Seven figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcast experience as your host, John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger and transform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
I What is happening, man.
Super excited to be, uh.
Back on another episode of the One Big Fire podcast.
Got the boys in the house, no guest this week, just us.
So we get to, uh, we get to dive in, chop it up, hit things that are, uh,
top of mind pressing and let's get it man, man, just the momentum right now.
Jay, you just said you brought over a hundred agent.
Team Caleb.
What, what are you seeing out there?
Yeah, I'm hearing, I'm hearing, um, you know, it, it's really interesting
because, um, you know, I'm having the, you know, the same, same as always,
a lot of conversations with agents, you know, that, that, you know, from,
you know, the machine that we built that's, you know, recruiting a lot of,
a lot of people coming over, a lot of better, um, a lot of agents that, that
close, you know, 12 to 25 transactions.
But, but it feels to me like there's been more bigger teams,
uh, independent conversations.
Um, bigger players that are, that are all about to launch and so, yeah.
It feels good.
That's been, it's been a little while since I've felt like that, so, uh,
I love seeing, you know, the bigger teams coming over and the bigger
independents and, you know, the influence influencers and all that.
That's all good for the company.
So what is the, what is the kind of common theme pain point that they're feeling to.
To, to, to make a move.
Are, are they coming for, uh, moving away from pain?
Are they, are they coming over to move more to, to opportunity?
Yeah.
You know, the whole pain, pleasure.
So what do, do you see?
Yeah, it's a great question, John.
You know, um, I think, you know, a couple of 'em have been just timing.
You know, they, they would've came earlier, but, you know, they were in
a deal or, you know, in a contract, some type of contract that couldn't,
you know, they couldn't get out or it didn't make sense to leave.
Um.
And, you know, those are all super positive.
But, but I think, you know, I think a lot of folks are coming for the opportunity.
I think, you know what, you know, we just, you know, experienced
the, the slowest two years in, you know, real estate since 1995.
So, you know, the upside here is, you know, maybe it's not this year we see
the big uptick, but certainly the next year, you know, so I think there's a lot
of excitement and, and, you know, um.
All things that'll be good for housing.
So, you know, I think we're seeing that, you know, people that are, you
know, struggled for their couple years to figure out how to, you know, build
a sustainable, consistent business.
That's been a lot of the, the individual agents that I talked to
are, are they all say the same thing.
It's, it's 100% of them.
What I was doing before isn't working anymore.
I need something more consistent.
I need a, you know, I need something that's gonna bring me a couple deals a
month consistently, two to three deals.
And so that's, you know, that's the conversations that, you know, the
individual agents are, are having.
And, um, you know, they're, they're just not getting support.
They're not getting help.
They're not, you know, they're not, you know, they're not getting
anywhere with, and they're, and they're, they're done with that,
you know, two years of it is enough.
And so I think that's been, that's been the temperature of
the conversations that I've had.
Um, and, and then, yeah, a lot, a lot of influencer, influential, bigger teams.
Um, you know, again, you know, even those teams struggle just as bad, right?
Even when the market's, you know, when the market's down, even though they're doing
a lot of numbers, it's a lot of pressure on them to get back in production.
You know, the grind is worse, right?
So you're just grinding, and when things are really good, you kind of, you know,
you can kind of, you know, you can kind of pick and choose the deals you want to do.
When times are tight, you know, you find yourself out in the grind again and you
know, that will make you wake up and go, man, there's gotta be a better way.
There's gotta be a better way.
And you know, when, when the gate of the mind is open, you know,
the, the better way is very clear.
And that is definitely exp So, so that's been, you know, kind of
the conversation I've been having.
I don't know anything, anything different You're feeling or hearing John?
John Jay, I wanna get your opinions on this and I do wanna mention, we're
gonna talk about, you know, our.
Really just suffering a devastatingly, un unimaginable, um, you know,
experience with the fires going on and literally burning entire cities down.
So many people, uh, being affected by it.
Our boy, Cal Whistle and his team, even though he is not in la, they're down
in San Diego, they're doing, they're throwing their head in to best of help.
Uh, shout out to Kyle for, um, just being an amazing human being and, uh.
