Speaker 1 (00:00):
Most team leaders don't realize their culture is breaking until it already has. And the thing most likely to break it, adding too many people too fast. Brittany Gibbs runs MOVE Real Estate in Portland and Seattle. 75 agents, six staff, started in year three, the day she got her principal broker's license, and she's built it on a simple idea of doing less, focusing more, and being intentional. Here in this conversation, you'll learn how fast growth can break culture in ways you can't walk back, how slowing down in hiring, systems, and agent focus actually builds a stronger business. What her production tiered coaching model looks like across four very different groups of agents, and how and why she's trying to leave sales production, even though she sold 20 homes herself in Q1 already this year. Enjoy your time with Brittany Gibbs right now on Real Estate Team OS.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
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 (01:09):
Brittany, thank you so much for making time for this conversation. Welcome to Real Estate Team OS.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to the conversation. I love what you've done over the years. There's a period of fast growth in there that we're going to spend some time on because I know that the way you run your business is important to you. I know that culture is important to you and that certainly winds up under threat. And I've got maybe some of my own stories that might surface around that just to kind of create some contrast or to validate. But we're going to start, Brittany, where we always do, which is a must-have characteristic of a high-performing team.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
I thought about this one and I really do think that I think the ability to be able to pivot is probably the biggest thing that I've noticed, accountability and being able to pivot just because changes happen every single day. And you have to be able to think quick and move.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah. So there's a lot of judgment in that. You don't want to overreact. You don't want to miss an opportunity. You don't want to dwell too long in something that's painful or suboptimal or heaven forbid, like burning money. There's a judgment or an editorial layer there. How do you know when to commit to a true, I don't know, 45 degree or 90 degree or even 180 degree pivot? Is it just intuitive to you?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
I think it is a little bit intuitive. I think, I mean, at least for me, I made a lot of slow changes in the beginning and I was like, why didn't I do that a year ago when I saw it happening? But I feel like if you really do understand your business, you're going to have that. You're going to see it and you just have to be able to make that decision really quick and not dwell on it too much. If things are wasting money, cancel it. If things aren't working, I mean, don't do it prematurely. Everything takes time. But usually as a teammate, you know. You know you've been through it before. So just being able to pivot quickly and not dwell on mistakes.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
What role does staff or agent feedback play in maybe bringing something to your attention or kind of like speaking to your intuition or validating something that you've been feeling but couldn't name?

Speaker 3 (03:06):
I always joke that I have five people that I go to all the time because I joke that I have a text message that's like board of directors. But it's a joke, but you do have to be able to, your agents are the ones that are going to be the ones doing it. You have to be able to talk to your operations. You have to be able to have everybody on board. I think team leads and broker owners, they play this visionary role, but there's some logistical stuff that isn't always right. And so you do have to have those people that you go to and trust because if you don't have that, then it is a little bit of a blind moving ship.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah. Really good. And trust is so important there too. Trusting their judgment, trusting their word and all these other things. And that obviously goes both ways. You don't need to give us a full history of your path into real estate and to where you are today, but take us maybe to that window of time where starting a team or a brokerage occurred to you. What was going on in your business when you understood that it would be to your benefit or to your interest to bring some people around you?

Speaker 3 (04:06):
I started off and we start off really quick. I mean, I did a ton of deals my first year. I started a team my very first year in real estate. I know. And back then, there wasn't a lot of teams. I mean, that was 12 years ago. And teams were still a beginning thing. And so I started off at KW and there were a lot of teams there, but when you were to go out in our other markets or into our market, there wasn't a lot of brokerages that supported teams. So I had thought and thought and thought about what I was going to do. And every single place I went, they either didn't support teams or one of my clients were like, "Oh, I had a really bad rep." They had really bad experience with them or whatever it was. And I just was like, "You know what?

