Hey guys, welcome back to the Homework Summit Podcast. We're here yet again with Blake
Clark with Limitless Realty. So thanks for joining us Blake. Glad to have you back again.
Yeah, thanks for having me again. It's been I think two or three months I think since
we had you last. Maybe it was even longer but I feel like time has just flown by since
like the new year and so many things have been going on. So what's been up with you?
Same, just selling a lot of houses. How's the market right now man? Depends on who you
ask. I mean there's opportunity everywhere. Ironically I mean the market interest rates
are high. Inventory is piling up but for whatever reason we're having the absolute best year
ever I think as far as sales go. That's solid. We're already over 130 million in sales and
we're not even halfway through the year yet. So I know for us we're actually outpacing
where we were last year in the previous year. So what makes you think like how are you separating
yourself from other real estate agencies? You know especially right now. Yeah I just
had a long conversation today at lunch with a really good friend of mine about this and
I think one of our biggest differentiators is that we focus on quality agents and I know
a lot of people will say that but for us we don't take just anybody in the door. To really
I think excel in my line of business it has to be like in the real estate space. You have
to be a really good problem solver. You have to be a great marketer. You have to be extremely
creative. You have to understand how money works. You know how to move it around. Creative
financing potentially leveraging you know owner carries, wraps things like that. You
know financially doesn't make sense to buy a rate down. That's a big one. You always
hear a lot of agents out there marketing. Oh you could buy your rate down. Buy your
rate down. Not understanding that if you're a business owner you know sometimes buying
the rate down isn't always the best option. You know if you got to put down an extra 60,
70k on some of these properties to buy the interest rate down to maybe save yourself
a thousand bucks a month. You know the thing to question yourself especially with a lot
of my clients I work with a lot of high end business owners and entrepreneurs is could
you take that same 60 to 80k and make more than a thousand dollars a month right. You
are leaving 80, 90k on the table where you could be making five, six thousand a month
extra by deploying that back into your business and maybe you got to pay a thousand a month
more. You're still net positive three to four k more. Most agents don't know how to break
that down or they're not skilled enough to have that conversation because they don't
take the time to educate themselves and learn. So for us one of the things we really do
is we try to create really good problem solvers. We run through a lot of different scenarios.
Every real estate transaction can be from as simple as literally just a normal conventional
closing to an owner carry, do a wrap situation. So that's kind of what's been setting us apart
is you know we find a lot of opportunity in this market especially as overall market conditions
get challenging. What levers can we pull to make it work right. And there's a lot of different
ways, a lot of different angles to look at where I feel like 70 to 80% of this industry
they all look at the cookie cutter stuff. Oh here's this loan. Here's the conforming
loan limits for a conventional or an FHA. Well there's actually 15 other ways you can
structure a deal outside of a traditional conventional loan which most agents don't
take the time to learn. Yeah. So obviously you've been in the real estate industry and
you're a real estate agent for other companies before you guys started droning right. So
what is the so obviously we have a lot of business entrepreneurs people who are starting
companies that listen to this podcast and one of the things I'm curious about is going
from so one the real estate industry is super competitive obviously right. So what was the
biggest difference or I guess transition for you from going to you know from a real estate
agent to a real estate agent that is also now running training and building an actual
business in a brand. I think the biggest difference is I can tell you from myself and a lot of
people I know that are really successful as we grew out of necessity not because we wanted
the title. I never had if you would have asked me 10 years ago were you going to own a real
estate broker's answer would have been absolutely no. If you would have asked me 10 years ago
when I first got into it are you going to have a team the answer would have been no.
If you would have asked me 10 years ago would you even been doing active production. The
answer was no because I got into real estate solely for investment purposes. I lost my
corporate job and I didn't have a 401k anymore and I said well I better start doing something
for retirement and everybody I knew that made a crap ton of money was investing in held
real estate at some form or another. I didn't really even have all the answers I just knew
one way or the other I wanted to be involved in real estate. So I got my license at the
time I was doing freelance marketing for some doctor's offices and a few other people and
then I was also running some online e-commerce stores making money and so I said I need a
place to reinvest this capital that I'm getting let me get my real estate license maybe do
some flips maybe do some rentals which turned into at the time you know a couple of my buddies
were like hey help me buy a house got the deal done you know got really creative with
marketing at that time 10 years ago nobody was really leveraging like Facebook marketing
and ads at the time but because I had a background in e-commerce I jumped right into that it's
a little more competitive now in that space but that's where I kind of got my my teeth
cut on that and so I took off got a lot of you know attraction pretty quickly just by
taking some of the principles I learned from corporate America with marketing consistency
e-commerce marketing but it was never with the intention to sell like literally I didn't
even get my license with the intention to do sales and here we are now you know I've
got almost 70 people working underneath me at you know doing a couple hundred million
dollars in sales a year it was never part of the plan it's just I and I didn't even
to answer your question want a team to have a team I told my wife I actually resisted
having a team I just got so dang busy I had no choice but to start hiring help on yeah
and so I think the biggest misconception I see especially with social media is a lot
of people want the title a lot of people want the CEO label the work for myself yeah all
the all the BS and in reality if you look at the people that are really doing it they're
not really doing it for the title they're doing it because they just grew to that point
they kept their head down and you know same thing to answer your question when I started
the real estate brokerage we had outgrown the previous brokerage that we were at as far
as marketing sales volume you know they had 300 and I think at the time they had 330 agents
I had 10 and 10 of my team was doing almost 28% of that entire company's production out
of 328 and at that point I said okay obviously I'm not in the right environment you know
they weren't really in alignment with you know training social media marketing brand
building collaboration create a financing like our old brokerage was just very cookie cutter
show up do a transaction call me if you need help with some paperwork and I wanted to create
an environment to grow so we actually created my brokerage solely to just move my team under
our own leadership without having to be with a different company which then turned into
a lot of other agents and teams wanting to come work with me so again it was never the
intent was never hey I'm gonna start this big company producing multi millions and sales
it just happened out of necessity as time went on yeah no and I want to dig into this
a little bit more this this is awesome content like a lot of people I feel they're like I'm
like you find someone they're like hey yeah I want I want to be business owners like okay
well what do you want to do well you know I don't know what my passion is right and from
what I'm getting from what you're saying is like hey the real estate part obviously it
just happened it wasn't the passion part right the passion it was so basically it was a stepping
stone for you so I guess I bring you to a question is like if the real estate maybe it's a passion
now maybe it's not but what is the actual passion and behind of what you do on a day-to-day
basis currently the passion is sales is the thing is is you can plug me into any business it
doesn't matter if I was selling cars if I was selling clothing like selling online like I like
the sales process I like the psychology of sales I like helping people I like problem solving
real estate just happened to solve bigger problems for people like a k a putting roofs over their
head yeah deploying capital to purchase and venture investment properties and help people you know
maintain wealth like I've got a handful of clients who I've made well over a couple million dollars
so far in the last four or five years that I single-handedly would find a transaction by the deal
structure it rum a perform a sheet on hey if you do this kind of work on it sit on a for a year or
two your estimated outcome would be this and so for me that's a lot of fun I was just talking
today we had a training with my team and you know I don't focus a lot of people ask me you know I do
a lot of high volume I think this year this month alone I'm almost a little over 13 million and
transactions on my own not including my company yeah I pay zero attention to the output I pay all
