KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Building a Sustainable Business with Jonathan Popowich

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Summary:This episode features an interview with Jonathan Popowich, a team leader and broker-owner. The conversation centers on building a sustainable business by focusing on a systems-first approach, the importance of culture, and effective team leadership. Jonathan shares insights on how to create a predictable business that is not solely reliant on the team leader's personal production. The episode is highly tactical and provides a clear framework for agents and team leaders looking to scale their operations.

I want you to think of it like this. If your business stops the moment that you go on vacation, you don't own a business. What you own is a high paying, high stress pain in the job, all right? What I want you to listen to in this upcoming episode here on KGCI Real Estate on Air is this transition from being a rainmaker to a true CEO by creating a predictable business that thrives without your personal production. Okay. Most agents are trapped in this time for money cycle. They are forever stuck in a day to day operation and are able to scale because they are the bottleneck. So John Sy out in Vancouver, Canada sits down with Jonathan Popovich and they break down a system first approach to team leadership and this framework for replacing your own self in your real estate business. All right, welcome everyone back to the power half hour. And this week, I've been chasing this man down for many, many, many, many weeks. And I had the pleasure of meeting him in Calgary, his hometown last year in August.

Just a phenomenal team leader, phenomenal human being, a father, and a great husband. Jonathan, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your time. Thanks for having me, John. It's good to connect. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, we interviewed Trong and I know you guys are partners. You guys have more or less the same type of demeanor and business and vision. But do tell us, how did you get started in real estate and where are you at right now? Yeah, so my background is just like everybody else in this industry, sort of an unconventional path to get here. So my background is actually with the fire department. So I come from emergency services. I did about 13 years with.

Calgary Fire Department. And that's always what I wanted to do as a kid. I just wanted to be a firefighter like many young boys do. And so I did that. And at the same time that I was on the fire department, my wife was going to university. And she was a high performance runner. So she was gone competing and I had a lot of time off with my schedule. So I started flipping houses, which was kind of like when the real estate bug bit me and then realized, you know, these these realtors that were facilitating at flips were profiting more than I was as the guy doing the works. But I thought, maybe there's a, maybe there's a business there. So it was a natural progression into real estate.

And then things just sort of took off organically. And that's where we are here now. So now I run a team. We've got eight people total on the team. We have four realtors, myself as team lead. And then we have three admins. And yeah, this year, I think we're going to be, we're trying to break 200 million in terms of total volumes. So yeah, things are going well.

That's a very efficient sniper team. Are you still in production yourself, selling at a high level? I am still in production a little bit, a little bit more selective with which listing opportunities I'll take on. I don't do any buyer production at all. Okay. A little bit in the way of listings. And yeah, so we're pretty lean and mean for sure. That's awesome.

And do you want to keep it lean and mean? Or is there a plan to kind of grow that into? more of an army team or a brokerage team type of style. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things I love about this business is there's no real set way to do it. And there's so many business models. For me personally,

I kind of like the little bit more boutique, a little bit more, you know, just kind of family type feel. So we're like a highly relational team. A lot of our businesses sphere and just referral and repeat business. And then we have like an excellent geo farm. carved out. So I don't want it to get too big as you're just managing that many more personalities

and that many more dynamics. We prefer to keep it a little bit more, like I say, lean and mean. So really experienced agents on my team. They've been here for a long time. And it's a good thing that we have going on. Absolutely. Yeah, lean and mean and profitable, right? Right. You know, at the end of the day, running a team, you know, you got to really look at your P&L at the in the day. And when you're when I was lean and mean like having four agents, obviously I was still in production. So it was the highest profit I've ever seen in my team. Yeah. Right. So yeah. And when did you start a team? So the team actually started in 2016 and it was sort of a necessity. It was as I was kind of navigating that that transition from the fire department where I sort of had the,

you know, the golden handcuffs of a paycheck every two weeks and all that kind of stuff. And then I actually had a coach once. It was like, you know what? Like if you, if you, If you're going to do this, you need to decide, are you going to be a realtor or you're going to be a firefighter? Because you can do both things okay, but you can't do both things excellent. So if you want to be an excellent agent, this is what you're going to have to do and you're going to have to hire and leverage and things like that. And so ultimately, that's sort of the path that we went. So team started in 2016 with just an assistant. Then I brought on my first buyer's agent who's still with me today.

