Speaker 1 (00:00):
After closing more than 160 million in sales himself. In 2018, Jason Mitchell walked away from personal production. Why? To build a company Today, JMG is America's number one real estate team, closing more than 6 billion in sales and 12,000 units last year alone. Here in this conversation, Jason shares how we made the transition from top producer to operator, the challenge of selling your vision and value prop, common and costly mistakes made by team leaders and expansion teams, as well as keys to agent retention and more. Here's part two with Jason Mitchell on Real Estate Team, os. 

Speaker 2 (00:40):
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 Butte. 

Speaker 1 (00:54):
What I want to do is kind of walk into what role you've designed for yourself. I assume that this process of taking off hats over the years has been a process of you finding yourself in your best seat, where you're of highest value to your vision and to the people around you. Go back to leaving sales production. I mean, you're an insanely productive agent. You have this vision that the industry is going toward these companies, whether it's someone starting their home search or whether someone's starting with a funding search, they're going to be getting more consumers and more eyeballs. I want to get out ahead of that. Or you're in this early relationship with Quicken Rocket that opens your eyes to it. How did you taper out of production yourself and what were some of the main periods of time for you, like seasons in this journey to arrive in the role that you've designed for yourself today? 

Speaker 3 (01:49):
I made a conscious decision that I want to build a company because I knew the company could create and become valuable, whereas it's only me in the field. It's hard when you back away from that because for several years you do take a hit on income. For sure. 

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah. Significant in your seat, I assume. 

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah. I mean to most people it would be quite significant. 

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah. Did you taper it down? 

Speaker 3 (02:11):
It just became more, what I started to realize too was as I started to really work on the business more, the clients were better serviced with somebody else, 

Speaker 3 (02:21):
And I had trusted agents at that time. This is 2000, I really stepped away in 18, so shit, it's been eight years now. But I had good agents that I would send my clients to and it would work the same thing as a referral. So I still took a split. My agents were happy to do it and my past clients that I was working now, what happened? I had a book that was still reaching out that I serviced, but there was no prospecting anymore. There were no new listings. There were no new buyers for the most part. I mean, some of them, for me personally, it was my book saying I want to do something or I have somebody to do something, but there wasn't anything fresh coming through. 

Speaker 3 (03:01):
I just believed in what I was building wholeheartedly. But it was a gamble because if it didn't work, once you shut that spigot off, you got to go back to the well and start again. And yeah, I could have done it, but I was convinced that we had the right model and I was convinced we had the right partners and I was focused on, what I looked at is rather than me scaling on my own, I can just go scale this company and bring in way more business than I could ever do on my own and what does that look like? And that's all we do today. But it was a very conscious decision of I want to build a company and I'm really grateful I did. The workload's different. You work just as hard, but the workload's different because you're an operator now. Whereas a lot of people, and I'm not saying I am by the way, but just because a great salesperson doesn't mean you're a great operator. 

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Definitely not. 

Speaker 3 (03:57):
And so the evolution of a loan officer or a real estate professional is I'm really good in the field. I want to start a team. The second you start a team, you now are saying you come second, they come first. And a lot of people don't do that. It's still always about them or their production or their production comes first. Then you shouldn't have a team, then you should just have assistance or you should just have a couple buyer's agents. But to say you want to become an operator, it's like again, going back to loan officers, they're a great lo, so they open up a branch, but then they don't know how to operate a branch. 

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Is there anything that a team leader can identify in themselves? I'm talking about that salesperson to operator transition. What is it about the types of people who have made that transition successfully? Do you think that would help a team leader know whether or not it might be for them? 

Speaker 3 (04:45):
I would say that you have to be able to vision, workflow and understanding the entry points of opportunity and how to work those along with the ability to service it. And as you grow that to be able to trust, to put people in place instead of thinking you got to do it all. Because even agents that are successful in the field, a lot of them don't even trust their own process or trust their own agents. They take every deal. Well, if you're taking every deal, why would somebody ever work for you? That's silly time best spent. I noticed too, my time isn't best spent working with somebody that's an hour away on a 300,000 purchase. That's not the best use of my time, but somebody would love to take that on. I know I would've in 2011 and 12. That would've been great for me, I'd take it. But as you start to grow, you start to realize where your time best spent is. And as an operator, your time's best spent with biz dev growing. 