the attention to the input how many conversations do I have with people I never track what I have
an escrow at the moment other than just making sure the transactions being serviced I don't count
transactions for the month I pay attention to none of that because if you pay attention to the top
end of your funnel which is acquiring customers making sure you're doing a good job following
through on your commitments the more you do that on the top end by default the bottom is going to
spit out a result for you a k a transactions but so many people look at the other side of it
they pay attention to every month I got to make this sell make this sell make sale well what
activities if you shifted your focus from making the sale to shifted your focus to just doing the
activities to acquire a customer at a high level yeah you're gonna have more activities right making
the calls building the connections having the conversations doing the marketing if you put a
high emphasis and focus on that by default you're gonna have a really big pipeline on the bottom
but so many people look at their sales funnels a straw what goes in the top they want to come
out the bottom no just focus as much as you can stuff it in the top and then this is a fine balance
too because one of the lessons I learned is you can grow too fast and then your quality really
starts to suck right if you don't put the systems and processes in place I've had this happen where
I had so many transactions going that I couldn't keep up with the paperwork I couldn't keep up with
the follow-up calls I was having to miss appointments because I was over here and you know there's a
point where it's it's a fine dance right you don't want to perfect the process so much that
you're second guessing everything and you're not continuing to grow and you know not taking on more
at a responsible rate but then the other half of that is you're growing so fast the quality starts
to suffer now you pay less attention to the systems and the processes and then you start pissing off
all your customers and get a bad reputation so it's a fine dance along the way if you do it right
wait though it'll work guys let me just stop for a second this is a second time that we've had him
and every time so first of all every time you open your mouth there's gold that comes out like
literally money those are gold nuggets guys okay like pay attention to it it is key 100%
the other part of this is you know when you are actually building your company and you're going
through those moments like hey you grew too fast right so like let's focus on that for a second I
want to tackle that the mistakes of hey you took on too much and now your quality is slipping right
and you're letting down clients or you're possibly ruining potential relationships that are going to
bring you more value and more money into your company how do you handle that if you're in that
position or how did you handle that as you actually started to go through and realize you're having
that issue I think you have to just be aware is number one like you a lot of people try to not
be aware until they're forced to be aware right you always ask people like oh my health I ended up
in the hospital with a heart attack and if they would have paid attention a long time you probably
would have saw it if you were paying attention to your health and doing your blood work you wouldn't
be caught off guard that you had a heart attack two years later right if you're all of a sudden go
bankrupt and you're like well if I was doing a little bit of self-auditing and paying attention
to my finances and making sure I had some cushion if you're doing these healthy checkups along the
way in any area of life sometimes you can prevent these things from happening right but us as business
owners what happened we're so focused on growing and growing and growing and you finally get a
little wind in your sales and you know we have a hard time saying no that's the problem as an
entrepreneur you start to say you should say no to some things you know there's some some clients
some projects that just do not make sense for what my business is and sometimes we make the
mistake of trying to fit everything into our business or some clientele some some projects
just don't make sense right so for example what that looks like with me is I started working with
a lot of really high-end luxury clients those are just deals that I personally can't just hand off
with right that relationship is very near and dear to me and usually in a lot of those relationships
come from very close friendships and there was other transactions where I would get a random
40k piece of land out in E.L.A. Arizona right and if you don't treat those a little bit differently
or you don't you don't deploy leverage to help out with that you're like okay I'll personally
drive out to this 40k piece of land to take care of this thing that's not really that important
even to that seller it's not that important they're just sitting on it but you're treating it the same
as a four million dollar piece of property you know because you're just taking everything without
delegating eventually yeah you're gonna have freaking problems you know what I mean and so for me
it's had to I've had to really sit down and say okay the game that I'm trying to play is how much
money do I make per hour right now and this is this this will be a good algorithm for you to
or you know formula I should say for you to put into but one of the things that one of my business
coaches taught me a long time ago was you know how much money do you make this year and we'll do
and he's like how many hours a week do you work as us as entrepreneurs we very well lose sight of
how much we make per hour yeah we lose that hourly job and we get paid by the job right great I made
20 grand this job did you really make 20 how many hours did it take you did it take you four months
divided you know you get my point so one thing I had to really start being aware of was as I
continued to grow I had to really pay attention to where my focus goes and then it's like okay how
do I decide where my focus goes and a good formula for me was you know you make this much per hour
okay now moving forward you really don't do anything that you can pay somebody to do at a
very high incompetent level below that hour right so for example this is a $10 an hour task
and you're a $500 an hour employee stop doing your $10 an hour task yeah don't touch anything that's
under $400 an hour that you can deploy because the other part of this is there's people that are
out there that are way better at things than you are you know for example me I hate doing paperwork
I hate doing organization I'm great at the sales I'm great at the marketing I'm great at the
creative structuring of deals but my transaction coordinator and assistant is 10 times better at
organization she's way faster at paperwork getting it done so by me deploying her working with me
now she just took off close to 30 something hours a week off my plate doing something that I absolutely
hate doing and now I can redeploy those 30 hours into keeping my relationships going quality going
making sure my work's going good and then now what I would have done subpar anyways because
I'm not that good at it she's doing at a high level and I'm doing what I'm doing at a high
level and the business continues to grow now delegation at its finest 100% so let me ask
you as you as you start hiring these people right so you start bringing these people you start
delegating you get rid of those $10 an hour tasks which is key we actually just started doing that
I think back in January we actually started really separating that and same thing a lot of time off
my plate all that fun stuff but I think one of the the questions that I'm speaking for so many people
is when you start bringing these people on the trust factor letting go of that rod being able to
trust that this person can handle this the same way that you're going to people can't do that and
that holds back so a lot of businesses from what I see they start hiring these people but then they
don't give that full trust they don't pass a baton and then they end up hurting themselves even more
because now they have all this rev it or this overhead they're paying for and they're not even
getting the full you know the full bang for the buck what advice you have for that yeah so training
is obviously super important on that one of the things that we started doing was building out we
have an entire checklist for an agent now so we sat down and we said what is every single aspect of
this job that somebody needs to know what's every every aspect top to bottom literally from opening
the friggin door to you know full on you know five-star closing package whatever that may be what
do they need to be trained on and then one by one we go through and make sure they're competently
trained on that we start at the bottom and just work our way up whether I'm training them on
certain things or my office manager is training on them we have to individually sign off and make
sure they're competently trained on that number two one thing you got to understand as a business
owner is that nobody's going to do things a hundred percent the same exact way you do you better
understand that you're going to have things operating at about 80 percent you're just going
to lose some efficiency you're going to lose a little bit of quality in the first one somebody
comes on because nobody's going to do it like you right that'd be the expectation of me sending
somebody how am I going to hire you brand new I expect you to go out and do this exactly the
way that I do some things what you can do is hire somebody that's a master in certain areas right
that's there's going to be people that are for example a better graphic designer than I am by
default I would hope that that position comes in and does better than I do a graphic design because
