Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here on Real Estate Team os we do something completely unique for you. Every single week we bring you a different team leader or team operator at different stages of the team building journey, all in an effort to help you take the next right step or make the next right decision in your real estate journey. And now we're doing something even more unique. It may never have even been done before. Welcome to Inside the Team an eight episode series where you will meet the founder, chief operating officer, vice president of sales and operations, head of agent productivity, operations manager, leader of multiple team leaders, two top agents, each of whom is building a team inside this team, the Lawton team based in Phoenix, Arizona, was kind enough to welcome us into their community to share all of this with you. They're a top 10 team in the United States with over a billion dollars in sales and nearly 2,500 transactions sides last year.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
We're going to kick this series off with founder George Lawton, who is kind enough to share with us how his grandfather inspired him to get into the business and create the foundations for this incredible real estate organization that they've built today. Some of the values behind all of that, a little bit of the past, present and future of this team. Of course, as regards to future, we do talk about the proposed NAR settlement and how the buyer broker agreement is a little bit behind in Arizona and how they're trying to help their agents catch up and get ahead of this to prove their value to the market. We talk a bit about coaching, which is one of the most important investments the team makes, not just how to become a better coach yourself, but how to find the right coach for yourself or for other team members.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
We talk about a very unique, very nuanced splits and services arrangement that they've created at multiple levels. So as agents progress with the team, they get access to new types of leads, for example, and different commission splits. So we get into all of that and much more, all with a sensitivity to the local neighborhood based human to human nature of the business while also trying to leverage technology and innovation to keep the team ahead of the curve. Now my conversation with the founder of the Lawton team, George Lawton. George, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I so appreciate it. Congratulations on what you've built, not just what your team has been able to achieve collectively, but the way that you all are going about it. It's a privilege to spend this day with you all and thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Thank you for having me. The gratitude is mutual and just I, I'm grateful that it's usually myself that gets asked to do the podcast. I'm grateful that you guys ask the people that are really doing the things and the hard work and are completely obsessed with what they're doing to come in and share as well. So thank you for that. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (02:44):
So our thought was let's go inside a team. I don't know if it's been done, I haven't seen it, but I think we want to get into the reality of the situation. How does a top 10 team actually operate and there's no way to do that. By talking you're probably completely dialed into as much as you possibly can be, but at the scale you all are operating, you can't be dialed into the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
The information that I take in, obviously it's somewhat abbreviated as it gets up to me, and so I hope that the people, whether it's Justin McClellan, Julia Billy, are getting into some granular aspects of it as it kind of rolls up to me, the data probably comes a little bit simpler and so I say plugged in where I can and knowing I think what is the highest and best use of my time and what to stay focused on, it becomes very much a time blocking and challenging exercise to some weeks. But yeah, try to stay focused in what improves the business and what grows essentially revenue at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Cool. So you're kicking off this eight episode series. What can folks, as you think about these, you already mentioned a few of them, when you think about these team members and you think about the culture you've built, what can people, as we spend hours with eight different of your team members including you, what do you think people watching or listening will get a sense of? What do you hope they get a sense of what do you, not that you're, well,

Speaker 2 (04:21):
What I'm hoping just how incredibly valuable a players are. Surround yourself with the right people. Like I said, it's showcasing these people that really have helped build this great system, always room for improvement. So I think we do some things really, really well. I think there's a lot of things that we really, really need to improve upon and we're constantly working to get better and grow in those. So I'm hoping that people identify that, Hey, how can I find the Billy for my org? How can I find the Julia, how can I find the Justin McClellan? How can I find these people, these top performers, Tiffany, Tony, right? What is the traits? What do they focus on? That's what I'm hoping they take away from this.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Awesome. Well, let's focus on your story a little bit, but let's start before we kind of back into it, let's start with where you are today. How would you describe the Lawton team as it stands here in early mid 2024?

