Interview with Kenny Klaus

27 Sep Interview with Kenny Klaus

Kenny Klaus on How His Team Sells One House Per Day for the Last Nine Years

Video Replay of Interview with Kenny Klaus

Podcast Replay of Interview with Kenny Klaus

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00:00 Hey everybody, thank you for joining us for today’s episode of real estate disruptors. Today we’ve got Kenny Klaus with the Klaus team and easier to show his team has sold one house a day for the last nine years and unbelievable number. Uh, if this is your first time tuning in now, Steve, Trang broker, owner of Stunning Homes Realty and the Co founder of the offer fast app, the only app you need for wholesaling. And I help people become real estate entrepreneurs. If you’re excited for today’s show, please give me a wave. Give me a thumbs up. And before we get started, I started the show because we want to give back to our community. So we’ve struggled before. I’ve heard some of the struggles that you’ve gone through a and we want to shortcut that struggle for as many young leaders as possible. So I don’t charge a dime for this show. I don’t make any money doing this. So here’s the only thing that I ask, uh, if it, if you get value out of this show, either tag a friend below, share this episode right now, or tell them your best takeaway, that way we can all grow together. Uh, and don’t forget this is a live show. So if you’re willing to ask the questions, Kenny’s happy to answer them for you. Uh, so we’ll start with a softball here. What got you into real estate?

01:07 Wow. Well, first of all, man, it’s an honor and a thanks for the opportunity. I Apologize, I’m a little under the weather today, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t miss this opportunity to spend some time with you to get anybody sick here today. But, so I’m not not dressed in my realtor gear today, but, uh, where it goes, we’re going to have some fun. So, uh, what got me into real estate, you know, for those who know a little bit of my story, I was the Fedex guy for 13 years. And um, during that time it started a little pest control business, built that up, sold it, and a while running fedex. You all still there? I just go to like four twelves and so he had three days off so he had to do something. And then um, so the entrepreneur side, I saw a lot of guys there that I still friends with today and respect a lot, but I just knew it.

01:51 My agent time in life that I knew there was a ceiling there. I felt like there was. And so started looking around. I had a manager one time lean across the belt. We were unloading packages and he showed me a check and it was for about $5,400 and I said, oh, what’s that? And he’s like, well, I sold a house and this was back obviously like 19, 20 years ago now. And uh, I said, wow. And he goes, you know what? He goes, I think he’d be really good at this. You’re a real people person data. And I just saw that check, like, you know, I didn’t, I never had the zero. It was like $540 would have been a check. It was like, wow, in, in, you know, you wake up everyday unemployed, which is a motivator and yet you wake up every day and, and, uh, you know, there’s no ceiling on an opportunity.

02:34 It’s how hard do you want to work, how much do you want to grow? And so I started doing it part time and took me about four years because I was very nervous and conservative with having a family and going to all commission income with having good benefits. And so I went from full time to part time to I’ll say really part time, working about 12 hours a week on loading cans just to keep the benefits. And after about my fourth year as well into the six figures in GCI, I was able to, uh, to make the break. So our goal is to have no debt and have $10,000 in the bank because that would’ve been a huge opportunity in milestone back then. And um, we went over that number, you know, well past that number because I was still nervous because you just don’t know.

03:18 And um, and then broke free and uh, the rest is, uh, you know, but it, it helps you learn who you are and a lot of the things that hopefully we’ll talk about today will come from those experiences. And you know, life puts you in places for a reason and he just take, take away what you can from it and keep growing and driving. Very cool. So a starting part time, what were some of the early struggles? Just the hours I may, just to having a life along the way, you know, having two kids already at the time and you know, you get those buyers and of course back then you’re working with mainly buyers. And how that fun is, is, uh, you know, it’s kind of their schedule, you know, most of us get into real estate for our own schedule and uh, in the freedom and, and we realized none of that happens.

04:01 And uh, and so, but you know, I’d say the Sros were just, you know, growth at the time. It growth by the way, has been the biggest struggle throughout the entire time. I just, you don’t know at each phase that you’re going through because you’re in the middle of it and um, but it was really going from, from just working all day every day and um, you know, in the disappointments that come with real estate, meaning you got that buyer, you finally got one, you’re doing everything you can and they go buy a Phizzbo without you, which is an experience obviously I had. And so and so, you know, it was just that, those challenges. But um, but growing through that time, um, was, was really a challenge because I didn’t know what I didn’t know and I was with a small independent company and there was obviously no training.

04:48 Everything, you just rolled your way through it and um, we’re just perseverance. Um, my favorite words were relentless, so just was just relentless. Just, you know, just going to make it happen. Well, I think the growth thing is an interesting thing, right? Because I want to say this about half a dozen times where I was like, oh, I figured it out. I can take it easy for that moment, right for that moment. And then like, let’s, you know, life humbles you very quick, very quickly. Yeah. So what, what are the first two or three things you would do differently if you were starting real estate today? Oh man, it’s a great question. I think um, the easiest thing would be just personal growth, just becoming a better person from leadership standpoint to communication style to negotiation, to just understanding people better. Uh, I think I just, you know, I failed forward through that and I looked back and you know, to, to sit here now, 19 years later, still humbling and crazy to me to think but to know the lives that I came across during that time in my organization and some of the relationships that, you know, I wished I would have done a better job or been a better leader as I was growing.

05:52 Um, but I’d say personal growth above all else is, is the key to, to success in anything that you’re doing. Because you know, your world can only grow to the extent that you grow. And so if you don’t grow and yet you expect the world to give you something, it’s not going to do it now. And it’s really not that hard. I mean, Bob, you’ve hung out with me a little bit. You know, it’s like a, it’s kind of a simple, like there’s not a lot they’re like, it’s not, it’s not rocket science, but it’s a desire to just get better every day. And I know we hear all the cliches, but I mean truly to go do it and you know, Buffini taught me kind of the five circles and you know, you’re spiritual and financial and physical and personal and emotional growth. And it was, it’s just a mission since.

06:32 Oh, five was I just have to get, get better. And I mean, I can tell you I’m going through Catholic grade school, high school. I mean I got by. I don’t know that I ever read a whole book. I’m sure mom and dad aren’t listening, so we’re good. But I don’t know that I ever read a whole book. And now it’s like I can’t wait to, you know, whether it’s been audible a little bit this little bit that sometimes they just have too many going, but you just take a few nuggets out of each one and I think too much in life, people spend too much time looking out the window instead of looking in the mirror and they want change. But they always want someone else to go first. And I think that we all have it in us. I mean the cool thing about real estate is it doesn’t take much to get into.