I suck yeah but in some ways if you're trying to replicate yourself you're like hey this is the way
I would want this job done this is the decision that I make understand that that's probably only
going to be done at an 80% competency and they're going to have to shadow you and work with you and
really pick up on a lot of the ways that you do things and you're going to have to kind of critique
that that's going to be about a six month window to get them up to speed right and then it's just
constant feedback and then the other part of it is the traditional you know higher slow fire fast
we've had to learn that the hard way where you know I bring people in for the sake of bringing
them in or the first person that seems eager right but now as time goes on it that person ends up
costing me way more money by the time I keep you around I pay you a paycheck for three months you
do a job you you know you fuck up you piss this person off and that cost me another 10 grand you
actually put me in a negative yeah so us again as entrepreneurs don't always pay attention to that
sometimes that's a lesson you got to learn but that happens enough and you realize it's better
just to take your time interview multiple people you know really higher slow that's what it is and
then you know give them the opportunity if they're slipping up give them the opportunity you know
hey where did you mess up see if they could even identify I'm a huge fan of letting people problem
solve themselves with a little bit of feedback from me where'd you mess up what could you have
done better it's how they learn how would you handle this better right and that's okay they're
going to make mistakes people screw up all the time and they come to me and they say hey I made
a mistake and they own it and it gets better I'm good with that yeah you know I make where they
continue to make mistakes and don't own it and continue and continue okay this probably isn't
the place for you there's a door because you're obviously just not going to learn that lesson
you know when when do you or how do you come to the conclusion that like okay say this person is
messing up time and time again so they screwed up the same thing three times again three times over
yep how do you come to conclusion that it's the actual person that is the problem or maybe it's a
leadership issue like not proper training or you know well I think it comes down to like asking
yourself that question like were they properly trained right like you have to look at I tend to
look at problems these days and if you kind of imagine and this is something that any this can
work really in any business but if you kind of imagine this problem and you just put it in your
hand and one of the things that helped me from leadership is we're I always ask myself like
what the fuck are they thinking are they an idiot right because you try to see things you think
that everybody should see things you're away yeah yeah but the reality of it is is it doesn't mean
that they're bad they just see things a different way right we're all we're all human we all see
things different way our perceptions are different the way we were raised was different our exposure
to stress is different some people have a you know can react a certain way and some can't you know so
oftentimes from a leadership perspective if you assume that people should act a certain way and
they don't you're kind of at fault too right yeah really one of my favorite things to do is just
kind of ask them questions so why did you make that decision what did you think the outcomes
we're going to be and then ultimately I'll take that problem whether it's the person or the problem
they're trying to solve and I always tend to if I have something on my mind look at it in my hand
and imagine I'm just turning it around and looking at it from like five or six different angles and
trying to come up with five or six different solutions so really what I try to do now with
coaching and training and this is the hard part because this is the part like you're saying when
do you make the decision to let them go you have to have that on as conversation with yourself of
did I train them to be an effective problem solver and did I take the accountability to make sure
that they were properly trained right because if they made a mistake for example in my line of
business they made a mistake on paperwork maybe they forgot to when they wrote an offer on a property
the buyer was like I want all the appliances included in this which is not a default thing
in the purchase agreement so they should have went in we want this we want this appliance we want
to leave the playground in the backyard my agent didn't do that comes time to close and the buyers
were like oh we wanted all these things and the agents like oh I forgot to do that now I can be
really pissed off about that or I can say well did I train them did I effectively train them on
having maybe a checklist on should we ask for this should we ask for this if the answer is yes
and I trained them and they've made multiple mistakes on that they're probably just not going
to learn right right but I always try to work myself down where if somebody's made a mistake
in my in my company in my business I always try to take accountability from me first it always
falls on me did I train them can I confidently say I went over this with them or somebody in my
office has gone over this with them was the answers available to them because of course we can't train
them on everything in every scenario but have we created an environment where the answers are there
so you know one of the things we do with our company is everybody in my company is on a group
chat everybody so I tell them hey if I'm not available and you have a question put it in there
because you're going to get three other brokers that are in there and you're going to get 60 other
agents that are more experienced in you put that question in there if you're even slightly bit of
unsure so that way they can lean on a few other people you know before they make a decision even
if I'm not available so I look at it as did I give them all the resources do they have access to the
answers before they made this mistake and all of that if the answer is yes I did yes I gave them
the resources yes I trained them yes I coached them yes I've been a little lenient with them and
they're still making the same mistakes at that point it's probably time to go so so let me ask you so
in my title and this is more of a question for me so my in my line of work I have a lot of different
companies that we work with right because we're a contractor so there's a lot of sub companies and
that relationship is kind of similar to an employee in a way because the goal is to build
a relationship with these companies and to have them be that person for x amount of jobs for forever
right we want that relationship so what would be so like if we if I have a subcontractor who
you know messes up and I or their people mess up right and it doesn't so much say anything about
them they fix it but it happens again and I can't control that leadership what would be the best way
to go about main keeping that relationship but trying to help them grow without overstepping
you know maybe like the business owner for example like his toes and how he runs his business because
I actually run to that quite often well unfortunately it does come down to that business
owner you know what I mean because they work for that business owner so you know obviously you don't
want to go over him and go directly to his people unless he's giving you option to do that maybe
that's a conversation you have hey on this project do you mind if I do communicate with your trades
on some of this stuff do you guys have questions you know but maybe you know same conversation
with that business owner you know bring it awareness hey you guys slipped up here this is
twice now you know I just want to make sure that you know we're we're on the same page with this
stuff and again what I have found with a lot of people it's just lack of communication right yeah
but 5 10 20 30 thousand dollar problem could have solved it's sad but could have been solved the text
message or phone call sometimes you know what I mean it's so true so true we oftentimes get really it
goes right back to you know we oftentimes get fed up with other people without taking personal
accountability on ourself you know what I mean so a lot of what I it's just called like extreme
ownership right I used to get very pissed off especially in my line of work is things are
going to happen all the time things are going to go wrong and I'm like idiot idiot idiot I'm
surrounded by idiots instead it's why don't I talk about what could I be doing a little bit better
you know what I mean and so I always make sure that they know that they should come to me if they
got questions if you have a question if you're even slightly unsure just ask let's do whatever we
can to prevent this situation you know and if you make a mistake just friggin own it make it right
you know what I mean and let's let's do it again and again you know you'll start to see patterns
I think if people are making the mistakes so you're doing everything you can to create that
open channel of communication probably just not a good partnership some people just don't get it
I'll tell you there's been tons I can name on you know multiple people that I've seen so much
potential and I'm like you just you just don't get it yeah you just don't care to get better you
know and I can't help you if you don't care to get better either exactly so a quick question
something that popped into my mind a few minutes ago 72 sold I think is a real estate company right
so I see companies like that that are like hey sell your home in 72 hours whatever the case is and
then there's companies that don't use our marketing tactic and I don't know if that's a real thing
