Speaker 1 (00:01):
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 2 (00:16):
This episode of Team Os features Phil Gerus, who does a fantastic job walking through ideas around lead efficiency and lead conversion work ethic. How to make sure that you've got it in the folks that you're bringing onto your team. Why Phil left sales production and why he returned. Specific questions, four of them that an agent thinking about joining a team should ask a team leader specific questions that an agent thinking about starting a team should be asking themselves. We recorded this conversation in person at Fcon, at the JW Marriott LA Live in downtown Los Angeles, where there was a very active protest going on right outside the room, almost the entire second half of this interview. I just mentioned that because John Zambrana, a fantastic team member, took down that sound as much as possible, but if you notice it, that's what you're hearing now. F concession with Phil Gerdes. So Phil, to get going, I would love for you to share a must have characteristic of a high performing team

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Must have characteristic of a high performing team. I'd say people have heard it work ethic. Yeah, you've got to, and not just from agents. I think that that's part of where people sort of miss it sometimes. It's like, I want my agents to work super hard, but I actually want my staff to take ownership value and responsibility for what they're doing and ultimately their department, especially department heads. I want you to treat your department. It's a business in itself, and how do I take absolute value and ownership of it?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
A couple key words in there, this idea of ownership and accountability. I think when a lot of people hear hard work, they kind of get into hustle and grind and all these things, and it is more and more hours, hours, hours. And of course, really the answer is both and

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
So when we start talking about leverage, it's not work less hard, it's just put your time where it's better spent. Exactly. But go into work ethic from a, you've built an organization, you have people leading teams of people. How have you probed that before inviting people into this journey and mission and effort to build your business with you? How do you test work ethic?

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah. Well, so I used to hire and I used to fire, and we learned that if I like you, I'll hire you, and if I like you, I'll never fire you. And so I'm the worst person to hire and fire. So now our operations manager is fully in control of hiring and firing, but we had a talk recently, and it was just to remind her that what you're told in an interview is oftentimes not who the person is. That's who the person they showed you they are is for the purpose of getting hired. So now we do two week meetings, 30 day meetings, 60, 90 and one 20, and it's just constant question. It's like, are you the right fit? And then are we the right fit because we might not be the right fit for them either way. It's okay, but I want you to be hardworking, but I also want you to be hardworking above and beyond the idea of I'm out there talking with clients.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
It's when you don't have clients to talk to, what are you doing? It's the old saying of what are you doing when no one's watching? Right? So the accountability is there, like you mentioned, who are you accountable to ultimately, are you accountable first to yourself or do you do what you say you're going to do no matter what, even when you say it just to yourself? And then when it gets really, really hard, and if you can find a way to get it to be hard early on for people, I think that's the win, right? When it gets to be hard, where do you go? Are you the one that's going to hide behind the chair or are you the one that's going to step up when everything's hitting the fan? Do you rush in or run out? So finding ways to create environments like that, and it doesn't have to be crazy. I mean, we're in the office, we're in a meeting, we do role playing. Who's the first person that says I want to go first? Who jumps up to go first? That's the one that I want to pull them in, and then I want to transfer my skills to that person the most and ultimately continue to do that until I feel like they can then do the same for other people.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, I love it. It makes me want to, you had me envisioning a team interview where you offer the

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Group setting

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Where you Yeah, yeah. It's funny. So one thing you just shared there, kind of underneath all of that was some self-awareness about what you are good at and what you're not good at, what you enjoy doing and what you don't enjoy doing. Take us back to maybe when you started building a team, how self-aware were you around these themes and what was that journey like for you? I assume that the level of success you've achieved to date, I assume that you've complimented your strengths and weaknesses, and I assume just the way you felt that underneath you did it with some level of intention.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yes. Yeah. So I would say when we first started, you wear every hat, you just figure it out, right? You're wearing every hat, you're figuring it out. But the drive from the point when we started to where we are has been, it's not so much what am I good at? It's what am I willing to accept that I'm not good at? And then what do I do about it? And that's hard. At least it was hard for me as a business owner to say I'm, I'm not the best person to handle this and I probably should never be handling these situations. So then who do I bring in to handle 'em for me? And then there's the logistical side, a business. So who do I in? What is it going to cost to have them here? How are we going to pay it? How are we going to ensure that we pay it?

