Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here in episode three, inside Whistle Realty, you're learning from a third generation real estate agent turned listing, manager turned listing and transaction coordination manager, now director of operations for the number one team in San Diego and consistently a top team in California, in the country, and in all of the XP Realty, our guest is Shannon Yusefi. Throughout this conversation, you'll hear how that sales background informs the approach to operations, how moving from listings to transactions to operations overall and unifying the tech stack in that process became the backbone of their sales funnel. Ways that they're using that visibility into the sales funnel, not just to improve lead conversion in sales, but also to inform the whole process to do storytelling with data. And in a way inform, and you'll hear more of this too in episode four with director of sales, Rachel Chu, inform, what are we training on? What are we coaching on? What's broken in that sales funnel that we need to help agents with? You'll learn the three pieces of tech that their operations are built on. You'll also learn how that first VA that she hired became a 25 member international team and get tips for doing that yourself. This is a fantastic conversation with director of operations, Shannon Cefi as we go inside Whistle Realty only on real estate team os,

Speaker 2 (01:20):
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 (01:34):
Shannon, I'm so glad that we're going to have this conversation. I love what you've built inside this organization, what you've all built collectively, and I look forward to learning more about it by having a conversation with you.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, so where we always start in these conversations is a must have characteristic of a high performing team. What comes to mind for you?

Speaker 3 (01:53):
That's a good question. I would say having the right people in the right seats at least has been key for us. And also what I would say is the right, when you say the right people, I would say it's really to do with mindset and their attitude. Having a growth mindset and surrounding yourself with other people, whether that be agents, admin staff, our international team, people that want to do more and be better and really have a good positive attitude towards that. That I think is the most important thing.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
It

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Solves all the other problems when issues come up, things like that. It's like if you have someone who wants to solve problems, who wants to do better, who wants to grow, all the other things, take care of themselves with the right people,

Speaker 1 (02:42):
It absolutely does. In my mind what I'm trying to, I try to actively listen and then sometimes I try to beat an idea up in my head and I couldn't come up with any exceptions to that. That is so foundational because no matter what the issue is or no matter what the opportunity is, it's that let's discern a good idea, pursue it and stop if it doesn't work and keep going and make it better if it does. And it all comes out of this essentially a growth mindset, which covers a lot of ground. What was your path into Whistle Realty Group? How did you find them? How did they find you? How did that go?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
It's actually kind of funny. So I've actually been in real estate my entire adult life. I had no intention on getting into real estate, but I'm a third generation realtor, so my mom, my grandpa.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
So it was inevitable.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah. Well, and I planned on actually becoming an attorney when I was in college, and then I was working for my mom as her assistant back in Chicago. And that's kind of how I got into it. It was like start as a part-time job for me years ago and then discovered, oh wow, I don't really want to go into the law. That's a lot of years of school. I can make a lot of money and be really successful and kind of achieve what I want to achieve in real estate without doing an additional all that education and stuff. So that's kind of my path to real estate in general. And then I moved to California five or six years ago, took another job in another industry, was completely miserable, was not a good fit, and then was looking like, okay, this is what I was, took a sales job doing. It was not a good product basically. I felt kind of

Speaker 1 (04:16):
That's tough.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yucky. Yeah, it felt like the customers, I would talk to them and I'm like, it's hard to sell

Speaker 1 (04:22):
If you don't believe in it. How is anyone else?

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And that was my experience with that. So then I was like, no, I'm going to go back into real estate. I want to work for someone else. I don't want to be a solo agent trying to figure it out in a new market, a new state, new everything. So I started doing research on the biggest teams, the most successful teams, things like that in San Diego. And I had actually called into the main office line and I talked to some agent, he's not here anymore, but I had asked, do you guys have any admin roles available? Are you guys hiring at all? And he was like, well, I could pass along the message to the person that makes those decisions, but I don't think we're hiring for anything. I just didn't really get much of an answer. And then the very next day there was a job posting that went up from whistle and I was like, oh my gosh, this is the universe. So I applied, they called me pretty quickly and then here I am five years later. It was a good fit.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Nice. Were you in real estate sales initially?

