Speaker 1 (00:00):
What do you do when your top agents start thinking about starting their own teams? Keegan Siegfried opens the books, P&Ls, hiring and firing budgets and reserves to show them what building a team really takes. Most agents realize they don't want to do it, but a few who have become expansion market leaders with him. Here in this conversation, you'll learn how a leadership training program helped take Paramount Home Group from 15 agents in one market to 175 agents across five markets over the past three years. Keegan breaks down the original vision for leadership training, the centralized operations model supporting five markets, the J-curve of scaling that every team leader needs to understand, the race to 200 value proposition that graduates agents from lead dependents and what it really takes to add mortgage, insurance, and title to your operation. It's time to learn with Keegan Siegfried right here on Real Estate Team OS.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
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 (01:12):
Keegan, congratulations on your success over the past dozen years or so. I'm really excited to get into what you've built and how you've built it and where you're going. Welcome to Real Estate Team OS.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, thanks, man. Happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's really cool what you're doing, and I'm particularly interested in centralized versus decentralized as you expand into other markets and things, but we're going to start where we always do, which is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. What comes to mind for you?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Coachability. Coachability and work ethic. Yeah. Those two stick out to me the most, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
And is that something you're looking for as you're ... I mean, I assume you're not doing all of the recruiting at this point, but maybe you are. How have you screened for that over the years?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I started out as being the guy who was guessing. I think this person's going to be good. I think this person's not going to be good. And I found out that I was wrong too often. We can get fooled in interviews. Some people are really good at interviewing and end up not being hard workers or whatever the case may be. Some people are bad at interviewing and do really well. And so we started to make our criteria, are you full-time? And let our onboarding process basically be our selection process. So we can kind of really see what happens once they're in here.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah. That feels like the approach I hear from most people for some of the reasons you've described, but there are kind of like two camps here. A little bit. I'm overgeneralizing, obviously. But there are people that are like, let's bring in a whole bunch of people and if 20% of them make it great. And then there are other people that are like, "We're just going to make the bet and let the system sort them out, " but they wind up having, say, a 50 or a 60 or a 70% stick rate. Do you identify more with either of those polls?

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, I would say the second one for sure. I wouldn't say bring on anybody. Yeah. Again, we have some certain criteria. We're not looking for part-timers. We're not looking for people just to hang their license. We're not necessarily looking for everybody who wants to do 30, 40, 50 deals a year because everybody's got their own definition of success and we want to help them hit that, but we do have minimum standards that we look for.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Any other standards in terms of staying on the team? I'm getting way ahead of myself. Yeah, no, you're good. Any other standards in terms of you miss these things once on a 90-day rolling basis, we're having a conversation, you miss them twice, we're having a more serious conversation, you miss it again and you're out. Do you have any hard performance standards in terms of activities or outcomes?

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah. I think the first two things that come to mind that are most prominent would be number one, culture.That is not really that measurable KPI, but you can feel if somebody is not the right fit. I have let go of people who I would consider not the right fit as probably the PC way to say it. And they were producers. And it's every time that happens, you kind of get worried like, "Ah, man, are we letting go of a producer? Are we making the right decision?" And every single time what we see is more agents start to produce and they're walking around with smiles on their faces. You see some people hanging out with them over here, but once they're gone, now they're actually walking around with a pep in their step. You don't realize how much somebody can be an anchor on somebody and anchor in a bad way, not a good way.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
And then obviously we do have a philosophy. We are either going to produce or we're going to work towards producing. So if we're not producing or working towards producing and we get to a PIP, that performance improvement plan, it's still not there, sometimes it's just not the right fit and we just have to accept that. While we want everybody to be friends and it be sociable and fun, we're not running just a social club.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
When did team occur to you? What was going on in your real estate business when you're like ... I've heard two stories here. One is like, "I think I need to bring some people around me because everything's just crazy." Or, "Oh my gosh, it looks like I kind of have a team." So people just look up and they're like, "Oh, I have three people around me. " How'd that go for you?

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah. So I was what I would consider a big producer in my early 20s. I had a mentor who kind of gave me that double doctorate in real estate and I actually parted ways with him over split, believe it or not, the thing that I hate to talk about, but he wouldn't pay me more than 30% even on myself gen after four years and 200 transactions. And I'm like, "Okay, there's got to be a better way. I'm worth more than that, man, especially at that production." And so I ended up going off on my own and not starting a team, but what ended up happening when I was at a big red franchise, people started coming up to me in the market center and they started asking me, "Will I train them?" And so I started bringing them with me on appointments the same way I was trained.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
And then it started happening more and I'm like, "Wait a second, I actually might have something here." And then it was kind of that small, figure it out as you go team. And then when I made the transition to our current brokerage at LPT, I was lucky enough to have RP as my mentor, Robert Palmer, really take me under his wing. I was actually the first team to ever go to LPT, which is kind of wild. So I believed in it from the beginning, but he taught me scale, he taught me vision and he made me realize that we have something special. I just need to wrap my brain around scaling it. And so that's where we really started to blow up.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
So you started the team inside that market center. Was it agents first? Did you have an admin at that point? What did the early phase look like and how did you manage your way into some success?

