Speaker 1 (00:00):
Many real estate teams recruit through cold calls, robo texts, and a numbers game mindset, taking pretty much anyone who's got a license. Jacqueline Barker doesn't operate that way. She's the full-time recruiter at Navigate Realty based in Raleigh, North Carolina. In the roughly three years since she started, Navigate has grown from about 80 agents to 400 across seven markets, recruiting up to 15 to 20 agents a month in Raleigh alone. Here in this conversation, you'll learn the recruiting philosophy and process behind that growth. Why and how she'll tell a candidate they're not yet ready to join and what it actually takes to build a recruiting function that scales alongside your real estate team. Enjoy this conversation with Jacqueline Barker right here on Real Estate Team OS.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
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 (01:02):
Jacqueline, thank you again so much, not just for being an attendee, but an active participant of our recruiting workshop at Unlock last fall. I'm excited to continue that conversation. Welcome to Real Estate Team OS.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, it was funny. Of course, you work with Tiffany Williamson, who's our guest on episode 84. She called you a huge key piece to our growth in that episode. So when we did that recruiting workshop, it was funny. Audience was asking questions and of course you're the one to answer them.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah. That's sweet. I love Tiffany and I love working with her, working for her. And yeah, I eat, sleep, and breathe it, and I do have sometimes a hard time like, "Wait, I have more to add. I have more to add." So I know she knows me well enough. She knew that was coming. She even told me prior, she's like, "You might as well sit up in the front table because I know you're going to chime in. "

Speaker 1 (01:52):
It works out awesome. And we'll dive into a conversation almost exclusively about recruiting, but if anyone wants to check out that full 90 minute workshop and see and hear Jacqueline contributing in the Q&A, if you just go to realestateteamos.com/subscribe, you can sign up free, get instant access to, I think it's 13 or 14 subscriber only episodes and that is one of them. Okay, enough setup. I'm going to ask you, Jacqueline, the question I ask everyone to start the conversation, which is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
I would say consistency and I know that that's been said before. It's probably, I believe that's even what Tiffany's answer was to that question when I watched her podcast, but it is the one that comes to mind. I'll also say work ethic. We can train and we can support and motivate all day long and we can do all those things, but there's a natural ... Somebody really has to care and want it. And I think that's a big part of it as well. Somebody that has drive is really, really important and you can really read that in people pretty easily, I think.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I feel like work ethic and consistency go together. The way that I've typically heard it in this context, but I'm going to give it back to you to kind of explain it out if there's anything you want to add to it. It's like this, we know what the consistent behaviors are that produce results in this business. In the case of recruiting, it's calling out and having more conversations with more agents in the seat of an agent. It's reaching out, calling, texting, emailing, and having more conversations with clients or potential clients, opportunities, leads, whatever, but it can get boring. And so people like to distract themselves with other activities when we just need to stay consistently focused and active on those things. Is that what you mean by consistency or is there anything you want to add to that?

Speaker 3 (03:38):
No, I mean that's consistency certainly and not to pivot a litle bit, but it's interesting you mentioned how similar sales and real estate is to actually recruiting. Yes, you need to have that consistency to have results, but the other commonality that they have is that they're both people businesses. And so you have to kind of be a people person. You have to understand people, you have to listen to people, you have to genuinely really understand what their needs are. And you can say the same things for helping somebody buy or sell a home as helping somebody find the right fit for them in the real estate firm that they're looking for. So the consistency is super important and that is the first thing that comes to mind because you can't just go, "Okay, I want to sell a lot of houses." And it's just going to happen, right?

Speaker 3 (04:28):
You have to do the things to get there. Same with recruiting. You can't just say, "Okay, I want to hire 20 agents this month." It doesn't just happen. You have to put the things in place and have the systems and the results. But the other thing that really ties us together is that you really do need to understand and be really good with people and really understand the needs of others.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah. And that comes through conversation, it comes through discovery, it comes through a structured, repeatable, maybe

Speaker 1 (04:56):
I call what I do on this show a conversation outline, like I have one for each person, but I'm willing and able to deviate from it too. So I love the way that you drew that out and I think discovery is probably a big part of it because not everyone's a good fit. And we're going to get into those details shortly, but before we do, I'd love at a high level, like how did you get into real estate initially and where were you on your journey where recruiting full-time emerged? What were the seeds of it as an interest or a passion or a skill? When in your real estate journey did that become the thing that you were going to commit to as this is what I'm going to do?