Speaker 3 (06:02):
What does that take from another department or even us personally, my wife and I as business owners? And then just reconciling with the idea that this is a must, right? So you have to say here, here's my strengths, here's my weaknesses. Which one do I want to play towards? And if I want to focus on playing towards my strengths, I need to have someone cover my weaknesses and I have to accept everything that comes with that. Even putting on my humble cap, stepping back and trusting that person because if you're not going to trust you bring 'em. Right? So

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Really good. You've left sales production.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
No, I'm still in production. I left for some time and I came back. I love it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Talk about that a little bit because I know a lot of people struggle with that in the team building journey. Can I afford to leave production? How do I do that? You've seen both sides of it now, and it sounds like it's layered into this strengths and preferences piece too. So break that down a little bit.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
So for me, it was a test. Can I leave production? And ultimately I could, but what I found was I left production for the wrong reasons. I left production because it seemed cool. It seemed like what everyone was doing. If you're a team leader, if you're a broker, leave production count on your team. But again, that wasn't where my strengths lied. My strengths lied in, I was just speaking on conversion. It was with working with the clients and helping people to achieve their goals and their dreams. So why did I leave production in the first place? And then it was funny because as soon as I got back in production, not only was I back in production, but what I noticed is I got out of production way too early. Not for me, but for my agents because once I got back into production, guess what they did?

Speaker 3 (07:44):
They got back into production. It was like speed of the leader and followed the leader. So I found that me focusing my attention on how do I convince them or I say convince, but other people say train them, but ultimately it's how do I convince them to do the thing? I found that if I stopped trying to convince them and I just did it and I showed them by doing it, they would want to do it. And when they wanted to do it, that's when I circled back around and said, okay, let me support you since you want it. Let me support you in doing it and achieving what you're looking for.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
I really appreciate that. Of course, the power of modeling. Yeah, absolutely teach coach, train as much as we want, but modeling it is a critical part of being successful in any of those efforts. Agreed. How about an agent? Thinking about starting a team for you, what was a spark where you knew that that was a thing for you? Or because I assume you're guiding a lot of folks now, just as someone, people look for ideas. When people ask you that, what kind of questions do you follow up with and or what are a couple of your key

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Guide points? I always knew I wanted to have a team. I came from an industry, I had a team. There was 13,000 people on my team. I understood team building. That was what I did. Where I live in Maryland, you can't have a real estate team unless you're an agent for three years. I didn't know that. So literally my first day in, I was like, all right, let's start the team. And my broker was like, no, let's make this clear how this actually works. And I'm happy it happened because it gave me three years to figure out everything. I didn't want to transfer to someone else. And then in my third year, I started figuring out, well, why do people want to work with me? Why would they want to work with me? And then let's bring them on and start mentoring them because as soon as year three hits, we're going to start this team and I want them to be confident in this is the right team for them.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
But if someone were to come to me and ask me, what should I do? I want to start a team. Why it's my first in the back of your mind, what do you see coming from starting this team? Because if you don't see everything, and I mean everything that comes with starting this team, and it's not easy. It is a hard thing to do, to deal with people as we all know, but then deal with people that are counting on you and trusting you and believing you ultimately, and then believing the vision and the brand that you're building and the culture that you're hoping to create. If you can't accept the pressure that comes with it, then it's not right for you. And then also, if you can't accept the obligation that comes with it, because the reality is if there's 10 people on my team, I'm one person, but ultimately those 10 people see me as their one person individually.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
So it's important in my opinion as a team leader to say, well, how much am I willing to give to these people? And I can't cut it because this person made me upset today or that, you know what I mean? I have to be willing to give to them, or why would they stay here in the first place? Then as time goes by, you build SOPs for how you work with your team, and then ultimately you bring in other people that can take some of the burden from you and then make it easier and allow you to have more time and energy to do all the other things you want to do while building the team. So the first question is, why is it just a cute thing you heard of or is there real purpose behind why you want to build this team?

