EntreLeadership - #388: Determining Your One Thing with Gary Keller

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

The average day of most entrepreneurs can feel like an endless to-do list—you know, the kind filled with a constant storm of emails, texts and meetings that never ever slow down. On top of that, you still have an entire team to lead, a business to scale, and a life to live. Something’s got to give, right? Turns out, it’s a whole lot of somethings. Gary Keller, cofounder of Keller Williams International and a bestselling author, says the secret to managing it all starts with focusing on one singular thing in your business. Tune in as Gary explains why that is such a game changer and why you’re able to achieve so much more when you do less.   entreleadership.com/podcast Keller Williams website The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan Think Like A CEO with Gary Keller & Jay Papasan The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller, Dave Jenks, and Jay Papasan EntreLeadership's Business Health Assessment Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   As an Amazon Associate EntreLeadership earns from qualifying purchases.   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, if you're a small business owner by now, you have figured out that you can't just work in the business. You've got to work on the business. You've got to get above it. You've got to do strategic planning and team building and all the things that cause a business to actually scale to the next level. That's what it takes to achieve your dreams. But how do you do that? It's not that easy. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves,

their teams and their profits. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty, and today we're going to talk about how you actually scale a business. How do you get out of that startup stage, the treadmill stage, you know, the bootstrap thing where it's hard and you're just grinding, whatever you want to call that stage, you've got to break through it to get to the next level. But it all starts with what we call humble beginnings. It's where all businesses start, but they don't have to stay there, and they shouldn't stay there. Hey, you've got dreams of this thing, becoming a big deal. And my guest today is going to teach you exactly how that works. Gary Keller is the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Keller Williams. Maybe you've heard of them. Well, in fact, they're the

world's largest real estate firm by agent count. He's a titan of his industry. He's built a dynasty, but it didn't start that way. And in Gary's case, he was a real estate agent with no track record. So I didn't have any real focus in college. And my dad, my sophomore year, says, hey, you probably need to get a major. So he had me that summer spending a day with a lawyer, a day with a account, and a day with a banker, day with a realtor. And I like the realtor. And it was just starting a major in real estate. So that's how I came to get my degree in real estate.

So your dad said, just go shadow these people as an exercise? I mean, most dads don't. have their sons to do this. So that's fascinating to me. Well, he was an educator. So my mother and father were both educator. So that made sense to him. I got back to college, study real estate, came out. I treated it like a job. So one of the biggest mistakes that independent contractors make is they don't treat it like a job, right? They get in there for the freedom and the flexibility and the possibility of untold wealth. And what they do is they take advantage of the freedom and flexibility and they overtake advantage of it and then they never get the wealth. It's a job. It's a job. So I came out

of college, come to Austin. I'd been here once before my family. I didn't know anybody at the time other than a former high school friend and joined this real estate company. I started selling real estate. And all I did was treat like a job. And that is I got up early and I went to work. So I showed up. And by the way, there was nobody there. I literally would pull my little Volkswagen into the office and there was nobody there. And I just got to work. And they said, look, you're going to have to lead generate because we're not going to give you any clients. And of course, I went, oh, my gosh, you know, they didn't talk about that in college at all. You know, they talked about real estate. They never said you have to go generate a client, right? And so I had to go learn to lead generate. And I

read some books and took classes. And I went out and I sold five houses my first 30 days in a city that I'd actually never been to, right, other than once. And I did it just by following the books. I did what they told me. I didn't. One of the biggest mistakes that we make in life, I think, is that we try to be creative on the front end of doing something instead of the back end. And what I mean is that I had a college professor say, you know,

Gary, you're pretty smart, but if you look around, you realize that people have lived before you. And you might want to study them before you go and try to reinvent the, wheel and that had a profound impact on me because I went okay so what he's saying is I should go find out where people who are doing this the best are and just mimic them until I internalize what they're doing so I understand it and then I could be creative off of that but I shouldn't go in and just be creative on the front end because what do I know right it would take me years to get smart by doing it and learning from me doing it. I could really speed that up by copy

another people in the beginning. So that's really what got me going. What I came to understand was that sales is helping people make good decisions. And I didn't care in the end, I had no real vested interest if the decision was not to buy or if it was to buy because I was looking for clients for life. And in the short term, you would think, well, I need everyone to buy because I or, you or sell with me because I need to make money now. But I looked up and I realized pretty quick that I wanted to have a great career, not just a great year. And the way to have a great career was to not overly emphasize the moment's income. Focus on doing right by people. They'll do right by you, right? People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, right?

It's huge. You've heard all that. It's these mantras that are not really just mantras. they're actually golden rules and philosophies about how to look at things. I agree with all of that. I want to come back to when you talked about getting up early and coming to the office and nobody's there, many people get into sales because they hear about autonomy and freedom, work your own hours. And I think a lot of people in that moment, Gary, would go into that office and go, oh, I don't have to be here this early. The social norm around here is rolling at 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, after you've had your lazy morning.

morning and that's part of the perks of being in this kind of a career, but you didn't do that. You continued to treat it like a job. You showed up early even when you, you know, quote unquote, did not have to based on what everybody else was doing. Where did you get that drive or that insight to say, I'm not worried about what's normal around here. I'm going to set my own course. I think that for me, the beginnings of that came from my upbringing. My mother, bless her heart, insisted that my two sisters and I learned to play the piano. And so we had to practice 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night. And in order to get three kids to practice 30 minutes before it was time to go to school, we all had to get really early. And both of my parents, you know,

came from the farm, if you will. And so you get up early. So for me, the alarm, when I'm growing up, my alarm is going off at no later than 6 o'clock. And there was an intercom system in our home, right? They don't put them in anymore, right? I remember those. My grandparents' house had one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. And dad insisted that we never turned that off. So dad had a direct pipeline into any of our bedrooms or all of our bedrooms. And so my dad's favorite thing to do was, you know, a little before six o'clock, you would hear my dad. He'd go, rise and shine, everybody. It's a beautiful day. That's my dad, right? And he had to get up because you were going to get in serious. trouble and there'd be consequences if he didn't get your 30 minutes in. So you had to get up.