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah. I mean, like most great things, it wasn't planned. Actually, I've been in real estate for a really long time. My dad was a law enforcement turned real estate agent. My grandfather was a builder. My brother is a builder. I went to college for anything but real estate. I was an advertising communications major and I was selling ads for the newspaper and I had a realtor as one of my clients and he's like, "Will you come work for me? " And I was in college and I needed money. I said, "Sure, I'll take another job." And I just fell back into it. It was something I felt comfortable with. And I've been in the industry in North Carolina for ... That was in South Carolina. I've been in North Carolina now for about 25 years in the business, about 25 years, mostly general brokerage. I did about five years working for new home builder.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
I've owned my own firm. So I've dabbled in recruiting just as a part of doing that, right? Especially when I owned my own firm, I was director of operations for franchise for a little bit, but I will tell you what pivoted to where I am now the most was in 2021-ish, the crazy COVID real estate market I was really struggling with the emotional aspect of the business at that time. I'd been doing it forever. I was with a great firm. I loved them. I loved the people I worked with. I was successful. I was doing all the things, but it was really hard for me to work with these buyers and, "Hey, how much money do you have? Because you're going to need to put all of it at risk. And if the house is falling down, sorry, you're going to have to buy it anyway because if you don't then..." And I was talking to a good friend of mine in the industry over Cosmos one night and I would always get together with her and we would talk shop and I had known her for a while and talking about Tiffany Williamson.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
And I said, "You know, Tiffany, I think I might take a break from real estate for a while. I feel like I'm in a little bit of an emotional slump." And in the meantime, I had a friend that had asked me to help him hire new home sales agents. He owns his own recruiting firm. He places vice presidents and CFOs and builders and he needed help with sales and I was doing a little bit of that on the side and Tiffany was basically, she said, "Jacqueline, I need somebody to help me grow, navigate. We have so much need. I don't have the time that I need." And she said, "Would you be interested in doing that with me? " And one thing led to another and I was literally in her office the next morning and that was almost three years ago now.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
That's amazing. And again, if folks want to hear another version of the same story, episode 84 with Tiffany, I'll link it up down below and remarkably similar and I think cosmos were mentioned in that one too. So you two obviously had a longstanding relationship. You obviously saw things similarly enough and had enough mutual respect and admiration for each other that you would get together and just kind of talk shop anyway.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Was there anything else to getting to yes on it either way? I mean, it makes sense now because it's obviously been a successful partnership and we'll get into exactly how,

Speaker 2 (08:42):
But

Speaker 1 (08:43):
In that moment, did you have any kind of thoughts or hesitations or what did you have to iron out from the sketch of this to what it is today?

Speaker 3 (08:53):
So Tiffany and I had, we actually met in Leadership Academy at our local association and so I knew we both had similar drive. I also, one of the reasons that I would reach out to her monthly, quarterly, whatever was we both have just a really similar interest in the industry. I'm not just out selling houses, working with buyers and sellers. I love that and that's what I'd always done, but I love listening to podcasts. I am one of those people that really enjoy being a sponge. I want to know what's going on with NAR. I want to know what's going on with different brokerages and mergers and I like talking about that. And I was with a really great firm at the time, but it was a very small firm. It was only experienced brokers. I would go in and grab my sign, unlock the door, turn the light off and leave.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
And I was really intrigued by what Tiffany had built. I had watched it from the sidelines. I had and still have an enormous respect for what she has built and just her style of leadership. And so it had never really occurred to me before, but the stars just aligned that day. And I said, "You know what? Yeah. I knew something was on the horizon." And I said, "I would love to do that. I love recruiting naturally. I love what you're doing there and I really think that I could help you and I think that you could really help me with that change that I was craving at the time."

Speaker 1 (10:20):
What was Navigate when you joined and what is Navigate today? And feel free to share that however you like, like market size, structure, culture. What was it when you started and what is it today?

Speaker 3 (10:30):
So when I started, it was September 1st, 2023. I remember that. And so we had two locations, established locations and had just launched a third. Raleigh, where I am now, and that's our headquarter, Raleigh, North Carolina, and we were in two other markets. One had just launched also in North Carolina. And again, so that was not quite three years ago. Today we have launched, we are actively in seven locations. We expanded into South Carolina and then we're about to actually launch our Tennessee, our first Tennessee location in the next month or so. So we're really in about eight locations now, seven up and running and about to be eight. And then back when I joined in 2023, we're about maybe 80, 90 total agents and we're about at 400 now. I think we just hit 400 in the last week or so total agents.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Awesome. And so you've obviously been along for that whole growth journey. I'm sure recruiting agents has obviously been a key part of it. So I'm going to back out a little bit. I would love to hear you out on your approach to recruiting philosophically and then we'll get into the practical, like how you actually do it and what the stages are and how you do it. But philosophically, the way that I thought about this, and you don't need to like hit all of this, but the way that I thought it was interesting to raise your just general perspective on recruiting is that obviously you were new to the industry at some point and you were interviewing around and you got to experience it from that seat. And then as a successful producing agent, obviously people are trying to recruit you all the time unless your market's like, I don't know, stagnant, but that's not usually the case.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
And then of course now you're actively seeking conversations to recruit successful agents in your own home market as well as in new markets where you're getting to know people. So you've seen recruiting from a variety of seats. How do you describe your recruiting philosophy?