Donna, just great. And then we've just slowly grown from there, just as the team has sort of required that additional bandwood, we brought additional people on. That's fair. Wow. So really, if you started, it looks like from around 2007, 2008, solo agent, and you carried that job of being a firefighter for eight years. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Wow.

Yeah. So a lot of agents ask me, right? John, should I go full-time? Should I keep my other job? You did it for eight years at a high, high-level, selling a lot of homes. And then when you started a team, you quit that job. So if people are thinking about quitting their job, would you say do it as sooner than later or just say, do it as long as possible as you can? I think it comes to a bit of a point where whatever you're doing, you know, a lot of people look at real estate as like the side hustle or, you know, perhaps real estate is supposed to be the full-time thing and whatever the other side hustle is

or whatever the permanent job is, that could be perceived as the side hustle. For me, it was, it was all about just having focus. And I, you know, I loved my time with the fire department. And that was still like, to this day, if I'm working for somebody, that was the best job I've ever had. But it was a distraction. You know, I wasn't able to serve my clients the way that I needed to serve my clients or my family the way I needed to serve my family while I had that distraction of that other

full-time job, if that makes sense. So I think the first thing is like come up with a blueprint, come up with a roadmap of is this possible and how are you going to do it? Build out your plan and then you have to rip the band-aid at some point and make it happen. So that's really what it came down to for me was working with a coach to say, how are we going to do this? And then let's make it happen. Gotcha.

Did you have like a certain amount of, you know, nest egg or six months reserve or some sort of safety net that you would say, okay, I'm ready to jump? or was it just like, you know, no matter how you look at it, I'm going to go full time. I did kind of to a degree. So my wife is at home with the kids and or at that time, you know, we have, we've got four kids. And so they were very young. And so what I did is I took an unpaid parental leave. So it wasn't like a paid parental leave or anything like that.

It was an unpaid parental leave. And it was enough for me to say, okay, I'm going to do this for nine months to kind of figure out, like, can I, can I do this? And now are we going to start seeing some money coming in or enough to sort of facilitate what we wanted to try and build and do? So I guess there was always the panic button that I could have pressed where I could have gone back to the fire department to continue on the way things were. And but as far as like actual savings, it was actually kind of the opposite. You know, we were we were building a house that was way above our means and and just, you know, I'm kind of a winging kind of guy. Yeah.

And so I was winging it like crazy and just let's see how it goes. And ultimately, if it didn't work, we'll course correct and off we go. And that's just the way that I kind of. And it worked out really, really well. Yeah. As you can see. Wow. So really giving up that job during the downturn of Calgary.

Yeah. In 2016 and building a team and building a house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was probably, yeah, like in hindsight, there was a, yeah, there was a lot of things that.

it probably didn't make a whole lot of sense. And I'm sure that a lot of people were looking into, you know, what Shannon, my wife and I were doing. I'm thinking like, you guys are nuts. But we've got a fairly high risk tolerance. And it certainly worked out. How did you navigate through that downturn as a team leader? And, you know, just building a team.

Did your production go down? Was it like a, was it a lot of panic during that time? Because it was for a lot of Calgary agents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think the thing is, is like, so I've been very, very fortunate in that the time that we've been sort of growing and building, we've had sort of a, every year has been better than the last. With the exception of last year, last year was sort of our first negative year compared to years prior.

And so part of that, I think, is just trying to, when everybody zigs, you zag, and so as everyone was sort of, you know, cutting their advertising and cutting their spending and and cutting it just in sort of, sort of. survival mode, that's when we were really trying to double down in every single lot. Good. So for me, it was actually a really great opportunity to start getting market share in one of our little geopharm markets. And it worked out quite favorably for us. So I think that's, I sort of welcome these downturn moments because I think that the natural tendency is that people will try to do what the majority is doing and play things a little bit

more conservatively. And I think it's just an opportunity to go big and really stand out. And that's sort of the model that we employed. That's huge. Did you learn that from your coach to go zig when people zag? Yeah, I did actually. There was sort of a transition of coaching at that time. And I went to a different group called Real Estate B School.