Speaker 2 (05:31):
We're a originally based sales organization, and so real estate is done at the neighborhood level. That's something that we've never lost focus on and trying to keep that as you scale and grow is probably one of the hardest things to do. Every big company is trying to get grassroots and every grassroots company is trying to scale and somewhere we're trying to find that beautiful balance of staying very neighborhood specific, very local and hire those people and keep our agents working with the people that are in their neighborhoods that are part of their community that engage, go to local coffee shop, their kids are in the sports programs, in that community, they go to church, they go to school, all those things. That's who we want to continue to add value to and how we want to continue to expand. And so never losing sight of that.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
And we are in this interesting position as a team where we focused a lot on adding value to our agents, but we never lose sight of who the customer really is. And I think that that gets diluted a lot of times as I talk to big brokerages, big teams and who their clients actually are. You can go to some conventions and conferences and there's nothing ever really talked about sometimes on consumer experience. And we try to stay focused on who our clients are and that's who we are is trying to provide the best experience possible while partnering with amazing agents.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
That's great. As someone who hosted over 270 episodes of a show called the Customer Experience of podcast, I love to hear that because it is, especially in your seat at the scale or those immediately adjacent to you in an organization this large, it would be very easy to say the agent is our customer, but the idea that we're going to delineate between that and keep first things first and serve the agents in service of the customer keeps you properly aligned. I think,

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, I'd agree that's continuing to try to make our agents the most efficient and consistent as they possibly can, but then focusing on the consumer experience overall.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Walk us through your personal journey into real estate up to the point where it dawned on you that perhaps I should start a team or did you just wake up one day, you're like, oh gosh, I guess I have a

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Foundation team. I dunno if that was a conscious decision, but

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Tell us much of that as you want. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (08:01):
I'd love to share. So I mean started as a young, I was in my last year of college actually my last semester of college, a global business management degree, just one that I think I randomly selected, really no clear vision on what direction I was going. I was bartending my way through college and my grandfather had worked at what is now Honeywell, it was Allied Signal or something before that, and he had retired at 55, but him and my grandmother bought a number of real estate rental properties and he was able to retire early because of those real estate investments. When I say a number, he bought I think five or six, and I just remember watching that as a young man and going, that's really cool. He would take me to the rental properties. He was a very handyman, he'd built, I think the last three homes he lived in.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
He built them, was something that I definitely do not have the skillset for, so I didn't take that away from him, but I did take with a real estate investing, and that's what drove me into the business was my first real estate purchase was a rental home at the age of 22, and that's the vehicle that I saw as the best way to build wealth. And as I was working through building my own rental portfolio in my early twenties and still now to this day, I still see it as for the average American, for the average consumer, it is by far the best way to build wealth. Even if you're just talking your primary and maybe it is, you buy that primary residence, you hold it, you rent that out and you buy your next primary. And so I've been to many a listing presentation where I talked myself out of a listing because I told the person to hold the asset, hold the asset, it makes the most sense. And so as I was building my own, it became, I think this organic thing where I wanted to share it with more people. There were more people than I could help alone, and so started adding agents under me and around me and sharing and helping them build rental portfolios. And many of them, a couple of 'em you'll talk to today have grown great businesses and great personal portfolios as well too.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
That's awesome. How are you generating opportunities to yourself for yourself such that you needed to bring other people around you in general? That's the theme, whether it's I was generating it through SEO or paid search or I partnered up with somebody and I had all these opportunities. Generally that's the origin of it. What was going on for you where you said, I have more opportunities that I've created than I can handle myself?