07:11 And honestly it doesn’t take a whole lot to be wildly successful if you just put some fundamentals in place in simple as please and thank you and smile. I mean just the personal growth. That’s number one. That’s the first thing you would. What’s another thing that you would make sure that they do in starting out would be, you know, who you’re a who you’re surrounding yourself with. Because there’s a lot of characters in our business and a lot of people that come and go and a lot of people get licenses and drive the new Mercedes and, and what, what their outsides look like aren’t what their insights are like or what’s in front of the curtain isn’t always what’s behind. And so I think surrounding yourself by the right leadership. And that was a turning point in my career when I moved from franchises was um, I was, I was, I’ll say I was wise enough at the time, I didn’t realize it to follow.

08:01 Um, I would say what I felt was the better what my heart told me I should be doing, not what ego or other things said you could go do in looking back. I’m going, wow, thank goodness. Because it was a, you know, it’s one of those two, you know, where your, where your wife has that intuition and says, I think we should go this way. And you’re like, yeah, but here’s all this and I know this and this and we have our own franchise and we’d do this. And she’s like, yeah, it just doesn’t feel right. And you go, okay, we’re, this is the way we went and you look up now and you go, thank goodness, because the people you’ve met and come across or are what makes it possible for me and you to sit here today. It’s such a small part of me in such a big part of.

08:39 We. So much of it is the opportunities that I wouldn’t say I won’t be ignorant to the fact they haven’t earned some of them at the same time been given the opportunity and then just not letting anyone down. You know. And I think there’s also something there too that the wife, you know, listening to the wife because that more often than when I don’t listen to her and no one loves you more, is going to support you more or have your back more. It would have nothing other than your best interests. So it’s just, you know, it’s a cool place to be because it’s a no, I got, I got shared, uh, um, oh, maybe six months ago or so. We, the word wisdom came up and we started talking about wisdom. It’s funny having four kids and having grandkids now. Can you think about wisdom and you know, you try to share with them and.

09:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they got to go do it themselves, you know, that outlet over there. They started to put the fork in it. It’s just how it works, right? We got to go do. I didn’t just get to see, I don’t know, it happened to you, but probably not to me. And guess what? And then all of a sudden you get wisdom in your life and I have mentors like Gary Keller and Steve Chader and some of the people who who genuinely have no other interest then to help me be better and to shortcut some of the things that I could. And I finally went. I just need to start listening to that stuff. I just need to go. They don’t have a motive. They truly care. But it’s not everybody, it’s a small circle that the wisdom is genuine, it’s not out for their best interest.

10:02 And I, my goal is to help instill that in a few people that trusted me and close to me that, you know, we want to share the journey, um, because there’s a lot to take away and a lot, a lot of stuff we can avoid, you know, along the way. So I’ve heard you’re the king of farming, so we’re talking about the fedex driver thing. So what I heard, and I don’t know this is true, but while you were driving, there was a piece of mail and there was a piece of something from Kenny, right? So you’re, you’re farming while you were still driving, you’re dropping all your packages. Going to talk about that a little bit. Well, in that, I mean, you know, that was, um, I was in Moon Valley back in the day, days with Fedex, so seventh street and that was my realm.

10:46 This is way before Mesa. Oh yeah. Way before. And um, well actually I was kind of, I was probably living out this way, tempe or mace at the time, but that’s where my fedex route was. And um, the, this, uh, this would have been licensed in [inaudible] 99, so probably right at 99 and 2000 2001 to 2002. And um, um, the valentines were, I was probably even before that, so it probably 97, 98 because I was. Anyway, I’m in the Valentines were everywhere I’d go, I’d see their signs all over there delivered to their house and, and uh, it was just interesting to me and I went, wow, this just seems so efficient. Why would you want to shotgun all over the place? And you know, when I’d run my route, I got to know everybody in your efficiencies and you know, you go to a customer’s all the mailboxes at their house, a mailbox, a back door, front door.

11:37 If it was a business who is signing when they like pickup, meaning your customer service level went through the roof. Right? Whereas if I had a swing driver, so when doing my route or I had to be a swing driver and do someone else’s route, my efficiencies weren’t as good. I was nervous because I didn’t know where to go. My customer service wasn’t as good because I was running scared half the time. She always late or you know, when you’re the regular guy. So it was like when I got to East Mesa, I was started almost going baseline. We lived there for four years and then moved out to Augusta ranch and I said, you know what, we’re just gonna. We’re just gonna, we’re gonna, we’re gonna. Put our heads down for 10 years. We’re going to work our butts off to make this thing work and look up and if we’re still here in 10 years.

12:13 And we were probably going to be okay. And that was on a one year budget but it was a 10 year vision and a very cool. It’s crazy to think is running that same house still today and was just kind of funny. Yeah. How, how fast things have went. But you know the Fedex concept and I think that’s why I share that story sometimes for people because it helps them relate. The Fedex guys don’t take a package and then you take one and the next guy takes one, etc. They all take an area and they just learn it really, really well. And That’s the same thing I did in real estate was get to know the business owners, get to know the product, right? What homes are there, get to know the schools, the principals get to know everything about it because I was better serving the area and the community and I got comfortable.

12:50 Someone would call and I’d be like, oh, you’re in the island, you know, the 10 foot ceilings, a split floor plan. Did you do the den option or this, did you do the whole patio? And they’re like, okay, okay. A couple lists of the house. Yeah, you know what you’re doing or know the area. But at the confidence went up and the efficiencies and so it just became, you know, it just became fun. And then growth happened from there. And that’s why when gary wrote the one thing, it was like, wow, I looked up and I moved here. It was 10 years later, more than that, since he wrote that book, since when I started 12, 15 years. And it was like, that was my one thing. I just didn’t realize it. Like everything else was a distraction as long as the newsletter went out, as long as I ran the route, everything else was just.

13:28 If it gets done, it gets done. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But this is the, this is the one thing. This is the priority, not priorities. It was the priority. That’s awesome. So let’s talk about farming. I mean, I know you got the clma right, but let’s just talk about someone that hasn’t heard of it and they want to get farming wasn’t one, two, three things that you say, you know what, here’s what you gotta do. If you want to farm your neighborhood, be the expert. I would just say call us. We’ll, let’s just get in business together And uh, we’ll go rock this thing. No, well that too. But um, we teach a class because I’m a, gary finally told me, look, you got to come up with something because people call email, text, whatever, and they want your time, but then they don’t go do anythIng.

14:04 So at least if they invest in our program, then it’s like, hey, now let’s help you because you’re, you’ve taken that first step in the game. Yep. Some skin in the game. And you kind of gotten over that first wave of questioning because I’ve already given it to you. like I don’t hide anything. It’s right there. I mean, I’m, it’s not rocket science, geographic farming. The interesting thing is if you go back through all the market’s way before we ever in real estate people, farm, people, farm, all kinds of different businesses. Meaning whether it’s your database as a farm, I mean you’re just, you’re just taking care of that database or farming that, you know, you’re just basically keeping in touch. It’s a, it’s a putting a fence post or a, you know, a drawing, something saying that keep out. So you could call it a natural farm, whatever, but that’s what it is.

