Seven figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach Podcast.
Experience is your host, John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger and transform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
As we dive into today's, you know, conversation, um,
expert mentors conversation.
Really around, you know, what doesn't change?
And I love, I can't wait for you to just kind of unpack the meaning of that
and, and the conversation around it.
But what Jake was talking about yesterday from a mental side of
things, and, you know, me, the whole agent to CEO process, right?
You know, the first thing is, is the agency, CEO mindset
is the very first thing.
You have to have the right mindset, or none of this will matter.
Um, you can stress your way to a certain point, but you can't go beyond that.
And, you know, we did an incredible job of stressing our ourselves to the levels that
we did back in Lawton without the mindset.
And what Jake talks about, you know, his hockey career, he had
million dollar legs, but he didn't have a million dollar mindset.
And that's what stopped him from reaching his full potential as an athlete.
What he was, what he was talking about is that the way our brains, you know,
operate instrumental from, you know, being born to seven, eight years old.
And then what happens, um, you know, beyond that.
But what he was saying to me, and, and, you know, I would love
to, I, I don't wanna say fact check him, but get some, get some
context around it, is that he said.
You know, the first 20 to 30 minutes of our day, our, our brain is on the same
wavelength as our brains are when we're born until we're seven or eight years old.
Mm-hmm.
And that's when we're, you know, absorbing and learning the most.
And so he said the biggest thing that, that he, he challenges, you
know, entrepreneurs and athletes is like, you need to nail that
first 20 minutes of your day.
And what are you feeding?
What are you putting in?
And you know, my practice has been the gratitude practice
first thing in the morning.
And he said, you know, but if you're, if you're diving right in and consuming
social right from the jump, what do you, what is that doing to the most
important part of your day for your brain?
What are you, what are you feeding it?
What are you, you know, like, it's like putty.
Like what are you, what are you molding it into?
And I just thought that was just so, so powerful.
He talked about, you know, a lot of breath work.
He talked a lot about, you know, really from, from that mental, uh, performance
anxiety, being able to, you know, control the breathing and, and slow down anxiety
and moving into a different state.
So it was just a fantastic conversation.
Um.
Um, I've already, I've said you're, uh, you're helping me kick off the year as
we, as we move into to the new year.
So, um, man, appreciate you jumping in here.
I know a lot of, a lot has changed, uh, for you.
A lot, you know, hasn't changed for you, but, um, I'm super excited to,
to kind of, you know, put a bow on the year, kind of final conversation.
Nobody, you know, better fitting than you, and especially around the
expert mentors conversation and.
Uh, we were chatting a little bit before we hit go.
Um, you know, we're six 50 plus on the podcast and I
want to get us to a thousand.
And, you know, my question to the team was, you know, what does it have
to look like in order for us to get to a thousand in the next 12 months?
And you know, we incorporate a lot of different conversations,
expert mentors being one.
This is expert mentors, 2 79.
So you know, a lot of consistency.
A lot of great conversations.
Yeah.
The expert, expert mentors focus, which is really geared towards a. Real
estate agents and professionals that are actually teaching something, right?
We're gonna teach something, we're gonna talk through something.
We're gonna give mental frameworks or tools or shortcuts
or marketing or strategies.
We also incorporate, um, you know, a lot of different conversations being
one yesterday, one big fire with, with.
Stay sick and, um, most of the time kinder's on and we, we've been
incorporating guests and just great conversations like kind of alluded
to around the mindset in working with athletes and entrepreneurs.
We also have our agent to CEO conversations, which are, you know,
I. My, my favorite conversations of really just diving in and,
and, and, and talking, right?
Like I could, I could go Rogan style on a lot of them.
Um, just really being able to unpack and just really great conversations,
just with great human beings.
So I'm really excited, you know, kind of where I. The conversations
are and where the conversations are going into, you know, really the last
half of the decade, which is kind of, kind of fun to put into perspective.
You know, we're halfway through the decade.
We got a, you know, the second half coming up, so we got a good five year run.
Um, you know, until, till the end of 29.
And I think kind of maybe a little segue there into, you know, the
whole what doesn't change concept.
I would love for you to kind of share that and unpack it because I
think it's extremely valuable for a lot of, uh, for a lot of us, um,
on really what's, what's gonna stay the same, what's not gonna change.
Yeah.
Well, I'll share kind of where that came from first and, uh,
it, it came from a quote from Jeff Bezos, um, in an interview.
And I, I first heard it less than a year ago, and it's been, it's been the, the
single biggest shift for me in the way I think about, um, strategy and business
that that's happened to me in a long time, uh, in the, the, in the interview.
Um.
Bezos shares that, uh, everybody always asks him what's gonna
change in the next 10 years.
And he said, what, what nobody ever asks is what's not gonna
change in the next 10 years?
And he said, that's the more important question.
And if you look at how Amazon's built their business, um, you know, thinking
about what's not gonna change, well, people are still gonna want low prices.
People are still gonna want faster and faster delivery.
People are still gonna want a, a, a bigger and wider selection of products.
And you can see strategically for, for Amazon, everything they've done
really has been focused on those three things that are not gonna change.
People are not gonna suddenly wanna pay more money.
I. They're not gonna suddenly wanna have fewer options to buy.
They're not gonna suddenly want slower delivery.
Right?
Those things are never gonna change.
So if we focus all of our efforts on those things that are not gonna change,
we're gonna continue to have success.
And so I thought it was especially good for us right now in the real
estate space thinking about what's not gonna change because 2024.
There's been nothing but discussion about what's changing or what's
gonna change, whether that's, uh, that's changes to how we have to do
business, whether that's changes that are coming from AI or technology.
