Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the early days of his real estate journey, Sean Getty had to be incredibly resourceful. So $0 in ad spend and a ton of door knocking, cold calling in social media that ended up producing in the third year, a run of 60 sales in 60 days. Nearly 200 sales in the first half of his third year. Of course, that's absolutely a recipe for burnout and it's a recipe for needing a team. But the process of building Getty Group was one of fits and starts. He started and failed about a half dozen times, including losing more than two dozen agents all at once. But he's finally got great traction. Learn how he's grown from four agents in mid-January to 48 agents in mid-August, how he's attracting not just new agents, but agents who did 15 or 20 deals who are joining him to learn how to do 40 or 50 deals per year. The specific Instagram tactics for agent attraction and the specific conversation structure for that recruiting conversation and some of what he's teaching those agents to help them be successful. It's all right here in this conversation with a fellow real estate team os listener Sean Getty right now on real estate team os,

Speaker 2 (01:11):
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 (01:26):
Sean, it is always a joy to have a viewer or listener of the show on the show. I love your story. I'm excited for what you're going to bring to this conversation, particularly 10 x to 12 XING agent count in this calendar year that is not close to being over yet. So with all that, welcome to Real Estate Team os.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Thank you so much. I'm super, super excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Cool. Well, you probably know where we start, which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. When I offer that, what comes to mind for you?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, so I kind of got two things. I know you asked one question, but if I can give two because I thought about this quite a bit actually. Please. Yeah. So I think one of the most important ones that I've learned is we call it speed of the leader, speed of the team. So what happens is how fast and how much you work as a leader. People don't listen to what you say, they follow what you do. So you got to make sure that you're willing to put in the same work that your team is willing to put in because I think a lot of people start teams because they want less hours and they want more free time and that's not how it works. And then another big one that I learned from John Chap Black, he talks about on your episode you're actually, but inspect what you expect. I can't stress how important that one is. So those are the two characteristics. So for yourself and anybody who's in salary or hourly, inspect what you expect and speed of leader speed of the team.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Really good. That first one reminds me of a conversation I had with Phil Geras. So Phil ti and John Che Black are both Fcon sessions from last October, and you can find those in YouTube. There's a FCON playlist and that John Shep Black episode. Thanks for checking that one out. I really enjoyed that one too. What are you inspecting in general when you're going into, whether it's the CRM or other dashboards, what are you inspecting and or what are some of the other folks around you inspecting? What are you looking for to make sure that things are on the rails?