Speaker 3 (04:49):
I don't want anybody else's reputation. I want to do things my own way." I got a lot of slack even for doing the Zillow stuff in the beginning. Everybody thought you should build your business office fear. And I was like, "I'm 21. I don't have a sphere." They're in college. And I just wanted to have my own thing. I wanted to make my own decisions and I didn't want to have to go to somebody else to think about it. I mean, I opened a brokerage the day, the three years came to get my PB license. And then the rest was history. We had a team of 10 and we've pretty much doubled in size every year almost. And it's been a fun process.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
So you built the early version of ... I mean, you built a team inside KW and then as soon as you got your license, you opened your own brokerage.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah. As soon as I got my principal broker's license, I opened up my own brokerage. And I mean, there's a lot of learning curves that go with opening up your own brokerage and running it. And I mean, it's a full business. And sometimes I think that maybe that hindered our production in the very beginning, just because you're playing so many different roles, you're no longer an agent, you're no longer a team lead, but now you have to do all these other things and make sure that you're doing it right because now you're liable for anything that comes down the line. So it's interesting. And I joke that I don't know if I would do the broker owner again, but I'm too deep now.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
For sure. Well, and to your point that you made a minute ago, 12 years ago, starting a team is a lot different than starting a team today. I mean, some brokerages essentially, by my observation, were designed and structured specifically for teams. And they're more compelling, I think, for teams perhaps than individual agents. That's not necessarily true. But the world that you decided you wanted to do this in, it was a much different world than today. For people who are at that, or maybe considering reaching that kind of decision point around team versus brokerage, I know we just cleared the fact that you might make a different decision today, but what were ... I think there's some misunderstandings about what's really required to go indie brokerage versus team. And I set all this painful, difficult stuff to the side. I don't need to think about it anymore.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
I just get to focus on production, which is true. But bring that wall down a little bit farther. I mean, it comes up from time to time on the show, but I'd love to hear in your words, what about starting a brokerage was more cumbersome or complicated than you expected? And maybe what are people maybe overestimating in terms of the challenge or the complexity?

Speaker 3 (07:29):
I honestly thought that when I started it, it was like, okay, this is easy. But as you grew and you need people to fill that, I can't ... When we got to a hundred deals in a year or 200 deals in a year, it was like, oh my gosh, this is so much paperwork that I have to be reviewing. So now I have to hire somebody for that. Okay. Well, that makes it significantly more expensive instead of just having just a split where they deal with the lawyers. They deal with the business side of things. They deal with the reviewing of the paperwork. There's just so many different aspects of owning and keeping up on all the laws and making sure that you're being a good managing broker, as well as team lead, as well as entrepreneur, all the business side of things. So it was like, dang, I spent so much time doing that.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Was it worth it instead of just paying a cap to do something else? So that was probably the hardest part, but I really did lean into the fact of like, I think, why would you start your own brokerage? And the reason why I wanted to is because I didn't want anybody else's reputation and I wanted to build my own legacy and my own brand that really only had me attached to it, which made all that other work worth it. And when I say me, I didn't name it after myself. I definitely very purposely named it something that other people could feel ownership in, but I wanted to create a brand that you saw the sign and you were like, "Oh yeah, those are great agents. They're smart and they care about their clients and we do those different types of things." And so when you have that side of it, that's the reason why I wanted to do all the rest of it.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
But there is the financial and time aspect where you don't get to just focus on real estate or your team. There is a whole business side of it that is more complicated.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah. Okay, great. I would love for you now to characterize, move real estate however you'd like, like markets you serve, size, structure, culture, whatever you'd like to share. I'd love to just kind of characterize for folks before we get deeper into some of the things that we've already touched on.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
So I mean, when I started MOVE, I mean, it's changed over the years and stuff, but I really never wanted to grow this mega brokerage. That was never my intention. My intention was to hire very, very intentionally and bring on agents that were not part-time, that took people over money and they took time to educate themselves and know their craft and master their craft and being surrounded by people that I would want to sell my own property or to purchase a property from that I trusted. And I really didn't want to just bring on anybody that would come. And I was very intentional in the people that I brought and we were very quick to let go of people that didn't fit in that. I just wanted to be around people that I could do it. I'm a major empath, so if I'm around people that aren't doing good business or they're not motivated, it really negatively impacts me.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
And I think it impacts everybody. I feel like you can have one poisonous person and it can ruin your entire culture. And the culture we have here is like everybody is helpful and they want everybody to grow. There's obviously like some general competitions and stuff like that, but there is like truly, everybody's so helpful and nice and they're just great agents, like really great agents. And that's what I wanted to grow. And I wanted to do small but mighty teams in a couple different cities. And so that's what we did.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Cool. So you're in Portland, you're in Seattle. About how many agents and about how many staff? I know it fluctuates. It's not locked in.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
So yeah, we have 60 agents in Portland and we're Portland Metro and we have our main staff. We run skeleton crew. We actually only have a total of six staff for both Seattle and Portland. For agents in Seattle, we have 15 so far. We just opened up in January actually. That was our first expansion. We've been open in Washington just because Oregon's right on the border, so we do a lot of Vancouver and Camis. So I already owned a brokerage there. We did all that stuff. So expanding to Seattle, there was that piece that we didn't have to add on. And so I have an incredible ops manager in Seattle, but she's everything else we actually do at our main office in Portland, which is nice.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
So you have one staff in Seattle, the other five are in Portland?