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Talk about that difference. I feel like, sorry to interrupt. I feel like there are a number of agents who are in the industry for any of a variety of reasons, and I feel like the growth of the team model in particular and the nature of the companies that are being built in real estate today. I've talked with a number of folks who are in essentially some version of an ops role because they always favored as an agent you have to be good at all the things, but when they looked at what they liked and what they didn't like, they really favored systems structure process and there are opportunities for those people that are outside of sales.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yes, exactly. So I started off as an unlicensed assistant back in Chicago and then became a producing agent, got my license, was actively selling real estate for several years, and then once I moved here I was like, no, I want to get back into that admin role again, mostly for just especially being in a new market and things like that, I wanted the security of being able to learn and things like I actually intended to get back into sales at some point that didn't happen. It's a good opportunity. And I was like, no, I'm going to stay the admin role. I got promoted. And we've got a really good structure here. And that's actually one of the things that I think really is kind of unique. Almost a lot of people do come from an ops background, but a lot of times agents themselves are, they have a sales hat on where it's like they don't want to do all the paperwork and that's part of the reason why real estate admin people have jobs. We need the agents just as much as they need us and we keep their heads screwed on straight and all that stuff. So it's very much a mutually beneficial thing, but I do think it's a unique kind of skillset to have done both and done both at a high level and being able to understand and marry those two things together in the way that they really need to be connected.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah,

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah,

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Absolutely. I mean, because at a minimum, empathy is based in understanding and the idea that you've been on both sides of that relationship and been in both of those seats allows you to serve them more effectively. Describe the director of operations role as it is today. Just scope it a little bit. What are your core responsibilities?

Speaker 3 (07:42):
So I oversee the people and the processes quite a bit of our tech stuff too, for basically all the positions that are outside of sales and marketing mostly. So it started as I started actually when I took the job at Whistle, I started as a listing coordinator and then just worked my position now, didn't exist at the time. We didn't have that at the company and it was something that we created as we grew and really had a need for. It started as overseeing the listing management and transaction management departments and then grew into working with our in-house photographers and our field coordinators. And then now it's really become much more of, 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.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
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 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 writing offers. So I oversee that team listing and transaction management and then also our HR and I liaise a lot with finance as well.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Okay. That's a lot of stuff. So who are you talking with every day? Who are you talking with? I talk with that person or that role or that function weekly. And then who are you checking in with monthly? Who are the people I'm closest with every single day to I just check in with these people or I'm in a meeting with these people or this person or this role monthly.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
So every day definitely our COO, Chris, we work very closely together. There's a lot of things right now what my role has grown into as time goes on is working with the other departments and collaborating with them and helping them really operationalize the way that they do stuff and their processes and things. So I talk to Chris multiple times a day every day, and that's something we work really closely together on as well as really the rest of the leadership team. Those are my main people that I talk to along with our operations manager who oversees listing and transaction management. She oversees the people that do that stuff on a weekly basis. I check in with our ACE team that assist our agents for little mundane tasks. And then finance is probably more a monthly thing with our finance team and looking at all the numbers and the tracking and those things. Although I do actually close to every day. I do also oversee the commissions department, I guess you could say a commission specialist. So the people that make sure, hey, are we paying people the right amount, checking all the things that need to make sure that the agents get paid, get paid quickly, all that good stuff. So I talked to the commissions people probably two, three times a week. Okay,

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Good breakdown. You mentioned you oversee some of the tech. What part of the tech is your world?