14:43 But as far as starting today, I would just say as we go through, I’m farming, there’s a lot of different pieces, right? I mean we always say, you know, make, make a business decision, not with your heart because to me, because I want to farm this area. What’s the turnover rate? What’s an average sales price? Do you want to be here for the next 15, 20 years? Because this is where you’re going to own a business. I mean that’s the vision anyway, right? To go from having a real estate job to owning a real estate business in a geographic area. I mean, I don’t want you just to have a database. Those are hard to sell, but if you have a brand in a geographic area that people are doing business with the brand, that’s a business that can outlast you mean you can turn that over and keep it going.

15:23 So I think that the vision being, you’ll pick an area where there’s some turnover rate, you know, five percent, seven percent. If you can find some of those kinds of numbers, an area like that you don’t mind doing home inspections in those areas and if it’s older homes are newer because some crazy stuff out there. Um, and uh, and then just a budget, you know, I always tell people, my first year it was like, you know, my was spending about a thousand dollars a month on print. We didn’t have eddm, we didn’t have the color printing like we do today, the ease, the cost of it, but have it so I had $12,000 we’d set aside and it wasn’t the fact it was $12,000. Just happened to be all the money we had. And so I was like, okay, we’re going to make or break but we’re not going to quit.

16:02 And so we did this little newsletter thing and um, got a listing on the very first one. And I thought, well, this was easy. This why doesn’t everybody do this. Yeah. And then I went seven months without one. Let me tell you about quitting points along the way. Like everybody wanted free ads in my newsletter, but nobody was doing business with me. And you go through kind of like a seller does when their houses and selling like, what’s wrong, it’s either the agent or it’s my house or me or what’s wrong. He started going, you know, am I doing something, you know, my two young and my to do, I not know what I’m doing, but I wasn’t even getting to. That wasn’t even getting to the table. Right. And then the month seven, I got three calls in that one month and I landed all three.

16:37 And from there on, I honestly didn’t track anything. Uh, I wouldn’t track anything today if it wasn’t for scott on our team. So he married to him though. He’s, he runs the operations is unblessed. He’s uh, he’s amazing. Started at augusta ranch. Yeah. So augusta ranch was about 1700 homes, so he started 1700. That was the, that was the initial for about little over two years and still going until I really started to get some market share in there. And then I started getting listings outside of there because it was kind of a, a bleed over people, new people in the community and say, hey call these guys are called this guy. And so we went to 5,000, did that for about tour and a half, three more years, then went to 8,000, did that for about two or three more years, then went to 12,000 than 17,000.

17:19 And now we just do the, all the whole zip, which is about 21, 22,000 homes a month. I went to the quote, is that a e five two. Oh nine and eight. Five, two, one, two. Okay. So stay out of $200. Well, if you want to call it. I love it when people do, it’s awesome because it just, it just fires me up. I’m like, all right, we got to go buy another moving truck. Let’s go do this. Let’s go. We got to do more of this. You know, just, you step up your game and sometimes you get a little bit. Uh, I’m complacent. And that’s one thing I think we’re blessed because of the people I’m in business with today, that there’s no complacency. It’s, we have big scoreboards in our office and on each side success team and the sales team, everybody sees what everyone’s doing and it’s a pretty competitive deal.

17:57 What’s the success team? Um, Well, a lot of people call it their admin team or that, but success team is just, they make the team successful. I mean, without them doing what they do to make us look good because we’re salespeople. I mean, you know, we like to go out and shoot it and drag it back to camp and then go do something else. That’s awesome, right? Because yeah, the salespeople normally get all the glory. I call them the success. The only thing I liked that, cause you’re celebrating the people that make things happen and they are and, and they truly are. And it is. And you know, it really is a, we mentality around our officers know heroes. I mean, our clients are the heroes at the end of the day. Um, we’re just the guides along the way to help get them what they are, what thereafter, and everybody shares in their role, you know, we do profit sharing, you know, 401k, I mean we really want people to, my goal, you know, we call it career visioning within kw and they’re really to have the opportunity to achieve their goals under our umbrella.

18:45 It’s not about can we make candy more money, it’s about, can we hit our goals if we can, then everybody can. And so we’ve started creating all these divisions within our team. We have our silver group now you have your investor side, isa side that there’s an opportunity, a builder relations, it’s just, and all of a sudden you start finding opportunities for people to lead those things and it gives them that same entrepreneur spirit within an organization where there’s no ceiling to their growth opportunity. Someone called intrepreneurship. Yep. Yeah, yep. Yep. So, yeah, that’s cool. That’s awesome. All right, so, um, so we talked about farming. That’s number one. Resource database is up there too. Yeah, those, those, um, we were on, we were doing our coaching thing this morning and um, it’s interesting because when I started, I again, like I shared with you, I didn’t track anything, you know, my p and l was there’s more money coming in and going to see.

19:38 No, there’s no, I’m going to get even registered. So, um, but you know that the goal of all of it, um, um, you know, going back to that was we didn’t sort and tracking so we meet, I didn’t sort of track, it was like, hey, more business, more business and in most it was all farming. You’ve asked for. Now today we consider a lot of stuff database, but it’s really, if you track back the origination they bought and sold with us in 2001, 2003, 2000 fIve. Then they bought again and so, and over the time it’s become a database. Past clients when really their origination. so we’re close to 65 to 68 percent of our businesses, all database farming. that piece of it, you know, the internet stuff is, is truly, I’m just icing on the cake. If you will, but the cake is not meant to need ice and if you don’t have to with the third leg, then um, well I would, so I would say um, you know, our biggest pieces again, like you said, is farming in the database sphere, you know, agent to agent referral.

20:38 We do a fair amount of referrals out of state, out of state, yet a lot of that kind of stuff. And then um, and then beyond, you started getting into like your zillow, dave ramsey, which is really such a minimal part even if anymore. Um, and then, you know, open house, those, those kinds of things. So. Well, and it’s interesting what you were talking about the database and then you had a database which you originally all back to the farmer. That’s the calloways story, right? I can’t remember like eight, five, two, five, five, five, five, four, two, five, four. And they just started with just this farm. Then they went for the whole zip code right off the bat, but they have this like countywide farm, but the space is still a 50 slash 50 of the hub. Right. You had the center point and that’s the one thing is just the hub basically.

21:22 Yeah, it’s very cool. Okay. Um, so how has technology impacted your business? You know, it’s funny. That’s a hot topic. Hot topic. nano technology is, you know, it’s like 2018 is the, the technology conversation and 19 because Arizona is where everybody comes in, test their new toys out and I’m going to get heck out of you can get all of them. We get all of them on top of each other and all spinoffs and you know, and I think that’s the, that’s the battle right now because, you know, robot verse revelatory in, in, you know, I look at our team and go, hey, if, if a robot could do it or, or technology could do it, they’re not going to need us. Right. What iS it that separates us? It’s, it’s the emotions, it’s the negotiations, it’s the knowledge. It’s the, um, you know, creating that experience for the client so that they go, wow, this was a value having you on my team.