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Cool. Let's spend a minute in expansion. I mean, the logistical piece is already square. I hear that one a lot too. I went with a team because they can help me open in other states much more easily, but you were already there because Portland basically is serving Oregon and Washington all the time. So that piece of it's already knocked down. But what else was compelling to you about getting more than a dozen agents going in a new city?

Speaker 3 (12:08):
A new city. Well, I mean, Seattle, I always joke is like the big sister of Portland. It's very similar in the sense of like similar people, but the price point's a little bit better, which is kind of nice. The traffic is way worse, which is not something I accounted for because in Portland, everybody can drive everywhere. And Seattle, that is not the case. So people were asking ... I had to learn a lot about Seattle, but I liked it because I still have kids. I mean, I would love to have expanded into somewhere warm. That's like my dream, which is going to be down the line, but really-

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, trying to make that happen.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah. I wanted to keep it close to home though. Seattle's a really quick flight and it's a two and a half hour drive for me. So I wanted to keep it close, but I didn't want to feel stagnant. I love my Portland team, but it's really pretty self-sufficient at this point. And I love challenging myself. And Seattle was my next fun challenge. And yeah, I thought, why not?

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Cool. So I heard ops manager in Seattle. What are the other kind of key roles that keep things locked down in Portland that gave you the confidence to say, "This thing's really humming. I can afford to invest some of my time and attention two and a half hours north."

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah. So I have an amazing team and everybody kind of splits up. We have an incredible graphic designer, marketing person that she does. She handles so much stuff and she's amazing. And then we have our admin team and they handle, there's only two of them and they handle so much. It's amazing. And then we have my ops manager here and then we have two reviewing brokers. And my ops manager here, I could not survive without her. She pretty much is like, I will tell her my thoughts and then she puts them into motion, which I definitely need because I will think about great ideas all the time. And I love chatting and coaching and doing those things, but the implementation part has never been my ... I'll do it when I have to, but she definitely is an implementer and that's helped me so much get to that next level.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
So she makes a lot of things possible for me. And then yeah, the two reviewing brokers for one for Oregon and one for Washington. So I feel like it's simple, but it really does work and everything's just, it flows and we don't have a hundred different people doing all this stuff. We just have key people that can handle a lot and I love that.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Where have you been fortunate enough to find these types of people that work with you so well that like, I assume they represent you and I mean, because you've spoken clearly about brand and reputation and culture, which we'll double down in just a minute on, but like where are you finding good people or where have you been lucky enough to find good people?

Speaker 3 (15:02):
I feel like there hasn't been one specific person or one specific way, to be honest. One of the gals that I was talking about, my ops manager here in Portland, we actually worked together at KW. She was the team lead at KW at the time that I was there. And in my career, I have called her a couple times just to be like, "Hey, do you know, " because she's such a connector. So I was like, "Do you know anybody that would be a really good fit for this? " And then she'll send me three people. She's like, "Yeah, I know these three people are looking and that's always been our relationship." But I had called her and I was like, "Listen, I am so overwhelmed and I need an operations person. Who do you know that is maybe looking for something or maybe want to move into a role like this?

Speaker 3 (15:47):
" And she's like, "Okay, tell me more." And then she just came, she's like, "I think that's me. " And I was like, "Yes, it is. That's funny. I just described you. " So she came over and so we've known each other for a long time, almost 10 years, 10 or 12 years, so it's pretty awesome. And then same sort of thing. I just got a call in Seattle and she was like, "Hey, I heard you were coming to Seattle and I've heard really good things about you. So I was just wondering if what you were doing, if I can help." And another one of those really great roles where I was like, "Yeah, you're perfect. Let's come on over." So it's just honestly, I've been kind of lucky to where they've kind of fallen in my lap. I'd like to take credit for it, but it hasn't fully been that way.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Okay. Well, I'll give you some credit for it. Just the way that you described your Seattle Ops manager and the way that it came to you. I mean, this commitment to we are who we are, we are who we are naturally and authentically, but also with a level of intention as a group of people. This is culture, this is brand, this is reputation, your reputation does precede you. Your reputation is built conversation by conversation. I feel like in this conversation and conversation we had that wasn't recorded, that seems very clear and intentional to me. And so one of the things that was curious to me or one of the things I got curious about is think about a period of time when you added a lot of agents. If your story is like a lot of them, it's not, we've just been adding one agent every month, nice and steady and losing one agent every third month and here we are in this very straight line growth path.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
They're like these little bursts of growth and opportunity or good fortune and these other things that bring wonderful people into our lives and businesses. I would assume you've been through some periods of fast growth. Would you say that that's fair? And if so, when did those occur?