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, I don't know who it came from first. Maybe it was Brian Buffini, I don't remember, but lead generation is one of the number one focuses of a team leader. And so when you're in production and you're like, okay, even just my sphere network, the network I'm building, maybe I think we were buying some realtor.com leads at that time. It was more than I could handle, but I also realized if I'm going to bring somebody on, I better scale this even more than it is today and continue to invest in lead generation. And so even to this day, that seems to be a primary focus of mine is higher level relationships focusing on lead generation continuing. So that's taken many forms. PPC was great, IDX sites that funnel into a good CRM that can help you filter down to those the most likely to transact has been a key component of what we've done.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
So taking top of funnel PPC leads, top of funnel seller leads and getting 'em down funnel two and then handing 'em off to the agents. And then I think one of the key components of a good team leader too besides focusing on lead generation is you got to be a really good coach and you got to know when to take the hat off of being producer and addicted to the transaction and wearing a coaching hat. So inevitably my job shifted from showing buyers going to listing presentations and being just a really good coach to these agents.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, I think a lot of people get stuck there. Essentially we're having the conversation of the messy middle between, I've built something that needs a lot of time and attention outside of my clients, like my agents need my time, this burgeoning tech stack or these multiple lead sources need my time and you have all the hats on at some point and then you just start taking them off in part by bringing the right people around you. For you early on at the dawn of the team or the spark of the team, what were some of the maybe things that you didn't enjoy doing or weren't very good at, or maybe it was the right person walked into your life at the right time when you're like, I'm going to bring this person on boards, what I want to do is help out a team leader who's watching or listening that was at that point where you were, you're like, I got a lot going on now and I need to put something down. And typically that's through bringing the right person alongside you.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, I think the first thing that came off my plate was I didn't particularly, and maybe this is some of my impatience, I don't know, I'm fairly patient, but buyers, I think in general, the one thing I couldn't scale or figure out how to manage more effectively is windshield time. When you're out there, you're showing 10 houses, 15 houses, and you want to provide a great experience that takes a right personality type and maybe it didn't fit my personality type that well, it fits my wife's personality type really well. And so I was like, all right, babe, you got to get licensed because I don't seem to have the patience for this aspect. I'm fairly operationally minded. And so while that's kind of where I bend towards is the operation side of it, I also knew that the key component for me is I can also wear the coach hat really well. And so finding that right one that builds good connections with the agents understands where to spend the time and add the most value. I could find a great operations person probably easier than I could find that great sales leader. And so being that sales leader voice in the face of that has been important as well. But I went and found the operator I think was the next key component for me.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Coaching. You've mentioned a couple of times, you also mentioned Brian Buffini, so I assume you've been coached throughout your career and you've been a coach throughout your career. Talk a little bit about coach tips for great coaching tips, maybe to find a good coach for yourself and maybe tips for coaching a growing team.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, I think right now I probably think I have two different coach, Tom Ferry. I coached directly with him, which has been a great blessing for my business. I've coached with a number of over the years Bill Hart building champions to operational stuff outside of real estate. We look at EOS systems, these different things too, and I kind of go one, there's this life coach aspect of it, there's the real estate coach and then there's maybe what I'm really, really focused on at the moment. And so it might be transitioning to follow a boss and I go, okay, I need to dive all in. And right now it's NAR settlement. All the content I'm taking in is to help arm my team right now with how to handle those conversations and what our plan forward is on that. And so over the years it's changed and I think if it is probably the best portion of my budget that I spend ever, it's the one thing that's probably never going to go away.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
We would cut expenses in many other categories before we would cut it in coaching. I just believe in it so much. And I also think what makes a good coach to your other question there is you got to meet people where they're at. You can't have this recipe that you think is just what everybody needs to do and you use the same recipe for every single one. You've got to be this great listener, active listener and understand and identify personality types and what is going to make their business excel because the recipe is different for everybody. And we've done we personality profile, everybody that comes onto the team and I could say maybe by personality profile I can get a recipe and what pillars are going to work best for you of your business, meaning lead generation or where you need to be spending your time and energy. Not everybody's going to be a social media influencer, so understanding where they need to lean into and pulling that out of 'em and getting to be the best in that area is key to being a good coach, I think.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, really good. I especially appreciate this called, I can get a sense of who they are based on these personality profiles, but even that's, let's just say a DISC profile or something. Every person's truly one of a kind. We just know a little bit more about them before we engage.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, we're not making any big decisions off of it, but I can learn a lot and I think what's been interesting over the last few years in personality profiling, everybody that comes onto the team, we used to look at high high eyes as the avatar that we wanted. That shifted a little bit, right? The industry's moving more is, and even some scs, the people that have really good processes that know how to follow a playbook seem to be the ones that are winning. The one thing that's been consistent though in the values aspect, the ones that continually show up as good producers and show up obsessed in what they do have this strong desire to win. And so on the disc profile for instance, that would show up as a high economic indicator, which most would be think money motivated and that's not the case. It is just really this strong desire to win. And that's probably one of the things that I want in everybody that joins the team is like, undoubtedly you are obsessed with winning, right?