Um, I, I only hear discussions about what's going to change, and I think
it, it creates a lot of uncertainty, creates a lot of fear, and I think
a lot of that is, is unnecessary.
So as we look at that second half of the decade, um, how
we're gonna run our businesses, I think it's way more important.
Not only for, uh, for our outlook, positivity mindsets to think about
what's not gonna change, um, but for our strategies too, where are we gonna focus
our efforts, um, in our, in our most important priorities in our business?
I think you could do, uh.
A great job in your business.
If you think about what's not gonna change versus getting
fixated on what's going to change.
That's where that came from.
No, I love it.
And, and so let's, let's translate that into, into small
business in general, right?
Because you're referencing Amazon, you're re referencing, you know,
the behemoth of low prices, more selection, faster delivery, you know,
how does that carry over into, you know, mom and pop small business?
Um.
Real estate agent, professional, husband and wife, team, family team,
all the way to the Mark Zs, Kurt, she Wells, you know, Durbins, you know,
Perrys, the, the, you know, the teams of the teams, the, the harps, right?
Of, of what they're, what they're doing in their building.
How does this concept and how to think about this moving into
the second half of the decade?
And, and I love this question, right, because.
Sometimes it's, it, we, we ask the wrong question and I, and I
translate this into goals, right?
I've got a lot of people setting a lot of goals.
They set a lot of goals into the future 25.
It's just kind of that time of the year, new year's resolutions, things like that.
And we all hear, you know, what, what do you want to do?
What do you wanna achieve?
What, what, what are the goals that you want to have?
And I always love the flip side of it, because that's the wrong question.
The, the question is, how much pain are you willing to suffer?
What are you willing to sacrifice?
What are you willing to, to, to, to go through and, and,
and carry that frustration and burden and, and, and just pain.
What are you willing to do?
And I, I, I love that because that's a much better question and
that kind of segues into, okay, let's bet and let's build on a
higher probability of what we know.
Is gonna stay consistent and will not change.
So, kind of, kind of lead us down in, into that path for the real estate space.
Like I said, it doesn't matter if you're a solopreneur or you're
running, you know, a thousand, 1500, 2000, you know, unit per year
organization, what's not gonna change.
Yeah.
I, I, I was thinking about it from kind of buyers, sellers, and agents.
Um, I didn't spend as much time thinking bigger picture brokers,
but I think a lot of the same principles are gonna be the same.
Right.
So, um, I think one of the things that is, is not gonna change is the
business is gonna be relationship driven to a large degree.
I don't see that changing in the next five or 10 years.
Right.
Um.
A lot of agents operate a, a, a lot on referrals.
Um, building trust early on in the process is huge.
It's gonna be a, it's gonna be relationship driven and that's not a
strategy in and of itself, but that helps us develop our strategies where,
where are we focused on building, um, building our relationships with
our clients as quickly as possible.
Um, and that can be from a face-to-face context or that can be from a branding.
Um.
From a branding and marketing perspective too.
So where, you know, where do we need to focus that we're, that we're, um,
that we're keeping relationships, you know, top of mind and front and center.
That's, that's not, not gonna change anytime soon, if ever.
Right.
I, I love that.
And, um, I forget who I, I had somebody on, um, one of the, one of the rock stars
in the Honey Badger Nation a couple years ago, and it was around the conversations
of, okay, you know, we're gonna run up to the halfway point of the decade,
kind of what, what are we foreseeing?
And then what do we foresee the second half of the decade kinda where we're at
going into this final five year run here?
What, what, what, what's, what's it gonna look like?
And he said, Hey, listen.
I don't know, but I do know one thing that it'll always come
down to a decision of trust.
Real estate will always come down to a decision of trust.
And, you know, you, you, you know, my, my definition of trust is just, is
just authenticity times time, right?
Being transparent.
Not being honest.
Being transparent.
Times time.
There's a difference in, in transparency and honesty.
Honesty is after the fact.
I did X, Y, z, I'm being honest.
Transparency is, here it is, this is where we're going.
This is who's going, this is what's happening.
Like, you kind of lay it out before you get there.
Times time, and you know, we hear a lot of agents that are like, man, you
know, I'm just not getting much grip.
Or, you know, like they're going to other people.
They're not coming to me as well.
How long have you, how long have you been adding value, making
deposits into this community?
Six months, 12 months, 18 months.
I was like, you just don't have enough time.
Yeah.
And, and you know, I think that's just so, so important.
So I love that.
I, I thousand percent agree with you.
Real estate will always be with buyer, sellers and agents, relationship driven,
and it'll always be a decision of trust.
I love that.
Yeah.
Second one that came to mind right away, um, that I, I think is really related
for most agents is, is the need for local expertise is not gonna change.
One of the most influential, like single sentences I think that I ever had.
Somebody tell me, Jay, Jay was talking about one of, one of our masterminds
or a call some sometime back in the NAA day, but we're talking about
how do you compete with Zillow?
Everybody's flocking to Zillow.
More people Google Zillow than Google real estate.
Right.
And, and you said the, the only answer to how do you be beat Zillow is being
the local expert and, and developing the, the reputation, um, and the
brand around, around local expertise.
So now we start to think about building an actual strategy for our business
in the second half of the decade.
How are we gonna focus on relationships?
How are we gonna focus on being the local expert?
Right.
Um.
Doing that transparently and authentically, but those two
things combined, again, that's, that's always gonna be the how
do, how do you beat Zillow?
How do you beat whatever, right?
How do you stay relevant?
How do you ensure that your business succeeds?
And, and, and there's, that's always gonna be a piece of it is the local expertise.