Speaker 3 (11:11):
So one of the, actually first things that I did when I took on my new role was we had a lot of tech and we had a really cool systems and processes, but none of them talked to each other at all. And that was actually something that kind of naturally came about because kind of just a naturally curious person in general. So as I was listing manager, the transaction managers, those two things, we should be using the same system and talking to each other, but we didn't at the time. So it was discovering that just out of like, Hey, how do you guys do this? Or what's the process for this? Or just asking questions naturally progressed into, oh wow, we have a bunch of different things that are all kind of operating separately and will be a lot better and a lot faster and a lot easier if we connected them together. So that's one of the main things that we did. I worked really closely with Chris on that is, okay, when an appointment gets set, what needs to happen? And then as we move through the funnel, connecting it with the different departments that need to get involved because of where the client is in the process, all that good stuff. So I set up a lot of those things. It's kind of has turned into the backbone of our whole sales funnel really.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Okay. So logistically you just started with the customer journey at some level and went step by step and said, okay, where does that live now? Does the data match in these two different systems? Can we unify them? Give me another layer of detail and a pass on that because I'm sure it's something that everyone struggles with at some level. So I'd love to know how you got it to it's

Speaker 3 (12:47):
State,

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Current state.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
So one of the things that we set up basically is we have a, it's not very exciting, it's not very sexy I guess you could say, but it's

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Depends who's watching. You're listening to this.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
That's true. It would excite me and it does excite me, but one of the things we do is we have a very clear forms structure where from within follow-up boss, when an appointment gets set, the agent submits a very, very short, we try to keep 'em as short as possible form for that appointment. And it does different things. It triggers different things, sending out a calendar invite to the client and putting it in our agent's calendar and all these different little things, and it updates our numbers for how many appointments we've gone on. And then we do, after they meet, there's a subsequent form, same thing when they get a listing signed, there's another form. And what it does is it's updating the system automatically so that we have really, really solid data in terms of conversion metrics and things like that. I could within five minutes tell you exactly how many appointments we've gone on in the last month and the last six months and the last year, how many of those turned into signed listings, how many of those turned into pending deals and closings and being able, and also that's really one of the things we're really working on right now is okay, getting that data, having real information that we know is accurate and true, and then being able to use it and tell a story with it

Speaker 3 (14:12):
So that the sales team can really go in and do effective pipeline reviews with the agents on an individual basis or even a group setting. And without having the information, it's really hard to be able to coach people on the right things. And so that's something that we've been really, really focused on and really working on over the last several years, but it's always an ongoing thing. It's never done. So that's one of the things we set up was creating that structure of how we track the sales process and where the client actually is so that we can have real conversations around next steps and things like that.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Cool. You just lit me up significantly with one word that I think some people, it might seem like, oh, that's not very interesting, but storytelling

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yes

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Is so important. So what I think I heard you say was one of the things that I do maybe with some of the people on my team is we review these things and we review the numbers, dashboards, et cetera, look at some trending,

Speaker 1 (15:11):
And we look for the stories essentially another way to say it as headlines, what's the headline? And we're going to bring that to the sales team because we think this headline or this story is one that could be corrected or steered in a better direction or doubled down on and amplified if we bring it to sales and they turn it into some training materials or they raise it again in the meeting or whatever. Did I hear that correctly? Yes. And talk about how important, I want to hear it in your words. I got a bunch of my own, the importance of turning it into a story for people.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
People, yes. That's actually something that I think is one of the more challenging things.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Absolutely. It's

Speaker 3 (15:51):
For sales leadership in general and salespeople, they don't tend to want to go into a spreadsheet and it makes their head spin a little bit. They want to be able to see, like you said, dashboard, right? That's actually something that we've created recently on a per lead source basis. So for example, with Zillow, we have now a dashboard where our sales team can go in and see, okay, this agent has eight people that is in appointment met status, but they haven't moved to the next stage of the process and that's a higher number of people than the rest of,

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Than average or then their average over the past 12 months rolling.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
And so it's like, Hey, what's going on here? Then they can go and have a really productive conversation where it's like, Hey, how do we get people to the next, how do we get them submitting offers? What's the holdups here? And sometimes it's very anecdotal things where they're like, oh yeah, this person, they're actually not quite ready yet, or whatever it might be. But a lot of times it's able to, when you dig deeper into those and the right questions to ask, you can really bring out like, oh, okay, here's some skills that we need to work on. Maybe it's closing for the signature or closing for the appointment. They talk to a bunch of people on the phone, but have a low appointment metric. Then that's another metric that we can tweak and figure out what needs to be changed to really get their performance to the next level.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, really good. So three areas I'd like to hit are listing coordination, transaction coordination, and again, maybe double back into tech a little bit to get specifically into some of the tools that have helped you harden this super critical part of the organization. So you came up in listing coordination. Yes.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Talk

Speaker 1 (17:35):
A little bit about that process at a high level, just tips for people who are like, oh gosh, that would alleviate some of my pain in this area. What does it look like when it's running really well? What are a couple of keys to getting it running really well?

Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah, so it's such a big picture question, so

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Do with it whatever you want.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
So one of the things that I did when I first started, we had kind of a checklist. It was there, but it wasn't really not enough where I could look at it without someone really walking me through it. That was one of the things that we did is I went through line by line and okay, this needs to get done every time. I know this needs to get done every time, but it's not on here. I revamped all of those things and really making it a very, the process is the same every single time unless there's a reason that you need to tweak it. And that doesn't mean we have to be completely inflexible all the time, but for the most part, if you want it to be an efficient process, it has to be a duplicatable process that you follow day in and day out every single time.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
And then you can deviate where you need to, where it makes sense like, oh, this client has tenants in there, the seller, so we need to tweak how we schedule showings on it or whatever. So definitely being flexible enough where you can be nimble, but creating a very specific process. And actually one of the things, first things that I did when I got, we got to a point where we had a lot more listings than I could realistically handle, and it was just me at the time. And so I brought on, I was actually the first person at the company to bring on a VA, and oh my gosh, it changed my life, changed my life. It was so great. So he took on all the things that didn't require agent communication or client communication. I delegated to him and I created very specific SOPs, like loom videos with the instructions, and it's all very well documented. The other thing too is if someone else can't come in and be able to cover for you or do that job, you need a more buttoned up process. So that's one of the things that I did first thing when I started was being able to delegate it. I had to make heads or tails of it all and really create a very structured process. And it's the same thing on the transaction side too. That's really was kind of a big overhaul that we did as well there.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Good. So I don't want anyone to Miss Loom video is a screen recording where you are walking step by step through essentially some version of your SOP, maybe showing an interface of the software that we're going to do it in or something like that.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, exactly. Literally I would just, here's the task and here's how you do it. And I would just narrate literally every single step and explaining why. That's another thing that I feel like can sometimes people get lost in if they don't realize why we have to do something a real specific way because especially on the op side, I feel like there's little nuances. If you don't check this box on a contract, there's all these other domino effects that can be screwed up because you forgot to check a box. So that's the stuff where I really went through in detail, narrated exactly what I was doing, why I was doing it, and then was able to delegate it and really, really scaled to the point where now we have two people that do about a hundred listings at any given time. So right now they're running between 90 and a hundred listings total, and that's signed listings, active listings, not our escrows. That's separate. So yeah, so really scaling that up and providing clear instructions and giving yourself clear instructions too was key for

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Scaling that. Yeah, if you can't teach it, you don't understand it as well as you should.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
So previously you talked about this idea of let's design it for, I'm putting it in my own words now, like 90% of cases are going to fall within this standard thing. So this is a replicatable, duplicatable process. What's your philosophy on, because I've heard it both ways in these conversations, one of 'em is, well, when we have an exception and it's an exception that's happened before, let's make a sub track for that too. Or is it, listen, this is going to cover 90% of the cases, this is about how we do it and is in your own words there you have some flexibility where you need it. Do you think you make separate rule sets and now we have, this is track one and here's one B, one C, 1D, one E. You're probably not going to use 1D except 1% of the time. Do you even bother making that type of detail for exceptions?