In, in, in a minute here.
Um, because there's some things that I want to talk about, what we're, what's
gonna happen in that area, because we're talking about one of the most
wealthy areas, most highest priced, you know, that's completely decimated.
There's nothing left.
And, and so they're starting from scratch and it's gonna
take a long time to rebuild.
But getting back to, um, you know, the, the agents right now that we're
seeing, the teams that we're seeing.
There's a theme that keeps coming up and I wanna know, and Jay, uh, I think it was
about a week ago, it was a Saturday night.
I was feeling good, you know, I had a couple glasses of wine in me
and my, and I had to get 'em out.
And so I talked about this theme that I'm seeing, and I'm wondering if this is gonna
be the next thing, because I'm seeing is that I'm seeing teams merging together.
I'm seeing.
Like, when you kind of think about the evolution of the team and we, we, we had
that awesome podcast, the three of us did on death of the real estate broker.
Mm-hmm.
Death of the real estate team.
What does that actually mean?
What I'm, what we've seen over the last seven years is we've seen the
team entity I. Change and actually start gobbling up brokerages.
What I mean by that is my brokerage, my little brokerage became a team
big, you know, uh, I don't know if necessarily Chuck Fazi and them did it
with, with, with Revelation, but you know, we see a lot of these brokerages
that come in and they merge over here to exp and they become a team.
So the team is gobbling up the brokerage model, which I think is fascinating.
But have you guys seen or heard of teams combining forces?
I know we tried to do it a couple years into this Jay with with our boy
Matt Chase and the Chase Brothers.
That was a fun rollercoaster ride, right?
And you know, it didn't work out for certain reasons, but there
were things that actually were beneficial to both of our teams.
We just couldn't make the culture thing work.
But I really think that that's what we're gonna see a lot more of consolidation.
We're seeing teams combine.
What are you, are you guys seeing that and what are your thoughts on the idea
of like, you know, teams combining into a mega team type of situation?
Hmm.
Yeah.
I, I have, you know, I have, I've been hear, I've been hearing bigger
teams gobbling up smaller teams.
Um.
You know, that's been, um, you know, uh, I think the strategy around, you
know, Zillow and, and you know, how they're setting up, you know, these
Zillow flex accounts is enabling, you know, some of the better operators
to kind of, you know, uh, put teams together and, and go, you know, expand
into markets and things of that nature.
But outside of that, I haven't really heard that many teams going together.
I mean, it's hard.
I mean, as you know, Al, I would say that that's.
That sounds like a very challenging path to take and, um, you know,
you have to have the two, you know, leaders with the right egos in
place to do something like that.
And you gotta know how to co-brand, um, or determine your, you know, how
you're gonna effectively build your brand, which would be a very challenging
thing for most people, I would think.
Yeah.
In theory, it makes, it, makes, makes sense, right?
You know, Hey, we can share resources, we can kind come, come together.
You know, our, our experience of this was.
Are we gonna buy Coldwell Banker Crossroads?
Are we not gonna buy Coldwell Banker Crossroads?
And, you know, consolidating and running as one for, you
know, an 1218 month stretch.
And it was.
It was night and day fighting each other because you have one
culture versus another culture.
Yeah.
And, and different leadership styles, and different leadership
principles, different values.
So it just, it, it made it really, really challenging, really, really hard to,
to make that come together, to make it, to make it work, to make it make sense.
Where I, I think you could is, is kind of a, a, a, a bleed
out, um, you know, if you're, if you're kind of the, the inkblot.
You know, theory, if you're, if you're kind of expanding, like what we were
able to do, just in a simple example, bleeding marketing over into Duncan,
Oklahoma, finding a, a true rock star.
She's still there to this day, which like, God bless her, you know?
Um, but just bleeding out.
It makes sense.
I think, you know, the one thing that we found, and this kind of
goes back to my, to my second point.
Patrick Lencioni wrote a great book called The Motive, and it was one of
the books that he released later on.
Um, I think he, I think he threw it out there in 20 And we know how, you
know, instrumental, the advantage was for us in our career and our thinking
as, as business owners and moving into the future, the motive should have
came out even before the Advantage.
