Speaker 1 (00:00): Brian Buffini started a real estate team before teams were a thing. Back in 1992, back before brokerages had any idea what to do with real estate teams. Today, Buffini & Company coaches and trains agents, team leaders, and broker owners all over the world. They were kind enough to welcome me to the stage at a recent Buffini Coaching Live event to get lessons learned over the decades, specifically for team leaders. What it took to sell 100 homes a year back in the late 80s, what it was like to start a team before brokerages had any idea what to do with them, how to find your assistant, what the primary team models are, and which might be right for you. When limiting your team to four to seven agents makes the most sense. What the hardest thing about real estate is and what mistakes that can lead to. Speaker 1 (00:45): Get all that and much more with Brian Buffini and a live audience on Real Estate Team OS. Speaker 2 (00:51): 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 (01:06): This is an absolute joy and privilege to be here with you in person, Brian. Speaker 3 (01:10): Thanks for having me. Speaker 1 (01:11): Yeah. Speaker 3 (01:12): At my own event. Speaker 1 (01:13): Yeah. Speaker 3 (01:14): Yeah. I just get to work. That's the bottom line. Speaker 1 (01:16): Yeah. So does this feel like it worked to you? Speaker 3 (01:19): No. Speaker 1 (01:19): Good. Very Speaker 3 (01:20): Good. Speaker 1 (01:20): Good. And thank you again so much for doing this, by the way. I'd be remiss if I didn't start with a huge thank you for everything you've done, all the lives and businesses you've positively impacted. And specific to the topic of the show, you're also a real estate team pioneer, which we'll get to shortly. But the standard opener on the show is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team? Speaker 3 (01:42): Oh, I think you can't manage anybody if you don't manage yourself. I don't think you can lead anybody if you don't lead yourself. I still think like a realtor. And I run a pretty big company today and I have to guard against that. And it's my comfort zone. It's what I know how to do. And it's the Darth Vader principle. You turn on the dials. I'll take them myself. And with the business I have, I mean, we were just here today, we had 35,000 people. Well, there isn't much to take it yourself when you're trying to do stuff like that. So the real key for me is you got to manage yourself. You got to lead yourself before you can lead anybody else. And so the whole dynamic of self-development and leadership development is pivotal. It's pivotal. If you're not willing to do that, you should never have a team. Speaker 3 (02:38): It's over before it starts. Speaker 1 (02:40): Yeah. So a strong team leader who is confident in themselves, investing in themselves is the key characteristic. Speaker 3 (02:46): Yeah. And I would asterisk on the confidence because I made a lot of mistakes early on because I thought in order to be a leader, I had to have all the answers and I thought all the answers had to be right. And that if I ever had a wrong thought, idea, or strategy, that the team would crumble in their confidence in me. And so no one wants to be wrong and we're not going to try to make mistakes intentionally. You want to have confidence, but confidence is born out of experience. And experience is ultimately coming out of doing things you do well, and then sometimes experience is getting a whole bunch of what you don't want. Speaker 1 (03:25): Yeah. So maybe then vision with principles and values in the middle and experimentation on the backside and people around you that trust and believe in the vision to exercise. Speaker 3 (03:37): Yep. Speaker 1 (03:37): Yep. Speaker 3 (03:38): Empower them, train them and harness them up and get them going. Speaker 1 (03:41): Yeah. So you were selling a hundred homes a year in the late 80s, early 90s. Speaker 3 (03:46): Yeah. Speaker 1 (03:47): Cast a picture, this is leading up to the dawn of your team, but that's pre-internet leads, that's pre a lot of the software that people think will make them more efficient. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Speaker 3 (03:59): Duran Duran. Speaker 1 (04:00): Yeah. Speaker 3 (04:02): Flock of Siegels, Shade. U2 with the big hair. Speaker 3 (04:09): So yeah, that's my era. And so I was selling homes and I had flip chart and a notepad and I would go on appointments. And back in those days, the big producers, they had VHS cassettes that were personal, promotional things. And they'd come in and they'd send these in advance and stand in front of the Rolls-Royce. People have no concept of this, but that was the standard training. The biggest trainer in the business at the time, his byline was find them, fleece them and forget them. And so I come along, Mr. Referrals. You got to understand, when I came out on the circuit talking about referrals, it was absolute disruption of the industry. It was like AI to the real estate business because underneath everybody knew referrals were where it's at, but that was considered weak. And the industry was cold call, door knock, expire for sell by owner. Speaker 3 (05:03): And the reason that was the case, it was a proven system. If you make this number of calls, like a factory, right? And everything was like, you did this, you did that, go down the end, you got it. And the style of leadership at the time was one of control. Speaker 3 (05:17): So you can control your agents to do these activities. You turn these dials, you get this result at the end of the conveyor belt. And so the real estate business