KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Building a Real Estate Powerhouse One Deal at a Time

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Summary:This episode features an interview with Caleb Pearson, who shares his philosophy on building a thriving, scalable real estate business through consistent, disciplined action. The discussion is a blend of mindset and systems, emphasizing the importance of treating every transaction with a high level of professionalism and care. Pearson provides a valuable framework for transitioning from a transactional mindset to an entrepreneurial one, focusing on delegation, leveraging technology, and prioritizing the client experience to create a steady stream of repeat and referral business.

Seven-figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO. Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcast Experience. This is your host, John Kitchens. You're ready to think bigger and transform your business into a path to lasting freedom. All right. All right. What is up, Honey Badger Nation, man? Thank you guys.

Tune in to another episode of Expert Mentors Live. Expert Mentors 281 is just absolutely bananas to think about this. You know, Caleb, we're wrapping up our seventh year of doing. in the expert mentor series. And so April, April will wrap seven and then we'll kind of that second quarter of this year started heading into the eighth year of expert of these expert mentor conversations. And I was just kind of, I was kind of looking back. I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of amazing, you know, individuals over, over the last really on the coaching side of things, the last 13, 14 years. And I've had a lot of great clients become great friends, but, you know, very few do I get to see,

just kind of really grow up, right? Like, like really kind of grow up in the industry, you know, able, you know, life before family, life before, you know, kids. I mean, yeah, you caught me. You caught me as a kid. Caught you guys. Yeah. I mean, the whole crew, right? And so, you know, I was looking back, you know, this, this past June was 10 years. So we started working together in June of 2014. So just think back, you know, your growth and just how much has happened over, over the last decade. And It's the whole thing, right? Like we try to, you know, do so much or don't feel like we get anything done, you know, in a 12-month period, but you look back over the course of a decade and how much

your life has completely changed and the life of the people around you. So I'm excited for you, brother, to be able to jump in here with this with expert mentors community. And really, the, you know, the whole thing with this expert mentor conversation really came from, it was really come from Kyle Whistle and Dan Beer. And they said, hey, we need to have. a meeting. We said, okay, right? This is back in 2018 and, and, you know, we came over in 2017 to EXP. And of course, shortly, you know, after coming in, you know, you've got the Kyle Whistle

and Mr. Dan Beer. And they're saying, hey, we need to, we need to create a weekly conversation, a weekly training to pull out these honey badgers because we've got some amazing rock stars that just want to give back, that just want to pour into the community. And that's really where expert mentors came from. Kinder was on the call and he said, well, the downside for me, which has been a blessing, I was not on that call. And Kinder, you know, just kind of draw straws. And he's like, okay, well, basically we need somebody consistent. There's nobody's your job. He's like, John's in. So I didn't have a vote. But, you know, very, very gracious and just the, you know, the 280, now 281 conversations that I've been able to have with some of the most amazing, you know, humans,

but just absolute rock stars in this industry and part of the Honey Badger Nation. And, you know, today's no different. So welcome, brother. I'm glad you carved out the time. Jump in here with us and join the conversation. Yeah. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, bud.

Man, so take us back, man. You know, we, you know, got into each other's world back, like I said, in, you know, June of 2014. Completely, you know, you were a completely different human, completely different life. I mean, like you said, kid. and I remember, you know, getting you to the very first mastermind. And I kind of told, I told Kinder and Reese, I was like, they, I said, most of these people in this room, they ain't ready for this. Because you were doing how you had carved out the business, all the things that they knew they should be doing, but they weren't doing it. You guys were.

And you were doing it in a very regimented way. And I think it was a lot to say with, you know, the college background, sports background. And it's almost like you never stopped. You just kind of carried that over. And I would love for you to just kind of share, you know, getting into real estate and how you guys attacked the business early on. Yeah. So I guess it was about 10 years ago.

I had come in to real estate under a lady that was at Keller Williams that had been through the Tom Ferry, Mike Ferry coaching, great mentor for about a year or two. She really got me started. And then my cousin, Justin, who you know, is with me 12, 13 years later from getting into real estate. he was like, I think we can do this. Let's go off on our own and figure this thing out. And man, when we first got involved in this,

it was like an Instagram ad of Jay and Mike on a boat. And then we ended up clicking. We'll buy that event. And we end up in Dallas. And then we buy the coaching. And then you and I start hopping on a call every week. We were literally buying our furniture from Goodwill. me and my brother and my cousin lived in a two-bedroom apartment, the three of us, and a dog that was just a drinking weekend decision that we had in the house.