Speaker 3 (12:36):
You mentioned when I've interviewed in the past and whatnot, and it's funny you say that I have this experience that happened in 2008 that I'd love to share because it opened my eyes to a lot of things sales related, right? So I had been in new home sales, I had just had my second baby and I decided I wanted to go back into general brokerage. And so I decided to interview around and I hadn't really ever done that before. And so there was one firm that I went to and I thought this is it. It was great. It was close to my house. I knew some agents there, really well known name, everything. And so I was pretty excited and I was excited as to what they could do for me and my business being that I was an onsite agent for five years, I was thinking all of these people that I've built relationships with, they're probably about to sell their house again.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
And I want them to know that I'm in the market and that I'm going to help them. And so that was really what I went in there hoping to hear like, "How can you help me build my business?" And I remember I went in there and I sat down and the interviewer instantly started just talking at me, not with me, not asking me any questions and he was saying, "Listen, this is our structure and if you recruit these agents in here, then you can get residual income and then this person, if they come in and they sell houses, then you'll make money off of them." And he literally for about 20 minutes was standing in front of me with his back to me drawing on a whiteboard and at one point I looked and I said, "That's actually a pyramid." And I have no problem with those structures or multi-level marketing or any of these recruiting down.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
I have no issue with that whatsoever. That's fine, but that wasn't what I was looking for. He didn't ask me anything about what I had done, what I wanted, what was my goal. And ultimately he turned around and he said, "So do you have any questions?" And I said, "Yeah, do I design my own signs and pay for them or do you do that? " And he was like, "What?" I did that a little bit on purpose. I really could care less about what you're talking about here. I actually do have questions for you. And that was in 2008 and it stuck with me anytime I had a conversation, not just with other agents and what I'm doing now, but really even sitting down at a listing appointment. The first thing I want to say is, "Hey, how can I help you today? What are your goals today?

Speaker 3 (15:04):
What do you need from me and how can I answer those questions first?" And so I'm thankful for that experience. I obviously did not go work for that firm, but I'm thankful that I had that to really open my eyes to, "Oh, this doesn't feel good." And I don't ever want to do that to somebody else.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
So it really is just like, again, an agent should be doing with potential buyers and sellers is like needs assessment, open conversation and figuring out whether or not this is a good ... I've come to view it as a partnership between an agent and an organization. Is it really that simple?

Speaker 3 (15:39):
I think so. And I also think that people don't want to be sold. I don't want to feel like I'm getting sold to. When I'm interviewing or when I was interviewing, I want to figure out if I'm a good fit for you and you're a good fit for me. It's a mutual thing. We need to align and if we don't, that's okay. The job should be, even when I'm interviewing people, I mean, I interview people every single at least weekday and I ultimately want to make sure that it's the right fit. And honestly, if it's not, I'm going to suggest a place that might be because these are long-term relationships and maybe one day down the road, maybe they're not interested in what we have now, but maybe one day they go, "You know what? This is what I'm looking for. " And I remember Jacqueline at Navigate Realty really offered that at the time.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
I'm going to give her a call. Or maybe they have a friend and they're like, "Hey, this isn't for me right now, but there is this new agent that would do amazing on this program you just told me about. I'm going to tell them to call you. " So again, it's like any other sales, it's more of a customer service thing, I think, and it's really that long-term relationship building. The other thing I really don't like frankly about the recruiting, and you asked about the philosophy, I'm not a big fan of the robotex and the robo dialing. If you call me and you say, "Hey, if you call me right now, and I get this, this is why I'm saying it. Hey, Jacqueline, this is so and so. Man, I'm looking at your business and you are killing it this year and you would do so great with us." And I'm like, "I'm actually not killing it this year.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
I'm actually full-time recruiting and my business is down about 75% because that's my priority right now." So are you just saying that to everybody? It doesn't feel personal. So if I reach out to somebody, I want to make sure that I have really looked at their business and I'm calling somebody or reaching out very intentionally.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
I really appreciate that so much. I mean, it is a relationship business and it's only a relationship business the way you're executing it if you actually treat it as such. So I agree and some people do treat it as a numbers game and there's no one right or wrong way to do any of this stuff, but I think the numbers game component probably is a lot more exhausting and a bit more kind of churn and burn than something that has the level of intent that you're suggesting.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
It does. I think there's two things. One thing that I often say to my leadership team when we get together, it's so important because you have to touch on retention as well. Retention is just as if not more important than recruiting because if I'm bringing on 10 agents a month through my front door, what does that matter if I'm losing 10 agents out the back door because I wasn't paying attention to them, I wasn't listening, I wasn't watching. I was so intent on numbers, numbers and more people and more agents and people feel that. You don't want to be in an environment where you feel like you're being hurted like hats. I want to build a family, not treat people like they're a number. And I think if you do that, you're really going to lose great people, whether they're huge producers or average producers at the end of the day, everybody has their goals and it's okay if you don't want to sell 60 houses a year.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
That's fine, but does our culture fit with yours and do we offer you things that you need and are you going to help us grow? We want to help you and we want you to help us and can this be a mutual relationship? And so I think if you always stay true to that and you don't let yourself get caught up in just numbers, it's almost like karma, right? I mean, those things will always bring positive results.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah. I really appreciate that call out. I mean, I think of it as like net churn essentially or net agent count or something. It's funny. I mean, one of the background themes on this show almost the entire two and a half plus years I've been doing it is that it's really easy to focus on gross, but like retention is really the net dynamic here. There's no reason to pile, to your point, 20 people in if you're losing 10 out the back if the goal is to build a successful business and not waste a whole bunch of time and energy and attention and all those things. Let's go to the practical side a little bit. I would love to spend at least 10 or 15 minutes on what it looks like to recruit agents into the organization and then reserve a little bit of time in that to talk about specific proactive things you can do to retain.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
I think those, it's hard to have that conversation separately. I don't know if I'm actually going to be able to separate it because your recruiting agent's likely to be retained and your efforts to retain are exactly why your current agents would bring good fit, likely to join, likely to stick agents to you. But break it down a little bit like what does the recruiting function look like from a staff perspective? What are a couple of the key things that are happening every single day to make sure that Navigate is growing from an agent perspective the way that you want it to?