dissolved in leadership over time because the agents went, "Forget this. " And the agents started going to forget 150% models to 100% models. They wanted to have their own listings, do their own things. And I was part of that. I was right at the cusp of that. But yeah, I was doing a hundred homes a year with one assistant. And I'm 58 now. Can you imagine what I was like at 22, 23? I was a maniac and I don't teach all the things I did. Speaker 1 (06:01): Some of them aren't as relevant or don't apply it. Exactly. Speaker 3 (06:04): Yeah. And then it grew from there. And then I realized, okay, I had other things I wanted to do. And I would come up with, and I haven't shared this stuff because it blows people out a little bit, but I didn't have many peers. So I would come up with little games. Speaker 3 (06:20): So one year I sold 127 homes. To compete against yourself. Pete against myself. Because I wasn't competing against people in the office. And so I had a deal, could I do 100 homes a year in 30 hours? And so that was my game. And I had an egg timer every time I was in the office and did this whole thing. And I'd just about kill myself trying to do it in 30 hours, but that was the game. I ended up doing 87 that year, but increased my average sales price by two and a half times. So I did more revenue. That was the way I figured out how I could do more in less time was to raise my average sales price. So a fantastic thing came out of it, but playing games within myself, and that's where the team came from. So we- Speaker 1 (07:02): Yeah. Talk about your original concept, what we would now refer to as a team. What was it at that time and how did it come together? And what was it before you decided to pivot out of it? Speaker 3 (07:13): Well, again, I'm going to really date myself here. So I sold a home to a guy that ran the largest Christian radio station in San Diego County, Kay Praise Radio. And he goes, "Man, you're just a fountain knowledge and you got all these quotes and people can't understand your accent, but when they do, it's really funny." And so he said, "Why don't you do a Sunday evening show? Let's give it a whirl." So I start doing this Sunday evening show and it was a call-in show and it was a call-in show on real estate. Well, I start getting people, their listenership goes through the roof and they're like, "This is great and we're doing this and the advertisers are going. " So the next thing you know, all these people are calling the radio station going, "I need that guy's number." And I'm like, "Really?" So then I started to say, "Hey, if you want to do business with me, call here." Well, we start getting boatloads of people calling my office off the radio. Speaker 3 (08:14): Now, here's the trick. I had all the business I wanted, Speaker 3 (08:19): And they were all referrals. And at that stage, I was getting kind of picky. I got to the point in my business, if you were referred by one person, I would hand off that typically. But if someone was referred by two and three people or a repeat customer, then they had me. So that's when I decided, okay, I need to expand my team. So there were people in the office who were really good people with really good hearts and I said, "Great, all they need is leads." So I started giving them the radio leads. And so of course, no training, no accountability, no nothing like that. So I- Speaker 1 (08:52): By the way, I've heard that story on the show a number of times. Speaker 3 (08:56): And then my younger brother, Kevin Maffini, came and joined the practice, which is a whole nother welcome to the circus moment. But I said, "Kevin, here's what I want you to do, his first job. Call all the leads that we handed off in the last six months because the buyer's agent is telling me they're no good." And we had handed, I can't remember the exact numbers, like 80 leads and all but six of them had purchased and we got five of the deals. So they'd purchased, they just didn't purchase with us. So realized, oh, these goodhearted people weren't enough. And also when you don't generate the lead, you don't value the lead to the same degree as the person who does it. So that was my first eye-opening experience. So then it was, okay, I'm going to train these people, I'm going to teach these people, and I'm going to hold these guys accountable because if just because you didn't ... Like my kids have grown up in a fair ... I mean, they grew up on private jets and things like that, but they have a blue collar work ethic like their dad. Speaker 3 (09:55): So the key is to eliminate entitlement. And what I see with teams, what happened in my own team, what I see throughout the industry is I had people who were entitled and they basically, if the Phish jumped in the boat and canned itself, it was to- I'd Speaker 1 (10:11): Write my name on the can. Speaker 3 (10:12): Yeah. And so they would complain about the leads or complain about this. So then I say, "Okay, in order to do this, here's the deal. You got this amount of time to ... We hand you a lead if you're working." So we wanted people to have time off and whatever else. So I ended up having two of these people. But if you don't call the lead back in 24 hours, and this is again, 1990, not what it is today, man, that lead is no longer your lead. Speaker 1 (10:37): That's a standard, by the way. You document that, you train it, you expect it, you enforce it, congratulations, you have a standard. Speaker 3 (10:44): And then through trial and errors, we develop some dialogues and so on and so forth. And then what I did was kind of fun, which is I then, again, I make little