And we also had chores. So we had to get up and we had to do our family chores of help make breakfast or do the breakfast dishes or whatever it was. You had to get up, take care of yourself and then you had to practice your piano and then you had to do chores. So I was a busy fella, you know, by 730 when it was time to head to school. When I reflect back, I just had a work ethic because my parents expected me to do that, if that makes sense. Okay, so it makes total sense. Let's break this down for a second. So those values were instilled in you at an early age. It came with what it means to be a member of the Keller family. Sounds like your dad maybe knew my dad. I had similar experiences. You're getting up early whether you want to or not. You will be at family breakfast. Yes. But as a business owner who's hiring

salespeople, where do you recruit or how do you train or how do you motivate? You know, you want your sales team to be there early. You want your sales team to show up. I mean, they're bringing in the revenue. They're the lifeblood of the organization. So if they didn't have that upbringing or if they don't have that drive, what are the constructs or the conversations that you have to say, guys, we got to get in here and get after it. You can't just roll in at 10 o'clock. I don't care if you're straight commission and you had a good month last month. This month, we still have to pay the bills and come in and make it happen. Well, first off, we can't motivate people. We can motive A to them, AID. But we can't motivate them.

What does that mean motivate? Well, motivate, let's take motivate. Motivate means I can get you to do something, right? And motivation is an internal thing, not an external thing, right? You may be able to coerce me. You can threaten me. But, right, and you can say I'm motivating you if you want to go down that path. But motivate means me help you find your motivation.

So the answer to your question that I discovered, because I got into management fairly early in my life. When I was 24, I was already into sales management. And by the time I was 26, I was a vice president of expanding the largest real estate company in Austin, Texas. And what I discovered was that, think about it this way. I've got an agent in front of me, a salesperson. And the salesperson, I'm going, man, you have such ability. I mean, you got it, right?

You're on this. Just get after it. And the person says, I'm not thinking I'm going to do that. and I go, why are you in sales? And the person says, I'm not sure. And I go, well, how much money do you want to make, right? And they go, I don't know. And you go, well, what do you want your life to be about?

And they go, I don't know, I, have you thought about it. And I would go bingo. I got a problem. And that is, it's chicken and egg, which comes first, right? Do I become self-aware? And then when I go to work, it's a reflection. of who I am and how I see my life being connected to the work I do, right? Or do I just go do it?

And then I figure out who I am. And what I discovered with some people, the people that get up and just go, they get up and go because they're inwardly motivated, right? They have a drive. They have an inner drive. And it's for a variety of reasons, by the way, a variety of reasons. A lot of people that are driven I've discovered is, is they have a chip on their shoulder, meaning that the self-image is a little off, and they got

something to prove, or they came from a background of a lack of money, if you will. And so they got a chip on their shoulder. They want the money, right? But they come in, and there is no great trainer that can motivate someone that doesn't have motive. And so I began to, I actually ended up writing a course called, I call it Quantum Leap, which is kind of a joke on my students because they think Quantum Leap means big, right, and it actually means baby steps. But Quantum Leap actually, it became the most popular company in the entire course. In fact, I just taught it to almost 400 kids last week via Zoom. But it's a course that asks the question, who are you? And how do you know you're leading your own life? And I start by asking them that question, right?

like, whose life are you leading and how do you know? And it's really interesting because they just kind of stare at you. And the typical answer is, well, I'm leading my life, of course. And I go, okay, well, prove it to me. And I said, let me give an example of where I'm going with this. When I was in college, I looked down one day and I was chewing my fingernails. And I went, well, that's kind of an interesting habit. Why am I chewing my fingernails? I didn't actually know. I honestly didn't know. And I didn't think much else about. out at Daniel. And then about a month or so later I was at home and I'm sitting at the kitchen table and I look over and my dad's got his hand crammed in his mouth just chewing away.

And I never really registered consciously what my dad was doing. But now of a sudden I realize my dad's chewing his nails. And I look up and I go, my dad do it, I do it. And I realized that I wasn't a self-determined individual. I was just copying what my dad was doing without thinking about it. So then I thought about it and I went, I'm going to take my life back. I'm not going to chew my nails. And then I had to come up with a simple way to ensure that I didn't chew them, which was I cut them real short. Well, and so many of our habits are informed, at least early in our life, like what you're saying by our environment. I mean, what we're exposed to. We just pick these things up even subconsciously. And I love what you're

saying about motivation and where it comes from. At Entree leadership we teach, you don't hire people and then motivate them. Essentially, you hire motivated people and then you help steer them towards getting what they want out of life using this partnership with the opportunity that you create through the business that you're bringing them on to. So it sounds like that's consistent with what you found through those experiences. That's right. You talk about motivation and purpose. I want to get more into purpose here in a minute, but when you started shifting from Gary the salesperson to managing people, I'm leading people, if you had an experience like me and I, and I would, was on a similar track, you get the title and you have the responsibility, but then you start

realizing, I got some stuff to learn. There's a difference between being the all-star quarterback and being the head coach and influencing not directly on the field in every down, but actually from the sidelines by building a team. And I'd love to hear for you, what were the tensions in that journey as you started to figure out how to be not just a high performer, but a leader? Well, it's kind of a basic understanding of there are three phases that I was going through, and that is I do it, we do it, they do it. And the I do it is a tasker, right? The we do it from an entrepreneurial standpoint is like a self-employed job, right?

