Speaker 1 (00:00):
About a decade ago, Lauren Bowen was one of the first four real estate agents with Robert Slack. Then she became a team leader. Then she became a team leader of multiple team leaders. Then she became chief operating Officer, eventually of an organization with about a thousand members operating in five different states. We opened 2024 on real estate team os with a great conversation with Lauren, in part about growing from one lead source to about 16 lead sources in service of hundreds of real estate agents. Now we're opening 2025 with another great conversation with Lauren, the ideal size for each one of their teams, the right number of lead sources for each agent, specific things they've done to drive up lead conversion, lead conversion by lead source in ways that they vet those lead sources before committing to them, plus specific things she's implemented to make agents' lives easier and to help them make more money specific ways they task their ISA team. And so much more are guest from episode 11. Lauren Bowen is up again on episode 51 right now on Real Estate Team os.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
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 (01:16):
Lauren, thank you so much for taking time at unlock 2024 to sit down with me for this conversation. Welcome back to Real Estate Team os.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thank you for having me again.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, so we kicked off, if you're not familiar, we kicked off 2024 with Lauren. She's back to kick off 2025, so I won't make you restate too much of it. I'll link up that episode right down below in the description if people are watching on YouTube or checking it out on the website or listening in Apple Podcast or Spotify. The link is right down below to the first conversation, but we will cover a little bit of that ground for context for folks. But I'm going to kick it off exactly where we did last time, which is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team?

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Oh, I feel like this one has even changed so much in a year. That's why I wanted to ask you. I know I saw this question, I heard this question and I'm like, oh my gosh. I almost wanted to re-watch the episode to say, what did I say last year? Because 2024 was hard. It was really hard. So my answer going into 2025 is grace. That I think is what it's going to take for a high performing team. I mean there's so many different aspects of that as well. The grace to lead a team to where people want to follow you, to see what you're going to provide them for their careers. But the grace to know that we're going to make mistakes along the way, the grace to know that we're not always doing it the best and to be able to give grace back to us to let us fix the mistakes we're making along the way. So I'm going to say Grace this year. Cool.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
I love that one for so many different reasons. How about Grace for yourself?

Speaker 3 (02:39):
I'm still working on that one.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, yeah. But like I said, something that you think about

Speaker 3 (02:42):
It is, it is because I'm one person. So as we continue to grow, I've realized sometimes I'm the bottleneck in the business. So I realized that a lot this year. We actually brought on some additional help to take some items off my plate because I was the bottleneck for a lot of things. I only could do so much, but the grace to realize I couldn't do it all and it was okay for that.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Cool. And that actually sets up a little bit of a status check on Robert Slack, which is an incredible organization. You've been with Robert Slack for a decade?

Speaker 3 (03:12):
A decade. So in fact today is actually our 10 year anniversary. Awesome. I know today is 10 years, so 10 years I've been with them now.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Love it. And that was agent to team leader from team leader to leader of multiple team leaders,

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
To COO?

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Cool. Just characterize, I'm asking for something massive here, but characterize the past decade a little bit. What were some of the key milestones and inflection points? Just tell the story in as much detail as you would like or as little detail as you would like.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
So I mean it's really been a blur and it's been a whirlwind really. I mean we were reflecting back on the 10 years because a decade is a really long time, but at the same time I feel like we've been around so much longer than that at the same time. So I mean we had four agents. I mean we specialized in double wide mobile homes. I mean with Fannie Mae Repose, we tell that story all the time, but it was true. Short sales then became a thing in Florida. I think our average price point when I started was 85,000 and now we're about 425,000. So we went from one team in Ocala to adding a team in Orlando, bringing on a team in Tampa. Jacksonville, Florida now has 15 different teams in it. So we went from one state to five states. It really has just continued to grow and I don't think we realize it until we stop back in, reflect at just how far we've come. I mean, our training was basically when we started non-existent. It was like you got your license, go sell some homes. And now we have classes to help our agents, newly licensed agents, agents that have been with us a while. We have a non-for-profit that we started that does community service for our communities, but also an emergency assistance fund for the agents as well. So I mean so much has been accomplished in so little time.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Love it. I'm going to ask a really specific follow up here. For people that are many steps behind the size of your organization and that is, when did you really start formalizing training and onboarding? One of the challenges of the SEAL team model is that the producer, the team leader is often the top producer also tends to do the recruiting. So anytime someone leaves, they have to fill it in and they're not necessarily, so that takes away from their production.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
In

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Addition, if they bring on someone relatively new, then they need to do some of that training or facilitate it. And so there's some window in that range from there up to whatever the next step for the team is where it's important enough, we're bringing enough people on that we need to formalize onboarding and training. When do you think that is from your own experience and of course all the people that you've guided and coached and all the people that you're connecting with at events like this one