competitions with myself. So I said, "Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do referral fees on all these leads I'm handing off and I'm just going to put it in the fun account." So whatever comes in, "Hey, Bev, we're going to go on this trip. We're going to go do this, just a fun account. We'll donate it. We'll do whatever." Well, pretty soon it starts being some serious money, like serious money and then really serious money. And it's like, "Well, no, we're going to use this to buy real estate." And so what I did was eventually got to my team was this. I had a team of six and my goal was everything I grossed was what I net. Speaker 3 (11:29): So I didn't want to have a team of 35 people and all that type of stuff. By the way, when I formed a team, I was at a RE/MAX agent at the time, started ERA, went to RE/MAX. RE/MAX did not have a policy for a team. So I was the first team in San Diego. I wanted to Speaker 1 (11:41): Ask about that specifically. What did they think you were doing? How did the conversation go? What were the main issues? Speaker 3 (11:48): Well, I was the top agent for them. And I was also, there's something I don't talk about often. I was a top recruiter for that broker too. And I feel a sense of responsibility. If I'm working for a broker that's invested in me and I'm out in the marketplace doing deals and talking about people and they're like, "How's your business? It's fantastic. You should talk to Greg, my broker." Greg Seaman was the number one recruiter in RE/MAX in the state of California. And in a five-year period of time, I sent him 38 referrals that closed, that went and joined the company. So I always felt a sense of responsibility to get back like that. And so he was willing to work with me, but he goes, "Man, I don't want to do here." And so at the time, whoever worked for me, they classified them as a subagent. Speaker 3 (12:28): That was the law at the time. And so then he wanted to charge me a desk fee for everyone working underneath me. And so this building still exists in San Diego today. This thing is legend. So I took this office, I took out all the desks, I took out all the chairs, I put in a hardwood floor and I built these counters and we had these rolling chairs. So I had five people and it was like a rolling opera. And so for years after, so later on he said, "Look, man, the headquarters is coming down on me. They say you got five agents. We got to pay us five agents." So I went and bought a building in San Diego for what they were going to charge me. And I had my own two-story building in the Mesa, California. So the thing that happens when I left, and then years later when I became a speaker, they left the name on the door. Speaker 3 (13:21): So there was a hundred agents in that office. So this was the Brian Baffini office, and this is how wild real estate is. People would pay double to work in that office. Now it was cool, but I think they thought the juju was there Speaker 3 (13:35): And you go in there, you sell a hundred homes a year, but that office is still in existence today, the same kind of green, forest green counters. But yeah, I mean, we founded a team before a team was cool. I founded a team for the same reason, I believe. I had a surplus of leads, I wanted them well taken care of, and I eventually built a format so people would do an extraordinary job for them. And then I enjoyed that. It started being everything I gross is what I net. And then it ended up being my team eventually helped me build a fortune because from the proceeds of those transactions, I stayed within my lifestyle. You might want to write that down. I kept my budget the same, but I took all the proceeds from the team about real estate in 1990. Speaker 1 (14:21): In Southern California. Speaker 3 (14:22): In Southern California. So it's been a blessing. Speaker 1 (14:25): Yeah. In the decades since we've watched the dynamics between teams and brokerages change, do you have any high level observations about, I guess I'll call it the rise of real estate teams, particularly over the past 10 to 15 years. Any thoughts on it at all? Speaker 3 (14:41): Well, there's a lot of people in this room been with me a long time. I was talking about teams before anybody was talking about teams, and I said it was the future of real estate. And here's an interesting thing. Why does it work? Because fifty fifty has always worked in real estate. And so when you have teams and you're doing a split 50, 50 or 60, 40, whatever people are doing nowadays, that makes sense. And so what happened is the brokers got consistently squeezed out. And so I think the major franchises were slow to adjust. I think teams were tolerated for years and years. I still think teams are mostly tolerated. Some brands have tried to get ahead of it and go, "No, we're going to be a team culture." I actually think, believe it or not, I think there's going to be a resurgence in brokerages and nobody thinks that. Speaker 3 (15:31): But I think these current market conditions with the pullback and the number of agents that are about to happen, with the consolidation going on in the industry, there's just an awful lot of free spirited people who don't want to be working for conglomerates. Speaker 3 (15:45): And you're going to see an uptick in independent brokerages and you're going to see, I think what you're going to see is brokers who have teams and then agents as well all under one roof. Speaker 1 (15:57): What was your vision for teams being the future of the industry as you started to kind of catch on to what was going on? Speaker 3 (16:02): Well, I saw myself. This