I mean, we were kids, but we worked hard. And then we started, we got busy enough to where we had a bunch of business going. And you got a setup to where we hired a buyer's agent and then a listing coordinator. and then the closing coordinator and then more buyers agents. But we were, we, we weren't from Charleston. So we didn't have a sphere of influence to lean on. So we had to go find it. And we, we hit the hand, we hammered, expired FISBOS and canceled listings.

And we really built our, we built our initial seven years of client base off of just that almost. You know, what really just impressed me in this. one thing, remember early on in the expert mentor series when Tina Call came over to EXP, had Tina on her and her and her and her husband. She's the best. And, you know, one of the things that really stood out with me, right? You know, because they, they were in Michigan and moved, you know, into the Carolinas. And she said, you know, the one thing in this business, the one skill that will travel, it'll travel geographical. It'll travel geographical. It'll

travel different market conditions. It travels whatever real opportunity is happening in the market at the time is the skill set to be able to pick up the phone and have a conversation with somebody. Yeah. And, you know, that was one of the things. That's why I was kind of alluding to getting into the room of mastermind and I'm saying, you know, these guys, they're not ready because they're not doing what is required and what you guys were doing. But what I loved so much is that, the consistency and the cadence in which you guys prepared yourselves every day, right? Yeah. Like, you're still young kids, right?

No other obligations. So, hey, we're going to go, we're going to go work out together. Hey, we're going to get ready. We're going to roll play. We're going to hit the phones and we're doing this together. It was kind of like the team. So you took that basketball athletic background and just carried it right into what you were doing into business.

That was one of the things I was like, man, he just never stopped. We didn't know any different either. We were pretty naive, which worked out in our favor. I mean, you gave me the morning miracle book. I read it. I was like, okay, wake up five, wake up, go to the gym, 5 a.m., get my sweat in. And then we were getting to the office at seven. We required everybody to get there to seven, which is pretty, it's an almost unreasonable ask.

Now that I look back on it, as people had children and families. So they would get there at seven. And then we would do sales training from 7 to 7.30. And then we were calling some of the expires and canceled in 7. 30 in the morning. I mean, we're making some people mad, but I mean, a lot of people loved it. Yeah. You guys were. You guys were really just, you were out hustling your work ethic until the talent level caught up with it. The work, you guys just outworked everybody. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we weren't, honestly, we weren't even that talented at the time. But you go through

enough banging your head against the wall, you get pretty good at it. And then you remember Brandon, Brandon, bot still on the team. And he sat back when, So we first, ISAs were just starting to be a thing. And Brandon sat there and called for like seven years. And now he's doing almost $20 million a year. Yeah. It's just wild, man. You build, you build that skill set.

That's one of the skill sets that just, it's, it, it, it, you never lose it, right? It just carries so many, you know, like I said, time, time frame, season of the markets, geographical location. You can go anywhere. I mean, you're in a great spot. There's no reason to go anywhere than where you are. but like you could, you know, move like Tina's example, right? And so I just really, you know, just a shining example of, okay, hey, simplicity,

but do it, do it this way, do it the right way and just work the system and work it. There was another really pivotal point. And I use your story a lot in conversation and just helping give people context about, you know, attacking the day the right way, being able to structure it, doing things simple. but consistent as a unit, as a group. But one of the things, man, and this is why I say, and you've done one of the best jobs within the real estate space that I've ever really seen.

And I've got a couple other great examples, but you really started, you had that aha moment. And I'll never forget, man, you hit me up, you showed me, you sent me everything, you're like, listen, dude, I just closed this deal. I have to go sell five listings to each, equal this one transaction. And I think that was just for you, just where it unlocked all of the investment side of things and really just change the course of your life in just that moment.

And I would love for you to just kind of unpack, you know, before you were just attacking selling houses, like you said, on the hamster wheel. Yeah. It's crazy that you remember that story. because I tell everybody that story. And the guy, I told the guy that actually sold the deal to the story maybe like six months ago. And he didn't have any idea. He had any influence on me like that. So we were calling all the cancels and inspires. And then I called this guy one day.