You're, you'll always have an edge.
When, when you have the reputation for being the local expert versus
any, anybody else, whether that's competition from other agents or
competition from big platforms.
So local expertise.
So how do you, how do you, what are, what are the, the, the fast track,
the, I mean, but the right way, the foundation to, to becoming positioned
as the local, the local expert, not.
Perceived, but truly the local expert.
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's easier than, than we think a lot of
times, and it's for as long as I've been in real estate, which is 13 years
now, just about, um, the amount of people who have a really good answer
for the question, how's the market?
Is always, it shocks me how, how few people can answer that on an intelligent
and quick level for their market.
Right?
Yeah.
Um, so what, what do most people say?
Hey John, how's the market?
What do most people, oh, well, oh, it's crazy out there.
Or, uh, man, yeah, interest rates are still high.
That's, it's tough out there.
Like, but, but how many people say, oh man, in Heartland where I live in
my neighborhood, um, you know, average sale price is up 10% this year and we've
got, you know, nine new listings on the market in the month of December and
what, or whatever the answer is, right?
But having a really good answer for.
The question, how's the market, I think is the, the baseline place to start.
And if you have that answer now, you can go about on, on conversations,
but you can put that on, in video, on social media, on updates.
So I think you need to have a good answer for what's actually
happening in the market from, uh.
From a national level, let's talk about interest rates.
Let's talk about, uh, new home builds.
Let's talk about, um, inventory on a national level, affordability
issues, things like that.
Then you need to be able to zoom in all the way into the neighborhoods
that you work, um, and, and answer specifically what's happening.
I live in a subdivision called, uh.
Bark River Crossing, and I can tell you what's happening in Bark River in the, in
the 175 homes that make up my subdivision.
I can tell you every house that's going on right now, what's been listed,
what's been sold, what are the ratios?
Um, and so having that, you know, hyper-local, uh,
knowledge is super important.
So I think the actual market, but then I think what's happening in the community
too, so I, I love the development over the last 10 years of, you know, these, the
well done ones, at least these living in.
You know, YouTube channels.
I think that's a great way, we're talking about the schools, we're talking about
the new subdivisions that are going up.
We're talking about, you know, maybe highlighting some of the local businesses.
But if you wanna talk about local expertise, people go online and see you
showing up at, uh, local businesses.
They see you talking about the school systems, um, what's happening
in local politics potentially.
So get, get really involved and if you find yourself, um.
Unable to decide.
Where do you, where do you focus then?
Like, there's your, there's your blueprint right now is you need to, you need
to get, uh, you need to get smaller.
If you say, Hey, I'm gonna focus in, you know, all 25 major areas
of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I live, that's never gonna work.
Right?
You need to pick where you're gonna focus, um, and, and be the expert there,
but it's never been easier too, right?
With video, um, with some of the great tools that are coming out
with ai, uh, you know, uh, uh.
An agent who is truly a local expert can compete with anybody these days.
I I, I love that.
And as you were talking, you know, going back into the content creation,
marketing side of things, as you were talking about, the importance of YouTube,
which I is to me is foundational.
If you wanna play this game for more than three years.
Is that you've got to have that YouTube presence and it doesn't like,
well, there's behemoths in my market.
Listen, you know, Alex Pak is the best example because there's behemoths in DFW,
yet he'll make half a million off of his YouTube channel in the next 12 months.
And, and so really being able to, to do that, and here's, here's why.
I believe it's super important, and we're talking about things that
don't change, but we're talking about, you know, that positioning.
That's not gonna change.
But what will change just with you staying consistent with positioning yourself
as the go-to authority is that you've got to create the the, the evergreen
content, which is the video that lives on YouTube, but also creating blogs and
market updates and market statistics.
That you're feeding into the search engines that is also being
positioned to your database.
But the reason that it's important that it goes into the search engines.
Is because, you know, I joke, right?
Like, Wes, your, your son will never know.
Just Google that.
He'll never know what that means, right?
Because he'll have his AI companion on whatever device that he's on
that he'll just start talking to.
And you know, he'll say, Hey, we're looking for a house in x, y,
z with this who's, who's the best agent to help us find this house?
Where's the AI pull the information?
And, and so that's what, you know, um, had Phil, Phil Stringer on,
you know, multiple times, I've had Nick Crim on multiple times, and
both of them said the importance of creating, copying and content in
into the blog format and feeding it to the search engines is absolutely
critical for AI moving into the future.
And so, if.
We know that the local expertise will never change.
That's what people will default to forever moving into the future, at least
what we see that's not gonna change.
Then you have to create so much dang content, social blog, post video
content that's feeding in there, that's talking on the key words that
position you as the local expert.
And we've, you know, I've mentioned this to quite a few people, and they're
starting to jump into chat, GPT and, and other, other AI tools and saying, Hey,
who's, who's the, who's the agent best to sell my home in, in x, y, Z community?
What comes up?
It's like what we used to say about Google.
Google yourself.
Do you like what comes up?
If not ch what are you gonna do to change it?
It's the same thing with ai.
And so I think that's just where you have to be strategic, moving into the
future, that where is the technology and the human behavior going to go?
That's one thing that's not gonna change, right?
When they see your name, they see your billboard, they
see your marketing material.
They, they do their homework, right?
They Google you, they look you up on social, they do everything they can.
How many reviews do you have?
Right?
Testimonials, reviews.
I think those are absolutely critical.
Yeah.
Um, to just maintain influence moving into the future.
But that's how you have to be thinking of, of, of a marketer and why you
have to create so much content and how it's gonna feed into, you know, the
AI algorithms moving into the future.