And that's what they're big on is, you know, really just coming up with that effective blueprint, thinking like three-year vision, one-year plan, and then 90-day quarters, you know, what are we going to do in the next 90 days to try to get us closer to that one-year goal? And that's always what it boiled down to is like if you want to try and get here, what do you need to do? And those action steps were never, let's just cut and stop doing stuff. It was always like, you've got to do something. And so that's where the zagging took place. Wow. Okay. So coach gave you the roadmap and gave you the maybe the idea, the vision that, hey, you know what, when everybody zigs, you zag, when everybody is contracting, you expand.

Right. And that's what got you here today to succeed during the downturn was your mindset was, this is an opportunity for me to take market share. Totally. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So similar to what we have seen in the last couple of years, which is the market contract.

Yeah. Right. And you're taking more market share. How are you navigating from, you know, you know, last couple of years when the market has turned to now recovering in Calgary and beyond, what do you think is the best opportunity for agents to expand? Sorry, rephrase that a little bit, John. Yeah, so, so, you know, as the market have changed, right?

You're obviously, you know, taking more market share. But from now and beyond, let's say 24, 25, 26. Oh, we're back. All right. We're back. Sorry, John. I don't know what happened there. Yeah.

It was great. The answer was awesome. Yeah. No, I think at the same time, like really, not a lot has changed as far as like really figuring out that that 90-day quarter, that 90-day blueprint or the one-year blueprint or the three-year. And it's just a matter of evolving with whatever the market conditions are. So for us, you know, it was something that we were able to capture that market share in one

specific FSA or postal code. And now we're trying to expand that. And so maybe it means that we're just expanding that. that market share or maybe it's systems implementation and what's that one thing that's going to get our business closer to where it needs to be. Oh, shoot. We are back. I don't know what to happen.

I don't know what's going on here. Yeah, I apologize. No, no, no. Maybe it's our end. But yeah, you were saying, okay, expanding that geo farm, taking more market share. And that's just kind of how it worked out. slow and steady it sounds like for you. Yeah, slow and steady.

I mean, certain times, I think, are going to be like a really aggressive push, you know. Like we know that just given our particular business and we'll see about 65% of our transactions are written between February 15th and May 15th. Oh, wow. So if we're going to want to do 65% of our business for the whole year in that three month period, it means that we're planting seeds in like November. And we're, that's when we're really hitting on like business development. then we're busy doing the deals.

And then we sort of have the summer to do a little bit more in the way of, obviously that's harvest season. But at the same time, that's going to be time that we're starting to look to next year to say, okay, what's going to be our game plan for next year? So I think when certain times you need to be highly, highly aggressive. Like we do a lot in the way of unaddressed ad mail. And so that would be like a super intense window that we're going to do that. But then it's going to totally let up and we're not going to do a whole lot for the last six months of the year.

So it just depends on whatever the strategy is that we're trying to employ at that time. This is great. I always say agents, we make most of our money Q2 and Q3. Yeah. Yeah. And that's when the deal is closed, but like, especially for Calgary, weather gets in the way as well, right? For sure. Yeah.

Yeah. So when things look the ugliest here is when we do most of our deals, which is kind of interesting. Whoa. Stampede Week in Calgary is the slowest week of the year. But everything else that we do is, for the most part, we're a big spring market city, but especially in our little segment, our little niche with where we are in West Calgary. Interesting.

So, guys, listen up. You need to know your market. And sometimes when you know February to May, you make most of your money, maybe you could take the foot off the gas a little bit in the summer, which is what you do, right? That's exactly it. Yeah. Okay. So I want to talk about life now.

because you have four kids and you run a team $200 million, okay, every single year, guys. I don't even know how that's possible, but how do you become a great father, great husband, and a great team leader? How do you balance all that? Well, it's nice to you to say. I don't know that I'm quite there yet, John, but we're trying. We're trying to get to be that guy for all of those different things. But I think at the end of the day, it comes down to just boundaries. and the tendency that we have in this business is that when the phone rings, you go.