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, we definitely went through a couple. I realized that I don't love fast growth, but we had to in a couple different ways. When we switched from market-based pricing to flex, they put us on so many things and we had to mass hire. We had to bring on 10, 15 agents. And I definitely felt a shift in our culture and all those things. And then it happened again when we were like, "We don't have enough agents to cover showings or open houses." And there was just so much going on that we'd needed to do that again. I've never loved that. Now I joke that I'm always hiring, but I am never mass hiring. I'll never do that again because you have to protect your culture so much and you can't bring on 10 people and expect your culture to be the same. So I try to just do one agent a quarter, honestly.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
And I couldn't do that obviously in the beginning because we did have a period of growth where we were 10 for a long time and then we jumped to like 16 or 17 really, really fast and that just took some adjustment. And honestly, that's a business change too. The same systems won't work for that. The same admin staff doesn't work for that. And so there's like growth periods of ... It honestly is not great when you have a bunch of fast growth at one time because it doesn't give you the chance to change all the rest of the stuff in the right time either. You kind of have to just switch everything up. So I am a little bit more slow growing than most. I mean, I've ran a team for almost 12 years and I have truly ... I feel like we could have been triple the size by now.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
And I know a lot of people that started the same time as I did that are, but I just have never, I've never wanted that.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
I want to go to that window of like 10 to 16 and like just for the sake of, I don't know, making them both divisible by 10, 10 to 20. Someone who's in that range, but they're like ... I mean, even 10 to 16 or 17, like 10 to 17 is basically doubling. Obviously that is in a tight period of time, you're introducing a lot of new faces, voices, personalities. Certainly you're recruiting well, you're onboarding well, you're doing that as well as you can. At the same time, you're also doing it kind of fast. And maybe at 10 agents, you haven't done that before. You didn't go from two agents to 10 overnight or in like a month's time or something. So what can you preserve and protect and how, and what do you need to kind of just say this aspect of the culture or this aspect of how we do things just can't be anymore.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Whether that's, again, 10 to 17 or whether that was 45 to 60.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
I think you just have to be really clear about your vision. I think that's where the team lead role is, is that you are the person of that. I mean, and if you aren't, then when you bring 10 people in and you aren't clear on your vision, then it can get all mangled and screwed up and then that trajectory can change. And so for me, it's just like when you're hiring people, be really clear about what you expect and where your vision is of what your company is and see if they're the right fit upfront and be intentional with hiring. That's why I don't want to bring just anybody on because if you're not intentional, then they're probably going to change the trajectory and your culture and all those things. So I like to bring people on that are a little bit more like- minded and motivated and all those things.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
And then I don't think it changes the culture that much. And then assigning them to mentors, like people that are in your brokerage and integrate them so they just don't feel like they're on an island or this 10 are on their island and these seven new hires are on their island, like you have to somehow integrate them. And mentorship has been a really good way for us to do that as well.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Share anything about the recruiting, onboarding and mentorship process. I hear you on mentorship versus like, here's this new cohort of people. The idea that they can have more direct access to someone who truly lives and represents the brand and the culture. One kind of colloquial way I describe culture is it's how we do things around here, which captures a lot. It's not just the how, it's like the why, it's the what, it's the, what don't we do, what do we always do, what do we never do? What do we sometimes do? Why is that the case, et cetera. There's a lot wrapped into it, but it's like how we do it around here. And so when you attach some of these new folks to ... I understand why the mentorship program is important in kind of closing that gap, especially for someone who thinks about the business the way that you do.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
But share anything you want about recruiting, onboarding, mentorship, who's doing it, how has it changed over time? Anything you want to share on those topics?

