How to Scale Your Real Estate Team With Technology - a podcast by Nate Joens, Robby Trefethren, Erik Hatch

Nate Joens: [00:00:01] All right. What is up everybody. This is Nate with you actually. We got the whole crowd here. We're gonna get this thing started again. I'm Nate Jones on the CEO Structurely. We've got a great crew here from from Hatch coaching and Jeff Chubb with Chubb Realty. Guys I'm gonna let you guys introduce yourself tell us a little bit about your businesses and let's get this thing started off right.

Jeff Chubb: [00:00:40] Mr Chubb hit us with it. Hey guys. I'm Jeff Chubb. I have a team I run a team out of Boston Massachusetts. We serve the whole Boston metro market right now for two thousand nineteen. Our plan is to actually have our goal at least right on the board is to have 60 agents by the end of 2019 and our two other expansion markets. So in order to do that 2018 has been a lot of focus on kind of the technology in the systems. In order for us to be able to scale right now we have including onboarding agents 15 agents work for you. You just made the switch from RE/MAX to eXp Realty and that's kind of me. That's me in a nutshell.

Erik Hatch: [00:01:26] All right I'll jump in. Erik catch on Fargo North Dakota. I have a couple of businesses that keep me up at night. My main one is Hatch Realty. We are a team of 34 people. We run a different model or really high service high specialization model and so our average agents on the buy side sells about 60 homes and our average agent on the list side sells about 100 homes. And so as a team we'll do we'll finish this year at the end of 2018 we'll do about 680 transactions hopefully correct the 800 number next year and have done that with massive service a massive system of massive technology to grow that I've been not a production myself now for just over four years and have filled that time after building up leaders in our team. We fill that time with Hatch coaching. I get the privilege of coaching some of the top three teams in the country. We started at the top and found some of the people that we were in the same groups with and started coaching them and I've just got some really positive energy from that. And so we built out some really important key I think missing elements and a lot of real estate coaching and that is leadership and ISAs and so I handle the leadership side and Robby handles the ISA side.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:45] Yeah and just to add to that Robby T. here in Moorhead Minnesota which is a sister city with Fargo North Dakota basically the same place. The reality is this. I served as an ISA with Erik coming up five years ago. Holy crap that seems a lot longer and yet isn't that long ago served as an ISA was in production for about two and a half ish years and got out of production and now get to coach people full time. My whole goal is this and our coaching company we talked about how we want to redefine the way people treat people. And Erik said his job is to focus on redefining the way we treat our team members. And my focus is how do we treat our clients. So that's what I bring to the table. I get to coach a lot of really great people throughout the country as well. Usually ISA as agents rainmakers and help them traditionally convert more leads and treat their clients better. So that's what I got to do every day.

Nate Joens: [00:03:59] Awesome. Well I appreciate all you guys taking the time to join us today. What we're going to be covering is mostly in terms of how to scale your real estate business with technology and I think this is a really good spot to talk about this. You guys are at different points in in scale and in growth. Obviously everyone listening is at different points in their growth in their real estate as well. That kind of I wanted to start by asking but I want to I want to preface this by saying I have a really strong pet peeve. I don't like it when people talk about growth and scale in the same vein. I think they're two completely different things. I'd love to get your guys to take. Do you guys see a difference between growth and scale. And if so what what do you guys feel that difference is

Jeff Chubb: [00:04:49] I mean the. So I you know one of the things that I kind of realized is is I've been so focused on I kind of considered one of the two. I mean it's real hard to grow unless if you are you know unless you put the systems whether that be technology or systems in regards to how file is just work right or if people place you know it's real hard to grow unless you you've got to build out those big businesses that can scale you know if you will go from five agents to 15 agents you're one of my really big key realisations for me. I'm reading the book Extreme ownership right now and this is just something that was truly a key realization for me that I'd probably like two days ago was you know we talk about scale and we talk about growing. And one thing that I didn't realize was you know as you grow your business you also have to grow your leadership skills ability if you will. And. I'm looking at myself and being judgmental myself because you know we're our biggest critics if you will. But what I'm realizing is that I don't wanna say I was a bad leader but I also wasn't the best leader. What's called a subpar leader and I wasn't building my leadership skills as I if you will scale my company. And so you know it's almost like you're each person that you had on you have to will grow your leadership skills incrementally I almost feel like you know. But I think growth and scaleability are kind of one and the same personally.

Erik Hatch: [00:06:28] Yeah I would I would see it from a different lens I'm not disagreeing but just seeing and seeing it from a different perspective. By the way I hate when I put my head down I see just how receding hairline is. There is no growth up here so I'm scaling my forehead realistically. Thank you. Here's here's how I understand it is I can add 10 more agents and I can add a million dollars GCI to my bottom line. But if I also add a million dollars of expenses I've scaled nothing. Scalability for me is understanding that if my expenses go up this goes up but not as high. I know a lot of people where their expenses go up excuse me their team goes up and their expenses go up even higher than that.

Erik Hatch: [00:07:16] There's there's this massive difference between adding more and gaining more and for me scalability. And Jeff was alluding to it. It talks about leadership and it talks about the resources that you have. I think scalability is a reflection of time. It's a reflection of the resources that you have and as you're looking at the hours that you're putting in and the dollars that you're putting it the only way that you're scaling is when there's a separation between the dollars and the time put in and the difference between the money that you have to spend and the time you have to put it. So the further this this differentiates itself is the bigger we scale. But most of us just grow. And then this goes right along with it. So we create more money more problems.