was a super profitable model. We were on this broadcast today and it was a young gal called in and her husband's in the Navy and she's had to change cities a couple times. And she's exhausted and overwhelmed with the prospect of having to start from scratch or like the last market we had for the last three years. Imagine you're 27 years of age and you got into real estate, none of your friends can buy a house Speaker 3 (16:29): And you're trying to generate a lead and get the ball rolling. Well, I believe the perfect place for those people to start in real estate is a team because the team leader has a vested interest in making sure they get trained, vested interest in making sure they're productive. And if the team leader's doing their job right, they're bringing in more leads than they can handle. And I know we can get down the road on the team models today are all built around online leads and stuff like that. And I get that, but I still think the core fundamentals needs to be the fundamentals. And people get to argue with me, "Hey man, your radio was just the first online lead." And you could certainly argue that. But I think the key component of having a team is A, my core fundamentals are such to a degree that I've got a quantity of leads coming in and I need to handle those leads and what am I going to do? Speaker 3 (17:22): And so I have different ... We teach in our ... How many of you in here, by the way, we have a live audience here, obviously. How many of you have a team? I'm curious. Okay? High percentage of the Speaker 4 (17:32): Room. Speaker 3 (17:33): And so we teach a process where we have five different models we teach. And the first one is we call the referral agent, which is basically find an agent in your office, match up, give them some dialogues to say they're calling on your behalf, they're part of your team, and you start with referral fees. And that's a great way to start. It's also a great way to expand and keep the fixed expenses down. So I find that to be a very handy tool. And eventually, sometimes a referral agent who's getting leads and doing well goes, "I want to join the team permanently." So look, the margins make sense, the model makes sense. If you're a lead generator and a lead driver, that makes sense. And especially right now where it's hard to generate a lead, especially newer people coming in the business or people who've come from out of area or have gone through maybe a tough time, like people have gone through a divorce or whatever, something life changed experience like that. Speaker 3 (18:24): I think a great proving ground for those people is to come to a team. Speaker 1 (18:29): Yeah. A proven system that people can plug into and it kind of gives them a jumpstart. You mentioned the referral agent that's the first of your five team models. I'd love for you to walk through those a little bit and kind of talk about the nuances between them because I talk with a lot of people who struggle to know, I mean, A, should I start a team, B, how far should I go? Should I stay here at eight to 12 agents? We're doing well. We got that family feel, but I could be more financially successful myself if I pushed out to 40 or 50, but there's this kind of like death valley in between Speaker 3 (19:04): There. Speaker 1 (19:04): There's a lot of questions about what model is right for me and when. So I'd love for you to just kind of walk through them and add any nuance about- Well, Speaker 3 (19:10): You're looking at the guy who coined the Death Valley phrase Speaker 1 (19:13): 28 Speaker 3 (19:13): Years ago. Speaker 1 (19:14): Good. Speaker 3 (19:14): And right, how many of you heard me, Tom, about this and many of you in here? And I had real estate companies go to war with me over this because they were selling franchises and people had 14 agents and 18 agents. And so here's the dynamic. I said at the beginning, I still think like a realtor, I still think like a salesman and a salesperson thinks more sales will cure everything and more is better. And that is not the case, especially not with a team. So I start out with the referral agent model is you have ... So the first team is an agent with an assistant. And I would tell you that foundation is key. And we just, in fact, for our members here, we're building out this thing called the excellent assistant with videos and all that kind of good stuff for them because the key component of your foundation, if you don't have that right, forget it. Speaker 1 (20:06): Eddie tips on finding the right person. That's a massive struggle for a lot of people. Speaker 3 (20:10): Yeah. Don't be in a hurry. Don't hire someone like you. If you're a hunter, you better hire a skinner or there's dead bodies everywhere. So you got to hire people that are different than you. We have in our coaching program, a real strengths profile. And what we try to do is match people up with, here's your strengths, here's their strengths, here's where their matches. But I would say ultimately, I would say character, chemistry, competence. When I first became an employer, that's not how I would've done it. Okay? I started with competence. You run an ad. Oh, this person's very competent. Let me tell you. The person today who's my ... She started, she's been my executive assistant for 10 years. She's now the chief of staff at Puffin and Company. And she was not necessarily equipped for the job I hired her for. She'd been an assistant inside the organization and many of the leaders in companies, "Oh, no, no, no." But I met her and there was this chemistry and I could tell with her character she had capacity. Speaker 