And they do it is a business, right, where they do it. And so when you get into we do it, you begin to enter into leadership. We typically use, well, just follow me, follow my example. and that's typically how we lead when it's we're doing it, right? I just get in the front of the pack and say, follow me. When we get to the they do it, that style doesn't work, right? So I began to form a philosophy about what leadership is, and I like to share it with you. And that is my definition of leadership is teaching people how to think the way they need to think.

So they do what they need to do when they need to do it, so they get what they want when they want it. It's teaching people how to think the way they need to think. to think. So they do what they need to do when they do it, when they need to do it. So they get what they want when they want it. So if you look at that, it says, oh, I got to teach them how to think, if that makes sense, which means that leadership at its core is training, right, working with people to teach them how to think about something. Because if you're not teaching them how to think, then what's leadership? Tell me more about training,

because I relate to everything you're saying, and I also have this experience where there's things that I'm really good at. Sales is a good example. I'm good at sales. And I remember the first time that I needed to teach people how to sell, and I really struggled with turning that into a training

because I had my 10,000 hours, I had my own experience, and so much of it was just this quirky art. Now, I had read a lot of books, I'd learned a lot. But to take what I have now mastered as a craft and is just down in my psyche and I'm doing almost subconsciously to pull that out into a training and teach that, that was a challenge and frankly still is a challenge for me.

How do I teach the things that I'm just almost unconsciously competent at? Yeah. Go interview the best and model them. This became my easy cheat, my hack, if you will. and that is I say, okay, I want you to succeed at a higher level. I'm going to go find people that are succeeding at a higher level. I'm going to go interview them. I'm going to take copious notes and I'm looking for patterns.

And when I find those patterns, I'm then going to pull those out and say, okay, here's the model. And I'm going to go back and I'm going to teach the model, if you will. One of the things I know, and that is, is that if people do what you tell them to do, that just means because they already agree with you. Right. There's an old saying that says, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Well, that means that lecture works really well for people that have been doing stuff, hit a roadblock, and are just looking for an answer. So you can walk into a room, and you can simply say, and here's the answer, and there's a percentage of the people in the room

who will smack their head and go, that's it. This is amazing class. and they will get up, go out, and they'll do what you discussed, and they'll improve their life. But the rest of the room sits there, and they don't do anything. They hear it, and they're having a vacation in their mind, right? They're having a big high because you're very motivational, inspirational when you're teaching them, and they're going, this is awesome, right?

And they walk out, they don't do anything. And the reason is because learning is all experiential, meaning that the person who heard you got it and took action had prior experience to the room. They experienced something before the room that told them that they had an issue they needed resolved. And when they heard you say it, Daniel, the light bulb went off because they had prior experience. Now we get the rest of the room and they don't have any prior experience. We're trying to get them to do something that they're not naturally going to go do. So we have to get them to experience what it's like to do that.

I can see very clearly, especially, well, so in real estate, I mean, you modeled it, you know the game, you've done it, and there's a direct correlation between a lot of what you've done and what you're training people on. And I also know that many small business owners, they've got this dynamic where, you know, they get into the business because they're good at a certain thing or they have a product that they're passionate about. and they train a few people to be good at that thing, but then they realize, Gary, there's 5,000 things in business I've got to be good at, and I'm not good at them. I got to hire somebody who knows about ops and accounting and inventory, and I got to get somebody smarter than me, yet I'm still responsible to train them, to teach them. How do I, how do I ensure the right outcomes when I don't even know how to train that person on the thing that our business needs of them? Well, let's, okay, we can have two conversations here. We can either have a conversation about how do I help independent contractors whom I have brought into my business life to maximize their potential. And that was the road you and I were going down in our conversation, which is how do I motive aid?

How do I help people connect with why they're here in the first place? And then I lay out what I want them to do. And then I role model it. I role play it. And we get them to experience this. and then we go out with them and we do it with them, right? And then, okay, so there's a path for that person. Now, if you're asking me, if you're, there's another question you're asking me,

and that is I'm building a company and I'm hiring people, how do I get them to do what they're supposed to do? Well, okay, this is, this is real simple. That is, hire better people. You know, at the end of all of this, you just hire better people. I use sports as a great analogy. team. And I could pick any sports team. If that team falls short, that coach does not go back in and go, I need to train them better. Yes, they definitely go and do that. But the other thing they do is

they go look for a better player. I build a better team. Yeah. That's right. That's exactly right. And so, you know, in my world, I can speak for myself is I don't really enjoy managing people. And I'm fairly certain that the overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs do not like to manage people. I didn't start a business to be a manager of people. But they think that if I'm going to bring people in, I'm going to have to manage them. And I immediately say to my entrepreneurs, no, no, no, no. You need to hire self-managed individuals. You do not need to read more management books.

Stop that. You need to read more how to hire better people books, right? Now, if it's salespeople, I get this, by the way. But even then, I mean, look again, we'd have two conversations. We'd have a conversation around how do I rehab people to lift them up to perform at their best potential. Or we can have a conversation about how you build really great businesses. And really great businesses don't do that. Really great businesses go and they compete to get the very best players.