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Yeah, sure. And I think I'll start from the beginning because even though I'm in the Raleigh office and so we have a little over 200 agents here now. We didn't always. Like I said, we probably had about 50 when I started. So it looked different then than it does now. And so then basically I was working off Google spreadsheets and I was answering ads and I was doing reach out and I was talking to agents and I was calling or emailing agents that we co-broked with and you're doing kind of things that, I hate to say it, but it was only, it was less than three years ago, the old fashioned way.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
But as you grow those systems, one thing that it looked like for me is I started getting overwhelmed frankly and I'm very fortunate to work in an environment where I can go to our CEO, I can go to Tiffany or Christie, our COO and go, "I'm not doing a great job with this. " And we've created that environment where you can be very open about that. And so it worked okay at first to get technical with you on that, I'm answering ads. So we advertise on job boards, right? Indeed, career builder, search through LinkedIn with sourcing versus receiving. I think there's some organic growth, right? If agents are happy, they tell their friends about you. And so all of those setting appointments were also, we had, at the time, three locations. So I was setting appointments with our sales leaders, broker in charge, whatever that role was in our other office.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
So phone screen, "Hey, I think you'd be a great fit. I'm going to go ahead and set you up with Lauren and Wilmington." So that's what that looked like at first. As that grew, the next step when I got to that overwhelmed point was, and really it's so funny, Tiffany is very great at identifying. I think it's good that she does know me really well. She can tell and I also don't hide my ... I'm not great at hiding things and she was like, "Are you okay? Should I hire you somebody to help you set appointments?" "No, I'm fine. I'm fine. But you're overwhelmed. ""But yeah, but I can do it. " She's like, "I'm hiring you somebody." So she did and she brought on this great, great guy that he was from Alabama, had moved here. He was a CRM manager with a large leads team, real estate team, wasn't in the business as far as selling, but he's great on the phone and he's really organized and so he started receiving all the applications, helping me set the appointments and the other locations so that I could focus on the time I wanted to spend in each interview, which I get made fun of, but I'm at least an hour with everybody.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
I had somebody the other day that showed up and she sat down and she was a little emotional and I was like, "What's going on? " And she said, "I've been out in the parking lot and I realized that I'm sitting here and I wanted to get back in real estate, but my heart's telling me that I want to go to nursing school." I said, "Okay." And I sat there for an hour and a half and talked to her about nursing school and I loved it. I enjoyed my hour and a half with her. Some people think I'm crazy for that, but I enjoyed it and if she ever changes her mind, wants to come back into real estate, I hope she calls me. But anyway, but having that person in place to really help me with the organization and the systems and procedures helped me bring recruiting to the next level and then it's progressed from there.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Now fast forward, really all we were using was probably Indeed at that time. Now we have an applicant tracking system. I have two other recruiters in house that are helping source, respond, schedule everything for all of us. And we've grown the team as we've expanded and that's I think so important is to have faith that you are putting the people in place because it's going to be successful. So now we are, like I said, we're advertising on a lot of job boards. I think the biggest thing too that has really increased the level of recruiting and the amount of agents that have come to us that I think a lot of people overlook. We have a phenomenal director of marketing and the content she puts out and the culture that she really represents and she puts out there and shows people very organically draws people to want to come se what we're all about.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
So even though that's not necessarily a tangible thing all the time I'm getting people that are, I'm like, "Hey, let me show you our social media." And they're like, "Oh, we follow you already." Or, "Oh, we see that you are selling so many houses." And I have to give a lot of credit to our marketing department for that because the more you do and everything, the more that just naturally starts coming to you.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Really good. You covered a lot of ground there. I would love to go into the weeds on one thing applicant tracking system.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
How did you select it among the options and when did you know you needed it?