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Are you good at business development? And if you're not, I would maybe reconsider being an operator because as the operator, you're the rainmaker. I mean, still me to this day. I get so with that because our bread and butter is new partnerships and expanding partnerships, and then we have to go back behind the scenes and make sure that we build a nice machine for them to put their platform with us. But that takes time. And on a smaller sense, it's more, or you can't build a company if 70% of your time is in the field. If you're a real estate professional and you're spending the majority of your time on showings and listings, how can you be building the business? Now you can. I'm not saying you can't, but it's really hard because what you're doing is you're chasing the low hanging fruit and that's that commission instead of thinking long-term, which is the growth of the company that you'll ultimately see more benefit from. But people don't see that path because the path is significantly longer than tomorrow. I could sell a house to you and make $20,000. 

Speaker 1 (06:54):
There's some muscle memory there too. 

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, I mean 

Speaker 1 (06:57):
It's where I'm comfortable. It's where I'm confident. 

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah. It's been so long at this point, I was into what we were doing. It was, I don't want to use the word obsessive, but I was really into what we were doing because I knew we were like first 

Speaker 3 (07:16):
And we had a great opportunity because we were doing something that other people weren't doing, and we were doing it at scale. And we started to do it at more scale. And what ended up happening is I remember the first expansion market I ever wanted to do was in Tucson, and this is in, I want to say it was 2015, maybe 14, I don't remember. But we started to do really well. And I had posed the question, what I knew in my mind was at some point, there's only so many referrals in Phoenix. Well, to me, that's an end point. So what I intuitively thought of as I said, well, if I do well in other markets, maybe they'll support me there. So before I did that, I asked the question and they said, sure, try it. You got to remember a lot of these companies too, they were growing their network with me. 

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, exactly. You were pioneering this together on both sides 

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Of the Well. And that's why my job has been, my job has been filled with the ability to have trust from the highest level of people in our industry. Because many of them, we helped build their model with them. I mean, I don't want to name all the companies, but I've been a part of either the setup and start and or the growth on the majority of these companies that run a network. And I think it's because at least nowadays, it's because I've seen so many of them, right? There's just inherent trust there. But it was also when this was newer, we were learning together. And so to be a part of that. So I was lucky in the sense of as I was expanding, it gave them the ability to place more opportunities. They didn't have partners there, so it was kind of this 

Speaker 1 (09:14):
And what does it look like? Yeah. 

Speaker 3 (09:16):
And so it was really a hand approach of helping each other out. But I remember the first time I went down to Tucson, it seemed like it just seemed like the next market I'm in Phoenix, might as well do Tucson. I had 30 interviews over a two day period to hire some agents. And I had a partner of mine, his name is Steve. He set that up for me. It was a title partner that I had. He was the operator. And I'm down there and I'm just painting a vision. I'm like, yeah, if you come on board, we have a couple partners. We can support your business as long as you do a good job. And all these things, story hasn't changed to be honest with you. Not a single person came on board. And I was interviewing them personally. I'm telling them, no, this is my vision. This is what we're going to do. Now granted, we have a team of 1520 in Phoenix, 

Speaker 1 (10:02):
But it's working. So you have a story, story. It 

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Was working. But where I'm going with all this is it's way easier now to get agents to buy in and trust and take a leap of faith or team leaders to join JMG than it was then because it was all just a vision. There was really no track record you're doing in Phoenix who says you're going to do in Tucson. Well, now we can say, well, look, it's worked in 180 MSAs. I think it's going to work here. It's never not worked. 

