KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Agent Productivity: Kenny Truong’s 5 Metrics to Track for Real Estate Success

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Summary:Join hosts Amy and Wheatley live from eXpCON in Miami Beach for an in-depth interview with Kenny Truong, leader of #TeamFast and a top producer at eXp Realty (second in team volume). Kenny details the essential operational rhythms and activity-based KPIs that drive success for new and established agents, even through market downturns. Learn his strategy for high-volume recruitment fueled by a lifestyle-focused social media presence , and the specific metrics beyond just closings that his team tracks to build better agents. Discover why open houses are an "underrated" lead source , and how agents are using AI like ChatGPT to craft follow up messages that trigger client responses. Kenny emphasizes the non-negotiable step for any new agent: showing up every day with a structured schedule.

This is KGCII Real Estate On Air Live, your weekly deep dive into the strategies, trends, and tools shaping the real estate industry, from market updates to actionable strategies and strategies and exclusive interviews. with top agents, we are here to unlock your full potential and help you thrive. Thousands of agents trust KGCI every week. Now it's your turn. Let's go live. Here's Ian Wheatley. Hey, good morning. If you are looking to have true success in your real estate business, you need to stop wasting

time on vanity metrics. What you need are real measurable activities that are working to move the inventory right now. Maybe you have, maybe you haven't heard of Kenny Truong. He's the leader of hashtag team fast. They aren't out here just closing deals. Kenny is here running a recruiting and retention machine that keeps a massive agent pipeline moving, even in a choppy market like what they're seeing out in the Bay Area

there in California. Now, you may be thinking that leading a huge team means that you get to be hands off. It's all about systems and branding and that the small foundational work that's true to run any real estate business doesn't matter anymore. Maybe right here thinking that automation just replaces all that hustle. That thinking ends up leading to soft production, right?

You're tracking the wrong things, you're losing agents, and the confusing social media presence allows you to confuse that presence with true profitability. Your competition is out here, though, executing tactical activity-based moves that you don't even know to track. So today, we do sit down with Kenny Truro and the leader, a hashtag team fast, and we talk about all those non-negotiable daily operational rhythms that keep their massive volume team in motion over at EXP Realty. Now, we're digging into the activity-based metrics, why open houses are still the most underrated lease source

and how you could use AI to craft text messages and actually get a response. So stay locked in for that. We've got the housing headlines. We've got your real estate confessions coming up. And if you're out here still thinking about last Friday's Agent Money Moves Friday Focus here on KGCI Real Estate on air, just so you know, that was all,

it was all about how agents can create passive, income and build wealth beyond that next commission, cat check. And if you're out here still thinking about it, you're not alone, right? But all of that so you know, that was all pulled directly from our wealth Wednesday content. Midweek tactical drop designed to turn you into a real estate investor, not just a real estate agent. So stop relying on that single stream of income. Okay. If you missed it, the full archive available now at the KGCI real estate on air mobile app,

always free on iPhone and Android. You can also stream at any time at real estate onair.fm. So go get paid and tune in tomorrow. and every week for our Wealth Wednesday right here on KGCI Real Estate on air. Now, it's time for housing headlines. I'd like to start with some bits of optimism. According to the National Association of Realtors' latest existing homes sales report, existing home sales have seen their second consecutive monthly increase.

In October, sales rose 1.2% month over month, hitting that seasonally adjusted rate of 4.1 million units. reporting that that marks the highest sales pace that we've seen since February. That's good news. And here's the breakdown of what you need to know out here as an agent in production, right? Buyers are actually stepping back into the market, capitalizing on those slightly lower mortgage rates that we were experiencing. It's kind of ticked up a little bit since then.

But the median sales price, that's still climbing. That hit $415,200. That is up 2.1% year over year. is up a solid near 11% from where it was a year ago, sitting at about four and a half months of supply. And crucially, NAR is looking at the share of the first time homebuyers in the market, rising to 32% of all sales. That's up five points from last year.

