Real Estate Unscripted

The Mindset Behind Building 65 Real Estate Offices with Rob Lyszczarz

Season 1 Episode 13

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0:00 | 1:13:39

In this episode of Real Estate Unscripted™, Darryl Davis sits down with Rob Lyszczarz, President, CEO, and Co-Owner of RE/MAX Select Group, for a powerful conversation about leadership, growth, culture, and what it really takes to build a lasting real estate business. 

Rob shares how he went from writing mortgages as a college student to building one of the largest RE/MAX organizations in the country — growing from a single office in New Jersey to 65 offices across 11 states. 

But this conversation goes far beyond numbers. 

Rob dives into the mindset shifts, leadership lessons, and real-world philosophies that helped him navigate market crashes, industry disruption, recruiting, coaching, AI, private listings, and brokerage growth — while maintaining a strong culture built on service, relationships, and long-term thinking. 

Throughout the episode, Rob delivers nonstop “Robisms” — practical wisdom and perspective for brokers, team leaders, and agents alike. 

Topics include: 

  • How to grow during difficult markets 
  • Why relationships still outperform lead dependence 
  • The difference between knowing, understanding, and teaching the market 
  • Why great leaders ask better questions 
  • AI’s real impact on real estate 
  • Recruiting and culture-building strategies 
  • How to help sellers price homes correctly 
  • What separates thriving agents from struggling ones 
  • The power of mentorship and lifelong learning 

Whether you’re an independent agent, brokerage owner, or team leader, this episode is packed with insights you can apply immediately. 

SPEAKER_00

Good afternoon. Welcome to today's session. We're very excited to have you here on our unscripted podcast. Rob, I desperately do not want to mess up your last name. So I'm going to let Daryl do that. I'm going to kick us off, though. If you guys can jump into the chat, you can let us know where you're where you're from and uh where you are in the world. And if you are a leader, if you're an agent, um pop that in as well. We are going to use the Q ⁇ A only to ask questions today. So if you're writing your your questions, you can, which you can do at any time. Please do pop those in the QA and not in the chat because they get lost in the chat. I think that's it. Gero off to you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thank you, Jules. And uh thanks everybody for being here. By the way, in case you guys are wondering if this is live, yes, this is actually live. This is not one of those pre-recorded things where you're chatting making believe it's live. I want to start off by saying that we have somebody incredible here. And and yes, Rob, you've got to say your name from your last name. I've never known how to say it. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

Lazars. Now, I've I've Americanized it. It's not anybody of Polish heritage would correct me, but I've always been known as Lazars.

SPEAKER_02

Now I want to hear the Polish version. Uh it's which Josh That is nothing like Lazars. So okay. Well, you know, it's not fair because you only have one vowel in your last name, and that's like impossible to figure out. We did as much research as we could and we gave up. All right, so Rob, I thank you so much. You know, I uh I want to give some background for people so they understand why I asked you to for you us to do this interview. Uh for those of you who don't know, um Rob is the president and CEO of and co-owner of Remax Select Group. For nearly 30 years, building under the Remax franchise umbrella, starting as a single office in Jersey in 1997, spanning to 65 offices across 11 states with uh hundreds of agents. The real impressive thing that I just want to uh pause my intro here, Rob, is last time I had seen you and spoke at your company event to now, I I don't remember that time span. Can you just tell me what happened that time that I saw you and then this time the growth, what time frame that was?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I think um probably it was 2017, 18, 19, that definitely before the pandemic.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And at that time, I was probably nine offices in New Jersey and one fledgling fledgling office in Florida. So we had 10 offices with you know probably 300 or so agents.

SPEAKER_02

So in that short period of time, um you went from 10 to 65 offices in 11 states. Gang, that is just incredible. I don't care if it was 2019, 18, or 17, that's still incredible growth. Um Julie, did we find out from Gail when I spoke there? Because I I wanted to nail that down. Um, and when you get that, just let me know. To continue your intro, um, Real Trends verified as one of the top brokers, ranked 96 in the US and size. Um, proud member the Remax Hall of Fame expanded into mortgage services through Motto Mortgage. Um, you know, you've got you've got to also uh have the inn on Magic Mountain, which is a whole other story. Um so just incredible, incredible. So I'm so glad that you're here because you know, this is the first time I'm gonna say this for people, this is the first we've been interviewing brokers that are are family-owned, independent. This is my first interview with a franchise uh broker, and but the reason why, Rob, is because I'm just so impressed with the growth that you have and and definitely the culture that you have because your people just love you, uh, which I think is one of the secret ingredients to a successful brokerage, is the culture that they create. But let me let me start off with the first question, and that is um, so you started in '97 nearly 30 years ago. What what were you doing before that? And and what made you say, hey, I'm gonna go into building uh a brokerage, you know, instead of my own brokerage, that you did it under the REMAX flag.

SPEAKER_01

So so uh just a brief history on how I kind of got into this business was when I when I was in college as part of an MBA program, I was working with a lender, and at the time interest rates had just gone below 10%.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And the uh the executives there, I felt like it was a uh a bet that they had at a bar. They said, Hey, three Zs, come in, you can write mortgages, we we'll pay you 50 basis points. And my question was, what's a basis point? Yeah, of course. And uh when I realized that, you know, on a sixty thousand dollar mortgage at the time, I could make three hundred dollars, I'm like, sign me up.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So so as a college student, that was a really good income. Um, I actually made six figures in like seven months in college doing mortgages. And the negative to that was Daryl, it was hard for me to get a real job when I had uh an um income expectation outside of uh what the market would pay for an educated MBA student and then so I uh I told my parents that I would just do mortgages for a year and then get a real job, and you know how that goes.

SPEAKER_03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01

Um the interesting part about when I started Daryl was if somebody told me what was expected, like, hey, you know, if you were, you know, the top half, you're making $60,000. I didn't know that I was doing so well, and I think that was part of the magic, right? Um, if somebody would have told me, I would have been like, oh wow, I maybe I would have had like a self, like my my mind would have put me back because I'm doing more than I was expected.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. You start sabotaging yourself to be right about what everybody is saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And and one of the one of the other powerful things is when they tell me that you can't do something, right? Because everybody said, Oh, now rates are starting to go up. You need to get out of the business, right? And I was addicted to the I was addicted to success. So I figured I would have to find a way to continue to grow. And that's what I think great people do. So I went from completely doing refinances from answering the phone at the bank to building relationships with agents. And again, I didn't know I didn't know the protocol, nobody gave me the memo. So I always looked at it as, you know, um, why would an agent give me business just because I'm me? I need to help them, I need to be part of the the business generation. And this was pre-Zello. So this was, you know, really grinding it out, finding ways to to grow business together. And you know, we did old-fashioned things like, well, I I started out by knowing my craft, right? So I didn't need to call an underwriter, I didn't need to hey Darrell, let me get back to you tomorrow and see if I could do that, right? You you gave me a situation, I can give you an answer because I knew the rules of the game. That was very critical. Then the second um piece was is I felt like I wasn't entitled to business, that I had helped be part of it. Right. And my my um competition in the industry was, you know, taking them to lunch and what I would call, I don't know if this is even a word, smoozing the uh real estate industry.

