Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have to make

Speaker 2 (00:01):
This so valuable people

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Can. This Thanksgiving week, we're bringing you a special episode in our Inside Whistle Realty series.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Our biggest thing is like we just want the agents doing the three things that make money, going on appointments, prospecting and negotiating contracts.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Before we head into the final two episodes of the series with their top performing agents, Carly Van Dyke and Adrian Keano, I wanted to highlight one of the more unique and powerful things that we've learned from the team

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Leads. We've always focused as brokerages, team, mergers, teams, whatever. We got to give leads, but you also have leverage. I say, how do we provide leverage instead of leads over time? What if we switched

Speaker 1 (00:34):
A key lesson in this series, how to provide agent leverage profitably, a unique way they're bringing it to life, the ACE team or agent concierge experience.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
We provide leverage for the agent's time where they can get more time back in their schedule to go sell more houses.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Here in this short jam packed episode, you'll get a focus look at the philosophy, strategy and tactics behind the ACE team from CEO, Kyle Whistle, from COO, Chris Vander Balk and from director of operations, Shannon Cefi, including specific tips for working more effectively with virtual assistants.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
I was actually the first person at the company to bring on a va. Oh my gosh, it changed my life. Change my life.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Thanks for checking this one out and be sure to catch up on any episodes you may have missed as we go inside Whistle Realty on Real Estate Team os,

Speaker 5 (01:23):
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 (01:37):
First up is Kyle Whistle who shares the concept behind the agent concierge experience. Andy shares specific tips for providing this agent leverage equitably and profitably.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Our biggest thing is like we just want the agents doing the three things that make money, going on appointments, prospecting and negotiating contracts. And I used to say writing and negotiating contracts, but I don't even want 'em writing the damn contracts anymore to be honest with you. So we actually have a whole team. We call them our international team. Subtle word change, big impact, yes, they are VAs, they are overseas, but when you call them international team versus VAs changes everything. I legitimately have people on my team who didn't realize our VAs were humans, they thought they were robots. It's insane on my own team, it's crazy, but now you call 'em their international team, it changes things. So they're writing offers for the agents, they're scheduling showings for the agents. They're taking a debriefing phone call from the agent when they leave an appointment and just brain dumping everything that happened at the appointment and they're scheduling the next appointment or they're writing the offer or they're updating the CRM, they're adding the to-dos, they're doing all that stuff for the agents. So we obsess over how can we strip everything away from our agents. So they're just focused on those three things and the beauty is they make more money and they have more fun and it's really fricking hard to leave when everything is done for you, right? All you do is the things that make you money. We strip everything else out of the equation and you just focus on doing the things you got into this industry to do and make money.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
A team leader listening or watching might be wondering, gosh, that sounds like a lot of service to provide. How do you preserve your margin and get what you need so that this is equitable on both sides? That's a lot to provide an agent. I think everyone can understand the value of it. They may not be able to execute as well as you all have, but I think that on its face, that sounds expensive.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, I mean that's probably how I reacted originally, but once you start to understand the cost of having international team members, it's crazy. And now some of us have been to events and you go talk to these vendors and they're like, oh yeah, we'll hire VAs for you. It's $12 an hour, $15 an hour. I'm sorry, I just going to call those companies out. You are skimming so freaking much money off the top. Our VAs are typically making three to $6 an hour. We pay them directly, no middleman, three to six bucks an hour. So just know if you're paying 12, 15 or $18 an hour, that company is probably skimming close to 10 bucks an hour off the top and you're stuck if you ever want to get away from them. You either have to be shady and violate a contract that you sign or some of 'em have a buyout clause now and you can pay them thousands and thousands of dollars to buy the contract out. That's crazy because we have I think around 30 or so on our international team, it's not that expensive, right? I'm paying somebody that's doing that job four bucks an hour, which mathematically is like $8,000 a year. So we preserve margin by utilizing international staff. We have anything that's like client facing that tends to be stateside staff, but anything that's not client facing, almost all of it's international. So they're doing all the behind the scenes stuff so that our stateside people just dealing with client facing communication