Speaker 3 (05:50):
As even where we are now? I really think it started when we hit about 30, which is a relatively small number compared to where we are now. But 30 was where we realized we really have to start formalizing how we're doing this. Do we have all their documents? Do we have their license, the 10 90 nines, do they know how to set a follow up boss? Do they know, are they able to get everything flowing like it should? Are they doing the follow up? 30 is where I think we realized we have to bring on some more help. It's a little too much for us to run day to day, be in production if we were, and then help them with what they actually needed help with getting started. And I think it was a natural evolution for us. We had an agent that really loved helping new agents get going.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
They really loved that process. So it was just a really natural evolution of promoting them to that role. So about 30 and then they helped us scale quite fast after that. So from 30 we went to 50 and then we realized a little bit at a time, a little bite at a time. We had to really nail down what does our training look like, what does our onboarding process look like? And it took us, I want to say probably a full year to really get onboarding down. And then it probably wasn't until probably year six that we actually really started our training because we were multiple a hundred agents at that point and that's when we launched what we call Slack academ. It's a two week course for newly licensed agents because we realized getting your license doesn't always set you up for this business. So I mean it teaches you nothing.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
It's first and lowest hurdle.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
It is. I mean it tailors you everything what not to do and what you legally can do, but it doesn't tell you anything to do about the contract. So we have a course specifically designed to agents who are either part-time from a brokerage that might've not had training to a newly licensed agents, teach 'em how to open your super, how do you talk to a new construction, how do you do a contract, how do you do host an open house? All of that is so unknown to a new agent. But then after there we develop Slack Pro, which is for our existing agents, how do they further their career? Because there are multiple times in your career where you feel like you've kind of hit that wall. How do you take that next step forward? How do you continue? That's why coaches became such a big thing in the past couple of years because so many people hit those walls, they didn't know how to take that next step. So we gave them steps to take. I mean we've brought a lot of industry professionals in from the outside because we don't know it all and we are fully recognizing that. So it's been great to hear some of the speakers that we've brought in. So we continuously do that. But that was one of the things I'd say. So back to your question, probably about 30 is where we started and we've continued improving it ever since.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Cool. Great way to wrap that back to the beginning too. That was really nice. So follow up on that, the idea, I'm wondering, how many staff members do you have right now? Ballpark.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
So if our corporate staff is going to be about, I want to say about 20, if we start including licensed ISAs, my TCS and my VAs we're about 200.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
So it all depends on what type of staff we're talking about, but I mean we do have an IT department. I have a compliance department. Being operational in five states did lead us to some challenges to make sure is everything compliant. So we do have a DA team that makes sure they do the disbursement authorizations for our agents so they get paid at the table because having headquarters in Florida, but again expanding, we didn't want to be to hold up for our agents to get paid. They work hard enough for that. So we do not need to hold that up any for them. But I mean then myself, we do have VP of operations, Dan's our CEO. So it's really all depends on what staff. I mean we have a large support staff for our agents, ISAs, licensed, ISAs VAs, tcs, everything we can do to support them.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Cool. I was specifically wondering, you shared that the onboarding started with an agent who had a passion for it. And one of the things I've observed in having all these conversations with folks from across North America is that many of the great staff members and operators, no matter what heights they reach COO of a massive organization for example, were agents and they liked the business, but they liked some of these other opportunities that a dynamic organization, a growing organization like yours affords. I was just kind of curious, A, is that a trend you've observed yourself and B, what are some signs that someone might be able to parlay or use their great sales knowledge of the whole real estate process? Let's say I closed 45 homes in the two years I was in the business and actually that might be a little bit high. I might want to stay in the business, but what's a sign that someone inside your organization could be a really good fit as a staff member and how does that conversation go? Has that happened to you A number of times

Speaker 3 (10:20):
It has actually almost all of our corporate staff were agents at one time, if not for us, Dan as our CEO. He was an agent. He led a team when he met Robert and that's kind of what accelerated our growth as well. So they ended up teaming up. Dan became COO while Robert was CEO and he was an agent. He led a team. So there we go from agent to team leader to COO to CEO for his path, our vice president of operations, her name is Debbie. She was an agent and it was actually her struggle to getting into production that led her to developing Slack Academy for us because she realized, and she'll tell the story all the time, I got my real estate license and she's like, what do I do? And so that really led fueled her passion to I need to fix this for other agents.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
I don't want them to feel like I did when I passed that exam but had no knowledge how to go forward. Our director of listing procurement Kat, she was an agent team leader and then she had a really strong passion for the listing side of the business and she could see how we could further elevate our business. We were predominantly buy side for such a long time. If we took on listing lead sources, if we could accentuate our listings, if we could just go a little bit further and get 1% better on that side each day and I'll say her efforts of making us 1% better each day is probably what got us through some of our toughest years because we had to flip to being kind of more listing dominant because buy-side kind of started going down. So it's really because of her guidance on the listing side that really helped get us through some of these tough years. But I would say almost everyone on our corporate staff started as an agent, but I think they have that mindset also what it takes to be an agent. They knew those struggles, but they didn't want anyone else to struggle or face what they did. So they always found a solution to overcome it and their departments were developed on it. Awesome.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Love it. And I just feel like that blend of taking that sales perspective onto the other side is an interesting, I've also heard stories of a lot of folks coming from outside the industry and that being a way to kind of rejuvenate some aspect of a larger scaled team model. Is that something you've observed as well?

Speaker 3 (12:26):
Absolutely. So we just talked about CAT with our listing department. We have one of her employees that runs it. Her name is Dee, and she actually came from the hospitality industry and I mean we all joke that I have a love for spreadsheets, which I do, but I mean Dee will give me a run

Speaker 1 (12:42):
For money. We talked about that in episode 11 of Real Estate tvOS.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
I mean Dee gives me a run for my money on them. So I mean she has everything outlined. I mean something we didn't have we're like SOPs organization. I mean we're realtors. We're not always the most organized, but she really implemented processes that we needed help with. Whether it was our database, the listing side, she was able to kind of even action plans. I mean God bless her, she went through every single action plan we ever had clicked on every single link we ever had to make sure everything lined up. But we needed someone to do that because who does it really fall under? So having someone come in from the outside, she had a fresh set of eyes on everything we did was really something we didn't know we needed until she stepped into it. We're like, oh, we've needed this