like they actually sell your home in 72 hours but what matters them what should a business owner take
more like what should be more important the quality or the efficiency and time I don't think
there's a right or wrong answer I think that they're like here's the thing every marketplace
has a need for everything there's a Walmart there's a Kmart there's a target yeah you know they all
sell the same shit Kmart's out of business Walmart's still here but they're the cheaper right they don't
I think when you go to Walmart and you go to buy something you're not really expecting to pay for
high quality yeah I don't buy fruit from Walmart right you see what I'm saying but it and does that
mean that Walmart's wrong no it's just there's shopping there's a certain consumer that is very
price conscious right that's that's what they care about I'm very price conscious and then you have
other products that they're very much a quality focus right I'll pay a little bit more if the
quality is good I expect a higher quality or expect a higher service it's the same difference between
there's a reason that wall you know McDonald's exists around every freaking corner you're not
going to go to McDonald's and take a date there and expect a five-star dining experience you know
they mean you're going for the cheapest burger through a friggin drive-through but if you say hey
I want a really high quality you're going to go pay more to go to a steakhouse so businesses have to
get in the mindset of understanding it's okay right so to answer your question the 72 sold it's
a volume-based business personally it's more of a bait and switch which I don't necessarily agree
with the way that that originated was back in 2020 when the market was was super hot interest
rates are low and houses were just flying off the market yeah everybody was a 72 sold shit I was a
24 sold my shit was selling 24 hours gone you know what I mean so unfortunately that's that's what
that means 72 hours sold we'll have your house sold in three days why everybody's was selling in
three days they would they would purposefully in most cases price a home and coming soon very low
but like I'm talking 100,000 under market value to look like an absolute steal get a bunch of frenzy
and interest on it and then right before they listed on the market put it back to market value but
now you've got so many people emotionally connected to it they already they've already made it in
their mind they want it's a hundred grand less and they're like that was a hundred grand 100 grand
still a good deal that's actually I want this house right so yeah that's kind of the marketing
ploy and you're always going to see that and I've been in this business there's been offer pad right
offer pad same thing 2017 offer pad came out and I remember everybody was freaking out they're like
we're going to lose our friggin ass this company's paying cash for houses and offer pad makes it seem
that way oh we'll give you fair market but if you look at the old bait and switch behind an offer
pad offer if you really for those of you guys that have ever got an offer from offer pad let's
let's just take our common sense hat and let's put it on they're a business how would they make
money if they're paying you full retail value cash for a house and then have to put it back on the
property and sell it they're not a charity they don't do those things for free right what they do
is they tell you here's the price oh by the way we have a 20 convenience fee that we have oh by the
way we also have an 11 percent built in for the repairs that we oh by the way we also have a 3%
built in for your agent fee oh and also by the way we also have a 1.5 percent built in title fee
so yes we're giving you market value and then you subtract the 30 percent in fees that they don't
because they don't say hey we're going to give you a full cash value plus 30 fees they just it's
the bait and switch right and so with that being said there's still room for that from a consumer
there is that person that's like I don't want to deal with this I only paid 150k for my house
it's worth 400 but man I'll even take 300 right now and I'll have to deal with that's
still 150k profit for me sure does that work for the consumer so what I did I I used to you know
and remember in 2017 when these guys came out everybody's freaking out all these agents we're
gonna lose money these guys are paying cash I said okay let me look at their business model I do that
for every company let me look at their business every business has its pros and its cons right so
all right well how do I compete with these guys where a lot of agents used to get frustrated I just
went and found some cash investors and I said hey am I listing appointments clearly there's people
out there that want a cash offer they're willing to sell it under market value so if I can bring
you a deal that's like 80 percent of market would you buy it and investors like hell yeah I'll buy
something at 20 discount cool sounds good so I go into my listing appointments easy now I can offer
a menu hey here's your full market value price this is what you would be looking like if we sold
it as a cash offer but on market MLS just as is and by the way if you want a cash offer now
it is 20 percent on a market value but that's it no fees or anything I would just build my fee in
with my cash fire I'd say hey just give me a finder's fee or I'll tack it in the closing table
and I can get you a cash offer now too boom problem solved that fast where so many agents freaked out
thought they were going out of business I just did the same thing that they did you know hey if the
consumer wants it I'll get it I'll offer it for you so I think the problem is is just like the 72
solds and there's other companies out there there's always going to be the bait and switch those are
the people that in in my opinion they don't see value in what they do if your value is on the
cheapest you don't ever hear the people say I'm the highest quality but I'm also the cheapest
it's just those two things don't typically go together is there people that care about
paying the cheapest sure absolutely don't expect quality and they're okay with that that's what they
signed up for yeah but also you know if you're going for somebody who cares about quality like
I'm a quality guy right when I go buy a new car I'm not going up and picking myself up a Prius
I'll pay way more I want a nice car that's because I'm a car guy you know what I mean what's your
most recent purchase uh just bought a well I bought a couple but I just got a 70 Chevelle SS
guys if you could see this you know what Kyle we might need to make this the actual cover photo
is that that car for this man it's it is amazing an amazing car and we can talk about cars for
three hours yeah yeah so uh yeah I just bought that I was looking for it for a couple years I've
already got a 71 Chevelle I'm building um but I kind of just wanted that iconic like American
muscle like how it rolled off the show floor so it's been fully restored it's basically a blast
from the past you just sit in the driver's seat and you feel like you're sitting in 1970 so I love
about it smells like 1970 smells like raw gas sounds like 1970 windows don't seal up like a new car
that's the best some of the best things to drive in my opinion because it just takes you back in
time when things were simpler you know that's amazing well let me ask you this because now
we're talking about cars and we're kind of getting into hey like a personal passion right it's a hobby
and it's an expensive hobby let's be realistic here it's better than being on drugs but yeah
so let me ask you there's a um one of the lessons I've learned is something I've been asked recently
is like hey man like I feel like my business is is doing great and I'm like okay fantastic let's
see the numbers oh dude yeah it's growing it's doing great how are you uh financially in your
personal life oh I don't keep track of anything I've I've ran into a lot of that and I used to do
that too how important is it for you like you need to know your numbers you need to know your goals
and business which obviously you do yeah how important is it to be financially conscious
personally even if you have a successful business I think this varies from person to person I'll tell
you like I'm not one of those people it's just going to tell you to be frugal because I I believe
you you kind of have to touch the things in life that you want like you know for me personally like
cars have always been that thing I grew up with like nothing like super poor didn't have any money
we were you know homeless for a very small amount of time when I was a kid and grew up in a trailer
and my first uh truck that ever bought myself I think I paid 500 bucks for it as an 86 Toyota
no air conditioning no nothing in it you know I'm just primered up
POS and I love that thing you know and so um I'm very goal driven and and again this is all
personal preference I know people that give two flying crafts about cars you know I know people
that they're obsessed with them right and so for me cars is just my thing that's what I'm into I
don't really vacation I don't love my wife loves more of that but I don't but for me it's been
it's been it's the things that push me it's a tangible goal right so for example I remember the
very first uh I didn't buy my first truck so I was making pretty good money I was making probably two
at the time two to three hundred K a year and I still didn't buy my very first truck till I was
29 years old like brand new like I'm talking zero miles went to the dealership got a new pickup
truck till I was 29 years old and I could have afforded that obviously by the time I was like
25 but I did delay gratification because I put a lot of money back into my business and and I had
I like to take older cars and make them nice anyway so even I've driven older cars I've always made
