kyle Draper. So yeah, shoot me a dm. We'd love to connect.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Cool. That will be right down below in the description of this episode. Thanks so much, Kyle. Appreciate you and I hope you have an awesome afternoon.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
Thank you, Ethan. This was super fun.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
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.