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Totally. So I'll give you a couple examples and what's really cool, sorry, I just want to do a quick prelude. Like I said, I talk in huge circles, but I promise you it all makes sense. I watched, I think every single episode that you guys have ever put out, if you call it mega fan, that'd be me. Obviously it's still surreal to be sitting here talking to you, but I think a lot of the teams are deep, deep in their business. They're 5, 10, 15 year established teams and for me, I'm literally seven months, eight months into this version of the team. So it's a lot of learning parts of it. So one of the inspect what you expect, one of the things that I wanted to do for the agents is have an ISA team warm up all the leads and do all that stuff. I've never had a lead in my life.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
I've never taken a lead in my life. I've never made a phone call in my life. I don't know how to do it. So I hired somebody to do it expecting that they're going to do it. Okay. We hired people to build our follow-Up boss out and all that stuff, and I left them to it and we were only converting two or three leads a month out of that. And I let it happen for almost half a year. And then I finally jumped in there and started listening to the calls myself, which John Chap tells you to do all the time. But I started listening to the calls myself. I'm like, oh man, these are bad. They're really, I think we're probably burning more leads than we're converting at this point from the ISAs and from the manager. So I walked in one day and just let go of everybody because I finally inspected what I expected and I let it go for six months before I checked in on it.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, really good example. A painful one. I appreciate you sharing it, but that's what so much of this journey is. I mean a couple obvious takeaways for anyone watching and listening who've watched even a fraction of the episodes you have, Sean is like one, there's no one right way to do this. So if you're looking for the magic playbook to real estate team success, it doesn't exist. There's just a lot of hard learned lessons and the more we can learn from other people's trials and errors and successes, the better off we are. And that's why follow-Up Boss does this show, even though we don't call it the F cast and make it about F, it's like we know that this is important to the people that we want to be in relationship with and that we are in relationship with. And so it's examples and lessons like that that motivate us to keep going in this. One question for you as a relatively new manager, talk about that process of having to let people go. I mean that's a really difficult thing to do for anyone, even a seasoned veteran especially because in part as the leader you take some responsibility for what was or wasn't happening. And so I'm sure there's a lot of challenge in that. Share anything you can about that window of time for you.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Sure. So not part responsibility. I take full responsibility no matter what happens, who does it where it happens, it is because of me and either a standard that I didn't apply or a standard that I didn't uphold. So it is always your fault as the leader no matter what. And it's funny, I was actually just talking yesterday to somebody else who you interviewed on this podcast, Justin Haver, and I was talking to him about letting go of my first agents because I've never done it right. I'm like, if they're working, we could do it forever. But then you start to see some people are a huge drain on resources and you only have so much. And Justin was telling me about this and he said that he held onto people far too long than he should have, and they turned from a drain to a bad apple and then that bad apple cost him.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Well, you don't how big his businesses so can only imagine the cost that it ended up turning, right? So he says you have to actually get rid of people before they become a bad apple and when they're only a drain. So as soon as you notice that they're starting to take more than they're contributing, you got to let 'em go. And for me, I don't let go of anybody. I want everybody to win with me. And so the time that I did it, so I let you know with my ops manager, my transaction coordinator team and my ISAs on the same day. So everybody, the whole thing. But before I did that, I found places for them to go before I let them go. So I called around to other teams, I put messages out and posts out, and I sent 'em about to do this and is anybody looking for these type of people? So that made me feel better about myself anyways, is just to find them homes. We weren't the right place for them. It's probably because I was too inexperienced to do it the right way.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, I love this idea of looking out for the next step for them and making it, I mean, at some level it makes it easier for you, but the most important thing, the reason it makes it easier for you is that it makes it easier for them. Hey, mixed news is way better than, hey, bad news. Okay, so you just walked up to a place I wanted to go next. Anyway, just for kind of context and logistics for folks, as we kind get into a couple key themes I'm excited to hear from you on, and that is, what was your path into real estate and what was the dawn of this version of the team that you ended up doing a hard reset on? Just give us a walk up to getting into the business and deciding that its team was necessary.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
So long story short, my entire life fell apart and all my own fault, but I lost my marriage, I lost my job and I lost my health in 30 days. So in the same 30 days. And then that started a complete spiral down in my life where the only thing that I owned was debt and depression. And I figured that was a great time to get into real estate. So not only was I full of depression in my market, we were on a six year decline in the market. So we were in a massive, massive buyer's market. The average days on market was three years to sell a house, not even joking. So that's when I started at a real estate and had no clue what to do or anything. So I literally just googled, how do I sell a house? Today is how I started in real estate and I saw all the things that you were supposed to do, calls door knocking, work, your sphere, all that.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
I didn't like what I saw, and I'll kind of circle this into the team. I didn't like the tactics that I saw because they seemed pretty aggressive and I was always customer service based. So I just always wanted to people make their own informed decision. I didn't want to talk them into a sale. So I saw the things that I was supposed to do, I just didn't know how to do them. So I remember the first day I knocked the door, I knocked the door and the guy answered and he's like, hello? I'm like, hello? He's like, can I help you? I'm like, do you want to sell your house? That was literally my first door that I knocked. I did not sell his house FYI, but I ended up working like crazy and in a down market, I did 44 deals. My first year, 38 were listings because there was no buyers didn't exist.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Most people were cashing out. If the Americans are listing 4 0 1 Ks, they were cashing out and basically retirement funds to make up the difference of the negative equity people had in their houses. They were buying them for five or 600 and they were selling them for like 3 50, 400. So that's how I started. And then, so 44 deals, and this is super important for anybody who's starting a team, please take this advice, please. I did everything the worst and hardest way possible, so please. So I got overwhelmed and I was doing way too much business, and I think this is how most team starts. And they're like, okay, well now I have to hire my first person. Everybody will tell you to hire an admin as your first person to get started. So I said, why would I pay money when I could just hire an agent to take care of my spare business?

Speaker 3 (10:22):
So I brought in an agent before I brought in a TC and that agent wanted trading. I had no time to train them. It was the worst decision I possibly could have made. So your first hire should a hundred percent be a transaction coordinator at a min or something where they could take your hourly tasks off your hand and you could focus on the commission driving tasks. So 11 months in, I started my first team is how it went and failed miserably at that one. I had seven more version, sorry, six more versions. So seven times I built up agents and lost them, built up agents and lost them. I told this version of the team, it started out a necessity. I just didn't have enough time and I needed more help, and I went the wrong direction completely.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Why do you think you were so successful in your first year in such a tough market?

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, I know exactly why. So this gets a little bit dark, but it's okay. So I was super depressed and suicidal that year up until this point of the story. I tried to kill myself one time, but I couldn't go through with it and thank God I'm really good at failing. So what happened is I was putting out open house signs one day and it was a really particular bad day. And when I say I was broke, I was going one, two days without eating. I remember one time I literally found two bucks like a toony. I'm in Canada, and I had to decide between buying a can tuna or gas, and I drove a truck at the time and imagine I walked up to drove to the gas station and gave the guy a toy $2 and said, I'm pump five, please. And he looked at me like I was joking.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Who puts $2? That's all I had, but I needed gas more than I needed the food. So anyways, one day I was putting out open house signs, and again, it was a bad day and I was super, super down on myself and I'm like, I'm not going to go out like this. This isn't my story or how I'm going to live my life. I'm like, I'm going to stop the bitching and sorry complaining. I'm going to stop complaining and stop feeling bad for myself and I'm going to give it a hundred percent of everything that I have. I'm going to give no time to anything but my business, and if I don't feel better and I'm not moving the right direction by the end of this year, then I am going to kill myself. And I wrote it on my calendar. So December 31st, 2019 said, your last day on earth on my calendar.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
So I literally worked my life depended on it, right? You guys, that guru story where the guy says, I want to be whatever, and he walks out into the water and dunks his head, and you need to want as bad as you want to breathe. Well, that was me. So when I was door knocking, and it's funny, I've had so many people challenge me on this, but I would go up to 300 doors in a day, I would door knock, and people were like, you can't do that. I'm like, did you ever knock doors? Like your life depended on you getting a deal? So it took me five months to do my first sale and then the next month that it 17, if you can imagine. So 17 deals in one month that my start and everything was listings. There was no buyers. So yeah, it was super difficult, but I just worked. I just did the amount of work that probably people do in a decade. I probably did in five months.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
So it was just working and building the businesses if your life depended on it.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
And I'll just touch one more point on that, which is super important. So imagine you're going to the gym or trying to build a skill or a sport or something. So let's just use the gym as an easy example and let's say you want to do a certain weight on a certain activity. So call it the bench press, and let's say you want to do 1 45 or 1 35, so that's a plate on each side, right? Well, if you can't do that, do you think you're going to get stronger by putting 25 pounds on each side and doing one rep every hour? Or if you put 25 pounds on each side and go until you can't go anymore, take a two minute break and go, you can't do anymore, and you push past your limits and then that's how you actually grow. So what happens is a lot of people work as if they're doing one rep per hour because they're only doing 10 doors a day or 25 doors a day or 10 calls a day or whatever the activity is. Well, I was doing months of that amount of work every day, so that made me super, super strong at those activities and then the results, they just come,