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Absolutely. So we don't fully recruit all the time. So a lot of our agents have come from other agents and I feel super proud that they want people to come. And so that's been nice that a lot of our stuff has just been from our other agents. And so that's been easier to make it, but we'll attach them to somebody I feel like personality wise are a good fit. Even if they've been in the business for a long time, they still need to know our systems and how we do things and how we say it exactly like you had said, it's how we do things around here. And attaching them to somebody who's been there for a while also creates that like, "Hey, we're here to help and I'm not admin, but I'm your go- to person." And then it's created these great friendships. And then our onboarding has been pretty simple for the most part.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Just we don't have a ton of stuff. We try to make real estate really simple. So I think that's a little bit different than some teams. There's a lot of stuff and I think it overwhelms agents. I'm like, "No, you don't need that to be successful. You need to go talk to people. " So we do try to make it as simple as possible and get people with the right mentors and not overhire.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Tell me a little bit more about keeping things simple and not doing things just because other teams and brokerages are doing them. I think there's something interesting there. I don't know what it is.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
So I think there's a lot in Roy's in real estate and I've always said that. I mean, everything down to media to, I mean, the AI push. And I mean, it's real. There's no doubt that it's real. I had a mastermind about it earlier this week of just like how AI is changing our industry and buyers and all these different things. But the truth is if you could just get out there and you're talking to people and you're doing a good job and you're keeping up in your CRM, those are the things that make successful real estate agents. ChatGPT team might do a couple things for you or AI might do a couple things for you, but that isn't what's going to sell real estate. I know and social media and becoming influencers, that's not also going to sell real estate. It's all of these things that you can do to help you become successful, but there's a lot of noise.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
And the more time that you spend doing all of that noise and not doing the things that are actually like business, it's just more things that are taking away from your actual business. So I mean, that's the way that I feel about it. So we don't have a bunch of stuff and I don't teach social media classes and all these different things because I support those things, but I also think that there's another way to do real estate and that's just always the way we've done it.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah. Kind of when I hear that a little bit, I'm not discouraging anyone from doing anything that they feel like they need or want to do, but I'm also not asking for their time and attention and pointing it at this topic in particular. I feel like the people that resonate the most with me with regard to social media, which sometimes I wish I was in a business or in a role where I didn't need it at all for any reason because I don't think I would have it. So I would want to qualify it that way. But the people that resonate with me the most are the people that are a bit effortless in the process and I feel like I'm certain that there are agents in your brokerage. Would you call yourself a brokerage or TeamRidge, by the way?

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Or does it not matter? You're not even

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Careful. I think that I like the term TeamRidge because everybody at the brokerage is pretty much on a team, but we also do run very individual. I think I have so many heavy hitters here that they're running their own business. So it's different. I don't know. I like Team Range.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Okay. I'm sure there are people on the team that are fantastic on social media and it's probably driving some business for them. They're not necessarily looking to be influencers. They're just looking to be present and connect and communicate. And that's a channel that they really like doing it in. It's not the only channel they use. It's probably not even the best channel that they use. But I feel like people who show up to really any space in a natural and honest way with some level of intention are generally going to be present in a more effective manner.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Absolutely. Yeah. And I always say with new people, they'll try to do 10 different things at one time and I'm like, just find something that feels natural to you and go. Because if anybody sees me on any type of social media, they'll realize it's honestly kids, dogs, that there's not really anything real estate related. And that's just because it doesn't feel natural to me. Everybody in my life knows I'm a real estate agent. They know I own Move,

Speaker 3 (26:44):
But it's not something that's ever felt natural to me. But picking up and calling people and being like a real estate advisor, going out and talking with people and creating relationships, that's felt natural to me. So I don't think that you have to have social media in my position, but I do think that there are certain people that I'm like, "Dude, you're really good at that and you should jump in on that, but don't do 10 things at one time and expect to be really good at all of them," which is what I've tried to teach people. Just pick one or two things and run with it.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
So you've been, again, at this for over a decade as a brokerage owner, but you're also selling homes as many as like four or five dozen homes. Tell me where you are with sales production. I know it's been kind of like a back and forth for you. It works for you for a variety of reasons. I want to dwell a little bit here because as we were talking before we hit record, obviously there's no way to define success, singular way to define success. And you can really do this business and find success however you wish. And I think you get a lot of joy and satisfaction beyond the financial reward of helping people. Where are you at with all of it? When did this kind of come onto your radar at all?