Speaker 3 (07:07):
So believe it or not, I started with my first mentor as the driver/assistant. And so my first agent was a driver/assistant and in training to be a realtor. And then that's how we rinsed and repeated that process a couple times. Then I realized you can't scale that, at least not by myself without multiplying myself. So it was kind of always been a leads model, but the first assistant wasn't until probably six months in. And again, like any first hire, most of the time it's not ... I had no idea what I was hiring for. And I just knew somebody told me I should have an assistant. And so each hire I've made after that has ... I knew what I wanted a little bit more. My executive assistant today does everything for me. She is a right hand to me from a personal and professional support standpoint, almost my gatekeeper, so to speak, in a sense.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
But yeah, that first hire was not your traditional hire your assistant first. It was hire a trainee and train them to be a realtor.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah. Your executive assistant is amazing, has been very helpful in making this happen, for example. I'm sure she does a zillion other things. Yes. Tell me a little bit about before and after joining LPT. I mean, you obviously spoke really well about what that mentorship experience meant to you, like learning some of the real important principles of building something meaningful and valuable and successfully scaled. What were the earliest days? And then bring us up to what Paramount Home Group is today.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
At that market center, they're all run different, right? So you can't put them all in a box. But I just found that they started to stall my growth. They get in the way of certain things that was unnecessary. Recruiting within the market center was now frowned upon. So it just became a roadblock instead of wind in the sales and-

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Sorry to interrupt, but so for example, if someone was like, "Oh my gosh, Keegan is awesome and I like the two people that you spend a lot of time with. I identify with them. I want to join him." And it's like, no.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah. I had to go ask for permission. I wasn't allowed to be in certain trainings anymore because I would ask good questions where agents would look back instead of four. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It became a thing. And while they have a mindset of wanting to build a team there, I think if you build too big of a team and become more powerful than the market center itself, it starts to get ... They don't want that kind

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Of leverage.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Sure. And so I started looking for two years. I knew I wanted to leave. And again, I still have great relationships there, so nothing against them. But I did my rounds of interviewing what's best for my people. Every decision I make has to be in the best interest of the collective. I strongly believe that. And I almost went indie to believe it or not. And then-

Speaker 1 (09:59):
A lot of people do.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah. And then I got connected with Robert Palmer. I'll never forget the first meeting. Actually, before I met with him, his VP reached out to me after talking with me a couple weeks prior. He's like, "Hey, we'd really love to have you. " I'm like, "Hey, man, if he wants to talk to me so bad, why doesn't he just reach out himself?" Next morning, RP texts me at August of 22. I'll never forget it. And so I meet him that night and you guys know how LPT has ... One of their claims to fame is their box, the listing power tools box. And funny story that we get to laugh about now, I told him to his face in his clubhouse in his neighborhood, "Your box is effing stupid." And we joke about it now, and then come full circle. Now I have this guy as my mentor.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
I spent many hours with him before I came on board to make sure that everything he was telling me wasn't just BS. He really has taken me under his wing. And I think there's a part of the reason for it is because he knows that I'm willing to pass down what he's given me. And that's a big motivation for me as well.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, that's great. Okay. So approximate team size in 2022 and where are you today? And just give a snapshot of, I don't know if you call it PhD, that's kind of what I've been internally. No,

Speaker 3 (11:25):
For sure. PhD.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah. What is it today? The markets you serve, size, structure, culture, whatever you want to share.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah. So back in 22, when we started that journey with LPT, we were 15 agents all in Tampa. And now fast forward once, what, a little over three years now, 175 agents in five markets. And so I want to be careful about trying to get lost in numbers on that too. Sure, of course. And for any listeners that I'm sure you've ever had in the circles you run in, you kind of go through this evolution of talking gross numbers, right? You talk about gross deals, then you talk about gross commissions, and then you talk about gross agents, and it's almost like this badge of honor. So I want to make sure that while that many agents is not necessarily commonplace, we take a lot of pride in the success and the trajectory of our agents. I think that's the bigger piece for us, right? How many lives can we actually change versus just recruiting to say an agent number?

Speaker 1 (12:28):
The other way that we have that kind of subconversation is, what are we actually doing here? We're not here to grow top line. We're here to grow bottom line, so why are we obsessing with the top line?