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, I would add to that. I know you'll have something to say about it, the sense that I've gotten by meeting your team members, it isn't just winning. There's also the way that we're winning also matters too, but you can't have one without the other. I mean they need to both work together. So talk a little bit about the values behind or the intent or the purpose or the spirit. Talk about how we are winning in addition to the drive to win because in separating all of this from you and your team members and the people I've talked with, the drive just to win could lead to all kinds of decisions, many of which we wouldn't really respect or appreciate. There's this whole other side of it that's like, I assume that's just modeled and it's just culturally present and it has been because of who you are. Your wife was involved in the business early on, you set a tone, you brought the right people around you. Is that just a cultural component of how we do it around here? We're all focused on winning and we do it this way.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, I think we bring in our core values to every conversation if it's a quarterly review and one-on-one constantly assessing new people coming on if they operate with integrity, if they have these strong desires to win. But I think it's, as you're saying, it's not do anything to win. And how do you define winning? Yeah, good one. Good. It's the same thing with growth over the years and as you in seasons of life, winning and growth can mean very different things. And so I thought growth was always increasing my income and I thought winning was always increasing my income, but it turns out that that's not super fulfilling in the end. And so what has become fulfilling is helping these agents, these team members, even if it's staff too, that have been able to grow tremendously as humans, as people, and then also build their own wealth, show them the vehicles and the pathway for growth and then that goes down to the consumer and the customer as well too.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
And so some of the most fulfilling things and why I'm excited too for you to hear things from the team is because man, that's what excites me at the end of the day is see the agent that I'll talk about one specifically, but I'll leave his name out, he came to me as a young man with a young family. He had had a checkered pass with DUIs and some other issues, had to get a provisional license, which means basically everything he did was under my supervision. Now, this was six years ago, has been the consistent pillar of integrity, consistent pillar of doing the right thing for the client, consistent top producer on the team now. And this was somebody that a lot of people wouldn't have given a chance. And every day I am grateful that he is part of the team and every day he shares his gratitude with me too. And I'll tell you that that fuels you more than the income does at the end of the day. That's what gets you up in the morning. And so when I think of winning, that's how I define winning, that's how I define growth as opposed to did we 20% increase in our revenue? Now I want that too, don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day, that's not the fulfilling component. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (22:31):
It's interesting too because kind of both and if you focus so hardcore, super narrow on 20% growth, 20%, 20% growth, you're probably not going to do the things that actually produce the 20% growth. It's a little bit of both because you mentioned it and of course it's top of mind for everyone even though it's early days and there's a lot to be decided including just actually settling the situation. Talk a little bit about changes that you see coming to the buyer and buyer's agent relationship. What are you sharing with your team at this point? How are you thinking about it? Is it going to be we just need to show our value more effectively and we need to do a few things a little bit differently or is it going to be this fundamental thing that, how are you thinking about it right now and how are you talking to the team about it?

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, a few things on that. I think right now what I'm recommending is some tactical patients, people, I think it was Levi Rogers in San Antonio, he told me the same, if you don't know Levi, amazing agent, team

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Leader, episode 13, for folks who are watching and listening episode 13 in real estate team

