Speaker 1 (00:00:00):
Mike Shum has coached, consulted, and partnered with many of the top real estate teams in the industry, including many of our guests here on real estate team os two themes from that work, turning your job into a real business and turning around your business when it's unprofitable. Before he advised team leaders. Mike was a team leader himself, and before that he started 10 small businesses. We've got a bit more exposition than normal here in this episode. If you want to jump ahead 20 minutes straight to the advice and tips and things, you could do that, but you'll be missing a number of helpful and interesting stories and lessons. From there, you'll get four real estate team models with tips and cautions for each. The first place a team leader should look for missing profits, how to determine when you need a sales manager and when you can actually afford one. How to set and uphold standards so you can eliminate those low producing agents who are actually costing you money. Mike shares real numbers, real ratios, real examples throughout. Here's Mike Shum on Real Estate Team os. 

Speaker 2 (00:00:56):
No matter where your business is today or where you want to take it, you'll get there faster and more profitably with an operating system. Welcome to Team Os, your guide to starting, growing and optimizing real estate team. Here's your host, Ethan 

Speaker 1 (00:01:10):
Butte. Mike, I am so glad to have you on real estate team os it feels overdue. You've worked with so many of our guests on the show before. I'll just drop a couple of names. Kyle Whistle, Jill Bigs, Barry Jenkins, treasure Davis, and so many others with that, thank you and welcome to Real Estate Team os Mike. 

Speaker 3 (00:01:29):
Ethan. Thank you so much. Remember when, I think the first time I saw the show was that, is that what you released 

Speaker 2 (00:01:35):
It 

Speaker 3 (00:01:36):
Years ago? And I was like, wait. They put a lot of thought into this. That whole back corner worked out. I saw some big names going in there. I'm like, oh, this is going to be not your average podcast. So I kept an eye and then to your point, I'm watching the guests and we have one degree of separation from most of your guests. I'm like, wow, this is different. It's better. And then when you reached out to me, I was like, wow. I felt like from a guy who struggled imposter syndrome most of his career, I've gotten a lot better the last couple of years. I was like, wow, this is really cool that I get to be a guest with all those other amazing guests you've had on this show. So thank you for the opportunity. 

Speaker 1 (00:02:09):
Yeah, and thank you for the kind words. Just a quick nod for folks watching and listening, what Mike's referring to. We did 21 episodes at fcon in fall of 2023 and we really kicked off the show there in Q4 2023. With those, I personally feel like a number of them are criminally under viewed or under heard. So if you're relatively new to the show over the past six months or something, go back to the beginning. They're all marked and there's some awesome guests in there. So anyway, thanks for that nod, Mike. So our standard opener on the show is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team? 

Speaker 3 (00:02:48):
I would tell you it is a different answer depending what environment we're in, what market. Yeah, I would tell you that last year or two would probably resolve a lot of these teams. The model that they were using doesn't really work that much. So trying to figure out how to navigate the last couple of years, I have two types of clients. The ones that are like, Hey, we got this. There's more opportunity in a down market than an up market than I've got the other half that are like, oh my gosh, we have no escrows. Oh, and they're focusing way too close to the fire, right? I'm like, back up, back up. You got to look at the big picture. This is a small window in our career here. We have to navigate this, do the best we can. Better days will come. So that'd be probably the emotion right now. I've had a number of people leave the industry, it's just too hard. I'm beat up. I don't want to do this anymore. So that would be the characteristic. Right now 

Speaker 1 (00:03:41):
You just drew a line that I'm always kind of curious about. I mean, you and I have both met and talked with people that feel like they can fight their way literally through any situation no matter what. And then we also on the far other end and don't, I'm not obviously naming any names, just speaking to a concept in general, but a little bit more of a victim mentality relative to the state of the market. And so what I'm drawing out here is some people market literally doesn't matter to them and they're just going to plow and fight their way through. Other people feel like I can only be as good as the market allows me to be. Obviously the truth is somewhere in the middle. What have you seen on either end? I mean obviously we want to bias toward kind of that front end, which is make the best of every situation. That's what all any of us can do every single day. But what is the reality in your observation about the market's control over what an organization or even an individual can do? 

Speaker 3 (00:04:40):
Oh my gosh, that is a great question and it's really simple to answer is that there's two types of leaders. It's the one who focus on process versus the one who focus on outcome. So we were selling 20% less homes in the US the last couple of years. You're going to most likely be selling less homes. So if you're like, oh my gosh, we're selling less homes, but if you're committed to the process and do that consistently, you'll be fine. But the ones that kind of always looking at that number and it's not where it should be or it's less than they hoped it would be and they have emotional reaction to it, get themselves into trouble very quickly. 

Speaker 1 (00:05:14):
For context for folks, I'm going to ask you to do a run through as tight as you want on how you arrived at where you are now. I mean, you spent maybe 12, 15 years as a practicing agent and broker. You've coached in a variety of formats and situations. Give us a runup on how you arrived at the point where you're now coaching and working with a number of top teams and team leaders. 

Speaker 3 (00:05:40):
Yeah, I would have to tell you an accident. This wasn't on my big vision board business plan. I'm going to be a real estate coach, mentor type person. So well, I'll go back a little bit. Not to give you too much detail, but growing up wasn't great. Where my dad left when I was four, mom went on welfare. So the adolescents school years were just survival mode quite honestly. Get through there. So then you graduate high school, you're like, all right, got my working papers living in New York state. That means I could actually get paid and do work. And I was like, what am I going to do? And with no money college I went to for one month, I'll tell you, I was like, I was going to become a dentist, never really realized that's going to cost a lot of money, like eight, 10 more years debt. 

Speaker 3 (00:06:22):
And I was like, I don't want to be poor for another eight or 10 years. So my uncle said, Hey, Mike, back then before Google and YouTube, Ethan, he was like, go to the library. They have books there, it's free. You can learn anything. And I was like, oh, okay. I don't know any better. So this is strange. But I went to the library and I grabbed a book and it said how to paint a professional. I'm like, oh. So I read the book cover to cover and what do you do? You start a painting company when you're 18, of course, and then I would come to your house and do a great job because I'm a perfectionist, and he'd be like, that's great, Mike. Do you know anyone that could update my kitchen or put in a window or door? Then I would lie to you. He said, oh, I could help you with that, but I'm so busy. Can I come back in three weeks 

Speaker 1 (00:07:04):
After I've read every book at the library? I 

Speaker 3 (00:07:06):
Went to the library. I would go to the local contractor or I would ask a lot of questions of people I knew in the industry. Yeah, I would come back. So I built a few companies in Long Island, like three 20, right around 20. Then I realized I just needed a change. This is where, I don't know, my life just happened by accident, but I said, this is smart thinking. Let's take all these tools, put 'em in my F-150 pickup truck and drive 1,250 miles to Florida where I have no friends, no business, no contacts, and I thought, I'll figure it out when I get there. Now that I think about it. That was crazy. But when you burn the bridges, you've heard that cliche statement so many times, oh my gosh, I have to eat. I have to make money. So I started two more companies now I kind of knew how to build a small business, so a national cleaning franchise and then a property management for HOAs. 