Speaker 3 (22:11):
That's a good question. So I think it really depends on, for me, it's the nature of how often it really comes up. For example, if we have a different process, I think I said earlier, scheduling showings. So when we schedule showings on our listings, on our seller transactions, if it's owner occupied, we do it one way and if it's vacant, we do it another way. Those two situations are going to come up 50 50. It's going to be half the time someone lives there, half the time someone doesn't. And so that's significant enough where absolutely we'll have a one A and a one B. I would even say actually we do have another process for tenant occupied properties, but if it's some weird thing where there's roommates that live in the house and the random room, you know what I mean, but the owner actually lives there, okay, we don't create a process for that because it happens so seldom, and then I feel like there's a point where you kind of overcomplicate the process and it makes it harder for people.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
So there's kind of a happy medium, I think. And if it's never going to see the situation again, I'm not creating an SOP for that, but if it's going to come up, I don't know, five more times, 10 more times, and I don't want to have to answer that question to my team every time, I better create a process for it. That's kind of my metric is like, do I want to answer this question again? Am I going to need to answer this question again? If the answer's no, okay, fine, we'll just handle it as if it's a one-off type thing.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
Does

Speaker 3 (23:36):
That make sense? Does that answer your question?

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I just wanted to know how you think about that. It's perfect transaction coordination that was at some level to you when you took that. I think that was your next step after leading listing coordination was to also take that over. What did you inherit? What excited you about it? I'm sure you got it all dialed in, but what did you inherit and what were some of your first steps and getting that the way that you were comfortable and confident in?

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, so I think I mentioned earlier, we basically had two separate people that were operating completely separately at the time. And really those two things are very connected. It should be a really seamless experience for the client where the listing coordinator's like, Hey, I'm handing you off to this person. Now take their hand and now they're going to take you the rest of the way. And so that was one of the things that we actually used to have quite a bit of confusion on is because actually as listing manager, we used to do it where the listing manager was still kind of involved throughout until closing, and that was one of the first things we were like, yeah, this confuses people. We got to change this so that there's a clear handoff. Honestly, it confused our agents half the time. It confused us, the people doing the job, which is a huge problem.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
I thought you did that. I thought you said that. I thought you sent that,

Speaker 3 (24:50):
Hey, did you do this yet? All the time. All the time. So having really clear lanes as far as like, okay, this is the point. At this point, I am no longer working on this file anymore. And at this point you're picking up the file through closing and having very clear distinctions as far as who's doing what, which I think actually really it gives people, it reduces stress quite a bit. I've found if people are not sure what to do, it's you can kind of feel like you're floundering, especially when it's at scale. When we have a hundred listings, we need real clear definition of here's what I'm doing, here's what's expected of me, here's what I no longer am working on this listing anymore. And so it's the same thing on the TC side where we really revamped that and made it very clear, here's when the TCS come in, here's the things that they now need to start doing because the listing side's not doing that anymore.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
And then there was kind of give and take and evening those roles out, so to speak, so that it's not too lopsided. But that was one of the first things that we did. And also putting them all, we basically put everybody into one system where before it was like they were working through Google Sheets or something I think, and then I had been working through Monday and then Trello previously it was like system overload with a million things, so we got everybody on the same one. We actually don't use any of those anymore, but we got everybody in the same one so that they're not having to do duplicate data entry. They don't have to collect all this info and put it in their own system. It's already there. So that's another big one that we, and it's always kind of a ongoing process. It's never done. That's the one thing that I'm always in the back of my mind and tell my team, Hey, we're doing process improvements, but just because we checked this box, we're going to have to change it in six months because what got us here won't get us there. Right?

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah. Constant challenge I would assume, which is improving systems that are already in place and adding new systems. In a lot of my work history, it was really easy to start create new systems. Everyone's excited about something new. We have a new process, we have a new thing, but having the discipline and carving out the time to go double back, collect feedback and truly refine something is much harder. How do you find the balance between those two things?