SPEAKER_02

It's definitely a long island word. We use that all the time.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So they were smoozing, they were smoozing the uh agents and making them feel good and taking them to lunch. And I was sitting at my desk solving problems and figuring out how I can create more business. You know, so Sunday nights and Mondays, I was taking their open house sheets that they didn't follow up on, calling them and giving them one or two leads. Right. And um I also had a different, you know, a different process. You know, I was excited about what I did. I was new in the business. I was like, hey Daryl, congratulations, looking for homes. How can I help you? You know, and it was authentic and it and and it resonated. And like like attracts like, right? So I I naturally attracted people who had the same mindset as me. And um, you know, the first agent that I started to work with was new in the business, second career, Joan Eisenberg. And within a year, she was the top agent at REMAX in the entire state. And I was like, boy, I'm lucky, but I mean I think it's I think you make your own luck in this business, right? And then you know, fast forward, uh, I don't know, that would have been three years later, three short years later, I'm 26, 27, I went up buying the office, the largest Remax in New Jersey.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And um, that's how I kind of got started. Um but it was it was by you know not looking at it and saying, hey, I do a good job, give me your leads. It was like I'm part of the process, I can help you be more successful.

SPEAKER_02

Let me now let me let's just pause there for a minute. So first of all, thanks for sharing that. There are so many great nuggets, and I just love, I mean, Julie, uh, my president, she's also uh uh an incredible writer. So she always captures these little sayings that that our hosts say and she puts it in the chat. And there are so many nuggets in what you just gave within the story. Um but I want to just pause where you said when you bought the company. So how did you do that from a financial standpoint? Did you did you save a lot of money because of the success you were having with uh doing the mortgages? Did you get creative and talk to somebody else? How do I do this? I mean, you were in your 20s. Did you get financing? Like how did you structure such a big deal like that?

SPEAKER_01

So um at the time, you know, I was making in the 90s, I was making in the $300,000 range for three or four years. And basically that that was the um that was the price of the office. So it was like one year of my pay. I couldn't believe it. One year of like I'm just like a I considered myself to be kind of a rookie in the business. And you know, I could write a check and buy the biggest remax in New Jersey. So that's how I got into it, and I didn't know anything about running a Remax for the business. And for better or worse, um I was the business side to it, and I rode that from '97 all the way up to like 2006, 2007, and we know what happened then.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yeah. Awesome. That's so that's so great. That is so great. Okay, good. So um, boy, that's exciting. Okay. So let me go back to my questions here because uh let's look at the early days of blah, blah, blah. That was good. So yeah, this is something I'm really curious about, which I I started uh talking about. So you've grown under the Remax umbrella, which comes with its own global brand, its own culture, its own DNA. So I have to ask you, is the culture at REMAX Select Group just the Remax culture, or have you built something distinctive, your own underneath that franchise flag?

SPEAKER_01

Um well, I I think Remax itself has an identity, not really a culture. And the identity is one of higher producing agents. And up until 2007, eight, when you know our industry had dramatically changed, and kind of our industry dragged the entire economy and maybe the world economy down. Um I was I was supporting agents that were independent, and uh the person that sold me the office told me, look at you hire the best agents and you let your stallions run. You know, you they came to Remax because they didn't want to be micromanaged and told what to do.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. And in the day, and it was symbolic and actual, agents would want to have an office where they would have a door, and if you arrived, you had a private office, not a semi-private. Right? So you can close the door and and you know, hey, I have my own office, right?

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And it was the anti-collaborative uh environment. Um, what they did want is they wanted to only be associated with people who are uh had integrity, ethics, and or high producers. So agents would would give me a hard time if we brought a newer agent in or a lower producer because they didn't want to be classified with those type of agents.

SPEAKER_02

Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So so that was the best form of of a culture, but it was more of an identity. And then when when 2007 and eight came along, okay, I've been around the industry long enough, I had a perspective of what was going on, but I never actually sold. Um, when people were in pain as I was in pain, I would go to them and say, Before you call me, Daryl, I'm coming to you and saying, What can I do to help you? Right? Because you know what, I helped 15 of your peers, and helping could either be uh me being that emotional and that um that person that keeps you motivated and keeps you disciplined to do what you're already good at doing, or helping you could be helping you realize that you've given up and let me help you move the stuff out into your car. It was one of those two things. Right? And at that time they weren't leaving to go to another brand, they were leaving to go work at Home Depot because they were desperate.

SPEAKER_02

Fascinating. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Alright now now now at the time it was absolutely horrible. It was very painful. Um I I kind of wouldn't wish it on anybody. But looking back on it years later, it defines who you are and it helps me have perspective that with the changes going on right now, the reason I'm able to grow is because I'm like, this is nothing. Right? I'm going to be I'm gonna be worried about six to nine months out, not six to nine weeks out, right? Because that's what real uh professionals are looking at, right? I'm not worried about next month and the following month. That phase is already sealed. You know, I'm looking at the spring of next year, right? That's what you need to be doing in this business. And I think I'm getting my my team to do the same, have that same insight, um, that same intuition.

SPEAKER_02

That's that's awesome. And I I I'm so glad that you brought that up. As a matter of fact, I want to say something to the to the attendees that I forgot to say that's I think important, you know, because we have two groups of people, Rob, on the call. We have brokers and managers, leaders, and then uh we do have agents on here as well. And I always like to remind the agents while they're listening to this, even though this is a you know leadership uh interview, that as individual agents, they're leaders in their own right, in their own business, and so they should be listening for these pearls of wisdom that that they can use in their business. And you just dropped one that um it is the those toughest moments in your life that help define you and make you stronger. And if you can get through that, then um you know everything else seems easier when the next challenge comes comes your way. So awesome. All right, okay, do you want to say something on that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I was gonna say I I I share something else in common with a lot of people that are gravitated towards the real estate industry, which is you know, I get my biggest I get my biggest rewards from like seeing things that agents execute that work. You know, for example, you know, um if there's an agent that's having a hard time, you know, getting conversions on listings or getting people to to take the right decisions when they position a property, right? Um I will often I'm known to, you know, help them prepare for it and then to coach them on their way while they're driving there in the phone in terms of how does that conversation gonna sound like. And it's just the best feeling when I get a text message or a call saying, Hey Rob, it went exactly like we thought. You know, they they they list it with me and we got it priced right. And the reason why it it really is fulfilling for me, Daryl, is because I know that hiring that agent that's taken the time to educate the homeowner to make the right choice isn't help is in fact helping the homeowner and it's helping the agent. So everybody wins, if that makes sense. Right? And I I follow these patterns of mistakes and and it really frustrates me.