I'm not so sure that Belichick actually developed Tom Brady. Do you think? Do you think that Michael Jordan's coach actually made Michael Jordan? Right, we agree. And so I think what we're saying essentially is you're, in fact, an entree leadership and what we teach, we don't even use the word management because we're not looking for managers. We're looking for leaders. And one of the distinguishing factors there is, you know, managers count things and they try to increase talent and people that don't have talent. And it's like pushing a rock uphill. Leaders find these people who are motivated, who are thoroughbreds, who are already ready to run hard and they lead them towards the purpose. They lead them towards the outcome of the team. So then here becomes a trap. and that is in order to attract this amazing person into your business, who do you have to be? Right? Because if I'm talent, if I'm amazing,

and I am literally, I'm going to, you know, nail this job, or I'm going to go nail this sport, whatever it is, right? I'm going to go nail this at a high level. Why would I do it with you? So this becomes the trap of an entrepreneur, and that is you have to be a leader that attracts top talent. You just can't say,

leader, because I have a formula for leadership, right? It's mission, vision, values, beliefs, and perspective. And that's the formula. So I understand my definition, which is teaching people how to think the way they need to think, so they can do what they need to do when they need to do it, so they get with them when they want when they want it. And then I have a formula. And that is leadership is mission, vision, values, beliefs, and perspective. Mission, why are you doing this vision, what your life's going to look like and what the world's going to look like while you're doing it?

Values, what's important to you, beliefs, what are the rules you're going to follow. And perspective, where are you right now? So a leader walks in the room and says, here's where we're going, mission. Here's what your life, my life, and everyone's life's going to look like while we're doing it. Vision. Values. Here's what's important to us. Beliefs.

Here's the rules we're going to follow while we're doing it. And perspective, here's where we are right now. It's half time. We're behind. Whatever it is, right? And then they're going to turn around and they're going to present a plan. Out of that, they're then going to be operating off of. And, okay, based on all the thing I've just said, here's the goal.

Here's the plan, right? Here's an org chart. Here's everybody's position on the team, right? When you look at a football team as an example, that's just an org chart. There's 11 positions on the field. That's just an organizational chart. And then they go and they try to fill in the org chart, right? But you can take a business plan.

And let's say that you're, and we follow a basic model of one three five, one goal, right? Three steps that you take to do that, right? There are three priorities that you take to do that. And then five steps for each. So we call it GPS, goals, priorities, and steps. And if you take the three priorities and you had it like this, priority, one, two, three, and you turned it up like that on its side, that's an org chart. Those are the three positions.

You need a person for the first priority, a person for the second, first, per third. An entrepreneur, what makes someone an entrepreneur? Now, this is just my opinion, okay? But what makes an entrepreneur more than anything else is they have vision. They see an opportunity in business, but they also naturally see all the things that have to be done to get it done. Now, the trap is they go out and they do all of that, they do everything, and they start having success. And they immediately buy into the fact that they do everything perfectly. And one of the things I tell my entrepreneurs constantly is, I think you're succeeding in spite of how you're doing all of that, not because of it.

Yes. Yeah. And they go, what do you mean? I said, well, you're not, all those things over there, you're doing horrible at that. But you're doing just enough of it because you have to do all of it. But you're really nailing the 20% that matters. That's why you're succeeding. It's like they're outrunning their mistakes with the one thing they're really good at.

Well said. I love that mission, vision, values, beliefs. perspective. So much of that hits on the second driver in business in our framework. So we start with personal leadership and then we get into purpose. And your purpose informs your mission, your vision, your values. Gary, you've seen this. I found this too. Many business owners start out and their purpose is just survival. Just make some money. Just pay the bills. Yeah, I'm going to do something, make some money. We also know that at some point you eat enough lobster, it tastes like soap. I mean, money's fun. It empowers a lot of things. But if it's your only scorecard for purpose,

you just feel empty inside. So what's the process of getting from the purpose of we exist to make money and pay the bills, going from that journey to why does our business really exist? What do you tell business owners is the exercise to really connect to that bigger sense of purpose? Well, first you have to have one. When I teach the kids, we talk about leadership. And I say, tell me what you think leadership is. And invariably, they always say,

helping other people. They immediately say it's helping other people, getting other people to do something, right? And I go, that's really interesting. Why was your instinct that you would lead other people before you would lead yourself first? Why was that your instinct? They don't have a good answer for that, by the way. And I go, so let me understand, let me just dot this eye for you, right? Let me just pack this in. You've got to lead yourself first before you're going to be effectively, leading others. So the bigger question is, let's get back to what's your mission, what's your vision for your life, by the way, who are you? What are you about? Because what you said, and you kind of walked right past it quickly, because you and I both knew it's a truth. And that is money is only a motivator to a certain amount of money. If you don't have any, money's really

important. But there's another level that if you succeed in business, be prepared. and that is money will you know after a certain point will not make you happier money will make you happy but money will not at a certain point it's just about more it's not about happier well the happy point is it it takes you get enough money to take the pain away the pain of the hassle and stress and everything in life that without money creates pain you'll leave the pain and then you go okay now what am i doing i just you know i'm going on a walk i'm taking my vitamins what is life about and everything's taken care of and I don't feel pain or pressure anymore. And you can kind of get in this rut.

You can kind of feel depressed even if money was your primary motivator. And the one thing, what Jay and I talk about, my writing partner, my amazing writing partner, by the way, what we talk about is happiness happens on the way to fulfillment. I like that. And it's a truth, by the way. It's a truth. And that is, if you don't have a goal for your life that's bigger than you, you're going to hit a wall because real happiness happens on the road to fulfillment.