them cool in some way um but I just was at verse and part of that was my growing up too right it's
the things that keep you freaking poor you grow up poor and you grow up with a poor mindset
broke mentality yeah broke mentality like my parents were you know very poor all the time and
always in debt and they always talked about don't leverage and pay cash for your house and stuff and
then you look at the wealthy people and they're like no you leverage everything you know what
they mean and I'm like what do you mean by that and they're like well like think about it you pay
cash for a house for let's just call it 500 grand your mortgage payment on 500 grand would be I don't
know three grand a month ish to pay on interest rates roughly or and so some people like I'm
gonna save up 500 grand pay cash for a house let's just assume for a sake to save myself $2,800 a month
well the wealthy will tell you but if you take that same 500 grand you could put that in a high
investment savings account and get almost that back in interest per month yeah you know you can
leverage it for yourself yeah you know or you can take that go start a business go start a company
you know take that same amount go buy two properties and flip them and make a couple hundred
grand in a year or two you know so like how do you make use your money to make more money you know
so for me I've always I've never especially now and I'm not saying go out and buy something but
I'm a huge fan of like rewarding yourself because why else do you freaking work so hard like I never
understood these people that work 40 years and have nothing to show for it in their their humble
brag is I've got money sitting in the bank so what you do nothing with it yeah same thing with people
like oh my house is paying off great you got a house that's worth 500k and you you save $2,000 a month
and like it's doing nothing for you you're not leveraging it you're not getting to experience
life at the fullest you don't get to take vacations you're not like for me I want to drive around a
nice car work my ass off all day I want to drive a nice vehicle like I don't want to punish myself
yeah you know and again if you're one of those people that don't care about that or you don't
care about having a nice house don't do it but I think it's okay to lean into your passions and
just own it right hey I love to travel I want flexibility create a life and build a life that
lets you financially afford how to travel and have the systems in place and you say hey I want to have
really nice cars that's okay go buy yourself a nice freaking car work hard right because I can
tell you like I'm inspired by driving nice cars I get to drive it it's a great reward okay I work
hard now I get to go hang out and drive cool cars or have a cool collection of them and stuff like
that it's it's an extreme balance for me yeah it makes me happy so well it's kind of like on the
last podcast we did together we kind of talked about like the outside world and the judgments
that people get like when people are actually starting to make money like some people it's hard
I don't want to go buy Lamborghini because you know people like everybody's like whoa like look at
this douchebag you know what I mean all that kind of stuff and you got it you got to turn that off
because at the end of the day that's going to keep you from enjoying the fruits of your labor you
know what I mean it's okay to be in the 1% if you care what 99% think exactly exactly yeah have you
always been like that were you always able to not care what people thought yeah I don't give a fuck
I just don't like I you know it's funny because growing up we are taught when I say we like society
as a whole but I know especially me was like wealthy people are bad they're assholes they step on
people they take from people yeah some of the best people I know are the wealthy people these days
they are the people that help the most they're the people that if somebody was literally their
house burned down they'd stroke a check for the family and say don't even worry about paying me back
it's it's just and then you start it starts to click you're like okay wait a minute and they're not
the ones that are sitting around talking crap about people they just don't care you know and as time
has gone on and I hung around these people I just started really to connect the dots and stuff like
that and then one of the biggest like the the litmus test for life right now right is if you get
offended by somebody so for example you're like I'll go out and buy myself a nice Lamborghini
you post a picture of it online and somebody's like oh you arrogant asshole and then you go click
on their facebook profile and they're like driving a shit bucket around living a house and then you
just ask yourself the question would I trade places with this person no why do I care what they think
like I'll only take opinions from people that I actually respect or like maybe they're living a
life that I personally would want to live you know what I mean and that's in in different areas too
though like I know people that financially I would 100 take advice from so if I make a mistake
financially I would I would listen to them but it doesn't mean I would listen to them and maybe
relationship advice or I would listen to them right right fashion whatever you know so what I
what I have found for me that works really well is is number one just understand not everybody's
gonna be on the same path right as much as people love to say it's bad to want to make money and
listen I'll tell you if I came into your house right now at the suitcase a million dollars set it
on your desk you're gonna tell me you're gonna hand it back to me and say no if I said it's
yours free and clear okay you know the thing with money too what I can tell you is it creates
opportunity this is the thing that people don't understand is that it takes pressure off it shouldn't
be everything I can tell you somebody who's had a lot of stuff I've almost burned my world down a
few times by being so focused on it right and as time comes on and maturity comes you're like
wait a minute okay it's not really the money thing it's the opportunity thing right it gets me into
rooms to hang out with people that I just genuinely want to be around that are gonna make me a better
person it gets me driving my kids to school in a really cool car just because it feels good
instead of driving them in an old beat-up Chevy with no windows in it you know just yeah because
I'm choosing not to do it you know and so I think that that's like that's been the thing for me is
just the world is like super judgmental it's crazy you just post on the internet on social media
well it's just it's just a lot of people I think a lot of people convince themselves that being
mediocre on average is like some noble thing and it's not you know and it's because it's a self
projection thing because they haven't done the work to just say it could be better the time it
takes you to sit down and get out your keyboard and talk shit on somebody if you're doing something
nice you can get that same keyboard out go to google and say how can I self improve in this area
yeah how what kind of book can I go read that's going to elevate my mind say the same keyboard
you got out to blast this person for going on a vacation with their family that you think was stupid
to wave money on you could have shot a text message of somebody that's financially doing well and said
hey anyway I could just come by and be around you and learn something from you today and improve
your life you know and so you just have to understand like you can't carry the weight of the world
on your shoulders with that you know and I would just say you know focus on taking opinions from
people you highly respect at a certain area of life and also understand it may not align on the
same things that's in I know people that are absolutely amazing from like friendship and
relationship wise I would go to them for advice on friendship and money not so much I'm like yeah
you're not driving the cars I want stuff so I'd financially I probably wouldn't take that advice
but then you look at it as you have counsel now and so I call like I always say I'd like I have a
counsel I've got a couple guys I go to for financial advice I got a couple guys I go to and
I need to get my mind right and I'm like you know struggling mentally I've got two guys I can call
for that and I've got a couple guys I can call when it comes to you know like relationship advice
like honest opinions and stuff and now you have this whole council behind you yeah to take leadership
from that's amazing in certain areas of life and then you shut everybody else out and you'll find
that you're fast traveling that way that's actually that's actually a smart way to think about it to
kind of build that council yeah well and we live in in such especially entrepreneurship it's such a
high pressure environment you have to have those ways of being able to get advice because a lot
of times too it's like if you're a business owner and you need help with something you can't go to
your employees they're looking at you as a leader like you can't be this guy that's having problems
so it's like well then who do you go to yep no you have your marriage yes but then I don't know
for me like there's certain things like okay I need a relatable yeah it's just you can't relate to
it so what obviously so we're talking about the council is there what do you do personally on like
in when you're under a lot of pressure and it's just one of those days like how do you relieve that
pressure shut the world out just ignore everybody just go on and close the door yeah like I'm I'm
definitely an introvert which a lot of people find interesting because I like like I'm an
extra I'm great with people and stuff like that but I definitely love being alone I like it all the