Speaker 1 (13:26):
By the way, that's just a great follow up boss tip. Like you set some of these things up, go back and review them ly, make sure that the language still reflects the state of the world today. Make sure all the links are still live.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
I highly recommend that. And that's something we've started doing more frequently because even if we start referencing the interest rates, well interest rates have changed a lot in two years. What exactly are we referencing? Are we referencing twos or eights or sixes? Are those articles still relevant? So I would highly recommend it, but also action plans are great, but you set them on your new leads. But how many people know how many action plans they have run on? They're existing leads And that's something we found a big flaw in ourselves in is great, we set them on our new leads after 90 days, six months they stop, but when do we restart them and everything? So making sure you have them consistently going was something we fell short on as well.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Cool. You've mentioned 20 core corporate staff, a couple hundred folks spread across the markets that we would consider staff characterize Robert Slack as it is here at the end of 2024, however you like, but it do include a approximate agent. I know that fluctuates, but just give us a set of or set the scene of where we are right now heading into 2025.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
So including staff, support, staff, team leaders and agents. We're just over a thousand, which is really something. You say it and you're like, that's a lot of people and that's a lot of people depending on us as well. So the continuous improvement of what we're doing in our business is something we know we have to because that's a lot of people who have put their faith in us.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
It is and it's geographically dispersed as well. That adds a whole nother thing. Have you flown a lot more this year than you did in years past?

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Oh, well we talk about our expansion and I joke that we went as non congruent as possible and I really think we did. So have I flown a lot more? Oh my goodness, my travel schedule. We joke but not joke. I have been home for 10 days once this year, so I have not made it more than that because we do want to have be, I guess we want to be present in the markets we're expanding to. We don't just want to be a face that they see on Zoom. So my Idaho team laughs at me, but I had flown from Texas from a recruiting event to take Idaho, the Boise team to Topgolf and then I flew home. They're like, did you really just fly here for Topgolf? I'm like, I did. I'm like, because it's actually really hard to get to for Florida, but we want to be present.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
They joined us and they took such a huge leap of faith for people who don't know, we're predominantly in Florida. So having a team from Boise, Idaho, see what we were trying to do and join us, we never just wanted for them to feel left out. So we do try and get to our teams frequently. Even when they struggle, we try and be there a little bit more. We want them to know we are here for you. One of the things we say is we're a family, but family steps up when we need to as well. Family shows support. So sometimes the teams need that. If they're struggling, I'll be there tomorrow, I'll be there Wednesday, let's figure this out. But sometimes you can't replace the in-person. The Zooms still can't replace it all. They can help, but sometimes it takes you being there really to have that connection.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, absolutely. It does. I found very much that even spending a Topgolf afternoon with people, the next Zoom call feels different. Absolutely. The next Slack message feels different.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Absolutely. And it really kind of brings in what we told them, what we promised to them, like, you join us, you're part of our family now. So sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes that's not, but that's one of the things we've sold them on. You're not in this alone because coming into this industry it can be a little lonely. We're independent contractors. We say you need a battle buddy. But for those single agents out there, it's really hard to find one of those. But coming under our umbrella, you have a thousand of them, but we always want them to know that we are there for them.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Across that population, how many teams are there and how many, I mean are there agents? My guess is that some of your operations are slightly hybrid where there's a team maybe within an office, but then they're also solo agents. Break that down in a very simple way.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
We actually still run predominantly virtual. So we actually have two offices. The Ocala one where we started, which is in Florida and Orlando work corporate staff is, and our corporate staff actually runs all five states from that office. So everyone else, all of our team leaders are remote. So we have about 18 in Florida, we have two in Georgia, one in Idaho, one in Colorado, and then we have two in Texas right now. So we don't start breaking out the markets until the teams really grow. So for us, we don't want a team leader to come in with or five team leaders or three agents a piece. We'd rather start with one, let them build to about 20 or 30 start identifying someone to take over in that market if they have two of them and then start branching 'em off like that. But everyone is really virtual, so

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Cool. Tell me about that 20 to 30. I mean obviously that was just like approximate number, but just talk about that dynamic a little bit.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
So we actually don't let our teams get above 50. So 50 is our absolute cap on it because our team leaders are, I think I even mentioned in this last, they're the constant. They are the ones that are tied to their team the most. So they're the ones who hear their gripes, they're the ones who hear their praises, they do their one-on-ones, but I call them the constant because with all the changes out there, their team leaders are the one things that don't change. Our team leaders we have virtually no turnover on. So sometimes life occurrences happen and one might have to step down for a little while. That job is usually remaining for them when they come back, when they choose to. But our team leaders have a very low turnover. So that's one of the things I'm really thankful for. But when they start getting about 2030, we start, are we going to continue growing? Is 30 the highest this team's ever going to be? Or it could be This is 30 in two markets. We know both of these are going to continue to grow. We need to start identifying someone in the other market that can potentially be a team leader. So when we start getting about 40, 50, we can start branching it into two teams, but they have a little assistance doing it that way. We never hit that 50 limit without having someone in place.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Cool. And I assume that 50 is it's just too much.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
It is. And honestly, I kind of feel like 35 might be the magic number

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Too. Too much time, too much attention, too many details. All of you can't be what your vision of what a team leader is. Can't be that for those people beyond that point

Speaker 3 (19:42):
100%. And we learned that the hard way. We let a team get to 201 time and don't ever do that, but we had so many people saying, oh, I didn't even know they were my team leader. I never heard from them or like, oh, they were still here. So we

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Didn't show up at Topgolf.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
They didn't show up at Topgolf, that was for sure. So we never wanted someone to feel like that. So we put a cap of 50, but when we set that cap of 50, it was probably five years ago. Real estate's really different now than what it was five years ago. So I almost feel like we probably should scale that down to about 35 because the amount of technology in real estate, the amount of lead sources in real estate, the amount of what it takes to get a deal from receiving the lead to closing is so much more involved these days. It's a lot more time on our team leaders, but a lot more time on the agents as well. So I feel like 50 is probably even getting a little close to too much and that might be something we need to scale back on.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
Interesting. So last time we talked you told a bit about that process of expanding from being the number one realtor.com lead buyer probably in the world, right

Speaker 3 (20:44):
In the world,

Speaker 1 (20:46):
To diversifying to at that point it was 16, where are you now? How did that go? Where are you now and where are you going?