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yep. Yeah, exactly. Show me the bottom number.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yep. Talk about those five markets. So you started in Tampa, market expansion comes up, as you would imagine, more regularly now than it did say two and a half years ago when I was just getting this thing going. I feel like it's something that a lot more people are kind of working on and doing. And so like I always like with someone like you who's made it into multiple other markets, including outside the state of Florida, talk a little bit about when, why, how, a little bit, and then we'll maybe generalize a little bit to things you would never do again and/or things you'll do next time should the opportunity make sense to you and how does that opportunity make sense? So I know that was like a giant bundle of directions you could go, but just start wherever you'd like with market expansion.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah. So it happened by accident. RP had, again, put it in my ear about expanding beyond my own market while going deeper in the market, but still expanding. And I think there's an enterprise value to that as well. Again, thinking that long term out of my box type thing. And actually next Tuesday, I got to say this, next Tuesday is the three year anniversary of the first expansion. And when I tell you this woman was not the right fit on paper, I don't know if I would even do it again. Again, if it was her, absolutely, but she was less than a year in the business for just over a million dollars in volume. And no one would ever think, go start an expansion with that person. But I got off stage at LPT at the first annual conference and I was like, "Hey, would love to meet everybody.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
If you see me in the hall, come say hi." And that was the first time where it was kind of awkward. I had a line of people waiting to say hi and this girl cut the line and I kind of respected that a little bit. And so her and I ended up scheduling lunch. We got lunch and initially she asked me if I would coach her and she was in a different market. And I'm like, "You know what? " I had this little bug in my ear, RP's whispering and we kind of just threw it together over a couple lunches and now she's running a very, very, very profitable business out. She's got two offices now in Stuart and West Palm Beach. So she runs that kind of whole territory. Then the next two, so that was March of 23. Then October of 24, we launched the next two at the same time, Orlando and Miami.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
And then May of 25 was Chicago, which that was just a planet's aligning type thing. That was not, "Hey, I want to go to Chicago." I believe that you don't, in my opinion, you expand with the right leader. The leader is the harder thing to replicate. And you can take the system all day long and plan it anywhere you want to be. If you have the wrong leader, you're going to get hurt, right? And it was homegrown talent.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
My partnership with Zillow came to me and said, "Hey, you're crushing it. Would you like to expand into another market again?" And they gave me a list. Chicago was number two on the list for opportunity. And this guy had come to me who happened to be in my leadership training program and said, "I'm from Chicago. I want to go to Chicago one day." And sure enough, a couple months later, this opportunity arises. I'm like, "Hey, guess what? " And so it's amazing how things happen, man.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah. So we're going to get into the leadership training program, but I want to stay here for a few minutes at least. I want to go back to the beginning where Robert is in your ear about like, "Hey, this is something you should be thinking about. " What did he see and/or what did you start to understand about your own business that made it made sense to take the guts of what you're doing and plant it somewhere else? And what I'm asking here is on behalf of someone who's wondering, do I have the foundation to take what I have and plant it somewhere else? What did you see or understand or what did he see and understand that made that made sense at the time, even though he did take a risk with a very new person? Yeah. But set that piece aside. What was foundational to your business that was going to make replicating it or kind of like keeping the guts of it in Tampa while running these aspects of it in Stuart or West Palm?

Speaker 1 (17:04):
What was going on for you at that point that was like, "Yeah, I think I can do that.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
" Well, first off, I'd love to be a fly in the wall and watch him answer that question on what he saw, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Text him, I'll host him just

Speaker 3 (17:16):
FYI. I'm sure he would do it. But yeah, man, I think he saw the desire for leadership. He saw the ... I would think I have a sense of selflessness. I had an entrepreneurial spirit. He saw that when I met him, I already had a couple ancillaries going. He knew my work ethic. I think we spent enough time together where he started to learn my character and he's built a big business even before LPT. So he understood vision and enterprise value and things like that and long-term success. And he might tell you, he saw a little bit of himself in me. I think he's told me that once or twice. Obviously, I'm not anywhere close to his level, but I think he was willing to at least bet on me from his time standpoint and him giving me that direction. And you know what? How many things do we try and fail?

Speaker 3 (18:12):
But it's not a fail. We try and learn and tweak, right? But I think he saw I was willing to try versus plan to plan to plan to never really take action. I'm going to go do it. And I think he knew I was willing to go do it.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, that's great. Tell me, we don't need to spend a lot of time on this, but I just want to close the gap on Miami and Orlando. Were those both like, again, I have a leadership opportunity and was it someone from Tampa going there kind of like Chicago or was it, "I met someone in Miami and we see eye to eye and this is going to be the thing."