Speaker 3 (10:33):
So I drove back up to Phoenix and I'm like, well, that sucked. I got nobody. I'm like, well, what am I going to do now? And then I just kept grinding. And then I met somebody that did take opportunity down there and it worked. And then I got a team leader down there with her team and that worked. And then we moved, I think the next one was California, and that worked. But as we started doing these things, you learn lessons along the way. What good leadership looks like in local markets, accountability for agents. We really manage our agents at a corporate level. We have local leaders that take the day-to-day and field calls and try to create guidance and are to be there to govern. But the reality is we control most of the at corporate, we see it all. If you're a bad agent, you're out. There's no excuse. And when you start to set that culture of we're not here to coddle, we're here to close deals, everyone starts to catch onto that because the biggest mistake, not the biggest, that's an overstatement, but one of the mistakes that leaders make is they just have this leniency model to where they just, oh, but they're so nice. They're good person. I don't know. They're going through a lot. And it's like, this is a business. It's a business. And I've learned that too. But bad agents can hurt your market. 

Speaker 4 (11:56):
And 

Speaker 3 (11:56):
The mindset I try to tell our leaders is by taking care of the bad agents, you're punishing the good because you're going to lose these partnerships because you're not performing as a whole. Do you want that? 

Speaker 1 (12:07):
That's an interesting dynamic. These markets kind of win and lose together. That's right. Outside of their own personal production, they win and lose together, right? 

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Most of our partnerships look at market area. How are you doing in San Diego, la, Seattle? If it's good, you're good. Most of 'em don't look at the individual. We do, but we're competing against others. So if you're sitting there giving grace to agents that have no business getting referrals, you're hurting the ones that actually deserve more. And this is the mindset you try to get. And still people have a tough time with that because the reality is they can't have tough conversations. And if you can't have tough conversations, you should not be in leadership. I don't care what organization that's 

Speaker 4 (12:46):
In 

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Tough conversations is part of running a business. But when you start to rule like that, that we want our agents to flourish here more than anything. We build every day for our agents. But if you aren't up to snuff, then we're just not for you because we can't jeopardize what we have in that market today. So as you start growing markets, you start to understand what good leadership looks like, proactivity from leaders, those that are bought in versus those that tiptoe around it. And it's just every year, as the year goes by, you just try to get a better understanding of what's happening and then you feel pretty comfortable with what you're doing. And now it's just seeking more and building better. But I think that this expansion team world of teams that are expanding now and other parts of states into regions where they make mistakes is they go too fast and they're not ready for it. You got to have your shit together. You got to have accountability in place, you got to have reporting. You got to have centralized everything. And what they try to do is they try to expand and then it breaks and then they're like, oh my gosh, that was such a waste of my time. Well, you weren't ready for it. 

Speaker 3 (14:07):
It's like an agent that buys leads. You can buy all the leads you want. If you don't have somebody to follow up on those leads for you, you're not going to do it. You're just not. You'll get too busy. And then they say, well, it wasn't worth the investment. No, those are bad leads, right? It wasn't worth my investment. No, you weren't set up properly for that investment. Same concept, 

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah. Agent retention over time. I mean the attraction of obviously helping someone get super productive with highly qualified leads, a great system, great training to understand what those opportunities are on the way into your phone or into your inbox from there. Talk a little bit about retention. So what I want to do is have you talk around two big things I tend to hear around referral partnership built businesses, and one of those is agent retention. Because a lot of people will say, and we've had both on the show, some people are like, my experienced agents no longer want to work my, for example, Zillow preferred leads. Other people are like, you never graduate out of that. And it's always a well to go back to talk about how you think about retention and access to these opportunities as someone's book of business grows. 

Speaker 3 (15:16):
Well, one of the main reasons for attrition is that agents are in an environment where the leader that makes those decisions on splits gets greedy and they get greedy because they take too much in self gen. See, what I always said is we should be entitled to some of your self gen because we're helping build your entire book and the whole 

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Backend is your system, 

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Right? But what I'm saying is this, we're incredibly generous on our self gen splits. We're actually, we're too generous, but I'm not going to change it just because I don't want to deal with it, 

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right? You're too far down. 