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Man, great. That was a really, really good metaphor. I love that example. Characterize Getty Group as it is today, however you like, market size, structure, culture, staff positions, et cetera. Just what have you got today in this iteration that thankfully is the one that seems to have stuck.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
So because I came up organically, I've never bought leads until I had a team or any of that kind of stuff. So everybody talks about lead conversion and speed to lead and the nine touches follow up and all that kind of stuff for us, if you can imagine. So in the last 30 days we did 57 deals, which is pretty good for our team. So 57 deals, and I think three of them came from online leads. So if you can imagine over 50 deals a month are coming from my team, knocking doors, doing social media, making gold calls and working their sphere properly. So whereas most teams, 90, 95% of their business is online lead generation. For us, 90 to 95% of our business is SOI. So we're like the SOI team, which is the exact opposite I think of what exists out there. And I think it's partially because that's what I know, but the other one is I truly live in abundance and I think that there's enough for everybody, and I think that if you do the right thing that things will come back to you.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
So the way that most teams work, and this isn't talking down at all, but what happens is they want to teach them how to convert leads, not how to get leads, like eat a fish, not get your fish. What happens because once these people know how to fish, then they leave you because they don't need you anymore. That's what kept happening to me again and again and again. I had to keep changing my value proposition and I had to keep doing things and tweaking things to make it so that people wanted to stick and stay. And this week we'll cross 50 agents on the team and people couldn't be happier. The thing I hear all the time is like, I'm never leaving. They're willful Wall Street me, right? I'm never leaving. But yeah, the culture is so good, and I can speak to that a little bit more unless you want to.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yes. I mean, just one quick note. I mean something that I've developed, like a mental framework I've developed is that there are three types of agents in the team environment. This is very crude, of course there are infinitely many, every individual is truly a unique person, but I need you. That's either the brand new agent to the market that really was you trying to figure it all out in the beginning or I'd also put into this category, I've been with another team or brokerage for 18 months let's say, and I only sold three houses, have the support or guidance or opportunity or whatever I need. Accountability is a big one, so I need you. And then there's this kind of middle zone of I'm not sure if I need you. And with my first seven figure listing, I might pull the trigger and bounce. And then the third one is, and I love this and this is what I do want to hear from you more on, I think this is where you were going anyway, which is, I don't need you, but because it either makes sense culturally or financially or better yet both to continue growing together, I'm not going to leave you.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
So with that tee up, tell me a little bit about folks who could, anyone in your market would be happy to have them, but they are happy where they are. Tell me a little bit about how that came to be.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
Sure. Yeah. We actually have a bunch of solo agents that are doing 1525 deals a year already. They're the ones that are coming here because they want to learn how to do 40 and 50 deals a year as a solo agent, not with leads. So we give on average, last month we did 6.3 leads, cold leads, we fired the ISA team, 6.3 leads per agent per month. So they're getting one a week leads, and again, it's just not a thing that's a big concern for us. I had another agent explain this to me really, really well. She's got a very strong team and she wants only farmers, and this really, really made sense to me. She goes, there's two types of agents out there. There's hunters and there's farmers. And what happens is farmers are people that the lead can come in and they'll grow it and they'll nurture it and they'll take care of it, and eventually it'll sprout into whatever it needs to grow into, whereas a hunter knows how to go out there and get everything themselves.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
The problem is in this industry, hunters have to go solo. Well on our team hunters hunt together. It's totally, totally different. So because we're an education and skill-based team, all we do is talk about how to door knock properly, how to make social media posts properly, how to build a community and attract people like a lighthouse. But it's so much better to do that with your peers instead of doing it by yourself. So instead of us being about just solo hunters, we hunt together and it's so, so good. The team does everything together. Whereas I find most teams, there's the rainmaker and they put the leads down on everybody. So I kind of like the baby bird analogy. So it's mama bird and she's got the food for all the little birds and they're sitting there eating, but what happens if there's only so much food and they notice that they're not going to help the other babies, the other baby birds, because what happens is then there's less for them and they don't want to help the team grow because if they grow, there's only so many leads to go around and there's less for them.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Whereas for us, we actually go together. So the bigger that we are, the stronger that we are. So we actually operate as a true team instead of a rainmaker and lead conversion people. Does that kind of make sense? Yeah,