And that's a key data point that the largest buyer group is starting to feel comfortable again in that transaction, which leads us to a bold 2026 forecast. out of the National Association of Realtors, that future pipeline, according to NAR and their housing outlook for next year, they are forecasting a major ship. They're looking at a 14% surge in existing home sales nationwide next year, and that rebound is hinged on this expectation that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is actually going to settle out at or below 6% on average through the year next year. Now, NAR's chief economist is clear that despite the sales jump home prices are in no danger of a decline and they are expecting those to climb another 4%

next year so the recovery it's not going to be uniform right you noted that that we're expecting to see better activity up on the upper end of the market so think the 750 000 plus range and so the takeaway there is the anticipated dip below that psychology that psychological barrier of six and a quarter, that barrier is what's expected to unlock a bunch of that pent up demand and start to turn up that sales volume rather significantly. So if you're not having those conversations yet, agents with your prospective buyers and your prospective sellers, right, the people that have that two and three quarter interest rate and hate the house, the buyers that have been waiting for rates to drop, we are on the precipice

of that taking place. And affordability in all of It. We saw that in the October existing home sales report from now. Now our affordability is continuing to improve five straight months now, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association and their most recent report that the national median mortgage payment that was applied for in October. It also decreased by 80, 90 bucks from where we were a year ago. So the Mortgage Bankers Association stating that it's the most affordable that the market has been going all the way back to March 22 and that improvement is,

driven by a trifecta of factors, as they pointed out in their report. I got lower mortgage rates, rising household earnings, and a flattening of home price improvement or home price growth, right? And this is the crucial part of the conversation that you need to be having with your clients in the here and now, right? Stability is returning to that monthly payment, and this trend is expected to continue as rates hold steady and more supply is going to be coming into the market. Let's check your housing headlines here on KG,

KGCI, Real Estate on Air Live. KGCI, Real Estate on Air. I'm Ian Wheatley, and we are here at the Miami Beach Convention Center. It is EXPCon here in Miami, and we've had the wonderful opportunity to chat with some of our favorite award winners and top-producing agents here at EXP Realty. Kenny Trong is one of them, hashtag Team Fast. Sir, thanks for joining us here on KGCI Real Estate on. air. It's good to have you back. So, you know, we've been, we talked to, we talked last year about all kinds of different things, but there was one thing that kind of jumped out to me. And I was

like, you know, I want to pick your brain just a little bit more, drive it, drill down into some, a little bit more of the tactics that you use that have allowed you to kind of build this massive team. What is one of those operational rhythms or stand up that just keeps your team's pipeline moving on a daily basis that maybe most team leaders aren't thinking about in 2025. I think we talked a lot about marketing and branding last year. So we really dived in that lot more. Yeah. Last year, I remember I was like pretty disappointed at my marketing guy where we had, you know, Instagram, you look at your feed has like nine different posts at one time. Right. I was like, why do I see how Halloween stuff and

Christmas stuff in the same fee? So we're not pumping up enough volume of stuff, um, of interesting reals. So we we lean more heavily into marketing to showcase our our team members and lifestyle, if you look at our Instagram page, there is no, just let's say there's no so, there's no reveals. So we really made like a cool happening lifestyle thing. And that's how we, even though we probably, I think I calculate we had like a 45% turnover. So we lost over 100 team members in the last whole months. Wow. But we recruited probably 110-ish in last whole month. We broke 200 team members for first time in almost three years.

I think June July, May, June, July, that era, like, 22, we had 3704 team members. We dropped 9-19 members in two months to consolidate. So now recruiting is to fill our pipeline is like really recruiting base. So we're attracting a lot of team members to our company through our social media on Instagram page. We're at the fast agents. And, you know, hashtag team fast, right? So, I mean, speed to lead, I have to imagine, really matters. How do you measure that across all of those agents?

And what is the, what is a, what is the benchmark they have to hit? For production or for production? For production. We, we really emphasize having the team members come to our three times week coaching call from my sales director, Elias Sudo, having them come to team meeting and our workshops, enrolling in our lead certification program, get leads. And then a very part of the lead program,

a third of a company is uh man touches online leads it's only it only counts for like 17% for overall business okay uh and inside there if they're in a program then they're measured on their pickup rate their uh lead no zillow like a lm script they're showing percentage they're offering percentage but that trains them become a better agent we wish in the end like resist their productivity we don't have a minimum standard of how many deals are closing but if they don't do a deal in six months we we'd call check in on them and they recommend that they join one of our like bootcamps and programs got it how do you how do you track all of that we we were using sisu years ago okay prior to east be partnership but then we use this thing called home tracker uh i forgot

acronyms are sorry yeah it's all it's just cut cost it like we use a money for it but our team members track their conversations track their call track their open houses track their appointments and stuff like that and then every once a while we'll run like contests like recently we like for ESP con where you can right now right we ran a contest for most conversations and one our agents had like in six weeks had like 350 conversations you want a free ticket to ESP including her flight and then we had like other programs where we do this thing called like a hustlers lunch every two months we take our top five categories I believe it's like