Speaker 3 (18:47):
Man, no. It's funny, again, I'm going to go back to RP on this because he put it in my ear. He's like, "You can train people to go do that. " I'm like, "Yeah, it's going to be hard because I don't trust people in another market when you just meet them, even though I've already done it. " It's tough to really know who you're getting into business with. And he's like, "I had this disbelief or limiting belief that people wouldn't move to a different market." And he, again, to his credit, he put that in my head and sure enough, both Miami and Orlando were started from somebody in our leadership training group here in Tampa.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Last one, then we're going to the leadership training program because it's obviously foundational to your success. I think it's really clever. Obviously, I've talked with a ton of people that do great agent training, but I haven't specifically heard this. I'm going to teach people what I've learned about building and running a team so that one day they can build and run a team, maybe with me, maybe not with me. But last question here with regard to market expansion, what is centralized and still in HQ in Tampa and what happens locally? I assume everyone's on the same tech stack, for example. I assume that billing is all centralized, but give a snapshot of that in terms of people, roles, systems, whatever.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Yeah. So almost all of our staff is central. We do have in- office staff. We haven't fully bought into the virtual yet, although we're on a virtual call right now. But yeah, it is really cool to see that we can operate centrally in one location. I think obviously COVID learned a lot, taught everybody a lot of things about that. The responsibilities in market, in person, they all have their own physical location. I do believe in office space. I do believe in agents feeling they have ownership of a physical space. That collaboration center, so to speak, the market leaders or what I would call regional vice presidents, I think I like better than just team leader. I think it's a little more saturated today than it probably ... I wish it was. But yeah, they're really responsible for driving sales, driving culture. So I'm going to give shout out to Chuck Town Homes, Jeremy Wilson and Brandon.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
They are culture keepers, they are lead managers, and they are recruiters. They're kind of those things that drive revenue and happiness, so to speak.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Leadership training. What was going on for you when you were like, "I'm not just going to teach agents how to achieve their goals or exceed their goals. I'm not just going to teach them all these little things that help me increase my conversion at every stage of the process or stay in touch with clients more effectively. I'm going to teach them how to run a team." When did this occur to you and what were the first steps?

Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, so it actually was an accident, what it turned into today. Shocking, right? It actually was born out of retention.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
I am a big believer in the old Richard Branson saying, "Train them up to where they can leave you, treat them so well where they don't want to. " But what I started to realize, and this was back that 20 to 30 agent range, we started to get some productive agents who said, you could start to see in their heads that like, "I think I can do this too." And the failure rate to running and scaling teams profitably is probably even worse than the failure rate just for your real estate agent, right? We see that all the time. So it was born out of retention, right? There were a couple of agents that raised their hand and said, "Hey, I think I can do this. " And so I said, "You know what? I'll give you a peek behind the curtain. You see all sunshine and rainbows.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Let me show you what actually this is. " And that's how it was born. And then it became something to where it was like, wait a second, there are some people. And it did weed out some people too. I remember there's a couple people that I can think of that they had that idea and now they're definitely not running teams, right?

Speaker 1 (22:57):
That's an important part of it. That is one of the two ideal outcomes.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah. And the other outcome is, let me show you all the bad, let me show you the hiring, let me show you the firing, let me show you the accountability meetings, the performance improvement plans, let me show you the operational expenses, right? So they've gotten to see budgets, right? They've gotten to see how much money we're spending a month on email addresses, like the things that you don't think about. And then we get to use instances and happenings that you wouldn't think about running a business. And all the things that I'm sure any business owner has ever gone in with a plan and then some crazy stuff happened and they're like, "Wait a second, that wasn't in the playbook." Now I get to share some of the inner workings with them as long as it doesn't affect anybody's privacy, but I want them to know all that.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
I want them to be prepared for the bad, the hard, because no matter what, us as business owners, we're going to have wins and losses every day, small or big, but you're not just winning. Hopefully you're not just losing, but if you're winning, I know you're getting your butt kicked a couple times, right? And so I want to prepare them for that.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah. I really appreciate that so much because I think like me, I'm assuming that you probably see teams as an important part of the future of the business and yet, as you already observed as well, there's a very significant failure rate or at a minimum, there are people that just, they get in the water and they're like in over their head right away and they don't know what to do about it. They either tear the team down or they struggle on or they burn it out or whatever the case may be. And I think normalizing and opening up more and more details, we're allowing people to like ... I don't know if you'll accept this, but like you're a relative giant, relative to people that started around the same time. And so we're just continuing to stand on the shoulders of giants, and I'm using that just because the term is familiar.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
I don't know if you identify with it anyway, don't strike me as the kind of people. It's like, yeah, that's me. But like that's what we need to do. If we want to advance any profession or practice or even passion or hobby, when you just think about like the coolest snowboarding tricks or the coolest skateboarded tricks, it's like someone learned as a six-year-old to do what it took you four years to learn. They watched the videos, they're doing it themselves and now when they're your age, they're going to be doing all kinds of cool additional new things. So anyway, that's just my long personal way to say I appreciate what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, man. And honestly too, I think when you go and you start building that team, and we all can attest to this, I'm going to give credit again to RP because this is his line. Starting a team is not a level up. You are choosing a different career path. And I think that is one of the biggest mistakes people make. I'm a good producer, now it's time for this, not even close. This is a whole new career path and I think people need to understand that. I think that's part of this too. And back to the, not to get too far down this rabbit hole, but back to the expansions, I've given them a safe place to build a team without almost any of the risk, right?