Speaker 1 (04:50):
For more conversation and more insights into profit margin and profitability. Be sure to check out our first episode in the series with Kyle. He shares specific questions to ask yourself or to ask other people for a more honest and accurate assessment of your financial situation. Next up here in this episode is COO, Chris Vander V who sets the scene for us and explains the need to provide agent leverage profitably and it's much deeper than just a recruiting tactic.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
We have to make this so valuable. People can't leave, period. That's the simplicity of it. What I fundamentally believe is that, and I've said this for about two years now to our internal staff and over the last year we've shared that more with the agencies. Agents are going, and this is before the NAR stuff, agents are going to do more transactions. And I used to say in 2024, now I'll say 2025 for the same amount of money, it's inevitable commission compression consolidation competition. It's happening. And I didn't always know the NAR thing was going to do commission compression, but you already saw it happening. And so data does that. Technology does that. It gives consumer more access, it resets the table. So if that's going to happen, and I know the avatar of the agent gets in the industry regardless of our best agent or a new Keller Williams agent, brand new off the street, they want as much time as possible.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
They want to make as much money as possible and they want to have as little accountability as possible. That is the avatar that we hire for this. And so if I look at that, how do I provide that and focus on the margins separately, we have to be an organization that gives leverage Gary Keller's book that's still not going to ever be old or outdated listings. Leverage leads the whole thing. Leverage is a big part. Leads, we've always focused as brokerages, team mergers teams, whatever, we got to give leads, but you also have leverage and they're equal. And I think a lot of Gary Keller's book Millionaire Real Estate, it's not a lot of books are good from the late nineties are still highly relevant in the technological world we live in today. So I say, how do we provide leverage instead of leads over time?

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Like what if we switched? And so we've done that. We built an ACE team agent concierge experience where we write offers for agents. We run CRM stuff, they call in post appointment, we fill out their disposition form, gives us better data, less gives bothering agents to do stuff we need 'em to do for us. So how do we just do it for you? We'll call you right after the appointment. We'll take the full intake. And our question always is, okay, what can we do more? Can we match deals internally by calling, we have all the access with our ISAs. What if the ISA department look differently? What if it's just actually matchmaking internal deals and scheduling showings like Zillow does for our agents rather than asking 'em to go prospect? So how do we have time back? How do we offer value? And then the margin split profitability conversation second.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
In that clip, Chris mentioned the importance of data integrity for your sales funnel. Here's a bit more from him on that.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
That team does all the things we used to yell at our agents to do and just ask them gently to do it or it says, I'll do it for you. Will you just talk to me so I can get this information from you?

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Not many operations in the world operate with bad data or no data on what's happening in the funnel. I couldn't name one. So we can't operate without that data. What happened in the appointment? Did we go Zillow's badgering us for it? We don't let our agents do any of that data reporting directly to Zillow or for that matter, any other lead source including internal, it's just not going to work. I've accepted it. So getting that better and offering more value such as offer writing, creating custom listing and buyer presentations per client. Integrating that with our marketing team. Really excited to offer more value. That has to be our pressure

Speaker 1 (08:29):
For more on how the ACE team provides marketing support to agents. Check out our conversations with media manager Brian Kochi and director of marketing Max Anos both part of this series. In this next clip, Chris explains why it makes more sense for the team to provide this leverage to agents rather than having agents try to provide it for themselves.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Some of our top agents that they're making high six figure, I look at their account and I'm like, oh my gosh, they could use an assistant or they could actually, lemme expand on that a little bit. Like the ace thing. The whole reason that exists and same thing ISA, I think the agent's job is illogical on its face, like what it's always been of like you've got to be a contract writer, you've got to be an inspector, you've got to be a touring guide, you got to be good with people. All these things you got to be great at to be the top agent like a Kyle Whistle, crystalline doll like George. You got to have all these characteristics. Is that realistic? No. Does that make any sense to anyone in any other industry? And so the notion that they fail at most of those, they get a lot of bad raps for, but it's kind of a hilarious expectation to me and they got to be a good business leader. So most agents, let's go back to MA. You say, Hey, you got to get an assistant. That's your first hire. It's like everyone knows that. I think I'm pretty good at hiring people. I failed way more than I've succeeded with hiring people. fasta fire,