Speaker 3 (20:55):
So it went, we were at 16. We will actually end this year at 24. And one of the things people are going to think we're crazy for that, none of our markets have 24 lead sources running though. When we made the decision to expand, we also made a promise to these agents that they would have a steady flow of leads depending on the lead source. That could be eight to 10, that could be 10 to 20, that could be 20 to 30. All of them kind of have a magic number. Are they buyer leads, seller leads, are they incoming phone calls? So we will end the year at 24 lead sources and we actually are ending the year with some. We ended the year with some that we didn't start with, but we also got rid of some along the way. So one of the things that we have been really focusing on is high converting lead sources as well.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
And do not get me wrong, we obviously still have some PPC in there, but at the same time those do convert. Do they take a little bit longer? Yes, but at the same time I need to make sure my agents are putting in the effort. I do not want them going straight to probably a Zillow lead without knowing if they're going to do the work for. So sometimes we use them as a stepping stone to try and get to the highest converting lead sources that we have and the effort that they put in to get there is what will get them there faster. So yeah, 24 and I think I said I wasn't going past 16. I'm like, this is the absolute max. My CEO is like, how about one more? One more ended up being eight more. But we needed to, because we needed to expand these markets, we needed to fulfill our promise to them.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
So 24 is where we'll end and I think from there we'll really, really start focusing on ROI of them, conversion of them, even the workability of them, how much effort goes into working these leads because not all of them are easy. Not all these platforms are easy. I think we have all but one that is able to integrate and we're still working on that one. I have high hopes that we're going to be able to get it just yet, but sometimes it's how much backend work do we have on it? Is it worth our time?

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Okay. A number of follow-up questions in here. I guess the one I'll go to first is to kind of go into, do you have a formal structure for unlocking different lead sources if you're an agent because there's no reason for the team or the core organization to invest in something and give it to someone that's not committed per their activities in follow-up boss. They're not making the calls the way you want, they're not texting the way you expect, et cetera. How do folks unlock the better lead sources? Is it like production on a rolling basis? Is that a formal system or is that up to a team leader to say, well, these three are my best agents and so I'm going to keep them on my best lead sources. And if one of these people seems to emerge, is it formal, informal, is that dictated by the local market? Cut that down for people who are like, I'm not sure if I'm distributing my leads, which I'm investing in different ways. I'm not sure if I'm distributing them properly.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah, absolutely. So it is becoming a little bit more formal for us, because we had to put expectations in place. It was really hard for us to say, we're taking you off because you're not converting. What was I supposed to convert at? Oh, well, I'm not exactly sure. We had to set expectations for them so they knew what we were holding them accountable to because without us doing that, we were leaving a big gray area. Well, if we didn't set the expectation we were the problem, it wasn't the agent that was the problem, we weren't able to hold them accountable to it. So yes, if we have newly licensed agents, we actually make them go to our pond. I think we call it an ocean these days. It's just grown so big. So they have to close three out of there before they go on a live lead flow.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
And this one's really specific to new agents. Once they go on live lead flow, we might take ones that maybe like a PPC that are going to take some more nurturing. So working, I can look and follow up boss to see the number of leads they've received, how many calls they've made, emails they've sent, how many texts have they sent, are they doing the work? If they're doing the work. I mean as basic as that sounds mean as fancy as real estate has gotten, you still have to do the work to get to the closing. So I think we hear time and time again being successful, and this is kind of boring sometimes because it's the work that gets you to the closings, but are they doing the work? If they're doing the work, usually their production will start picking up. You see the contracts coming in, you see the closings coming in.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Then if there is another lead source in their area that's higher converting, we move them up to that. I do not put agents on more than two different lead sources, and that was something that we realized we were making a mistake in because I had agents on five or six different lead sources. I sit behind a computer all day and I know these lead sources like the back of my hand, but my agents have a lot more to deal with than I do essentially. I'm not worried about inspections, I'm not worried about appraisals, I'm not worried about closings, not worried about scheduling my next showing. I can't expect them to have the same knowledge of them that I do, but when I'm putting them on five or six, I'm kind of setting them up for that failure. So this past year, two lead sources is the max that they're allowed on.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
We do say we want kind lead sources. So they had to be two selling lead sources or two buying side, but they had to be very similar. Ideally they're on one, but if I don't have enough lead flow to support it, I will put them on two. So that was a mistake that I think was a really hard one for us to realize, but it was one that I can see our conversion now going up now that we've rectified it. But yeah, they continue moving up and we know our conversions on the lead sources on each and every one so they can continue working their way up. Now, experienced agents, I don't always start them in the pond. If they have a proven track record, there's no reason to kind of take them back to year one. So if they can tell me that they've been working these leads, they know their conversion, they know what it takes to do, I will start them on that, but the expectation is set. This is what you're going to convert at if you want to remain on lead flow, and we do have that in our agent expectations. If you want live leads, you have to convert at this, you have to make this many calls. So we will put 'em on it, but we've had to take people off of it as well because they're just not doing the work.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah, okay. There's a lot in there. I just want to double back so that no one misses it. So this idea of we made a mistake, so we narrowed it down to one lead source if possible, two if necessary, those two are going to be like, and that's the idea that who's on the other end of that phone call or that email or that text message better because they're coming from the same place, which means similar intent, similar context, so you have more confidence and skill in speaking to that person right away in a way that's going to connect with them versus if you've got people coming in from six different scenarios, you need to get in. That mindset