Jeff Chubb: [00:08:00] And I I just to that point one of the things that drive me insane about this industry are the agents that are only talking about this and I don't get it I don't give a crap about the higher number I really care about this number. You know it's amazing is that you know people talk about. I grossed you know two million dollars GCI. Yes you did that and then you find out that they paid their agents you know they were in the 80 20 split. So it's like All right. So to your company was only four hundred thousand dollars in commissions that you could then divvy up and with all your expenses. I think that's a huge part as does as you grow. I just I get so sick and tired of this. No I don't care about that number what's this number. Your true profitability is the only number that really matters to me should only matter to everybody right.

Robby Trefethren: [00:08:50] So I'd like to I'd like to summarize things with a very very simple thoughts and for me to really rapid look what both of you have said and Nate tell me if you agree with this growth is doing more with more because you're spending more scaling is doing more with less that's what scaling to mean is is doing more with less of something so growth is more with more scaling is more with less. And I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Nate Joens: [00:09:21] Yeah exactly. Yeah. No I think that's spot on Robby I love how you can so easily summarize things in such a short sentences it helps me it helps me understand them because I'm not as smart as you guys as I supposedly try to. Yeah. Kind of my thoughts on scale versus growth and keep in mind this is this is kind of from a software company perspective not necessarily real estate. But I think they're one and the same but a business is a business and this is a this is a thought that I I stole or I'm borrowing from our chairman who's taken to two companies two software companies public. So that's the definition an epitome of scale.

Nate Joens: [00:10:02] He describes scale or the ability to scale as thinking like you're thinking of your company as a spring and when you're hiring when you're hiring you're applying force on that spring.

Nate Joens: [00:10:17] And if you if you hire too quickly you stretch you stretch the spring out way too far and it will never it will never be the same again. It can't retract to be what it once was. But if you if you created the right systems if you put the right leadership in place it will don't bounce back almost better than before and you can continue to use it and continue to grow. So I thought then that analogy was wasn't perfect. Sure. And I'm curious to know what your guys his thoughts are and maybe taking it a step back

Nate Joens: [00:10:50] Kind of towards towards that force of applying you know when did you guys decide to actually start making your first hires for your team and how do you know who to hire second first third. That wasn't an order. First second third. How do you know how to continue to hire after that.

Erik Hatch: [00:11:12] We first yeah. This this. This is one of my favorite topics I. I was so gun shy when I hired my first assistant I got into real estate full time in 2011 and halfway through I was drowning in business and I realized there was the sign of when I didn't have enough hours in the day to do the things that really mattered to me because I was chasing business and I realized that I wasn't deliver a delivery of the type of service that I wanted to to my clients. I went and hired an assistant. The mistake I made is I hired a college aged person who is part time and so I had limited capabilities their limited skill set also or real world experience. And then I gave her projects that I had wanted to work on but I didn't have her leverage things that were on my plate and that's realistically I think the first hire is an admin that takes things off your plate. If I could go back and do it all over again here's my five hires in this order number one admin to leverage all the stuff off my plate and it's got to be full time not part time. If you hire somebody that's part time your business grows and you need them full time they can't do it or they don't either.

Erik Hatch: [00:12:25] They can't grow into it or they don't have the time and like you're just all of a sudden stop. So first first hire full time admin. Second hire full time admin. And the reason why we go full time admin for the second hire is this is not the growth piece. This is marketing this is helping you to get a little more momentum understanding that my dollars per hour are the highest dollar per hour in our business. So the third hire the millionaire real estate agent would tell you that it's a buyer agents and I disagree. I actually think it's a showing partner you should have built enough money into your system right now where you can predictably pay three salaries. Again keeping your dollar per hour as the highest are why then fourth hire is an ISA. You're now going and chasing after business that you've either started to purchase or you're going after expired and FSBOs and that sort of thing. And then the fifth hire is another showing partner because that third hire that buyer agent that you'll excuse me that's showing partner that you had hired should be graduating up to be a buyer's agent.

Erik Hatch: [00:13:26] But why would you give somebody who had never sold real estate before as brand new why would you give them the keys to the kingdom and half of all those commissions that they're going to convert at a piss poor rate anyways. Why wouldn't you rather hire somebody that is your sidekick and you trained them and you develop them. So they earned the right to be a buyer agents and we use that partner model to grow. I think the capacity for somebody in that kind of model depending on your market can do a hundred to one hundred and twenty transactions with you as the only agents and then as the only agent who is negotiating and navigating and then as you grow you've developed really great talented people who are invested in your system. So what is scaling now and now we have we have more admin per agent than probably any other company in the country because we believe in the specialization model and it's proven to be profitable to allow us to scale. And it's also allowed me to have a life. I've been on of production for over four years continuing to make more money every year.

Jeff Chubb: [00:14:26] I took a bunch of notes here because I just learned a bunch too. I guess to say I've done it wrong and I don't wanna say I've done it wrong. I mean I think most people I think that there's you know maybe that's your Bible I think that most people who go out and hire fires it was their first time. I would just I would disagree with that. I agree with the aspect of admin and I agree with it being full time. One other thing that I found out I would throw in there is a salary to me at least in my market. The difference of quality of work between a salary versus a an hourly worker was just night and day. My first one was a know just an hourly you know 30 dollars an hour or whatever it was. And then when I heard I was scared. I was home from a place of scarcity and I was scared in order to hire somebody salary. And I finally did it and the work product the increase in productivity the quality of worker just increased dramatically. Yes that's definitely one area where I would have I've never hired a showing partner. I did move over to a buyer's agent pretty much right away. You know I. You guys are the ISA pros at it right. One thing that I've noticed that I've hired two ISA is and I've failed miserably to have that is number four.