Speaker 1 (09:53):
I've heard that so many times from very early stage teams. Again, that agent who's looking to have essentially a 2, 3, 4 person operation, hire someone they leave, hire someone they leave, hire someone, they leave,

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Distract my best producer

Speaker 1 (10:07):
By encouraging

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Them. Why would I do that? And so I had a director of sales at the time about two and a half years ago, and she was really adamant, I have a staffing agency for VAs and she's like, we just need to place one for every agent. And I was like, I don't hate the idea, but I hate the idea. I like what it provides for them, but we can't dismiss the distraction that we're creating. We don't say go hire your own tc.

Speaker 6 (10:32):
We

Speaker 3 (10:32):
Say we're going to build a badass TC department internally and you have to use it.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
We say, Hey, we are going to build a badass listing management team and system. You have to use it. That's always existed here. Most successful teams, that operation is non-negotiable. Why don't you have to use our insights? Why are we allowing you to call your own leads and not call them 22 times slash text email and have a good marketing brand voice campaign that enriches them and wants them to reach out? Why do we allow you to screw that up Instead, we bully you and you punitively create structure that if you don't do that, you're our worst agent. But what if you're really good in appointment with customer? What if you're phenomenal there and you suck everywhere else? Should we not create a mold that allows you to be successful? Why do I want all these different roles from you? And so we're starting to prioritize between that ISA thing I told you about ACE 2.0 and ultimately adding value around the agent is decoupling the agent from having 30 jobs that there's supposed to be five stars at. And I want you to be really good with the customer with our new agent advisory, but I don't care if you're the strongest deal doctor or the strongest every deal, just bring it to we have once a day, come for an hour, come listen in if you don't have a deal. And if you do have a deal, ask the question, how do I get the best terms from my client? What should I do? And eventually you'll grow into that.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
But I don't need you to start that way. Customer experience matters I think more than anything. Now, do I want incompetent people that don't know that? No, I am not saying that. But do you have to be our best negotiator in the company to be successful? No. So how do we add more leverage at every spot where it's not the most important role of an agent to us? And how do we pick the best people, put 'em through our training to at least get two or three characteristics that are really important to us and have them exemplify those really well? And then we'll add stuff over on time as they're here,

Speaker 1 (12:13):
You'll meet and hear from two of those top agents. Chris referred to off the top of that clip a little bit here in this episode at the very end and a lot more over the next two weeks and in the next two episodes. But right now we're going to go to director of operations, Shannon Cefi, who helped build the international team initially to support listing management and transaction coordination, eventually extending it to provide a lot more support beyond those bounds. As the ACE team,

Speaker 4 (12:40):
I oversee the people and the processes for basically anything like leverage. So we provide leverage for the agent's time where they can get more time back in their schedule to go sell more houses, what we really want them focused on. So I oversee the teams of people. We have an agent concierge, we call them the ACE team. It's agent concierge experience, and it's basically a group of people that do a bunch of admin work that's not specific to a listing or a transaction, but it's admin oriented things. So it makes it that the agents don't have to hire an assistant for a very, very long time until they get to a really high level of production. They have people that can help them put together open house tours and booklets and things like that, scheduling showings, all that type of writing offers