Speaker 3 (00:07:54):
I bought a house because living on welfare and welfare apartments, you're like, I never want to be a tenant. I'm going to buy a house. I don't want a landlord. So yeah, purchased a first house and red, rich dad, poor dad. So I rented out a little two bedroom, one bath, starting my investment portfolio. So I thought, and then a friend called from New York and said, my dad wants to sell a foreclosure and he has a meat distribution company in Manhattan that he wants to sell because my brother, her brother wanted to become a New York City police officer. He wasn't into the home getting up early with all this meat business stuff. So I said, tell 'em I'll buy both of them. I get back in the truck and I literally drive nonstop. I remember 22 hours back to New York and I built the meat business and I loved it, the foreclosure. 

Speaker 3 (00:08:37):
I rented that out, and then the meat business, I grew and I grew. It was just a passion, I will tell you, 20 hours a day. But I loved it. And then I had a son in 1999, Ethan, which was awesome, except for I've been to see him, I don't think his first year of life because when you work 20 hours day and you have a newborn, they're sleeping. So I said, this is not smart If you bring someone into the world and being like, my dad left me, I meant abandonment's a very tough emotion to deal with. So I was like, I'm going to be present, so I sell the business and then you'll appreciate this part of the story. They go back to the library and I sold the meat business. What do I do? I got a book that says what I should do next is find something that I really love to do and find a way to make money doing it, and that's the best career or job in the world. So I'm like, all right, well, what do I like to do? So being poor and just being a workaholic, I only traveled one time, and that was as soon as I made a few dollars, I went to the travel agent and said, I want to go take a trip someplace warm. But I said, I know I can't sit on a beach chair for eight hours a day. I need activities. 

Speaker 1 (00:09:43):
Yeah, same. 

Speaker 3 (00:09:45):
Yeah. So I was like, so where do you want go? I said, I don't know. That's my criteria. So she just happened to pick the islands of Jamaica for whatever reason, and I went there and I was like, oh my gosh, these are the poorest people in the world, but the happiest people in the world at the same time. This is fascinating to me, and the food jerk chicken and the K soup and all this stuff, I was totally bought in. So I said, that's it, Ethan. I'm going to travel the world, learn about old cultures, and people make money doing it, and I have it all figured out. So with my OCD, I memorize every airport code in the whole country, and then I get a job at the local retailer in the strip mall and the wholesaler to learn how to do tours overseas. 

Speaker 3 (00:10:25):
And then now the former CEO of Zillow, who has stepped down recently and meant the same exact product of Zillow, but for the travel industry in 1997. Yeah, Expedia, yes, expedia.com. So intuition, somehow I got lucky a couple of times intuition was like, wait a second, hotels aren't paying commissions, airlines aren't paying commissions. Maybe this isn't the best career that I thought it was. After reading the book, I said, what else could I do? So at this point, I've started about 10 small businesses and I realized finished carpentry, painting, construction, and I own a couple of houses and they all kind of connected to real estate in some way. Then our good friend Gary Keller wrote MREA in 2003, the same year I got my license. So I saw the seven level team. I was like, that's a small business. That's not real estate sales. 

Speaker 1 (00:11:15):
I love how clearly and differently you saw it. I mean, it's the same book, but you're coming at it from a different angle than probably most folks who came. I'm a real estate agent, or I've got some version of a small early stage team, and I love that you came to MREA different way than a lot of the folks who read it 

Speaker 3 (00:11:32):
And maybe an advantage. Now I realize for me, I really don't like the backend work, like admin emails sitting in a chair in front of a computer screen, I'd be like, not my jam. So first day I'm going to hire an assistant. I'm like, God, this going to be Matter of fact, back then we had top producer on floppy discs. It was like six and you had to sit there all day, load 'em, wait them to upload. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't do this. So I hire an assistant day one, right? Then I hire marketing shortly thereafter, and I'm working at Douglas Elliman, which is this higher end luxury brand, and I start hiring buyer's agents and they're like, whoa, whoa. What are you doing? We have a girl at the front desk, we have a big marketing department at corporate. Why are you hiring these people? 

Speaker 3 (00:12:13):
And they said, I'm just doing my thing. And they were like, you can't hire anyone else. They told me, we're not sure what you're doing. We're scared, I guess. I don't know. So they capped me like, no more people can you hire. I was like, all right, whatever. But I started figuring out the business. So now life punched me in the face again though, a couple years later, we'll say I had to get a divorce. So now I'm the parent of a lovely son and I got to figure out how to raise him and run this real estate business. The challenge was I made a commitment to be present for my son when I brought him into the world. So real estate, they told me I have to work nights and weekends, it's nights and weekends, nights and weekends. They're like, how the hell am I going to do that? 

Speaker 3 (00:12:59):
He was in third grade, I think at the time. So I figured out how I can work nine o'clock in the morning to three o'clock in the afternoon and put him on the bus, be home and still sell 52, a hundred homes a year through systems and process on there. So that's what I was doing and it was working out great. And then around 2014, Tom Ferry had recently left his dad's company, Mike Ferry, and who's getting his company up and running, and I forget how the path crossed, but I got asked if I'd want to do some coaching and I was like, same mantra. If you'll pay me Tom, I'll do it. I just want to make money and not be poor. I really don't care what the work is specifically. So I get coaching and then they're like, Hey, you want a client? 

Speaker 3 (00:13:41):
Yeah, have a client. They seem to like you. Here's another one. So I'll send them quickly scaling to about 120 small teams, solo agents. That was kind of the thing. Teams weren't a thing yet and they're starting to do pretty good and I'm getting more and I'm getting more. And then I realized a lot of 'em are really good, smart salespeople, Ethan, but what they don't know or they haven't learned yet is business acumen. I'm like, wow, that's all I've been doing for the last couple decades on there. Let me teach you how to turn your job into a business. So the ones that appealed to started to form teams like the one I had built, right? I kind of knew how to do what I've been practicing. So let me show you what I did. So I started turning their jobs into businesses and then the real estate gods were in our corner like 3% interest rates, low interest market's moving super fast. 