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Os amazing man with an amazing history. He said, don't go on to the half frozen lake in your new ice skates. And so I go, okay, I like that. So tactical patience is key right now, which means all my agents are asking, okay, we need new forms, we need new buyer broker agreements, we need this, we need that. All of them are super stressed out and so anytime that there is a challenge or an issue that's causing us a ton of stress, I encourage them to write down what's causing them stress and cross off the things that are out of their control. And so what is in our control one, we can really get good with our scripting, really get good with having these conversations. Arizona is one of those markets that's really behind in getting buyer broker agreements assigned in every transaction. Florida is another one of 'em, so, but there are markets out there that have done a really great job.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
There's my counterparts across the country that've done a really great job of having buyer brokers already integrated into their process. We don't, and we've fought it over the years and I don't know why it doesn't exist well in Arizona, but now it has to. And so I'm teaching them one, let's have the conversations. How are we going to, let's practice our scripting. Let's role play every day. Let's get really consistent about asking for buyer broker and defining our value. And then I go, what the hell does defining our value even mean? Right? I hear a lot of people say, they're like, you better be really good at articulating your value as a buyer's agent. I go, what does that mean? And then I see, oh, here's 180 points on what buyer's agents do for you. And I got to be quite honest, none of it seems hard or that impressive.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
It reminds me of my 12-year-old put together a presentation on why it deserves an iPhone. That's what it reminds me of. And I'm like, guys, if this is what you're saying, that's a fricking problem. And so what I think it means is our value and what we've done really good and what I've said in the past is we've got to insulate our clients from the complexity of this business and show them the simplicity. And so just provide a very simplified experience, which meant insulating 'em from all the minutia. Well, now we've got to define the minutia. I've got to tell them that my wife left a soccer game, my 12-year-old soccer game, the same gun that pitched me on the iPhone left a soccer game on Sunday early because there was this client that found the house that they loved. They found the house that they loved.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
She went out, she showed the house to him. Sure enough, they wanted to buy the house, they wanted to make an offer. What does she do? Well, we're back from the soccer game. She's like, Hey babe, do you know this listing agent? I'm like, I don't. Maybe Tiffany does maybe disco, maybe somebody knows this listing agent. Have we done a deal with them in the past? Has a property been in escrow before we go through all these steps to provide a leg up in the negotiation to find an angle? We're researching the seller, we're doing all these little things that we shield our clients from and a good buyer's agent. And I think that there's something to be said. We're not the key to finding you the property anymore, but we are the difference in getting the property that you want. A good buyer's agent knows how to get you what you want, and that is obsessed. That's where that strong desire to win shows up when I know my client really wants something, I know that I'm going to work my tail off to make sure that they get what they want. That's where we need to be. That's how we need to articulate our value, is those little things that you think don't matter. They matter. They matter because they can't do.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
The buyer's agent has been underappreciated for a number of years and that's because we haven't articulated that well

Speaker 1 (27:33):
And has been the bane of the industry in general, which is people that aren't serious enough about their job to do a great job every day. I think that kind of waters down the impression of the value as well. It's funny when I think about the little things like the house that my wife and I have been in for 18 years or something, we're in Colorado Springs, it's south facing and the sun. I know that you've done some business in Colorado. The sun is so intense that we don't need to shovel snow, but our neighbors on the other side very often. I mean we do, but not as often as the people who have north facing houses it directly across the street. It's sits in the shade all day, so the snow, just scissors. Little things like that,

Speaker 2 (28:18):
That's important. Yeah, I would've never thought of that had I gone to sell real estate in Colorado Spring,

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Right? Yeah, you don't need to worry about that here. Anyway, team model high level, you opted to, you didn't open a brokerage, you opted to start a team, you brought other agents around you and you're operating as a team now. You have this incredible staff and not to dehumanize it, but this machine that makes everything easier and better for this growing body of agents who are now in multiple offices covering the entire local market and in Tucson as well. Why the team model? When did that occur to you? Did you think about it any other way?

Speaker 2 (29:06):
I think brokerage has been part of the conversation before. Brokerage can also mean a number of things. We operate, I think the term is team range, but we're with a great network right now with my home group. They take care of the things that are not profitable nor fulfilling, so I let them take care of that. So that's liability components, file processing, commissions, processing, things along those lines. And then I look to us to provide the value in other areas. Our team model has evolved over the years. It starts out as just you, which me, my wife, a transaction coordinator and one agent, and then it slowly grows is you have more and more to give as you have more and more to add. It just continues to organically grow and you go, okay, well maybe eight to 10 is a really nice spot to be in, having eight to 10, you feel like a family.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Everything's great, everybody likes everybody. You guys, you're doing dinners together. Not a lot of overhead, not a lot of overhead. Yes, you don't need significant office space. You don't need all these things. And so why take the plunge further? Well, we had more to give. And so I often say we haven't won yet. So it's this consistent growth and continuing to add people that are like-minded and want to continue to grow. And so the next step for us was, well, maybe it's 50, maybe it's 50 is where we want to be. And really when you start modeling out the economics, that's kind of the next spot. So if you go from eight to 10, you're really not going to make much more money until you get to 50 agents. You may make a little bit more and you go, okay, well what do I have to do lead generation side, what do I have to do tech stack?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
What do I have to do staff wise and space wise to get to that? And then you go, okay, well we're here. Are you content? I feel like we got more to give so to the next level after that. And then as you find that this model of 20 to 25 agents by remember real estate being hyperlocal, you go, okay, well this is very duplicatable if we go to this zip code or this part. And Phoenix is an amazing market where there's, well, we haven't been in the last year or two, but it's a hundred thousand transactions in a year where you can expand locally and still not take up a significant market share. There's still a lot of room to grow here. And so that's been an awesome part of being part of the Phoenix market. Incredibly competitive, but we like that too. But the evolution of the team from that, when we said, okay, well we can have these pods of 2025 with a team leader, that's very duplicatable, what's next?