And that ties right into another one I wrote down, which is, you know,
like, like Mike Reese always says the best marketer is gonna win.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and that sounds like maybe that's contradicts, oh, the
local expert is gonna win.
Um.
But, but it has to be both and so marketing is gonna be so
critical that's not gonna change.
What might change is what's effective marketing?
Which platforms are the most important?
You know, when, yeah.
When we started in the business, we were running pay-per-click
on Google AdWords, and that was the best source of leads we had.
And now people are doing Facebook ads.
That stuff might change, right?
YouTube is huge right now.
I, I don't expect that to change soon.
But who knows?
The platforms are gonna change, but the, the ability to market your business.
Um, and the, the importance of that is never gonna change either.
No, not at all.
And you know, I, I firmly believe that as well, right?
The best marketer always wins, and that will continue.
That won't change.
I don't ever see, um, you know.
You're like, well, I, I need to be the best real estate agent I can, they,
you're gonna lose if you just focus on being the best real estate agent.
Um, I would say what leads everything is the best marketer then.
Then sales is somewhere in there.
Um, negotiation is in there.
Leadership is definitely in there.
Right?
And, and if you look at leadership as just the ability to influence
somebody to make a decision.
The ability to, to, to influence somebody, to, um, you know,
move forward, take action.
Um, then I would say maybe, maybe, maybe the real estate agent.
I think it's four or five down, down the rung of the ladder as far as it
pertains to business, as it pertains to profitability, as it pertains to creating.
Oxygen, which is cash for your business to be able to thrive and grow.
And, and so, um, wholeheartedly all in on, on that as well, right?
Just, just becoming the best marketer, um, that you possibly can be.
And, and what, what I've learned, and, and you as well, it's a never ending process.
It's it, to me, it has to become an obsession.
And if you're not gonna be obsessed about becoming the best marketer,
then I don't think you ever will be.
Yeah.
Spot on.
Um, all right, well, I got a couple more and then we'll kind of dive
in and, and, uh, take it wherever you want to go, but one, um.
One, this is a little more tactical, and then I'll go a couple that I hope will
just be encouraging for the audience.
But, but one thing that's, that's never gonna change is, um, homes
need to be maintained, right?
Things break.
Maybe there's a future where, uh, a smart home can fix itself and, and, you know,
fix its own plumbing leaks or something.
But we're not anywhere near that right now, so homes need to be maintained.
You've seen a huge trend in, in entrepreneurship over the last five years,
especially of home service companies.
Like that's the new, that's the new wave of entrepreneurship that we're seeing, you
know, 20 to to 25 year olds starting, uh, you know, pest control businesses, power
washing businesses, um, you know, roofing, HVAC people are starting home service
businesses at, at a, at a really big clip.
We're also seeing a ton of, um, of aging tradesmen, contractors
looking to get out of there.
So.
So the, the idea that homes needing to be maintained is not gonna change,
can influence our strategy if we want it to potentially, whether that's
looking to get into some of those businesses ourselves, looking to
acquire or partner on businesses.
Um, something that you and I have been talking about for a, a, a
year now, um, is that the, the residential real estate business is.
Is a cash machine and it's one of the, the, the best cash machines
that's ever existed in, in the history of the world, truthfully.
For how much income you can make.
Uh, but we've seen even more than in the past 10 years that the, the value of a,
of a residential real estate business is lower than ever, unless, you know,
there's some, some few exceptions, right?
But, so you need to, you need to think about your real estate business as,
as creating the capital, and then your capital needs to be invested somewhere.
And so maybe that, uh, home service is a part of your, you know, your
five-year plan, like I said, partnering or, or getting into businesses or.
I'm thinking of some creative things you can do there, but, um, but homes, homes
are not gonna, uh, they're not gonna start fixing themselves anytime soon.
No.
You know how, uh, I mean, I've been on this soapbox for years about this and,
um, you know, I like to pick on Matt and DJ so much, but you know, they, I've
been on them being in Pittsburgh like.
Every damn home needs a plumber.
Needs a plumber, right?
Needs a, has plumbing issues every dang home.
And so I've been on them so hard.
I'm like, listen guys, you have to own the plumbing company.
Like, you know, within real estate, it's customer acquisition.
And if you have the ability, this goes back to the best marketer.
If you have the ability to acquire the client, you have all
of you have all the leverage.
And so you don't need to go own these companies home service companies outright.
You need to have a small percentage, depending upon other value
you're gonna provide other than.
Just say, Hey, all I'm been doing is customer acquisition.
Great.
What is that worth?
25, 30, 40%. Um, I know when we own title, we own 40% of title because we
controlled customer acquisition and you know, we fed, you know, closing 300 deals
a year and we're closing X percent that are going through that title company.
Dang right.
We're gonna have, you know, um.
Upwards of, of 40%.
You don't want to tip and get over in the 50 60 range because then now
you're gonna end up on the org chart.
And remember, if you end up on the org chart, that means you have a JOB
and you wanna own these companies without being on the org chart.
You just wanna provide customer acquisition strategy, you know, business,
business ideas, things like that.
That's, that's, that's where, that's the position you want to take, but.
When you have customer acquisition and you're feeding all these people,
and I'm so adamant about this because it's not a good business relationship.
If people are taking your clients and they're not, they're not returning
the favor either giving you more clients or contributing in the growth
of your business or doing things, um, doesn't matter in some capacity.
If they're not giving back and, and, and paying for that acquisition, it
is not a good business relationship.
You're with the taker and, and the reality is.
Takers just continue to take.
And, and so you need to find somebody that has a good business, um,
understanding and sees the value in what you're able to do, and they wanna
reciprocate and be able to do the same.