SPEAKER_02

Awesome. Well, so now that actually brings me to the next thing because you know I can clearly hear as you talk about you know the culture, I can I can hear it, you know. And um so as you grew, now like with 65 offices now in 11 different states, like how how do you keep that culture that you've obviously created of caring and serving the agents? How does that work? Is is it more difficult? Do you have systems in place to have how do you do that?

SPEAKER_01

So uh right now I'm spending a lot of time on the road. Um you know, I I like to have a lot of um personal interaction with the team. And um part of the part of the um formula is like attracts like. So I might be attracting, you know, um and in most cases it's Remax owners that are you know looking to get to that retirement age.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And are looking for an exit strategy, and if they have a similar culture, you know, I can um I can keep that culture and then supplement it with some of the things that I do, right? So in other words, if you like it the way it is, I try not to interrupt what works, but I try to give you access to ways to grow, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

And um, and it has to be you know, it has to be a similar culture because there are some cultures that just wouldn't be a good fit.

SPEAKER_02

So when you're when you're purchasing, and by the way, I just want to say something. The um gang, some of you started writing questions, which I'm so glad you are. You should continue to do that because uh we we're gonna keep bouncing to different topics, so it may trigger trigger a question for you. Write it in the QA. There's a tab somewhere in the in the Zoom thing where it says Q.

SPEAKER_00

You may have to click on more, everybody, at the time. So you may have to click on more to see the QA tab.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so at the bottom there, the menu, it says more, and then you click on QA. Okay. Um so gosh, I forgot what I was gonna say now. The oh yeah, so the so uh so how you so when you're growing, you you're you're also attracting or looking at what that current culture is, and if it kind of comes close to where you're at, then it it's easier purchase as opposed to something that's totally not how you are, and you would pass on that. Is that what I'm hearing?

SPEAKER_01

Correct.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. And so the person, that broker that's there, um, that's kind of duplicating you in some respects because like attracts like. So I got it. Okay, good, very awesome. All right. Um oh, how did we get that happening, Julie? We have somebody's video turned on. So I just turned it off, but I'm curious how that even happened. So um oh, it was I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know. Hi, okay, good. That's how that happened.

SPEAKER_01

So, Darrell, um I I I want to kind of give you a parallel to um what's going on in my life. And I have an agent in my office, and he's an icon by the name of Gary Singer. And you know, I think he probably sold two offices. And you know, at the time he went to join me, I was you know very honored to have him on board. And you know, he's been doing this so long, I think he's over 50 years in the business. I'm like, So, Gary, you're still so successful after 50 years. Why? And he's like, I still get the same thrill when I get that listing, and it it makes me feel, you know, I think it makes it for him feel younger. And also, you know, it's hard to turn away business when people, you know, are calling you at this point, right? You you spent a career, you know, identifying who you are, and then when somebody calls you and says, Hey Rob, I'm thinking of selling my office, you know, can we have a conversation? And if it's a brand that I respect, you know, that's why my I think you might have asked me at at the event, like, how big do you expect to grow? And you know, I don't have a plan, and I'm bigger than I ever expected. To be, but if it makes sense, you know, and it's somebody that I I respect, then I I I look at the opportunity very seriously. And it's very parallel to Gary, where when somebody calls him and it makes sense, and you know, he's helping a seller, and I'm helping somebody that I respect who's looking to retire and to further the culture of what they built, that's how I'm looking to grow. And during the good times, Daryl, nobody was selling because it was easy. Right? I would try to grow. They'd they'd want you to pay some ridiculous number, and it was like very, very hard. So with challenge always comes opportunity. And um, you know, I I just I enjoy both sides of the market. I enjoy it when it's great, and I also enjoy it when it's challenging because I think people need us more. You know, people need you more now than when it's good, Daryl.

SPEAKER_02

That's true. That's true. Well, very awesome. Well, keep going there. I I think you've got you're you're dropping these awesome pearls of wisdom. Go.

SPEAKER_01

So, so um, you know, here's here's something I think that's relevant to the audience because you know, I'm married for 12 years. I go to events, and my wife would be, but you're you've been to this event 12 times, like almost like thinking, like, are you a slow learner? Why do you need to keep going? Right and and and I'm a lifelong learner, right? And even if the content doesn't change, um I heard an event, I heard a podcast where um, you know, uh somebody's wife gave them the exact same question and it made him ponder, right? And why does he keep going to one of the coaching events, right? Every year that he goes to the annual event. And he had this answer which I thought was really profound, right? And he said to his wife, you know what? Um, the content's basically the same, but the first time I went there, I was the team member on somebody's team. Then four years later, I was an independent agent. Then three years after that, I had an uh ISA and uh a transaction coordinator. Now I have a team of four people. So, wife, I've changed, and the material has different relevance and different application to me when I'm a different person. And I thought that was really profound. I do know that the content, I do know that the content does change, but in many cases the principles are the same, but you interpret it differently if you're at a different point in your life in your career. Have you ever thought about that? Because it really I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02

No, that's that's ri that you know what I I've always said that the what you just shared is much is much more powerful and profound. I've always said that it's like when you go to a movie the second or third time, you see things maybe you didn't see the first and second time, um, which that's still true, but this is much more profound and accurate. That it's you pick up what you need at the moment and where you are in your life at that point.

SPEAKER_01

So the same material can serve different purposes based on the listening that you are, which is for those for those spouses of people in the business, you know, your spouse might not be slow, they're just you know getting that getting to that mastery point, and they're also picking up different things at different points of their career.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome. That's very awesome. Okay. All right, let's see. So back in 2019, you made headlines uh when you walked away from uh Realtor.com leads, and what was behind that decision at that time?