And I get because I've been there and I've done that. And I think that there are certain seasons in your life where that's appropriate. But I think there's also other seasons where that's not appropriate. And you know, you've got your kids for so long with you. You've got your spouse, hopefully forever. But you need to be able to show your family that that's really where you're committed lies. So if you get that, you know, Realtor.ca lead or whatever, you've never met this person. And then all of a sudden, you're skipping the kids hockey game or the kid's birthday party to go and meet some stranger at some listing.

You know, what signal does that send to your family? Right. The stranger is taking precedence over your own family. So it's just a matter of having boundaries. One of the most valuable tools that I've employed in my business is I just use a like Calendly or, you know, There's all these different scheduling links. And just to be able to give that to your clients to say, hey, choose whatever time works for you and you give them that link.

That way, it's not you that's saying no to the client because that's the part that people have problems with. And that's what I always had a challenge with is I didn't want to be that guy on the phone. Oh, how about Tuesday at six? Oh, it's my kids hockey game. What about what about 730? And you know when you're doing the whole back and forth? If you give them the link, they can see what's available.

and they're going to book something. And so that's what I've done is I've got, you know, certain times that I'm allowed, that I can go on appointments. And then outside of that, it is 100% family time. And so, you know, typically I'm done my day at 4, 30 or 5 o'clock. The rest of the time is for family and don't work on weekends. And it's a much more kind of balanced type life that we've got now, which is good. And then my family knows what they can expect of me as well, which works out.

Right, right. So dad is off at 4.35 o'clock and dad is here all weekend. Yeah. That's right. Amazing. Yeah. So no more open houses for Jonathan. Yeah, not a whole lot of open houses for me.

There is the, I mean, of course, there's the odd time where something comes up or there's maybe an opportunity to do something. But it's being a little bit more selective on when to do that. Yeah. And so let's back up a bit because your first one was born, in 2007, 2008. You have four kids. So during that time, you were doing firefighting and hustling real estate.

Right. So did you miss out on any of their, you know, childhood during that time? Or did you set boundaries from day one? No, I didn't. And I mean, that was a challenge, right? Like, it just was not sustainable. And that's actually why it changed coaches was because my first coach was very much production focused.

So do more deals, do more deals, do more deals. And, you know, admittedly, he got me there, which is fantastic. But, you know, the thing that you're sacrificing at that point is, is the time. So I was going like straight from fighting fire to the next morning, you know, putting on my suit at the fire hall. I don't wear a suit at all anymore, but going out and real estateing all day, going back to night shift, going back to the fire hall without ever going home.

Oh, my gosh. And then I would have my four days off where I would be, you know, doing a full 14. to 16 hours of real estate every day. And then it would be back on shift. So it was, it was extremely challenging. And then that's, that's when I had,

I realized like, this is, this is just not sustainable. And so it was actually a good friend of mine who's also in the industry that said, you know, maybe you should check out this other guy. He does things a little bit differently where he's,

he's got it figured out in terms of like life balance. And it's building a sustainable business where it's not just about the destination. It's about the journey, as cliche as that is. And start putting some of those things into practice. So just as much as one would hire a coach based on like production and business development, I think it's equally as important to have a coach that gets that. But again, it's about the full picture of your life.

Like you were just saying earlier, John, you know, with things like health and faith and family, it's the full picture. It's not just about selling houses here. It's about longevity in this business and, and, you know, how you're going to do that. Talk a little bit more about that coaching program. I'm curious. How does he have your family and health and the whole picture in the whole coaching program, including real estate? How does that even work?

Yeah, I think, so again, maybe I sound a little bit like a broken record, but it essentially is, again, back to that whole 3190. So if you've read the book, Traction by Gino Wiggum. Yeah. That's essentially what we're looking at is kind of coming up with that. You know, what do you want your life to look like from not just a work perspective, but effectively? family perspective. Three years out, one year out and 90 days out. Setting both for family as well. Absolutely. Yeah. So you're doing this in your business. You're doing this in your family. You're doing this with financial health. You're doing

this in every sort of realm. And you're just looking at kind of maybe one to two rocks or actionable things that you're going to do in the next 90 days to get yourself closer to that spot. And so, you know, it could be something as simple as implementing like a date night or it could be something as simple as, you know, your workout regime or whatever it is that you're trying to do to get you closer to that picture. So, again, just being very, very focused and, and then also, like, big on accountability. And I think that that's the thing that coaches can provide, the good coach can provide. I mean, there's a, there's a million coaching programs out there that say, you know, pay us money and, and, you know, we'll help you get where you need to go.