Speaker 2 (11:11):
And I feel like the best follow-up question once you've answered that for yourself is another question you answer. You offer to that response, which is why would someone else join you in that? If you don't have that value prop? I don't mean it from a marketing perspective, like legit, why would someone join you and why would they stay? And you had, I love that you had a ramp into it. Yeah, there you

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Go. Yeah, I read your mind. Yeah, great. One thing that I do, and it was a broker that dropped the seed in my mind, is I look to treat our agents as our clients is I think that a lot of times broker owners or team leaders just look at the person buying or selling a house and say, that's my client, when the reality is that agent is also your client, and it's one thing to serve the buyer seller, but it's a whole other thing to understand that you're also in service to the agents that trust you, and you've got to ask yourself, well, how am I going to be in service to those people?

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah. I think of agent experience and client experience as two sides of the same coin as the experience is for the agents. It comes out in the manifestation in the relationship and what it feels like to talk to this person, work with this person, et cetera, et cetera. So you mentioned standard operating procedures, SOP, and you came from running a very, very large team, so I'm sure that was a default for you. I don't know that that's the default for a lot of other folks. As you're out and about engaging with people, talking with people, sometimes giving guidance and suggestions to people, how common would you say it is for people to be vastly immature in regard to what has been standardized and documented?

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Insanely common. Too common. Very common. In fact, on stage, I touched on three reasons why I think that people don't make it. And one of 'em is just, it's not an inability. It's not that the knowledge isn't out there, it's an unwillingness to accept what this really takes, and that leans on immaturity. And it's not to say a person is immature, it's their mindset towards the industry is immature, and it's that they've watched too much Bravo or HGTV or Million Dollar Listing or Selling Sunset, which kudos to all those guys that great

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Or TikTok

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Or everything on TikTok. Exactly. And they think that the goal is to get views. No, the goal is to serve clients. The goal is to be a value. The goal is to be a gift to people, and so much so that they want to transfer that gift to someone else. And that doesn't mean you have to have a thousand views on a video. It means you need one. Ultimately you need one from the right one, and you're willing to dive in and support that person.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
So you spoke here at Fcon about lead conversion. Yes. Generally, and certainly in a market like this, running a profitable business requires a very keen eye toward lead efficiency, getting as many dollars out of every dollar. You invest in this and taking advantage of every opportunity. Share a couple high level tips for a team leader working on improving lead efficiency across say a team of 5, 6, 10 agents. Sure.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
First tip would be everyone doesn't need to get everyone. Every agent on your team hasn't earned the right to receive every lead and be okay with that. And that can be tough, especially when you actually care about the people on your team because you want 'em to win and you want 'em to have opportunity. But the fact is, some people are not ready to receive a listing lead. Some people are not even ready to receive a buyer lead. So putting yourself in a state of understanding that it's better for the company and ultimately better for that agent to dive more into training and supporting that person so that they are prepared and capable when the lead comes in, then just giving 'em a lead and getting 'em blowing out. Because when you blow out a lead that can do something to that agent's confidence level, and for some people they never come back from that.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
And if you do it enough, they think that, well, I'm just not good at leads. No, it's not that you're not good at leads, you just never had a real opportunity to learn how to do leads. Right. So the next thing I would say is probably to stop training on everything. And this is something I had to come to terms with. I don't have to train on every single topic in real estate. If you want people to get great at listing leads, why are you talking about anything else in training? I have this idea that people confidently do what they're most confident in. So we made a shift last year. I talked about it from stage where we decided in October, we are only training on listings. Every single training will live in a listing space in some capacity. And it wasn't how are you going to get a listing lead?