22:14 Because when I teach classes, I always start with, you know, how many people in here or how did you get into real estate? I think you asked me earlier, a bunch of them go, well, because when I bought my own house I couldn’t believe they made eight grand on that and I saw him twice and they weren’t even at the closing. And you’re like, what do you mean they weren’t at the closing and they weren’t the closing. I’m like, well, I can’t imagine go to court with my attorney is going, well, hey, we’re good. I got you to this point. You know, I, I don’t need to be here for this. Um, and so I think we always have to look at if a robot could do what you’re doing, then we’re in trouble. But if we can create that experience, people do this every five years, seven years, 10 years moving.

22:50 That is, it’s. I mean, if I asked you how many homes have you owned? Not as your primary residence, the Other wouldn’t be fair, but it’s the primary residence. You’d know right off the top. And then your mind would start going, I remember memories there, I remember a memory and I see it all the time, taken an uber, no big deal. Cab company technology wasn’t a challenge, picking a flight, no problem. I’m buying a house. There’s still an opportunity for us to protect our industry, but we have to truly create an experience for the client in. Yeah. And I think that comes from, you know, all the standard stuff that people do, but really raising our game as far as our negotiation skills. So they see the value in that we’re providing, um, you know, market value. We’ve been doing these homeowner workshops and I’m just, I’ve been amazed at the amount of people. It’s, it’s all questions about getting the home ready to go to market and it’s so great that they come out early because I have samples of here’s some of the day and they’re just like, I didn’t know you could do that for that price. I didn’t know you could do that. That’s value. Right? And that’s when you feel really, really good about servicing somebody, you know, helping them achieve their bowl. Um, you know, our why is to help people build wealth, um, tell people, achieve the american dream and build wealth through home ownership.

24:04 Yeah. And I think we talked about this are, we were talking about this before we started the show. I mean, you do your homeowner workshop, uh, it’s going to be in your office moving forward, moving forward. Yep. Right. And it’s just homeowners coming in and you’re, you’re, you’re giving them options. Yep. So I think that’s phenomenal. I mean, if you want to provide value, because right now the biggest challenge is the homeowner. It was like, oh, I just want to open door or I just did this and the reason why is because they saw no value in talking to you.

24:30 It was so convenient. I’m okay to leave 10 or 12 granD on the table because it was so convenient. Um, and more in some cases, some cases not just depends on the price range of course, but they make it, they’ve simplified it so much. You go, what do I need you for it and kill. There’s an experience or a challenge or home inspection or appraisal, you know, and then all of a sudden,

24:53 and you’ve communicated to your sphere, your entire sphere, hey, there’s a home ownership workshop. Find out what you can do before selling your home. Right? And that’s all of adding value and the human experience. So that’s great.

25:06 One hundred percent, you know, kind of the tagline right now is confused on selling in today’s market because you know, radiology now announced that coldwell banker is going to be doing there. I buyer. Fantastic. I hope everybody does one. Yeah, it levels the playing field and let’s go compete again. Yeah, we all have won. Great. If it makes sense to the consumer, let’s do that deal. If it doesn’t, let’s help you get as much as you can, but our opportunity is people are confused right now. I mean go on the internet for any subject and it’s super confusing to trust a tremendous number of great arguments on both sides. One hundred percent. Yes. There’s no politicians, right? I meAn, you’re listening to, they’re bashing each other right now and you’re just like, like is this really tv that we need to have on? But you can argue both sides. One hundred percent, not 100 percent. So, uh, the other thing. So you and I were on a panel together. Scientology, we didn’t talk about technology now. So,

25:58 uh, there’s one of the things we talked about was you can either try to fight it or figure out how you can work with it. Right? And so you’ve got offered depot going on. Can we talk about that? Yeah.

26:09 And so the idea with, sorry with tech is it’s meant to be a tool that you control the tech. What’s happened is tech is trying to control you and then once that happens you’re an uber driver basically. I mean that’s where we’re headed if we don’t continue to push it. So no, basically, I mean just simplifying the process. Like we had cook clients in our own farm and they’re going, well, we got to check this other thing out and I’m going, why wouldn’t you just go through, russell will just help you with the whole thing. So we just kind of creAte our own program called offer depot.com. And basically it’s like trivago is to real estate or to travel. Expedia is to travel, offered depo is to real estate. We go to the markets, we get you multiple offers, we give you a professional home valuation, put it in a one page.

26:52 simple side by side comparison. You decide what’s right for you. Either way you’re represented because the big difference is, is you go to a builder, you’re not represented, you go to an eye buyer, you’re not represented. Just the facts. I mean, they work for themselves. That’s, that’s what it is. And I don’t care how many cookies they give you or how nice the people are on the phone with good. They are good and it’s good to go get some. But not to, uh, to have Your agent with you. Right? But we just saw a need that the consumer ultimately still needs guidance. Um, you know, I’ve watched some where they fill out those forms and they forget to put key things about their house because it didn’t ask that question or they didn’t take the right pictures or they didn’t mark it to the eye buyer.

27:33 Like we market to them. We’re used to describe in a home, you know, oversized corner law, 10 foot rv gate, extended covered patio, you know, blah, blah blah. Whereas they’re just going to put in the basics. And by the way, they’re not going to go to, you know, all of them. I mean, it’s just, it’s a lot of work, load all the photos, do all that. Then they’re all calling you and then your data is not safe if they don’t Buy it, there’s a chance that somebody else might and all of a sudden. Whereas when they go through us, we were submitted under us. So there’s no, no phone numbers being shared, no anything being shared. So, um, it was just a tool that we thought would be a good idea in our community to be able to share with people and give them a choice as again, put the seller back in control of all their options with their trusted resource.

28:17 So I liked a lot of what he said there because we’re the good guys again, right? Yeah. We’re not the like, you know, I don’t want to bother him or it’s the, we’ll just skip him were the heroes again and the way we do that as we tell them, here are the things you can do to get your home ready and here are ways that we get you more cash offers so you can compare so that you’re protected versus just leaving them alone. And then there you’re just not part of the equation because you provided no value. So that was, I’m in a couple of different masterminds and that’s always the continuing continuous challenge. How do we make sure that we’re providing value versus like, oh my goodness, you already went over there. It was too late. So I love what you said there. That’s really key. I want to

28:55 keep versus keeping that relationship right because there’s, there could be a body on the other end of that. They could be a cell by the down the road, that referral, but if they feel like they had to go around you, odds are they’re gonna. Be embarrassed to call you in the future. We just need to. Again, I look at it like I always, when I do, when I talked to and teach with people, like make sure that your the voice of what’s happening in the market instead of defending and getting upset that zillow says this or the media says this. You’re letting them talk to your database. You should be the expert and say you’re giving them a video update. Give them something of value. Give them something where you tell them this is what’s happening in your market, not the market, but your market.