And that means doing something bigger than you. Yes. And if you can attach that to what you're doing, man, you're going to be happy. Yeah, I looked up one day and I never really thought about it. I went through a class and at the end of the class that is big aha, Daniel. And that was, I'm really a teacher. I like teaching. No matter what job I had, if I was selling, I was selling, I was.

was actually just teaching my clients, right? If I was in sales management, no, I was just teaching my agents, right? If I'm an employer, I'm just teaching my employees, right? I'm just teaching, teaching, I never thought about it, right? And oh, by the way, I start my own business. And the second that I can hire all the right people, I'm back to teaching again, right? And I'm writing. And I have this big aha, and that is, man, I would teach and write for nothing. I mean, I would do it. I whistle to work when I do it. I whistle coming home. I love doing it. And it's really my purpose in life.

My vehicle for fulfillment is helping other people be fulfilled through my writing and teaching. And once I connected the dots, right? I mean, Keller Williams, they retired us from being the number one training company in the world among all companies. Now, that wouldn't surprise you when you get to know me and you realize that I'm a trainer at heart. That's who you are, right. That's who I am. And ultimately, Keller Williams, became a training and coaching company thinly disguised as a franchise.

That fundamentally at our heart, at the soul of the company, we were trainers. Well, Gary, I want to highlight this here, and I hope our business audience listening to this, here's this, that your purpose personally is what informs what your business is about. You cannot detach and put in a separate drawer. Well, my business exists over here, and personally, this is what I'm about. Every day that those are disjointed, that they're not in sync. your personal purpose and the purpose of your business. I'm talking to the owner. I mean, I understand some people work in a business where they've got a passion on the side or a side hustle, but if you own this thing and you're going to pour your life, blood, sweat, and tears into this thing, and it's

not consistent with why you're put on this planet, you're going to be miserable. Am I right? Amen. Absolutely. And here's the other point about that, and that is we throw this word culture around, the culture of a business. The culture of a business should be an extension of who you are, meaning that the culture of your organization is a predetermined thing. You got to watch it. If you don't start your business with the culture you want, you're going to inherit the culture you get. And there are a lot of businesses that financially they're winners.

You go inside those organizations and they're lost souls. And the reason is because they really just make widgets or sell widgets and make money. They don't know why they do it. That's not attached to anything. There's no mission or vision bigger than them. We ultimately, and one of our amazing leaders one day, came up with the idea of institutionalizing this caring. So we created KW CARES. And it's an amazing philanthropic organization that, by the way, 80% of the money goes back to our own people to help them in times of crisis. Because as your company gets really big, every day someone in your company knows has a family member that passed away. It's bigger. So we actually began to live and we created an operational

structure that embraced our culture, which really was just the fulfillment of who I am and who are leaders that I attracted are. Right. I had a gentleman that we talked, I was talking to yesterday. It's wonderful man. And he was stepping down from a position with us in our corporate business. But he's been with us for 19 years. And he says, I'm not going anywhere. I love this company. Bingo. Well, you're not talking about an employee at this point. You're talking about family. I mean, 19 years. Business family. Yes, business family. Absolutely. Fraternity, sorority. I mean, you guys have fought battles together. That's exactly right. And those people expect 19 years to matter for something. Yes. If they wake up and they discover that.

that five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, doesn't mean anything back to the, quote, company? Oh, my gosh. That individual is going to go have an existential crisis. Well, Gary, you're talking about the power of building loyalty in a team, and this hits on the third driver of business. In our framework, we talked about personal leadership. We've been talking about purpose. Now we're talking about connecting the purpose with the people, and we're not talking about just their heads and their job description. We're talking about their hearts and their souls having a connection to what is the purpose of the organization about what's the difference we make in the world and how does my life matter as a part of being tied into. Earlier you mentioned

having something that's bigger than me. We all want to be a part of something that's bigger than us. So talk to me about this idea of bringing a team together and creating loyalty and unity. I think a unified team is the secret sauce. If you have unity and loyalty with the team. You can have a bunch of average team members that are unified and kick the butts of the super talented, you know, A players over here that don't have any unity or any culture, any heart, the stuff that we're talking about. How do you use purpose to unify the team and build people, not just as individuals, but bring them together for a common cause? Yeah, you and I've been talking about this all along, and that is it gets back to, number one, the company itself having

mission, vision, values, and beliefs so that we know who the company is and we know what the company's about. And the company then begins to attract people that are attracted to that. And then it's helping each individual in your business, if you can, self-discover who they are, who they want to be, what they want their life to be about, and in connecting those two, where they look up when they go to work in the morning and they go, this isn't just a paycheck. This is actually me fulfilling. my purpose through my job. And when you can help people make that connection where they go, you know what, I now know who I am, I know what I want my life to stand for. And working here actually helps me accomplish that. We're good. We're good. We've now connected the dots.

And people are now apart. They're now living and breathing your culture and trying to win, help the company win in order for them to personally, not only financially win, but also to win personally from a purpose standpoint. Yes. So as a leader, we realize we're the thing that this thing is going to rise and fall on. You talked about earlier, if we're going to attract talent, we've got to be talent. And so growing our own leadership capacity and making sure we're not the lid on our organization. We've got a purpose dialed in. We've got the people earlier you were talking about the fourth, component of our plan, which is to have a plan and that your org chart and all of your ops should flow out of these missions and values and the people and the culture aspirations that we have.