Speaker 3 (25:47):
Our full-time talent acquisition specialist that we hired a little over a year ago, she was not in the real estate field, but she comes from recruiting and we were so fortunate to get her and when she sat down and we're going through everything, she looked at me and she said, "Jacqueline, how do you not have an ATS?" And I said, "What's an ATS? What does that stand for? " She's like, "You don't have an applicant tracking system." And I said, "No, but I have a lot of really great spreadsheets and I'm going to share all of them with you. " She's like, "Okay." So I mean, we kind of joked about it, but she had just started dropping hints on me and says, "All right, we'll check some of these things out. " And so she had used one. I called them, I shopped around a little bit and I ended up selecting one frankly that was pretty simple and just did what we needed it to do.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
And no matter where the applications come from, whether they come from one of the job boards or they come from our website or it brings it all into one place and we can see who has talked to them, what stage they're in. Have you reached out? Have you responded? Have they responded? Have you had a phone screen? Have they been interviewed? So all of that really did, it had become very hard to keep that all in our heads and then communicate amongst each other. So now we have this central place that we go and it's been a game changer and we only implemented that not even six months ago. We did that in January of this year.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah. I mean, it's a pipeline again, just going back to the agent situations, it's a pipeline of different people you have different stages of conversation with and now I can go in and look at them. Okay. Whether someone comes in via an ad, which means I assume you're taking some folks who are new to the industry or looking to transition into the industry, or whether it comes from a co-broke situation or another agent referral, what does that process look like? How many interviews are you doing before you offer or what kind of variation might be in that process?

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Sure. When we get applications, like I said, our team will respond and reach out. A lot of people apply for real estate jobs. A lot of people without real estate licenses apply for real estate jobs. So there's a lot of weeding out. They'll weed those out and they will reach out to the people that have the qualifications, which is really in the beginning. We don't hire everybody with a license and a pulse, but we'll respond to everybody with a license and hopefully a pulse. So we will do that initial reach out and then they'll phone screen those applicants. And there are sometimes some things that they'll say, "We're not sure that you're going to be a great fit." Most of the time though, they'll schedule an in- person interview. We think the in- person interviews are extremely important. I will do a virtual interview. I don't love that.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
I'm a big believer in reading energy. I could interview everybody for every location, but I really want them to go to the office to get a feel for the energy in the office, to meet with the leaders, see if they vibe. But that team, my team will schedule those interviews and the in- person interviews are almost always with me unless I'm unavailable. We do have some backup and we'll go through that interview. I know pretty much right away if I think they'll be a good fit every now and then I'll say if I'm unsure, and I guess this is where my daughter tells me I can be an oversharer, but here it goes.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
If I'm unsure, I'll say, "You know what? I'll reach back out or reach back out to me if you have any other questions and maybe we can touch base next week." And sometimes I'll do that a litle bit as a test to see how bad they want it and if they do reach out to me and I will intentionally not follow up sometimes if I'm just not sure if they really want it and are willing to put the work in. So that's one thing that I think sometimes we don't, like I said, always hire everybody, but that's what that looks like. And like I said, my team will schedule interviews with the other leaders and there's some follow up sometimes involved, sometimes there's a second interview. That's usually if we want to hire somebody, that's usually if they're interviewing with other firms as well and we just need to do a great job of a follow-up email inviting them to upcoming events that we have.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Hey, I know you don't want to just talk to me. My job is to get a great agent like you to come work for us at Navigate. So why don't you come to our team meeting? Why don't you come to this training we have tomorrow? How about you listen into this Zoom call we have tomorrow afternoon? Turn your camera off, put a fake name if you want to, but listen to what other agents say because I want you to hear it from other people too. We really, really want you. And making sure that if you really do want an agent, letting them know why, letting them know what it is about them that you do really, really like and appreciate and what it is about them that makes you believe that they would be a good fit for you.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
So you're doing all the interviews in Raleigh and you love to do them in person. Are you traveling to any of the ... What I'm doing is kind of moving into like multiple market situation like A, what is your role and your team's role in maybe helping build one of those brand new markets out and how involved are you personally and directly, like physically in person in any of these other markets?

Speaker 3 (31:04):
I would love to do that. You'll have to ask Tiffany that question. Okay.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
No, I mean, I think that's definitely something that we see happening more of in the future, especially now that we have built a team that really can cover for interviews here for me. Our marketing director is amazing at interviews. She actually covered one for me yesterday and I think she's, knock on wood, she's like three for three and hiring people that she interviewed. I'm like, "Okay, girl, let's not try to completely replace me here." Luckily she's really good at what she does and so I think we're okay. But yeah, I would love to go to our other markets and sometimes it's a little hard to schedule that. Okay, we're going to have all interviews in Charleston on Thursday or all interviews

Speaker 3 (31:50):
In Myrtle Beach on Monday. It's a little bit more fluid than that sometimes, but I'm excited. I'm going to be traveling to Nashville. We're going to be launching in Nashville soon. So I'm excited to travel there and meet with some new agents, potentially some interviews. So yeah, I think that that's definitely down the road. Our headquarters here in Raleigh is so fast paced and such our growth is so rapid and we're usually bringing on, I would say an average of 15 give or take, sometimes more than 20 agents a month in this location. It's a lot to handle there. But yeah, I mean, I think as we grow, my team will continue to grow and we'll put those plans in place.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
How do you get that type of momentum? I mean, it's obviously not just a bunch of cold calls. What I'm thinking about here is a team leader who's been growing, they want to continue growing in terms of agent count in a healthy way and they've only been growing at this point through personal referrals, like agents are introducing people or they're running into people. It's been like really kind of casual and organic to date. You've already laid out some of the blocking and tackling, but like from that stage to where you are, where you're bringing in on to two dozen agents a month, I assume that there's like a momentum dynamic there too. It's not just like pound the phones and we'll fill this place up. It begets itself. I heard a little bit about marketing, but like any other pieces that you think are key to your momentum right now?