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Absolutely. I like that characterization. You partly started telling the story that I wanted to hear from you, which is 10 x to 12 X agent count in about eight months from four to about four dozen agents. You said attract them like a lighthouse. People who are established and productive coming to you because they want to learn some of what you have to offer. They may be like this vision of a team that you have developed and are bringing to life. They're probably hearing about it from other agents, but I would love for you to characterize a couple of the key things that allowed you to essentially 12 x agent count in eight months in a way that it sounds like has some retention built into it.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, we started this year with four agents, and I'll give a shout out to another person that's on a lot of these podcasts, but every him, Hussein, the Affinity team out in Toronto, guy changed my entire business my entire life with one conversation. So if anybody who's listening to this, if you go check out his page, immense value there. But one day, well, the first time I met him, actually, he was asking me if I'm a team leader or a business owner, and I'm like, well, both. He goes, you can't pick one. I'm like, well, team lead, I guess. He goes, well, that's why you keep failing. This is a business, and I promise I'll circle this will all make sense. So he asked me right then and there, he's like, let's say you want to open a subway. He goes, how much money does it cost to open a subway?

Speaker 3 (21:15):
I'm like, I dunno, three, $400,000 probably. He's like, okay, and you think you can start a real estate business for less money than that? I'm like, that is so eyeopening. So that was Q1 of last year, 2023 sudden I shut everything down that I was doing because I kept trying to build teams and I kept failing. The biggest I got was 27 agents at one point, and in one week, 27 agents left me all at once. That hurt. I went, and this is another thing I joke about with Haver, because he got to about the same size one time, Justin Haver and he had something happen in his and he went down to 11. I'm like, well, at least you hold on to 11, right? I would break to zero. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (21:54):
At least it wasn't a total washout.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah, I was a team of me. And so anyways, he said that to me and I'm like, man, I've been building this wrong the whole time, and he gave me a whole bunch of other pointers, and so I took Q2, Q3 and Q4 that year to just plan. I hired nobody. I hired just the staff, so my salaries and all that kind of stuff went on and I'm like, let me just train these people. Let's get the systems right. Let's get the processes right. Let's get the onboarding right. Let's get everything right. Another conversation I had with somebody, again, I think this was Chuck Black again actually, but he said, the goal is to never have a conversation with your agents. I'm like, how does that make any sense? He goes, what happens is they want your information, but they don't need it from you today. They just need to know that it's from you. So every time somebody asks you a question, actually no, sorry, this was Jason Mitchell. Do you know Jason Mitchell?

Speaker 1 (22:50):
I don't know him personally, but I'm absolutely familiar with him by name. And he has a massive organization.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Huge, huge. And this is another example of just shut up and listen. The day that I met him, I didn't know who he was, and I was talking, he was asking me a thousand questions, and then when he left, I was like, do you know who that is? I'm like, Jason. They're like, no, that's Jason Mitchell. I'm like, it's still not, I don't know, and you should probably Google that. I'm like, oh my God. He's like the number one agent in North America and that

Speaker 1 (23:14):
It shows up with humility, asks a bunch of questions, learns what he can learn in the moment and moves

Speaker 3 (23:21):
On. And I had no idea, and I'm like, oh my God, one of the biggest agents on the planet, and I didn't ask a single, I think I'm helping him. How ignorant can

Speaker 1 (23:30):
You be? Here's the thing you are. I mean, you're not going to make or break his business for him, but he wasn't asking questions. He didn't want to know the answer to. He wasn't asking questions that he already knew the answers to. You were of some help.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah. Well, we'll take it. Sure. Yeah. But anyway, so if you're ever in a room, try to listen more than you talk, for sure. Yeah. So he was the one that said that because asking about onboarding, and he said for his, it took a month and he asked me mine at the time, and I'm like, welcome to the Getty Group. Have a seat. That was our onboarding. And so he said, anytime anybody asks you a question, don't answer it. He goes, go and make a video, a checklist and a protocol and add it into your onboarding, and eventually you'll have a full onboarding that should take you three or four weeks to go through the agents when they join. I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense. Because so many times people are asking me questions, and the thing is, the first time you answer somebody one time, you might have high energy, but by the time you've explained that thing 10 times, you've got low energy. You're trying to get through the conversation as quick as possible, had it 10 times even though it's there first. So having that, it's so key. So this will again, get all into attention.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Say that again. A video, a checklist, and essentially a little SOP writeup.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, exactly. A copy. Yeah. So what happens is, so they can watch you and listen to you, and they've got a checklist of the things they need to do, and then some people just need to read, and sometimes too your thoughts come out better writing, then speaking anyways, so they've got everything that they need on there. And yeah, that's been massive. So massive, and I don't answer questions anymore. I just say, did you go host in school? So I said, did you go check in school? Well, no. I'm like, okay, well go. So Q2, Q3, Q4. The only thing I did was backend and admin and protocol and onboarding.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
What were the positions that you used as the foundational structure for where we are today?

Speaker 3 (25:25):
So operations manager three ISAs, imagine three ISAs and no agents, three ISAs and two transaction coordinators. So it started with one transaction coordinator that grew to two pretty quick as we went and

Speaker 1 (25:41):
You were producing through this window, so it was just like a light flow through the system longer than when you had a bunch of people?