conversations appointment said hours working in your business hours working on your business and then the top five winners for that month and the following month we take them out for a nice lunch that's awesome so we we really really hit like the kb i's like all the stuff and then the intensity program that lyos runs runs at like every other quarter okay um they have they work off a more or more of a spreadsheet you know i don't know the exact numbers but i have a t-shirt with all numbers in impact but um like you have to do in one month like two or 200 doors, maybe a week, actually, like 200 doors and not like two open houses, three reels on your wall of five daily video or DMs of people,

talking conversation. So we really, really hit like the metrics that you're supposed to do, very activity base. Good. Catching up with Kenny Truong. He is the leader of Team Fast. Second in team volume here at EXP Realty. We're broadcasting from the Miami Beach Convention Center here for EXPCon. I mean, there's a lot. You just threw a lot. You just threw a lot out there. What sort of CRM automations or AI workflows have you implemented as the team lead that has saved your team countless hours on a weekly basis to be able to execute on all these things? I mean, like, we use follow bots we have for many, many years. The AI coaching in there is amazing. A lot of our team members, I was put on the AI panel yesterday,

but a lot of our team members are using chat sheep T, it's the most popular one, where there's screenshots prodding a lot of text messages from clients or email threads where they can't get a hold of the client, no follow-up, like they're not responsive to create something that would trigger a response. So a lot of agents are doing that to for leave follow-up, which I think has been really, really helpful. That's awesome. Now, you were talking a little bit, it's a little bit of feast or famine out in the Bay Area right now. You know, you were telling me a little bit that, you know, you had a couple of quarters there that weren't so good. you know you go ahead you want it was terrible like it's when the Bay Area so reason like when the Bay Area when things are good overall in the nation we're doing great yeah it's bad we do we do we do we do we do we are

adjacent to I we do we'll do 100 deals in San Francisco this year but that's not our bread and butter right but I think the major metro city is like New York and San Francisco in LA they kind of set the trend for everywhere else so So when the market's good, we do exceptionally well. In the local 20 cities, this is like data from their brokerage. I like seeing their feed thing, but like in the adjacent local 20 cities, like 10, cities have performed like maybe 23% more sales year over year. And then the other half are like below.

So it's a really odd market that we're right in in the Bay Area with, you know, between my two primary markets, Alameda and Contra Costa County, like two million residents. So it's it's why it makes a different thing going on. on. And what? Because I guess here's the question, but there was a turnaround there. So how did you keep the energy and the production high when that market really cool? Just really focused on grinding. If you, we do a annual year and review meeting. Okay. Which is amazing. Like we have probably like 60, 70 people show us high energy. We can talk about the company goes. Yeah, like a meeting conference, like a couple of hours. Talk about goes every year. And then, like, like, we have probably like six, 70 people show us high energy. We can talk about the company goes. We can't talk about a meeting conference, like a couple of hours. Uh, talk about it goes every year. And then. And then. And then, I remember last January, our top producers, we have them to speak. And most majority of them said the reason they had really strong Q1s and Q2s. Oh, we also do a media review. So we do two these a year is the reason why they had such good quarters,

what's just continued to follow up. So really, really honed down on just like activity base, even though you don't see the results. You're going to do the things that you need to do and track it and then you'll do well. So we had one of our worst Q4s and Q1s ever, which is pretty, crazy and then the turnaround was around the summer we just recently had our best august in company history congratulations crazy and september was probably like top two yeah september was the best month entire year and now i thought that was it because we also like

look at the market and look at our uh trends and income and all that based on history uh and then october usually things start to dip already so september is their best month and october and november december declines but october will actually be our best month this year I think what's happening in the market is we have lingering inventory, active inventory is the highest has been since pre-pendemic. And then as a team that's like 75% buyer base, what agents are grinding and following up, I like this slow market where we're picking a market share very slowly versus just like a speed to leave, the rush and it is a frenzy.