Speaker 3 (00:14:32):
Flex had come out. So now we can scale teams, get agents in here, feed them quickly. So this amount of the time Tom had created his team department. So you could be on the solo side or we had a team program, depending small, medium or large teams. So I was managing a good percentage of the larger teams, mega teams, I think they call 'em over there, and we started working just, but I realize now I get a lot of accolades for some of those teams you mentioned and a lot more, but realize Ethan, these were extremely smart people that were extremely hard workers and I was just teaching 'em a little something to turn their business into a more profitable machine. So they started to scale. They were going from a few hundred to come a thousand units. I, five or six of 'em were probably close to a billion dollars when I left them. 

Speaker 3 (00:15:25):
I think five of my clients had made enough money to buy their own planes, and it was, yeah. So you build a reputation when you're getting results like that with clients that you get fortunate to work with. And then life, I'll go back to my life, I realized when I heard a Jim Rowan, I guess a story once, he was talking about the four seasons about life and business, and a story says that no matter what we do, Ethan, in life and in business, you will go through four seasons, right? There's going to be winters, right? Tough times and those kind of things will definitely slow you down. Maybe you make you feel not so good, but whatever he reminds me of always that what season always comes after winter, always for a million years, it's spring, it's going to get better. So this has helped me a lot because I've gotten punched a bunch of times. 

Speaker 3 (00:16:15):
So I'm working with Tom, can you get your career going? My son at the time had moved to Maryland, was living with his girlfriend, and then, I dunno how much you know about the pharmacy industry and the medical industry, the food industry in the us, but it's designed more to get you a little sick and to keep you in the system on pills like privately sick and diabetes medicine, not cure you. So he was had a sinus infection, nothing major, and all of a sudden he starts going to the doctors there and there's like one pill, two pills, 10 pills, which caused him to develop insane brain fog, migraines all day long, candida, gerd, severe respiratory problems, and then they eroded his sinuses. So he was bleeding out on a semi-regular basis there, real bad stuff. So he called me, he's like, dad, I think I'm going to die, not figuratively. 

Speaker 3 (00:17:02):
He's like, I can't get out of bed, I can't move. Every doctor in Baltimore says they don't know what's wrong with me. Can I come home? We were living in Vegas at this time. Can you help me? So me and Lisa were like, yeah, of course. And then when I came home I saw how bad he was. I literally remember calling Tom on a Friday, Tom, I don't know if I retired, I quit what we have to do here but have to give 100% of my attention to my son. He's really, really sick. So that's what we did. So Lisa and I spent a year going to doctors and then we exhausted all the doctors here, I'll tell you in Vegas, and they said, we can't help you anymore. Dang. So then we learned about the Mayo Clinic in Arizona there in Scottsdale and Phoenix. 

Speaker 3 (00:17:38):
So we started going there. Now it's about a little over two years. I'm just happy to report we've kind of unwounded all that stuff and he's back in college doing well there. So that was a turn. But then as the time went by I was like, what am I going to do with my life? So I started getting calls like, Hey, do you want to coach me? And I wasn't sure, I'll be honest. I had about 30,000 calls there and about an eight year period, it was a lot. Getting up at three o'clock in the morning doing 18 Zoom calls every day for eight years. But then I was approached by Brian Charlesworth who 

Speaker 3 (00:18:15):
Runs a ciso. So he says, Hey, what are you doing? I think you and my wife should get together some synergy or something. I'm like, who's your wife? She's like, spring Benson. I was like, I never heard of her. So she had a real estate team and some group coaching stuff on there. I was like, you, Ethan? I was like, sure, I'll fly up and we'll meet. I'm always a yes. My wife drives me crazy. You always say yes to everybody. Yeah, sure, I'll be there. So meanwhile, we're in a wedding. Actually, here's the funny part, the players, I was actually at the time at a wedding for Chris Van Deva cried in Mexico and she's like, wait, we're at a wedding. I'm like, yeah, we'll leave here. We'll fly to Utah, we'll go meet with them. And we literally, the four of us sat around the conference table just getting, because she didn't know me actually as much as we both had pretty good successes. 

Speaker 3 (00:18:57):
We ran in completely different circles. So we got to know each other and we're like, wow, yeah, there's a lot of good we could do out here. She had a lot of group coaching kind of companies where I specialize more in one-on-one, so maybe some of those clients might need some one-on-one coaching and then my skillset and hers are complimentary but also different. So we started working together. So that was about two years ago and now we're just helping kind of what I was doing, but more in a fractional CEO relationship is not looking to get that wide or at least profits. Coaching is not looking to get that wide. It's really going deeper and helping clients and teams at a much deeper level, having few of them but being way involved, whether it's helping with the recruiting, ancillaries, trainings, just whatever. Over 40 years now of building small businesses, my skill has gotten fairly good from start to end. 

Speaker 3 (00:19:49):
So I'll meet a new CEO. I'm like, all right, what are you really good at? What do you like to do? And let me fill your holes with what you're not good at because I either know someone could do that or I can do that myself. So a pretty fun relationship. I feel more like a partner than a coach or a mentor to them on there. So it was by accident, to answer your question, I was just selling houses. Someone asked me to help them with their company, make some coaching calls, and I realized that's where I belong. I had my real estate team meeting and I realized at a certain point I got so much more excited when the agents brought in a listing or I gave them a lead and they converted it and they were going to get a commission check, and when I brought in a listing, I was like, all right, we got another listing. I wasn't nearly as excited. So yeah, I realized that was my passion. I get excited when the clients did well or we got 'em out of a tough situation and it bites me up. It lights me up. 

Speaker 1 (00:20:38):
Quick promotional plug. Tom Ferry is one of our guests in those fcon episodes that we talked about at the beginning, and Chris Vander V is the second episode in our Inside Whistle Realty series. He's the COO with Whistle Realty. I love that connection too, Mike. So one of the first zones I wanted to hit with you is coaching and whether we want to call it coaching or consulting or fractional CEO, I'll make a couple observations and then feel free to pick it up. A good team leader is a good coach. Coaching is an important part of what they're doing. A good team leader in a rev share model has even more incentive to do it maybe even outside of their direct team. Certainly we've seen many agents and team leaders aspire to be coaches and some of them start doing it on the side a little bit and then try to go full-time with it. So there's a lot of interest and aspiration at some level. It is part of running a successful business if that business is a real estate team. You've coached in and guided people in a variety of different capacities. What are a few keys to coaching Well in the seat of a team leader specifically? 