And it's not something you start with the business plan and then you go find the people and the purpose. You start with the purpose and the people. And then those things empower a good plan. And you know this. And you've built an incredible organization that you guys would not exist without strategic thought, strategic planning, having three to five year goals and backing into this year, but, you know, so many times as small business, Gary, the plan is how can we get through this month? Again, talking to somebody that's on that treadmill of survival again, give these people some hope and some practical tips on how do I start putting a plan together, maybe thinking about a one-year plan or some quarterly objectives. And so much of what you talked about in your book,

the one thing speaks to this idea, too, of you're going to focus on something right now. But we want that thing we focus on to be a puzzle piece that when we combine it with all the other puzzle pieces, the whole business actually is higher leveraged than me just going out and just swing in the hammer all day. Yeah, let me take in a slightly different direction. That's a wonderful question. And let me try to answer it this way. I believe that the beginning and the end of a great business is in understanding where your niche is, understanding what problem you're solving or what opportunity you're presenting. And so I believe, number one, you have to go research your opportunity. And entrepreneurs typically have what you and I would call the entrepreneurial, you know,

brain blip. Literally, they're eating something or they're watching something or experiencing something. No, sure. I have this curse. I get it. Or blessing. Either way. Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. But it's usually right. I just want to say this, that that, man, I had a bad experience doing that, right? And so, whoa, what if I built a business to solve that problem? Awesome. Now, you got to watch it. This is where we get into a trap as entrepreneurs. And that is, we then need to stop for just a second and be a little purposeful for just a moment. And that is, we need to actually go and benchmark the competition. We need to literally go out. And when I say benchmark, right, go out and ask the question,

who's doing this and make a list of all the competitors, right? When I formed my company, I had that brain blip, if you will, that entrepreneurial wink in a nod, and I go, that's it. However, I didn't just go do. Right. I then immediately went out. I actually created my own little three ring binder manual. And it had in there my competitors, what they did right, what they did wrong. I literally went through.

You're going to school. You bet. And I knew my competitors in the products and services, that they offered better than they did. So I want to know, I heard you and Jay talking about this idea recently just on your podcast, benchmarking. I'm intrigued by how much you personally are going and doing this research versus delegate. I mean, I think I hear that.

A lot of business owners hear that and they go, oh, that sounds great. I just don't have the time or energy. But yeah, I definitely need to get that information. Is this something you can delegate or is this something you really need to be on the front row? Depends on where your company is. If you had the money, sure, go hire someone. But to be honest with you, I've always done it, and I still do it. And I do it personally.

Now, I have people in the organization who do that as well because we're vast and we've got a lot of things. I still do that. And I would say to the entrepreneur who says they don't have time, I would just say sleep less. I'm sorry, I'm going to be real brutal. I'm going to be real brutal. But I'm going to tell you something right now, and that is if you're building a business and you don't actually know, right? And can I just give you a quick example? In my town, there's a pet store.

Now, by the way, pet store should be really called the financial cemetery, right? Right. Everybody who has a pet at some point says, I'm going to go open a pet store. I want to open a pet store, right? And I'm going to get a bunch of animals in cages or bowls, and I'm going to get a bunch of food, and I'm going to accumulate all the stuff you need to take care of a pet, and it's going to be awesome. This company did one thing differently. when they understood, they watched all the food that was going out, and they understood what everyone was buying,

then they just went off and invented their own food that actually, right, and they researched it to then come back and say, well, actually, this is better. We invented this ourselves. We used this on our animals. And here's what is going to do for you. And the next thing you know, they've built a moat around their pet store. and that is you're going to use their pet store, if nor are the reason, because you're going to go buy their food. That makes sense?

So we call that the competitive advantage. I mean, it makes you bulletproof at that point. Yeah, that's right. And this is what you mean by having a niche. Yeah, that's right. So benchmarking is asking the question, what's everyone else doing? So I understand it. Trending is then saying, what's the one thing that beats that?

if you can answer that one thing. By the way, when I completely reinvented my company that literally catapulted us, I did just one thing. Because I asked that question. I said, okay, what's the one thing in my industry, the sales industry, the real estate sales industry, what's the one thing that I could do that puts everyone else into check or checkmate? And then I did that one thing. and you know my story i don't i don't know if you know my story but you know i started the firm a year later my wife of a little over two years comes in and says i don't love you i never loved

you she immediately files for divorce i had to buy her out of the stock uh we were we never lost money we were profitable our first year they started out a million dollars i had a partner williams wonderful guy and he a year later came and said he needed to sell his stock to me and by the way there were two companies that were commercial and residential. I started residential. He started commercial. Commercial never made it and we had to shut his company down. The company I started is the company called Keller Williams Realty.

And I had to buy that from my ex-wife. I had to buy that from my partner. He still owns shares and is just a wonderful guy, by the way. But I needed to help him out. So now I've said, I've had to buy everyone out. I'm in debt. I had to take notes because I didn't have the cash for the valuation. right and then the market crashed and this is the crash of 8687 my friend and we're talking about

devastation in fact in my city in austin that it was so devastating that the crash of 08 was nothing compared to the crash of of 8687 just so you know i want to highlight this because we're sitting here in 2020 and everybody has experienced disruption and so you've been around a few times through this cycle of disruption. And I can imagine there's some hope that you have to offer for people right now are going, this is it, it's over, we're on the ropes, we're losing our business, we're in dead up to eyeballs, we don't know what to do. What was it like emotionally as you're going through this crash?

Yeah, it's devastating. It's devastating. But however, the trick is, is the second that you have the answer, you literally become mobilized, right, and energized. And then what I tell people is, money is never your problem. money is never your problem. So I'm going to give you an example and come back and tell you. So the example would be investing.