Speaker 3 (27:58):
I've been on and off for the last five years saying I'm going to get out of production. And everybody, now they call me out of my office. They're like, "No, you're not. You will never get out of production." But it is. It's an internal battle because that's who I was. I mean, that's what got me here is I just was an agent that knew how to create business and I loved being an agent and that was like my identity for a long time. And then I became a team lead and then I became a broker owner and now I have teams into Seattle and I'm on AAB and it's like all these things and it's like, you can't do everything and do it well. And I have to learn to let that part of it go. I mean, it got me here and it gave me so much experience to be able to get people there now.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
So instead of like me being an agent where production really is the only value, now I want to get people to that value and I have the experience behind it to prove it and I do need to go more into my role. And at the same time, I also am learning to let go a lot more on the admin side because I do feel like I am where I'm supposed to be in more of that broker owner where I have a lot more of the vision and that's where I'm like leaning more towards. But yeah, it is a little bit of an addiction to me to still want to sell real estate because I love the puzzle, I love people, but it's a goal of mine to get out of production over the next year, but I am still doing ... Last year was my worst year in probably five or six years and I did 60 houses solo.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
So it's been fun. It's a lot of production, but I like it.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to give you a goal for yourself just based on what you've said about what other people have told you. I'm going to give you a goal of not selling more than 20 this year.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
I know. I'm working. I think I've already sold 20 this year.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Okay. I've given you a new goal. I've given you 30. So talk about that process. I mean, talk about the process of tapering down just as advice for someone who is also thinking about this because the dynamics are, as you already said, you draw a lot of, part of it is identity, part of it is joy and satisfaction. Part of it is staying in touch with the business. Part of it is, "But that's my best friend's other best friend or this is my cousin." Handing these things off isn't easy. Talk about some of the challenges of doing it because you've also established in this conversation, there are a lot of different places to invest your time and attention that you're trying to balance as well. And you've got a family as well. So talk about some of the challenges of doing less.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah. So I mean, that is probably my biggest push is just also I have two kids and I can't do three major, major things and then expect to go home and think clearly and be a good present parent. And so, I mean, the biggest challenge for me is finding somebody that I'm like, "Oh yeah, I totally just hears this business and how does that even work?" Because people are expecting you as you've created that around yourself. But I have so many incredible people here. And so that's what I've been trying to do. I've just been partnering with people on stuff and being like, "Okay, yeah, you did a really good job and now I feel like I can give you people all the time now." And I didn't know which way I was going to go. Was I going to go production assistant model? Was I going to just refer all of my business to everybody and just hope it works out?

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Or was it going to be more of a handoff?

Speaker 3 (31:43):
I have a lot of investor clients that do flips and just there's so many different avenues where I'm like, I don't know if all of these people can handle one thing. So I just feel like now I have to figure out how that handoff works and who's going to get the business and all that stuff. So I just haven't figured it out yet of how exactly I'm going to do it. But it's been really good to just be able to partner with agents on things and them take a ton of stuff off my plate and open it all up so that I can spend more time with my family. I don't work weekends anymore. I haven't for a year, which is also a very strange thing as a real estate agent, but I'm done by 4:30 or 5:00 every single day and I get to go to soccer practice and basketball practice.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
It sounds like you've tried a variety of things. You just need to figure out a system for yourself to do that more consistently. One of the things I'm also going to assume then based on what you've shared here is that you have some amount of, I mean, everyone does, but like a good amount of agent leverage. I'd love for you to speak to, I know you're not actively outbound recruiting and I would also assume that on the client side, you're not actively prospecting either. I would assume that this is all book of business, throwing off opportunities. But to the degree that you're getting into a conversation with an agent who may or may not want to join, or maybe even a small team that may or may not want to join your brokerage, how would you describe value prop/agent leverage? What are you providing to agents to allow them to do kind of what you've been doing, which is sell 20 houses already this year and still not work weekends and go to soccer games?

Speaker 1 (33:20):
There's leverage there.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
There's absolutely leverage. I think people, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but I think people make real estate a lot more complicated than it needs to be. We have a lot of really amazing systems and our admin staff is incredible. So our transaction coordinators handle so much of the business. And then we really teach people too how to deep dive on their CRMs and how there's a lot of really amazing things that our CRM can do too. Follow-up bosses does a lot of our nurturing and everything for us, as well as reminding us when we need to be doing things. And if you do that at a high level, it's amazing how much business you can do and how many people you can stay in front of. And we teach people, I know a lot of people that have come in here and have never used a CRM and I'm like, how do you survive?

Speaker 3 (34:07):
How do you even remember people's names? I haven't been able to remember people's names after my second kid. My brain is just everything has to be written down or it doesn't exist. So I think it's really important to just teach people the systems that have kept you. And I always used to have a huge ... I did 25 deals one time by myself in one month with one assistant. And I told people I learned a lot in that time period because you have to be very, very intentional with your time. And a lot of real estate agents just kind of come in and they want to just handle things that are coming at them. And you do have to be a lot more intentional with your scheduling and with all that. So if you teach people how to do that early on, their whole life opens up and they can have a good life with balance, which is kind of a joke in real estate, but you can have balance in real estate if you do it correctly and you stay ahead of all the issues by taking care of them before they happen.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah. I feel like a scattered approach is kind of kin to paying attention to all the different stuff that comes across your feed or all the things that come into your inbox or all the things that people are saying. Kind of the way that you were talking a little bit earlier about not paying attention to everything that's going on in the industry, at least not on a day by day, hour by hour basis. I feel like that the personality type that gets drawn into that is maybe the same personality type that's just got kind of a scattered approach to the key tasks in front of them, despite the effort that followup boss makes to make it easy to know who you should be talking to today.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Yeah. I mean, there's tools that are really, really good obviously for that, but yeah, you can listen to so much noise, but the truth is just do the stuff on the task, like create a task list and do the hardest ones first. And then all of a sudden everything seems to be really easy in real estate. But I think people are afraid of hard conversations and accountability of doing the hard things first and using a CRM. And even though that might feel uncomfortable in the beginning, doing that will save you so much time and effort.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
What does ongoing coaching or training look like? I hear mentorship. When does someone kind of graduate out of a mentorship situation? What does ongoing kind of coaching and training look like?