Jeff Chubb: [00:15:48] I think that's awesome. But I think everybody needs to know that that is literally probably the hardest hire for your entire team and if you're going to do it and you know I haven't even you got used you guys yet number one Hatch coaching is probably the best. Not not probably it is the best ISA coaching company out there. That was probably definitely one of my shortcomings when I made that hires is I didn't invest in the person like I should have. With that being the most difficult hire I mean for you to say that you're going to train them as well as being production as well as going on and listing appointments virus appointments is just completely ludicrous. So with each hire I guess what I'm trying to say is is there is a right way and a wrong way. And if you do it the wrong way you're not going to eke out maximum productivity out of that person and you're just gonna waste your time and your money is going to end up being you know I think the the the schedule if you will the map of it I mean I think that will vary a little bit by market to market but that's just kind of my personal opinion on that.

Robby Trefethren: [00:16:53] Yeah. I want to add one more piece to really emphasize a point that we're getting at here is I think the way that we brought agents to this industry is completely broken in the sense that we basically say hey quit your day job or whatever you're doing don't make any money for six months and really don't expect to make real money for at least 12 18 months. And that's a flaw. It really was a big barrier from US attracting top tier talent what the salary did was it allowed us to get really top tier talent to come in and at least have a safety net to begin with. And then with the vision of the long term potential making agent money. So I think the whole model has been broken and that's why the strong partners worked so well for us is to transition yes.

Erik Hatch: [00:17:49] Direct salary right now Jeff where that salary is paid for by the agent that they're partnered with. So it's a zero cost to the company. Yes.

Robby Trefethren: [00:17:58] And then they can make some more money on commissions to absorb our sodium and they can if they bring in their own sphere deals and make some additional dollars on those through commission as well so they can make some extra dollars as well.

Jeff Chubb: [00:18:11] So I know you're at a different market than I mean I'm in one of the most expensive metro areas in the country. So just out of curiosity in your market with somebody like that. Sorry.

Erik Hatch: [00:18:23] It's our our average price points here is two hundred and thirty thousand bucks. The average wage of somebody coming out of college is about thirty thousand bucks. We're right in that range.

Jeff Chubb: [00:18:35] And so as it's doing partner. Are they prospecting at all or are they on the phone prospect or are they just literally showing us.

Erik Hatch: [00:18:41] They have they have three priorities in this order. Number one is they're there to leverage their agents. So that means inspection showings that sort of thing. The second is they're there to train because we know they are our bench players and there are a next phase of talent. And the third is they're there to prospectively generate and the only way they can graduate's up is either we have somebody who has left the company we have enough growth or they force us by by bringing in at least X number of deals from their sphere. Coming up so I'll give you a very brief synopsis. We lost five of our eight buyer agents this year and we will sell more houses this year than we did last year.

Erik Hatch: [00:19:21] And the reason why is because of the bench and because of the showing partner model. So we're getting off track here. Let's just maybe rub it back in because we have a lot dive had and people are wanting Jeff. We can talk about this but I just want to I want to let our high D simmer just a little bit.

Jeff Chubb: [00:19:36] Let me Nate come back to what I was looking I was trying to learn I forgot. I thought I was just like you

Nate Joens: [00:19:47] Know that's awesome. I was along for the ride too. I thought this kind of fits perfectly in line with with our our discussion on how to scale. I don't know. I know there's some new questions that have come in. Do we want to kind of transit. I think one question that I did want to ask you guys it made it. We've covered it. Or maybe we haven't. But what is what are some kind of some other signs to look for when you're when you're just starting to hire those first five hires Erik how do you know when you can make that first hire and then after you make those first five hires you know you're six plus hire. How do you know when that time is right.

Erik Hatch: [00:20:29] The second you're starting to wonder if you need to hire you're already too late. Jeff are you going to attest right you've been doing this a long time is the minute you think why do I need another hire. You've already lost tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of business and you've worked too much and and it's really having a strategic plan and knowing when to play red light and green light with it. And so the idea of leading with revenue on everything that you do is going to be important for me I think when you hire your first admin that's an expense of anywhere from probably two to four thousand dollars a month depending on your market. And that's a really scary thing. I was I was 30 years old and was unsure of my success in real estate and the idea of bringing somebody on like ten dollars an hour scared the bejesus out of me. And I'm at such a point now where I'm understanding that I value my time so much more than I ever did and so I want to have scalability and everything that I do. I don't I don't get me wrong I'm a delicate flower so things like mechanically light for me anyways.

Erik Hatch: [00:21:33] But like I don't blow my own snow and I don't mow my own yard because it's going to cost me 50 bucks to hire that out and my time is worth more than 50 dollars now. And so that kind of scalability piece has to exist especially in your business. You talk about that 80 20 rule and most of us in our business in our business day are probably spending far too much time in our 80 percent of the stuff we're not great at versus the 20 percent which is our really high income producing times. And so when I talked about the scalability of those first five hires those are still keeping me or you. The Rainmaker as the person at the highest dollar per hour. And you're not giving that opportunity somebody else until they earn that from you. And so it protects your dollars. I coach a lot of people and some of them have teams of 20 and 30 people and if you take their production out of it they're losing money as teams and it's happening all over the industry right now that people are growing but they're not scaling appropriately and something has to happen. And and the thing that we have to do is we have to look to say where is my highest dollar per our value and how do I start hiring around that.