And the Fable, inside of the motive is two companies coming together.
Two CEOs coming together and one had to let go of the ego, and that's
the whole outcome over ego concept.
Get what is right, let's get to right and let me get where my heart is.
Only one can be CEO, right?
There's only one name in the box.
You can't, you can't have, you can't have two head of company.
So one, when you do bring that merger together, somebody's gotta relinquish.
I'm not head of company and it's, and it's for anybody that's coming
together with it, I would don't do it unless you read the motive.
Because what it talks about is one of them ends up taking head of marketing
and one of 'em takes head of head of company and they came together.
So I think it's just, just understanding that in theory it makes sense, but it
takes great leaders and great, I, let me step aside, not let my ego get in the way.
What is the goal?
What are we trying to accomplish?
Outcome over ego.
And let me get in my lane.
And you get in your lane and then let's go.
And you look at why statistically that's probably the best move to do because.
What's the probability of you going into a new market and starting from
scratch that you're gonna succeed?
What is this failure, success rate of new, new entities, new companies?
That's why, you know, the whole mergers and acquisitions, why just go
gobble 'em up, go buy 'em instead of trying to start it from scratch, is
just a higher probability of success.
Uh, so yeah, that makes sense.
So, so, so essentially John and Al you, you guys think that this
is more of an a, a new version of expansion into new marketplaces.
That would make, that would make sense to me.
'cause like everything about this sounds like, yeah, that's gonna be a like a
go over, like a tur and a punch bowl.
Like you had mentioned Zillow, and I don't wanna make the conversation
solely about Zillow, but I think that certain people, and I'll name.
The first one that comes to mind is Kyle, Kyle Whistle.
'cause we had an extensive conversation about what he's done in San Diego
with his Zillow Flex account.
He, you can't get Zillow Flex if, unless you're on Zillow, on Kyle's team.
He literally owns the whole county.
Like you can't buy a zip.
He, he, it's all his.
He's monopolized it.
And from a strategic standpoint, I mean that's huge like that, you know.
And do you have to play the game?
Yes.
It's the same thing I started, you know, the, the, the, the correlation that I
started making with Kyle's situation, it reminded me, kind of an REO how
some people went REO when REO started getting popular and you saw the, the
r the REO guys went from driving, you know, a little Ford focus to a Mercedes.
And of course then that went away.
But you guys remember that back in oh oh 7, 0 8, 0 9 2005, 2010, those REO
guys were driving really nice cars.
Okay.
But it was a system.
They were playing a different game.
They had very, very little upside, like the revenue per deal was
very low, but it's a volume play.
You have to have your systems together.
And the same thing with Zillow.
Yes, it's a, but you, you can't look at it as that initial transaction.
You have to look at it, the lifetime value of that client.
Yeah.
You might be getting a 35 to 40% commission, or excuse me, referral
fee taken right off the top.
Then you split it with the team, and there may not be a whole
lot left over at that point, but they're not looking at it that way.
They're looking at the long game.
But think about all, all of the clients that they're just stacking into their
database for the lifetime value of that client, and they're looking at over the
long, they're not gonna pay that 40% the, the second transaction or the third
transaction, or any referrals they give.
So I, I, I like it.
What it boils down to in a kind of a caveman thing is if you had two teams.
And they were operating, obviously both have a p and l with expenses.
One of the goals, I think, initially, just the way my brain works, is if you
combine those two expenses and you looked at their total amount of expenses, the
goal would be to reduce that amount of as much as possible through efficiencies.
So that would be reason one.
Reason two, the big team.
Why would the big team wanna suck up the small team?
For their producing agents.
That's the only, it's to reduce expenses and increase productive
A, their productive agent count so that they can sell more units.
Those are the only two reasons I could think of for merging, but there's a
lot of these other things that have to be figured out, like culture.
Mm-hmm.
Big time.
Yeah.
Culture is the big thing, right?
And you think about, like, even to the, to as we were kind of talking through
this, and you know, my default always comes back down to leadership and,
and you think like, uh, we're, we're starting to see a bunch of people change.
A bunch of people leave and it's a, it's a leadership equation, right?
They're, they're probably not being led the right way.
The leadership is not being provided.