29:33 And I just think that’s the mistake we make is we kind of wait and think we did such a good job that they’ll call us again. Instead of, you know, it’s a contact. You got to keep contacting people and that goes back to what you were talking earlier using technology, right? So we got viral or bombbomb or whatever. There’s a ton of tools, right? yeah. Maybe we can 39, 95 ourselves a month to death in this business. Is gonna change your life and by the way, I have signed up for another though so I can speak to the and I’m looking in the mirror when I say that, but it’s like everything. You know, I had a, I had a little, a little outbursts and our sales team meeting last weekend and you know, and I’d usually in a guy, I got some slack from it, but what I got from it was massive action after the meeting in the amount of calls people made to invite people to their, to our network or to our homeowner workshop that weekend because I was a little upset that we hadn’t called enough people.

30:28 The whole idea of doing that workshop was give them a reason to call people opportunity to call, call. Even if they don’t come, you’re an authority. You’re out in front of it. You’re educating, is there any questions that you have? It’s a soft call. It’s not the whole ford idea, you know, the family occupation, you know, trying to go through all that process, make stuff up. It’s on purpose. So I got a little fired up and um, we had one of our, one of our agents call and uh, she ended up, ended up cold calling through, which we don’t do as a team, but she did in a, in a neighborhood, just made 20 calls and invite them to an open house. And the guy said, well, I’m actually looking at selling my house. Turns out he’s buying a new house too, and we made up with both sides of that, which is just crazy in one.

31:09 One little push and that’s what I’m saying guys, you got to go take, do activities. We can’t sit and wait and you know, we’re in the shift now. We’re, we’re, we’re, I just call it what it is. We’re there. So you have to start doubling down and doing the things that he didn’t necessarily have to do when the fish were jumping in the boat. The lAst few years it’s going to weed out some, it’s going to get challenging two years from now, I think it’s going to look a lot different. Uh, I think we’ll see a lot of mergers and acquisitions in our industry. Yeah, that’s actually a question I’m asking, is it? Yeah. So, so the next question is, you said, you know, you’re a simple guy, but you’re obviously a wildly successful as well. So what do you attribute your success to? Um, you know, I just, truthfully, I just love, I love people, I love meeting people.

31:51 I love personal growth and helping share things with people and um, I just think it’s, for me it’s just a relentless effort to, to figure it out. You know, there’s always solutions, there’s always, you know, um, you know, some people, I forget the quote, you know, like there’s a stone in some people, you know, look at it as, as something to trip over and other people get as a stepping stone. Like, it’s just how you look At things and you know, we’re, we, we share the two, one, two philosophy in our office, you know, 212 degrees and that’s been really our motto since 2005 is just, you know, just that extra degree in everythinG you do. and so I think you want to explain for people that haven’t read the book with 211 degrees, water is hot at 212 it boils. Boiling water creates steam and steam is powerful enough to move a locomotive.

32:37 It’s that one extra degree. I always say it takes things from ordinary to extraordinary. So even our restaurants like our happy hours at 2:12, like I just, it has to be fun and unique, but it forces the servers to have, to explain to our clients that we go to one to here, like everything we do, it’s just got to be. It just can’t be average, you know, I tell my kids, I said, you want an average life? Just do average things at school. My daughter had fires her up every time. It’s like, dad. I’m like, well, you’ll just, if you want, you know, average lIfe, just do average things and you know, it just, it’s, it’s, it’s that simple and that hard. Right. That’s true. And that’s one of my big takeaways when I was at, I went to the high performance forum there and hardy.

33:13 Oh yeah, yeah. And he was saying that, um, you know, he’s one of my favorites back in a day. Average was good, right? Good. Was good enough. And you had a good living today. Your average, you’re suffering like it’s your businesses. Do you ever look at your kids and go, man, ryan, I just hope you grow up to be average, but if you could just be average, this would be so great. Just let’s go for average. Okay, well that’s what they teach them in school. That’s why they teach them average gpa, average test scores, average go. I think you just get to average what? That’s, that’s not teaching their own stuff. So it, but it starts in our own house. It starts with us again, remember going back to us. And then outwardly from there Is, you know, controlling the environments. And just, and just push it a little bit, honestly, it doesn’t take much to be wildly successful.

34:00 Um, I mean I’ve proven that and I wouldn’t say I’m wildly it, but had some success just by getting up every day and staying focused on what your, what your goals and what your missions are a. So you’re coachIng lots of people. Got a national, you know, uh, what’s the word? Reach. Yup. Who’s coaching you? Um, so my coach for several years just took over and started a kw business coaching for keller williams and maps coaching business mastery. So he’s teaching outside of the real estate space. A keller williams has evolved to business coaching. So for outside not real estate related. So which tells you who I was coaching with. He was an officer. I mean, to be able to, for gary to put them in a position that he, he’s president of that organization is awesome. So I currently have a coach within a kw within keller williams and maps coach that I’ve had for a while since I’ve only had the two.

34:52 Um, yeah. And that’s, and then I, and then I coach a couple of agents throughout the country, so maps coaching and I must’ve been gary’s involved too. And then I’ve been fortunate that we have a real good relationship with, with gk and uh, get to spend time with him. I’m quite a bit. It’s been. I was actually supposed to go to austin again next week. I’m really blessed to spend a lot of time with, with him and really get to see firsthand someone who just completely bleeds for the real estate agent. I mean, he is a, he is a martyr. I mean, you know, what happened In february when we’re at family reunion and how that got spun with some of the things that he shared up there because he fired everybody up and you look up six, eight months later and you’re going, here it is, it’s happening.

35:37 It wasn’t, he wasn’t wrong. And because he doesn’t care in the sense that he’s going to speak the truth, he’s not trying to be, what do you want to hear? And he says, I go into the doctor, right? Do you want to hear what you want to hear? Do you wanna hear the truth? like I want to hear the truth. Don’t want to get fixed. What’s wrong? I think that he just can come across. Sometimes it’s shock and awe because everybody wants it to be happy and okay. It’s a grind right now, man. This is a, this is gonna mean. This is a defining time. We’re in here this next, you know, I’ll even say six to 18 months is, it’s crazy what, how much we’ve seen even this year and in technology push and changes in the way we do things. Yet the consumer, by the way, doesn’t notice most of it yet.