Speaker 3 (36:25):
One of the best things about the culture here is that everybody will help everybody. We do a mastermind here every single Thursday where people can bring in any of their issues. And new agents will talk. Old agents will talk. We'll talk about foundation issues. We'll talk about dealing with tough agents or how to handle the conversations around the political things happening or whatever those things are of how to do these things. And so we have a really cool culture of where everybody's helping each other solve big problems. And we have a lot of amazing agents here that have done 20, 30, 40 houses a year talking to the person that just started two months ago. And so there's this culture of just everybody always helping everybody because there's been ... Somebody's handled it out of 60 people. Somebody's handled that situation. So we do try to ... I think everybody just tries to help everybody and coach everybody.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
And then I've tried to make myself most available. Casey or my operations manager, she's also one of the most available people for our agents. And I think it's consistent coaching of how to do things and being available. We work for them.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
One thing I hear is that your best source of new agents is your existing agents. That means that there's kind of like some screening, some qualification already People who enjoy working with each other and respect each other on both sides of a transaction. The people on your side of it obviously are very strongholders of brand culture reputation. Therefore, if they're attracted to somebody else enough to recommend them and put their name on that recommendation, it's probably going to be an okay fit. But I'm also hearing new agents and experienced agents. Who are you saying yes to and who are you saying this isn't quite a fit to? What are the characteristics?

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah, I was going to say it's definitely more of a personality thing and how they view real estate. I won't ever hire somebody that are like, "I got into real estate because I really wanted to make my own schedule." And I was like, "No, you can't. Sorry, that's your clients. Your clients make your schedule." I really do look for people that are like, they're good-hearted and they're motivated. For me, it's never been about somebody ... I could have a brand new agent that walks in here and I might hire them, but it really is kind of how they're going to look at the world and look at their clients. I really like the biggest thing I will tell you is it's the people over money and that not treating everybody like they're a form of a commission check or something to that. I mean, every person, if they're not a client tomorrow, they're a client in five years.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
And if you don't have that mindset of, yeah, I'm just here to help and I'm here to be an advisor and I want to help everybody around me, then you're probably not going to be the right fit for us. I want to take agents that maybe started just now and I want to take them to 25 deals their first year and I want to take agents that have been in the business doing 20 deals and take them to 50 deals. And you can't do that with certain mindsets of people that can't learn or think they're always right or there isn't a different way of doing things. And I think that's probably what the biggest thing is. And we do our Thursdays are everybody, but we don't have normal team meetings. Our team meetings are separated out by production. And so we have different levels of how to coach people and how to train people up that's actually a reference to their business because not everybody does the same thing every day.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
How do you break those groups apart?

Speaker 3 (40:06):
So I break it based on production and where their production is coming from. So like first Tuesday of every month is like our newer agents or agents that haven't really gotten into a flow of doing like a minimum of one to two deals a month. And so that very first group is people that very much are like baseline and you're teaching them how to talk to people and how to get people to trust you when you're learning and you're teaching them things about like a house and that type of thing. And then on the next Tuesday, our group two, those are people that are strictly ... They're basically just doing the brokerage provided leads, but they're doing a really great job at it, and we're teaching them how to get their own business and how to get referrals and how to maintain those relationships where we're getting the leads.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
And then group three is truly like, they're doing both and they're like transitioning out. And then our group four, they are all sphere doing ... I mean, heavy hitters, like I said, like 40, 50, 60 deals a year and the challenges that come along with that. It's usually scheduling and figuring out how to manage a big business and everything down for, whether it's time to hire an assistant or what kind of tools you need to get to the next level.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, that's really smart. I really like that approach. And I like that it's like whoever's kind of like helping run it or drive it and sounds like you are involved or at least have been involved. It's every Tuesday at the same time. It's just a different conversation.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
It's a different conversation. And it makes me better too because it makes Casey and I better because we are the ones usually that are teaching it. And it's fun to get to know the challenges that were in the beginning because I'm like, "I don't remember that. " How did I handle that? It's fun.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah. Do you have teams inside the brokerage?