The second book that we wrote was the millionaire real estate investor. But I have a lot of people go, but I don't have any money to invest. And I go, okay, I have a question for you. If you had the money, quick, what would you invest in? And their answer is always 100%. I don't know. And I go, so money's not your problem. There's plenty of money in the world, friends.

money is not your problem. You wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it. And by the way, if you had, and I'm using investment as an analogy here, if you had the investment and you knew that what it was that was a great investment, the world would come beat down your door to give you money. That is not a problem. And let me tell you a real story. So my oldest friend, we were born just, we lived two doors down from each other when we were born in Pasadena, Texas. He might be migrated to Austin. We're having lunch one day at the bagel shop. He's a chiropractor. He's losing his lease. And he's telling me, I don't know where to move. And I go, why don't you just buy a building? He goes, I don't have any money. And I said, money's not your problem. If you had money, what would you buy?

He said, I don't know, but I'll go find out. And he came back and he said, I found the perfect location. And on a napkin, I just immediately went through my investment terms and said, here's how that will work. and we bought it. You know, he later told me that was the greatest investment of his life. And the money truly changed his entire life because of the location in Austin, Texas, on 6th Street, it turned out to be an amazing investment, right? Yeah, it became a boomtown after that. Yeah. And by the way, it all became possible.

And all that money and wealth, I even gave him at the end of 10 years, I gave him the right to buy me out. You know, I'm doing this to help you. I'm in for a return. And he did. By the 10th year, much to my chagrin, he bought me out, right? So it sounds like you're saying that there's almost this law in the universe that the money and the resources will flow to the people who are researched and resourceful. They're finding out what is the answer before I figure out how I get it funded. Is that it?

Yes. Yeah. If you're struggling, you're struggling because you're not solving a problem. And you say, yeah, but I think I am. Say, great. Well, then money will find you. Go see if anyone will give you money. And if they don't give you money, what they're telling you is you don't have, right.

And that's fine, by the way. Don't always trust the money. Let me just back up and say, just because someone won't give you money doesn't mean that you're wrong. Well, and talk about the downside of, I heard you in an interview talking about the downside of taking on money. And Andre leadership, Dave Ramsey Company, we believe in no debt and not having investors and partnerships and bootstrapping. it for a lot of reasons. But there's kind of this downside of somebody gives you a couple million bucks. You bypass a lot of things you would otherwise have to learn through getting resourceful and scrappy. But every entrepreneur, I mean, come on, man, this is what we live for. We bootstrap something.

We don't want to borrow money or we don't want other investors. And we're off and running. And that's what we live for. So buck up. Man, this is it, man. However, what I'm saying is that don't like I told my wife I said you know because I met the love of my life while I was right at the moment when I was completely reinventing my business I said I don't know if this is going or not I mean I could I could literally lose everything and she's going like what are you going to do what are we going to do if that happened I said don't worry about it I'll be the most employable person on the planet right because I will have learned so much now that never happened but again what I'm saying is that money will find you and jobs will find you as a result

of your entrepreneurial journey. So take heart. You're never going to be broke. This is not going to happen to you. Do not work from fear. You're hitting on a point. If you lose money, but you gain the experience, and I can't remember who said the quote, but it was, you know, never trust a man who doesn't walk with a limp. You know, I mean, there's just, there's something about the hard box that really is the thing that we're taking out of this life. I mean, money comes, money goes, but it's the experiences we have and the journey that we're on. I have some friends that neighbors in mind that started a company called Yeti. And when you hear of them tell their story, Daniel, they were entrepreneurial guys, and they just

wanted to own a business. And they tried multiple businesses, and none of them became anything like they wanted. They just kept going until they finally got it right. And they just learned from their mistakes and what didn't work until it finally did. Gary, this has been just incredible. I've got so many notes, and I know our audience is eating this up. I'm going to go back and re-listen to the conversation because I can't write fast enough with all the gold you're dropping. We've talked about personally being the leader that your company needs, having a dialed-in purpose.

I love what you've said about having the mission, vision, values, beliefs, and perspectives. That is a absolute takeaway. The people, the team, having a great plan, having a great product and service, profit. If I'm a business owner, I'm going, I love all that. And how do I do it? Where do I start? final thoughts on somebody who they're driving into work right now they're listening to this podcast on their commute they've got a day full of meetings they're overwhelmed and they're just going i believe in this thing i know it's why i'm supposed to be here but i got to get above it how do i get above this thing and start putting into practice everything you've been teaching us today okay um you ask yourself the question what's the one thing i can do such that by doing it everything else on my plate all

these appointments, all of that are either easier or unnecessary. I will tell you that a lot of people believe that a full calendar is a successful calendar, right? And that's not true. That's not true at all. At the end of the day, you have to be able to prioritize. You have to be able, as an entrepreneur, you're going to drown if you can't see through all the things that you could do and find the thing that you should do. And that's the secret of success. And we can't save you from that. All we can do is give you all the tools for you to be able to say, what's the one thing? And then go do that. Okay. So final question. Gary, you're in a season of your life. You're a titan in your industry. You're a sage. You've got all of this wisdom to impart.

I know you spend so much of your time these days, mentoring and training the next generation of leaders, the people who are going to shape the business world tomorrow that are going to shape our country and our community for generations to come. What's the one thing to use your line? What's the one thing if you can say, this is what this next generation of leadership really needs to know? So here's what I believe. I actually worked, Jay and I worked with a dear friend of ours on a book that we never published called The Third Choice, and it was studying all the great religions. and we actually discovered something that shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was. And that is, all great religions have at their core the word love.

They have one thing. It's called love. But the interesting thing is it's not self-love. It's not the love of self that all these great religions have in common. It's the love that we show the world. And the thing that I would say, the one thing for us as entrepreneurs, is, is focus on others. Focus.