36:19 Not yet. That’s the interesting thing, gustavo, for sarah’s is asking him, what was the name of Gary Keller is who we’re talking about right now, sir. I don’t know. I meAn, you and I. Uh, okay. So what does your team look like today? Right? I mean, you’re doing a house a day. I mean, what is, what does it take? How many bodies are there? How many agents and so on? Yeah. So we have, um, scott who runs our team and then we have, um, and your coaching. Yes. And he does coaching him. So we have two full time transaction coordinators. We’ve been interviewing for a third listing manager. Um, and then I have my assistant who, stephanie, who’s been with me for 15 plus years. She’s kind of our, I’ll say my assistant database integrity a role, but like today we have someone that’s on vacation this week.

37:04 She’s hopping back into that role because she’s been there with mason’s it was me. And then um, we have a full time runner drives our little wrap vehicle. He checks on all our properties. Uh, you know, kerry’s tool supplies, smoke detector batteries, sweep up, pick up newspapers, check, make sure thermostats, like just kinda oversees huge asset to our team. He’s agaInst them every two weeks on certain properties every week on certain ones. And then we hang all our own signs, lockboxes we want everything to be done a certain way. And then he does something unique. I think that we do in the business is, and I’ve done it for a couple of years, we do seller walkthroughs, so most people do. A buyer walkthrough is very standard. I do. We do a seller walkthrough so doug goes through, um, as the sellers moving out and takes pictures and make sure the house is in condition for the buyer because sometimes sellers perspective of leaving the house ready to move in and three broken, you know, shovels and 17 half empty paint cans that are been dried up and cleaning supplies and you know, that broken fire pit out back in that crap that we know, especially when they’re moving into our farm that the end of the day the buyer sees our sign in the yard and if the house looks a certain way, we have to take responsibility for it.

38:19 So we do. He does tyler walkthroughs for us than anything. They just got something happens with the house. Not broken windows, but like just crap in the backyard. He’s hauling it away. Yeah. So we’ll haul it away. Um, you obviously get permission from the seller, say, hey, did you guys forget this stuff? And just try to make it like, okay, we have your permission to all the way. At the end of the day there’s nothing worse. I’ve been on the other end of, as an agent with your buyer and it’s exciting and you go do a walkthrough and you’re like, what the hell just happened? Like, you know, we went from this high of excitement to down here and it just creates it. It’s never at a convenient time. So it’s like scrambling. Why don’t we just get rid of that stuff? You know, you do enough business, you’ll learn, how do we just get rid of it?

38:59 It’s worth investing in, in somebody like that. That is such a value to our team. If you ask the agents, I mean, he wins our culture award metric. We had to tell him to quit. He just gets the award now. Who else do we give it a shot? Because he’s just, that guy will be empty in the trash is he’ll run and do whatever. We’re just, we’re really blessed to have that on our team. Um, and my brother does the majority of our listing side, a thai law school we’ve been blessed to get in business with is changing lives already, man. It’s huge. It’s so, it’s, I get it. I get emotional thinking about it. So cool and such an honor that, um, that he chose to be in business with us to out of all every, all the choices, amazing people he was talking to.

39:36 It was super humbLing, but super cool that, uh, that he found his place with us culturally and opportunity wise, man, he has not rested since he’s been there. He is growing us. When you say people, I know, I think we have two or three more start next week, but you know, the benefit we have is that, um, you know, our franchise can be the navy in my mind and we can, we can hire the navy seals so we get a chance to pick who were in business with and we go through quite a process because we want experts because we know our team brand when we’re doing a cross sale or anything, we know it helps us get deals done if, if our reputation is solid. And so our sales team has continued to grow, have some newer people, have some people who’ve been with us quite a while.

40:18 Um, and so I, we’re probably in the mid twenties right now. I’m on our team. We’re a. Actually, my wife was doing it today. Um, I went and got a storage unit, bought a bunch of stuff out of model homes and we’re starting to stage homes again on our own for our team is just an added value because I know is this market gets tougher. It’s at two, one, two, right? It’s that, hey, that house is vacant, but we know how that shows compared to, uh, we, we know that the first showing on a house today is not through the front door anymore. It’s online. they’ve looked at it and narrowed it down if we don’t even make that list. So the pictures bring life to it. And so I’m just, you know, really working hard to do what we can to just take the initiative and say what’s it cost us?

40:59 Not that much more to go out and then have a seller go, wow. Like that was, that was pretty awesome. So then I asked for more than I asked for it because at the end of the day, we’re in the solution business. We’ve got to solve the problem. They give us a piece of crap to sell. We were takIng the listing. You put your name on the listing, you now have to go help figure out how to sell. It’s not, yeah, it can be their fault, but at the end of the day, the neighbors say your name, your sign hanging out there. So we got to take responsibility on how to solve this with your business model the way it is. Do you have an isa? We don’t. We’ve went back and forth on that. Um, the agents really wanted to keep that in house because they felt like they were responding promptly. Um, we are testing a new system right now at parthenon, some of the leads through one of these programs to try the live answer and that the isa type piece. Um, so the answer is we haven’t had, we do have one. I’m a virtual assistant currently that does data entry, all the listing entry, um, a lot of the backend stuff on the listing side to get them ready to go to market. And then it comes back to the listing manager to finalize and make sure all the quality control.

42:07 Okay. So I’m driving around in a 51 to right and I see a Kenya clothesline and I call it what does that never go right to our office or at your office.

42:16 And so then, um, during the day at rings right to the office and then it gets sent right to a salesperson, evenings and weekends, it just rotates to the whole sales team and whoever answers it first. So It’s always alive live answer.

42:28 Very nice. Is there a tool system crm that you can not live without? ’em?

42:36 I mean currently the answer is boomtown. We’ve been using since 2013 and we just, I don’t want to say mastered it, but because of scott, we’ve really learned how to use that system because he’s built all of the, the toys, the toys that it offers, you know, most people jumped systems and say this system, this system, but they don’t really. We’re agents, we’re realtors anywhere. We’re not like to know how to build a campaign and to do all these things where he set all that up for the agents. And so basically, you know, it’s a nurturer watch, whatever it is that once it hits, there’s a text campaign, an email campaign or whatever. It’s already done. It’s plug and play. So to answer that, that would be on the, on the incubation. And the legion side, that’s by far, you have to have something like that.

43:19 Okay. And then were the question, was gonna be wasting the business in three to five years, maybe six to 18 months, so I don’t know, year and a half, two years, where do you see this business going?

43:29 You know, and again, you know, none of us know for sure, right? So we’re, we’re sitting here with neither one of us have that crystal ball, but I think that scale is going to be very important for agents because it takes a lot of money to run a real estate business today. I mean, I, there’s a lot of fixed cost every month to make it look good and to run it the way it needs to. And I think that um, the opportunity to get in business with other people will continue to be bigger than worrying about whose name’s on the building or on the shirt or that kind of stuff. How are we achieving our goals? Do we have a quality of life within it? Um, and so I do think that you’ll see some teams merge. I think you’ll see a lot of agents end up on teams that are good agents. Nothing wrong with that. They just don’t want to do with all this stuff. They’re good salespeople. They don’t want to deal. They want to go make their money and that’s it. And there’s, By the way, there’s nothing wrong with that or I want to buy some clips and do that, but if I’m running a business, I got to deal with running the business. that takes me away from doing.