3 (21:14): I'm like, okay. And I can teach her the competence stuff or I can help her get the help she needs for the competent stuff. Well, she's flourished beyond that and she's more than an assistant today, like I say, chief of staff of a company that's the largest coaching company in the world. Speaker 1 (21:28): And it's the trust you put in her, in addition to all of her own skills and capabilities to flex and try and do new things. Speaker 3 (21:35): Right. She had the character and we had the chemistry and then we got the competence. So I think that's key component. A lot of times what happens in real estate is we hire someone we know, family, friend, whatever. And again, that can work, but it also can't work and you need to count the cost. If you're going to fire your sister-in-law, you need to think about that before the day you hire Speaker 4 (21:56): Her. And Speaker 3 (21:56): Then think about Thanksgiving dinner and how that's going to work. Speaker 3 (21:59): And you hear from the other table, "I hear you're really slumping." So that's not what you want. So I just think that formula's great. What I did was I used it as an opportunity to go to my database for referrals. So I would send out a mailer to my database and I'd call my database, start with my favorite people, say, "Great news. I'm expanding my business, Ethan, and you know what? I need someone who's super competent to help me in an administrative role." And I was thinking, you're someone I trust highly, maybe you would know somebody. And it gave me a chance to call my clients, tell them I'm expanding. And if they had a referral, then I'd work through it all. And I would always follow up, just like all referrals, I'd follow, "Hey, here's what happened. She was a great fit. In fact, I helped her find a job over here type thing." So anyhow, I think, so the agent and the assistant is first and the agent assistant plus the referral agents. Speaker 3 (22:55): Then we get into a team. And to me, your team is, you've got your agent, you've got your assistant, you're going to have one or two buyer's agents and now you're looking at expansion into what are you going to do on the listing side. Now the listing side, I'm slower to give up initially because that's the crown jeweler real estate. So someone really has to earn their stripes. So I typically move a buyer agent over to a listing specialist. I typically won't hire a listing specialist. "Hey, I got a rockstar in my hands. "Some agents don't ever want to talk to a seller. It's more tense, there's more pressure, there's more negotiations, slight more confrontation. It takes a little more chops. And so I think a couple of buyers, agents, and then what you're going to start to see is you're going to start getting to what I call the group. Speaker 3 (23:44): And the group is now your assistant's going to need an assistant. You're going to have however many buyers, agents, listing specialists, maybe you have a transaction coordinator, all that kind of good stuff. And then we have the mega groups and we have those guys too doing giant businesses. Here is the key. The key is to make sure that you run your business like a business. What do you want your business to look like? So if you have a team and you want to sell and you want to keep selling, your team should never go past 10, ever, ever. There's no way that you can lead a team- Speaker 1 (24:19): Because you're keeping a lot of the opportunities rather than- Well, Speaker 3 (24:22): You are, but the other part of it is because here's what happens. There's not enough people there to make it work so that you can stop selling, but now you're maxed out on how much leadership you can do. And I would tell you, 10 is a big number. Speaker 3 (24:35): And I'm talking about including admin people. So to me, the perfect model, I'm going to say this, and hopefully I don't ruin your show. I would say 80% of agents should stay selling and have a team that supports them. And if they had a goal to have everything I gross is what I net, it's a fantastic business model in real estate. And it also allows you to go on a vacation and you're covered and other people can go on vacation and they're covered and family and life can happen. And when there's feasts and famine, it's going to be able to work through as a team. I think that is really, to me, that's the sweet spot. I will say this, 80% of our teams at Buffini Company are between four and seven. And when they want to go bigger, they have a long, long discussion with their coach. Speaker 1 (25:21): Yeah. Let's talk about that for a minute. Leadership at an organization of 25 people is dramatically different than leadership of an organization of 10 people. What are some signs that someone might be well fit to go ahead and push on and build a larger business? Is it something that they know intuitively? Are there any indications in their past that would suggest that they're well suited toward building and leading a larger organization versus enjoying what you just described as a tighter organization? Speaker 3 (25:54): I believe the number one reason people to expand their teams, the number one motivation for most people is ego and comparison. And they hear so- and-so walks across stage. I'll tell you right now, because I've been around this thing, I mean, next June, 40 fricking years. That's scary to say. But I've been there and I've been at all the major conventions and yada, yada. I've been backstage when the number one team in the world was getting an award and the wife comes over to me as he's on stage getting the magnificent award and she's bawling her