So it's, yeah, it's pretty wild. So I think we're going to have, we're cracking 100 deals this month. We haven't broke 100 deals since a month since May, June, and July 2022. Wow. So I'm really optimistic about the next year from everything I've read, you know, Fannie Mae or Mortgage Banker Association and all these different forecasters, everyone is expecting at least a 10% increase in sales in next year, but again, Bay Area does better. And then I'm super excited because there's, when I did my research, just like, oh, San Francisco.

as well as AI tech boom yeah it's really we're really seeing it there's over 82 tech companies in sarsco that is taking up a million square feet uh they can see it's dropping small startups are topping up the ultra luxury market is moving faster than it's been in many many years so i think in the bay area we'll see a trickle down the effect because you can't there's only so many mansions and stuff people can buy right so people will you know start buying um one to two three million dollar homes and then when those move too quickly or right now they start moving to east bay so and then remote work is down i think remote work in january was uh in the mid 30 percent of charitansisco but now it's under 20 percent it's declining faster and faster

because people want to see each other and yeah start out and they're probably shifting companies a lot so we're we're ready from everything i've read the bay area is ready for a huge tech boom okay chatting with uh kenny trurong he's the team leader of team fast here on kgci real estate on air i want to hit you with a couple of fast fixes if you don't mind. So for you, what is the one metric you check every morning? I check my whoop every morning. Your whoop?

Yeah, my help data. I, by 15 hours a week, I just recently got running. So first thing I do in the morning is look at my heart rate and my heart rate and my heart rate variability, my sleep score. It's been bad this week, really, really bad. You know, well, it's a bad week to be looking at that tracking, right? Like, I was laughing with my wife this morning because she called me on a I was out on a run. She was like, what are you doing? You sound out of breath. And I was like, I'm running. She's like, it's five in the morning. I was like, eh, it's what I got.

We actually really focus our health. Like, Eliza is looking buff dude. So we like he coaches the the human, the person. So we really focus on like having a good life, which will then roll into having a better business. Yeah. So, so so focusing on on the, on the human body, focusing on that. Yeah, you're mental. So like it's you can't track. that's right i mean you could expect that but like we really focused on that so the agents do more hard what's the most underrated lead source in 2025 under open houses open houses we should more agents trained open houses better i looked at it we've probably done like around 70 to 80 deals this year from houses and the numbers in their range like 7 to 9% of business open house i know there can be more business done through that i know many teams are like heavy on that Um, and so, and then so I can't, it's hard to, um, measure my social media is still our biggest resource. Our top five to 10 agents, I would say 70% over 70% of your business comes

from social media. Fascinating. And what is the automation that has changed your life? Automation. I personally don't use a lot of automation. That sounds weird coming for me, but I have a lot of our, uh, local human staff leadership all have their own VA. So the VA's use all automation, but we don't touch it as much. So there's still a ton of leverage in there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you got to be like semi-alomated because we'll like all of our potion calls are recorded. Our team means recorded with the other AI read it recap, send an email out. Like so in our email newsletters, you know, we love a lot of like Canva and Mid Journey and stuff to

do animated. So it's like half is tech and half is human. So we're still very heavy to create our marketing got it and uh kenny if there was one thing that an agent need to do this is say to tomorrow's their day one what's the first thing they got to do just show up you gotta wake up have a have a structure schedule to to do well i think i think real estate is people say all my own boss but you've never had a real estate boss you literally have no experience as real estate boss so you suck at it so you got to show up every day whether or not you're seeing the results it's just put in the hours that's awesome kenny thanks for popping by to kgsy state on air. Have a wonderful rest of your trip in Miami. Thank you. Always appreciate sitting

down with Kenny Truong, the leader of hashtag Team Fast out there in California. We get together every year at EXPCon. Special thanks to EXP Realty for inviting us down last year and this past year. Looking forward to having the opportunity to take the show back out on the road when XPCon heads to Salt Lake City next October. But here are my top five takeaways from that conversation with Kenny Strong that you just heard right here on KGCI Real Estate on Air Live. Number one, volume does win on social so long as it's looking like you're having fun, right? Kenny points out, stop overthinking the Instagram feed, right?

Team Fast focuses on pumping out a high volume of interesting reels, showcasing their team members, showcasing lifestyle, and really avoiding the four sale signs, right? So agents commit to doing three to five short, fun, non-listing related reels per week. about your day, your city, your industry news. Hell, I did two, it was a birthday weekend for my son. I did two reels about what we did on his birthday Eve day and then a little like recap reel of his birthday, right? Those two things have gone gangbusters, right?

It should look fun. Number two, open houses are the underrated lead source. Kenny is calling them the most underrated lead source because they're accounting for roughly seven to 10% of their business so far in 2025 as we're coming down this stretch, right? So your move should be heading into 2026, have that plan. Treat every open house like it's a mini event, right? Get trained up on how you could work them better and commit to holding maybe two to three a week. Maybe not all in the same weekend, but whatever floats your boat, even as the inventory is still just a little bit low.

All right. Also, Kenny points out, you got to be tracking your activities, not just your closings, okay? Team Fast emphasizes activity-based metrics. They're tracking the conversations. They're tracking the appointment set. They're tracking the open houses. The hours worked on the business. They even run contests for most conversations, right?