And he goes, me and my sister inherited this house. It didn't sell at this age. And I just want an offer. And I knew one person in town that flipped home. One. And I called him and it was listed at 200. And I said, well, what can you? can you pay for it? And he was like, a hundred. And I'm thinking, no way in hell this guy takes

this offer. So I call him back and I'm like, hey, I got this guy. He'll pay 100. You want 200. And the guy's like, well, just write it up and send it to me. We'll take that. So he turns around and probably makes a hundred grand on it. And I made $3,000 in commission. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm sitting on the wrong side of this table. I was the one that found the lead. I can probably find enough people where I could scrape together 100 grand or 150 grand do the project. So we made him a bunch of money, but I learned a valuable lesson. I learned that there's a lot of money in investing in real estate. And then we started fixing and flipping a bunch of homes. I did the same thing with the fix and flip model was, all right, I built my real estate team.

Now, how do we build a fix and flip team the same way? Go find the best mentors. Go find a mastermind of high-level individuals that are doing it at volume and at scale. So we joined a mastermind, got that going. And then we started, then I started seeing, okay, all these guys have big businesses, but who has the best lifestyles? And it was the multifamily guys and the mobile home park owners. So we started picking up investments as that goes.

And I mean, here we are. Yeah, it's pretty wild. And you just kind of gave the blueprint right there. And I think that's kind of where we could really pour in from the expert mentor conversation here about kind of how you win about it. Right. So you had seen the success inside of the real estate company, right? It was like, okay, hey,

we're looking for a better way. Hey, there's this event, right? Let's go check that out. Oh, they've got, you know, some coaching, go that route, get into a mastermind, go that route. So, ah, that work. Let's try that. Right. So that's just a great example. It's like, hey, we've got to build the team. Then we need to find who the mentors are. And then where's the group?

And then I love that distinction, right? It's not that it's not just like, you know, hey, crushing and flipping a bunch of, you know, rooftops, doors and houses and families. It's who has the lifestyle to go with it? What was that for you? That was so important. Why was that so important? I mean, that came as I got a little bit older and a little bit more mature.

You start losing a little bit of steam. I mean, I had all the energy in the world, and then you're like, God, I am just burning it at all ends. So what are those guys doing differently? Because they're not always on the phone. They're going out to dinner and you don't see them checking their phone the whole time or stepping outside and taking calls. You definitely don't see them with two cell phones like I had at one time. So it was, then I just sat next to them at dinner and started asking them questions and they let me fly to their offices and shadow what they do and how they do it and showed me all the numbers. And I mean, once you see the numbers, it all makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah, it really does. You know, you had that moment. You had to catch yourself on the wrong side of the table, which, you know, most agents just kind of problem aware or not problem aware. And then you became aware. What do you see, though, why even if some agents have the realization is like, dude, I just made you, you know, 100,000.

I made three. Yet they still don't do anything about it. what stops real estate agents from really moving forward with, you know, really the investment in financial opportunity that this profession has? Yeah, that's a good question. Probably access to capital and what,

how much access they think they may have to capital. Risk tolerance, I guess. I mean, there's definitely more risk. Sure. When you're flipping homes, risk legally.

I don't know. But I mean, it's a lot of, it's a lot of just maybe just doubt that they can't do anything with it. You know, Kyle gave a really good piece of advice right here on expert mentors a couple years ago. And he said, listen, if you got the deal, the money's there. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And you can put it in places where, like, you can put it on Craigslist, which most people don't, most people don't even go to Craigslist. But if you put a good enough deal on Craigslist, somebody will find it.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that was just a good shift. And I think that's just where a lot of agents, they're just not thinking, right? They're thinking about the next deal. They're thinking about the next conversation, their next appointment instead of looking at the bigger picture. Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, you've got those, you've got real estate agents selling homes and then us flipping homes. That's two active incomes. Like, those are active income. But what happens is you've got your fast, that's fast money in my opinion. So like, let's make money every month, flip homes, where do we go get the next one? Let's sell a house, sell another one, where we go?