Speaker 2 (32:21):
And I looked at why were people leaving our team? And that's often where we go. It's like, okay, why are agents leaving? We have this attrition that seems outside of the norm. And then I always flip the question and I go, why do people stay? That's so much better place to go to. First you want to get really clear with yourself on why people leave, be able to take feedback really, really well. I'm always super curious when somebody leaves, I'm like, well, what is it? Be raw with me. I love raw and taking that feedback and then why do people stay? And so that led to the evolution of the levels of agents, so level one through four, and it was really about creating a growth path for agents. I think that that's something that a lot of teams don't put together well is like this is step one, this is step two, is step two, step four, and this is how you grow with me for the next 20 years.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
If you don't create a growth path for 'em, they're going to create their own and you're probably not going to be in it. And that's where teams within a team did, I think 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I'd have teams within a team. No, but it's possible and it's what some of my team members wanted and I'm like, I think we can actually make this work where it's a win-win and they're good, amazing, like-minded team members that deserve to win together. And so I think that's where we go and that's how we created the models. So it's been great to watch them grow and understand that they can continue to grow with us.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
That's awesome. I'd love for you to go one step deeper on the levels and how teams. Is that level five or is that a whole other, I assume the whole process has been iterative. I assume that it was partly agent informed. I'm sure some of it was intuitive to you as you and some of the folks around you thought about here's the problem and opportunity, how do we address it? So I'm sure some of that was did you go outside the organization to see what other people were doing? Just talk a little bit about how this all came together.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, once again, it was kind of, we think a lot along the line of tech companies do where there's V ones and then beta and all of this. And so we're thinking on things and I'm getting a lot of feedback from agents. I interviewed a bunch that left and started their own team. It was like this mass exodus of what we would call now, which is level three agent, which would be a great producer, 35 to 45 transactions a year doing really good business. Eventually you help them build this book of business. And then they started to do this value versus cost equation in their head. Is the value there for what this is costing me? My phone is ringing now, George, I don't know if I need as many as your leads as I once did. And you go, that's fair. I understand that.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
But we built all this together. I thought, stay with me, don't go now we're actually, we worked hard to get there and they worked incredibly hard to get there. And so I think that was the first point where I go, we've got to create something different. And that's where the stages came in. And so with level one being the lowest level four, and then after you hit level four, you can go teams within a team. Not everybody desires to build a team, they think they do, but when you go, okay, here's what you need to do and here's what you need to know and here's how you wear a coach's hat and here's how you do all this. They go, maybe I like production better. But with each level comes an unlocking of opportunities. So there's just like the levels. There's levels of leads too.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
And so the hierarchy of leads, you go, well, as you unlock levels, you get maybe higher intent leads. You get seller leads, you get higher price point leads, which has proven to be the best carrot that we've had is luxury and luxury seller. That's the gold standard in lead hierarchy. And then we look at like, okay, can we adjust commission splits? Is that something that makes sense economically as they build their book of business? Why did people leave? Well, I'll tell you, a lot of times they left when they had a really high dollar, like three or four high dollar what would now be considered sphere or part of their network listings coming. And so they've got a few listings coming up and they go, man, George, I really don't know if the value there for what it's going to cost me on these now perceived sphere listings.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
And I'm like, okay, well we got to figure something out. So there's a change in sphere splits as they move up. And then we also leaned really heavily into how can we help them operationally more as you grow? What operational help do you need? I'll say that that one was probably the hardest one to figure out where you create all of this operational lift and then it doesn't get used a lot. And so I would say if you do anything, don't start there on V seven of operational help. And I still haven't figured it out. You think, but what becomes tough is for that to become quantifiable. Is this actually, are we seeing an ROI here? Does it make sense? Is this increasing retention? What is it doing? And it really is tough to tell sometimes.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yeah, I'm sure that journey got you very clear on or a lot more clear constantly on what value are we really providing and how do they understand it? This is where I think a lot of any business falls down sometimes. It's like tell them what you're going to do, do it, and then you think it's done, but you forget to remind them that you did it and you're still doing it. We're still here, we're still adding this value. I imagine as someone, this scenario you offered here with I've got three really great listings coming on soon, maybe I'll just take 'em off and keep my side of it, all the stuff underneath. And what it does take, especially someone that's come up inside, whether it's your team or someone else's operating well, they maybe have no idea the value of all the things that you're providing and they have no idea what it's going to take to replicate any level of that service on their own and what that's going to mean, not in GCI, who cares what they're actually going to take home. They can lose sight of that. Are you all doing any of that education or did that maybe come unearthed as you were doing some of this discovery for yourselves on how to solve the problem? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (39:12):
I think that's been an ongoing challenge and something that we're, it's actually we follow EOS model, which is quarterly rocks. We have these quarterly goals in a focus and one of those retention pieces is in articulating the value, but the way that we see that and then we go down, okay, this is the goal, this is the strategy and these are the tactics within it. The tactic for that this quarter is the first 90 days. And so how do we make it much better for our agents to understand the value in their first 90 days with the team? So instead of trying to go retro and get everybody like, okay, let's make sure that we dump all this content on them that we've been providing the value that we add, we need to drip that continuously and that comes in team meetings. And a way that I'd like to drip value is through acts of awesomeness.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
So every meeting starts out with an act of awesomeness, and so we try to highlight the things that we're trying to focus on. And some of those are within how the team provides value outside of that. The first 90 days is how we see, let's get this right from the beginning and making sure that we have a really good foundations course, a really good orientation, a really good onboarding experience, and that should lead to retention. If you bring 'em on the right way, they know what they're getting into, they know the value of what your team provides. They're likely to stay longer, we think. Right? And so there's obviously plenty of use cases out there in the corporate world that show us that, and so we needed to get better at that.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah. I appreciate your multiple references throughout this conversation too, going outside the industry to look for inspiration and information and modeling, really smart. As you think about where you are now from the earliest days and you think about going forward, what are some of the key partnerships or big decisions that you've made along the way or opportunities that have come along? Again in terms of getting to where you are now or as you look to the future, what kind of partnerships are you most excited about? And that could be within your tech stack, it could be anywhere. I mean,