eyes out going, "Please help us. Please help us. Can you help us?" We're going bankrupt. Okay? He's taken uppers. He's living on Red Bull. He's doing this. Our marriage isn't going to make it. Our kids never see him and we're going broke. But he walks out on front of that stage. Speaker 3 (26:41): And what happens is he gets the award, gets the accolades, and then a whole bunch of people in the room start comparing themselves to that person, and they don't know he's failing miserably because he bought into the ... It's understandable. The part of it is there's a gift there. There's a gift and there's aspiration there, but you have to be a business person and it has to make sense. And it has to make sense in regards to time and treasure, Speaker 3 (27:05): Time and treasure. And so what are you willing to spend both time and treasure and what are you willing to do? Now here's the deal. Some people are just more naturally gifted at that. And you find that if you're leading people and you find that you're really able to engage people, really able to inspire people, you're really great at attracting people to yourself and you start enjoying that more than you do the selling, well, then great.That might be a great indicator that this is your gift. And so I would slowly transition more and more of my business over to the team and slowly ... If you're going to have the bigger team, your number one job is to recruit, lead, and then sell. Speaker 3 (27:46): To me, in the middle, it's sell, lead and recruit if you have that four to seven. So different job descriptions, different gifts. It's helpful. We have a real strengths profile, which is a deep analysis of a person's natural gifts and abilities. We have coaches who've had conversations, talk people out of this stuff all the time. But if somebody's really committed to it and they're really gifted at it, great, go for it. We have some people, I may have a couple of them here today, the 40, 50, 60 person teams, they're just a rock and roll, but they were put on earth to do that. It's just a very small percentage of people and it's not their gift that is better than someone else's gift. It's just Speaker 1 (28:25): Different. Yeah. One of the pieces of the equation in what you just shared there is leaving sales production. You mentioned 10 as a size where that shouldn't be a thing, but how would you advise someone thinking about pushing forward? What are the size that you can start transitioning down and really go from 100% of production to 70 down to 20 or 10 where you're really only doing close- Well, Speaker 3 (28:54): There's an economics to it too right now. You're not going to be 100% covered. But the bottom line is the revenue needs to start picking up over here on the team side so you can start reducing it on the income, the sales side. People make the mad leap and go cold turkey. It happens all the time. And I'll tell you this, the hardest part about real estate, there's one thing that's really hard about this business. You feel like you're on a treadmill. Speaker 3 (29:21): You don't really feel like you're growing.That's why real estate used to give out awards for everything under God's green earth. There you're still a round award, right? So if you get a job, you're looking for promotion, advancement, you want feedback that you're growing and doing well. And real estate, when it's done really well, it can be repetitive, it can be a grind, it can be groundhog day and I get all that. And it's what happens is when we get bored is when we make these entrepreneurial gaffs. And then like I say, I'm at this a long time. And so let me confess a little bit. You You know, I got into this because I just wanted to change people's lives. That's it. I mean, no other deal. I was like, I'm going to do the right thing in the right way, and then hopefully it'll pay the bills. Speaker 3 (30:11): And next thing you know, I'm in charge of this giant company with giant company. We moved the needle, like the one out of every 10 sales in America or one every eight sales here. South Africa, you cannot get the real estate license unless you are a buffet practicing agent. So we have that Czechoslovakia, all that stuff. And as the business grew and my team grew, I became further and further away from A, my customer and B, my staff. And I woke up one day and I go, where the hell am I? Speaker 3 (30:40): And I found myself not enjoying what I was doing anymore. And the accolades were more and the remuneration was more and the influence was more and I couldn't stand it. And I was going to go do something else. And of course my bride, who's the ultimate coach, the coach you don't want, we had a lot of opportunities on the table. And she goes, "What is it you're supposed to do? " I go, "Well, impact and improve the lives of people. " She goes, "Has that changed?" No. Well, why don't you go back to doing that then? And I will tell you this, the last six months I've had the timely life now working my hind parts off, but I've had the timely life, getting back to see the customers, getting back to building relationships. I've been jumping on coaching calls, stuff I hadn't done in years, which has been fantastic. Speaker 3 (31:32): And by the way, some of them have had opinions to share. They are realtors. And then also getting in touch with my staff and building relationships. I have a Christmas party next week that people would pay thousands of dollars to go to. It is like mastermind on steroids. And I've had a blast prepping the Christmas party. The last few years, I barely showed up. So I think what the lesson in that is, find what it is