time I like going home and just being by myself I could literally be out on my boat and not talk
to anybody for like three days and I'd be okay with that yeah you know just because in my line of
work I'm not talking to people all the time I'm always doing stuff I'm like social media getting
just a lot of questions and comments and DMs and clients to follow up with and then 70 people you
know you got to help solve their problems of the world so for me like when I find I'm super
stressed out I just go to myself you know and usually I find that just doing something I enjoy
whether that be out driving my cars or you know just even doing your artwork and stuff like that
but shutting off the phone for a friggin day and detaching from it or again if it's something that
I'm struggling with personally it could be you know work related I'll go to one of those people
that I see you can just have a conversation sometimes you just have a conversation about it
like hey I don't really need anything I just need a vent yeah I just need a vent like can I
bounce some ideas off you and just having that 20 or 30 minute conversation with somebody
that I respect just reframes the whole thing and then I bounce back pretty fast you know
try not to carry that weight as long as I don't have to yeah that's great advice
that's not out of time you're good brother how'd you do that
I'm a wizard okay yeah we just have to stop at 30 minutes this is the first one I'm like I just
thought about like oh crap do we just lose a ton of content because you forgot to hit record again
no that's good okay cool well no I mean at the end of the day this this is all so essential I mean I
for me you know there's been some times I mean talking about like just talking to people there's
been some times I text you man like hey how do you know how you deal with this and I think that's
really important to also know like hey it's okay to need to get help it's okay to ask questions
it's okay to be vulnerable in certain aspects so that you can grow you can learn and I think the
biggest point you made was that you're not going to people who are down here to get these
advices in these areas right a lot of people that I've listened to a lot of coaches I've
just included you it's like hey you need to be if you're trying to learn how to run a $10
million business you need to be talking to people who have a $10 million business but once you get
there and you're trying to get to 20 you're no longer needed to talk to these people you then
need to go talk to those people so as I mean obviously they talk I know Andy for sell out
we're drinking first four black he's talked about like the no men's land you know it's like you go
through so many different people as you grow and grow and grow because of that whole point it doesn't
mean you have to like separate yourself from them but at the end of the day you got to keep your
mind focused on where you're going and you got to associate with those type of people yes exactly
yeah a lot of people assume that you're going to be the same person when you start and you're just
not you know like the present the things you deal with when you're starting out by yourself day one
to who you're going to become at 20 employees 70 employees 100 employees you know to
five million a year in sales to 50 million to 100 million to 300 million a year in sales
it's it's gonna change who you are as a person right some ways good some ways bad too you know
what I mean and one of the biggest things I struggled with was you're gonna lose friends
which a lot of people have a hard time with I could tell you out of everybody I knew from day one
and it's not like I left them intentionally where I was like hey I don't want to be your friend anymore
yeah just doesn't happen right commonalities begin to change right so what I mean by that is is and I
struggle with this like my wife had a really hard time with this like a great example of it would be
we would go hang out with friends like some of her friends from like wherever right I'm very like
business minded focus business growth like or you're two three into the business and I would just
get bored and it's not anything of their fault right just my mind is only on this so if anything
I'll just take accountability is my fault but we would go sit and I would just be bored out of my
mind they're just talking about like oh I just do the football game and I'm like I don't give two
shits about any of this right go put me at the table with the dude that's you know can help me get
to that next level because I feel more in depth and inspired by those conversations yep so by
default and then you know it's it's a hard conversation because you're hanging out with
certain people and I remember I went through this like my first two or three years in business
where I started doing okay I went from you know making whatever 50 grand a year to hitting 250
300 grand a year and you're just sitting there having a conversation with people that have a not
that there's anything wrong with this but just that job making 30 40 50k a year right been in my
company for 10 years just got my you know two dollar an hour raise and you're over here like
yeah I just bought my hundred thousand dollar truck and my business just hit this much and they're
looking at you like holy shit you know and you're like and there was a point in my time where I
thought that was cool like there was a very small window like six months to like one year where I was
like oh this is cool I got the nicest car out of my friends I got the baddest house out of my
friends you know it was very ego driven to after a while it got to be almost like a little embarrassing
like I bought my first Lambo and nobody knew I owned that thing for two months yeah I went and
show a picture of it sat in my freaking garage I take it out on a Sunday to make sure nobody saw
me in the damn thing it looked yeah yeah because I was like I don't want anybody knowing I have I
don't want to piss anybody off I don't want my friends to think I'm like this arrogant dude yeah
it just felt weird dude you're driving like a 200 something thousand dollar car and you know they're
over there driving another 30k at the moment and again there's not that there's anything wrong with
this this is just where I'm talking about where the it's just these small degrees of differentiation
starts freaking happening and over time that just starts to break away you know and and you're just
like yeah I'm not really getting much from this anymore like the conversations that we have are
just not in alignment you know they're they're talking about the game on a Sunday and I'm talking
about this is where we're going in year month two or three or oh shit I just lost these employees
like how do I got to figure this out you know so like the conversations are different the commonalities
are different you just really start and then that just gets bigger and bigger and bigger as time goes
on the degree starts the longer you try to fight that like a magnet like you're trying to hold that
together the less you're gonna grow yeah where I really broke free was I was like okay I had this
conversation I think it's like 2019 that I made it a goal instead I have to be the brokeest dude
in the table when I go hang out with my friends and I still that's a great goal still to this day
I want to be the brokeest guy at the friggin table how many people 80% of the place you know
of the society today when you talk to them say I need to be the brokeest guy here it's always the
other way around they always gotta be the biggest dick swinger in the conversation you know but me
being the brokeest dude in the conversation like dude I got nowhere to the amount of when you're
the little guy in the totem pole sitting at a table you're like holy crap like they solve like
I made a post about it the other day of you know some of the people that you're around you know
you sit around and cry about stuff that takes you three months to figure out because you're just
thinking and wishing wash it and some of these guys solve these problems in five minutes yeah
it's nothing you're stuck you're stuck on this 20k problem bro like really like go do this move
on here like okay like and so that's where my biggest growth has been is just being because
your mind expands so much right you go from thinking man half a million dollars in here would be so
life-changing to me and some of these guys are like I make this in like a month yeah like bro
you're thinking way too small and then you hang around these guys and you're like damn they make
it look so friggin easy and then it just it just expands even without them you've been saying a world
dude you just you just hang around them you see the way they operate you see the way they decision
make you just you see what they say no to like like no no the answer is no I'm over here and you're
like okay and you just you study right you're just a student being around these people you will by
default elevate that's the biggest hack that people miss out on in life and they do it to themselves
they look at everybody's competition I don't want to be around that guy he makes way more than me
yeah that's the dude you need to be around you think about that how is that going to hinder you
are you going to be more poor hanging around the dude that's making 10 times more no you're going to
tell me you're going to tell me hanging out with him for let's just say a week you wouldn't learn one
thing in your life to just think a little differently yeah you're going to tell me being around
that guy it wouldn't turn your temperature up five more degrees to go a little harder yeah to make a
little more to aspire a little bit more like and dude this is where like I said 80 90 percent of
the society they don't think that way yeah everybody's a competition oh they're not dude go hang around
a dude that's making 10 times you he don't you're not even on his radar yeah he doesn't care well