SPEAKER_01

So um when I was when I was buying when I was buying leads, and I think things kind of happened for reasons. In other words, part of the the attraction that our leadership team had is I was looking at it as like a big team, and teams were giving leads and opportunities to people. Um and I kept scaling outside of my ability to manage it. And when I started peeling back the onion, you know, back in the day, they'd be like, oh, well, we're giving you X number of leads, and I had contracts for literally tens of thousands of leads. And you know, once integrity is lost sterile, um you kind of question the foundation of every everything, right? So um when things are going well, you don't really pay attention. Um when I'm trying to like be a good example and a good steward, like I coached team members to be, right? You need to know your numbers, you need to manage your expenses, right? So I started looking through at the expenses, and my offshore team was saying, Hey Rob, um you're kind of getting and I'll use the term ripped off. And what they were doing is agents were using the platform to make appointments to show properties to their clients, and Realtor.com was counting them as leads that they were charging me for, and they were telling me that they had an advanced mechanism to scrub them, but they really didn't, and they tried to make it very complex. So I basically just said, look, you know, if you know Joe at Colombanker and you know Rob at Remax and all these names here, you're charging me. We know that those are just people trying to make an appointment because we're not a member of the MLS, and I've lost faith in you that I just made a decision to completely walk away because I was like this. I throw my hands up, I'm like, at some point I don't trust you anymore. And that was where I was. So, um, but but that also happened for a reason because I think it took my focus off of you know, a lead-centric business to a learning-centric business, right? Explain it. Well, I mean, you know, um uh it's like the you can give somebody a fish or you can teach them how to fish, right? And I wanted to teach people how to have a sustainable business, not just to supplement their business with additional needs. And I almost felt like I was getting to the point where the supplement was becoming the primary. And you know, what I thought was good was wasn't good for the agents because they were becoming dependent upon a source that you know could be pulled away, or a source that was was more expensive than learning how to do it yourself.

SPEAKER_02

Which which is a lot that's a lot that happened to a lot of agents with with Zillow, right? That they relied so much on Zillow giving their business. I mean, we've heard agents say, listen, I I pull in a quarter of a million in commissions a year, and like you know, most of it is from Zillow. So yeah, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_01

Um Zillow has Zillow has a place, Darrell. Um, but I think you know, we we all need to be practical, and Zillow's looking out for Zillow, right? Sure. And we need to diversify where our business is coming from, and you know, again, yeah, my job is just to give you an awareness and and to let you know what's possible. And I think, you know, why retention is high is because people know that I'm not always right, but I'm always, you know, I always have the right intent. Right. And um, you know, there's a gentleman that recently joined us, uh, Pat Strapuz, and he goes, uh, you either win or you learn. And I love that. Right. So he goes on a listing, he loses it. He's like, Well, good news is I learned something.

SPEAKER_02

Love that. Love that. Love that, love, love, love. I I've always told our power agents that when I was an agent and then I'll go into a listing appointment, and if I didn't get the listing, I would go into the car, and before I would pull away, I would ask myself, where could I have improved? What can I learn from this experience? And until I answer that question, I didn't pull away. So that way, at least that was the value that I got from that experience. So that's awesome. Um, you know, I've got a I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you something that wasn't on my questions that I wanted to ask you, which is real quick about real purchasing REMAX and how does that feel for you? How does that feel for the agents, and how are you managing that with your agents?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so um when the announcement came out, um obviously, well, maybe it's not obvious, but you know, they didn't ask me beforehand. It's two public companies, so it was you know put on me just as everybody else. Um and um, you know, I did some I did some research, I listened to what the new CEO of uh Real had to say, and and I think that you know, with every disruption, there's an opportunity, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And everybody's always focusing. Oh, what is this gonna mean? You know, a lot of my um fellow broker owners were like, oh, are my agents now gonna expect me to cut our fees and do what Real does and whatever, whatever. And I'm like, look, um, you know, I I think uh, you know, the same company that has Porsche also makes Volkswagen, you know. I mean, they're not gonna sell a Volkswagen for a Porsche price or Porsche for a Volkswagen price, right?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, love the analogy. Great analogy. Go on.

SPEAKER_01

So, so I I just said that, you know, I'm gonna find the good in it and I'm gonna I'm going to exploit what's good in it, and I'm gonna deal with what's not good. And that's how that's how we run the business, right? Because change happens. They don't ask me about change in the industry. It's always happening. And we just need to figure out how do we exploit what's what's good and how do we deal with what's not good.

SPEAKER_02

You're you're so you're so brilliant, you're very insightful, Rob. Didn't know this about you.

SPEAKER_00

Do you do this every day? Drop pearls of wisdom wherever you walk.

SPEAKER_02

I know that's what I feel like. He's just like dropping these little everything that's coming out of his mouth. This is like really incredible stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Sprinkling, joy and wisdom wherever you go, Rob.

SPEAKER_01

Well, well, you know, I I do I, you know, Daryl, I enjoy learning, right? And I always feel that, you know, I've never arrived because it's always something for me to learn. And um, you know, even if I'm even if somebody did know everything, you know, in six months it's gonna be different, right? And you need to be able to figure out how how you can pivot. Um, an another pearl that I borrowed from uh keeping current matters founder, the gentleman that passed away, I forgot his name, but he knows Steve Harney. There are three types of agents. You know, most agents um know what's going on in the market. The better agents understand it. And he said the best agents can explain and teach it. And it might sound like just words, but if you really break that down, it it's really profound. Right? Because what that tells me is when I'm when I'm teaching or if I'm an agent teaching somebody, it's in fact a gift to me as well. Because when you're teaching, you you develop a higher skill level for that. Right. So if you're doing something and and you're successful, when you take the time as a team leader to teach your team member, you you may not know it, but you're actually getting a gift back of getting better because you're you're explaining and refining the process and getting better.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, because you also have to, I I I think one of the things I've always used to say, I haven't said this in a long time, the next level of learning is teaching. And which speaks to what you just said, because when somebody is gonna transfer knowledge, they have to really look and dissect and ask themselves the question, why does this work? Why does this work for me? And uh so that's why you're learning, you're getting stronger, because you've got to ask answer that question before you can transfer the knowledge. Um I I along the same vein of of this um of you looking at the positive, like seeing that there's always an upside to every challenge and exploiting that. Let's talk about for a minute the pandemic or and or more so the NAR lawsuit and now um private listings being spearheaded by none other than COMPAS and um and now they're talking about a national MLS, uh which I think would actually destroy what how we know it now, at least that's my point opinion. So, how how do you, as a broker owner of 65 offices, deal dealt with those challenges with your agents? Because most of the time agents panic when there's these major disruptions like we've seen and are currently going through.

SPEAKER_01

So um, you know, I I have some of my own beliefs, and sometimes I reserve the right to change them as things change. But right now, um I'm a pretty um open market individual and believe that if somebody makes a sale of a property without exposing it to the market, they may have left money on the table. And no matter how many years of of experience we have in the business, we've always found uh outliers that surprise us and went, wow, that one got a hundred thousand more than I thought. There was no justification for it, but the market just bit it up. And inevitably that happens, right? And when you don't expose it to the to the market, I think it only benefits, you know, uh the agency and the agent, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02

I agree.