It's a hamster wheel every month. But what happens is when you build your income to a certain level, some of these guys need to be buying and holding the real estate net. Jay and them are getting into that here recently because they've seen the light with what holding real estate does tax-wise, because if you have enough active fast income, You need to offset it some way. You're just going to give it to Uncle Sam. So the last thing that I've learned probably in the last five years is buying assets to offset the active income from those businesses.

On top of owning something that pays you every month from a cash flow perspective. Does that make sense? It absolutely does. And so let's kind of give the blueprint of, hey, if you're just an agent heading into 25, this is something that's been on your mind. like give give kind of the you know paint by numbers just kind of hey if you're here focus on this then then this then this kind of what would be the progression say hey I'm an agent you know I'm out I'm on my own I'm hustling I'm doing you know two to three deals a month I'm popping up some investment opportunities I have investors what would you say you know

great you're in the right mindset do this yeah I mean I think if you're making over 200 grand a year in GCI and gross commissions, I think you can easily, if you're smart about, pick up one rental a year. And that one rental a year might can help you, we won't get into the whole tax side of it, but do a cost segregation study

on the rental that you buy and hold. And then that'll probably, depending on the price point of the house that you buy, save you anywhere from $40 to wipe your, call it $40,000, or it might wipe your entire taxable income. income for the year. So then you're building your wealth. You've got something that pays you every month. But if they do one a year for a while, it's kind of like a snowball going downhill. Yeah. You start buying one. Then the next year you might buy two. Then you've got enough income coming in. You might buy three. Then year four. And then all of a sudden you look up and you own a couple hundred doors. Yeah. So start small. Start with one. Obviously, find a mentor. Find somebody that can kind of keep you on the right path as a degree.

good deal is it not a good deal yeah find a partner well my that's what i did especially my i wasn't scared to take on a single family house and keep it as a rental but i was a little scared taking on a 15 unit apartment complex which was my biggest deal when i first started so i got a partner that had he owned a couple hundred units or he probably owned a couple 1500 units which is a pretty big investor and i said hey i've got this deal will you partner on it and i gave him half of everything thing, which ended up being a pretty big number. But he taught me so many lessons along the line. Like, so many people get caught up on trying to squeeze every drop out of the lemon when

sometimes if you just share it, you get a lot of growth and a lot of knowledge from it. And then at some point, you can just go off and do it on your own. Dude, I love that. That was kind of our path, right? And so, you know, we started running, you know, homesill guaranteed or we'll buy it. it feeding investors and and then you know a savvy enough investor said listen I have a gut feeling that if we partner on these deals you'll find a lot more deals yeah you know compensation drives behavior and so that's exactly what happened and then the progression became you know then we were

our own investor right we didn't need you know the the partnership um doesn't mean that you would ever want to, you know, shut it off if, if you don't have to, but that was just an option. So I agree with your, 100%, but to like Kyle's point, to your point, it's got to start in the mind, man, you just got to, you just got to know that you're in the business that's finding opportunities. And I tell you the other two things for us, Caleb, I was just, and maybe it was through, through our conversations that, you know, it really resonated with you as well, but it was like, listen, you've got to look at, is this an investment opportunity for me? right for me for my family for my my business for my partners for whoever's in this entity

okay well it's not something that i want or we want to mess with do i have an investor that i can get it to yeah if i don't have an investor i can get it to then let's bring it to market that when we made that shift instead of going market first we went us first our investors or other partners second market third that was the shift that's a really good point. Really good point. Yeah. And was it just you sitting at the table knowing, hey, man, no more. Like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to put a bunch of money in other people's pockets unless I can, you know, get a bigger piece of the pie myself. I mean, I was just like, damn, that would seem easy. And I was the one that generated it. Really, the money is made on the buy.

Right. So the value is who can find the deal at a discount. You really make the majority of your money in the purchase. Right. Which is what we were. But to make three grand. on and watch them make 100, it stung a little bit. Now, never again. Never again. Never again. Never again. Never again. So, you know, here you are, you know, over a decade in, you know, just definitely talking about the different, different type of incomes. What causes you to keep the real estate company instead of just focusing on the investment side? You know, that's a good point. So we've got, the real estate team does okay.