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, with the mission of staying consumer centric, making the most efficient and consistent agents on the planet that provide that great experience, a lot of that is answered through technology. And so that's who we look to. That's where the focus and my intrigue comes. That's who we'd like to try to partner with at a higher level. And that's why Phoenix is a test kisser market where we test a lot of different things, a lot of different pilot programs, and we love every minute of it. Sometimes. That's why operational lift, we are probably more operationally heavy than your average team. But I think to stay, to be a durable business, I see that as innovation and that if there's not a portion of your budget allocated to innovation, then you're probably going to get left behind or I'm going to beat you there and I'm going to take my unfair share of it.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
And so that's my hope is through those investments, once again with the mindset of not having one yet, that we're going to continue to reinvest in those things. And so partnerships with companies like Follow a Boss and doing different pilot programs and testing different things to having full stack developers at our beck and call to help us figure out how to make it super simple for an agent not to have to update the CRM every single time. If all these phone calls are recorded, AI can summarize the phone call, give you the bullet points from it, it can probably do some of the action items from the phone call on your behalf, and then it can also give you maybe some coaching points on that. And so all those things are within the realm of possibility today. Today. And I don't think there's many teams that are investing in those types of ideas. The good ones are, the great ones are, but not the majority.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
It's awesome. You triggered one more question for me. I was going to say thank you and I will, and I have and thank you. But before I let you, I want to tie back, like you mentioned, real estate is local, it's local, and it's person to person, it's street to street, it's neighborhood to neighborhood. And then here as we're kind of wrapping this idea of I think the language was the most consistent and efficient agents on the planet, which I love that as kind of a mission statement. That's where we're going. And tech being part of the way to get there, I mean it's begging. I would love to hear you just speak out. This is still a human to human business. This is the last mile of everything, no matter whether it's the agent side and how they're supported and empowered or whether it's, you mentioned earlier, the job isn't to help find the right properties for people, maybe some stuff that they can't find maybe on a standard website or something. But that's not a thing anymore. It's what is the most valuable part of an agent in the foreseeable future of this industry? Specifically what I'm asking, what's the human side of this business? We want to take you just listed out ways we can take problems off the agent's plate and give it to technology and we can look at ways to push information that's in the systems back to the agent to empower and equip them.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Just