And, and so yeah, I mean that they, they start looking in, in that direction, man.
I, I just have seen people leave situations for some of the oddest
things I know, but, but when you distill it down, what is it?
It's, it's, they're just not being led or being felt like, you know, they're
a value to, to that organization.
And I think it's just a leadership void that you're starting to see.
And especially a bunch of these mom and pops and, and legacy
brands that are out there.
They just, they just don't have the, you know.
The value and the, and the leadership capabilities to, to
really pour into the people.
You're not wrong, John, but the other side of that coin is, is that
as a vast, I would say majority of real estate agents aren't coachable.
I mean, there's a portion that are court coachable.
Mm-hmm.
But mm-hmm.
The majority of 'em are.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, would you say that 60%, which sets us right over the 50%, would you
say that 60% of real estate agents that have licenses are coachable?
I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that that's a no 50%.
I, I would say, I would say, well, how many real estate agents
closed a transaction last year?
Right.
Start there.
And then what is the percentage of those people that are coachable?
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Yeah.
That would be a really much more interesting number there.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
I, I, I mean yeah, absolutely.
To, to your point, and, but I think it's, it's.
Those that are, that are looking for a bigger future, man, I just keep
defaulting back to the motivation and and vision equation that PBD talked
about, um, al in the training, right?
He said the number one indicator that I see is that if you struggle with
motivation, just means you have no vision.
If you have a strong enough vision, you never need to be motivated.
It's always there.
And what he and, and.
You know, for real estate agents listening to this, guys, if you're
doing it for the money, once your financial needs are met, foot off gas.
I mean, we learned that experience.
Like, I remember we were sitting in, uh, we were sitting in the
house 'cause in your office and, um,
uh, con Valley out in, in the house.
Yep.
And we're really trying to dial in this, this salaried agent model.
Right?
Right.
We're getting you out.
We're moving states in, and we're like, where does compensation need to be?
Well, I don't know.
Let's look at the last three years.
Mm-hmm.
Of what was earned within $2,000 plus or minus.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Why is that?
Well, let's look at, let's look at our top agent.
Plus or minus $2,000 over the last three years.
Why is that?
And you start to look at it and you're like, once financial needs are met, if
there's not a big enough purpose, a big enough vision, your foot is off gas.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, can you, can you stoke that fire that fire's been
stoked in, in, in those guys, right?
Like, you go back and you look at, and you have the conversation with, with
Stace today of, of who Stace was then.
Completely different human being, big purpose, fire lit. Like he
will, he like get out of his way.
Right.
Because he has a big purpose.
He has a big vision and I think you can, he's proof you can kindle that.
I mean, you're talking about the guy that would never put a damn audible, but
account on his phone to, to just like, just seeing the e change is possible.
Yeah.
But it has to be that big vision to be able to, to push through.
I mean, look at Elon.
I dunno if you guys saw that interview with Elon richest man in
the world and he still is working on average 120 hours a week.
Yeah.
And that means that there's only about seven hours a day
to sleep and do other things.
'cause he is operating all these companies and he doesn't need to, he doesn't even,
he doesn't have to do anything And.
And yet he's still in the pocket in a very obscenely, obsessive big way.
Like ridiculous, seven days a week, a hundred, 120 hours a week, seven days.
I don't think that's healthy, you know, I mean, I, I don't think it is either.
But don't mean firing.
I'll bet on that pony for a minute, but I don't know how much, how much gas is
in the tank before something implodes.
I mean.
I'm, I'm, we are all the biggest Elon fans, so, but he's a human dream.
He might just be an alien.
Well, he might be an alien, an hundred percent alien.
What if Elon isn't human?
And he's like, lot.
That would make a lot of sense, know.
'cause I don't know if you saw Verns, uh, you know, every, every year, right?
He always, in his newsletter, he always talks out the top five,
top five book recommendations.
Um, going into the new year, usually recaps, what were the top books in 24.
So it's kind of what he talks about heading into 25.
Three years in a row.
You know what's on that list?
There's only one book that he's ever put on multiple lists.
He's put it on there three times.
Elon.
It's the, um, autobiography that, um, uh, the one that came out
about three years ago, Elon, were they the person followed him?