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Is

Speaker 1 (27:17):
So simpler for the agent and therefore more effective for everybody.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Hundred percent. I mean you have to think if I'm an agent, is this an incoming phone call? Do I have to update it on the other platform? Is this one that the call center set for me? Is this a cash offer lead source? Is this a listing lead source? Am I supposed to call them back once I receive their cash offer from so-and-so? That's a lot for the agents to remember. So when we kind of simplified that for them, they knew exactly this is a listing lead source. These two both require cash offers or they've inquired about cash offers, so I know to wait for these to come in, but they automatically know it because they're so similar. So that's something that we've really tried to continue doing just to make it easier for them. They have a lot more on their plate on the day-to-day than what I do.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
I really like that piece behind the scene that you added to it in that past there, which is it's not only coming from a different place. That's how I was thinking about it. There are also other things you have to do

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Exactly

Speaker 1 (28:10):
In the backend and that definitely streamlines everything for them, which sets up a place I want to go, but I'm going to stop first in lead conversion when I had the privilege of seeing you present at one of John Chelas Maverick Masterminds, it was about mid-year this year. It was like mid to late June. I think you talked about the work that your team had been doing to increase lead conversion, and I think I heard one of those in there, which is narrowing lead sources per agent. Exactly. Any other things that you, in your reflection, how do we drive this up? How do we get a better return on all these different investments and leads and these different partnerships? Any other things that you observed that you kind of put into play this year that really helped?

Speaker 3 (28:47):
So it wasn't this year that we did it, but limiting the number of leads that agents got. Typically agents are more leads the better, and that's actually the

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Complete opposite. They want to skim the ones that are ready to buy right now.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Correct? Yeah, they cherry pick them. So that's exactly what they do. And that was something we've been doing it for a couple years now, but I want to say we probably almost immediately doubled our conversion when we started putting what we call thresholds into place when we started putting minimum price points so that way they couldn't say, well, the past five leads I got were all $30,000. We put minimum thresholds because I do have new agents in my ponds working them. I knew those would still get worked, but then also saying, this is your max. You are not getting more than 20 leads. They worked them a lot harder. I think last year was the highest number of touch attempts we saw on a lead two years ago. I think we were about 21, 24 last year. We got up to I think 57 touch attempts to get a lead to closing this year, year, I believe we're back down to 24, but you can see just the variance of the market, but I needed my agents to continue to do the work. One of the things I think is kind of an oversight for agents sometimes in a leads provided brokerage, this is a huge investment into them. These leads cost a lot of money and this is a huge risk we're taking with continuously supplying them with these leads. So the effort has to be in there on their part as well.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Another place I wanted to go is a quote that I wrote down from our first conversation. By the way, behind the scenes after we record the episode, I watch 'em all back and take my own notes and it turns into a Google doc that's like eight to 12 pages, which

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Oh my goodness,

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Well my goal is to learn from you and then find ways to share it and teach it to other people, not just here's some more video or here's some more audio for the internet. It's like I need to learn it too and internalize it and it's super interesting and it's how I hope to make these episodes even more effective for folks as I learn with everybody else. Was your goal in your seat as COO is to make agents' lives easier? I would assume that that's also probably something that rolls through the whole organization and so I wanted to get into this zone. I mean you mentioned that you have a very large ISA team, so what are some of the key pieces of leverage? You also talked about the expensive leads, that's an investment, but you're also investing probably in other leverage for the agents. What does it mean practically? What are some of the pieces that you put into place and maybe if there are a few key ones, what order did you put them into place in terms of making agents' lives easier?

Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah, I believe the ISA, the TCS and the VAs all came along the same lines at the same time with us. So that was something we implemented pretty much all in one go and our VP of operations really was kind of the bones behind that or the manpower behind that. She does have some ties to over in Europe and everything that she had seen. ISAs really be successful. She had lived in the Philippines for a while and was able to see what we could do and showed us if you were able to have someone calling through these leads, if you were able to have someone assisting the agents doing their follow-up, sending the batch emails, the tasks that are set for each day, the tcs, how can the agents who are in their car all day, how can we take something off their plate and make it a little bit easier?

Speaker 3 (31:54):
But I'd say ISAs, TCS VAs were a huge movement in making their lives easier, but they made my lives easier as well because we do have a massive database at this point. So can I make sure that everything in that database is being worked to as full potential. So some of them have very specific duties on what to look for. Do they need to get it over to an agent? Do they need to get it to a call center, a licensed ISA, do they need to sunset leads that are no longer getting emails from us? So we do have a very strong team out there that makes my life easier but also makes the agent's lives easier as well. Just kind of taking the repetitive and the mundane stuff off their list

Speaker 1 (32:30):
So they can focus on connecting with human beings beings and writing contracts and getting the closings. Yeah. Cool. Talk about how ISAs function in your organization. There are a lot of different people do it a lot of different ways. We did a conversation with Lisa Ryan at Exquisite down in San Antonio and their ISAs are empowered to take leads back if they see that agents aren't working them and they built this high trust environment between agent and other people are like, they call, they vet, they hand it off if it makes sense. Other people have ISAs exclusively working in some version of the pond