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Speak to the magic of the human to human moment that makes this industry what it is.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
You nailed it with the last mile. Technology can't solve that. That takes human to human interaction. And that's the highest and best use of our agents' time is being face-to-face with consumers, with clients at properties, showing homes, at presentations, at community events. You have to see yourself as that's part of the job too. And the ones that understand that, the ones that I can help make their business more efficient and allow them to be at more appointments that's not ever scalable through technology, never will a buyer be okay with, oh, here's Tiffany Gob, our best agent virtually, to walk you through what it means to buy this home. Right? They're not going to walk through the property that way maybe someday, but today we know that the best, highest and best use of their time is getting face-to-face. They own the relationship and they build that network of loyal, loyal customers. I would love to say that people continue to work with us because of the Latin team. People continue to work with us. We have amazing agents, and that's the kind of people that I want to surround myself with.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
And you've surrounded yourself with many of them. Thank you for sitting down with me. Yeah, thank you. Above all, thank you for welcoming us inside the Lawton team. It's been a pleasure to immerse ourselves in it, and I'm excited for people to check out the entire series here. Before I let you go though, I always wrap with a pairs of questions and you can answer one or the other. Okay. And so for you, the one I just kind of randomly selected among the three that I typically ask folks is, what is one of your most frivolous purchases, or what's a cheapskate habit that you hold onto even though you probably don't need to?

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Oh, geez. And or

Speaker 1 (47:04):
What would your wife say to any of these? Either of these

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Questions. Let's see. I think frivolous purchase would probably, and one that I still beat myself up on was a golf simulator. I got myself a Christmas present, but I'll admit it was in my, so it's like sim in a box from Costco. I'd had it in my shopping cart for a year, and they ran some sort of special, which was like 30% off. So I feel like I saved us money in the long run. That's what I told my wife. I feel like we saved us money. And then cheapskate thing is I hate subscription stuff to an extent. I'm constantly looking at our subscriptions and going, do we even use this app? Do we even use this? Is anybody on this? What's been going on here? And so I'm constantly shutting things down and I figured purging once a year to all those things, just shut down the credit card and see if my wife comes to me and says like, Hey, what happened to our Hulu account? I'm like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Yeah, it's so funny. I was just, my mind immediately went to tv. When you mentioned subscriptions, it was like, let's just kill this $80 cable bill and spend 92 on 18 different

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Services or more. That's so purge by shutting off the credit card, seeing if your family comes to you and goes like, Hey, what's going on with this? I'm like, oh, I guess we do use it. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (48:24):
It's funny. And by the way, I feel like a lot more brokers and or agents and or team leaders could probably benefit from doing a similar exercise. Exactly,

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Exactly. Yeah. Losing my Amex card a year and a half ago was probably one of the best things that happened to us because we had to resign up for everything again. So yes. Perfect. What you think, man, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Yeah, I appreciate it too. Continued success to you all. Thanks for spending this time with me, and I hope you have a great rest of your day. You

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Too, man. Appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
Thanks for checking out this episode of Team Os. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up@realestateteamos.com.