Speaker 3 (15:46):
It was when you get the listing appointment booked, what's everything you do from there? And what we found is, for example, last year, just for context, we sold 196 homes and we had 70 listings by July. First of this year we did 84 listings. So massive shift because we took a massively different approach in how we looked at leads. So when you're looking at leads, everyone doesn't need to get a lead, but also what do you want to focus on? What do you want to build your business on? And that's all you should train on. And then from there, I would say take a lead every now and then, even if you're out of production. The mistake I think a lot of leaders do is they lead from past experience instead of present market experience. And I would argue that it's super important for people to start saying, yeah, well, I know I'm speaking to you based on what happened three years ago, but three years ago was a covid market. It's not this market. So how do you know what's happening? You get in there in the trenches and you just test it out and practice yourself too.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, so many good tips in there. I mean, categorized into three, but layers inside each one. I appreciate this idea of how fast the market changes. I mean, it really is. I mean, just staying in touch with that, talk about that a little bit. You just gave a very specific way to do it. You also are actively still in production, so you're already doing it, but have you shared anything that comes to mind around this idea of ways for someone out of production to stay in touch with the market? Is it staying in touch with agents more often?

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, it could be. Yeah. Yeah, I think very much so. If you're out of the selling market, again, your agents are clients, so you're not out of the agent market. So more than, Hey guys, we're having Monday trainings. How about, Hey you guys, what are you doing for lunch today? Why don't we just go shoot it and talk and just break down things, lunches on me. Let's talk about anything you want to talk about and understand the mindset of where agents are. Because the market, there's a couple sides of it. To me, there's the client perspective, like the buyer, seller market. There's the agent perspective, the market that they're building, and then there's the actual real estate market and what it's doing with or without any of us, right? So I want to understand all perspectives. So if I want to stay in the market from an agent perspective, then I'm going to look at the market and I'm going to meet with agents and talk to them and figure out what's going well, what's not, how I can help, what we can develop.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
And if you really want to develop something, include them. Don't include them in just the ideas, include them in the development of the ideas. So now it's their baby and they're more connected to the culture of what you're building. And then from the client perspective, one thing I tell my agents, if we have a closing in the office, come get me. I want to talk to your clients. When it's said and done, I want to ask them how it went and tell 'em what was your favorite part, what are you most excited about? What's your favorite aspect of the house? Where are you going to sit first when all your furniture's in? I want to know all of that, what that experience is like for them. Why did you choose this house, this neighborhood, this community, this town? And then from a market perspective, stay aware.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
And I think for a lot of real estate agents and team leaders and brokers, it just can get boring. It can get boring, just so much information. We're constantly bombarded with information and to the point we're almost like what is even real anymore? But the reality is your job as the leader is to know the market and you must know the market. So you have to take time. You have to block out time to actually dive in and watch the podcast, read the articles, and know what's going on nationally and then statewide and then hyper, hyper locally, what's actually going on. And that means you also got to get great at research because if you don't know how to research, you're not going to get the right information. You're getting get the information that's thrown in front of you, but not all the layers underneath

Speaker 2 (19:45):
You. Just reminded me of accountability to yourself in terms of putting that time block on and actually honoring it, because I can think of 10 reasons why someone would let that go. Yes. Yeah. It's funny, even in my own work, which is not real estate directly, I just get the privilege of talking with people and learning and sharing. To me, it sometimes feels like I'm not working. I should save time in the evening or time on the weekends to watch that video or listen to that podcast. It doesn't feel like work, but it's also fun as you already well described. And it's fundamentally important to your success and your ability to serve other people.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
It is. It is. And it doesn't feel like I agree completely. It doesn't feel like working when you're doing it and almost to the point where you sort of feel guilty until you need it. And when you have that conversation two, three days later and you realize, wow, that came from that research I did. And that's where you can reinstill the value in doing that and taking the time and saying, yeah, you know what? I could have been out in the bullpen talking to agents, but I needed this time to fill myself up to learn what I maybe didn't know, and then ultimately to have it in my toolbox or my kit for when I need to pull it out and do work with it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Speak to a solo agent who's inside a brokerage who might be better off joining a team because it's going to compliment their strengths and weaknesses better than continuing to do what they're doing, which is to be generally largely responsible for everything, which no one is good at. Exactly. So speak to that person a little bit. How might they consider, or perhaps even how should they interview? You did a nice job talking about this needs to work both ways. Give a little bit of advice to that agent.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
I think for the solo agent, I think listening to a team leader, you would always think that they're going to say, just join a team. And the reality is I'd say 90% of the people, or some 90% of the people should probably just join a team, but not any team. There's a few key elements to the team that you're going to join and the interview that you're going to have that I think are super important. Number one is never ask about splits. Now I realize that that's the most important thing on so many people's minds, but just understand if you wanted to be a doctor, you would never ask your college. You'd never ask your graduate school, how much am I going to get paid? The answer is none. You're paying them. Okay, right? But eight years after you become a doctor, you're paid. You are the surgeon, you're the one, right?