SPEAKER_01

And uh I do reserve the right to pivot from that statement, but I I just right now I'm I believe like I want to do everything I can to help the client and have my agents be able to help the clients so that the clients will then come back to to us. And and here's another um here's another like little uh nugget, okay. Um I was I was um doing a um sales meeting in our titan falls office, and I was trying to you know share with people some of my experiences to get them to um understand the mindset that I had. And um I didn't have you know in my career as a lender, I didn't have like hundreds of clients and referral sources, probably had 10. But those 10 were just amazing, right? And they're easier to manage, high yielding. Um, and I I actually had a client of mine, and I was talking about this client, um, this gentleman's name was Alan, and Alan was one of these people that was a raving fan. And I told the example of one time I get a call from Alan when you remember when cell phone calls were like a dollar a minute? Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's that's when I was in the lending business, and I get a call from Alan on my cell. He's like, Rob, I I have somebody that needs to talk to you about a mortgage. I'm like, Well, who is it? And he goes, ma'am, what's your name? Sharon. Oh, her name is Sharon, and he hands me the phone. So I start talking to this lady, and she's she's buying a house, whatever, and it turned out to be a very, I think I did the loan for her. But afterwards, I said, Alan, how did you know this woman? He's like, Well, I was in shop rights. You're talking to her mother about buying a house, and I said, I have the perfect lender for you. He took his phone at a dollar a minute, said, Here, you need to talk to this guy.

SPEAKER_02

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Right? So, so after that, I go and I hit up Alan on LinkedIn. I said, It's been a while, probably 20 years, since I wasn't in the lending business. He called me back and he did four real estate transactions.

SPEAKER_02

Really?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, he did four real estate transactions, and then the story even gets better because the agent who who listed his house for a million four in Marlborough, then she called me one day. She's like, Rob, Alan's all ready to go. It's two days before closing. He asked me to come to the house. It's like, I don't, it's like unconventional. I'm like, he's a good person, go there, right?

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So she goes there, and um Alan says, I want to introduce you to two people. And he walks her over to two of the neighbors' houses who were expecting um him and the agent. And he just goes, This is your listing agent when you sell, because they were all in the neighborhood for a while. So that was two 1.4 to 1.6 million dollar listings. So he didn't, he didn't, you know, give that give her their number. He didn't, you know, tell them to call her. He physically walked them up there and he said, This is your agent. Here's what gets even better. So I called him and I'm like, Alan, that was super nice. I like I'm so impressed that you did that. You know, my agent really appreciates it. And he said to me, That's nice, but I didn't do it for your agent. He said, I did it for my friends of 14 years because I didn't want them to get a bad agent. To me, that was that was an aha moment to me. Right? Because I thought, you know, because she did a great job, he was rewarding her, but in reality, he was telling his friends, this is the person that you have to work with.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Think about that, right?

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome. That's awesome. All right, so listen, here's what we're gonna do at this point. I I mean I I would love to monopolize uh Rob, and but I want to turn this over to the people who uh the attendees. So one of the things that is an opportunity for everybody is for you guys to ask Rob a question. And how we do this is if you look somewhere in the menu, there's you should find something that's called QA. And some of you have written your QA, I think, in the chat. So if you can move it over into that section and just whatever you want to ask Rob, um there's no wrong answers or uh I mean wrong questions or bad questions. Uh, and we'll we'll just take a moment to do that. I see just one for right now, but um, and and we'll just go back to our conversation if that's the case. But Julie, uh, do you want to start with Larry?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. I'd I'd love to. And and think of think of this as you've got you've got Yoda here ready to answer all the pearls of wisdom. So take advantage of that. That's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you know what, Julie, thanks for saying that. Let me let me actually say it uh differently. Gang, whether you're a broker leader or an agent, you've got somebody here that built uh 65 offices in an incredible light speed, short time frame. So everybody on this call should, if nothing else, make up a question. Because this is obviously somebody who's talented and insightful, and you've got to generate something that might be useful for yourself. So thanks for that, Julie. All right, good, Jules.

SPEAKER_00

Larry says, How do you perceive AI affecting real estate going forward for sellers, buyers, and the realtors?

SPEAKER_01

Um so I I think AI is going to create more separation in the industry from those who would who adopt it, but I don't think AI is going to be the process. Okay. Um, and I do I do think consumers are you know asking. I see some of the questions that we get is professionals are being kind of coached or or generated by AI. What do I ask my agent? What do I do here? So we basically need to be a little bit more skilled. Um, we need to lean into it, not react to it, and it's going to help us create separation from those who embrace AI versus those who resist it. I don't know what's your thoughts on that, Darrell. I don't see AI doing uh doing sales.

SPEAKER_02

No, as a matter of fact, I just read it's a great question, and thanks for asking me. Because I I stumbled across several studies. There was actually one, and then I went down this rabbit hole as I usually do and found a couple more studies on this very question. And not from a real estate standpoint, but anyway, I'll just give you the punchline. The bottom line is that AI is actually making people crave more human interaction. And the reason why is because people still inherently don't trust AI, because we all recognize that it hallucinates. And so what so actually what happens, Rob, at least, and I I agree with this, is that when a consumer or somebody sees an AI generated something like an ad, because you can tell when an AI generated that ad, it actually builds mistrust with the consumer, with that agent, not connecting them. So my point that I'm making is we use AI in my company like forget about it. AI is a tool, but it won't replace the personal interaction that realtors are. If anything, it it makes them even more important, um, that personal connection.

SPEAKER_01

So that's my uh yeah, I think it's an opportunity though for agents to scale and maybe do less of the things that aren't consumer uh facing um activities. And yes I used I I actually used it with an agent to um, you know, we had we had a house that uh had been vacant for four or five years and um had some mold issues and things of that. I put it into there and I said, you know, write me. A narrative about what I can tell a seller and should they invest in doing it or should they sell it as is. And that provided clarity and it helped us get a listing and gave us a strategy or supported a strategy that we used rather than having to, you know, I think it would have been impossible to find other houses that had mold and figure out whether you repair it or you don't. And things like that, I think, give us the ability to save hours in our day. And then if we don't replace that time with, you know, providing more value to our customers, shame on us.

SPEAKER_02

I've just got to echo what you just said is that one of my houses um that I closed on my investment properties, it had this um urine thing dog in the basement. It was so bad. Any long story short, we called uh uh what is it? Home home not home, is it home service? The the guys that come in Surf Pro. They come in and they they mitigate the whole thing. And we got a uh quota $22,000. I was like, that is $22. So I went to AI and said, how the heck do I get this out of the basement? So and it gave it to me that I give it right in Spanish. And then I gave it to my guy Julio, and Julio Barbing took care of it for pennies on the dollar. So there's another example. Yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. That was so profound. If you don't invest the time that you save uh using these tools to provide more value, shame on you. I love that. Um, I did write down Joan's question from earlier. I just want to get that out. What is the most successful form of communication with agents um that you want to recruit? Is it phone, email, text? All of the above.