Erik Hatch: [00:22:40] Making sure that you're using your income and then there's there's a point when you have to start paying yourself a salary and then you pay yourself in a different bucket because there's there's three buckets when you want a real estate team. There's I'm a producer bucket and that should be a separate LLC that should be a separate paycheck with the same split as what everybody else on your team is making and that's where almost everybody screws this up Nate is that they take that money and they just put it in the company bucket and it's wrong because they have no idea if their company actually is profitable or not. The second bucket was their CEO salary and they should be paying themselves a you know seventy five to two hundred thousand dollars salary depending on where you're at. What you would pay any other CEO to do the job and then there's your owner profit. And when people boast and they staff 30 or 40 percent profit really they're taking that bucket of them in production and they're putting that in the company bucket and that's not a real number because they have to pay themselves separately.

Erik Hatch: [00:23:36] Now I'm on a tangent. I want to settle down.

Jeff Chubb: [00:23:38] Yeah. But I I'm going to add on because I actually respectfully disagree. But we all actually agree. So first off the first verse say somebody needs to do is they need to read the book Profit First. If you're looking at our personnel you read the book Profit First and it's gonna give you the steps in regards to how to not only build a profitable company but give or manage a scary aspect of your first hire. And actually every one of the things private first will tell you it's not three buckets that you have Profit First will tell you it's actually six buckets. So you have an incoming bucket of all commissions you have your employees salary. So you know for us when ten thousand dollars comes in two grand goes or you know fifteen hundred goes our employees salary. Two thousand goes into my salary. Forty six percent. So forty six hundred goes into an operating account 20 percent goes into a tax account. So you know if you read Profit First I think that that will really put anyone who's in the beginning stages of their business in a really good position in order to scale which which was the original question came from. But also this is something that I implemented last year and quite frankly I had to implement it because I was like I was actually screwing up and everything was going in one bucket and all of a sudden was a holy crap where did all my money go and why am I broke right now. Right. And and you're using these processes and these type of systems which again goes to your original question system scaling all that. I mean it's going to it's going to make you feel a lot more healthier when you are hiring additional people when you do go out and spend that additional fifteen dollars for a platform cost or you know you add aren't Structurely in order to help complement leads that you're already purchasing like by following those type of systems. That's that's ultimately you know where you will feel that comfort. Yes you will.

Jeff Chubb: [00:25:32] Read the book Profit First like that when I coached. That was the first thing I told all my coaching clients. OK. I really look forward to it. Now I have to go out and buy this book Profit First. Let's discuss next call.

Nate Joens: [00:25:45] Awesome. Yeah I think that covers kind of quite a bit about the scaling process there. I think I think this might be a good transition into the tech aspect of the webinar. I know some people started to ask some questions at least in terms of metrics and technology. Can we just get a start for your guys is tech stack. What's what tool that you're using today in each of your respective businesses.

Jeff Chubb: [00:26:18] Of course I'm all right. I was either going to Erik or me. But are our tech Sierra's our engine. Sierra Interactive. That is our CRM that basically runs everything we do. Google Pay-Per-Click that goes to Sierra. And then we have the beginning of November we had it on my Ylopo. It is something that I thought I thought I thought that I did not want to add art. And finally I was like I have to do it because it's that incredible product. So Ylopo feeds to Sierra Interactive Sierra's still our CRM that has our dialer our automated follow ups. I mean you name it. And then our insurance. I have an added on the ISA piece because quite frankly like I said I already failed twice and I use Structurely I think I was probably one of your first clients you know. And if somebody was holding a gun to my head right now and said You have to scale down the only two systems left I will tell you that Sierra because you need a CRM like you don't have a CRM you will not be successful in real estate and then Structurely it would be the second thing that would be like that that I would not eliminate because it's it has become that integral of a piece of our of our company. So but really I work really hard in order to scale down to three or four systems because I got sick and tired of going to Agent legend Sierra has agent legend piece I had another system that had a call routing I mean it was just it was 50 systems and I couldn't handle it anymore. So I've been a law to scale the business. Those are that that's where I figured out being the best engine in order to to allow us to grow in scale.

Robby Trefethren: [00:28:01] So awesome. So I'll talk to Erik from the lead conversion side if you want to add at the end on other pieces that we're using. Feel free to go ahead I'll go. Yes you're going to go less. You just got out did four for once by me. So leave early conversion. We are using commissions inc commissions incs great features are allows us to organize our leads pretty well. I will be frank we are exploring switching to a different CRM for a multitude of reasons that I will talk to you at a different time about. But the great thing about it is it does allow for us to create auto drip text messages and mass messaging therefore for events we can send out and about a reminder for people to come to get a pie on Friday. We can do things like that. Also all of our leads we can set a set a plan and set it and forget it. I'm all about setting it and forgetting it because our brains suck and if you try to remember everything it's definitely not going to happen. So we use that. We do a lot of auto text and drip text. I think we've sent over half a million texts and emails out in the last five years give or take. So that's been killer. We also use mojo to make our dials to use as they dialer networks pretty darn well it's pretty reliable. Great quality commission inc stuff wasn't up to par for us so we use mojo. So those are our main tools. We also use RingCentral to route all of our incoming calls because we want to change to the calls go through it's super cheap cost almost nothing.