Speaker 3 (22:11):
So don't worry about splits. And people would say, well, that's not, I got to survive. I got to live. I get it. You do find a way, but this isn't the time. Number two, be hyper honest with the team leader. And when I say that, I mean if the team leader is saying to you, well, what do you want? If your want is to be with the team for three years, learn everything you can and then go start your own team. Just be honest with them and tell 'em that so that they can help. Because a person that actually cares isn't hurt by that. They're not threatened by that. They're excited about being a chapter in your book. And then the next thing I would say is, do not join a team that isn't exceptional at marketing. And you as a solo agent will not make the team exceptional at marketing.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
And you're great at marketing. So if I join this team, they'll probably do what I think to do. If they were going to do it, they'd be doing it right. There's plenty of people they can mimic. If they're not doing it, they're the wrong team because marketing is key. And the last tip I would give is when you find a team that's exceptional at marketing, find out if they're interested in marketing you because the brand is amazing. But for our team, one of the missions that we have is I not only want to build the team brand, but I want to build the brand of every agent within the team. And when we first started the team, my wife and I had the conversation. I said, I want to help people become so good that they have every tool they need to leave us, but I want them to love where they are so much that they never do.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Man, what a delicate balance that is. It's so good. I would love to ask you, we don't have time now, but we will have another conversation, Phil, I promise, or I request, I guess I'm in. Cool. Just that balance of it's the individual agent brand. It's the team brand. I know that's a fear. You also talked about splits. I know that's a big fear for a lot of solo agents. And then there's also in the mix, there's the corporate brand in some cases or the franchise or whatever, and that they all need to work together really, really well. And I think really good guidance across the board. This has been awesome. I've enjoyed it very much. Before I let you go, I would love for you to share either your very favorite team besides your own real estate team or the best team you've ever been a member of besides your own real estate team.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
My favorite team in anything? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Anything.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Oh goodness, I wasn't ready for that one. My favorite team in anything or a

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Team you love to root for, you don't have to find the very, very best. Great.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
I'd say a team I love to root for right now is Colorado. Yeah. College football Colorado. And it's not because of Dion Sanders as far, lemme say this, it's not because of Coach Prime, it is because of Dion Sanders, DEON. A lot of people don't know Dion Sanders changed his name in college. His stage name is D-E-I-O-N. And it's crazy how he did it. He decided to change his name because people were mispronouncing it and everything, but he thought about the old McDonald song, E-I-E-I-O, and that's how he decided to change the spelling of his name, EIO. So he spells it that way. Now why do I root for them? Because he calls every one of those boys, his son, even though two of his sons are on the team, he talks to them like people. He doesn't see them as a product and he could be faking, but it doesn't seem that way.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
He actually cares. One of the best players in college football right now wants to get on the field, and Dion Sanders refuses to let him get on the field because he says that your future is more important than the game we're about to play. So you will heal from your injuries and we will take care of you, and then we'll bring you back. Because it's more than just money. It's about people, it's about service, it's about submitting, it's about caring. And if you take that approach, then I don't see how a person can lose. And so that's why I'm rooting for Colorado right now. Love it.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
I have a feeling you have 20 more minutes of

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Explanation

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Underneath there just on culture, leadership, culture change. There's a case study there too. There's so much there. Really appreciate that offering. Really appreciate your time with me and all the advice that you shared and continued success to you. Phil Ethan,

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Thank you. This was great. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Thanks for checking out this episode of Team Os. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up@realestateteamos.com.