Speaker 3 (27:08):
It's really easy to get shiny. Object syndrome. I feel like, I don't know, maybe it's just I am in the real estate world, but I feel like us in particular, there's always some new thing. There's always some new leads or some new CRMs, some new whatever it is, marketing stuff. I feel like it's really easy to get shiny object syndrome, and then it's like, wait a minute, I have three systems that all do kind of the same thing. There's some overlap. So it's also kind of challenging in my eyes because an admin person kind of by nature tends to be a little more resistant to change.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
And it's actually kind of funny. We almost have the opposite issue here at Whistle where our admin staff is like, let's do it. This is going to make my life easier. But that's because we're very protective of we only make a change if it really truly does make sense for the business or for the role that is using that tech or whatever. Whereas our agents, I feel like they sometimes, oh God, another new thing I have to learn, they definitely get system overload and are a little more resistant to it more so than even our admin. A lot of times. It's a challenge. I feel like you have to have a happy medium if you're protective. That's kind of my philosophy towards it. We always have to grow, we always have to change things move very quickly, and that means that we're going to have to automate something that maybe wasn't automated before. And for the most part, if you can get people behind the reason for the change and make it so that it really is making their lives easier or take stuff off their plate, most people are good with it. They're like, oh, cool, yeah, let's do that. And then they're excited about it.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, it's a power of storytelling. Again, different type of story. The previous one was turning data into a story or a set of questions. This is a little bit of a double back, but it's something that I know that a lot of people struggle with, which is you're talking about the handoff from listening to tc. I know a lot of agents like to stay involved throughout that process. What's your philosophy? What I think I've heard in the conversations I've had so far, especially with the ACE team, is let's take everything away and have them focus on connecting and writing contracts and closing. But how does the agent stay involved? Or does the agent stay directly involved? Is it up to the agent? Is it up to the client, or is it up to the system?

Speaker 3 (29:39):
I would say it's all three. There's one thing that when you have a bunch of people that really have that growth mindset type thing where they really take extreme ownership and want to know what's going on, for the most part, it's not all that difficult to keep people in the loop, right? On the TC side, we involve them in the communication. They just don't have to be the one to do it. And a lot of it's kind of like the mental load where they're like, oh, I've got all these documents, especially in California.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
Okay,

Speaker 3 (30:11):
There's so many things here. I remember when I moved here, I was like, oh my gosh, why is there so many disclosure? It's crazy. And so all those little things, the agents get lost in the sauce on it. They don't want to be responsible for it, but we do keep them in the loop. We do a group text with the client where it's the tc, the agent, and both the sellers or both the buyers or whatever it is. And so we try to keep all the communication there that way the agents know, Hey, I just sent you guys a DocuSign or whatever it might be, little things like that or, Hey, we've got the photo shoot booked. So we keep them very involved in that process. We CC them on everything. So for the most part, it's really not all that difficult. I feel like sometimes it's a little over-engineered where people get panicky about it a little bit, and it's like, no, wait, actually I do know what's going on.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
If I just look at my text messages, I can see what's happening or my emails, I can see what's happening. We do also have an integration where our transaction management system connects with the CRM with follow-up boss, so they can pop in and see, okay, here's all my dates, here's all my deadlines. They have full access to as much as they want access to. And for our more high C agents that are all the details, they proactively are looking at that stuff, paying attention to that stuff. Whereas our high D agents that are just like, Nope, I am onto the next thing, they're just moving real quick. Those people are like, cool, you got this sweet. I'll see you later. Tell me if you need anything. And it's also defining clear roles where it's like, Hey, we do all the things. Unless it's a negotiation, I can't help you with the negotiation.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
So whether it's inspections or things like that, that's where the agents know that's something that they need to advise on. And we also just make a point of, Hey, if this is something that I feel like might be questionable that I don't know that I should handle for you, you should get involved. We just get 'em on the phone and say, Hey, this is going on. Your client just called me. They're kind of wigged out about this. I think you should probably have a conversation. And so it, it's not all that difficult if you're intentional, I guess I would say.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah. So it is partly circumstantial. The agent needs to be involved here, and it's partly personal, my personality typist that I like to be involved. And your systems allow for anyone to look and see where this thing is at any time and make the next right decision for themselves and ultimately the right decision for the client.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
Yes, exactly. Cool.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
You mentioned a few pieces of tech. Obviously follow Boss is kind of the hub of a lot of the activity, but what are some other core pieces of technology that you rely on and that your team relies on?