Robby Trefethren: [00:29:44] And in a switch of a button I can change my call from going to Jeff to going to Nate to Erik. That way I don't have to go and take a lead phone and literally drive around town and give a lead phone to somebody. It's super cheap and you can just transform the phone. That's pretty darn well. So RingCentral mojo we also use land voice we're using land voice to get expired data. Basically that's just a lead source for us. So those are the main pieces of tech and the big thing I'll say is this and we've talked about it on the ISA radio is you've got to have something that allows you to send drip a mass text if you don't have that in the lead conversion game you're going to be irrelevant it's in the next year. And then the final piece the one that's that that we started using just a few months ago is of course Structurely with Nate and honestly we started sending the first lead we put in there were absolute junk. So in my world we have three full time ISAs and they crush it. So what we wanted to do is we took those old leads we put them in there and it's found it found three closings within I believe it's the first 45 to 60 days that without a doubt would have slipped through the cracks and it re-engaged it for the ISA and again this is the junk of the junk. My ISAs has scrubbed the heck out of it and it was even. Yeah. The compost pile it was actually worse than that Jeff like these people we had called easily hundreds of times with nothing no texts nothing back. And Structurely was able to reengage a few of those for us so Structurely is a big piece that we're we're integrating as we speak.

Erik Hatch: [00:31:28] The reason why it's important that Robby and Jeff answer that is because I don't pay much attention to the tech I pay attention to the people that no one understand the tech and we talk about scalability. We're at a point in my business that I couldn't have answered but Robby just answered and think about that. I'm the CEO I'm the rainmaker I'm the owner of the namesake of our business and yet I don't know all the tools that we're using and what what has to happen and I think that Jeff maybe alluded to one of the issues that you maybe had with your ISAs is that our ISAs for us. Are our managers are our systemizers. Are our high level executives within our business. And in addition to that they're also the grinders and so we've been able to build opportunities for leadership and for influence because they're the most front facing folks. And what happens. I don't know your story. I'm just projecting here. But what happens with most people is they'll be quick to hire an ISA and treat them as the bottom of the totem pole as the ones to go on to to do the grinding and we believe that our ISAs in our world are leveraging things on a really high level. I do want to add on as we talk about the right talent as you can have all the technology in the world but if you have an idiot team member it doesn't matter and you can spend all the money you want on the best possible CRM on the right kinds of things. But if the human that and is is mediocre like it's this whole huge issue I'm going to go off on a tangent here. Everybody buckle up. Those of you those of you that are with Zillow and we're with Zillow I'm a believer in the Zillow platform because that's what the consumer wants. So we've got to learn what they're doing. Zillow premiere agent 4 has changed a whole lot of things and they've changes. So now Zillow is basically protecting that before they hand it off to make sure that somebody actually responds. And the problem that's happening is that they're protecting it and that's the right thing to do because the consumer needs to have somebody that they talk to otherwise it looks bad on Zillow but when they hand off their hand it off to some times people that are mediocre converters and then people blame Zillow and they blame the lead and everything else when realistically they're poor and don't get me wrong. There are issues with that platform. I'm not endorsing nor negating that platform. But the problem is that we have not done a diligent enough job of teaching the people who are receiving these leads on how to be wonderful nurturers and caretakers of it. I'm talking. ISA as I'm talking Zillow people I'm talking every one of you on this webinar this podcast we have done a mediocre to piss poor job the second time I said piss poor now. At handing this off to the right qualified people.

Robby Trefethren: [00:34:18] So I do want to add to that as well just as very quickly as you said we are using Zillow and we have found success with it. I am a huge fan of something that did roll out. I just rolled out something called the first contact report. And basically what it does is it gives you metrics when a Zillow transfers you believe they're now asking the clients in very short questions to rate the experience. And I study this I honestly look at it two to three times per day because it gives you first off it tells you where you're at what your score is. And it tells you what percentage are you in the top five percent top 10 percent whatever the story may be and what's been really cool to see is it's it's given us a benchmark to know that we're providing good service but we can get better. So I love it. I love that piece of Zillow ruled out. I think it's a good tool to help hold us accountable to become better.

Nate Joens: [00:35:17] So I'm a fan. Jeff do you have anything to add there.

Jeff Chubb: [00:35:24] I hate Zillow so. The reason why I went from Zillow I was happy with it. And then I mean look I was buying Zillow leads when they sold you know quarter of market shares and they had two hundred percent. Those were the days and then they went depressions and I was I I guess I'll play. I just I got sick and tired of them moving the goalposts on me so I said Zillow in two thousand set. Where were 2008. Yeah 2017 was like twenty five percent of my business. I said screw you when they tried to move it once more and they went to the I forget what they did and I said I'm done. I'm tired of you guys. I want a partner in my business. I don't want somebody who just looks at me as how much water can they get from a from a rock type thing. And that be money from my bank account. So I want to build it back up. I was really accurate realtor dot com last year. I think there were like 30 28 percent of my business. Obviously those numbers will continue to increase because you know we now have all those leads and we're working on but then renewal came up and my pricing went up three fold.

Jeff Chubb: [00:36:38] And it's like I learned the same thing and that's why at the beginning of November I decided I'm sick and tired of portals. I'm going to go out and get my own leads. That's why I want to Ylopo. And you know I mean you talked about the systems. My my dream and what I'm looking at is Ylopo ,Structurely and Sierra and everybody getting along and talking really well to the point where I don't I'm allowed to say this or not but you know where I was talking to G and G is going to use Structurely technology in order to set up text messages artificial intelligence style to these leads because they looked at one two to three main street. I mean like three times you know and it just carefully nudge. I mean it's a dream and it's all gonna come together in 2019. And I am amped up and pumped and to go back to scalability that I have a system right now with those three systems that I have four systems that I have. That is true the scaleable which I'm excited about but I'm not a Zillow fan.