And it could be, it could be super simple.
So for example, I like to tell the story with our home,
home, home inspection company.
So part of our value proposition during the timeframe.
When we were in DFW, we didn't have a brand.
We didn't have a name.
Nobody knew us.
So going in, we just had a strong value proposition.
We can sell your home for up to 18% more than traditional real estate agents.
Would you like for us to show you how great we can get in the door?
Well, if you work with us, here's our process.
We, you know, we love to send in our home inspector, um, to do just major mechanical
because we wanna operate from a position of strength when it comes to negotiation.
We don't wanna get hit and get our knees taken out from under us when
we get an offer in and then we find out there's a mechanical issue.
Because you know, the, the amount that is asked in negotiation is four to five
times greater than the cost to fix it.
So if we wanna know about it, we wanna fix it.
We wanna put ourself in a position of strength.
We also send in our professional stagers that are gonna do a two
hour touchup, they're gonna get your home, uh, photo red, photo ready.
And then our photographer's gonna come in right on the top of it, and
we're gonna take professional photos.
You get all of that when you work with us.
And, and so, you know, we're doing, you know, 15, 20, 25 listings,
you know, as we're growing in the peak, you know, um, seasonality.
Um, so our home inspectors are super busy.
Well, they didn't want to just give us money, but you know,
what they were willing to do?
They were willing to allow.
Our entire company to come together once a month at a location, restaurant,
bar, environment, experience location throughout DFW once a
month, and they footed the bill.
That's, that's a good, that's a good trade off.
That's a good, you know, they're getting a good return, but you know what?
They're helping us come together and we don't have to think about the budget.
We don't have to think about the food.
They got it.
And so that was a good relationship for us.
That's, I'm, I'm just wanting to share that because it, it
needs to prompt you, right?
Like the home maintenance, home home service companies, that'll never change.
Like if you have a big enough organization, you're doing over
a hundred deals, you gotta write who you need to go own some trade.
And, and so, uh, back to Matt and dj, they finally, they're like, you know what?
We're just gonna own the GC company.
I was like, great.
Own the GC company, then you can control the trades, but at least start.
And I'm so proud of them.
They finally got it going.
They've got jobs going and that's gonna be real money coming in for them.
That is just left on the table.
They're just giving away.
Right?
People got your money, you just need to go get it.
And, and that's the thing with the, with the home services, I agree with you.
That will never change.
Um, even with the emergence of ai, like are they gonna send in robot,
you know, uh, robot, maybe Elon, he might, he might have a robot plumber
coming for us one of these days.
But for the foreseeable future, it, it, it, the trades are very, very valuable.
It's a, um, um.
I would love to see it back in the schools.
Right.
You know, when I was, when I was in middle school and even into high
school, um, I think shortly after they pulled, they pulled it out.
But yeah, I mean there was nothing wrong with that.
Right.
You know, man, college ain't for me, but I'm gonna go get this trade job and I
mean, I can dang sure make a great living.
Yeah.
In the trades.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think those are some really good points.
'cause it can look a lot of ways.
How do you capitalize on this idea that, that home services isn't,
isn't gonna change that it could be vendor income, it as simple as that.
Uh, referral fees, you know, creative stuff like you said, your inspector
throwing the party every month, um, all the way up to partnering
or owning those businesses.
But, um, but.
It's a ton of opportunity there without a doubt.
Yeah.
Joe, lemme give you, Joe, before you jump on one, one last thing does.
So I know, you know, we used to have quad track and part of the
quad track was the vendor tracking where we sent the business.
Does CTE do the same thing?
Mm-hmm.
Do they track where you're sending the business?
Yep.
Uh, I love that.
So just, just for what, what we're talking about.
One of the biggest things, the two, two biggest things that I see with real estate
agents in 20 years of, of this and, you know, 13, 14 years of on the coaching
side of things now visibility into the metrics and the numbers and the tracking.
And we used to have a tool called the Quad Track.
It was great when it was spreadsheet.
We kind of lost a lot of bit of control when we, you know, put it up into, you
know, drive on Google spreadsheets.
But the tool.
If you, if you don't have anything, and I know exp just, um, you
know, did the alignment with sisu.
I haven't looked to see what it is.
I know Sisu is a, is a fantastic software.
It can get a little bit of overwhelming, but from simplicity's
sake, CTE biz to me is the tool.
Yeah.
Um, and what I was talking about was, every deal you do,
you should be able to track.
Who you send it to, who gets a bite of that apple.
And we've identified over 93 different companies.
Um, when a home transaction happens, somebody gets a bite of that apple or
has a potential opportunity to get a bite of that apple from a fencing company.
Lawn and landscape company, pool company, you know, um, snow removal company.
We know the big ones of title mortgage insurance.
Um, you know, during the process you have appraisers, you have inspectors, you have,
you know, title company like we said, but.
There's so many people that get a bite of that apple that you don't really think
about what happens and how many people get fed when a real estate transaction
happens when a home is bought or sold.
And, and so being able to build that out is a, just a tremendous thing.
But you gotta track it.
You gotta see how much business you're sending them.
'cause you have leverage.
So like if I'm sending, you know, if you, if you own a carpet cleaning
company, um, and I'm sending you 10 deals, 10 deals a month.
Hey, we need some help over here.
And, and I think when, you know, like low ticket for example,
like carpet cleaning company.
'cause we, 'cause that was part of the value proposition with us on our high
package in Lawton is that hey, we're gonna send professional carpet cleaning in to
get your home cleaned up, your carpet's cleaned before you know you guys move out.
And um, they were only charging like a hundred bucks.