Speaker 3 (32:41):
So we use Follow-Up Boss is the beginning stages. That's very much all the agents use that. That's our kind of core thing. We also use specifically for listing and transaction management, we use Open to Close,

Speaker 4 (32:57):
Which

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Also has a follow-up Boss integration. So that's how they can come in and see things in real time and where things are at, which is incredible. It's been a game changer for us. And then we also, most of the company actually like the admin staff, which is I'm more admin facing than agent facing really. And so most of the admin staff, we use monday.com as kind of our backbone. That's where everything lives for the company, all our records and all that good stuff. Would

Speaker 1 (33:26):
You characterize that as project management for some of that's not familiar with Monday? What would it compete with?

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah, it's a project management. Exactly. Yeah, it's similar to Trello or Asana. Those are two, they all are real similar systems, but so we use monday.com very heavily. And those three things all work in conjunction together because what Monday allows us to do is take data and make it digestible. It's where a lot of our stuff lives. So things get logged in fb, but they also are logged in a way that our data scientist can come in and pull numbers and all that stuff easy.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Cool. Tell me more about your data scientist.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
She's a gem. I love her. So a lot of the times the things that we want to talk about or analyze or whatever amongst the leadership team is stuff that's really tedious to put together reports on, and it might not be the easiest to access depending on what it is you're looking for. And so she takes stuff from all different systems and puts them together and compiles 'em. And she's got a regular schedule. She does all our Zillow numbers on Mondays. She does all our segment accountability for the agents twice a day. So she's got a regular cadence so that she's proactively sending out the reports that tell the story to the people that need it on a regular basis. She's great.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Cool. Did I hear correctly earlier, I'm kind of doubling back now. Did you help spark the growth of the international team?

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
How did that go? And for people that, I think there a lot of, there's some confusion around the right ways, effective ways to work to build an international team and to work with folks in that way. Any tips for people? And what was that growth period? So you have two dozen international team members, ish, ballpark.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yep. 25.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Okay. Oh good. That's pretty close. That's a good guess, but I think you started it.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
How did that go?

Speaker 3 (35:35):
It's actually kind of a funny story. So way back a couple years ago when I was listing manager and I really reached a point where I was at capacity, I could not do anymore. I was kind of working myself to the bone. And so I went to Kyle and I was like, Hey, I need help. I need an assistant, or we need a second listing coordinator. This is not sustainable. And he challenged me as he usually does. That's his way and we love it. That's why we're all here

Speaker 1 (36:10):
And have been for years. It's one of the things that's so cool about your team.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
You know what, if you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch. That's the way I think. If you're not here to grow, you might as well not be here at all. Right? So he challenged me and he said, Hey, I've actually heard about a couple of people that have worked really successfully with virtual assistants before. We talk about getting a second person, I really, really want you to look into this. So he kind of told me that he wanted me to do that first. And honestly, I kind of went into it with my doubts. I was like, I don't know about this. I don't know if this is going to work. How do I communicate with them? Are they on the same time zone? Do they work on the same time zone as me? All those little things where I started to maybe spiral a little bit and I went into it like, okay, he's never going to get me another person here in person.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
He's never going to get me help if I don't give this a good faith effort. And I knew that. So I was like, all right, I'm going to give it my best. And if it doesn't work, I can go to him and say, this didn't work. We need to hire someone. And I can say that with conviction and really mean it because I did give it my own and I really tried to make it work. Or I figured on the flip side, if we can get someone for a lot less, which is probably not so nice, I feel like people are funny about this, but it's a good living for where they live. They support their families, they do well, but if I can pay less for someone to assist me, then I could probably go back to him and be able to have a little ammo for paying me more, getting a raise. So I kind of went into it with that mindset, which is probably not the healthiest or the best answer that I should give, but that's honestly just the truth. You