Nate Joens: [00:37:36] I can say we are working on a Sierra integration so I'm know you've been asking for it but I know it's not big I ask you.

Jeff Chubb: [00:37:45] I think at this point it's done monthly but I think I'm going to start like bothering you weekly and then when I start sending you an email daily that's when you know that you know.

Nate Joens: [00:37:58] It's important it's important getting your systems to talk to each other is extremely important. I know I know there have been some questions in here too about that.

Jeff Chubb: [00:38:07] Look I mean I if they don't right now. Right. And in that I'm looking at it as an increased productivity which awesome. Like I'm so pumped forward to increase our productivity even more. But we are instead of Structurely would be one of the last things that I never cut because it is now an integral part of that business and and you know I mean I originally thought of Structurely as a way to bridge the gap before I got an ISA right. And what I've kind of realized is as I am going to get an ISA and I'm going to do it right Robby is going to train my ISA and when I do get on he is going to hire that ISA as well. But even then you know these systems offer insurance and that's kind of like IBM was saying where he set out a half million text messages in the last five years. Right. The way I look at it is these automated campaigns. Structurely for example you guys just moved out to a year of contacts like this is all insurance I'm spending all this money on this lead you know for me to spend two dollars additional per lead in order to quote unquote ensure that the. It's kind of mindless right. I mean I get in my car. You know I just buy a brand new car. Let's just say I bought a brand new one hundred thousand our range rover right. I mean what's the first thing I do before I drive it off the lot I'm sure. Right. Tell me that it's just brands. So you know so and and that I don't like right now we're just providing these leads and then we're just hoping and praying most models I understand that yours is a little bit different for most business models are just hoping and praying that your buyer agents are going to continue to follow these guys and that's not the case unfortunately anyone right now that makes a lot of sense.

Nate Joens: [00:39:51] It's honestly the reason why Structurely as in business I will say it's been it's been really interesting for us as a company to see how different teams have been using our product. You know we kind of started out saying this will you know for those of you that don't have an say and I know Erik will say well everyone has an ISA if you don't have one you are the ISA. But that said we kind of set out and said this this can replace your ISA Structurely can replace your ISA. But we've been learning more and more is well it actually helps augment the role of the ISA. Many teams that are using us have their ISAs is logging in. It's really just cutting through the crap cutting through the filters or filtering through the crap and really just surfacing the leads that are most worth their time and really now it's kind of about fitting fitting you know fitting into the systems the other systems they're using like Sierra like commissions inc like their CRMs and lead gen. so that they can build their own systems on top of on top of those tech tools.

Jeff Chubb: [00:40:58] So that leads me to one piece there for people that are using Structurely you know first off I was fun my team naming her we didn't use Aisa we just name Valerie. Valerie Miller is her name and you know one of the biggest tips you know we're talking about these systems all playing together but the the person that they're the your lead pool that you have where you know we have 4000 leads in this lead pool you know originally was called Chubb Realty Group I was like one of the dumbest things at some point I had an aha moment where I said OK I have this quote unquote person Valerie sending out these text messages why not just name my pool. Valerie Miller as well. And it was really dumb it was. But you know you talk about minor tweaks to your business which can have a profound effect and it increased conversion where people will email and say Hey Valerie Can I please take a look at one to three main street because now they're getting emails and Valerie's text messaging. I mean it's just all these systems put together you need to work at intertwine it. One of the things that I'm going to do for 2019 is my automated voice mails I'm going to have a woman record these voicemails and say that she's she's Valerie with Chubb related group so that I have automated voice mails the text messages as well sending out emails. All this is in our buyer lead pool and all it's doing is nurturing these leads. You just you know just I wanted to throw that in there.

Robby Trefethren: [00:42:28] So I want to add to that as well real quick because I agree I love the insurance idea. I think it's really the way to view it in stage 1 if you don't have an eye ISA is it's it's qualifying insurance because that's really what it's doing for you Jeff is it's taking at qualifying it for you cutting out the crap ad and you're handing it over to your agent for it.

Jeff Chubb: [00:42:51] Because it's giving out the ability of an agent as some agents are better. Yes it's taking up a fair variable that is just a killer for us business owners. I mean that. Yeah exactly.

Robby Trefethren: [00:43:02] So it's helping qualify more opportunities in our world we're using it now as you would kind of describe it. It's leveraging the ISA it's augmenting the role of the ISA say that way we can focus on better dollar productive activities. AKA The ISAs is having that voice to voice conversation with leads and that's really where ISA is coming in terms of it's funny you call it insurance. We've always referred to our ISAs is the best insurance policy in the world because they also then hold the agent accountable to make sure they do the things they're supposed to be doing. Once the lead has been handed off to an agent because we all know agents as much as I love you guys Erik says that the difference between a hug and a chokehold is just arm placement and with my agents sometimes that's the way I feel is they do a lot of little things wrong. They let things go through the cracks. And that's what our ISA say is do full time is they don't just qualify leads have great conversations with them hand them over to the agent they're paid in a manner that they don't make money unless things close so they're going to make sure to keep an eye. And I jokingly say ISAs or big brother over the opportunities that they've created to keep eyes on the opportunities that they've created to make sure an agent isn't allowing one of their a contracted clients to not hear anything from anybody for thirty to forty five days. So they're not directly in involved in the relationship anymore with that lead or opportunity or contract to clients because it's been handed off to an agent but they sure as hell are the one that's checking in and holding the agent accountable to make sure they don't slip through the cracks.

Jeff Chubb: [00:44:45] And is that because they get a percentage of that agent's commission.