Speaker 3 (41:53):
We do. We have two teams inside the brokerage.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Did they develop in the brokerage or did they join as a team?

Speaker 3 (41:59):
They joined as a team. Yeah. So we have one that kind of just started to form, but they're like two single moms and they're like helping each other and they're like, "We're a team now." And I'm like, "I love that for you guys." But really they're holding each other accountable and helping each other because in scenarios of like, especially being a single mom, it's awesome to be able to see people rely on each other.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Cool. That's great. I agree. If that's something you want to do, you should do that. I love that. Kind of last question before I share my three pairs of closing questions with you, which you can answer one or the other. Some people like to do both. You can do one or the other or both if you prefer. As we establish kind of off the top, I'm kind of calling back to the beginning of the conversation here over the past dozen years or so, I would certainly observe that even though the roots of the team model are decades deep, 30, 35 years deep, it really has been the past 12 to 15 years that's been the real rise of the team model in real estate. And so you've witnessed that. You've witnessed that like I'm sure some of your friends and peers and people you look up to and people that you started with early on maybe, I don't know if you perceive competitors or not, but I'm sure somebody falls in that category.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Some people have participated in teams in different ways. I would love to get any thoughts you have on the future of the team model in real estate.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
Yeah. I mean, I think that the future of the team model is going to be more of like what kind of value you can provide because the values changed. It used to just be that they want to use your name and they want to do those things. And that's how it was in the beginning is like you, "Oh, that person does a ton of business, so I want my name associated with that name." And now it's like we have people come in and they're like, "What can you provide to get us to be successful agents?" And so I think it's changed a lot in that sense and I think people have to be proud of where they come from and what they're doing. And so I really do. I think it's going to change to be, you find people like you and that can see your vision and want to grow to that vision.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
And I also think you have to provide a lot of value and it's going to be the value in coaching and I guess if you can give them business or not and all those things.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah. Really good. Before I let you go, I would love to know what is your very favorite team to root for besides Move Real Estate or what's the best team you've been a member of besides Move Real Estate? And it doesn't have to be a real estate team.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
I'm going to go with my kids' soccer. Both of my kids' soccer, I'm pretty much like, I'm so invested right now. That's my other thing that I do all the time. I work in real estate and then I am a full-blown sports mom and so I'd say my kids' team.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Great. What is one of your most frivolous purchases or what's a cheapskate habit you hold onto even though you don't need to?

Speaker 3 (44:48):
I was just talking to somebody about this the other day. I honestly probably have more cheap skate practices than I don't because you just get into the habit of like, I don't know, all the things that you used to have to do as a kid. And I mean, we still take cans back. I still help prep all my listings. I'm out there staging, moving couches, doing all the different type of stuff. And it's like, you don't have to do those things. There's lots of people that will do those things for you, but I can't let it go because that would be a waste of money. It's funny, but hold on to it.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Yeah. I'm with you too. I could change the oil in my car. I don't think I'm going to learn that, but there are a lot of things I am willing to do. I'm not going to hire a lawn service. My lawn's just not that big. And when I look at what they would charge versus how much time it actually takes me, I'm like, "I can do that. " What does it look like for you, Brittany? What are you doing when you're investing time and learning, growing, and developing? Or what does it look like? What are you doing when you're investing time in resting, relaxing, and recharging?

Speaker 3 (45:51):
I feel like I recharge and grow the most when I'm passionate about something that I'm doing. And so I think that I would say learning something and being passionate, finding something I'm passionate about and being excited in my business. And I reset that way too, where if I feel stagnant in anything, I need something to just get that spark again. So I think growing is honestly what recharges me too, like growing and getting better at something and getting better every single day and coaching myself up to the next level. And honestly, spending time with my family. I live on a hundred acre farm with no houses around me and there's something really, really nice about not being able to see anybody when I get home.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, that is nice. Good for you. How long have you been on 100 acres?

Speaker 3 (46:43):
This will be our sixth year living there.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Awesome. Beautiful. Good for you. If someone has gotten to this point of the conversation, they obviously enjoyed their time with you or else they wouldn't be with us at this point. Where would you send anyone who wants to follow up, learn more about move or anything else? What link should I drop down below in the description?

Speaker 3 (47:03):
I would say our website, moverealestate.org.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
That is linked up down below. Brittany, you're awesome. I appreciate you so much. Thanks for making time for this and have an awesome weekend.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Thanks for checking out this episode of Team OS. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up at realestateteamos.com.