you know what's interesting is like talking about this you know I'm just sitting here I'm like you
know I think about a month and a half ago we ended up not we ended up letting go of this project
but I had I had a goal to sign a million dollar plus contract and construction and I had signed a
two million dollar construction contract and I know you know this because I told you but a week
before I told you I like our team knew and stuff my wife knew but like I just wanted to share this
goal with people and I could I'm not gonna go post on social media because like you know of that kind
of embarrassment that you're talking about and so I call a friend who's doing who's in business and
doing some of what we're doing and I tell him and he was like oh dude that's that's great you know
I was like oh I probably shouldn't have told you and then I call you and you're like dude that's
that's awesome and it's like you also get like when you're around those people are doing more like
the difference in them celebrating your wins is so huge the difference is so huge versus even people
at your level you just feel that jealousy almost it's so interesting and so anyways yeah I just
brought that up how how crazy true that really is yeah yeah we get a real estate my space is
really weird about that you get people that are agents and they all think they're competing with
each other and then you get an agent who has like two or three sales a month and they're like
they like get really weird about trying to compete me I'm like you're not even on my level
dude no offense but like dude we're not even in the same arena right now I've got you know so many
other things going on behind the scenes and businesses I run that just my traditional sales
are very front end of it you know trust me you're not competition right and I share I mean everybody
sees on social media I literally there's no I don't have some secret playbook every day this is how
I do it this is what I do I get up every day at this time I do this this is what my daily routine is
yeah to like 2am literally people can follow me around I'm like in my office I'm working you know
taking my like there's no secret I don't disappear for three hours a day and do my magic stuff every
day and pull these deals out like I put it out there wide in the open I don't you see a lot of
these people that are afraid to share I'll share it all 100% because the only thing you the only
opportunity you're gonna have to match me is to just have my work ethic yeah show up put put in the
work the same way I do and most people can't do that you know you see some people like you know
put three three in the morning yeah oh absolutely not okay cool I got three hours a day on you I
beat you every day by two hours and while you're sleeping in bed I'm up and they're like yeah but
I could just sleep for next two hours two hours a day times 12 months out of the year that gives me
30 more days if you do the math just two hours a day meet me next month extra month so imagine how
much more I get done a month than you do at the end of the year just by every day chipping away
two hours more than you but you're telling me you don't want to do that that's why I'm not like
there is no competition yeah most people won't friggin outwork you know and so but I enjoy it I
like I like doing it and I think that's the secret with a lot of people's they people that they think
are competition nobody's competition there's no secret we know it's interesting like in the in
the business space there's a lot like I just went to a conference up in Minnesota with some really
high end builders and I'm looking and I'm not not not trying to judge or anything but you got the
people who are fit and then you got the people who aren't and it's really interesting to see
the difference in how these people are how they act how their lives are and just thinking about
it like when I started working out finally like taking care of myself the amount of relationships
I built I met Rad with AFT I you know I you know Jason like all these scenes came fruition I'm like
holy crap that led me to you like all because I decided to do what all the other people weren't
doing and it was that simple thing people love to deny it what the fact is is that habits run
across the board so you can't find somebody whose car looks like absolute shit bird shit all over
it full of friggin mcdonald's empty wrappers and cups on the floor in their house is spotless yeah
I guarantee you you're that person I see driving on the road in your car looks like trash and I
followed you home and you open your front door the inside of your house would look that way
which your mind probably looks that way which your clothing probably looks that way right it's
it's all connected like whether you want to admit it or not it's all connected you know what I mean
so there's something to be said about that because you can't hide working out and being
fitness right you can't hide putting in the work you can't hide getting up two hours early and
just putting in the friggin work building the friggin muscle you know you can't buy that you
can't wake up one day and say all right I'm gonna go buy me some muscles today I'm gonna go like
you can't buy those things and so I think that that's the thing that people don't realize a lot
of people look at it as oh it's hard work getting up early as it doesn't matter dude it's an investment
into everything you do across the board if you can hold yourself accountable to getting up if you
can hold yourself accountable to what you put in your friggin mouth every day if you can hold
yourself accountable and all things personal if you can hold yourself accountable to reading 10
15 20 pages a day listening to a podcast right all the personal development things by default
that's gonna pour into your work now but you can't say I'm the most undisciplined unstructured
on whatever person over here in my business is a hundred percent dialed in it's impossible like
you are your business and so a lot of people will challenge you on that and I'm not saying there's
there's successful people there's always going to be the exception to the rule that dude that's like
a slob and fat out of shape or whatever he founded this great IT company that is proprietary that
nobody can copy yes okay great but overall you're right if you were to look at the numbers and you
were look at the masses and you're looking at most the people they're successful they all at some
way shape or form take care of themselves they all have some kind of consistent routine they all
at some way care about the way they look and their appearance and things like that it's the little
details that add up to it yeah so you know I always tell people I'm like you want to change change
yourself that's the number one you can't change your finances you can't wake up tomorrow make a
hundred grand but what you can do is wake up tomorrow go do a workout so you can start within
yourself start there and then everything out of that's gonna ripple and you'll find your life as a
whole your business your finances your thought process you know you can't tell me you're up on
stage walking and talking to people jiggling all over the frigging place that you have a massive
amount of confidence yeah just doesn't happen you know but when you feel confident guess what more
business comes you feel more sure in yourself and so that's you know it's just I wish more people
really did understand that because I was the same way I was like way out of shape in my early 20s
and stuff and just taking care of myself and creating creating that consistency I started
working out and doing all that well before I got into real estate keeps me consistent today to do
my thing you know you start wavering on well I'm just not gonna get up today what else are you
gonna give up and you're well I just won't make that call today I just don't feel like sticking to
my diet today and doing this well over here I guess I'll just I'll get to that on Monday it it
translates well and it's all the little things that we don't deem that important like oh like a
little bit of a diet or working out or this that those things end up adding up and they make the
world of a difference it's like you know for us you know change orders were never a huge thing
in construction like I didn't really care from yeah honestly I wanted to eliminate them I was like
let's just try to get everything to the front then I realized at the end of the year holy crap
they had a half a million dollars really money different no we're focusing on change orders now
by the way I'm scared yeah so no that's that's that's so true that's so freaking awesome do you
require your team to work out at all like stay mentally or physically fit no I mean I talk about
it a lot I mean I can't I've got 1099 employees and stuff like that but you know we push it
um I tell people they need to you know one of the first things there's a thing if people come to me
especially one of my agents and they're like I want to optimize myself and stuff we'll always
focus on the fitness side of stuff too I'll have that conversation go work out go do you know go
do these things and they'll say no no I don't want to okay what's up to you you know you can't I think
you just can't really for in or what I want to I don't know if I would necessarily want to make
that a requirement I would want them to do it for themselves yeah yeah but I try to leave by example
with that you know I'm up every day I go to the gym till now I'm out for a freaking four weeks because
of my back surgery but you know I I I genuinely do lead by example I show up and I put in I try to
be the top producer every month in my own company you know a lot of people are like oh you're competing
with you know I'm not competing with anybody all my all my contacts are people I built relationships
with I want them to beat me I want them to set the yeah I want to set the example I set the bar