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, I should. But most teams and brokerages that distribute referrals and leads, they have a 50 50 split with the agent typically, and then they take 50 50 or 60 40 on their self gen. Well, if I'm an agent and I'm the one doing all the work, if that customer sends me their aunt and uncle and you want me to give you 50% on that and I did all the work, that's a tough pill to swallow. 

Speaker 3 (16:22):
So I think a lot of the mistakes are these companies and team leaders, they don't understand the value of a great agent. I would rather pay you more on self gen. So you never leave if you're really good than to start thinking that you're taking too much from me and I'm going to find a different home. The more generous you are on that stuff, the more an agent will stick around for us. Once you hit President's Club, you're at 85, 15. So let's say you do a hundred grand a year in self gym business, you're going to pay us 15 grand. Okay, fine. But if you close 30 extra deals and you make on average of those transactions 4,200 per you made 125,000, that doesn't count whatever self gen business, that book spits out to you too. So we run these numbers annually, and last year it was just over 700%, meaning our average agent made 700% more from us than what they paid into us. And if you have that, which again, I don't want to be 80% of someone's business, I'd rather be 60 or 50% of someone's business, quite frankly, but why would you leave that? 

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Why? I mean, when we see people leave JMG, it's either we fire them and let them go, or they know they're not doing a good enough job too much for them, they're not closing or it's overwhelming, it's just not for them. They said they want to be busy, they didn't know what real busy was, stuff like that. We don't really lose good agents. Why would you? Because the other thing is if you work here for three years, right? And this is fair, and I think most people do this, but we certainly do. If we help you close a hundred deals in three years, those are company deals. So if those people transact, that's our transaction. You don't get to work with those clients in the future, and if you do, there'd be a referral fee for that because those are our clients and we monitor that. So why walk away from that book either? As long as you're not greedy on self gen, no one should ever leave a situation where they're closing an extra 30, 40 deals a year, but it's when you're collecting 40, 50% on someone's own business, they say, this is just unfair. 

Speaker 3 (18:35):
So I would advise team leaders to think about that, but for us not losing great agents because we're fair, I think is why we retain great agents. Plus, again, going back to you never have to worry about if your phone's going to ring. You don't have to worry about ad spend. You don't really even have to do open houses. Just close the deals that we send you. 

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Hey, we'll get back to the conversation with Jason in just a moment, but I wanted to share two quick reminders. First part, one of this conversation is in our previous episode, episode 1 0 4. In it, Jason shares with you how we develop their unique B2B business model based on referral partnerships, which agents, team leaders and brokerage owners. The model is a good fit for how they approach opening new markets and how they balance deal flow with agent count and the critical roles of trust, accountability, and centralization to making it all work. We've also got a companion episode to episodes 1 0 4 and 1 0 5. It is a free subscriber only episode, and you can get instant access to it@realestateteamos.com slash subscribe. When you sign up, you get instant access to that and more than 10 other subscriber only episodes. In this one, Jason talks about agent branding, client engagement, the bible of your business and other topics. Again, it's absolutely free@realestateteamos.com slash subscribe. Now, back to this conversation. A couple questions about where we're going in the business in general. I want to start with a hypothetical. Let's say it's a team leader of a nine agent team, a couple support staff. They've kind of tapered down production to 50 or 60% of what it was before they started the team, so they got their time managed reasonably well across clients and agents. They're reasonably profitable given the size of the team. Obviously that varies. The bigger you get, the less margin would be expected. 

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Let me stop you real quick. Yeah, please. Okay, good. Most of them are profitable because of their own 

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Production. 

Speaker 3 (20:36):
When I look at an, it's 

Speaker 1 (20:37):
An accounting function, 

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Well, when I look at an acquisition, I look at, okay, take your production out of it. How are you performing? And the answer most of the time is not. Well, yeah. What operators, broker owners or team leaders don't realize is take your production out of the equation and actually how you operating, because anybody that's going to do a deal with you in the future is going to take your production off the table 

Speaker 4 (20:58):
Because 

Speaker 3 (20:59):
You could go make a hundred percent or 95% or 90% somewhere else very easily and not have the operations 

Speaker 4 (21:04):
You 

Speaker 3 (21:05):
Are actually contributing. You're counting your revenue into the operational revenue and you can't do that. 