SPEAKER_01

Um I mean, I think uh I think we're we're we're still in a business, unfortunately or fortunately, where you need to use the phone at some point. And I think agents don't realize that. And you know, I'm in the same business, just a different aspect of it. So it's it's having it's having conversations because I remember early on in my career when I was doing a lot of leads, you know, I was trying to, I was trying to connect with the agents on the importance of communication. And 93% of communication is not the words you say, it's the the tone, it's the expression, it's the body language. And if you can't find a way to to take it the final mile, which is the communication, you're never gonna get there. So agents try to hide behind technology and they try to use text and everything. And at some point, you know, you need to have a conversation. And if you're not comfortable having a conversation, you're extremely limited and you're bound to be extinct.

SPEAKER_02

What he said I I think I'm gonna have to pay Rob for this one. All right. Next one, Jules.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. Brian asks, can you repeat the three types of agents information?

SPEAKER_01

Steve Harney, yeah. Yeah, uh most agents um know what's happening in the market, the better agents understand what's going on, and the best agents can teach and explain it.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome. Thank you. Michael says, How do you handle recruiting?

SPEAKER_01

Um I mean, it's we have we have uh you know people that set up appointments, and most of my managers are um it's basically the same thing as agents growing their business. They need to make their calls, have their conversations, do their appointments. Um, and that's you know, I I I I tell managers that aren't willing to do that, and they say they're spending all their time coaching their agents. You know, I call that a hypocrite. Because if you're not willing to do it in your job responsibility and you're telling others, like, you know, I I have a tremendous distaste for that. And that comes from when I was in lending, Daryl, they made me a manager, and I would get this content that I was supposed to teach my agents that was done in the uh in the corner office of the ivory tower, somebody who never sold.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

I was like, this is ridiculous, this is not executable information. It was clear to me that somebody you know made that up without having the experience. And I think for me, you know, I'll never preach to somebody to do something that I'm not willing to do myself. And, you know, um I do door knocking. As a matter of fact, when I was in St. Louis, I sat two open houses with the agents and we door knocked for an hour before we got four leads and two leads from an hour of door knocking. Wow. They probably don't materialize to anything, um, but probably maybe one will. Um, and I love to go on listing appointments because in the event that I'm wrong on something, I realize it immediately and I have to pivot. Right. And if I go on a listing appointment with an agent, you know, I may only do that once in my career and I can't have a bad day, right? Because that's my identity with that person. So I have to bring the best version of myself to every every opportunity.

SPEAKER_02

You know, just to put a pin in that recruiting distinction, um uh if the job of an agent is to build the listing inventory, well, listing inventory for a manager is the agent's recruiting, so uh, which is awesome. Okay. Go ahead, Jules. What else?

SPEAKER_00

I love it. Such a mark of a good leader and never ask somebody to do something you're not willing to do yourself.

SPEAKER_02

That's right.

SPEAKER_00

Um, Addie said, if I decided to open a real estate firm now, what would be the one thing you would tell me to do to be successful?

SPEAKER_02

That's a great question.

SPEAKER_01

Um don't do it. No.

SPEAKER_00

Run.

SPEAKER_01

So so so uh I would say if you decide to open up a real estate office right now, I would find a mentor and somebody that can kind of guide you so that you can minimize the number of mistakes that you make. Okay. Um and here's uh another little nugget. And um, you know, Bobby Golden, one of my agents, said that his um one of his mentors from his former office wanted to be uh a an owner of the brokerage. He wanted to buy the brokerage he was at, but it wasn't working out. So he's like, he's gonna open up his own. And I said, please set up an appointment with me because I can save him millions from all the mistakes that I made, right? And we got together, and I promise you, my intent was just to say, hey, you know, here's some mistakes you can avoid, right? Because I've made them and they're very costly. And as it turns out, he's like, Well, could we partner together and open a team office? And that wasn't my intent. So Mr. Rob Durso is now partners with Bobby Golden in a team office in Avenel, and we own the building together, which just was by it was because my intent was to prevent him from making mistakes and be a good mentor. I didn't expect anything in return, and that was the outcome.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's awesome, Rob. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01

All right, uh I want to throw one other nugget out there, which um I think is you know, if you if you process this, it will it will make sense, and maybe you have to come back to it. But um professionals ask questions and diagnose the problem before proposing a solution or a cure. In other words, you know, we're not order takers. We need to ask quite better questions even before we onboard clients, listings, and buyers. And it's important to know that in any interaction, the person asking the question is the person in charge. And do you know what MMFI is, my um Daryl? No. Make me feel important. And when you ask people questions, they feel more important because they're talking, right? And and and it gives you information that you can um you can take and you can use your expertise to provide solutions for that.

SPEAKER_03

Right? Love that.

SPEAKER_01

Agents have been taught in our industry, um, probably by people that aren't doing sales, to do a listing presentation. And I just I I resent that phrase. I mean, I'll accept listing appointment or listing conversation.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you know that's my thing, listing conversation all the way. Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Um, and when you're when you're presenting, all they're doing is objecting to your presentation, right? And if you ask a better question, you can get the outcome. Um, looks like we have about six minutes left. What do you think one of the biggest mistakes sellers make besides not picking the right agent is you're asking me doing it on their own. Or or if they're listing it, do you think it's um you know doing a good video or pricing it wrong? Or is it like what's one of the biggest mistakes?

SPEAKER_02

Not trusting their agent to drive the bus.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So if you if you overprice a property, right? Um, because you know you have a belief that asking price is correlated to sales price, right? If I ask more, I get more.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And that's a false, um, that's a false narrative. Yep. But it's uh it's a logical one. So you have to ask better questions to get them to to make it their idea to price it correctly, right? Right. Because I've been on listing appointments where they look at me with the puppy eyes, Daryl, can we just try it at 50,000 more for two weeks? Right? And it's tempting to say yes, right? But I never do. Because I just followed up with a question.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And I say, Daryl, if we list your six hundred thousand dollar house at six fifty and it doesn't sell, and as a matter of fact, I say if you pick the best agent and you list it at six fifty with the best marketing and it doesn't sell, how long do you wait before you reposition it? Is that a fair question for a seller? Sure. And most of them say, you know, two weeks, three weeks, the worst case is a month, right? And I go, Daryl, you're on the market for three weeks, you lower the price to 625, and now on day 24, somebody comes and looks at your house, they spend a half an hour there, they leave. You see in the ring doorbell camera that the agent says, So, do you have any interest? We're gonna discuss it tonight. We'll get back to you tomorrow. To the agent, what does that conversation sound like between the uh the two buyers when they go home? I asked the homeowner.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I don't know. What would they say? What would the homeowner say?

SPEAKER_01

So homeowners normally say, Well, they probably think that that I'm desperate because I just cut the price, and they're probably gonna try to lowball like the homeowner's telling me this.