44:24 So the, the, there’s multiple parts. We’re, we’re, we’re in the relationship business, we’re in the sales and marketing business, we’re in the leisure business where on a lot of different businesses and there’s a lot of parts of it that just suck, right? So I think that’s interesting perspective. You’re saying That, you know, there’ll be good agents that are willing to sacrifice their ego a little bit just to do the things that they enjoy the most,

44:46 you know, in, in, you know, because you know, tied personally too. And I know it’s like the thai show now, right? We love him coming over. It’s been so like it, it gave me, I didn’t even know we were in, I didn’t know he was thinking about it first of all and that we were even in the running for it. Someone had to say, hey, do you know what the eyes looking like? You should talk to him. Like if he wants to, he knows he knows where we’re at and I’m not going to go bug him. I mean I don’t know. Anyway. And so he did and we talked and uh, but it’s been really fun to see because he is like, I hear him on the phone telling his friends or people he’s talking to her past clients how, how excited he is because he’s getting to do the part that he’s so good at and that is helping our sales team.

45:25 I mean he’s our, he’s our sales director. He’s making, helping make our sales team be the best that they can be through training, through answering questions, through quality control, through their weekly for one ones. Um, so to see that it made me go, it’s possible like we need to start looking out there for who’s really good at something that we don’t have that if we were in business with them would make them in us better because they could make that a monster within the industry because they wouldn’t have to worry about having food with their meals because there’s already an income coming in because they can go now exploit what they’re doing and that’s what we see happening for him right now. And we see That as um, we have a whole opportunity map that we’ve mapped out and go, okay, now who do we need?

46:09 Who can we find that would be a leader in those roles to make this thing? Because I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up with 50, 60 people in our team and a year. To me it’S not about quantity by the way. And some people will focus on the quantity. It’s not everyone hitting their numbers. are they getting the results? Like we’re working on our gps is for next year. So we could provide our team goal because our retreats in two weeks or three weeks and um, elaborate with gps stands for goals, priorities and strategies. So it’s basically a one page business plan. So it’s like, okay, how much do you want to make next year? How much do you want to make now, how much do I want to make you, how much do you want to make? And then we just list out, okay, what are the strategies to do it or what are the priority?

46:47 So if it’s farming, if it’s database, if it’s open houses, whatever your three are, and then what are the five strategies to make those things get you to that goal? So it’s written down and then we just take all of those and say, okay, that’s how much that helps for the team. But the team wants to be at thIs number, so we need to find more three more people or five more people that do this amount of business that can hit that under our umbrella and go make it as big as they possibly want to make it in and go impact lives. Like our charities doing so well right now we’re raising money and just be able to give back and done a couple of things recently and now have a new goal. I just want to keep pushing that. Like I want to go build a house for somebody.

47:27 Eventually we want to go. You start doing what we’re putting in new ac on and where we’re doing this and, and, but It’s all achievable through, through the power of wheat Poland together. So it’s super exciting. I don’t not saying the individual agent can’t sell flourish. It’s just a lot of hats to wear. And if you look online in, in tech, we can avoid it. Like you go to zillow for example, which was what most consumers are looking at still they’re going to look on there and if they’re even in our own market where we have been on their doorstep for 10 years, they still go look there and they see how many homes you’ve sold in that zip Code, how many homes you’ve sold, um, in the last 12 months, how many reviews you have. So when you combine that like we have and we’re at 600 and some reviews now, I mean that’s pretty solid compared to the poor person who may have a great year and sell 24 homes and get 12 of those to do reviews, right?

48:21 It can be a great salesperson, but they get dominated by this right or wrong. It’s just what’s happened through the noise and in, that’s it. It’s the noise. And so I, I do think that from a scale perspective and cost, like if everybody has to have outgoing, you know, everyone has to have a boom town account. Everybody has to have transaction management, everybody has to have this. You just add all that up and you’re like, I gotta make x just to start or I just go do the part I really love. And it’s all upside. It’s all net. So what would happen to your organization if the market took a dip? Um, we are actually somewhat in our sales team meeting this morning. We actually talked about how awesome that will be in, in, in the sense of market share growth. And that’s where even in the short sale market, once I decided we had to do short sales because I didn’t want to at the beginning, no one did, but I truly just like, yeah, no.

49:11 Um, we realized that having our newsletter, what it did is it created an audience for us. So the newsletter was the same every month, just the message and it changed. So we went from avoid foreclosure, know your options and we had a short sale workshop. We had a cpa and attorney and myself there and we would teach the people about because they trusted us, right? They didn’t the yellow bandit signs and all this stuff that was going on. So we had that going and then it was rolled back home. So we had a program to help people get on the road back home because their head was buried in the sand. They were, it was embarrassing, right? I don’t want to own a home again by the way. You get home right now and they’re like half price. So he might be a real good time.

49:50 And now the homeowner workshop, which is just an outreach to the community to say, hey, we’re here to stand in front of you and be an authority in the area and in the market and whether you come to the event or not, people are seeing it in the newsletter every month and hey, they’re out doing this. So we just, um, so you’ve got the medium, the message has changes. And so even if there’s a dip, you already have the medium and the dip is a, as we saw the last time be a lot more, a lot more really nice houses available to buy. And um, you know, I shoulda coulda would all over myself this last time, right? I mean, I sold 16 houses. The one lady I’m going, why wasn’t I, that guy mean two and a half times more money and you know, 24 months and you’re going, man.

50:31 I mean I did a couple and it was awesome, but it didn’t have the connections or the cash. Then I’m going, that won’t happen this time. I mean, and I’m not saying by the way, I don’t think we’re going to see, when we say dip, it’s getting back to a normal. It’s 90 to 120 days to sell a house. We just don’t know what that is because a lot of people have been in the business. I’ve only seen three to nine days on the market is like, holy cow, it’s taken that long. um, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, but the problem is, is that we have to be out in like we had the crawford report at our meeting this morning to show people. So our team is educated on the amount of price reductions happening already in the, in the last quarter, average prices, a listing inventory going up a little bit.

51:10 It’s not scary, but it’s moving in the fact that it’s moving and it’s consistently tells us that it’s coming. So the opportunity is there to double down on activities while everybody else starts going, oh, we better see if our old employer will take us back or this or that because the fish aren’t jumping in the boat. It’s, it’s hard work again. So I think it’s a cleansing and an opportunity to gain market share, quite honestly. What is your biggest struggle right now? Um, time, um, you know, just wanting to do so many things. Like I, there’s just opportunities right now and I’m trying to sort and qualify those. But uh, I would just say time because I just want to love on everybody and just sit down, grab their little cheeks and just let’s talk and how can I help you? And you know, and you just, you just have to sometimes realize you keep moving.