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, it was pretty much just me. I think I did a little over a hundred deals that year. Well, but that's not much. So

Speaker 1 (25:58):
All I did was plan this thing and quotes a hundred

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Sides. Well, if you can imagine, my first year was 44, my second year was 1 0 3. My third year was 180 6 solo deals.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
So you're really backing down.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, I was focusing more on this. Even now, I do two to four deals a month, and it's literally by accident because I can't pass people off. They just won't be passed. And I'm like, trust me, you don't want me to be a realtor. It's better if we do this. But anyways, so we built all that stuff and the operations manager in December was like, okay, we're ready. Let's start hiring. I'm like, no, we can't. I go, I don't want to hire over December because Christmas and I plan on taking a vacation from late December till mid-January 12th or something like that, and I'm like, I just don't want to bring people on to nothing. I am like, okay, so let's wait. And then so January 12th, we opened the floodgates and I said, okay, we're hiring. And we did everything through social media, everything through Instagram, and we just started making posts, having conversations, and then bringing people in. And I think by April we crossed 40 people, which is pretty crazy. So it only took three months.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
So you mentioned Instagram. What were you doing in Instagram in general?

Speaker 3 (27:16):
There's a lot. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah. But break down, which aspects of Instagram were you using to just deliver the message and what was some of the basic messaging?

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah, I'll give you the foundation of this for sure. If you just go to my onboarding and under education. No, just kidding. So what happens is you have to understand how people view Instagram and how it works. So you have to understand first the difference between stories and posts and what goes in which, and this is how you become a lighthouse and you attract business to you instead of you going out for business have to have, and this will answer your question a hundred percent. So on your stories, we post five emotional anchors. So food, fitness, inspiration, motivation, memes, pets, and kids. Those are the things that people interact with the most. And emotionally attach yourself to you as a person on your post. You have to put out educational value-based signaling posts. So what happens is they're attached to you as a person. They know I can trust you because of your stories, and then your posts are your value.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
So I just posted about things that help agents. So mindset stuff, prospecting stuff, whatever. And then anybody who would put a message or a dm, it was flies in my spider web. I'm like, oh, perfect, this person's interested. So let me start making that conversation with this person in the dms and then let me get them into the office or let me get them for a coffee, and if I can get in front of them, I can get them. So you have to be on your stories, the five emotional anchors, so that they're emotionally attached to you. Your posts are value-based signaling posts specifically to the avatar that you want to message you. And anybody who puts a comment or anybody who sends you a dm, you make sure you build relationships in the dms with those people, set them up for a real life coffee meeting and then close them.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
I wouldn't expect that you would speak as confidently about the outcome of these coffee meetings if you were just going in and being a good guy and having a good conversation and learning about them. What is your mindset? What is your intent? And is there a structure to the conversation?

Speaker 3 (29:11):
There is, yeah, it's actually very simple. I just meet people where they're at and I understand where they want to go, and then I just find out if they can get there on their own or where they're at, and then if we can take them there, it is really that simple. So I ask this super simple question, so how's it going? Good. And then I said, how many deals do you plan on doing this year? I'm just going to give you quick examples. Everybody says double. That's the standard answer, 2020. Oh, wow, you're going to get twice as good this year. Let's do that. Right? But you want to do less work. Got it. Right. So yeah. So guys, how many deals do you want to do this year and let's just say 20, right? So I'll do 20 deals this year. I'm like, okay, perfect.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
I go, how many deals did you do last year? 10. Okay, perfect. What did you do to get those 10 deals? And they're not going to know. Nobody knows. It just happened. My auntie called me and whatever. Okay, great. Okay, perfect. So you have no idea how you got your 10 deals. You want to get to 20 deals this year. So what are you going to do different this year than you did last year to get to your 20? And they're going to say all this stuff that they're not going to do. Okay, well, this just true, right?