I mean, we do like, we'll do around $75 million and we've got, but we've only have, we only have four people that are truly selling. We have a team of like 15 people that work across all of our companies, but it provides them a good lifestyle. It pays for some of our employees that work for our retail brokerage team help me into my other businesses. So it helps pay for that. The retail broker's team is not like super profitable. but it brings a lot of brand recognition and brings a lot of market recognition. So it's hard to put a price tag on everybody in town knowing me as the investor agent. So people are bringing me deals that come from the team and come into the team.

So I mean, does that answer your question? It's just a little bit too. I think it also keeps the stigma off of you that you're just an investor. And I think, you know, because I just kind of default to people that were, you know, in our market that we worked with that were just investors. And it was like, you know, but I think with you, you're still in, you know, boots on ground. You're dealing with the consumer. You know what the consumer wants. You know what buyers want. You know what sellers want. So you do kind of have a competitive

advantage as an investor. Oh, big time. Big time. And you see the changes in the market. You just have a better pulse because we carry 20 to 30 listings at a time so I can see what price points are moving, how much activity they're getting. What are buyers starting to beat you up on price, beat you up on closing costs, beat you up on repairs? Like, where's the market turn and what neighborhoods do you stay away from? So I get a lot of extremely valuable insight into the market from the retail team running. You're on the front lines, man. You're, I mean, you're you're, your need to knee. So you know what's really happening. Whereas the investors kind of, you know, not as plugged in.

And that's why they need great agent. That's why investors need great agents to be that ear to the consumer ear to the ground, to be able to give them that perspective. But yeah, yeah. Well, John, I'll give you an example. I met with a lady a few years ago. And this was like one of those aha moments and it clicked as well. So we offer, we can buy your house cash now.

Well, if you want to take the house and turn it upside down and shake every penny out of it, you need to list it. So we offer that option. or we can come in and make this super simple. We can pay cash, buy it as is. You pick the closing date. Anything back here that you want to leave behind, you can leave behind. But with that comes a concession in price.

So we'll offer you both options. And I offered a lady, the house was not even in that bad of shape. I think we bought, it on the open market, it would have sold for maybe $2.15, somewhere around there. Then I offered her $165 cash. So here are your two options. She goes, oh, I'll take that one. Like she didn't even really have that much distress or issues. She just wanted convenience and now.

And we were not taking advantage over. We gave her both options and she picked it. Yeah. So I think the more options that you can give a consumer, the better. Yeah. I think what really worked well for us that saved a lot of, especially, you know, now, you know, even the accessibility with reviews and testimonials and, you know, more transparency is one of the things that, and I slept better at night when we

broke down the numbers for them and where our offer was coming from. And, you know, hey, this is cost to buy. This is cost to hold. This is cost to rehab. This is cost to sell. And oh, by the way, we are taking the position as an investor. So here is our profit. We're not trying to knock a home run, but this is our profit. Sure. And we would present it. So that, that made me feel better. The other side of the thing is, is that you better be careful with what you say, because in that situation, they might just say, okay, I'll take that. So you better, you better be careful with the number that you throw out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, we just put it in a calculator and say, here's your list option. This is what you net. Here's your cash offer. This is what you know,

the cash offer is what you walk away with. But you pick, you pick the closing date. You leave it all behind. It's as is. We're not being up on repairs. We don't have strangers coming through the house looking at your house. You don't have to wait and hope that the, the, um, contract goes through. So it is simpler, but like this lady is a $40,000 concession that she was willing to give just for convenience. Are you seeing more and more of that? Or is it kind of the same or has it died off a little bit?

Like where is the pulse of the market with people that are wanting that convenience and willing to take that investment number? On the stuff that needs a lot of work, there's still a lot of demand for it. So we're still buying plenty of houses. We buy between five and ten a month. Gotcha. Good month is 10, bad month will be, call it four. So working your way to that point, right?

So let's talk. I mean, really been over the last 10 years, you've built to that. So I think anybody listening in, right? Like don't jump to Caleb's chapter, right? So that's why I wanted you to, you know, hey, kind of paint by numbers. What's chapter one for a lot of people? And, you know, I got to go through the chapters to get to where you're at. And so, you know, as it builds to that point, but let's say somebody is,

thinking about, you know, ramping it up a little bit. What would you say, hey, you got to have, you know, let me help you from, you know, lessons learned. If you're trying to get to that five to ten, these are the things that you've got to make sure you have in place. Yeah. So like, ratchet up your marketing as it goes. So start with like $1,000 a month in direct mail.