Speaker 3 (33:07):
To

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Surface opportunities and then hand them off. Describe a little bit about how much variety there is in that ISA role or is it they really do this in this situation, they go from here to here in this situation, they go from there to there. Just talk a little bit about how ISAs work in your organization.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
So it really is a wide array of things that they do. So we run our smart list and follow up boss. So you had mentioned you had interviewed a team leader who does pull leads back if they're not working them and we do the same thing. We've been able to automate it though and follow up boss. So if they don't do

Speaker 3 (33:36):
The correct number of attempts, most of our lead sources, we require an attempt of contact, I want to say an organic attempt. This is a phone call that they're making, a text message and an email, not a batch email. If they don't do it every seven days, we pull the lead back. The only exceptions to that are nurtures and rentals, but they have a 30 day time limit, but we've automated it and we pull it back. So those do fall into smartlist for our ISAs though, because sometimes these are ready buyers that we let fall through the cracks a little bit. We give a little bit of leeway at seven days, but sometimes that's a little too much leeway because what happens at day two and three if they said they wanted to see a home and now it's been four more days since that timeframe.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
So we do pull it back. So we do have ISAs that work those smart lists so we can try and revive the lead to see are we soon enough to catch it? Should it have been a different stage and maybe left in the agent's database a little bit longer. I have ISAs that call new inquiries that might be below certain thresholds. So right now most of our thresholds are around a hundred, 150,000 and I do have new agents work in the pond. I have licensed ISAs in the pond, but my ISAs are also in there because even though they're looking at a piece of land doesn't necessarily mean it's always a piece of land. They might also maybe want to talk to a builder to build on that land. Maybe they would be willing to buy a home if it felt within their budget. There's so much that can go into one inquiry that we might not be sending to the agents so they have those conversations as well.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
Then even making sure some of our, we use Y LO O sometimes we have a lot of lead sunsetted. When you get to a really large database, they go in and UNC sunset them. They go in one by one, set them up on new searches. So as we find a fault in what the agents are doing, but also what we're doing, we can see can an ISA do this because a lot of our ISAs are overseas. Is this something I need someone in the state to do or is this something an ISA can do? Because cost does become a factor in running a business. And so sometimes if it's something like that and I can have ISA do it, we hire them specifically for that, teach them on it, and then that becomes their job. So it's a lot of different things we have them do.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, super interesting. The pullback scenario. Talk about maybe the benefit of, you mentioned TC in the mix as well. You mentioned the scenarios where people are unsu sunsetted, talk about the value of anyone, the agent who was working in the first place, or you as someone kind of surveying the scene or a VA who's getting in there and doing some of the hands-on work of everyone being able to see all the communication with one person that came from the organization ever.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
It's something actually that we use as a learning opportunity because we ran a statistic last year and I want to say 56% of our leads closed with the second agent to touch them. Not the first agent, the second agent, meaning agent within

Speaker 1 (36:21):
Your organization?

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Within our organization. So it kind of made us realize agent one might've done 90 days worth of work. They kind of started falling off on that because it had been about three months. Agent went to the pond, agent two was looking in the pond. They saw someone surface back up and they did about 30 days worth of work. So one thing we noticed was that we did have slightly more of them closing with agent number two, but agent number two was actually closed with them a lot faster than what agent number one worked with them. So that also told us you need to stick with them a little bit longer. Just because they didn't transact in 30, 60, 90 days doesn't mean that they're not going to, and that was a shift of mindset for our agents because 10 years ago they closed pretty fast. Once we got the lead eight years ago, six years ago, two years ago, not so much. So it was really a learning opportunity for us to make sure our agents followed up with them for longer.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
This is a little bit of a double back, but across this diversity of lead sources, you mentioned that they all, obviously that insight you just shared, 56% of people are closing with the second agent who touches them. When you're looking at conversion by lead source, what's the variability across those couple dozen lead sources are some converting at double the rate of others?

Speaker 3 (37:34):
100%. Interesting. So we do have some that easily convert at double of others, and like I said, we do have some PPC in there as well. I don't think we have a lead source that's converting less than 3% right now, and we do find that as a win. For me, it's kind of a challenge though because we have to remember industry standard of converting leads is around 1%. So for us to have our lowest at three is a win in the grand scheme of things. To me it's a challenge. I want our lowest to be higher than that, but I do have lead sources that are converting in double digits. So my highest lead source right now is at 14%. So I do have a one-off team on that lead source that they have actually held over 30% conversion for the past six months and they're my little mighty team. But yeah, I mean when we talk about a 30% conversion on leads, it's just mind blowing to people, but it can be done

Speaker 1 (38:25):
And I would assume that you're holding on to any lead source that you're converting at volume at 3% because it's still profitable at 3%,

Speaker 3 (38:31):
It's still profitable at 3%. And a lot of times they provide us a quantity as well,