The big one.
The big one, right?
Yeah.
And he said, he said, uh, read it again.
And he said, read it again and read it again.
He said, like.
Um, Verne Hornish, he's like, he goes, uh, he's like, through his
fourth or fifth time reading it, he goes, I'm still pulling out things.
And I think that's like with any, anything great, right?
We talk about this all the time with great books, right?
You're gonna, you're gonna receive basically where you're at and you're
gonna get out of it what you need.
And that's why, you know, great, great reference manuals, great books are
always really important to revisit.
Well, I mean, it's, it's the, the, the PAC's gonna move
at the pace of the leader.
And I think that's why we've, we've felt the shot of adrenaline in this
company since Leo is, was named CEO.
And can you believe it's coming up on a year?
Wow.
You know, I think, was it April or May?
It'll be a year with this man leading and dang, I don't,
I don't know how he does it.
I don't know how he fits it all in.
And he still is disciplined enough.
He has family nights and spends time with his kids and.
And then he goes skin diving and like spearfishing in Miami and he
make, he, he, he still is doing an amazing, remarkable job actually.
So, but great chat guys.
Um, love, love chopping it up with you guys about this.
Let's talk a little bit about our friends in California that are, um, suffering
some, some serious, um, devastation.
Their lives are never gonna be the same again.
Um, and it's not.
It's, it's, there's, there this fire discriminated against no one.
Um, all classes have been affected.
And, um, you know, as it relates to our real estate business, California's already
had issues with, you know, before any fire would affect a neighborhood or a home.
Their, their process to get anything done from new construction to
putting up a fence in the backyard.
There is a backlog just to get a building permit.
So, and that's just a fact up and down the coast.
So, you know, now we have over 9,000 structures completely
destroyed, families displaced.
Um, they have to live somewhere.
So I actually got a message from an exp agent on the East coast that her sister
lost her home in the Palisades and they were looking for, for something to rent.
So when you have now all of a sudden all these people have
to, they gotta live somewhere.
Yeah.
Some of 'em are gonna maybe move in with mom and dad or their
kids or a relative temporarily.
It's not a permanent solution and it's gonna take forever to rebuild.
Now we have, rents are gonna start to climb because of it, and
it's already obscenely expensive to live over there already.
What are y'all's thoughts on, on where this recovery can go from here?
I mean, it looks like hell on earth over there.
Um, it's, I'm crazy.
Um, yeah, I mean, it's gonna take time.
I mean, you know, hope, hopefully, you know, they're just not good at change
over there, so, you know, you know, unless you know the federal government steps in
which Trump probably will to do something, you know, California just seems like
they're just gonna continue to mess it up.
Um.
And make it difficult.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They, they interviewed Josh Altman and he said that, um, you know,
it's worse than you can imagine.
Like, whatever.
You can think how bad it is.
It's way beyond that, and I believe him.
Yeah.
And it's, um, it's very sad.
It's one of these things like, we feel handcuffed because we, you know, the,
the thing that I love a lot, we, we, we might be found like criticizing
real estate agents, you know, a lot and they're, you know, large percentage
aren't coachable and this and that.
But you know, the one thing that I love about being part of the real
estate community is they're the most giving people shirt off your back.
Uh, that I will say the majority are, and I don't know why that is.
It's, it's kind of interesting.
I don't.
Um, really identify other large conglomerate professionals
like for instance, attorneys.
Nothing against attorneys.
A lot of my close friends are attorneys.
I just don't see that as a personality trait.
Transferring over to other, you know, another large, um, trade group.
But we are so I know that.
Obviously our company is, is, is already doing, you know, big things to raise money
and, and help people that are in need.
But really the, I'm that's, that's the short term.
I mean, we know that Biden, uh, was generous enough that,
you know, he authorized $720 per person that got displaced.
I ain't gonna comment further on that, but again, you know, it's a
short term fix to a long-term problem.
Long-term, it's gonna take forever to build Malibu back.
It's gonna take years, you know, and we got the Olympics, I think
are supposed to come to LA Right.
In four years.
Is that true?
Mm-hmm.
That's in the Yep.