Speaker 1 (21:12):
So someone in your seat would take that away right away as you're analyzing the business. 

Speaker 3 (21:15):
Oh, I do. That's the first thing I ask. How much of these 300 deals, how much is your production? Half of it. Okay, well, there we go. Yeah, 

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Okay. Let's say it's not that situation and it's reasonably balanced. What is the future for that organization in light of some of the macro trends? For example, the one that you built your business on years ago, where do things go for them? Do they just keep chugging along? And I 

Speaker 3 (21:42):
Think too many agents and team leaders in this country have become too dependent on Zillow, and I love Zillow. I have a great relationship with them. So this is not against Zillow. This is to those team leaders that are 90% of their business is through Zillow, and you have to be so cognizant of the fact of if something changes, what are you going to do? 

Speaker 4 (22:08):
And 

Speaker 3 (22:08):
So you have to find other ways to develop business for their agents and add value to the agents. Also, there's a lot of options for agents that can go elsewhere, but a lot of this country, because Zillow provides so many leads to so many team leaders out there now, they're really dependent on Zillow, Zillow's providing a better consumer experience by connecting 'em to the best agents in the country. Goodbye Zillow. 

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, I mean it's basic diversification, like a healthy approach to almost anything is a diversified 

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Approach. Well, and the other thing is too, you cannibalize it to where all of a sudden now, so I'm on your team and you want a 30% split on my business. I'm just going next door where they're going to offer me 10%. I get the same leads and the same split on those leads, but I pay less. They're creating their own war within each other. The teams, right? Because most markets now have that deal flow, and for us, it's something that we love expanding of course, but we have such a diverse portfolio. If we lose a partnership, we have many others. We don't want to lose any partnership. But the reality is it helps me sleep at night knowing that my largest partner that gives us business is still only eight and a half percent of my overall business. That's a good feeling and that's our largest, because the other thing is agents will leave at some point. At some point they'll leave. And then recruiting becomes more challenging because agents are either somewhere else already. Your value prop isn't there, your splits aren't where they need to be. So if the question is what do they continue to do, then in those cases find value, 

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Find value. There are ways to do deals that are outside of what you're comfortable with right now. We have channels of business that I never thought we'd be into. You seek it out and you see all that worked because there's only so much capacity. And so I think a lot of team leaders are limited in their growth when you talk referral channels, because this is the way forward and it is better for the consumer period. It's a better process for a consumer that says, I don't have an agent. Well, I have a trusted one for you. They're going to have a better buying experience or selling experience unequivocally than just randomly finding an agent. So this is a good thing for the market, and it's a good thing for businesses. It's a good thing for businesses to have trusted real estate professionals assisting their clients. It's all a good thing. And by the way, most of the time they receive discounts for doing so, whether it be a lending discount, whether it be a closing cost credit, these are all good things for the consumer, but for the team leaders that are sitting there saying, what do I do now to grow? I haven't grown, or What am I going to do to grow? You got to start thinking out of the box because a lot of these partnerships that have significant deal flow, they're capped. 

Speaker 3 (24:56):
They got their partners now. I mean, even when we go into a market with partners I've had forever, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to allow me to go into that market, which I push back on and I'm like, what do you mean? But it happens. It happens. It happens to some of my biggest ones. And what I always say is, well give us a chance to compete, and I typically get that chance, but I'll tell you, it's not as easy for us even because it's 2026 and I'm trying to get into a market I'm not into. They've had partners in that market for 5, 6, 7 years. 