Speaker 3 (00:21:53):
So in regards to that, when I have a lot of the teams that I coach, one of the first things they should do when they make a hire is we run a disc profile on them and then also the five love language quiz. The first thing is to meet the agent. In this case, remember who you're coaching or mentoring, where they are. It is not about you and what you can do. It's first finding out where they are and where they want to go and then how can you get them there. So one of the things that has helped me tremendously with this is I've really mastered personality styles, like those four different just profile drivers, expressive amiables and analytics, and that's what I realized as a coach. I maybe excel compared to some because I have analytic clients and know what they tell me, Ethan, Mike know what we like you so much. 

Speaker 3 (00:22:39):
You're so analytic. You love spreadsheets and numbers, right? Then I have high expressive clients where we never talk about spreadsheets or numbers. They hurt their brains and it's a totally different, more relationship driven conversation on there. My drivers, I'm really sure I'm really direct. Like spring we get on a call. It's literally like five or 10 minutes, right? I got this. Right. You do that. Okay, good. All right, talk your mind. You need anything else? No, I'm good. Right? If you heard these calls, it's almost comical how quickly and fast they're moving with no fluff and little relationship type conversations. So yeah, because team lead, I'll tell you one of the things I coach most is if you know a DISC profile, you have your drivers here, which are primarily our team leads. Where they struggle the most I will tell you is they need administrative support. 

Speaker 3 (00:23:25):
They need high SCS to tcs, lcs, admin, executive assistants. These are polar opposite humans. The way they communicate, the way they look at the world, the way they think this person lives in the future, this person lives in the present on here. This person wants all the details, this person wants none of the details. So yeah, one of the things, whether it was one of my clients or I coach team leads is how to meet in the middle. So when communication between these two is great, awesome. When it's not this person's frustrated, this person's doing the wrong things at the wrong time, which frustrates this person more and yeah, I think that's critical for a team leader to master those skills or a coach or a mentor, learn how to calibrate yourself to come to that playing field where a potential coaching person is agent, whatever on there and then find out where they want to go. 

Speaker 3 (00:24:15):
I've learned this too as we set goals for these guys like, Hey, you could sell 30 houses Ethan, but do you want to sell 30 houses? We're capable because I've learned going back to Maslow's chart, right, when most humans meet their basic human needs of shelter, water, housing and all that, they take their foot off the gas, they're comfortable. Not everyone's a driver that wants to make millions of dollars, they want to spend more time with my family. I get all my bills paid and I have some money in the bank. I feel good on there. So understanding that what's their version of a win? Not everybody needs to sell a hundred houses and make millions to be happy and fulfill their dreams. 

Speaker 1 (00:24:49):
Yeah, really good. Okay. Practical tip for folks. Someone watching or listening may have a different preferred thing. They might be an Enneagram person or something, but let's stay focused on DISC for a minute. If someone they're familiar with disc, they've taken it themselves or maybe they even, it's part of the hiring process inside their organization, but they haven't gone to that extra step of, okay, this is who I am and now I know who my team members are, but now I'm going to take that extra step of educating myself about how this type can and should communicate with that type. I may have certainly been through some of the, I am not a student of it, but where would you send folks? Is there a book that you really like? Is there a system you like? Is there if someone wants to get good at that step, I'm just asking for a quick resource drive from your experience if they want to move more toward the way that you were describing yourself. 

Speaker 3 (00:25:42):
Yeah, definitely. So the company is called Wilson Learning. They have two amazing books that I would recommend here. One is a Social Styles Handbook and the other one is called Versatile Selling, and the other thing what we use the company, I'll just give 'em a plug, is Intermix, which is the same format that Tony Robbins used to use and give out for free for years, but it's not free anymore. But same exact. What I would recommend if you're going to go this route is there's two types of reports. You have the disc and then you have disc plus they call with values. Highly recommend. The value report I find is just as informative as the disc information. 

Speaker 1 (00:26:17):
Cool, really good. That stuff is linked up down below. If you're listening in Apple podcasts or watching or listening in Spotify, if you're watching on YouTube, if you're watching or listening@realestateteamos.com in all those spots, we write these up, I drop links down below. You can go connect with Mike. Certainly is Instagram profile will be down there among others, but so will all three of the things he just mentioned in that past. I always take care to make sure that these things are brought to life, so don't miss the description down. Okay, Mike, so you've seen, you mentioned at one point, small, medium, large mega team and you were working with mega teams, but you also mentioned too teams weren't really a thing at this time. So you've really seen kind of the rise of teams from, it's not just a high performing agent with a part-time or full-time W2 assistant alongside her or him inside a brokerage that doesn't really understand what they're doing and is maybe getting pushback. 

Speaker 1 (00:27:13):
You got to where we are today where there are entire brokerages that are designed frankly to support the team model and encourage it and everything in between. I'm sure there are still some folks that don't embrace it as much, but with that long setup, when you think about team as it is today in mid 2025, what are the main types or categories of teams when you think about team and you're trying to figure out someone you're talking to, okay, what situation are they in? I'm sure you've developed mental models or you've read or observed formal models of teams. How many kind of main categories of teams are there from your perspective and what are they? 

Speaker 3 (00:27:54):
Yeah, so let's start. I had the privilege of working with a number of Sotheby's Top 100 over the last year. 

Speaker 3 (00:28:03):
The avatar is strikingly similar, just coincidentally. They happened to all be females, I would say average age around 60. So their teams in the luxury market, it is about them. They came higher listing agents and buyer's agents to go off leads to. So their team is relatively small, generally a showing agent and an assistant with a top listing agent. I had the privilege of working with Marilyn Wright last year and before I came, imagine no showing agent, no assistant, and she sold $108 million in real estate more than any other agent in the whole state of north by ourself. 

Speaker 3 (00:28:40):
Of course, I'd come in like, Hey, what if we get a showing agent? We get you an assistant. Put some structure around this. So yeah, small, if you're a small luxury in the luxury space, keep it small, it's about you, maybe a little bit of support or help and you'll do just fine based on the price points there. So you're not doing a lot of volume, so you don't need a lot of these backend support. So then what I find is also helpful is these smaller teams where you get just a couple, 3, 4, 5 people high producing a little bit of backend support. The team leads still sells in these models, right? I've got interesting, you'd mentioned different types of leaders. Some just love the art of the sale. They're always going to sell. I like to work with others and have a team, but man selling is my thing on there. So that's where they tend, and then based on the name of the company profits, all my recommendations are based on how can we get the most profit to the bottom line. So in that model, that would be the way to do it. The next one are these mid-size teams, and this is 

Speaker 1 (00:29:39):
Where, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Give me an agent count range in that model you just wrapped up on. 

Speaker 3 (00:29:45):
Yeah, four to six. 

Speaker 1 (00:29:46):
Okay, 

Speaker 3 (00:29:47):
Four to six on there. Because it's manageable, it's small enough. You don't need sales managers or trainers because you can kind of manage that on yourself. 