Coming up I think to, to your whole point out.
Right.
I, um, you know, you think about even, even things over the last, you know,
the, the, the country over the last, just over the last six months, right.
Got the Carolinas, you got Tampa, you got, you know, all
the areas that have been hit and.
I have more faith that things will move in a better direction in about a week
than I would if that wasn't the case.
And so, um, yeah, it, um, it is, it's man, it's, it's just sick to watch it.
Yeah.
A little from this article from Iman, um, what people are hearing is okay.
The reality is.
Is that what's fresh right now is people quite literally figuring out
where they're going to live for the next 90 days, let alone the next
12 months, three years, five years.
Their focus is where am I gonna put my family?
Mm-hmm.
Where are they going to live?
How am I gonna put a roof over their head and you know, what am I then?
Then it's long term.
And I got, you know, I have to, I have to say that there's already
this surge of people moving from California to Texas, Florida.
I think that this is gonna increase it.
It's gonna increase the surge people are gonna get, get out of there.
Mm-hmm.
And the other part of this is that insurance companies have been running from
California for the last 12 to 18 months.
I mean, they're running from a lot of places, even Florida as well.
But they're just not insur.
They're not gonna be insuring, like State Farm, I think pull
pulled over 90,000 policies.
They're not renewing them.
So these people that have State Farm, which is probably the one most
like conservative, you have to have really good credit to get State Farm.
You know what I mean?
Like it's not like a Geico or anything like this.
Like they're pulling out, they're like, we're out guys.
We can't do it because they're trying to subsidize.
So you have insurance issues.
You know, they, I, there was a statistic, and I don't know the
exact statistic, but there's a high percentage of deals that fall out at
the end sales because of insurance, because they can't get the premium to
a reasonable amount to where they can even afford the payment on the house.
So they just, the deal falls apart because of insurance.
This is just gonna skyrocket those premiums.
This ain't gonna send 'em in the, in the south southern direction.
They're going north, which is gonna force more people out.
It's not a good situation, but I think, you know, one, one
solution for some families, maybe not all, Hey, come to Texas.
Come to Florida, Ohio.
Come, come to some of these other areas where, you know, there maybe, I don't
know, Florida is gonna have a housing shortage as well, if not already.
Um, I don't know about Texas.
You guys, your, your prices aren't going.
Lowering either.
Uh, yeah, I talked to Chris Waters, uh, earlier this week.
He said, Austin's inventory's up tremendously.
Um, values are, you know, prices are coming down.
It's rough.
And, and Austin right now, uh, and Dallas, it's, it's, it's a little
bit slower, but we're not seeing the, the price, the price, uh, drops and
or any, any of that kind of stuff.
So it seems like they just are a, a one-off situation
where they overbuilt for.
You know what jobs, and you know what, what, there, there was
a ton of people moving there.
I know they overbuilt in terms of apartments, but it's really
interesting to see that their market is, is, is suffering so much and,
and that DFWs not, but, but yeah.
So to be determined, yeah.
Yeah.
I think that is kind of the feedback I've got outta Florida as well.
I mean, inventories are creeping up and prices are not, not backing up a little
bit, but they're not, they're not jumping.
So, um, it'll be interesting to see kind of how.
Things play out over the next sixty, ninety, a hundred twenty days.
Awesome guys.
Well, hey, good, good talks.
Um, our prayers are with the people in, um, in California and, um,
obviously, uh, we, we, we want them to, um, to recover as soon as possible.
Uh, and this all to, to, to start on the recovery path because right
now they're still fighting it.
They're still losing.
Losing homes every day.
So prayers to to, to California and LA area.
Um, that's about it guys.
Uh, other than that, let's keep cranking.
The future is looking bright.
Um, yes, sir. And I think, um, um, just from a, from an exp standpoint, they're
at back at Nasdaq, um, next week.
On the 21st right after, uh, um, you know, Monday and Monday's a big day.
And, and, and also, uh, Tuesday's gonna be a big day with exp at Nasdaq.
Yep.
Two, two days.
Oh, H oh h io.
Oh, Texas.
Let's go.
Alright guys.
Appreciate you.
Awesome.
S That's a wrap for today.
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