Speaker 1 (30:19):
I know.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
So I'm like, okay, perfect. That sounds great. That'll for sure get you there. I go. So tell me about the account support and training that you have at your current brokerage or your current setup that's going to help you get to 20 deals because they didn't help you get there last year, and you get all this stuff last year, right? They'll say, oh, I'm going to do more door knocking and social media, whatever. I'm like, okay, perfect. So how much support are you getting from your current brokerage or team? And it's going to be zero. That's just what exists out in the marketplace. And then I said, okay, perfect. Well, what's the one thing that would move the needle the most in your business? Just of everything you could possibly imagine. What's the one thing? And then they'll tell me what it is. So it could be social media, it could be door knocking, it could be whatever.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
I'm be like, okay, perfect. Can I give you mine that I use for that? And they say, yeah, sure. I'm like, okay, perfect. Here, get your notepad out and whatever. So then for example, door knocking, right? I'm like, okay, well, here's how we do our door knocking thing. And I go through the whole script and the whole thing and everything they need to do, and I'm like, would that help move your business forward? And they say, yeah. I'm like, okay, well, what would happen on days when you don't want to go? Who's going to hold you accountable? I said, well, nobody. I'm like, okay, perfect. I go, well, what happens if it doesn't work and you do it for three, four weeks in a row and you don't get results? Who's going to hold your hand and make sure you keep going? Well, nobody. I'm like, okay, well, what about if we added this, this, this, and this and this into your mix? Then what would happen? I'd be like, oh, well, I'd get there. I'm like, okay, well, that's what we offer here. So if this is what we're offering and you're telling me that you're not getting it there, but this is where you want to go, you tell me where would you get better results? And then they always say, here. I'm like, okay, well, you said it not me. Right? So that's the interview in a nutshell.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Okay, so social media, specifically Instagram, to generate conversations that have allowed you to 12 x agent count in less than eight months is now where we're at. By the way, folks watching and listening, we're recording this in mid late August. So you're going to cross 50 agents here this week. Is your goal or your expectation, I know that you're also, so you've mentioned door knocking, but I know that you're also using social and training people to use social to do more of this SOI business, I mean, massive transaction count on low to $0 ad spent. Talk about what other Zero. Okay, there we go. So what other networks or platforms do you like for generating buyer and seller conversations or staying in touch with your past clients, sphere of influence, et cetera? Give us some practical tips there in terms of when the recruiting conversation gets to social and you're like, how are you leveraging social? They're like, I hang out on social that I post stuff, and sometimes it produces business. Share a little bit about the guts or the structure that you're training your agents.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
A hundred percent. So the first thing you have to understand is social media is a tool, and what happens is you can either use it as a tool or you can be used by it as a tool. It's your choice. So if all you're doing is scrolling aimlessly, that's Instagram, Facebook, TikTok using you as a tool to get money for their ads. But if you're intentional with what you do, you are using it as a free tool, which is amazing. And it's truly a difference from going from a screwdriver to a drill. It's infinitely more powerful than anything that you could possibly do. So I'll give you two of the biggest ones that we do. One is Facebook marketplace, and this is hilarious. This came out of necessity. Again, I was broke and people were hiring me to sell their houses, and no houses were selling in our market.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
They just sat there and I needed to advertise them, but I couldn't. I had no money. And I'm like, okay, well, I just got to put it out wherever I can put it out. So I just started putting the houses on Facebook, marketplace and Kei and what's the other one? It's Kei and something else, everywhere else, Craigslist, depending on where you are. Yeah. So Kei where we are, but there was, I literally got sent screenshots of group chats of realtors making fun of me, literally saying, he can't afford to run ads. Look at this, he's idiot. He's posting a marketplace, whatever. Well, I've personally never done less than 20 deals a year off of Marketplace for complete free, and our team, I would probably say like 30, 40% of our business is Facebook marketplace right now, which is crazy. And it's free. It costs me absolutely nothing.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
There's no phone calls, no nothing. People literally, if you do this right, they just send you a message and say, can I go buy this house? And you say, yeah, sure. And then you go sell it to them. There's no qualifying, there's no nurturing, no nothing. You just, yes, let's go. Off you go. So that's a big one. And then another huge one is we call them NTAs. So that's no time added prospecting, and this is the most powerful thing that you could possibly do, because what happens is, in general, realtors are viewed like one step above lawyer and two steps above. Used car sales, I think in the marketplace, overpaid under underworked, all that kind of stuff. That's just the general consensus. That's not my opinion. But if you go and you rank 'em, it is what it is. So what happens is a lot of agents, they put people on a property search and they never talk to them again.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Sometimes they put a listing up and they'll never talk to them again. So a lot of experiences are not really that positive if we're just being honest. And so what happens for us, we're out doing the hard work all the time, and when we do an NTA, we're showing the audience that we're doing more than everybody else is doing. So for example, when we're door knocking, we always go in and we just put on our stories. There's no houses that are available in this market for my buyer. We've seen everything on MLS. We are going to knock every single door until we find the perfect house for them, and we'll get it off market at a great deal. Well, if that message is week after week after week, what happens to the audience? They're like, yo, this person put me in an auto search and hasn't even called me in three months.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
They're sending me properties I hate, and this person's going to find me an off market. Like, okay. And then same thing for sellers. We always host open houses, and we always do minimum five hour open houses, and we can get into that another time, but we always door knock to invite the neighbors in because the neighbors are the best advocates for the neighborhood. They live there. So we knock on the door, and this is just, again, super short, but we start talking to the neighbors and we go, instead of some random asshole moving in, here's a chance to pick your neighbors. So if you have any friends, family, or coworkers that you want to live close by, we would love to see you, and we'll give you guys a personal tour of the house and our open houses are jammed, but we put that on social media and people were like, oh, this person took pictures with their iPhone and these people out knock doors, and they're doing this and all this marketing and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
So now people are just flooding into my team's dms and they're just ready to go. And that's the best part is if you do this properly, there is no nurturing. There is no CRM needed, no nothing. People literally just hit you up and say, Hey, can you sell my house? I'll give you one example how powerful this is from my past. I had a guy message me and he said, so this is in my dms, right? Hey, Sean, I'm thinking about selling my condo. Can you give me a call? Didn't respond, and I don't respond on purpose. I get so many messages at this point. It's hard for me to keep up with everything, so I missed it, didn't respond. Another one, Hey, Sean, I really need to sell my condo. Can you please come and tell me the price or whatever? And then again, missed it.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
No message. Third time, Sean, I need it now. Can you please come? Still missed it. The fourth one I've finally seen. So imagine I missed three messages in a row, no response. The fourth message, Sean, I needed to know the price of my condo. I had somebody come by, another realtor, come by and evaluate it. I'm like, oh, fuck. Right? I missed that. I now know the price. Can you please list it? It's so good. Can you imagine? What happens is if you do social media properly, you're not top of mind, you're top of preference. And when you're top of preference, people will wait to work with you because they can't work with anybody else.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, man, that's super powerful. And it's also a reminder that clients have their own preferences. I would say agents, same thing. They have their own preferences about what channels they want to communicate in. I know we talk about this all the time, but if you're there, you should probably commit to be there.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, no, I, I'm not

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Shaming you personally. I'm just taking your lesson there that fortunately turned out the way you wanted, but I'm very much the same way. For a long time I was like, I hate Facebook Messenger. I removed it from my phone years ago. I do not want to communicate by Facebook Messenger, but there are a handful of people in my life when they need or want something, which is going to be mutually beneficial or sometimes even just beneficial to me. Like, okay, I don't want you, but I will pay attention to that channel. What are you looking forward to in the year ahead? I know we have several months left in this calendar year alone. You mentioned that you were removing some bottlenecks that you identified in operations before really stepping on the gas and maybe bringing on another significant batch of agents. But where are you now and where do you want to be in say, 16, 18 months?