And then once you can track it and prove, if I send it a thousand pieces out, I get this many calls, I get this many contracts. then ramp it up a little bit and then at some point you're going to need to hire someone to run the appointments and then at some point you're going to need to hire someone to run the construction and then you're going to need another closing coordinator

to handle all of the pending transactions but don't start don't drop $25,000 in marketing the first month when you couldn't handle that many purchases in the first place so like just ratchet it up yeah baby steps working with you and track it God just track it everything. What would you say, I hear you say track everything, but like, and if I'm only going

to track a handful of numbers, what am I tracking? So call responses. And what we found is it used to be 1%. Now it's about half a percent. So if we spend, if we send out a thousand pieces, what is that? That's five phone calls. Yeah. Five phone calls that come in and then track what your conversion rate out of those five is. Usually about 20% of the people that actually call. in actually are motivated the other 80% are telling you to shove it don't don't stop sending me mail yeah they're upset but 20% of that is wants you to buy their house or are seriously interested in you in selling their home um and then track your closing percentage got and then track your average profit per deal that's big right we've got a gentleman in i mean you know who he is he's in norman oklahoma

running kind of a strongest cash offer guarantee. I mean, we know, I mean, it's expensive. We know is, you know, he's doing a lot of, you know, ad, ad spend and it's transition a lot. He's been doing about a year. So we're starting to pick up some organic stuff. But he knows his cost per lead. He knows his cost, you know, his acquisition. He knows his deal.

So he knows his profit percentage. So he can afford to spend, you know, $1,500 bucks per lead because he knows his numbers. And I think that that would scare a lot of people, you know, hearing that, like $1,500 at lead. he's doing it all day long because he knows he knows his numbers and he knows the math the math works yeah yeah yeah i mean i think our last year our average cost per deal was like seventy seven hundred dollars a deal yeah which is not i mean that's not cheap like it's it's not a cheap sport to play it yeah and i think that that goes back to your whole point build up to it build up to it 100 so caleb you know obviously you know a lot of changes here just here recently

I mean, obviously coming into the new year, you know, for you guys making a transition, like you said, Kim in KW, you've been at remax as far as long as I've known you. For over a decade, you've been at remax. And then all of a sudden kind of shifting gears and making it, making a change. What was it for you guys? Was it just time to shake things up? Like, what was it to, hey, it's time to make a move. It's time to change things up.

Yeah. So you guys went over there. How many years ago, eight? 17. Yeah, in 17, 2017. 2017. Okay. So you guys went over there and I kind of watched you guys from the sideline and I had a few years left in my remax franchise and then I sold my remax franchise, but I didn't want to sell it to the guy and just bail on it. I would have gone, if I hadn't in that situation, I would have gone straight over there with you guys eight years ago and nine years ago, now it would have been a lot of happier or not a lot of happier, but I'd have a lot more residual income coming in. That's for sure.

So then it came up to where his franchise was about to change. And so I wasn't leaving him hold in the bag because my team was producing most of the volume in the franchise. He would have heard him. Yeah. Yeah, it would have heard him. So stay there, helped him help that ride out. But it was more to get the band back together with you guys and just be in a mastermind feel again. Because y'all have a lot of some of the best agents in the country in your house.

group. We could have gone anywhere and it wasn't about the splits to us, but being in y'all's group and around people that are doing big things and that are like stay and stay to the art and have the best technology and know what the best new lead capture tools are. I haven't had that for probably seven or eight years since we got out of the mastermind with you guys. And we've missed that. So I think that's the biggest thing is more of like the community that were coming into with EXP more than the brokerage itself. It's such a great point. And, you know, Jay and Al and I were talking about it yesterday.

And a lot of people making moves. And I think, you know, as you were kind of going through there, I think this was a lot of leadership, lack of leadership. Or, you know, you kind of get out on an island. And I think that's, you know, originally for us, you know, in the NAEA mastermind days, we were the safe haven for, you know, for, you know, for. typically for independence, for people that were really kind of out on an island. And they were just, they were looking for a place in a community.