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Especially when we're training so many new agents as well, that quantity is something that we're needing because the ones that are converting higher are typically a little bit more expensive. So it's like how much do we want to invest on a new agent? Yes, we know it can convert at 12 to 14. Is my new agent going to be able to get it to convert at 12 to 14 because it's awkward becoming a new agent. You have to become really comfortable having difficult conversations with people. You have to become really comfortable having a wide array of conversations. You have to know everything that can go wrong in a real estate transaction and know how to fix it. So being able to provide them with a quantity of leads to, I don't want to say test it out, but able to get comfortable with it is something that those, I hate saying lower converting lead sources, those the ones that provide us quantity are able to get them to do.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Then my higher converting ones, they typically need less of them and can go a little bit lower quantity and still could close even more. So we have kind of methods for all the reasons we've kept them and I don't have any that I don't feel like I need about every month I go through each of the lead sources, do I need this one? And there are times where I say, I don't need it in this market anymore. I have too many, I don't have enough agents for it. So each month we go through them, do I need any of them? Do I need all of 'em? Is this one too much work for us? Is the risk worth the reward? It's something I do look at very closely.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
Cool. And so in that push past 16, which is the number you were at when we talked last for this show, we've talked since then, it's always a pleasure. How do you vet those new ones? What are you looking for from the outside until you can kind of get 'em in the mix, get 'em flowing, start validating them against all the other conversion rates of the other ones and say, oh, this is a solid mid performer. Before you get to that point, when you're looking at bringing something on, you just say, we have to take the risk and I don't know what it's going to be, but we need something in this market, so let's try it out.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
One of things, how do you ve them things? How do I vet them? This will probably be an interesting to answer. I think we're really fortunate. This industry actually is really strong with the people within it, and it's one of the things I'm actually most thankful for in this industry. So even if it's a lead source I'm not familiar with, I can usually find someone on the lead source that I've become friends with over the years. So I call them and we all have a level of transparency within us because there will be times that they call me and ask me, is this working for you? What are you doing? There is a lot of people who have been on your show who I have been able to call and say, I'm thinking about picking up this lead source. Can you tell me has it worked for you? Is it everything they've said? It would be, I love all of our lead sources, but they are salespeople at the end of the day as well. So we talk to them. If we think this actually might be a possibility, then I'll call someone who's actually on it. What are you doing to make it work? Do we bring ISAs in? Do you have a call center? Do they go to the agent?

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Which that also helps characterize for you what type of a lead source it is

Speaker 3 (41:32):
100%. And I think that's one of my favorite things about this industry is being able to lean into the people within it, even if they're not in my own organization. Because independent, so I'm not a Keller Williams, so I can call a bunch of Keller Williams offices, but the friendships within it, that's how I vet them. I call them, what are you doing? Is it working for you? Do you think it's something we'd be able to make work and can I pick your brain and have you help me launch this for the next 90 days? Because we would do the same for them. And I've helped some of them do the same for the lead sources that we're on. And sometimes it's actually been mutually beneficial because we have found something that they've been struggling with and we've found a way to overcome it, and then we've been able to help both of our business as a result.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
I love it. What I did not hear you say is I went into a Facebook group and said, these leads suck. Do you have any other better places to look? My gosh, my gosh. Reach out to people who are doing real business and ask them how it's going.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
I stay out of those Facebook groups. I think they give terrible advice. They make me cringe. I tell all my agents, please stay off of them. Go to someone who is actually doing the work. Because I think that's one of the things we see in those Facebook groups. It's not really people who are doing the work, but they sure like to complain a lot about them.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
So totally

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Not where you should get your advice. Please call your broker. Right?

Speaker 1 (42:40):
With the exception of course being the follow-up boss success community.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Exactly. I love that community. But again, it's a community, so I cannot say that was

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Specifically for the others. You see people in the comments you see who maybe you resonate with and you just reach out to that person. Now you have a real relationship and conversation about things that you're actually doing the business every day.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
And these events kind of become surreal because you see them and then you're like, oh, I've actually never met you in person before. We talk every week, but I can't believe this is the first time we've ever met. So it does become a little like, oh, this is kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah, it's funny. I was deep in video email and video messaging for years and I sent a ton of them and I got a lot of them back. And I remember meeting a guy in person for the first time and neither of us could remember if we had ever met in person before because we felt so connected.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Exactly. But I love that about the industry, about the community that follow-up Boss built, and I will say, and I mean it's not a plug follow-up boss really built something amazing with the community that got started. I mean, we've had Stacy started, Janelle has done a great job stepping into her role and everything, and it's a community. They named it correctly. It's a community. And a lot of people go in there for advice and everything, and there's so many people and they're willing to help, willing to give their takeaways. And I think that's probably one of the bad misconceptions this industry gets is we hold everything in. But if you really look at it, most people are willing to give everything away.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
The most successful people are.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah, exactly. Because more than enough business to go around.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah. Okay. 2025. What are a couple things that you're excited about looking forward to, or you've already planted the seeds in and you're looking to bring them to life. What are you looking forward to in 2025?

Speaker 3 (44:21):
I'm pretty sure I answered this in 2024 saying I was excited about normalcy to return, and I think IG that because 2024 was anything but normal. But I'm excited. I do think normalcy will actually return in 2025. There's so much stuff that occurred in 2024 that we can officially put behind us. When this episode comes out, the elections will be behind us. Obviously at the NAR rulings will be behind us. The implementations of all of that will be behind us. So I do think normalcy will be returning to the market. I'm excited to see us grow. I think this is the year I would like to see us surpass a thousand agents, and I would like us to see get our minimum conversion of 5%. I have a lot of goals for this year. So I am excited to see us reach every one of them.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Cool. Are you bringing anyone alongside you for any of that? Are there any changes to corporate, do you expect?