SPEAKER_02

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_01

Right? Yeah, because what agents try to do is they try to tell the homeowner that. And if I get them to tell me, because what they do, Daryl, they put their buyer's glasses on, right? And as a buyer, they see a listing this, but on 21 days cut the price 25 grand, they smell blood in the water, right? Right. So, so instead of trying to convince them, I try to have them convince me that it's a bad idea, and that's that's a skill. And um, you know, it's a it's one of the major mistakes I see agents make in the business.

SPEAKER_02

I love that. You I think you're sure you're trying to go for my job now.

SPEAKER_00

Um, real quick, I know we only have a we only have a few minutes. We do have a few more questions, but I know you have um rapid fire questions that we'd like to get in there.

SPEAKER_02

No, that's all right. Let's let's stay. Those are those are fillers, let's uh stick with uh Rob, we have a few more questions from the the agents, or do you but are there pearls that you I'm not pressed for 12, so if you want to go a little over, that's up to you, Rob.

SPEAKER_01

I can do overtime.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, we'll do overtime then. Jules, let's go to the questions then. Because I want to make sure Rob gets all his points out.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, that's what was my concern too. So Cassie says when you're meeting or looking at potential partners or service providers, how do you decide which ones are worth aligning with to support and grow your business?

SPEAKER_01

Uh service providers being like uh attorney.

SPEAKER_00

Vendor, yes, a title company or mortgage, maybe.

SPEAKER_01

Uh so so um I I would want people that complement the experience and not you know uh not you know pay for my ed or pay for my Zillow. I wouldn't look for somebody that does that. I would look at somebody who makes the experience better. And um that brings me to like another um mindset, which is you know, if I was in your at your kitchen table, Daryl talking about you know listing your property for sale, right? A lot of times sellers are looking at it and saying, hey, you know, my million-dollar listing, you're gonna you're gonna charge me $30,000. That's a lot of money. And you know, I don't say it, but I think my body language says it, which is, hey, if all I ever do is sell your house and get $30,000, and you you're not going out of your way to refer me like Alan Cazen did in the supermarket, that you know, I would really rather even not do the transaction, right? Like that's the unspoken world word is that you're gonna get $60,000 worth of value for your investment, right? And if I say it, if I say trust me, the last thing you do is trust me. So you really have to be careful about how you position yourself. But I do believe people feel um the unspoken word and they understand that. So that's so that's how the vendors have to be the vendors have to contribute to the experience so that you're doing a referral business where people want to go out of the way to refer you and make sure they give you the next opportunity.

SPEAKER_02

That's a brilliant b uh business distinction, and that is um you know, look at the vendor, not just at the product that they have, but how it contributes to the experience for the agent. Um, yeah, very great. Good, Jules.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. I do know uh Adona's in the in in the room as well. Um, we do have agents that are asking how they get hold of you guys, how they can have conversations.

SPEAKER_02

Well, not agents, yeah. Some of the some of the brokers I saw in the question there, they're like, you know, now we've got a bunch of people, you're gonna have to start charging mentor fees or something because now we got a bunch of brokers that want to reach out to you.

SPEAKER_01

So so um, you know what? Um I would say this, Daryl. You know, when you put something out there and you have an expectation of a return, like the motivation is off, right? So it's it's kind of like it's like the experience I had with with uh Rob Durso. It's like I I just wanted to give him something to prevent doing a mistake. So uh my number, you know, investing is call or text me. It's 908-377-5953, 908-377-5953. I like to I I do like to help people if there's an intersection where like there could be a business relationship, that's fine. But truly not the reason for it is I'm not you know promoting, hey, I want to look at opportunities. If you help people, things come. You know that, Daryl. You've been doing this long time. And uh what you put out always comes back. There's never uh you never get ripped off. You know, if you're helping people, it eventually comes back to you. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00

Your integrity is solid, Rob. Nobody's questioning that for sure. Uh Camellia says, if you were to talk to a brand new agent, what would you say is the most important thing when starting in real estate?

SPEAKER_01

Um you know, uh find find your Daryl and listen to what he says because um don't reinvent the roadmap. Don't think you're smarter than everybody else. Um there's fundamentals that will get you the outcome that you want, right? And you know, if you have failures along the way, that's part of the process, right? You know, um you have to have you know challenge and controversy to truly grow. All right. And you know, for me, you know, 2008, I never questioned whether this game was for me, whether this business was for me. It was just a different calling for me, and it called called for a pivot. And there will be other things that call for pivots in it. But you can be successful, I I would say this, Daryl, probably 98% of the people could be successful in this business if they just follow the process, right? And they believe in it, and probably have a mentor. And a mentor being somebody who really cares about your outcome, and uh it's not that hard. There might be there might be two percent of the people that are just not made for sales, but it's a very, very small percentage.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome. I I you know I've got to say now Bud Crane is one of our power agents, and uh I'm allowing him to ask a question in the chat versus going into the question panel because he's such a great power agent. And and and the question that he says ask, and but I'm gonna tweak it. Well, he said, will ownership fall in the years or decades to come? And I guess what he means um uh brokers getting out of real estate or owning because of all the consolidation. I'm gonna ask a little different though, is because of all this consolidation that we see, um, big brokers just getting bigger. What would you say to the that that smaller broker, you know, or the or even the middle broker that's got one office with 10, 20 agents or maybe a couple offices? How did they deal? How do they stay relevant when these big box names are, you know, that like I'm sure they feel like the the the store owner uh when Amazon first came into play? Like, how do I keep my client, my customers when I'm competing against that?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean, I think you need that clarity in what your value is, right? And you know, the big stores aren't made for everybody, right? Some people need an office, a boutique, uh, an advocate for themselves, right? And um, you need to embrace who you are and not try to be who you're not. Right? Brilliant. And and the best way to do that is to also maybe network with other people who are similar size to you, whether it's in your market or or in your brand or somebody who you know can share with you so that you're not making the same mistakes.

SPEAKER_02

You know, it's it uh just to highlight what you just said, there is a there's a guy in in my town and he's a paint store. He's just a mom and pop store. They've been there for like 30 years, and they're not going anywhere. They're still have a successful business thriving uh because there is a he knows paint like like like fanatic, like it's just crazy how he's like a scientist when it comes to paint. So people actually look at him as the paint expert, and so people go to him versus going to Home Depot to buy their paint.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I can tell you I'd pay more for that because you go to Home Depot and you have somebody that doesn't know what they're doing, right? They're they're in the yard department before that.

SPEAKER_02

Oh all right, listen, before uh be is there anything? So I think we've got the questions. Is there any pearls of wisdom that I didn't get to with you that you want to share?

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We may have covered everything, so that's it's fine.