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Because they'll have access

Speaker 3 (26:15):
To you. Well, it's not just they have access to me, I'm the one fronting everything.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
And I'll be transparent where it is a shared P&L model, but they don't ever go negative. So even if the company goes negative, I am the one placing the big bets on them. I am going to bet on those leaders that I believe in. So it is a high reward, low risk situation that people can get in. And I just, I haven't seen that too often, if at all, around the country. So maybe this is a little different, and maybe I might get burned once or twice, but if I do it 10 times and I win seven, that's not bad.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
That's it. No, that's really good. Made me think like a baseball batting average, but that's cliche. So assume that someone watching or listening is early stage or maybe even just still team curious. They don't know if it's for them or not. You mentioned some of the ground that you cover, but maybe give like two or three or four tactical practical things that you are sharing with aspiring or early stage team leaders.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah. Number one is, you're running a business, reserves is a big thing, right? You got to be good with money. You can't just make it, you got to save it, right? And so you got to be ready to spend it. And I would say-

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Sorry, go one layer deeper there. What expenses are we looking to cover and how long should we be prepared to cover those? I mean, obviously more is better. Well, at a certain point, I mean, at some point it's dangerous not to put your capital to work as well, but I know it would depend by person and by market and by whatever, whatever. There are all these exceptions, but rough rule around that. What are you looking to cover for about how long?

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Well, I'm a big leads team. I always have been. So back in 2017, I went into this whole team building thing, or I left my mentor with about 70 grand saved up. So leads were a lot less expensive those days. Now they seem to be almost exclusive with invite only, right? But so you got to understand that. You got to understand agent churn, you got to understand sales funnels, sales pipelines. You might have been a quicker rise if you started in 2019 going into the COVID era with the low interest rates and high home sales. You started 23, 24 last year, this year, you might have a little bit more of a runway depending on the market, right? I think those are good things to look at. I am a big believer in hiring, right? You need to start learn to delegate and hiring costs money.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
And so people need to be paid salaries, don't be cheap on that.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
There is a good bit. And I would tell you too, there is a J curve that you go through, especially from lean and mean through that messy middle that we all talk about. And that J curve, you better be good at saving your money up until that point or always, but because that J curve hurts. I went through it. I remember in 23, as I was scaling, revenue went up, but I actually watched my bank account go down for a short period of time. And I'm like, wait a second. I remember having the conversation with RP November of 23. I'm like, "Bro, are you sure this is going to work? This isn't working right now." And he's like, "Yes, if everybody was profitable through scaling, everyone would do it. " And again, are you okay with taking a step back in lifestyle and making those sacrifices and risking your money and risking your time?

Speaker 3 (29:51):
And there's a chance that, like a lot of team leaders that try, you end up back at square zero. So yeah, having Deserves is a big thing. And having people to look up to, oh my God, I don't care where you're at. Don't try to reinvent the wheel too much. I traveled a lot in my years on going to different markets, different states, different team leaders that were doing it better than me. I still do it to this day and bring my notebook, ask questions and take the nuggets and go back and put it into play.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah. Two things here. One, one of the things I love about real estate is that most people will say yes. It's very open and very sharing even among direct competitors. I've always respected and enjoyed that because that's not been true in other zones that I've worked in. And then number two, I had a great conversation with Mike Schum on the show. I think it was episode 72 or so. I'm going to link that up down below in the description. J Curve is in that episode title, or I think it was like the hidden curve. He's talking about the J curve and he said, for a lot of people, it winds up being a skate ramp where they just go back and forth in the bottom of the J.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Bro, and I'm glad you brought that up because the first time I heard J curve was from Mike when I went out to a Sisu event and he was doing a quick coaching session in Spring's living room. And I'm in the back just peppering him with questions. I probably got annoying at that conference, but I remember that and it stuck with me and I'm like, "Oh, that's what happened."

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's good. He's such a chill and thoughtful and smart person. I'm sure he took all of it and just kept going. Again, I'll link that right up down below. Value prop. You mentioned your leads team. What was the value prop in say 2022 versus today? What are you doing for agents today versus what were you doing four or five years ago and how has that changed over time?