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah. I mean, I despise cold calling and I know that's not a popular thing to say in real estate. It's just not my thing. I get nervous. I mean, I am so much better in a regular conversation without being like, "Sorry to bother you. " Even if I do reach out to somebody, I will text them first and say, "Is it okay if I call you right now?" Everybody has their own personal preference there, but I would say for teams or firms or anybody that wants to grow and wants to have that kind of momentum, you have to really start with the core. You have to build something that people want to be a part of. I could be the best recruiter in the world and not be able to do what I do here because what if people heard that we weren't a great place to work or what if our agents weren't successful?

Speaker 3 (34:23):
One of the best things that the best compliments that I've received lately is an onsite agent came in and interviewed with me and I was like, "Well, tell me how you heard about us." I always ask that question and they said, "I've been onsite." And as an onsite community, people really talk about how Navigate agents are so happy and they're so knowledgeable. And I'm like, "Oh, I love you. You just made my whole day." So you have to build something that people want to come to and if you're struggling with recruiting, then maybe look at what is your value proposition? What am I giving people that other people aren't giving them? Why do I want people to join my team? What are they going to get out of it? And you have to be so confident in that. So I joke that my job is easy and it's not always easy, but the easy part is selling something that I believe in.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
So make sure you really believe in what you are selling and build something where people would really feel appreciated. And if you do that, then the recruiting part, people will come to you and go, "Hey, I've heard about you. Can you tell me a little bit about joining your team?" So that comes in time and it does build with momentum and it's easier to do that in an office of 200 now than it is maybe in one of our expansion offices that only has 20 agents right now, but it does become a snowball effect if you keep those core values in mind.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah. I think one of the things that I heard in that is that, and one of the things I've said a number of times in having conversations around recruiting is that ultimately it is about proof of efficacy. It's one thing to have all the right things to say to someone. You do some discovery, you figure out where they are and where they want to go, but having that story in your pocket of, "Oh, I can think of three agents who we took from where you are to where you want to go. Here's this person and here's how we did that and here are the two or three things they needed from us or whatever." So stories, it's essentially proof of efficacy like this has worked before and it will work for you too. And I think when you have 200 agents, you probably have more stories in your pocket than when you have 20.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
You

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Absolutely do. And I'm so glad that you mentioned that as well. I do think that part of the success here in our headquarters and it does obviously bleed into the other locations as well, is I think one of the best decisions Tiffany made was not necessarily hiring me though, but hiring somebody that is local and in the office. So I see and hear and I'm a part of everything. I sit in on the leadership meetings, I sit in on our office meetings, I know what's going on. I know the success stories, I know the challenges. I've been in the market. I also have the real estate experience. So when somebody comes to me and they're like, "What does it look like? " I can tell them what it looks like. I can tell them the good, the bad, the ugly and tell them what I think that they would be capable of.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
But I do think that sometimes I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing to have a third party recruiting. I think that those are really great for firms that don't have any other options, but I think her taking the risk of bringing somebody like me in and saying, "I have faith that this will pay off." And just taking that chance, it's so much more personal to have somebody that really understands the culture and can speak to it as your recruiter and somebody that's in the office and can tell those stories and can speak to those questions that they have instead of just reading from a script. I think that that is really, really important to have if you truly want a lot of growth.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, I love that. Any other advice around when, again, speaking to a team leader who doesn't have a Jacqueline or Similar or any of the other folks on your team who are doing appointment setting, et cetera, when should a team leader have a full-time recruiter? Any tips for someone who's wondering whether they should create a position like yours was three years ago? I