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Started with a good faith effort though, so that's positive.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
That's the thing. Well, and so I went into it and I was like, oh wait, actually this totally works. And it completely changed my life where all these busy work things where I'm even just entering a listing into the MLS is so tedious, and I'm actually not super detail oriented and methodical by nature. I'm actually more of a natural salesperson, and my job just requires, it's a learned skill. If you really want to, you can do anything. And so my job requires me to be more methodical, but I don't always enjoy the methodical things. It doesn't energize me and make me excited. And so being able to hand those things off to him was incredible. And it put so much more time back in my day, and I was actually able to do all these things that I was like, I really want to change this.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
I really want to tweak this or whatever. But I never had the time for, I suddenly was able to actually make time for those things. And it was incredible. And then I was singing it from the mountaintops. I was like, guys, this will change your life. If you're stressed, you're overwhelmed, you're, you feel overworked. Like seriously, take this seriously. Try it. Just try it. And with the right person and the right training, it will absolutely change your life. And that's what it did for me in my work-life balance and stuff. So it was really, really an absolute game changer for me. And then I was told everybody, because I know my coworkers, I'm like, I care about you guys. I don't want you stressed. I want you to be able to have a manageable workload and things like that. So that's really what sparked it was that. And then slowly, each person, rather than bringing on a second stateside person, we would just bring on an internationally based person to support our existing person. And that's where we really all were able to get a lot more done in our eight hours is because you have someone helping, you

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Mentioned the right person, and I think the right process or the right systems. How do you know you have the right person? And besides maybe loom recordings for repeated steps and things with a little bit of why, I don't want anyone to forget that step either. Any other, how do you know you have the right person and how do you know you have the right maybe work assigned or that it's set up the right way and that it's going to be successful?

Speaker 3 (40:22):
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, 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 3 (41:11):
And 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 am 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 kind 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 3 (42:04):
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 in 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, really critical of yourself, I guess I would say.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
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. 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, I guess you could say.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah. I love that. By default. It's so easy to take for granted how much we assume or how much we know. That's like we just skip. We don't even include these steps because they're so intuitive to us.

Speaker 4 (43:37):
Yes,

Speaker 1 (43:37):
There's so much good advice and there I really appreciate, and I really appreciate you taking this time to be part of the series and to spend this time with me in conversation. Before I let you go though, Shannon,

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Yeah,

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I would love to know what one of your most frivolous purchases is, or a cheapskate habit that you hold onto, even though you probably don't need to.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
I cannot think of a cheapskate habit, but one of the most frivolous purchases, this is kind of silly, it has nothing to do with real estate or anything work, but I have my phone on the back of my phone, my phone case I could show you. See, it's a mirror right here,

Speaker 4 (44:14):
Which

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Is really, really handy. And I use it to do my makeup or check my teeth or whatever, check my hair, all the things. I use it all the time. The problem is, is I'm a very clumsy person, and so I drop my phone at least once a day, if not more often. So I constantly break the back of my phone case because it's a mirror. It's a mirror. So what I do is I actually keep a stockpile in my electronics drawer at home, and my husband has said to me, he's like, you always break your phone case. You always break the mirror on your phone case. Why don't you just get a normal phone case that doesn't crack? And I'm like, absolutely not. I will never get a normal phone case because it's so handy. I won't do it. I won't do it. So I go through phone cases probably nobody else ever does.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Okay. One follow up. I think I know the answer, but why not just use the flip around on your camera as like, because that's how I think people do it, that want the effect that I feel like the mirror is just a much better resolution than your front facing camera. Has that been your experience?

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Yes. It's a better resolution. Also. It's really easy if I'm like, literally before I walked in here, I pulled out my phone. I'm like, okay, does my hair look okay? Yeah. Okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
You have to open up the camera and

Speaker 3 (45:26):
Flip it around. Yeah, exactly. It's just a lot more convenient. Okay,

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Cool. It's actually a

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Pro tip more than a frivolous purchase, so that's really good. Just feels silly. I got to replace 'em all the time. But yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
Cool. Well, this has been awesome. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks

Speaker 2 (45:41):
For checking out this episode of Team Os. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up@realestateteamos.com.