Speaker 1 (00:29:54):
You're still doing the onboarding yourself when you need to bring someone on or want to bring someone on. 

Speaker 3 (00:29:58):
No, actually, so going my philosophy, I believe, like I told you, every business I've ever started day one, the first thing to do is hire admin. 

Speaker 3 (00:30:08):
That old saying stuck with me. I heard years ago, if you don't have an admin, you are an admin. I'm like, I don't want to be an admin ever. So I always recommend if they don't have one, hey, and this again where the company's here is a little different. Like, oh, they're really busy. They don't have time. So Lisa, my wife who helps me run this thing will run the ad on Indeed. She will preview all the resumes. I will interview for you, and I'll say, Ethan, here are the two best candidates. Pick the one you like. I know you're busy and I've done a lot of the late work for you 

Speaker 3 (00:30:37):
On there, but I believe everyone should have an admin if you're in this business, so many things that takes up so much time, probably majority of the work. So no, I would've admin doing all the onboarding and all that not to distract from sales. I want the least amount of distractions always from the sales team, whether it's team or agents. So then you get a little bigger, and this is the one where I see a lot of people, they're like, all right, I got four or five, I'm going to get a little bit bigger. 8, 10, 12 in that mark, this is what a lot of time I call purgatory. My partner likes a little nicer term called the messy middle 

Speaker 1 (00:31:08):
Because 

Speaker 3 (00:31:08):
The resource, 

Speaker 1 (00:31:09):
I've also heard the black hole 

Speaker 3 (00:31:12):
And what it essentially is, Ethan, if you understand business terminology, I'm sure you do. This is the J curve, right? They're here and they want to get up here, but they have to go spend time, money and resources and get through this thing. I made this joke accidentally, but I realized here's the truth of the matter, it's not a J curve. For most of them, it's a skate park. They're like, oh my gosh, oh no pullback. Oh my gosh. And they're stuck down here and it's painful. The reason why is the resources, the tech stack, the seats on the tech stack, maybe the sales manager they hired, their expenses are more than the revenue team dollar these agents are bringing in. So now this agent team lead starts to almost always get animosity. I'm working in selling houses to carry the team and pay the bills. If I fired them all, this is where a lot of them will retract from this. 

Speaker 1 (00:32:02):
They start getting resentful of the decision I made in the people that represent that decision. 

Speaker 3 (00:32:07):
Correct on there. So they got to make a decision, right? You've got to either decide to get probably a little bit bigger to get the team dollar to cover all your expenses, and then you could keep all the dollars you make selling on there and then maybe an agent or two to make a profit on there. Interesting. Where I spent most of my time is in the next, I'd mentioned earlier, these mega bigger teams. Definitely a lot more careful to recommend that model to most in this environment. The reason why is the velocity of the market has slowed down so much is you would need a lot more agents to bring in the same amount of GCI, we'll say that I used to bring in, to give you some real numbers, a team five, I dunno, four or five years ago, whatever it was, first year, we can get them doing 10 to 12 units. 

Speaker 3 (00:32:58):
Not bad, just got out of real estate school. Year two, we had most of them up somewhere to 20 to 24. When I look at my schedule across the whole all of North America, most of the teams of that size are averaging no more than 0.7 units per month or 10 deals per year. That's their average. So the only other option is say that was a 50 agents, if you want to get to where these team were, you needed a hundred agents, which some teams have done thinking that, oh, we'll just bring in more agents and we'll make more money. What most don't realize is as you get past a certain point of say 30, 40 agents, you still have generally a sales manager and a trainer, but now if you have 80 agents, you can literally spend half the amount of time with your agents, so they wind up all producing less because you just don't have the time and the resource to herd 80 cats with the same two people on there. 

Speaker 3 (00:33:49):
So those models I've seen actually become a lot less profitable. I was working close to about 33% profit, net profit margins a few years back. Now I see a lot of single digits, I see zeros. I've gotten calls from organizations as big as a billion dollars who's literally made $0 in a year like that. So what I'd recommend there is that's your model, and at least if you're not losing money, this is where we bring in a lot of ancillaries or spin off other businesses. We have an audience, we have a lot of stuff going here. How can we leverage this to make money other ways through mortgage title escrow? 

Speaker 1 (00:34:25):
Yeah. If I can't make more money by doing more transactions, how do I make more money per transaction? 

Speaker 3 (00:34:31):
Yeah, correct. Because they're not, because then you take inflation. We've got agents are selling less. Lead fees have gone up over the last three years. So the challenge with the market sometimes is too is our industry is totally enamored with top numbers' units, GCI and volume, but they're all on real trends and they're all posting. They got great sales numbers and this more units this year than last year, but you definitely could be losing money or making a lot less last year or a couple of years ago today even doing the same or maybe a little more units based on your COGS number went up. Can I see that team leaders that have a hard time recruiting, what they do is they get their team to retain them. They offer 'em higher splits not to leave. The other team is offering the higher splits and it totally messes up their model and then they don't realize the extra five or 10% they offer the agent was their profit margin. It's now gone. 

Speaker 1 (00:35:31):
Yeah. So you've identified cost of goods sold in the idea of we designed the model this way, but we're now making exceptions to the model and therefore the integrity between our business model and our operating model is now broken a little bit or it's at least threatened and maybe going down a slippery slope because once you're number one performer gets that concession, guess what the second and third performers are going to hear about and want for themselves, et cetera, et cetera. So besides that cost of goods sold and that agent split, what are a few other spots and maybe focus on that second or third model? I think that's most common within our audience, more common certainly than the mega team, just because there are way more teams with four to six agents than 58 to 258. But what are some other spots, whether it's market driven and lower volume or you want to maybe expand it out and say all seasons, these are some of the main problems I see when the top line looks okay and feels okay, but at the end of the month I'm like, where did it go? What are a couple other common threats to profit in all those midlines from the top line to the bottom that maybe catch some of the folks you've worked with over the years, maybe by surprise? 

Speaker 3 (00:36:53):
Yeah. Yeah, great question. Because most great salespeople are not analytics. So knowing their numbers, like reading their p and l every month usually doesn't happen. So that's one of the first things when I reach out to 'em, it's like, what's your monthly percentage of profit goal on there? Most of them don't know or they don't have one, which is shocking to me, but they're running a business because what they mostly do before they get in my schedule is, alright, I'm going to sell some houses. Okay, we're going to pay the brokerage fees, we're going to pay our lead fees. We have some money coming back to the team. Great, we got to pay the agents, they're cut. Then we've got salaries, then we got marketing, then we have operations and they hope something's left. The next number would be their profit and it's not. So what I would tell you, the thing I've done most actually, I was thinking about the call today with you or the podcast Ethan, and I was thinking, what have I done? 