Speaker 1 (25:27):
It's hard. Yeah. Last question before my three pairs of closing questions that I think are kind of fun. I hope you do too. And that is future with regard to team agents versus solo agent in a traditional brokerage, like continue to be room for both or does just team structure make sense going forward in light of some of what you just shared there? Any thoughts on 

Speaker 3 (25:50):
That? I think it depends. I think if you're a high producing agent, I don't think a team model is probably for you unless they're really providing you a ton of business. Because if it's all self gen business, you would just go to where it makes the most sense on those splits. 

Speaker 3 (26:06):
I think teams will continue to be a thing, but the team leaders have to be very cognizant of their value prop. A lot of team leaders deal with attrition and rehiring is hard. Training is hard. It requires a lot of time, it requires a lot of discipline, it requires a lot of resources. So you need to make sure you have a good offboarding process and an onboarding process, and that's a lot of building. I believe that what we have found to be true without question is that team leaders have more control than the broker owners and they should, but ask yourself this question as an agent, if my team isn't bringing me value, and value is not a CRM anymore. It used to be, well, I get a CRM and I get coaching. That's not value anymore. That's everywhere. The value is are you helping me grow my business? And if the team isn't helping you grow your business, you might as well cut out the middleman and just be an agent at the brokerage. You'll get a better comp plan. I mean, the team layer is, I'm going to pay more, but I get more value, period. That's just the way it is. And anybody that argues that is wrong, I'm paying my team leader a certain split on top of whatever I'm paying the brokerage 

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Or whatever they're paying the brokerage on my behalf. So if the team leader isn't bringing, if the team isn't bringing you value, you would just be a part of the brokerage. So they got to make sure that they're adding the value. Otherwise you will be a revolving door. A lot of times there's empty promises too. We have all these things. Then you go there and it's not what it was cracked up to be, but I believe that teams have a lot of ways that they can add value other than the broker because the broker's responsibility is legal compliance. They're worried about all the backend stuff. The team should be worried about the front end stuff. The reason a team and for example, JMG, bring your team to JMG, just plug in. We'll alleviate so much of your expenses, plug in our back office and we'll help you grow at the same time. It's a wonderful model. A lot of brokerages aren't there to do that. A lot of brokerages are there to be like, Hey, we're here to keep you compliant and we're here to provide some training courses and do the traditional things. That's what you have to have, but that's not helping you grow your business. 

Speaker 3 (28:14):
But if the team leaders aren't doing it, then it doesn't matter. But I think the team model continues to flourish as long as the team leaders are bringing value. 

Speaker 1 (28:23):
And to your point, value can look a lot of different ways. Opportunity is wider than just leads. 

Speaker 3 (28:27):
That's right. 

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Okay, so three fun pairs of closing questions. The first one, and you can answer one or the other or both. Some people like to do both. You can do whatever you want with these. First one is what is your very favorite team to root for or what's the best team you've ever been a member of? And it doesn't have to be a real estate team. It can be any kind of a team. 

Speaker 3 (28:44):
Favorite team to root for in sports is we had an unfortunate season, the Michigan Wolverines very good. There's a lot of bad that happened this year, but that is my favorite team. I'm from Detroit and the Red Wings favorite team that I'd been a part of. JMG. Clearly, clearly. I mean, I'm a member of this team. Yes, technically I'm the boss, but you guys have walked around here. I don't even have an office. Yeah, my office 

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Is, that's a conference room, 

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Was my conference room because I want to bring people in. I want to know. I want them. It's a collective here. 

Speaker 4 (29:18):
It's 

Speaker 3 (29:19):
A lot of collaboration. I'm here every day grinding out with you, and I am somebody that services a role within my organization and I love this team. We have an awesome team right now. We have the best team assembled than we ever have. I'm very confident in my team right now. And then what I'm most proud of is I would say my family. I got three awesome kids that are healthy and happy, and I have a great wife who's a great mom and we've built a great life for ourselves. And so I'm very proud of that. I'm proud to be a dad, and I'm proud to say that I consider myself a good husband. I work my butt off for my family. I'm present with my family when I'm not working. I'm with them all the time, and so I'm most proud of that for sure. 