Well, there's not much skin to be able to give on those low, those low deals.
So, you know, we got creative, right?
Just like what we talked about.
It's like, hey.
If you guys will, you know, we have jobs that we need, either our house personally,
we've got some remodels or some flips.
If we call you, can we do, can we swap it out?
We'll keep feeding you guys part of our package, but we may need,
you know, a couple dozen, you know, cleanings ourself a year.
Are you guys good with that?
Like heck yeah.
As long as you keep sending us five, six deals on average a month.
We got you whenever you need us.
So that, I just, I, I keep coming back to it because it's one of the biggest.
Missed opportunities in the real estate space and real estate business
space is, um, letting people take advantage of you without being able
to reciprocate something in return.
Yeah.
Love it.
I'm gonna give, get, uh, two more.
One I picked because, uh, 'cause you can control it.
And one, I picked that because you don't need to control it.
So next one, that's not gonna change.
And this goes, this is, this is business in general, not just real estate, but.
Your, your business growth is always gonna be, uh, limited by your personal growth.
And so what, what you can control in this business, in this industry,
um, I is your development as a leader, as a business person, as
a marketer, like we talked about.
I. So if you're, if you find yourself, you know, dealing with the uncertainty
or fear that comes out of, you know, being an entrepreneur, um, the best
thing that I've always done is, is to go learn something, is get into
a podcast or read another book.
Um, go to an event, get coaching, get in a, in a mastermind or mentorship program.
So focus, focus on your growth.
'cause your, your business is always gonna be limited by, um, by your
personal growth and especially by by your leadership growth.
I love it a hundred percent.
Right.
You know, my belief, I just don't believe you can coach and lead another human until
you can coach or lead yourself first.
And, and, um, you know, the size of your business is in direct proportion to the
size of your leadership capabilities.
Yeah.
And, um, when you get that, then you're like, shit, I gotta
grow for my business to grow.
And that's, that's where you'll see the biggest jump.
And that won't ever change.
That will never change.
Um, and I, I love that you, you pointed that out.
That's, uh, really, really important.
I. Yeah.
And then last one here that I hope is just encouraging for people.
So we've been thinking about, um, hearing about, talking about everything
that's, that's changing interest rates up, affordability issues.
Um, we've got, you know, I.
Fake financial guru gurus and real estate investor gurus all over social
media saying, don't buy a house.
And these stats about, you know, millennials or, or new
generations not wanting homes.
The, the data just doesn't support that, that people don't
want to own homes anymore.
So we've got somewhere in the ballpark of 60% of House of
households who own their homes.
In the most recent study I saw, uh, it was 47, so almost 50% of renters
wanted to own a home, so that if we put that together, was that 8, 8 80
plus percent of, uh, 80 plus percent of people want to own a home now?
Yeah.
The, the.
The number of people who think they might not be able to ever get a home.
That number is going up a lot and we're gonna have to deal with that as a
country, as an economy, as an industry.
But the idea that people don't want to own homes anymore, there's
just no data to support that.
There's just some loud people on social media saying you should
always rent your primary residence, which I think is nonsense.
So, you know, if we're worried about our industry or, or your, you know, your
business over the next five years here.
I don't think you need to be.
I think we're gonna figure it out.
Uh, interest rates, sure.
They're gonna go up and down.
Um, you know, uh, affordability's a problem that we're gonna have
to solve as a country for sure.
Inventory's a problem we're gonna have to solve, but, but people want
homes and I don't think that's, I don't think that's gonna change ever.
Yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
No, I mean, that's fantastic.
I love that list.
So, you know, what we're, what we're saying, just kind of recap that.
You look at real estate moving into the future, we're we're focused on building
our strategy, our game plan around the things that we know won't change.
We know that.
Real estate will always come down to a decision of trust.
Um, even agents coming in.
Do I trust you to help me accomplish what I'm wanting to
accomplish, accomplish my goals?
If not, if I don't believe that, that you can, um.
If I don't trust that you can, then I'm not gonna move forward
and do business with you.
The local expertise.
I love that.
I mean, we touched on, you know, even to the next one, the, the
best marketer always wins and I think they go hand in hand.
One, you gotta have the knowledge and the data to be able to support it and being
able to tell, tell the story emotionally.
Tied back with logic, and I think part of that best marketer wins
is also the ability to tell story.
Yeah.
Um, I think from a marketing perspective, I think the direction
and, and here's, here's one thing that we know to be true story has existed.
Forever.
And like everything is, is told in through a story format.
Being able to tell a great story.
That'll never change in, in kind of the marketing things, but being able to tell
a great story with local expertise, you're so spot on because, um, we always tell
younger agents if you, you don't have that authority or credibility yet, then
you better be able to answer the question like you said, oh, you're in real estate.
Hey, hey, how's the market?
Right?
That's just a general.
Let me be, let, let, let's kind of just get a conversation.
I, I mean, I don't really care, but let's, let me, let me ask you
where you can get me is being able to tell the story of the market.
Like you said, you know, home prices are here year over date compared to
this time last year, inventory, days on market, average sales price is up.
Lists list take to, you know, lists sold.
Price we're seeing is starting to Holter a little bit.
We're starting to see pending ratio go a little bit this way.
People are gonna be like, okay, all right kid, you, you, yeah.
You know what you're talking about.
You know?
Um, and so the local expertise I think is great.
Mirrored partnered with the best marketer and then, you know,
home service companies, home maintenance will always be an issue.
Um, our personal development, personal growth, and then, um, you know,
really not losing sight that people actually do want to own a home.
Really good.
There's probably a bunch more, right?
That, that I haven't thought of quick.