every month you know I hope somebody comes in and knocks me off with the freaking top you know what
I mean but I keep that thermostat high every day that's the point is um me every day showing up me
getting up at three thirty in the morning we get that way if anybody ever comes to me and they
complain I don't have the results I have well you see what I'm doing every day are you doing what
I'm doing no start there come do all the things I do come be as consistent come work out come get up
at the time I get up come take care of yourself do this and then come talk to me and tell me if
you're not getting results but if you're unwilling to try these things first you don't talk to me
about not getting results how involved are you with your employees personally like because
obviously there's a business relationship right and the everyday business and then there's the
personal lives of your of the people you work with and the people you lead it obviously there's a
line there where does that line kind of balance for you I've had to really establish boundaries
especially as we've grown that numbers had to get because again I look at everything like
weight on your back that's why I look at it right and so what I mean by that is we care about our
people I care about my employees when they're going through hard times or they're going through
personal matters I wear that like my own right and so what happens is the more that you have the more
weight you start stacking on your freaking shoulders which at the end of the day you come home and all
that baggage you're taking it off in your own home you know and so what I've had to really do is
as we've grown as time's gone on and with me one thing I started to do is really there's layers
of like access to it right so what I mean by that is is that I've got certain people that are close
to me like my personal staff that have been around me have earned that time with me right they stuck
through things with me through thick and thin they've put in the work and they'll have direct
access to me and I take a little bit more it's not said I take vested interest in all my agents
but if you're asking like from a very personal like to the extent of like I personally care deeply
about what's going on in their life probably a very small handful of them that are around me every day
you know that it but we care about all of our people I mean as much as I can be in but at the
same time you have to you can't carry everybody I could tell you that what I there's one thing I've
learned is it's very different when you got like three people to 10 to 20 to 30 to 50 to 80
because man front desk doors open everybody's coming in with their problems no problems at the
end of the day you feel like you just got done with frigging 20 rounds with Mike Tyson getting
punched in the face with everybody's fucking problems and it wasn't even your fight to fight
right you're like sitting there you're like shit this day went I had a great day and I feel like
absolute shit because everybody came and dumped their problems on you you know and so you have to
just be very aware of that and who you allow to have that kind of access to you and that's been a
really big thing for me to learn the hard I've learned that the hard way a few times I think
I'm just learning that right now I should literally say it because I'm like you know as we grow I'm
like when we started so small and we've been a family you know friend company like that relationship
is just so different and so as we've been bringing outside people I'm still like having that same
type of relationship policy the same joke and around and not so much that I can't joke around but
I'm starting to realize holy crap dude like that's not working anymore because I can't I can't do that
it's just way too much they gotta know you're still a person too you know I still hang out I
still take handful amount on the boat with me we go have a good time we work hard we play hard and
stuff like that but there has to be levels to that I think especially as you get bigger and there
has to it has to be earned in my opinion you know yeah you got somebody that just randomly walks in
the door and they got full-on access to you over people that have been with you from day one or
hung out from day one or been through it you know and I think it's a culture thing too right creating
that open collaboration of culture where you could take 50 people and have them help bury the load
to you know somebody's just having that bad day and you need other people to help out so I think
it's important to create that that's one thing we've really tried to do is create a culture of
like everybody helping each other but as far as like direct access that's one of the things my
business coach was working on for me he's like dude you're gonna go in your office and you're
gonna shut your damn door for two days or two hours and you're gonna focus on yourself secondly
you're gonna leave the office every day by two o'clock on these days and you're gonna go spend
time with your family and stuff and stop giving so much of yourself to everybody and give it back
to yourself give it to your family because you're basically just taking on the load of everybody
if for every person you bring in that door you just took on another 10 pounds on your shoulder
10 pounds he's like and eventually your knees are gonna freaking buckle and you're gonna suffocate
oh yeah pressure's insane yeah he's like so you have to learn how to create these boundaries
and these time frames he goes in and you know one thing you can do is weekly just have an open
session for an hour say hey I'll tell you what every Thursday we got open roundtable whether
that be zoom or my door's open or we just have a you know we all get together in the you know
conference room and just hang out for an hour and just round table he goes create delegated
times where they can come talk to you about that but you got to get rid of the just wide open access
to you with that stuff and just make sure that only certain people have access and that right
there is exactly what this podcast is about because you know we talk about finding the balance
between like home and work life personal work life yep a lot of people I've met people that say oh
there's a 50-50 balance and I don't necessarily believe that at all I think the balance changes
as you grow so right now it's like hey well now like instead of your 13 hour days hustling well
dude now you need to take time for yourself because you got so much more on your back and
it completely adjusts as as you grow so that's that's golden it's not linear a lot of people
like to assume it's linear but it's extremely ignorant to think that your business growth and
life growth is going to be linear it's 100 seasons and what you're trying to accomplish right and
there is times where I'll go through three or four months where we're pushing and I'm like hey we're
heading into a hard season off to have that talk with my wife and say hey this is going to be three
months of like grind just so you know yeah doesn't mean I care any less or anything just give you a
heads up but you also have to balance that out on the other side and say okay I'm going to take two
three months and not let my foot off the gas but stabilize a little bit you know but it's like any
other road trip right you got your mountains where you're pedaled to the metal just trying to make it
uphill and 70 mile an hour wind and you got other times when you're going down a hill and you got
your foot on the break trying to slow down as you're going too fast no road trip comes without its
highs and lows you know so it's not a perfectly flat field yeah where you're driving so you know
people just need to maybe keep that into perspective that balance it I don't because what's balanced
it's very different balance to me I guarantee you somebody like me or a high high level person
they can work 10 hours and not break a free sweat ain't nothing to me I can put 16 hours a day in
and love every second of it and other people they're crumbling at four hours like so what one
considers balance to another is is very different yeah so well I like what you just said I never
thought about in that perspective it's like hey you know especially when like in a relationship
like hey babe this three months I'm going to grind yep probably buy you a couple gifts and then the
next three months yeah we're gonna have more time we're going to go out more we're gonna go do this
that it that is such a good way to actually do that because a lot of people I feel like they're
just trying to find that balance and I've I've tried to do that it definitely doesn't work that is a
great perspective to have that's that's phenomenal yep well sheesh man yeah this has just been
absolutely phenomenal thank you for coming back I mean absolutely let's see from the first time of
this time the amount of how much better this was as far as I mean just everything man we're gonna
have him back in another three months I could just absolutely phenomenal guys we are gonna have all
of Blake's links down below to his social media to his website I highly recommend following him
he also does for real estate coaching don't you don't you have a coaching program so
any of you guys are looking for advice looking to grow or if you're looking to join the best
agency in the app I mean I don't know about the friggin I mean just the nation the valley just
everywhere everything they got going on I can't even begin to talk about it like you guys need to
come join him this is absolutely phenomenal what they're doing everything is completely
a1 game changer so click the links below drop a follow again drop comments guys we're always
taking questions to try and really tackle everything we're going through and what we're
experiencing and more than anything thanks for joining the podcast thanks guys peace out