51:55 It’s like today I got out of bed at 6:30 this morning. She’s like, where are you going? You’re, you’re sick. Even been coughing all night, you’re a mess. And I’m like, I gotta go. I gotta meet the painters at the office because we’ve done this expansion at seven and then I haven’t stopped since. And the whole thing is, is that, you know, you just do what you gotta do. But I’d say, you know, time and then people, because we have so many, what I would say opportunities right now because I kind of feel like we’ve created a small, this is probably a terrible analogy, but like almost like a small amazon if you will, like right, we want to be the hub so if they need home services, we should have that division. But that’s my hub home services, I’ve already got it registered. Like that’s next.

52:33 Like why not just service that client and keep that house perpetually maintained for the life that they’re in it be, that’s a huge value piece. I need someone to run that for me, our investor division, start teaching workshops to investors on self directed iras and those kind of things. So it’s that, those whose that actually take the ball and run and don’t give it back, like, just own that piece. But we have, when I say amazon, what I mean by that is you have the customer base, like we have it. We still 531 homes last year. You compound that year over year over year. The last several years, you knoW, three to four to 500 houses, that’s a lot of people who trusted you and I realize some of those moved out of state. So I get that. Still a ton of people that. How else can we service them besides just one real estate?

53:18 How do we talk to about what they want to invest, helping their kids buy their first home. But there’s so many other pieces. We started our silver group, which helping people, excuse me, from active adult into assisted and memory care that’s already become now starting to become a conversation point for people and we have someone leading that she met. She’s still doing real estate transactions, you know, while we’re building that and that’s the benefit we have and still be in the sales team doing business, but then building this part, this arm of our organization. So, uh, so what is your favorite best or most interesting failure?

53:57 This is darren hardy moment, right? Fail faster, fail to do it more often. Um, man, I, I just think, you know, just not planning things out and just trying them because there’s always new shiny objects for us and saying, hey guys, with the team, hey we’re going to go do this, this is the greatest thing ever. And then it falls flat because we didn’t think it through and you know, kind of, it’s like kind of going to a convention or a workshop and you come back like moses coming down from the mountain and we’re going to fix you all. We’ve got this now. It’s like we have an agreement one week like come back, you can’t talk about any of it for a week. Just don’t talk because. Because it gives your emotions time to come back down to and go. And that was a dumb idea.

54:36 I was just high as a. I was excited about getting the thing. You’re jazzed up. I’m shopping cart ads. I did one time I remember I got, I got sold on. I was still working at fedex. I was probably my second year and someone called me and they’re like, oh yeah, we did a poll in front of safeway and we asked, you know, who you knew in real estate and your name kept coming up. And I’m like, whoa, no way. Like, that is so cool and I can remember this is great, you know, and there went $3,500 or whatever, that I didn’t have to have kids butts on my face. I feel so bad wheN I’m at the grocery store. I was like, oh, that’s sucker gesell’s. Oh gosh, it was. And yet I say that and I’m on the ad sticks at safeway and I in our farm.

55:11 And those things have a tremendous return because everybody sees him appoint is far. The grocery carts were in my farm. Great conversation because you’re playing sometimes in a farm, you’re playing as much defense as you are often just keeping people out to um, but you know, failures. I would just say it’d be moving too fast. I’m not having a hiring process really until I went to keller williams and all of a sudden you’re like, holy cow, this is world class hiring stuff here. And we use it in our restaurants. A lot of the same process. It’s just Business model. It just, you have to have systems in, in, in systems or what makes things work, not, you know, you know, we’re the visionary. Right. Did you read rocket fuel? Oh yeah. So until I found scott, um, and I say I found scott because I was thinking, did I say that right?

55:55 Yeah, until really I was fortunate enough to have to get in business with him. I had new ideas six, seven times a day. Like, this is going to be great. My poor brother had to deal with all that at the time and they’re all great ideas. They’re all great ideas at the moment, but now scott implements them and we’ve watched our business, lIke if you came into our office and see our scoreboards and see the marketing materials that go out and our newsletter and you can just see when he took it over and the quality and the events that we’re doing and now we have ideas and it’s like boom, he lets us go do execute as he puts together that part of it and it’s just, uh, it’s, it’s huGe, huge gap. Understand until I have that person, everything else is just, I’m just a hot mess. Like I’m just tripping over myself.

56:36 So on that topic, what book would you say has had the greatest impact on you in the last year or two?

56:44 Man, I could pull my phone out for that. There’s so many. Um, you know, I think, um, you know, there’s, gosh, when I think of what book, uh, currently I would say building a storybrand has been game changing for us. And you’ve heard me, he’s used some of the analogies without even reading the book yet, but really making the client the hero being the guide through the process. If you look at our new business cards and our websites, everything has pictures of families and pictures of how since stuff versus awards and that kind of stuff, because it’s got to be all about the, the, the military. They don’t, they don’t give a crap. I mean honestly, only care of you and your mom really. I would say you’re probably pretty close to that. And, and who got second other than that, after that it really doesn’t matter.

57:28 And you quickly realize that, you know, if you’ve never won one of the awards, you go, oh, that’s going to change my life. And you get it and you’re like, it just made me a bigger target. It didn’t really didn’t really do much and clients go, that’s great. So how much more money do I need to make you like, that’s not you. You just stay humble, stay hungry, right? And just, um, just go serve people. And money becomes a byproduct. It’s just a creep and opportunities, but books, building a storybrand, I would say. Um, there was a book getting to yes, which kinda was on negotiation and some things like that and I realized that there’s a ton of human psychology that I didn’t understand on how to get people to do what they want when they didn’t want to say really want to do it. Um, and um, I mean I could go on and on traction, which is all part of the rocket fuel series, eos, that stuff. Um, I would say those would be the main energy bus as a, you know, a flight to san diego, read John Gordon, but it just kind of gave me that positive, like, you know, is everybody in the right seat on the bus and in that type of thing.

58:24 So I liked that you brought up traction because I’m so next week one of the guests, we’re going to have Gary Harper and he runs sharper solutions, which is he’s attraction coach. Wow. So that’s going to be awesome because many people, many guests, they love tractions and that’s gonna be a lot of fun. Okay. So that was awesome. That was a lot of really good actionable tips. So thank you so much. Thank you guys for tuning in. And then don’t forget we got another one next week, 2:00 and we got the godfather coming in. We got russell shop man. So good thing I wouldn’t be for him. I wouldn’t want to go after. All right. That’s the thing. It was awesome. Well thank you for the opportunity and was a pleasure. Glad you were able to power through it. Yes. Yeah. now go home and get some sleep. Get some rest. All right, cool. So you guys, everybody.