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Awesome. Thank you for that. Also a Michigan Wolverine, great coaching hire, great coaching staff. They've reloaded on the football side and of course the basketball team is performing incredibly 

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Well. Yeah, the basketball team is a beacon of hope, at least right now. But 

Speaker 1 (30:21):
My Lord Group a Pistons, red Wings, tigers, lions fan, Barry Sanders era, Eiserman Federoff. 

Speaker 3 (30:28):
I had this, one of our buddies, it's a Michigan fan, sent a text and he goes with Ohio State not winning the Big 10 or the national championship. They basically had the same season we did, and I go, except that they're coached and end up in prison. What are you talking? So it was a rough one, but look, Michigan's in good shape. The Pistons are doing well. Fantastic. Red Wings are doing well. Michigan hockey and Michigan. I'm not a hater. I'm more of a Michigan fan than state, but I don't hate, we're in a good spot right now. Yeah, I'm excited. 

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah. Good. Next one. What is your most frivolous purchase or what's a cheapskate habit you hold onto even though you probably don't need to? 

Speaker 3 (31:09):
I don't think most people would say I'm cheap, 

Speaker 3 (31:14):
And we don't have this crazy expensive lifestyle, by the way either. It's just I understand how valuable my time is, and I pay for that in a lot of cases. My thing is, as long as I don't think I'm being taken advantage of when you talk about a quote on something or if you're going to make a purchase, as long as I'm not being gouged, I'll pay for the convenience. But the gouging, I'll give you an example. We go to Cabo a lot in Mexico, and the last time we were down there, we were checking on our place that we're building down there, and we stayed at the Pedro Go. We usually stayed at Esperanza. We stayed at the Pedro Go, right nice place. I went down for breakfast. I got two coffees, a bagel and a Danish, and it was $72. And I went back to the room and I told my wife, I said, well, we can't stay here anymore. And she's like, relax, it's breakfast. I'm like, no, that's bullshit. That to me means that I don't want to be here anymore because you of that, by the way, on top of that was 17% this and whatever that the gouging to me is, I just can't do it. 

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Last one is what does it look like? What are you doing when you're resting, relaxing and recharging, or what does it look like? What are you doing when you're investing time in learning, growing and developing? 

Speaker 3 (32:30):
Well, this past year was a really good year for me. I got back on track and so no less than five, but typically six a week I do sauna, cold plunge. That's about a 50 minute routine daily. And then just regular exercise diets in line. We do well at home with that. So I think exercise and paying attention to that has become a big part of our lives. And then it's hard with three kids to travel. And so what used to be isn't so much what it is now, but honestly it's spent the weekends are with the kids and making sure I have dad guilt a lot. And I think it's just part of knowing that you work a lot, but you're as present as you can be, but you still have guilt over, I should be spending more time. 

Speaker 3 (33:21):
And so I try to have one-on-one time with my kids. I have two step boys, they're 14 and one will be 10 in two weeks. And then I have my daughter, Ruby, who's three, and they're all gapped in age where they're into different things and then they're different. Like my 14-year-old and 10-year-old are just night and day different. So it's hard because you're trying to spend one-on-one time when you can, and then you're just trying to spend time in general. And so I get dad guilt over that sometimes where I just always tell myself, I should be a better dad. I should be more present. I should be doing these things, and I probably shouldn't have that. But I think that's just one of the things where I want my kids to know that I am here, but also I want them to also see that dad's working and he's trying to do everything he can. So my boys at least, and of course Ruby two, but that they grow up with the fact that good work ethic is a good thing because dad didn't grow up like you're growing up. Dad grew up quite not well, meaning I had a great family, don't get me wrong, but we didn't have money. 

Speaker 3 (34:20):
And money does afford you things without question to be able to give your children, you say, a better life. It's just an easier life with less stress that certainly my parents had, of course, but I didn't have those advantages. I didn't have a silver spoon. I didn't have a great education. The only thing I had is I worked really hard and that's all I have today. And I want them to see that. I want them to see that work ethic can go really far, and hopefully they see that even though that they're young, I hope they see that at least at some point. 