And really, we were very fortunate enough to, to be able to transition, you know, the NAA mastermind days into EXP. And, you know, a lot of the, the early, you know, folks that jumped on board with us were from that cut, from that mold. And then they knew the people. And then, you know, you get the Veronica Vigaroes, you get the Tina calls, you get the Mark Zs, the Kurt Shewells, the Kyle Whistles, the, you know, the Dan Beer, the Curtis Johnson, Chuck Fasio's, right? And it just, it just cascades in your right. You look at even, you know, people can say whatever

they want to say with the evolution of the model, right? You've been remax. So you know that model very well. You know the legacy. That's, to me, legacy model, will it serve a purpose? It may, it may sunset at some point. But the evolution, though, is definitely these platforms that give, like you said, because you were already talking about it, multiple streams of income. You're like, I can go get a $3,000 commission check, maybe charge a transaction fee. Maybe I can get some commission dollars off of agents, or I can get this other revenue stream off of investments or, oh, wow, I can get some stock in a company. You need a remax company. Yeah. I mean, honestly, man, we can do the exact same thing that we were doing previously.

But if I would have done it over the last 10 years, I would just, I mean, there's no telling how many people that would have come in and come over. And y'all's group is just full of badasses. I mean, some of the best agents in the country are in y'all's group. So that makes a big difference. And then to have like, even just the tech is really good now that I've started to dive into it.

And this isn't a EXP sales pitch. No. No, it is the things that, you know, just on the other side of the fence, especially for so long, being able to come in and be like, oh, wow, okay. And I think that's an interesting point, right? You know, I think at this point everybody's obviously heard of VXP, but really what is it? And that's one of my favorite questions when they say, you know, understand the model and aligning with us what that is.

And then they think they know, but then start to articulate it, what is it? Really, what is, you know, that? but there is so much. What are you excited about? You know, you made the move really, you know, coming together kind of into a community of, like you said, you know, rock stars, badasses. What are you guys trying to solve for in 25? You made the move, proximity. What are we thinking about?

What are you, you know, the team? What are you guys focused on trying to accomplish in 25? Yeah, so we've got a bunch of new development projects that are coming down the pipe. So that's going to be a big focus. We've raised our price point substantially. We've changed our branding now. So moving over to you guys, forced us to change our branding.

So we changed the logo and made it a little less about Caleb Pearson and we just called CPT and gave it a whole new fresh high-end vibe. So, I mean, I'm just excited about a new chapter. And I really am excited about the stock options are going to be great. any residual income that we've that we're going to produce i made a deal with our team that we're going to put it in a pot and they're going to get a percentage of it in five years so it's i mean it's a retention tool that we've used it as too um so i think the biggest thing is just new chapter and starting to rub elbows with some of the badasses again on the brokerage side i like that fire

so obviously you've seen just just so much i mean i know where your head is and focused and you know, whatever may happen into, you know, 25 and beyond. It was one question, you know, we hear a lot of people, hey, what do you think is going to change? What do you think is going to happen in the market? For you and maybe just from your leadership capabilities and talking with the team, what are you conveying to them, hey, man, this ain't going to change. This is what is going to stay, you know, stay the same, what's not going to change heading into,

heading into 25 and beyond, right? The second half of the decade, emergence, you know, the sexiness. more so of an ease of AI and you know what's not going to change in your mind moving forward. I mean, what's not going to change is people are still going to need help buying and selling homes. Yeah. But the market may change. And I don't care what the market does.

I mean, I prefer it to go up because that helps net worth. But we started during the short sale days when things were terrible. Things took forever to sell. everybody you talked to was upside down in their home. So if we went back to a market like that, we can navigate it. Like nobody's going to out grind us if we have to. So we'll just have to get to more disciplined days. I'll tell you, we talked before this call.

I've worked probably harder in the last 12, 24 months, and I did the previous four or five years. So what is that? What, how come? I mean, we just had the wind at our back for so long. when rates were nothing and everybody was just shifting around houses in the same neighborhoods, you're getting double sides and prices were going up. So you're making more money and things are easy and the government's giving out a bunch of money.