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Sure. Yeah. So again, it's all about learning. So when I built this team out originally, it took a lot of time to plan it. I wanted to make sure that I brought on experienced agents before new agents. So that's what we did. And then we started bringing on new agents because you need a pipeline of everything. But if I can have the more experienced agents first and I can get them trained, then they can help the new people come on. Because again, we're hunters and we hunt together. We're not farmers. It's totally different. And so that's what happened. But I realized that kind of at that 45 mark, I run out of bandwidth personally because I'm still involved in all the deals. I still go on listing presentations. I am out of production myself, but I'm there for them on everything that I could possibly be.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
And that 45 to now 50 is like I'm stretched for sure. So now I'm like, okay, perfect. We've hit another bottleneck. So now we have to find ways around it. So I've got two solutions that we're working on. One was something I learned again from your guys' videos. So the Lotton team and the Sharp team. I just re-watched the sharp one yesterday actually, about teams within a team. So that's one thing we're going to be exploring very soon. And then the other thing is that we have to lean harder into online lead gen because it clearly does work. And so we spent the last two months really, really diving into this, making sure that we're getting our speed to lead on time, which we're really good now, and now we're doing our touch points. So we call it the 21 days of pain. I know some have 10 or 15 or whatever, and B, I'm always extreme. So I'm like, if everyone's doing 10 or 15, let's do 21. Why not?

Speaker 3 (40:43):
We we're pretty close to that, and then we're going to ramp up our ad spend on that, because what happens is if they're doing online stuff, I can hire managers and people to help with that, and then that frees up my bandwidth as we grow an agent count, if that makes sense. Because I can handle 45 or so, but I can't 55, 60, I know I can't. So if I get there, I'm just going to topple. So we've really slowed down the attraction at the moment, which I know is crazy. Most teams would never say that, but, and so it's the teams within a team and actually adding in properly lead gen on online lead gen to alleviate the pressure that I have to be there for everything, and then we can scale for there.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, good call for folks watching and listening. That's the inside the team series. The first one we did was inside the Lawton team. They're in Phoenix, a couple hundred agents, a really great organization. We interviewed eight different team members, including two of their top agents, one of whom not only built her team inside the Lawton team, but has a plan already. I don't know if it's happened yet, it hadn't, but when we spent time with her, but she has a plan to build teams inside her team, inside the law team.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
Yeah, it's wild, which

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Is getting super meta, but it makes sense. It kind of fits in this category of how are we going to continue learning and growing together. Before I get to my three pairs of closing questions with you, Sean, I'd love to know a quick take. What do you think the future of the team model is? Are we going to have the same number but bigger? Are we going to have a lot more? Is it just one piece of the puzzle? What are your thoughts on the team model as it is today and where we're going with it in the future?

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Me personally or teams? Yeah,

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Or just in the industry in general, based on all the folks that you're engaged with. I mean, you're talking with guys and gals that have built organizations larger than yours, so you can maybe avoid some of the missteps that they learned from. Where do you think we're going collectively in North America with regard to teams in these real estate markets?

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah, actually, I just heard a stat. I was at a top 50 mastermind a couple of weeks ago in Seattle actually, where we first had our first call. And so this is the top 50 teams in North America, and one of the things that they talked about is brokerage retention. And what happens is most brokerages give a discount to teams, so on the brokerage fees. And what happens is they realize that the teams are way more profitable than solo agents because the agent retention is far higher on teams. I think as brokerages start to figure this out and learn about it, the brokerages are going to promote teams more and more and more and more. What happens if you think about this, and again, I don't want to be disrespectful to anything, but there's a 91% failure rate in real estate, and after August 17th, when or later, I'm sure it's going to be higher when there's another thing kicks in.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
So what happens is if nine out of 10 people fail in this business, the brokerages are doing a terrible job training 90%. It is what it's, you can't hide that. So what happens is if teams do a better job training and their retention is better, and you've got maybe a 30% failure rate on a team, that's a wildly large improvement. So I think teams are just going to be more prominent and bigger, and they're going to be more impactful as we go on, and they're needed. They need the training. That training probably did exist in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and then it just doesn't now, right? So I think that's important there. And then for our team, again, I am a optimistic, ambitious person, so I'd love to say that we're going to be shooting for number one and everything because we can, we've grown to 50 agents in less than half a year, and we know the problems to get to a hundred, and I know the biggest teams are sitting at 180 to 200, and there's no reason why we can't get there. I don't know how long it's going to take me. I don't know what's going to happen or how many things are going to shift as we do that. But yeah, I would like to see this time next year be over a hundred agent count, realistically.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Awesome. Well, I look forward to maybe a Q4 2025 follow on conversation to find out what you learned in that part of the journey