So your move here is track your own conversations and appointments set daily. You've heard that a time or two here on real estate on air live. But if you're not getting deals, the answer is honestly in those activity metrics. Coming up at number four, use AI to trigger follow-up responses, right? Many TeamFast agents are using tools like chat GPT. They're using tools like Gemini to craft text messages or emails that clients aren't been responsive to in the past, right? And they screenshot the old thread and they ask AI, hey, create something that would

actually get a response, right? So your move is use AI immediately to craft three fresh, high leverage follow-up messages. for your oldest coldest leads this week, all right? Go back to what didn't work. Screen grab it. Load it up. Send it off the chat GPT and say, hey, make this more responsive. Something in a way that's going to give your ideal client avatar,

something to chew on, something to reach out to you about. And at number five, probably the most important thing that Kenny had to say in the conversation that we had down at EXP Con in Miami back last month with this your health is a business KPI right Kenny checks his whoop app his health data every morning he's he is Johnny on the spot with his heart rate variability is sleep score etc because his focus on having a good life rolls directly into having a better business so agents your move schedule time for your physical body and your mental health right you cannot out hustle bad sleep or high stress okay show up with a structured schedule and put in those hours

and if you want to hear more of that conversation with kenny truong that is available on demand here at the real estate on air youtube channel all right what if i told you that you had thousands of dollars of income that you've deferred and all that you had to do to wake it up was to make a phone call. Now, I know you've got a CRM full of old leads and dead-end contacts, okay? And you may be telling yourself that they're cold, they're unresponsive, and you don't have time to clean up that database. That right there is a mistake, right? Because that isn't a dead list, right? That's deferred income, right? It's a lack of follow-up structure, meaning you're leaving money on the table for that one agent who actually has that plan for the long game. So this

Friday. We are handing you the full blueprint in our Friday focus all about database depth, how you can do a better job, more effective job, mining old leads for new deals, right? We break down automated campaigns and the conversation scripts that you need to have in order to revive your database and convert that cold data into committed leads. It's all happening all day Friday, right after the big agent meeting here on KGCI real estate on air. All right, it is time for real estate confessions y'all had some fun it seems over the thanksgiving holiday even looks like a lead gen lever for some so recapping here this is your first time these are your stories right message us on facebook and instagram your real estate confession think of this as the water cooler

story but before we dive in we got to give one thing straight real estate confessions features stories from the wild world of real estate names and details may have been changed to protect the innocent, and occasionally the not so innocent. All confessions are shared in good humor and do not reflect the opinions of KGCI Real Estate on air, its hosts, or affiliates. No agent's licenses were harmed in the making of this segment. Enjoy responsibly. All righty, here we go. It's time for real estate confessions because in real estate, truth is stranger than fiction. During a luxury open house, I was showing off the smart home features, and I thought I was commanding the integrated sound system to play soft jazz,

instead accidentally playing my kid's elementary school band concert recording through every single speaker in the house. My entire lead generation strategy for the last two quarters has been praying my sphere of influence mentions me at Thanksgiving. It worked better than my Zillow spend. I once spent 45 minutes trying to explain a complex HOA document, only to realize the client was more concerned about the placement of the garage refrigerator they saw in the listing photo. The most productive 60 minutes of my week is hiding my phone, muting all notifications,

and aggressively cold calling expires while wearing noise-canceling headphones. It's my own personal version of Agent Zen. I confess I'm not sure what my brokerage's mascot is, is, but I know the Wi-Fi password to three different coffee shops near my office. That's my real network. All righty that, my friends, is why we love the job. It's never boring, and we're all out here making the same wild mistake. So if you've got that office water cooler story, something real, something ridiculous, but never a violation, we need to hear it, message us your confession on Facebook and

Instagram will feature the very best ones right here next week on Real Estate. on air live. And speaking of next steps, we just dropped a ton of tactical goal from Kenny Truong, the leader of hashtag Team Fast out of the Bay Area, California. You can find this on demand on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, IHeart, and dive into that description. You can get the top five takeaways, the full housing headlines right there. And if you want to know how you can stop leaving money in your database, make sure that you are tuning in for the Friday Focus, where we are talking all about database depth we are going to be handing you the scripts the campaigns to make those old leads pay just open up that kgCI real estate on air mobile app always free for iphone

and android users just make sure that your notifications are on we'll remind you that it's coming that's a wrap on this week's real estate on air live i'm eun weatley be good