I mean, life was fun there for a little while for everybody. But now you're seeing that pullback and the wind's a little bit more in our face. And I think I read an article where 70% of the agents in the country didn't sell a house last year. Yeah, it's wild, didn't it? I don't know how accurate that is, but if that's an, accurate number that that that's crazy because everybody was getting their license four years ago yeah everybody it was easy right it was easy they didn't have to learn the sell the the skills of selling they didn't have to learn the skill of negotiation they didn't have to learn how to how to

you know have conflict resolution they didn't have to learn how to market they didn't have to learn how to lead it was easy you just put a house on the on the MLS it didn't even matter what the price was and it sold it is it's absolutely wild you didn't need professional pictures you didn't marketing you didn't need anything anybody could sell a house for yeah four years ago yeah so so definitely definitely understanding that i still believe you know um to your point and i think like a lot of agents you know or we're able to just kind of ease their way into you know multiple six figure seven figure you know income and you know the the challenge there is is to kind of do your point is is being complacent and content and not allowing yourself to get into that.

But I'm still a little curious. Like, it got harder, but you didn't have to push harder. What, I mean, what really relit the fire for you? I mean, I feel like I pushed harder. I don't know. I mean, I don't want to do this forever. And I still have plenty of energy. So I don't want to take the foot off the gas yet.

So I guess some of that. And then lifestyle gets a little bit more expensive. So you start pressing on the gas there. Kids get older. You start seeing people go to places that you want to go to. I mean, so you start having a little, your ambitions get a little bit bigger. I don't know.

I mean, I enjoy it. Yeah. When I don't enjoy it anymore is probably when it's time to hang them up. But I'm not to that point yet. No, yeah, no. I love it. So what does, man, what are your kind of projections or goals or targets, at least on the investment side

and then kind of kind of balanced with the agent side for this year? Yeah, I mean, our goal for the team, if we do $80 million this year, I'll be happy, which we should, especially with the big investment deals coming down the pipeline. If we flip 60 homes, I'll be happy. I think we'll do more than that this year based on especially this first couple weeks. And then I don't necessarily know that we'll add a bunch more doors to our portfolio. We haven't been heavily buying the last couple of years just because interest rates have gone up, cap rates have been squeezed, insurances have hammered the commercial space.

So I don't know that it's the best time. But I mean, there's good deals to be bought in any market. Right. So we're not like heavy on acquisitions right now. We're not really going out and hunting down deals, but we're picking them off as they come. So if we can buy three to five million dollars worth of deals this year that are good cash flow and deals that we're walking in at a good number, I'm happy. I love it. And just continuing to grow and improve the team.

I think, you know, you look back at what you've been able to accomplish and, you know, coming from a, sports background, you know, team first, you know, being able to build a really solid core of just great, you know, individuals. As it says a lot. I mean, look at, you know, you've got some guys that have been riding with you for over a decade. That says a lot. Yeah. I mean, they've helped us build the brand. They've helped us build all of this. And it's really cool to watch. I mean, you should see Brandon and Justin and Clay, but they have nice houses now. They have beautiful wives. They have children.

They have nice cars. You just know what they came from. And it's really cool to watch. My thing with them this year is, can we get them to start building wealth? A few of them have. But if we can start getting them to buy and hold some stuff, that's where the true wealth is made.

It's not in flipping homes. Right. I don't hear what anybody tells you. The true wealth is in buying and sitting on ownership, letting somebody else pay it down over. time getting the tax depreciation and letting it appreciate. I love it. Well said. And this is definitely where my belief is at. And really just the ultimate reason why you should be in this game in the first place should be for exactly what you just articulate it right there. So brother,

love that you're in the circle, a little bit tighter. You're always in the circle, but just a little bit tighter to the crew. Great to have you back. And glad to be back. Yeah, man. Appreciate you. And guys connect with Caleb. Like I said, you know, he's textbook to, you know, the way to go and build and the way to look and really look at your business and run your business from, you know, the skill set to looking for opportunities first, but also leading and building a great team that still wants to be a part of riding with you, you know, 10, 11, 12 years later says a lot.

Definitely, definitely says a lot. Cool. Well, hey, but I appreciate it. I'm glad to get the band back. together. Yes, sir. Awesome. Cool. We'll see you guys. See you, Bob. See it. That's a wrap for today. I hope you got something valuable from this episode. If you did, hit follow and visit john kitchens.coach for more ways we can work together. See you on the next episode.