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Myself again. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (44:56):
I appreciate your ambition. I appreciate how clear you were on the challenge of everything that you've achieved so far to date, including starting and restarting multiple times in the team model. I'm glad you got something that's clicking. And with that, I think I'll call this largely the conversation. Of course. Before we part, I'd love to know what your favorite team to root for is besides Getty Group or the best team you've ever been a member of.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Yeah, so I actually love this question. It's everybody that's ever helped me, to be honest. I just love seeing them win. So Ibrahim has nothing to do with me at all, and he does nothing but help me every time. I remember one time, it was midnight my time, I sent him a message, it's 2:00 AM for him. He answers and he goes through, I'm like, dude, this is a tomorrow question. He goes, no, right now. I'm like, okay, right now. So I just love seeing everybody win, to be honest, because we're all fighting our own battles, and we're all trying to get better at life, and there's room for everybody to win. So I don't have a favorite team that I'm rooting for, but just I have a special place in my heart for people that help others with nothing expected back in return, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, absolutely. It's a really unique and powerful and wonderful dynamic about this industry, and it's one of the reasons I feel honored to be so immersed in it from my unique seat in it is that it is very collaborative, and most people do have, as cliche as it sounds to say it this way, an abundance mindset and this idea that we can all win, and we're probably more likely to win together than we are as sniping types of competitors who are withholding ideas and information and opportunity and time from one another. So I love that. What is one of your most frivolous purchases, or what's a cheapskate habit that you hold onto, even though you probably don't need to anymore?

Speaker 3 (46:47):
I'll give you both. So I don't care about stuff. I just truly don't. So I bought a Rolex, and it was one of my business partners. He kept telling me, he's like, you got to buy something for yourself. I'm like, I don't care. I just don't. I wear Crocs. I'm on stage. I'm in monster meetings with all these millionaires and all this stuff. I was just with a company that we're looking at inquiring a large portion of, and I'm with the CEO and the executive team. I mean, sweat shorts, Crocs, and a t-shirt. Everyone's in suit. I'm like, oh, I probably should have dressed it for meeting, right? Yeah. So I don't care, but he's like, why don't you get off your wallet and buy something? And I'm like, I don't care. So the Rolex was probably the most stupid thing that I've bought. But you know what the crazy thing is?

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Is it truly is part of the uniform of the wealthy because people see it and the conversation changes. It really does. It's unfortunate, but they see the watch and it's not even that fancy of one, it's just a date us, but instantly your credibility goes up. So advice to someone that's looking for more credibility by a Rolex is one. And then probably the bad habits. When I started this business, like I said, I had no money for nothing. And I have this one gray sweater that I wore forever, and it's got coffee stains on it. There's a hole that got burned from when I was camping one time and I still wear it every day. And people are like, can you please throw that out? And I'm like, no. When we ever hit a billion dollars in sales, I'm going to put this in a shadow box up at the office that's going to be like the champion sweater that can't be beat.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yeah, that's really good. I love it. Yeah, I love that look forward. And there's something, whether it's sentimentality or superstition, a lot of people's success is tied to that one old thing that was part of these previous experiences with it. Yeah, it's a great example. When you are investing time in resting, relaxing, and recharging, what are you doing? Or when you're investing time into learning, growing and developing, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (48:53):
So I love this question. Love it. So I'm all about balance. And when I speak about balance, I mean I'm a hundred percent in or I'm a hundred percent out. That's my balance. So what happens is when it's work time, I'm 20 hours a day, I don't care. Let's just get everything done that we can possibly do. Let's be super laser focused, sorry, and get everything done. But then when it's time to recharge, recharge, truly recharge. So for me, yeah, I go on a vacation every two or three weeks probably. So yeah, I'll just pick a place in the world and off we go,

Speaker 1 (49:31):
On and off. I love that it seems to fit your personality. I mean, just anyone who sells 180 some homes in a year, you have a personality type that's all on or all off. And there are probably times in your life where you were all on for too long. And this is kind of the balance side of it.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
I can tell you an example. There was one time that year, so I did 60 deals in 60 days, if you can imagine. So my brain melted and I was talking to this guy, we're going to list this property, and his dad passed away. He's super sad. They were best friends and they bought properties beside each other. So I was in the dad's property who passed and we're in the garage and he's got a Corvette and something else, two super cool cars, and we're in the garage and we're talking about the cars. And then we literally turn around and we walk upstairs from the garage five seconds later and I looked this guy dead in the face and I said, so is it street parking or is there a garage? And the guy's like, did you just have a stroke? I'm like, what? We just came from the garage. I'm like, oh my God, I need a day off.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, there we go. I'm committed. Okay. If someone's gotten to this point, they probably want to connect with you. Obviously. Instagram's a good spot. So share that handle and share any other spots you would love to connect with people on.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
That'd be the best one. Just at Sean Getty.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Okay, cool. Spelled S-H-A-W-N, Getty, as it sounds. G-E-T-T-Y. Check him out. Go ahead and follow real estate TO os. When you're there, Sean, thank you so much for investing your time and energy in these conversations. You wouldn't have done it if they weren't helpful, and I take that as a gift. I love, as you do to be of service and value to other folks. So I'm glad to be that to you sometimes and I'm really glad that we are able to have this conversation for this episode. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
Awesome. Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
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.