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Think it's when they are ready to have the faith in themselves that this is my goal and so this is how I'm going to reach it. So again, relating it right back to real estate sales, right? What do you do when you want to get into real estate? You pay for the classes, you pay for your association, you pay for CE, you get an MLS, you put money into marketing, maybe you buy leads. So if your goal is to sell 20 houses in your first year, you're going to have to spend money to make money and you have to have the faith in yourself and you have to have the confidence in yourself that I'm going to hit this goal and I'm going to invest in myself to do that. And it's the same thing with a real estate firm or real estate team. I'm going to invest in this team because I know that this is what it's going to take to get to the point of having 30 agents.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
The reality of it is that so many team leads or CEOs or what branch leaders or whatever that looks like, if they're actually out in the field selling houses still, that's going to take up the majority of their time.You just don't have that focus and you can't be 100% at everything, right? I mean, the pie is only so big. And so if you have somebody that's truly just focused and their goal is to just recruit great agents, make it incentive based. I mean, I'll tell anybody, I could never live off of my base salary. I've been in commission sales my whole life. I'm fine with that. I can't believe I even have one now, but I love incentive base. I love the fact that I get rewarded for results. And so bring somebody on that you're just rewarding for results. Maybe somebody that is interested in real estate too, but maybe bring you on one of the agents that you have now say, "Hey, I'm going to give you a bonus for every really great agent.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
I need you to help me recruit." Maybe start that way, but have it be somebody that's in the office that knows you, knows your culture and have the confidence in yourself and your goals that I know that I need to invest in this to have the result that I want.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Anything you've learned in the past three years that you wish you knew when you started with regard to the process or the conversation or a way to really get, not the truth in terms of people like obfuscating the truth or lying or anything, but like to really get to the heart of the matter and whether or not this is going to work, like anything you've developed for yourself or observed maybe in some of your team members that would help someone be more effective at intentionally and actively recruiting?

Speaker 3 (40:50):
The first thing that comes to mind that I've changed over the last three years is I'm much more ... I've never been dishonest, don't get me wrong, but I'm much more transparent about how hard this business is because when you jump in, especially people that are jumping in from a full-time salaried position or they've saved up X amount of money and I've learned how to kind of see some patterns and see some things that I say, "You know what? " I can say now confidently, "I don't think you're ready or I can say now confidently, I don't think that with your current schedule, you're going to find the success that you need." And I don't know, I think three years ago I just didn't know what I didn't know when it comes to this, but like if somebody comes on, comes and interviews with me and they say, "Oh, well, I've got this job, but as soon as I sell like three or four houses, I'm going to leave it and go jump in full-time." And what I say now is, "Well, I just need you to know that if you have another obligation, you're not going to be able to answer your phone, you're not going to be able to come to our trainings.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
So therefore, when you show up to a client, you are not going to know what's going on in the market, you're not going to be able to be the best agent for them, and are you okay with that? " And what I've gotten better at is I used to probably, I would have thought that that might be mean or not friendly to say that to them, but now I know that I'm doing them a favor and opening up their eyes that this is not HGTV. Real estate is hard and frankly in a balanced market that we're getting back into right now, it kind of has been easy for the last five, six years as far as on a buyer side of things, well, seller side and buyer side, depends on what side of the market you're on, but right now our job is more important but it is harder to do and so I like to really spell that out and I don't know that I did that as well in the beginning where I say, "Okay, I really think that you need to ... I know you want to join today, but I think you need to really think about what we talked about because I think that it may be a struggle for you until you change your schedule.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Maybe you should save up another few thousand dollars and then jump in full time because I do feel like you're going to find that it's harder than you think. " I don't know if that really answered your question, but that's one thing that's changed a lot about how I've been a little bit more blunt with what this looks like.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Yeah. And one of the things I heard kind of as a theme in there is not exclusively, but it is this time in the seat. I mean, you mentioned your dedication to spending the time in these conversations and these interviews and like an important aspect of what you just shared there comes from that time in the seat, from that time in those conversations and it can't be hacked or jump cut or skipped in any way. It really is something that needs to develop for each person who's having these conversations.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah. I mean, sometimes I think I do think that real estate gets a very rose-colored glass look, rose-colored glasses look from the general public sometimes and you go and you get your real estate license and you think you're, "I'm going to sell lots of houses while I'm working eight to five." And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. What are you going to do if there's a deadline and there's a $10,000 deposit on the line and you can't leave your office or you can't leave your classroom or whatever that looks like. And it's a hard thing. I don't want to crush anybody's dreams and sometimes I feel like I am, but I also don't want them to make this huge decision because I wasn't honest with them about what that looks like. I love it. It's not impossible to do sometimes in these situations, but I feel better about their decision that they're making and even especially if they're going to join us if we have a lot of those honest conversations upfront before we invest in them.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yeah. Just another call back to the beginning of like a lot like an agent, there's a fiduciary ... I mean, you don't have it technically, I don't think, but like accepting some form of a responsibility for them making good, safe, healthy decisions for mutual benefit. And sometimes that means, no, let's not proceed. I know. Just like sometimes you have to say, "You know what? Maybe now isn't the time for you to sell or maybe now isn't the time for you to buy." It's the same thing in this scenario. I really appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be the one that somebody looks at and says, "Well, she convinced me to do this and now I'm $10,000 in credit card debt and I can't pay my rent and da, da, da, da, because I made these decisions." And so it's not my place to tell somebody what to do, but I do have those deep dive conversations with them because I want them to be set up for success and however that looks like, that could look like, let's join today, don't waste any more time, you are ready or let's have a plan for the next three months because I want you to be successful and I think these are the steps you need to take to do that if you want to do that here.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Really good call. I mean, brand is what speaks for us before we actually speak to somebody and brand in a very fundamental way is reputation and reputation is built conversation by conversation, habit by habit and through positive word of mouth. Jacqueline, this has been an absolute pleasure. I have three pairs of closing questions You can answer one or the other and some people like to do both and you're welcome too. And the first one is, what is your very favorite team to root for or what is the best team you've ever been a member of besides Navigate and it doesn't have to be a real estate team.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Favorite team to root for is going to be whatever team my kids are on. I actually, my daughter is a phenomenal volleyball player and she's going into college now so she's hung up her knee pads, but my Apple Watch actually used to like alert a medical emergency whenever during these tournaments. I would try to talk myself down-

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Because your heart rate's so elevated?