Speaker 3 (31:47):
I don't know if the goal or the vision has changed too much when it comes to the value prop. I want to make it so easy for agents to do transactions because I believe that after a certain number of transactions, you won't have to work leads anymore. And so I have this saying, it's called race to 200. That was kind of because I experienced it. I did it and I know it can be done because I did it at a younger age than most and I did it with way less back when we didn't have live connections. I didn't have a fricking CRM, man. I used paper as my CRM back in the day. I worked out of a fricking food court for four years. I'm dead serious. I'll never forget it. And let me make it as easy as possible so agents can do more deals as quickly as possible, make sure that they understand how to keep the relationships with their past clients.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Because at some point you got to think roughly 10% of your past client book is going to do repeat and referral business with you every year. If you just do the easy stuff, right? I mean, and at some point, if you take them out to dinner after closing, guess what's going to happen? That's a receipt. They're going to invite you to the birthday party and the wedding and the bachelor party, which is always fun. And they're going to do those things and you no longer have to sell yourself. You're already sold. And so that's how you continue to multiply. And so if I can get agents to do as many deals as quickly as possible and teach them how to do it at a really high level to where the clients are walking away wowed, not just where they almost become the cheerleader, so to speak,

Speaker 3 (33:21):
One day they won't have to work leads. They'll just have fun in business. And then that's where they get a decision in their business to say, "Do I want to continue to double down on my leads? Do I want to maybe take a step back, enjoy maybe a little bit of the societal work-life balance, but race to 200, get there." You can wake up January 1st every year knowing you're going to almost guarantee do 20 deals a year and at that point you're self-gen. And we created even a program where we have a hundred percent cap model on our team for agents. When they do get to a certain point when they're ready, they can graduate to it. It's not for the part-timer to hang their license. I want agents to graduate to that. And the percentage of our agents that is on that is not anywhere close where I want it to be, even though it's an option for them.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
I think they start to see that mission. They start to see their own vision. If I grind really hard and I work these leads and I do what I'm supposed to do, one day life is going to get easy and this business is actually going to get really fun.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah. Any other production-based incentives or milestones like 100%?

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Yeah, not really.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
I mean,

Speaker 3 (34:34):
Maybe tenure, the self-gen splits go up and stuff like that. We have, we call it PALS, Paramount Agent Leaders that we recently started. So I'm not going to sit here and tell everybody this works because we just started it, right? But what we found was I wanted our agents to have more of a voice and feedback, right? And sometimes feedback and complaints can get a little twisted. And so I really wanted our agents that were a good culture fit that we could do some piloting programs with to give us feedback. And so we have monthly meetings with them now to, "Hey, this is working. This isn't. If we tweaked it this way, if we tweak it this way." And so call it an advisory board, so to speak, because they're boots on the ground. And so we wanted to hear from them because essentially, in my world, agents are our clients.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah. Also, you have just a great acronym to work with, so that helps.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah. That's one of our pals right there. I can see him putting signs in his trunk to go list another house. That's exactly what's happening right now.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
That's awesome. If you are listening on Apple Podcasts, although we'll have video there pretty soon, we have video on Spotify, and of course we have video on YouTube and all that's embedded in the website. If you're not watching the video, it's fun just to look out Keegan's window as I have this whole episode and see one of the pals. You mentioned ancillaries, and it sounds like you got started early because I think you said back in 2022, you already had some of them going. So I mean, a number of directions to go here too, like when, why, how, ownership versus partnership, franchise or build your own. Give us a rundown on when this occurred to you and why.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
So my first ancillary was mortgage where most people it's title and title was actually my last one, which is wild to think. My first day on the job in real estate back in 2013, I think, my mentor started teaching me debt to income ratio. And I'm like, "Stu, this isn't real estate. Isn't this mortgage?" He goes, "No. If you don't know mortgage like the back of your hand, you're just like every other realtor." And it's a big part of our training and the way we talk to clients too. And that gave me that insight into mortgage. And so up until 2020, March of 2020, we all remember, I had MSAs as a team and it was very common and they all pulled out without telling me, right? Everybody pulled back spending money and I'm like, "You know what? Nevermind. I'm never going to go down that road again." And then I actually caught COVID in June of 2020.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
And so I quarantined myself away from my team. We're in Florida, so yes, our office was still open. We were actually the only people in our office for like a year and a half, but I stayed home for like two weeks and I got so bored, I started researching how to open up my own mortgage company. And within that two weeks, I ended up signing for a franchise on a mortgage brokerage. And it was a great decision, especially in that timeframe. I caught a wave of a refi boom to start, which didn't suck, but it wasn't for refis. I wanted it to be an ancillary. I wanted to keep it in house. And of course, like any business, you go through your pain points, but we've continued to evolve. And so we opened that 2020. I ended up buying an insurance franchise that's local to Florida after researching a bunch and testing it all out.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
I understand you have different comp models, pros and cons of each. And insurance is different than mortgage, right? Mortgage brokerage, all the lenders are calling you, please send us business. Insurance, not the same. Those carriers are like, "Hey, you better prove to us we're willing to write with you. " And so the franchise model was attracted to me there. And so we bought that 2021, and I say we as in me, and Open Doors March of 22, so we're now four years into that. And then title, I actually didn't do anything until April of 24, which is wild because again, I know that's people's first ancillary. And so we went through a great, great, great unseen comp model on title that unfortunately did not have the service that we really wanted, that our agents and clients expected. So we made a switch to a different company, different partnership.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
It is my only one that I don't own 100% of. It is a A- share B shared JV. Super happy with them, very excited for the continued growth. They're my kind of people because while they're not perfect, they enjoy solving problems and they're quick with solving problems and those are the type of partnerships I like.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Is this similar to opening up in a new market? Was it the right leaders? I mean, where did that fit in? I mean, obviously you get this idea like, "Oh, I think I could do mortgage," for example, let's start there. Like, "I think I could do this. This all kind of makes sense to me. "