Speaker 3 (00:37:52):
Mostly, I would say in the last year, I would call it more business turnarounds. They come to me and I look at what they have and it's just you can't fix it. We've got to kind of take this down to the ground and rebuild it because they're spending too much. They have a couple years back, they were doing really well. We had mentioned, right, they're making a lot of money. They bought investment homes, they saved some money, but my guess is because they're not business strong business acumen, they didn't go to business school. What I've seen a lot of over the last couple of years, the savings has gone. They've sold the investment properties. I've had two or three call me. They've sold their primary residence to start just to keep the business alive, if you will on there, and now they're at a point they call me, I have no money, what do I do? 

Speaker 3 (00:38:44):
Right? The business isn't making money, so we essentially tear it down, I'll tell you, right? And let's build something that makes profit in this market. So the first question I asked them is, what do you want your profit target to be? They say, great. Then I look at their sales over the last whatever, 3, 6, 12 months, you're averaging X. Then I tell them, then we work on the cogs. So on teams, you've probably heard this a bunch of times, you have to keep your cogs number between 40 and 50% max. Soon as you start going over 50%, the expenses you need to bring on to support the team will wipe out profit. So we spend a lot of time different ways to do that on there and then what I tell them is instead of saying You can just spend money, here's your budget. He's told me you wanted this profit, we've paid the brokerage and that we know how much revenue you bring in, that's not going to change much in the near future. You're only allowed to spend this much money. It's almost like profits first that philosophy. Yeah, 

Speaker 1 (00:39:42):
Totally 

Speaker 3 (00:39:43):
On that. Just for real estate is what we do and I force 'em on a budget. They can't spend more, well, we need this or you can't afford it. It's either you have that and you don't put food on the table or you don't pay the credit card off this much, which would you prefer? It's tough because they're used to having these things. They like having things, they like having the tech stack, they like having all the marketing and they like having people around salaries, but if you can't afford them, they got to go and they need me sometimes to kind of push that issue a little bit. 

Speaker 1 (00:40:11):
And so it's kind like it's a little bit of an accountability play. I mean, once you have the identification of the situation, you now get into the role of accountability partner for, we weren't going to spend in this category, but I see it. Why do you think it's just human nature that people allow these things to go and then essentially when the tide goes out, and by that I mean when transaction volume nationwide and on average in almost every single market, if not every single market is cut by a dramatic slice, we all of a sudden see where these things are and then when times get good, it's human nature to reinstall things because hey, we feel good. It's the roaring twenties again. 

Speaker 3 (00:40:59):
Yeah. You just touched on one of a quote I love from Warren Buffet about the environment we're in. Warren says, you'll always learn who's swimming with their shorts off when the tide goes out. 

Speaker 3 (00:41:12):
So yeah, they're are real trends or how good they are, but now they don't have any money and they're trying to merge with another brokerage or team or do things to stay alive. I think there's two factors here. One for sure, just understanding the cohort of especially the bigger teams and maybe some of the middle is ego, right? They like having the big giant team, impressive office and the vans that are all wrapped around town and the billboards and on the radio and television ads, even though they might can afford 'em, it's hard to put that stuff away when you're used to getting all the likes and the admiration and all of that stuff. And number two is just general human nature is change. We don't like change. We've been doing it this way and now that was the demise of Blockbuster and stuff like that. We're not going to change. This is who we are, this is what we do on there, and then that'll be the same with real estate team that realize it's a different environment. There's a lot less homes, interest rates are higher, afford, all that stuff. Well, if you don't change, it'll be a demise just like Blockbuster for a lot of these and I see it. I get calls where they're underwater and I don't know how much longer they can hang on. 

Speaker 1 (00:42:21):
I've got a couple common topic zones that come up a lot that you've already alluded to directly or indirectly in this conversation. I'd love to get your input on. One of them is sales manager. So you mentioned like, okay, if we double agent count in order to get the GCI, we need to make the rest of the model work. We're now expecting a variety of positions including sales manager and now cover twice as many agents and therefore they're not going to do as well as they could at the same time at the lower end. Obviously if you're at four to six agents and you don't really like holding agents accountable or coaching agents or training agents up, that's something you maybe want to look to add. But what's the window? What does maybe a agent to sales manager ratio that you've seen work in general, or is that even the right metric to know that, oh, sales manager is a good thing. 

Speaker 1 (00:43:13):
I think I've identified one thing that's true. If that's not a strength area and that doesn't bring you to life and you'd rather be doing a lot more production, that would be a good job maybe to outsource, but when does it make sense? And by outsource I just mean you aren't doing it anymore. When does it make sense to bring that person in and maybe when does it make sense to start splitting off, whether it's in a pod type structure with a mentor instead of a sales manager, but what's the agent to sales manager ratio? When does it start? When do you need a second one or something? 

Speaker 3 (00:43:42):
Yeah, great question. Let me back up one step before that just to explain. When it comes to sales managers and ops, I would tell you there's two types of people you could hire. There's the manager by title or there's a leader. So sales manager or sales leader. What's the difference? 

Speaker 1 (00:44:01):
Yeah, I love splitting manager and leader. Well done. Go on. Sorry. 

Speaker 3 (00:44:04):
The analogy I use often is the manager is the same person who's going to manage McDonald's today. He's going to go in and make sure the person working the fry machine runs the system. Ray Crock created many years ago to a T, right? Put the fries down when they beep, you take 'em out. If no one buys 'em in 10 minutes, rinse and repeat. That manager is not improving french fries at McDonald's today nor the Big Mac. He's just executing the system as perfectly as you can. Leaders are way different. Leaders come in and they see things and they have ideas. They're looking at ways to make better they're living in the future, not just executing the plan. That's a team leader created. So first you got to determine who do you want or need, right? Do you have a great dialed in system? Someone could come in and say, oh yeah, I'm going to do this. Great. Or is it you need someone to develop the system for you and help you grow it, you just don't want to do it or you don't want to. That's not your jam on there. General rule, I'll tell you this is two x the cost of this 

Speaker 1 (00:45:04):
Probably through fixed and variable comp because that person who's going to help you grow wants a slice of that growth. 