you love about the business and make sure you pour yourself into that. Because what you love is where your gifts lie, it's where your heart lies, it's where your passion is. And whatever that pays, then be happy with that. And so I have all kinds of stuff. I have TV contracts and bloody reality TV shows, all that stuff coming at me all the time. It's like, no, I'm going to talk to 250 realtors at the Paris Hotel, take pictures and have a good time. Speaker 1 (32:29): Yeah. I mean, it's just a great testimony to the importance of purpose and not losing touch with it because I've sensed the word purpose occurred to me as you were talking about when you woke up and found yourself more distant than you were comfortable with from your customers and more distant than you were comfortable with with your team. And your story is essentially a story of refinding your purpose, which leads me to like ... I kind of wanted to ask you about this anyway. I didn't know if I was going to do it in a recorded setting or not, but your quote about Saint Iranius of Leon, I feel like I heard that in your response. So I'd love for you to share that quote and why it's on your wall. Speaker 3 (33:12): It's on my wall. It's the glory of God is the human person fully alive. Speaker 1 (33:17): Yeah. I felt like you described a fully alive person. Speaker 3 (33:20): That's very deep. Yes, very good. Yeah, that's a good word. I hadn't thought about that. I look at that thing every day because sometimes you don't see it. Speaker 3 (33:33): Yeah. I'll say this. I can honestly say in my heart of hearts, as hard as I'm working right now, I have never enjoyed anything as much as this. I have a company that I'm fixing up. I have fundamentals that sometimes I'm walking around all day long going, "What? We do what? We do what? " And then getting roll up my sleeves. The gift I have is I have a team that I've never had before. And so here's the great news about the size of organization I have. So I hired one great guy, his name's Darren Dawson. Speaker 1 (34:13): I know him. Speaker 3 (34:14): Well, he brought about five leaders with him Speaker 3 (34:16): From different experiences he had. And every one of these people have been like just a home run human being who love what we do and who we do it for, who seems like they've been waiting for a chance like this their whole lives. And then we've homegrown this talent inside the building and who now have an expression and an opportunity. So I have the clients, I have the right message, and I now have the right team, and I'm just freaking fired up. And I will tell you this, let me tell you what I'm doing right now. Joe Gibbs, I don't know if you know the name, Joe Gibbs was a coach of the Washington Redskins, whatever they're called now today. They changed their name every month, but he won three Super Bowls. And then he went on to change sports and he ran NASCAR and I believe he won three NASCAR championships. Speaker 3 (35:07): So when a guy is that talented, a person is that talented and they can move their leadership gifts from place to place and achieve at the highest levels of competition, they got something going for him. And he said this, there's two things in business that will test you, success and failure. So let me tell you what I'm working on right now at Puffini Company. We're putting things together and rebuilding stuff and going back to our customers and loving them up. And there's been a lot of sorrys in the last six months. Speaker 3 (35:36): And what I'm working on as the CEO is preparing for when the team hits this success because I don't ever want to get back here again. And sometimes pain is such a good gift because if something hurts that much ... I had customers that were with us for 20 years that fired us. I had people who worked for me for 20 years that we fired that never should have been let go. And that's painful and it's painful to see people either losing trust in you or your team cashing in their trust where they had to extend themselves because you weren't properly leading them. Well, that has been so painful that I'm like, I ain't ever coming here again. In fact, I have a little song that I play. It's by The Who and it's called Don't Befooling. I Won't Befooled Again. And it's a cool song. Speaker 3 (36:27): It's great song if you download it. But I like the last line. The '70s, they have great guitar solos. And at the end of it, so he does this whole song and then at the end of it and it says, "Here's the new boss. Looks a lot like the old boss." And I go, "That's me, baby. I'm back." So it's good stuff. And so what I'm doing right now is preparing my company to do this. Okay, we're about to have a 14% increase in the market. We're about to have, we have the right tool at the right time. We just developed this core Blitz program. It's going to blow up. We have what we're doing. Our systems are great. We've got this technology where we meet new customers. All this stuff is great. And I don't want to be in a situation again where we lose connection with our personal relationships, where we lose sight of who our favorite people are, who our best customers are, that we love on them, we blow them away. Speaker 3 (37:15): They just feel absolutely honored to be our customer. And then our staff, that our staff are like, "Man, I wouldn't work anywhere else." And so I'm working on that now. I'm working for when the next test has come and the next test will be success and I'm working on that right now. So thank you, Joe Gibbs. Speaker 1 (37:33): Yeah, really good. I didn't know that part about Joe Gibbs carrying on beyond the