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Over the years I've

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Learned- lessons from that experience

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Would be great. Oh my gosh, dude. I've had some really great people that have worked at my companies. A lot of them still work here today, but what I've learned some hard lessons on is just because you have the business to give to ancillaries, I am not going to be the leader, boots on ground, day-to-day ops inside those companies, and it takes an absolute badass to run those companies and spearhead them. And so I think now more than ever, we are so focused on bringing in top level talent. A players want to be with A players, and that's a real focus of ours, is bringing in people that will lead companies to a greater pasture.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
And that's obviously a completely different recruiting funnel. Well, I mean, you run together a little bit, but I mean, it's a whole different network of people. I mean, because I assume that most of the people in Tampa, for example, approximately know most of the people in Tampa in mortgage.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Yeah. It's been interesting over the years. Love the guy we have running it today. He's been a friend of ours. Thankfully, he's an RP descendant, so to speak. So he's got that resume and it's been nothing but great since he's been in. Our COO who runs all our companies, we hired in December. Well, you know what I said? I said, "You know what? Screw this. I'm going to hire a staffing agency that's designated to hire high level management executives because I didn't want to be that first stop. I didn't want to be the bias opinion. Let them filter it out. " And just absolutely found an A++ home run of a COO who can take over running staff meetings and who can hold our leadership accountable. And he has really moved our business forward even in the last couple months since he started.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
From a leadership team perspective, when we talk about PHG, do you tuck those kind of under? So for example, is there a leadership team with people that just happen to run this and someone runs that and someone runs this and someone runs mortgage? Do you run leadership together or do you run it somewhat independently in parallel?

Speaker 3 (42:12):
I would say somewhat independently in parallel, but what I did realize with that COO hire, I needed somebody to help me oversee and tie in all companies a little bit better. And while our offices are actually all in the same office, legally with the right locks and the right signage and stuff, which helps for sure. But I did need somebody who can hold this leader accountable and hold that leader accountable. And I can be that big visionary that I like to call myself a little bit of a tornado, that F5 that moves really fast and people behind me clean up. My staff likes to call it more of a bullet train that they keep me on the tracks, so I'm not so destructive because tornado sounds destructive, but I realized I needed operational excellence as I continue to push forward. And again, you look up at my mentorship with RP and seeing his corporate team and what he's built and how much they handle.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
If you're looking for examples of how to build a badass corporate team, I see it. I tell them that. I'm like, "Guys, you're an inspiration to me. I'm looking for another you here." And so you start to see how real businesses are run.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
Before I share my three pairs of closing questions with you, I would love to know any thoughts you have on the present and future of the model in real estate, of the team model in particular. In the dozen, 12, 13, 14 years you've been in it, that's really been the core years of growth of the team model, even though its roots are 30, 35 years deep-ish. Where do you think we are? Where do you think we're going? Is this like the dawn of a massive movement? Is this like, this is going to be a thing that's going to be a bit more influential in the future and why? Any thoughts you have on the future of the team model?

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah. I mean, I think what we've seen in this, what we would call a down market over the last couple of years, right? I think we've seen a lot of people rising to the top, a lot of people making more market share. We've seen a lot of consolidation, right? When the tide goes out, you see who's swimming naked kind of thing. I think I've heard that line before and we've seen that. I think teams are going to only continue to become more prevalent. This new wave of expansions is allowing more teams like myself and like my regional vice presidents to be able to run their own teams on the rails of a bigger platform. I think you're going to start seeing that more often, right? There's still going to be a place for a solo agent. There always will be, just like there's still travel agents, right?