Speaker 3 (00:45:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I like That's a great way to incentivize them to grow the company is yeah, they get a percentage of growth either quarter over quarter or year over year of previous on there. Yeah. So the number now, you got to determine, right, which one of those, so here's where they start getting in trouble because these people are not cheap. Does the agent team currently make enough money to cover the salary? But I will share with in business, please, if you can write anything down, is as a team leader, I believe the most important thing you need to do is to mitigate risk. The riskiest thing you are responsible for as a leader is to deploy capital. You have very limited capital, and if you don't get a return on your capital, you soon can get yourself into big trouble. So I tell my teams, if we spend a dollar, you have to prove to me how that will turn into $3. 

Speaker 3 (00:46:03):
So it's not a matter of just maybe covering the salary. How will they grow your sales team to actually justify another save? It's 50,000, $150,000 an additional revenue from the team, because if they can't do that, you're going to wind up going in the red a lot. If you're just getting by, you're going to have a slow month or stuff like that. To answer the size question, I find somewhere around eight to 10 is where these numbers start to make sense, where at least these eight agents are bringing in enough team dollar to cover the expense and then this person could help you bring in a few more. I'll give you a number actually, this varies across the country a little bit. On average, the average agent producing, so here's another thing I'll tell you. You asked team leaders, how big is your team? How big is your team? 

Speaker 3 (00:46:47):
I got 40, 60, 80. Then I ask them, how many are effective agents? They've actually sold the house in the last six months or so. That number is a lot smaller in number last couple of years on there. So yeah, effective agents, how many of those as the average one that's sat selling and working full time brings in company dollar about $50,000 to the team. So simple math was, all right, we're breaking even now, but we want to make another a hundred thousand dollars next year. We need to hire two agents that produce. And then it's a simple way to grow your profits that way. Each agent represents 50,000 if you can get them doing consistent work. 

Speaker 1 (00:47:22):
You just brought up another thing that comes up from time to time. I'm thinking now of actually that Inside Whistle Realty series where I forget which team members, we interviewed nine people in that series. It might've been Kyle and or some other folks. I think it was Kyle in that first episode where we talked about one of the most important decisions that they made recently, and frankly their top producers love it, is that they have a process for eliminating those folks who aren't producing and he set a minimum standard. And if you don't hit that standard on a rolling basis, we're going to see it coming. We're going to coach you up so you can maybe make the cut, but if you don't, you're out. How if someone says, I have 42 agents or I have 18 agents, but when you ask the follow-up question or when they ask it of themselves, that number really is 65% of that. 

Speaker 1 (00:48:12):
How should team leaders be thinking about eliminating folks from the team, which of course a lot of people are. I know I am very non-confrontational, so it wouldn't be the most fun thing for me to have that conversation with a pull up or get out kind of a scenario like pull up your numbers and pull up your activities, or it's going to be time for you to go, how are you advising people to set minimum standards inside their organization and actually enforce them with regard to agent production? Because at some point there's a production level at which they're actually costing you money, even though it feels like they're free because they're only getting paid when they close business, but not really. 

Speaker 3 (00:48:52):
One of my favorite topics. Ethan, thanks for asking. Good. So here's my little quote. I would tell team leaders, I ask them, do you have standards? Most of 'em will say, oh yeah, we have standards. We have standards. I said, are you enforcing your standards? The answer is usually, well, not really. Kind of, kind of, yeah. So then I will come back. So what you're telling me is you're running a team with standards, but you're not enforcing them. So you're running your team on suggestions. How's that working for you? You can't run a team on successions because a standard is only a standard if it has a consequence. And to your point, a lot of people don't like firing people, and part of the reason is they don't like recruiting. So they realize, all right, at least I got the headcount here, know they're not doing anything, but at least I don't have to go out and do that 

Speaker 1 (00:49:39):
Job. What is the headcount if it's not giving you what you think it should? 

Speaker 3 (00:49:43):
Yeah, so I went through Utah Life with spring not that long ago, so I'm very familiar with this topic. So looking at the cost of the agent, how much of the cost us between tech and training and time. And matter of fact, I will share with you, that's the one metric when most team leaders factor in how much an agent costs is. They don't factor in the time that they take. The got a minute meetings, the one-on-one meetings, if you're paying your sales manager a hundred thousand dollars a year and they're spending X amount of hours each week with that agent, that's money that being spent. So we figured out this, I remember her number. If an agent's not doing at least six units per year, we're losing money. So we created a standard where you have to do whatever, one or two units per quarter every quarter. 

Speaker 3 (00:50:29):
And then I learned this from Jason Mitchell, actually, he shared something with me that was brilliant but simple. He's like, Mike, I have a quarterly standard for everyone in my company, and if you don't hit the standard, he's like, I don't fire them. I do believe within a three month period, someone could get sick, they could have a personal issue, but we put them on notice that you need to get your numbers up to standard in the next quarter, otherwise we will fire you because we believe, or he said he believes that no one's having a bad half a year. That's too much time. So I think very fair. It kind of gives them plenty of time to get back on track if they want to keep their position on a team, but not firing them is, Mike is one of my favorite topics, is what you don't realize you're worried about this person and they're not producing, and will they be mad at you if you fire them? 

Speaker 3 (00:51:20):
But the huge bigger detriment, Ethan, is everyone in your company is watching what you're doing. The person who they know is underperforming, they're not really selling. So they're like, oh, we don't have to do, they don't really enforce these roles here. They said they would, but hey, if he's doing it or she's doing a little less, I'm going to do a little less. It seems okay to do that. To the contrary, imagine if your agent missed a standard one time and you're like, sorry, Ethan, you missed a standard. We love you, but we're going to miss you. Everyone in your team is like, oh shit. So this team lead is not messing around. I like my job. I better show up, otherwise he'll let me go. So it's more important how your behaviors affect the people that will be here versus all the emotion. All the thought we put into letting the one person go, and I'll tell you the other reason is I've learned a high percentage of these humans are sheep, meaning agent body, but there's one or two strong personalities. 

Speaker 3 (00:52:15):
So they're the ones, lack of a better phrase, get their opinion a bunch about something. They don't like you Ethan. They don't like the splits, they don't like the leads or whatever. What I learned is they never come to you directly. These more powerful. They get a bunch of the sheep to buy in. Hey, you don't like this either, do you don't like to? So what has happened, my whole career has now five or six people are going to come into your office, Ethan, hey, we don't like this, and if you don't change it, we're all leaving today and they will leave. So if you're listening, if I could give you a really good piece of advice when you see that one problem challenge, just law of the iceberg, you're seeing 10%, 90% of the problem you don't even know because they're talking to these agents every day all day long. You speak with them once in a while is get rid of them quick. Trust me, thank me later. It will preserve your culture. It'll keep things moving forward. 