Speaker 1 (13:26):
For a fun and well-told story on bringing on the team's first virtual assistant. Check out our full conversation with Shannon for specific tips for working more effectively with VAs. Here's our next clip with Shannon.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
So one thing I learned the hard way very quickly is that once you've delegated something to someone, that is their task from then on. Having clear lanes. If I record a loom video, if I have given you instructions that is now your thing to own and I'm never touching that again and having clear lanes, that was key because in the beginning that's not necessary. I would be like, oh, I'll help out with this and this and this. And then it caused confusion and it was like we were doing double work or something, whatever. I learned those things. There was definitely a learning curve in terms of training and all that fun stuff. But that was one of the first things that I learned is having clear lanes, making it very clear who's doing what and not deviating from that. And then the other thing is you don't really know that you have the right person unless you have the right process or the right training.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
My mindset towards the whole thing was if I've given you the instructions and somehow it's getting screwed up, I go back and watch my own instructions, which is painful. I hate hearing myself on, I'm always like, oh God, I can't, why does my voice sound like that, right? Yeah, of course. But I'm like, go back and watch it. I'm like, oh, okay, they're not doing that step because I didn't do that. Step in the instruction. So it's like that of extreme ownership where it's like, hey, I assume it's a me problem, not a them problem first. And if it's a me problem, that's a really easy fix. I can rerecord the instructions, resend it to 'em, jump on a zoom with them if I have to explain it, whatever it is, having a regular check-in process. So the first person we brought on, I had a half hour with him every single day and then we dwindled it down to the point where we didn't really need to do zooms with each other much at all.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
But giving them that check-in process once a day so that they can ask their questions was key. And it also helps manage your own time and theirs where they bunch all their questions together where you're really dedicating time to make sure that this person has the resources and the answers that they need because they're not here. They can't pop into someone else's office when you're on a meeting. They can't pop into someone else and say, oh, hey, do you know anything about this? Can you help me with this? They're not connected to the rest of the company, at least initially the way someone in person is. And so that's an important part of that process. And then if you know that your training's really good, you go back and watch it and you're really, really like critical of yourself, I guess I would say,

Speaker 4 (16:08):
And being able to look at your training and say, oh, this is not good, or This is really great, and I mentioned this mistake and I specifically mentioned it in the video, pointing it out to them and it's still not getting done. Okay, maybe you have the wrong person, right? Maybe they're not a fit for whatever role that they're in. But the step one is always like, okay, is this a me problem? And honestly, I would say 90% of the time it's a me problem or it's an US problem or whatever it is. That's generally speaking the issue when people work with VAs and it's really easy to solve if you're willing to be self-aware.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
I hope you found those tips from Shannon helpful. I hope you've been inspired by this dive into the philosophy and execution of the ACE team inside Whistle Realty. I'd love to hear your feedback on this episode or on the series overall. Email me Ethan at follow-up boss.com. But before you head off, I'd love for you to hear from our next two guests and our final two guests in the series. Adrian Hanno doubled sales from 15 units to 30 units to nearly 60 units in his first three years in the business. All of them with Whistle Realty Group, and he's on pace this year to double it again. Carly Van Dyke in her first two years in the business has done about 45 million in sales with Whistle Realty Group. Here is how they chose Whistle Realty Group among all of the other options in the market,

Speaker 7 (17:32):
I interviewed with a lot of probably every brokerage in San Diego, even small teams, boutique brokerages. I joined one for a short amount of time, but there is no support or systems in place to actually be able to support what I wanted to do with my business. And the team member here at Whistle at the time had reached out to me and invited me to a meeting, and that's what did it. It was just coming into a meeting and realizing this group here, collective effort led by Kyle, we have the tools and resources, anything that we need, and that was a game changer. So I knew right away,

Speaker 6 (18:17):
I knew that I wanted to be in a team because the team environment, the resources, the systems that there, it's already been in place. And I wanted a team in exp that provided leads to their new agents. And for being from Guam, and I never grew up here, I don't have a huge sphere here in San Diego, and I needed to get my business up and running by getting leads from the team. So I leveraged the team's resources, the training and the leads that they were providing, and then eventually my business took off.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Meet and learn from Carly in our next episode. And be sure to check out our powerful closing episode in the series with Adrian. And if you're not yet subscribed, go to realestate team os.com/subscribed. There you can sign up and you'll get email exclusive insights every single week and you'll get instant access to seven subscriber only episodes. It's all@realestateteamos.com slash subscribe. Thanks again for watching or listening.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
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.