Speaker 3 (47:07):
Oh my gosh. Volleyball games are intense, by the way. And we traveled all over the country with her and it was so wonderful. But I'm telling you, I am a huge, huge cheerleader from my kids and so whatever they're doing, I'm on the sidelines cheering them along. But yeah, I would really get into those volleyball games.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah. Well done. What is one of your most frivolous purchases or what's a cheapskate habit you hold onto even though you don't need to anymore?

Speaker 3 (47:34):
Okay. I would say I have something, I'm actually pretty frugal. I really am. However-

Speaker 1 (47:42):
I felt there was a butt coming.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Because of my frugalness, I love clothes. I love shopping for clothes. So I discovered these clothing rental, monthly rental subscriptions and I thought I was being really frugal, but now I subscribe to many of them. I feel like I have a new wardrobe every month. I love my clothing subscriptions. I mean, I do newly, I do Fashion Pass. I'm about to do a third one. I tell other people about them. I've got a referral code and I just love getting a whole new box of designer clothing or two or three to my house. So it started as something that I was like ... I told my husband, I'm saving so much money. I've got five, six designer dresses every month for less than $100. And now I'm like spending a couple hundred dollars a month because I'm getting 20 new outfits every month. So I probably need to scale that back, but I guess in a way that has become what I'm indulging in at the same time.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
That's funny. I've of course asked this 160, 170 times and I don't know that I've gotten a cheap skate habit that's turned into something borderline frivolous. No, I'm

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Living a double life, Ethan.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
That's so good. What does it look like? What are you doing when you're investing time in learning, growing, and developing? Or what are you doing? What does it look like when you're investing time in resting, relaxing, and recharging?

Speaker 3 (49:08):
Okay. So there's an ort on this one. So I love listening to podcasts, real estate podcasts. So yeah, I like to soak all that up. Again, I mentioned this earlier. I really like knowing what's going on in the industry. I've served on a lot of different boards and networks and things like that. So I really enjoy being abreast of everything going on in our industry. I like being the go- to person in our office when people have questions about it. So I'm a big fan of podcasts. And for what it's worth, the same is for the second. I know you told me to pick one, but I love listening to true crime podcasts also. So that's probably what I'm doing when I'm relaxing and recharging. I'm probably listening to Dateline or some kind of murder podcast or something like that. So that's my fiction as well, but I'm in the car a lot and so I love podcasts.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
I need to listen to more music again. I've really become a litle bit of a podcast junkie.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, me too. I found myself backing away from music a little bit because once you open the door to it, there's so many. And just like you, there's some I listen to for fun and interest and engagement and entertainment. And then I probably listen to about five to seven real estate related podcasts kind of in rotation. I don't think there's a single podcast I listen to every episode of, but it really has eaten into my music listening and I have like this internal debate about it.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
I know. I love music. My dad was a realtor and a musician. We had jam sessions in my house every weekend. I love music. I love concerts and everything, but when I'm in my car, man, I'm learning or listening to something that is some kind of mystery I can solve or something like that. So yeah, big fan of those. Always looking for new ones as well.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Cool. We'll need to swap notes after this on which ones we like best because we're not going to do that in no recorded setting. However, if other folks want to connect, if someone wants to learn more about Navigate, someone maybe is in one of the markets that you're serving and wants to have that conversation or someone just wants to connect with you and talk recruiting, where would you send someone who has enjoyed this conversation?

Speaker 3 (51:24):
Yeah, sure. We have a great website, navigaterealty.com. We actually, as far as recruiting, I think it's really important and we have it as well, that we have joinnavigate.com and that'll send you directly to my team. You can aply for a role there. My phone number is pretty out there everywhere as well on these sites as well. I've got a landing page on Navigate Realty as well. So yeah, I'm happy to talk to anybody that wants to pick my brain or talk about an opportunity here and I love learning from others as well.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this. For folks watching and listening, if you've enjoyed this and you want to go deeper, again, episode 84 with Tiffany Williamson and you could subscribe at realestateteamos.com/subscribe and get instant access to all of our subscriber only episodes, including a 90-minute workshop that Jacqueline actively contributed to. Jacqueline, thank you so much and have a great rest of your day.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Thanks for checking out this episode of Team OS. Get quick insights all the time by checking out Real Estate TeamOS on Instagram and on TikTok.