Speaker 1 (00:53:05):
Yeah, really good. It's especially important too when you're in that zone where you don't quite have a solid mid-level in the organization, but it's big enough that maybe you could, and so you're even more distant from what's a little bit below that waterline further below the waterline. That mid-level management layer can help identify some of that stuff sooner. But you might be in that zone where I don't have that layer yet, but I'm also kind of distant. Okay, Mike, I have a whole bunch more stuff that I would love to ask you. I always try to keep these under an hour, so I am absolutely going to have you back. I feel like we just got to the tip of the iceberg on sharing some of your wisdom for folks at different stages of growth because of all that you've seen and learned. And I love that you were able to share the diversity in your background of building businesses in a variety of industries. I appreciate the candid nature of doing that as well. But before I let you go, I've got three pairs of closing questions that I think are kind of fun. I hope you do too. The first one, Mike, is what is your very favorite team to root for, 

Speaker 1 (00:54:13):
Or what's the best team you've ever been a member of yourself? 

Speaker 3 (00:54:17):
Thanks for bringing this up. It's been a very painful year. So I've been following the New York Rangers for 50 years. So yeah, the good, the bad, the ugly. I'm a loyal fan, which one of the things that's a challenge is I moved to Las Vegas West coast, actually, I dunno, five, six years ago, and they only come here once a year. So I get to see one game a year when they play the Vegas Golden Knights. But yes, I'll still be a fan. Hopefully we'll get our act together next year. What was the second part? One is his favorite team. 

Speaker 1 (00:54:46):
Well, it's totally optional. You can do one or the other or both, but the other one is favorite best team you've ever been a member of yourself. 

Speaker 3 (00:54:52):
I'm going to say it best not because we were the best. It's where I learned a lot. So it was actually my track team in high school growing up, I was really just trying to be invisible. I never had a dad mentors or anything, and Coach Irwin, I remember he'd pushed me, Hey, hum, you got this. Hey, we're counting on you. He let me try different types of like I was doing speed walking, short distance, long distance, and I started to realize I can do things. I could be someone, Hey, I could get a medal, I could win a race. It started, give me some confidence. So for me, that team is where I started to build a lot of my confidence. So to me that was the best team I've ever been a part of. 

Speaker 1 (00:55:29):
I love that and I love that Coach Erwin allowed you to see something in yourself that you didn't see, but he did. And we all need that in different ways and in different aspects of our lives. Really well, really well done. What is one of your most frivolous purchases, Mike? Or what's a cheapskate habit you hold onto even though you probably don't need to? 

Speaker 3 (00:55:50):
Well, I'm very frugal. So then you'll see why the purchase is kind of funny. So yeah, really we live very simple. Me and my wife, we eat broiled chicken, brown rice and broccoli almost every night for dinner. We don't. So the funny frivolous purchase is, this story is my wife has always loved Porsches, right? It's on the vision board. It's always been there and it's up there. We're building businesses now. We weren't looking to shop or buy one, and then opportunities come across my desk. I helped so many people. So about last September, me and Lisa laying in bed Saturday morning, I recall and I pick up the phone and it's Brian. I'm like, Hey, 

Speaker 1 (00:56:31):
As soon as you said Porsche and opportunities come along, I knew Brian was going to be in it. That's funny, 

Speaker 3 (00:56:35):
Right? I'm like, Hey Brian, me and Brian, I'm friends, but we don't really call each other Saturday morning to shoot the what. So I'm like, what's going on? And he's like, all excited, Mike, you're not going to believe this. I was on an allocation for three years for the GT four RS 2025, and there was a gentleman who was getting a car, but a Lambo or something came up. He wanted that car. So they said they'll sell me this car. I'm like, that's great, Brian. Congratulations. Why are you calling me? He said, but I have a few others and I want to sell one. And it was the one, the favorite Lisa car color that they had. Miami Blue, beautiful GT four, naturally aspirated, just beautiful car. So I looked at Lisa and I'm like, you want a Porsche? She was like, really? I was like, just say yes and they shipped it to the house. 

Speaker 3 (00:57:24):
But ironically, I haven't driven one of the things who, not how I haven't driven hardly at all in the last five years. So it's more ironic that I bought a nice fancy sports car and I hardly ever drive. But yeah, sitting in my garage, we take it out once in a while and just have a little bit of fun. So yeah, that's as frivolous as I think, but I will share this. I will have a hard time buying a depreciating asset, but these cars are what they are and they don't make 'em anymore. It's actually appreciated 4% last year. So frivolous I guess in a sense, but also not a bad investment. 

Speaker 1 (00:57:54):
I'll take a 4% return on some portion of my diversified investments. That's great. And the pleasure that it brings you. What does it look like for you, Mike? You're obviously a book reader, so that might be where we wind up here, but feel free to take it wherever you want. What does it look like for you to invest your time in resting, relaxing and recharging or investing your time in learning, growing and developing? What are you doing when you're resting or what are you doing when you're learning and growing? 

Speaker 3 (00:58:19):
I love this question. I'd mentioned earlier, I've read Good to Great a number of times in the last few months. So there's a chapter in there that says the most effective way to work is similar to an actor or an athlete. So what are football players doing right now? Resting, resting, resting, resting. What will they do? July, August, September. Practice, practice, practice. And then it's showtime, right? So I've been working on that actually is like eight to four or five. It is just work. Do zoom calls, provide value, and then turn it off five o'clock, right? There's stuff I could do. There's emails, there's work. Don't look at it. Same for weekends. So then when I read a book now it's like maybe Saturday I'll spend four or five hours. I will read the book instead of 10 pages every day. So it's chunking my activities into those three buckets of showtime, learning, practicing maybe, and then rest and segregating them very hard has been super effective. 

Speaker 1 (00:59:14):
Awesome. Well done. I mentioned your Instagram profile. If someone spent an hour with us, I'm sure they might want to connect with you or learn more. Any other kind of websites or spots you would send people who want to learn more about you and what you're doing? 

Speaker 3 (00:59:27):
Yeah, you can go to profits.com if a little bit. Again, we don't market, we don't promote just based on their reputation and all the good that we do. The phone rings almost every day. There's someone out here to sell or promote, but there's a website with some maybe basic information or if you wanted to set up a call, I'm happy to help anyone answer a call. But it's P-R-O-F-Y-T z.com because that go to my frugality. That was like a dollar 99 URL versus profits spelled was like $50,000 something enough. 

Speaker 1 (00:59:58):
Love it. Well, that's linked up right down below. As promised, Mike, I appreciate you so much. I'm glad we could spend all this time together and I wish you continued success. 

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Ethan, thank you much for the opportunity and your audience for tuning in. Thank you again, appreciate you. 

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Thanks for checking out this episode of Team Os. Get quick insights all the time by checking out real estate team Os on Instagram and on TikTok.