Robby Trefethren: [00:44:49] Yeah exactly. They're paid they're paid in a way that the majority of their money comes from the agent's commission. Yeah.

Jeff Chubb: [00:44:59] Yeah. They are making sure that is.

Robby Trefethren: [00:45:02] Because if they don't they don't make as much money. It's it was the simplest thing that we stumbled into. And then you have of course in really in terms of scale. That's. This is how we did scale. Our company is. It was myself and Jim holding our agents accountable now to be better versions of themself which doesn't cost any extra dollars but it's doing more with less. So that was when we really started to scale was living by principles. One of the things we live by is task squared. If you complete a task you've got to create a new task. So little things like that it's awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:45:42] Robby I know this probably is a discussion that would be an entire episode or webinar but how much can you touch on. You know your your lead flow system within your CRM basically how at a very high level how how should your teammates be using these tools so.

Robby Trefethren: [00:46:05] Great question. Basically we have a lead flow system that we coach on and I can show you a picture of it but you wouldn't understand it unless we coach for three to four hours on it.

Robby Trefethren: [00:46:15] What it explains how we treat every single lead. Most CRMs most companies have what I call leads lost in purgatory and we have none. They don't exist in our world because we created a lead flow system. And I think there's a couple principles that I'd love to mention that kind of answer that for you Nate I could talk on it again for four hours and it's really this that you need to prioritize the way you follow up with different leads. AKA You should call your higher quality opportunities before you call your lower quality opportunities both in terms of contacted leads being separated from uncontacted leads.

Robby Trefethren: [00:46:54] So basically in my world my ISA say is walk into the office and they have a literally eight point process of working down pools of leads.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:04] I call this I call this I call this and I call this and I call this guy five or eight.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:11] Say that again.

Erik Hatch: [00:47:12] That's all priority based right.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:14] Priority makes all promotions.

Erik Hatch: [00:47:17] Exactly.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:18] And it's never I'm going to call this from 1 to 130. No it's you're coming in the office from 830 to five and you're working your way down the priority list. So in other words we're just prioritizing leads. That that is the biggest thing because if I said Jeff if you have an ISA do you want them to make outbound calls to uncontacted property inquiry leads or on contacted pay per click leads. You're gonna say call the property inquiry leads first. All day long because they convert at a higher rate. Now I'm not saying ignore the pay-per-click forced registration leaves but sure as heck don't call them before you call the higher quality opportunities.

Robby Trefethren: [00:47:56] So it's all about having so much to offer.

Jeff Chubb: [00:47:59] You you've entered the company overnight or during the last like 24 hours or.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:03] Yes that is that is that is always new leads are always number one actually always number one priority is new leads. And then after that it goes into all the different rules.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:15] Exactly. Exactly.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:17] So I just let you know my wife just text messaged me and said He's good about you.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:25] So you know where to get him. I am kind of a nerd.

Robby Trefethren: [00:48:29] I am wearing Star Wars. I know you all can see this but it's like Star Wars techie stuff so leave it up to the hype. Erik is embarrassed as hell right now and I'm so proud of it saying that now.

Nate Joens: [00:48:44] That's awesome. I definitely think that if you guys are willing we can make that an entire episode. It's a huge huge aspect of this. That's that's so important. Putting putting these tools and systems together. That's kind of at the core for business. I kind of want to transition into one of our last questions here trying to wrap everything up. So I think we've basically discussed that. You know we've discussed different options on how to scale different tools different processes the way or you know one one piece of advice that I've always been advised is in thinking about scale. It's always important to find ways to automate processes that require human interaction. I think a lot of what we've been talking about has been just that. So what are some places in your businesses that you guys have learned that you can recommend to others. What are some places it places that are prime opportunities for scaling?

Robby Trefethren: [00:49:44] I generally say this I'll talk about the lead conversion side. Basically if if someone is in a high quality opportunity and it doesn't need to be personalized that's where it's super easy to use most of our serums automated messages that are sending out a generic message. So we do that with a lot of our old leads. We send them those automated messages every 45 days. For example we basically and Jeff and I were talking about this earlier in the week. We have we have a pool of leads. We're probably 80 percent of all of our leads end up and it's called maybe even more the compost pool.

Robby Trefethren: [00:50:24] And truly if you think about what a compost pile is you'll understand why they go there. Basically it's everyone that is not a good opportunity to follow up with and it just goes into there and it's a compost pile. And then what happens is it slowly turns itself around and opportunities come out of that because we use automated messages that go out starting six months later that say hey Nate we have spoke a little while back and I know you weren't that interested in potentially making a move. I just wanted to see if your plans have changed at all. And that's a text message and somebody will respond. No I'm never buying a house. Some people say yeah I need to buy a house today I'm going through a divorce and it stimulates those conversations so automating a lot of that is a key piece of course we're now using some Structurely stuff to help chase those leads as well.

Erik Hatch: [00:51:16] I feel like I should buy robot insurance because I have a little fear of things that are automated at too high of a level. I understand that I was able to build our business. We got up to about two hundred and fifty transactions a year simply based on sphere. And then from there now with the 680 we'll close this year half our sphere and half our purchase business pieces and using automation and using technology as a replacement for a relationship is really dangerous using automation and technology as an enhancement for our relationship is really great. And my biggest underlying fear and it's it's shared with our real estate team members is the transactionalize a great relationship and for somebody to feel like we're trying to use them for the business gain or business growth that we have and if we put them on a thirty three touch campaign or if we drip on them consistently and it's lacking that connection piece and we're not enhancing our already relationship we're trying to replace it. It's really dangerous. People are parched right now for personal connection. Do you want to connect with somebody visit with them face to face have a phone call send them a handwritten notes connect with them via text or connect with them be a Facebook Messenger. Emails and automated voicemails and those sorts of things for people that are in your inner circle or past clients can be almost detrimental if done incorrectly correct.