SPEAKER_01

So so no, a couple of things I want to share is um when I look at the best in the industry, they're not worried about what the market does. They're worried about what they do. Okay, and it it incredibly frustrates me when somebody says, well, you know, I'm at 250, you know, I hope to go to 300, 350 if the market cooperates. And for me, the market cooperating, you know, I can tell you, I can't tell you how it's gonna change, but I can tell you the market's gonna change. And with every change, there's opportunity. And there are those that focus on the negative, and then there are those that focus on how with the change they can find a way to better service their their tribe. And uh, I never I think it's I think it's pitiful if your income is dependent upon what the market does. And if I offend you, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't be dependent upon what the market does. You should be figuring out um what skills that you can exploit to help sellers and buyers in different markets.

SPEAKER_03

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Right? I mean, you shouldn't you shouldn't like downsize your house and change your lifestyle because the market changes. That's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's it's like um there's the there's the global uh market, global real estate market, there's the United States market, there's the state market, there's the local town market, and then there's the individual agents market, and they make their own market, which is what you're saying. I totally agree with that.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, somebody's gonna have their best year in the down market, and somebody's gonna have an excuse. So who are you? Right?

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Now I do want to do a shout out because I know you have a right hand and left hand person that you just bragged to me about when I saw you last, and and that's Edona. Um could you just t talk a minute about that? Like how is the how is that to have somebody behind you like that?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean it it's necessary to scale. Because you need to find like minded people, right? And even to the point where they're like minded slash complementary skills, right? Because you can't have somebody that's exactly like you. Um and the piece that you really can't you know, it's hard to test for is if they really care, right? And if you care you figure out how to get it done. And you know, if you don't clock out at five o'clock, right? My uh one of my mentors said, you know, you always have to be careful be careful of the five on one employee, right? Like the 501 jeans, 501, they're out the clock.

SPEAKER_02

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01

And whether you're in real estate or any industry, I think it's you know, you you can't, you know, sign out at 501. You have to be there until the job is done. And you know, uh you also have to enjoy the journey and and and have you know satisfaction along the way. And and I know you wouldn't be coaching as long as you are, and you couldn't be as animated and impactful um without having passion for it, right? Because you know that you're trying to make a difference, and that's what puts the extra energy in you know when you're presenting. And you know, I I'm sure you must be exhausted at times with all the animation, but you're just trying to have an impact, right?

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01

You know, like like, you know, when you when you explain, even even when you came, and I've been I've I've heard you speak many, many, many times, but I always take something away from it, you know. Thank you. Like how how you know we connect everybody in the process, right? And the attorney doesn't defend himself, like all those things, just you know, it just reinforced not I would probably say nothing is not that I never heard it before, but I've never heard it put together in that combination. And then it keeps it top of mind.

SPEAKER_02

Well, thank you, thank you. Well, I think uh I think I think what you just acknowledge about me, which is true about you and about any leader, is that um where the when you're so committed about your purpose that you're trying to to do something that's bigger than you and you want to contribute to others, that that takes over you and that sources that passion, that energy that you have. So you're right. When I'm in front of an audience, uh I'm I'm taken over by this commitment to serve, and that's what shows up. So well, listen, this was this was thank you, Rob. This was this was uh you know we're gonna do it this way. I've never done this before. What we're gonna do is we're gonna take this and we're creating a list of rabbisms, these little pearls of wisdoms, and create uh talking points because there were so many in here, which was just awesome.

SPEAKER_01

So I'm I'd I'd I'd love to uh maybe even uh you know take if you ever have a panel of your top people, and you know, if I can you know make a contribution, I'm sure I always learn when I contribute. So it's an open invitation for you.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. I appreciate that, Rob. I'll take you up on it. Um all right, so gang, um, do me a favor before we actually go, can you all in that that little chat area there, you know, where you can talk and stuff, can you just give uh uh uh an expression to to Rob? Yeah, because I didn't pay him for this. So if you can tell him, did you get anything out of this, did you appreciate this? Because uh your comments will go to him. And I I appreciate the hearts and that stuff, but hit the keyboard, write something in the chat, because that's that's that's more, I think, more um impactful.

SPEAKER_01

Well there, how about this? Is is there is there one thing that comes to mind that you can say that you're taking away? Because if somebody takes away one thing that they implement, that would be really powerful.

SPEAKER_02

Hey, all right, so let's do that. Let's take just a minute, gang. What's your aha? What if you were gonna say, here's the one thing that I got out of this, what would you write in the chat right there? So what's the one thing that you uh the nugget that you got? So write that in the chat. While you guys are doing that, I'm gonna ask Rob some some uh rapid fire questions. What's the one early habit that made the biggest difference in your career?

SPEAKER_01

Um so I I guess early early on in my career when I had no business, I ran it by a schedule. You know, so I had it on you know, Sunday afternoons and Mondays, I would call everybody. On Tuesdays, I would follow up with everybody I spoke to in the process. On Wednesdays, I would talk to everybody that was in the process. On Thursdays, I would work on closing con uh clearing conditions and getting people to close, right? And I always looked at it, I never looked at it as I was running out of time. I was always looking at it is you know, when I was uh 21, I had three um I had three um pre-processors or administrative assistants or whatever you'd call them because I ran it like a business.

SPEAKER_02

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01

So that would be the thing that I would say is just you know block the time and do it.

SPEAKER_02

Got it. What's your favorite expression or motto?

SPEAKER_01

Um so my uh I I guess my core belief is if you can, you know, find a way to influence the customer to make the right decision, usually that decision is us and and the process goes better. Right? And it's conversation.

SPEAKER_02

Favorite movie.

SPEAKER_01

Um I'm gonna pass on. I really can't think of one that's that's fine.

SPEAKER_02

That's an honest, that's an honest that doesn't there isn't one. All right, your favorite uh book. Think and grow rich. Why does it why don't people ever say my book, How to Become a Power Agent Real Estate? It really upsets me. All right, uh that's okay. Think or grow rich, fine, whatever. I think I've heard of it. Um, and uh, what's the best thing about being part of the RE-MAX family?

SPEAKER_01

Uh it it's it's um having access to a lot of talented people with diversified skills, and nobody does their business the exact same way. Right and you need to embrace that. Right? Because because I can't be you, Daryl, you can't be me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's that that's very true. That's very true. All right, well, good. This is uh gang. It looks like that um, thank you, Gail. Uh is oh look at that. You see, thank you. At least Gail likes my book. So anyway, uh it seems like we got a lot of great comments, Rob, from the attendees. I want to thank you guys for your participation and hanging in as much as you did. I also want to tell say to you, Rob, any donor, but uh thank you for what you guys do. And uh, but Rob, thank you very much for uh carving out this time and making a difference because um you did. You know, that it's uh sometimes we don't know these pearls of wisdoms that come out of our mouth, how it it it can maybe alter the trajectory of a person's life, and it does happen. So I'm I'm sure you made a huge impact in a bunch of people today. So thanks for doing that. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01

All right, yeah, it's my pleasure, my pleasure. Look forward to uh to chatting again, Daryl. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks, buddy. Bye bye.