Speaker 3 (45:10):
So we did promote our director of operations to vice president of operations. Cool. So when we talked in 2024, I was wearing quite a few hats, and one of those was overseeing the team leaders and I actually just relinquished the team leaders. They had to pry them from my fingers, but

Speaker 3 (45:26):
As we grew with our team leaders and built so much of that, I know when I did this episode, I just relinquished my team. So I just handed over my team and we broke it into two. Now I've relinquished the team leaders, but when you have a team leader, especially in a new market, you're meeting with them quite regularly. And when you get to 30, 35, that magic number of team members, team leaders become the same thing. So I again, realized I wasn't giving them the attention that they deserve. So 2024, I realized I wasn't giving my team the attention they deserve, or 2023 and then 2024, I realized that as well. So we did promote one of my senior team leads, his name is jp. He took over the senior team lead position that I used to hold, and he now oversees all of our team leads in all of our markets. I do have a director of Texas now, so she oversees the Texas team leaders because that's probably our fastest growing state outside of Florida. So bringing in some additional help so that way I can really continue to move the needle on the lead sources. So I take off one or two of my hats and continue to push us in the growth.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yeah, I mean that's the process. I mean, I'm speaking to a team leader in particular, the producing team leader is wearing a lot of hats, and it's just a process of taking them off as you grow and you learn and you grow and you find the right people alongside you or who are ready to do more. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
And

Speaker 1 (46:41):
So I love that you're finding yourself in, well, I mean, it sounds like it was maybe hard to let go of

Speaker 3 (46:46):
That

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Piece. What I was going to say is people are kind moving into the role that they really want to be in once the next opportunity allows them to get closer to it. But here it sounds like a little bit of it was

Speaker 3 (46:56):
I want to do all you want to do it all, because you always wonder is what you created going to continue? But at the same time, all of our roles that we either created or promoted someone into, they all naturally evolved. These people all stepped into the role before we ever promoted them. So JP was one of my team leaders. He became my senior team leader and just kind of, because he became a go-to for them, if I was too busy, if I was traveling, they would call him because I mean, everybody loves him. He is one of the most likable people you'll ever meet, but he's also one of the most knowledgeable. So when it came time to, I don't know that I can do this anymore with all the team leaders, if I surveyed 30 of them, 30 out of 30 would've been said JP because they were already leaning into him and they already felt comfortable with him. So it was bittersweet because I knew as much as I had helped grow it, he was going to grow it even further, and he was exactly what we needed for the position.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Awesome. Well, I wish JP and you and the rest of the team, great success in the year ahead. Thank you. Before I let you go, I'm going to ask you the same three pairs of closing questions as last time. Sounds good. It'll be fun to see if they diverge at all, but what is your very favorite team to root for, or what is the best team you've ever been a member of besides Robert Slack?

Speaker 3 (48:09):
I'm going to go sports this time. So we root for Tampa Bay Rays just because we are in Florida, so I feel like everyone outplay the bucks. So we're going to go raise this year for baseball.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Okay, cool. One of your most frivolous purchases or a cheapskate habit that you continue to hold on to, even though you probably don't need to.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
I'll make them watch the last episode to see my frivolous purchases. That still become a problem to this day, but I would say, I don't know if I'm a cheaps skate for, I have chickens because we had an egg problem a couple of years ago. We had shortage of eggs. My kids love eggs, so I got chickens, and I guess we'll consider that my cheapskate one. I don't ever have to buy eggs. I have them at the wazoo.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
I love that. That's great.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
They lay different colors too, so I was a little bougie on it. So I have eight different chickens. I lay eight different color eggs.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
That's cool. There's no reason to, if you're going down that road, there's no reason not to be a little bougie about it. That's great. I love it. What does it look like for you to rest, relax, and recharge? What are you doing or where are you, or what does it look like for you to invest time in learning, growing, and developing? Where are, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (49:10):
I'm going to answer both of those, please. So anything around water seems to be my happy place. So my kids and I do a lot of kayaking or fishing, and so it seems that we're happiest around the water and everything, but what do I do for myself to continue to grow? I've really dove into these masterminds this year. Unlock is a great one. There are some large master or large events that we see conferences in Men the Gathering, but some of the smaller ones this year I have actually traveled more to because I feel like they had more takeaways for me. They were a little bit more in the nitty gritty, and we've always said, I don't know what I don't know. So really going to some of those smaller events has really, I think had a big impact on our business.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Cool. And are, one of the things I love about them is that you don't know what you're going to learn necessarily. Exactly. You're going to learn it from a practitioner who's out in the field. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Absolutely. And I love being able to take notes and take 'em back to my team and be like, this could really help us. Or why have we not thought of that sooner? I'm like, why did we overcomplicate this?

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah. And I guess, I mean, I can't believe, I'm going to ask another real, real question, but what is your process there for? So you take the notes, you go through them, you maybe raise some of them internally with some of your team members, and you cut 'em up and vet 'em and talk about, is this a good idea? How would we do this? How would we do this differently?

Speaker 3 (50:28):
We have strategy meetings once a week, so it's typically after one of these events that I'll bring my takeaways back to the strategy meeting. And we do have someone at this point who owns everything within the company, whether it's listings, whether it's operations. I even have someone now who is what I call my launch specialist if I'm launching a new lead source product or technology, she sticks with it for 90 days, and her job is to make sure it launches smooth. So we all talk about it. Can we make a change? Is this something we could do? And then we collectively decide if we want to move forward with it.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
Cool. Love it. Super practical. If someone wants to learn more about you or about Robert Slack, where should they go? Yep,

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Absolutely. Robert slack.com is still a great way to get in contact with us. They're always welcome to email me or call me. So Lauren Bowen at Robert Slack will probably be one of the quickest ways, but we're pretty accessible. So we actually had a lot of people reach out after the last podcast, and I love connecting with each of them.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Awesome. And that podcast is linked up down below. You are awesome. Thanks for making time for this. Thank you, Ethan.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Thanks for checking out this episode of Team Os. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up at realestate team OS com.