So, you know, put, I would challenge people as, as you're thinking about
your business and strategy, put some thought into that and may, and maybe
there might be things in your market specifically that are unlikely to change.
Um, that can be big opportunities for you too.
Um, you know, specifically we've got a lot of different types of
markets in our country, so a lot of different types of opportunities too.
Yeah.
And I think that's going back to the local expertise, knowing your market,
knowing, knowing what they want.
I think the biggest thing too, um, most buyers and sellers, I
think right now are the half twos.
The real motivation has to be there at this point.
And so I, you know, I come back to, you know, are you a vitamin company
or are you a painkiller company?
And vitamin vitamins are essential.
We know how important they are.
But one thing I know to be true with vitamins is that if you ain't got no
money, you ain't buying no vitamins.
Um, and.
If things are tight and things are in a struggle, you ain't buying vitamins.
And if you're not disciplined enough and you make it easy to
where they're always in front of you, you're not buying vitamins.
So if we know that to be true, one thing that we know won't change is
that people will run through red lights and brick walls to remove paint.
You're better off being a pain killer.
So how can you solve people's pain?
And this goes back to the marketer, and this will never change,
is people only buy results.
Think about that.
Like you go get a pack of gum for a reason or a reason, you're looking for a result.
You're trying to solve something with that pack of gum.
You have a pain in your, uh, where, where you're trying to live, um, or.
Trying not to live, trying to remove a financial burden.
Um, I think that's another thing that we know will never change, is that
people, people have, uh, have pains and they're trying to remove it.
And can you solve it?
Can you remove that pain for them?
Um, you know, Tony Robbins talks about it all the time, right?
People are, are, are more likely to move, you know, away from
pain than towards pleasure.
Mm-hmm.
And so as you're building your business and your strategy.
I think you're better off building a business plan and a strategy
around solving people's pain points.
Yeah.
Love it.
Yeah.
Massive.
No, brother.
I, I mean, so good.
Um, and, and such a great concept and, and definitely for some, you know, folks
to be thinking about with their business planning, um, their, their life planning.
I think that's another important aspect that, um, you know, don't.
Just create, um, a game plan and a strategy for your business, but also
be thinking about, you know, a game plan and a strategy for your life.
I like to keep it simple, you know, health, wealth and relationships,
you know, wealth business, business development, using real
estate, like you said, to provide.
The cash flow necessary to go invest into these other
opportunities to help build wealth.
Um, but what is, what is the game plan moving into 25 for your relationships
and moving into, um, 25 for, for your health, you know, relationships.
Others, but relationships with yourself.
And that one thing we know will never change is, is personal development.
What are you doing to become the best version of you?
Who do you have to become to be able to build the business
that you're wanting to build?
And, and, and on the health side of things, right?
Not only the physical, but also the mental health side of things.
And a lot of the things that was kind of mentioning with Jake,
Jacob Newton is his name, and, um.
You know, just putting a lot of a lot of work, and that's what he said,
you know, man, it wasn't until I knew I needed a million dollar mindset.
Did my life change?
And that's so true for all of us.
Um, and, and really making that, that development, you know, Jim Rohn,
you know, uh, Darren Hardy, right?
They, they, they talk about it.
Um, you know, Tony Robbins all from that same school, you know, what is,
what is the budget allocation for, for your personal development for 25?
You know, Jim RoHS 10%, right?
That was his rule of thumb.
If you wanna make a million dollars, then you better be investing a hundred K into
your personal development in order for that million in revenue to be, to be true.
Um, and so that has to be a line item, I think in your, in your budget, in your
financials going into, into the future.
Um, because this is what, what you said, that's one thing that won't
change is your personal development.
What are you excited about?
So, we talked about some things that won't change, but what, what are
we excited about, um, moving into this, this last half of the decade?
I'll give a, I'll give a a, a couple, so zoom in all the way in.
Um.
I'm really excited about exp. This is the best place to be in the industry.
Uh, I don't sell real estate actively.
Um, I don't recruit very much right now.
I still have my license at exp, but I. Um, if you look at the way
exp has navigated 2024, um, head and shoulders above the rest of the
industry from a thought leadership, but then from a, uh, putting practical
tools in the hands of our, our agents.
So, um, so if you're at exp, I'd be excited that you're at exp and if you're
thinking about what agent attraction looks like over the next five years.
You're gonna have a lot of things to point to for why people need to come
join us at exp. So I'd be excited about that and I am excited about it.
Um, you know what, uh, what Glen's done, what Leo's done,
um, this year is, is spectacular.
And that's not gonna stop.
We, we talk about, uh, a lot of the copycat brokerages.
Um, don't understand why decisions are made at a deep enough level, and
that's why they can't really copy.
They can copy the business model, but they, they, they'll never be out front
because they don't really understand why, because people like Glenn and
Leo are making decisions on their own.
They're not copying anybody.
Um, so we're gonna keep leading because of that.
So I'm really excited about being at exp and what exp is gonna
do over the next five years.
And then I'm, I'm really excited about, uh, I'm, I'm really excited
about, uh, working with you on our boardroom project, which is really cool.
Um, kind of a combined coaching effort that we're doing.
And then, you know, I, I've been at, uh.
Sphere Rocket for the last couple years and, um, just, just last month opened
up, um, my own business Growth Centric, which is a fractional executive company
for million dollar real estate team.
So I'm excited about getting more directly back into real estate, uh, working with
successful teams on putting the, the right pieces in place to really scale up.
Yeah, I I, I am too.
I'm so excited.
You know, um, just, just timing of things and, and you, you know, our project.