Jeff Chubb: [00:52:59] On that. So the one thing that I always tell my buyers agents is I'll ask them especially new buyers agents great unless you guys what is the number one thing. You're talking to somebody for the first time what's the number one thing you need to do on that phone call.

Robby Trefethren: [00:53:13] If its a new lead? 

Jeff Chubb: [00:53:16] Yeah.

Robby Trefethren: [00:53:17] My number one thing I always try to find out is if there is a way if there's a motivation that would allow us to help serve them get what they need want or desire is probably the.

Jeff Chubb: [00:53:28] Perfect. I mean I mean in a way I say build rapport which is just that right. Yeah. Yeah. It's always ready jumping to the point of screw the appointed build rapport. Yeah right. And you know what their dog's name is and my wife got a call the other day it was 22 minutes. This woman was maybe on the you know line of crazy. But I'll tell you what in that call she figured out she'd six cocker spaniels. Like I mean every single thing about this person. And I played for my agent and like you see what she did here. All she did was report like she she placed it back to our Saint Bernard that we have. We lived in the town next over like build rapport. Don't worry about. She didn't even go for the appointment because she wasn't 100 percent ready. You know maybe it's to Erik's point like you have all this technology and everything but technology can't build the rapport right at the end of the day it's still human being interaction interaction that builds that rapport which ultimately ends up being you know going back to the paycheck and I could I have a machine OK ten thousand dollar machine that literally writes handwritten notes.

Jeff Chubb: [00:54:33] And right now I'm working on a campaign of one hundred and then that will go out in the next in the next day because I mean just do the things that every single other agent out there is doing. But you know you guys are talking about the leads aspect something that I realized for myself because I'm not on Eric's level yet yet. And I got so focused in the business that I stopped working on the business and that's why I've literally just gone like this and it's been a lot of pain. You know one of the we talking key hires and automation and people and technologies and systems I hired a team leader and the team leader is help change the way that I've been running my business for the last two months where you know I'm not training the new agents I'm not hiring the new agents I'm answering big you know big level questions and most importantly I'm still in the business because my commissions my income is helping fund the business and and for growth. And I'm back to actually following up and working with clients and doing things what I'm really good at.

Jeff Chubb: [00:55:38] I'm good at planning and building and helping people see the picture but having other people help implement. So I mean I guess my biggest thing is what I would say is we're all wrapping up here and I think this is a wrap up type question is is is look I would look at the problem of your business What's the pin hole for me I was awful at recruiting. So I hired somebody in order to do that. I mean a follow up is what your problem is. Figure out your follow up system if if these are falling through the cracks then look at augmenting your technology with a system like Structurely or building out you know automated campaigns or hack here's an idea. Both my automated campaign ties into the text messages Structurely is going out which I have to redo because you just made it from a three month campaign to twelve months. Thank you. So I mean you know like the you know the big thing when you know when I coach the big thing is is there is a one size fits all. And you know ultimately where I am is different where it is more different than where you know Brian Margolis who actually is somebody who I used to coach you know we're all on different levels of our business. And you know it just you need to rather than asking and looking Hey what is the next thing that I need to do. I think there needs to be some personal focus and a SWOT analysis or analysis of your business in order to figure out whereas that whole and then that's what you attack and that's what you fix.

Nate Joens: [00:57:04] I think that's also wondering what I want to close with you guys getting a little bit.

Nate Joens: [00:57:13] That's where OK. Anyway I think I think it'll pass. One thing I wanted to close up with wrap up with was life as a business owner of any kind software company real estate company. Anything that's on your calendar should be what your best stat in the world. No one no one should be better at what you're doing on a daily basis than you. So that's just to say I think that's just to say you know don't hire someone who's better at you than recruiting. Let it let that fall on their calendar. Hire someone who's better at you than follow up. Let that be on their calendar. Everything that's on your on your calendar is a business owner should be what your best that no one in the world should be better at that than you.

Jeff Chubb: [00:58:01] So a air product and an edge are all you guys would love to have you as a shameless plug on an hour mastermind another level real estate mastermind it's a Facebook group so for anybody who's watching this obviously if you're watching this you kind of get more than your average real estate agent. We'd love for you to join a network with us and really just kind of take real estate to a much better and hire more professional level and really currently is. So please stop by and join our mastermind group because we'd love to have you.

Nate Joens: [00:58:37] Erik we think alike no, that's a great group.

Nate Joens: [00:58:41] I know Robby just started a great discussion in there about old lead so kind of a great follow on place from some similar topics that we discussed on this webinar definitely go check that out because.

Jeff Chubb: [00:58:54] Every time I have a script question I put it on that group and I'm hoping and praying secretly that he's going to answer and tell me exactly how I need to say it. So it's helpful to that aspect of it. So yeah awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:59:08] Yeah definitely check out the leads geeks too. That's what Erik just posted. That's another. Another group kind of led by by Hatch coaching and these these great looking guys that we have on the webinar now some fantastic discussions really really great ISA tidbits in there as well as some leadership and team building stuff. Any closing thoughts guys.

[00:59:32] I got to use the restroom. Great speaking to you. Great. Great. Thanks guys. Take care everyone.

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