NFL. It's fantastic. Okay. Speaker 3 (37:39): My mother calls me a hive of useless information. So I've made a living knowing things that have no relevance to life and then teaching them to people and getting paid for it. Speaker 1 (37:49): Yeah. I mean, I'll just say in the past 24 hours, three or four references to movies and TV shows that I remember came out of you. And I was like, "Oh yeah, how about that? How about that? " I know what she's talking about. Okay. So the way that we ... Thank you so much for doing this. The way that we wrap these up, I have three fun pairs of closing questions. You can answer one or the other. Some people choose to answer both. You're welcome to do whatever you like. The first one is, what is your very favorite team to root for besides Buffco? Or what is the best team you've ever been a member of? Speaker 3 (38:18): My favorite team in the world to cheer for is called the A Team. I got six kids. Speaker 1 (38:24): Yeah. Speaker 3 (38:26): And whatever team they're on, that's the team I'm cheering for, and that's my number one team. The second question was? Favorite Speaker 1 (38:34): Team to root for or best team you've ever been a member. Speaker 3 (38:36): Best team I've ever been a member of is the B team. That's me and Beverly. Speaker 1 (38:40): Okay. Yeah, that's great. Well done. Speaker 3 (38:42): Just how you stay married 35 Speaker 1 (38:45): Years. We'll play. That's fantastic. I think some of you might really enjoy this one. What is one of your most frivolous purchases or what's a cheapskate habit you hold onto even though you don't need to? Speaker 3 (38:59): I got cheapskate habits, baby. So wherever I travel and I'm on the road all the time, I take all the soaps, I take all the lotion. Beverly has about 4,000 caps for the shower cap. I got at least a couple hundred nail kits and sewing kits. I sort them by hotel franchise. Don't like the Marriott lotion. Speaker 1 (39:25): So you get a special closet for these items because they're good for travelite here. Speaker 3 (39:29): And this is just the start. My kids will tell you, man. OCD, I've made it functional. Speaker 1 (39:35): Yeah, that's good. What does it look like for you? What are you doing when you are either, A, resting, relaxing and recharging, or B, investing time and learning, growing and developing? What does either of those look like? What are you doing? Speaker 3 (39:47): So the one thing I do is we have a house in Hawaii. And for whatever reason, we know we lost our home in a fire in 2007 and we had a place in Hawaii and that became for me and Bev and our kids like this little sanctuary. And we have a great connection with the local community. My wife is African American. My kids look Hawaiian. So when we go there, we're a big family, Ohana. We know all the people who work in the restaurants, we bring them little gifts and all this type of stuff. So when we go there, we're home. And I get there and I'm on the big island and I go for these hikes every day where I never see a soul. I'm by the ocean. And so I have a whole routine around that. And I do ... I'll go there initially and I'll be there the day after Christmas, company's Christmas party. Speaker 3 (40:36): And first three days, no phone, no nothing. It won't read anything. I don't want any intake at all and just digestion. And then what I'll do is I'll start to write down. And again, I used to be a prolific journal journalist. And so I would journal all the time. And I'd lost 19 years of my journals when our house burned down Speaker 3 (40:57): And I've never really recovered. So I don't really journal the way I used to, but I journal quasi and it just helps me get what's out of my head and everything that's gone on. And like this year, like I've had a year, I've had five years this year and my mother died March 20th. I'm going to tell you, I haven't had a chance to mourn her. So when I go to Hawaii, I'm going to talk to the ocean a couple times. And these folks know me pretty well. I'll give you this word if it means anything. I married a wise human being and Bev was like, "You haven't even had a chance to catch your breath about your mom." And I said, "No, I haven't." And she goes, because my mom was a huge part of my life. And she goes, "Brian, just so you know, it's good to mourn, but your mom, her words live on through you. Speaker 3 (41:47): " And I was like, "I'm good." So recharge, download, journal. And then, I mean, I'm a voracious reader and listener and then when I go on that, I just go all in. I'll read a book a day. And so I learned how to speed read 35 years ago in real estate. And so when I go, I go hard and heavy. I typically will read stuff when I know like I got a peak experience or a leadership conference when I know, hey, what do I need and B, what do they need? And so I read stuff that the people who come to me haven't had a chance to read. So that's the little format. Speaker 1 (42:30): Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Well, that's the conversation. For folks watching and listening, a lot of things that we talked about are linked up down below, whether you're watching on Spotify or YouTube, whether you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or whether you're watching or listening at realestateteamos.com. A lot of stuff linked up right down below. Brian, I appreciate you so much. Thanks for doing this. Speaker 3 (42:51): Thanks, Ethan. I appreciate it. It's good stuff. All right. There it is. Speaker 2 (42:58): Thanks for checking out this episode of Team OS. For email exclusive insights every week, sign up at realestateteamos.com.