When you go out, you didn't start a company for what you got. You started it for what you could do to help others, right? When you employ someone, you don't employ them because they, quote, work for you. You employ them so together you can go work for other people. I would say the one thing is, and I just use the word love, Daniel, but the one thing that this all comes back, to is focusing outward, not inward, right? That's so good. Well, I couldn't agree more.

I love it. Ultimately, we're here to make an impact and to help serve other people. And you think about having a product or a service. The word service is, we're here to serve. We're here to serve each other. There's people who have a problem. And our business is a platform to show up and help them solve that problem. And I know you exude that and teach that.

And what you guys have done with not only Keller Williams, but your foundation. and teaching the next generation of leaders, we need more people like Gary Keller in this country. This has just been an incredible conversation. Gary, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for blessing our audience with your wisdom. It's been fantastic. It's been my owner, my friend.

What an inspiring conversation. I hope it was inspiring to you. If you're not inspired by somebody that can start in this country with nothing, move to a city they've never been, start knocking doors, sell something, get something going, build a team, then build a business, And then guys, ultimately, build a dynasty, something that becomes a household name. Hello, that's the opportunity we have.

I mean, we live in a country where we can get out of bed every day. We don't have to have anything going for us, and we can decide, I'm going to get after it. I'm going to achieve my wildest dreams. Whatever those dreams are you have, guess what? They were put inside you for a reason. And if you've given up on those dreams and you're not sure you have what it takes to go get them, I hope after this conversation, you're reconsidering that hesitation because, guys, we get to exist in a free market system. The sky is the limit. Whatever you want to achieve, you can do it.

And as we heard today, it's not about you having a better life, although I want you to have a better life, but you can serve more people. You can create more jobs. You can make a difference in the world. You can actually solve problems that this country is dealing with right now. That's why you exist. Hope it's why you exist. And we talked about purpose today. We talked about what gets you out of bed in the morning. If you haven't checked in on that in a while, I want you to pause and make a note that you're going to spend some time really thinking about, not just in the shower or fleeting thought on the drive into work.

I want you to stop and have a meeting with yourself and get it out of your head and on the paper and go, why? Why do we do this? Like, for real. Like, why do we actually do this? Not just to make money, not just to improve excellence in the blah, blah, blah, whatever our mission statement says. What gets you fired up? What's the change that you want to make for your customers?

What gets you into this thing to begin with? Have you lost that fire? It's okay. It's okay if you have. I've been there. We've all been there because guess what? It's freaking hard out there. But if you're not anchored into that deeper sense of purpose, that why that Gary talked about

today, the difference you want to make for your time. team and for your customers, it's going to be hard going. And it's going to be hard to get the team rallied together to be unified to actually scale this thing to where you want it to go. So, hey, check this out. The way you scale is not a strategic plan. The way you scale is not read another book. The way you scale is not sit down and put together the business plan and the pro forma for your next line of business. Those things need to come at some point. But those are not where you start. You got to start inside your gut. What is in your heart? What's that fire in your belly that says, is what I really care about. This is what's driving me crazy out there and I have to do something

about it. Do that exercise and check in with your team. If you know why you exist but you haven't informed your team, well guess what? You're not going to have a team. You're going to have a bunch of employees that are punching the clock and just doing their J-O-B. And you don't want that. You want a team that's rallied around this purpose, this vision that you have for the future. You've got to share this stuff with them guys. You got to talk about it in your staff meetings. You got to talk about it in your one-on-one meetings. You've got to talk about the customers whose lives you changed as a result of your product or service. This is why you exist. You've got to be celebrating that stuff. You've got to bring in the success stories of a job well done or a goal accomplished and talk about the lives

that are changed on the other end of your product or service. The reason your business exists. Do that work. It is time well spent. And check this out. To help you do that work, Our team's put together the Entree Leadership Business Health Assessment. Guys, it can be confusing. There's so many things going on in business. How do I know if I'm winning? How do I know if I'm focused on the right things? Well, our team has made it really easy for you.

All you got to do is take this really quick, five-minute assessment, it's going to ask you some questions about how things are going, and we're going to give you a score on each of the six drivers of business, your personal leadership, your purpose, your people, your plan, your product, and your profitability. And once you have a dashboard for those six areas, You're going to see some things you're really good at. It's good to have the confirmation that those are going well.

And you're also going to see some areas for growth and improvement. And that's kind of a code word for saying, if you don't work on them, you're going to die. I don't want to scare you, but you got to know. How am I doing? I got to check the vital signs. Well, that's what this assessment does. Brand new from our team. It gives you all the insights you need on how to grow and win in these six areas.

Not only is it's going to tell you how you're doing and what your score is, but our coaching team has put together some free practical steps. that based on your score in each area, you're going to know exactly what to do as a result. You can be able to hand some things to your team and have them go through exercises that you guys are going to do together as a result of having these insights on your business. So check it out. Take the assessment. It's free. It's fast.

All you got to do is text the word progress. That's the word progress to 3344. Again, text progress to 3344. Or just check the link in the show notes. And guys, immediately, you're going to have a whole new perspective. on your business. And did I mention it's completely free. Check it out. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership podcast. If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. They need this stuff too. For a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card,

you can review this episode by clicking the link in the show notes. So be sure to do that. Also, check us out on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, and it was edited and mixed by Will Rudder. I'm Daniel Tarty, and on behalf of the entire Entry Leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like Ramsey Call of the Day. Check out our new Ramsey Call of the Day podcast.

It'll give you a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Listen to the Ramsey Call of the Day, wherever you listen to Podcast. cash.