You know, together with, with, with boardroom and, um, board members
and, and, um, you know, the, the, the fractional, you know, coaching to be
able to go a little bit, you know, layers deeper that, you know, typical
coaching subscriptions don't allow for.
Um, and, and it's the, it's the real, um, you know, struggle that I even have
on, on, on the coaching side of things.
And it's just the execution and it's just the way coaching.
Models work.
You just don't have time to go as deep as you would, as you would genuinely,
you know, hope or, or like to do.
Um, so being able to, to create, you know, just a different, um, a different,
you know, offer a different model, a different structure to be able to do that.
And, you know, to your point with exp, uh, you know, I, I
agree a hundred percent with you.
Um, I'm also grateful for real, and the reason I say that is,
you know, Coke needs Pepsi.
Pepsi needs Coke.
Yeah.
Um, you've gotta have, you know, the people that are pushing
you to continue to evolve.
Um, you know, if there was no real, if there was no, you know, um, LPT, no, no
other, um, um, whatever, what is there?
Couple dozen, you know, similar, you know, models out there.
If, if.
They weren't there.
It doesn't push you to continue to, to evolve and, and stay agile and,
and really, um, keep, keep growing.
You know, you fall into a complacency when you don't have that pushing you
and you know, you still have the legacy brands and I think the legacy brands
will still be legacy until they're not.
I think they'll sunset, meaning I think.
They'll just kind of fade out over time.
Um, I think there might be some acquisition of assets
inside of their database.
Systems, processes, tools, technologies.
But definitely the direction.
I mean, EXPs definitely out at the forefront, but I'm also grateful
for these other companies because if not, they're not gonna push Glen.
They're not gonna push the Leos, the leadership of of,
of that, of this company.
We need the competition.
Right.
We need healthy competition to be able to, you know, continue for
us to, to becoming and evolving the best versions of ourselves.
And so that's what I'm grateful for.
I'm grateful for, you know, this the, the industry and the direction, but
the companies and the talent and the leadership that's pushing each other
to be the best that we possibly can be.
Um, you know, we've talked about, you know, book recommendations and choose
your enemies wisely, and it's, it, it's that critical component, right?
You gotta have a worthy enemy that's gonna keep your fire lit. But you
also gotta have healthy competition to, to, to balance yourself and, and,
and mirror yourself against, right?
Like, if we were saying, well, our competition is the legacy brands, how
complacent do you think we'll become?
Right?
Yeah.
But we've had these other companies that are continuing for us to, to look
at our rev share models, to look at our stock options, to look at, you know,
the technology, to look at the tools, to look at the things that we provide.
The value in the value proposition.
It just doesn't happen if you just don't have healthy competition.
And so I'm, I'm, I'm really grateful for that because if not, who knows
where this company would would've Yeah.
Become stagnant too.
So it's really cool to see.
Um, and, uh, yeah, I, I don't think.
This, this model is going to change going into the future.
I think it is.
I think it is the model of the future.
And you go back to, you know, the book, um, you know, the
future is faster than you think.
Um, I don't know if you, if you remember, you know, diamantes and
Colter and, um, one other that was a part of that, um, trio of books, right?
Abundance was one of them.
But the future is faster than you think was the, was the trilogy that came out.
And most people, if, if you remember the book.
The book came out at the end of 19.
Hmm.
And, um, what happened in 2020 and what happened was you look at kind
of the, you know, the far fetching stories that they tell Right.
You know, the flying cars and things and how close we were and where
they were modeling things out.
And obviously big government's gonna, you know, squash some of that stuff and.
They talked about real estate and they talked about only one company
in that book, and this was released in 19, right at the end of 19, they
talked about one real estate company.
They talked about exp and you know, you look at what's happened over the,
the last five years and you know, the pandemic really just collapsed time.
That's the only thing I think it did.
It unlocked the global workforce and collapsed time, and it
collapsed time with technology.
And you really look at.
It's worth going back and listening to that little section of that
book where they talk about, you know, the, the evolution and change
and, and the direction and what they talked about in real estate.
It's exp So it was really cool to see, to see that and see what's played out.
Um, you know, over, you know, first half of this decade.
Pretty, pretty, pretty amazing.
Pretty cool brother.
I appreciate you so much.
Uh, what a way to kind of wrap up, you know, 2024 from, you know, the podcast
episodes and especially here at Expert Mentors and, you know, we're not slowing
down 279 episodes of expert Mentors, incredible conversations, you know, over
the last timeframe, you know, for that, for that run, for this run to be possible.
And.
We've already got January lined up.
Obviously we'll be kicking the year off as we always do in January with Gogo.
Uh, she kind of gives us the state of, you know, things going into the new year.
So this will be our fourth or fifth year kicking, kicking, uh, the new
year off with expert mentors with her.
Uh, we've got, uh, you know, the one and only Tina call, um, in January.
We've got a lot of other, um, you know, great.
True, you know, mentors and expert mentors, and really what this whole
expert mentor series is, has been all about, and it's just about people that,
that want to, to jump in and give, you know, just like yourself today.
And so, I appreciate you brother jumping in, uh, really focusing, uh,
f you know, having us focus in on the things that we know won't change, um,
into the second half of the decade.
Yeah.
Love it.
Anytime.
I love being here with you.
Awesome, brother.
I appreciate you guys.
Appreciate you.
Um, you know, run through the finish, you know, finish like a champion.
Don't, uh, take your foot off the gas and uh, really build that positive
momentum heading into the new year.
And, uh, we'll see you guys soon.
Thanks brother.
That's a wrap for today.
I hope you got something valuable from this episode.
If you did, hit follow and visit John kitchens.coach for
more ways we can work together.
See you on the next episode.