Speaker 1 (34:50):
And I hate to say it out loud, but I'm going to anyway in a recorded setting, that work ethic will be increasingly a differentiator in the future, is what I feel like is going on right now. 

Speaker 3 (35:00):
Well, I hope so. Like I said, I went to central Michigan. I have a Mac school education, and somehow I became successful. It's about the work. It's just work 

Speaker 1 (35:08):
And vision and all the things that you shared with me. 

Speaker 3 (35:10):
You know what else I think it is, I think it's treating people well. I think it's truly genuinely caring how other people are doing what you can do to help them. And that's just not my agents and my operations team. It's my partners. I genuinely care about my partners, how they're doing, how their business is doing, how they're doing, and that sincerity is felt in every call. It just becomes like a family. It becomes like a friendship slash some of them become really like your family where there's so much trust there and years of relationship that they know that you would do anything for them. And I also know that they would do anything for us too, 

Speaker 3 (35:52):
And that's the best part about my job now. But I think treating people well and having integrity, people always say they have integrity, but when push come to shove, you really will. You do the right thing and doing the right thing even when it's not popular. Or Mike, the guy, I would tell you, if any one of my partners called me tomorrow and said, Jason, we're having a tough month for the month of February and March. We need to raise your referral fee to a hundred percent. And unfortunately it is what it is. Or say they said instead of 35, it's 50. My response to them would be, do you want 75? And the reason that would be my response is that not a single partner that you have would have that response. And I know I would do that because my goal would be if we do right by you when you need us, you'll do right by us when we need you. And that's always been my approach, and it always will be my approach. Whatever you want, can I do more? Because I'm happy to do so. I don't look at a relationship as a transaction. I look at the whole approach of all transactions, all the future, all the possibilities, and people get very shortsighted when you start nickel and dimming at closing over a partner that I can't believe you took an extra $150 for. The fact that that's worth the discussion tells me you're not the right partner for me. 

Speaker 3 (37:16):
I mean, we deal with a lot where we overpay somebody on a referral check. It happens every month. Just keep it. It's fine. No, we can't keep it. Just keep it. I don't care. We'll do more. That's the approach. Whatever I can do, however I can do it to show you that I'm the best partner you got, that's what I'm going to do. 

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Really good. I appreciate that approach so much, and I hope that it does continue and that care and support of each other is how we move forward. Collectively. Your business is a testament to that. I so appreciate you again spending. I have no idea how long we've been going, so I really appreciate you spending all this time. I love the content that you are sharing and the wisdom that you're sharing via video in, I see it on LinkedIn and Instagram. I'm sure it's in other channels too, so I'll round up some links and drop 'em down below for folks who want to go farther. But is there anything you want me to make sure that I include for folks who've gotten to this point in the conversation? 

Speaker 3 (38:07):
Not at all. I love our industry. I love the people of our industry. I'm super excited to see what this year brings to our industry. I think we're going to get some good headwinds. Yeah, so thank you for allowing me on your show. 

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Cool. Thank you, Jason. Hey, thanks so much for checking out this conversation with Jason Mitchell and a huge thank you to Jason who was incredibly generous with his time and to the whole JMG team for welcoming us into JMG HQ for this episode, episode oh four, the first part of this conversation, as well as a bonus subscriber only episode, access and details about both of those are linked up down below in the description. If you missed out on episode 1 0 4, Jason breaks down his unique B2B business model built on referral partnerships, which agents, teams, and brokerage owners. The model is a good fit for how they approach opening new markets and how they balance deal flow and agent count in those markets, and the critical roles of trust, accountability, and centralization in making all of it work. And if you're not yet subscribed, go to realestate team os.com/subscribe. When you sign up absolutely free, you get instant access to a dozen subscriber only episodes, including one in which Jason details, tips for agent branding, client engagement, the bible of your business, and more. It's all@realestateteamos.com slash subscribe. Thanks again, I really appreciate your time and attention. 

Speaker 2 (39:33):
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.