Speaker 3 (45:01):
It's not like those are going away, but I think teams are more influential and are now, most of them are structured to where they have a vested interest in agent success versus the, let me hire anybody who breathes so I can make a monthly fee and I'm going to keep my costs low. And I think teams are putting agents into production and building stronger businesses more than ever before. And I think it's only going to continue to evolve even further with that for sure.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah. I've seen that from the beginning. I mean, I came from the outside. I've only been in this mindset in talking with folks like you for about three years now, but I was able to give a presentation, I think maybe not long after I started the show. And my first point about it was basically, here are all the reasons why agents fail. And we all know like the toss off statistics on the one year and the five year failure rates is something like 75 and 87% or something. And teams really address all of those and they've designed a financial model to do it. And if an agent starts to understand that this exchange in partnership, in a true business partnership where I'm going to give more commission, but I'm going to get a lot more in return, it's not what I'm giving up, it's what I'm getting.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
And if I can see that that's an equal or greater value to my benefit and I can do more here than I could on my own, more people joining teams and finding success within teams begets more agents looking at teams and joining teams. In addition, a lot of the folks that we've kind of had multiple conversations on this show over the past 10, 12 episodes about what share of agents ... In fact, the last episode I did with Grant Johnson, what share of agents shouldn't be team leaders? And that went back to John Cheplack, who he coaches with. I think John said like, 90% of team leaders shouldn't be team leaders. I don't know what the number is, but I think we know that there are folks running teams that would hope to get on someone else's rails because they realize that they don't want to build the rails and that they're tornadoing their way around and there's no one to clean it up.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Love the way I wrote that in, by the way. Oh,

Speaker 3 (47:07):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
I'm real proud of me. So anyway, I see it too, but I see a lot of consolidation happening, teams picking up small groups of people producing well or even other teams.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah. I mean, obviously there's got to be a let go of an ego when that happens, but yeah, I mean, operations is hard. People are starting teams probably because they're decently successful at selling. But again, it's a different career path. And so mad respect for Chep, and he's probably right, you probably are 90% where ... He sees a lot more P&Ls than I do. So he's probably turns over in his grave ... Well, not like that, but he's probably turning over, right? Not loving what he sees all the time, but he's also put in a lot of work. He's helped a lot of people. So yeah, if he says 90%, I believe him.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Yeah. All right. This has been awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I'm so glad we connected here. I hope to catch you sometime when you're coming through Colorado again. But in the meantime, please share with me your favorite team to root for besides PHG, and it doesn't have to be a real estate team. It can be any kind of a team. Or what is the best team you've ever been a member of? Favorite team to root for or best team you've been a member of?

Speaker 3 (48:23):
Well, I will give you the favorite team to root for is the Baltimore Ravens. And if you see our team color as our purple and gold, now you know why. Yeah. That is how that started. And then best team I've ever been a part of, man, I got to give O to RP. I mean, I think I'm a team with RP, right? Obviously, that man has changed my life. If you can't tell my affinity forum, I think that probably says it all. I'm proud to be part of that team.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah, that's cool. How'd you become a Ravens fan? Are you from up that way?

Speaker 3 (48:58):
I lived in Baltimore until I was nine. You get into football when you're a little kid and I actually grew up in Kansas City, so a couple enemies up there.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Pretty good rivalry there. Yeah. By the way, I would go Ravens on that side of that battle too. What is one of your most frivolous purchases or what's a cheapskate habit you hold onto even though you don't need to?

Speaker 3 (49:21):
I'm a foodie, so I'd probably say I don't hate Michelin star restaurants. I feel like that's kind of become a thing we look for when my fiance and I travel.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
What does it look like when you're investing time in learning, growing, and developing? What are you doing? Or what does it look like? What are you doing when you're investing time in resting, relaxing, and recharging?

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Always developing. My first mentor taught me, invest 10% of your time or money or both into learning. And now some of these top people in the country with teams understand that the circle is small to look up to, right? Because you're always wanting to try to like, "Hey, how's this person doing it because they're better than me? " But at certain points, now these circles become real small. So getting into some of these super exclusive groups, masterminds, again, being diligent and traveling and putting together dinners during conferences. I've met a lot of my friends today that way. "Hey man, you look like you're running a team, you ask good questions. I'm putting together dinner tonight, want to come. "And just those conversations. My rest and relaxation wholeheartedly is my family now, man. My fiance, we've been together for seven, eight years now this month, and we have a three-year-old, going to be four next month and a eight week old.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
So that is my time, bro. That's it. That's it. That's my love.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Yeah. Congratulations.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
If someone has gotten to this point in the conversation, they may want to connect with you, follow you, learn more about what you're up to, where would you send people? What link should I drop in the description down below?

Speaker 3 (50:56):
I mean, I guess they just hit me up on Facebook, Facebook Messenger or something. I got to be honest, my team runs my Instagram. So I'm a little old school in that way. I probably should change that about myself. But yeah, I would hit me up on Facebook Messenger or something. I'll respond to that for sure.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Cool. I'll drop a link down below whether you're watching in YouTube and be sure to like this video. Whether you're watching or listening in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave a star rating as well. It's in the description right down below. We also put these all up at realestateteamos.com where there's a bunch of other stuff. Keegan, you're awesome. I appreciate you. And again, hope to connect in person soon.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
Likewise, man. Look forward to seeing you in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Thanks for checking out this episode of Team OS. Get quick insights all the time by checking out Real Estate Team OS on Instagram and on TikTok.