But the thing is, is unless you have the right person that is actually going to do the work and has a coach that's going to hold them accountable, people are not going to succeed. So that's what it comes down to, I think, is having a good plan and having high degrees of accountability. In all areas of life, having a good plan. Yeah. And then ultimately is the accountability portion that actually gets people to take the actions. Yes. Yeah. For sure. Wow.

Phenomenal. phenomenal because, you know, all these podcasts were just talking about, oh, how many homes you sell and how much money you're making? And that basically is it like, oh, what's your best lease source? Yeah. We're going to talk a lot about what's the other side of your life. What does that look like? Totally, right? And I think it's kind of like the whole profitability piece too. And we're just talking about different team models out there. Right. Like I think that sometimes and I could go on a bit of a tangent here. Like as we start. Please do. Please do. Yeah. So okay. So like if we just think about, like, if we just think about, like conventional success in this business, right? We have been taught as agents that, you know, like right now is a perfect time. We're in like real estate awards season right now. So our social feeds are just littered with people that are at their respective conferences. Littered is a good word. And it's like, you know, hey, I got my, you know, whatever it is, Diamond Award or executive award or whatever word that nobody cares about.

Like, let's be honest, nobody cares about it. It's just kind of pumping your own tires for your colleagues that are seeing whatever your degree of production is. And all of these awards are really just saying, like, this is how much money I made or how many houses I sold. Which, again, is, that's great. And I don't want to take that away from anybody. But what would be like an amazing award would be like, I spent this much time with my family, like, uninterrupted. Or I had this many people reach out and I did like this much referral or repeat business because I did. it's such a good job the first time.

Or, you know, even like profitability, I was this percentage profitable in my business. Like, that would be something that would be interested. I'm more interested in that than I am like, okay, you sold a gazillion houses. That's fantastic. But you also spent a gazillion dollars in order to make that happen. And so at the end of the day, sure, you maybe had three million coming in, but you had 2.8 going out. That sounds like a nightmare.

Like, I don't, I want nothing to do with that business model, you know? So I, um, I think that the industry has got it all wrong in terms of like just celebrating the, the measurable success points, but it should really be like the other stuff, you know. That's just my own personal opinion. No, I love it. I really love what you're saying because, uh, whether we like it or not, this industry is driven by ego. There's a lot of ego.

So what I'm, you know, hearing from you, Jonathan is that. You don't have any. Well, I'm sure I do. And I probably am being blind to the fact that I, that there isn't something there probably. But I always just kind of chuckle. There's a couple of close buds that are realtors with our brokerage at EXP here. And we kind of, we meet once a week for, for a call. And, and, you know, like a lot of times we're just talking about this kind of stuff.

But it really is kind of like the iron, sharpens iron type mentality. Like what's working out there? What's not working out there? but also sort of holding each other accountable a little bit to say like did you take that trip did you turn it did you turn that phone off you know doing things like that yes because it's you know we always play this comparison game in in this industry and and again you know for for what like it's just it just it just doesn't make sense it is so I'm asking for myself now because I have this fear John of fear of looking bad yeah and and and and and the desire to look good. Like, oh, I want to be number one. Oh, I want to produce. And, you know, so how do you get away from that whole ego thing and looking good thing?

Well, first of all, you do look good. John, you're probably the best dress guy I've ever seen. Yeah. You know, I think, yeah, like, and I've done that too, like where it's the whole like looking good, the perception. It's a perception in the marketplace or it's the perception in a market place or it's the perception and amongst your colleagues and all that kind of stuff. And what I found was really when you're just kind of a little bit more true to like what

you're comfortable with, you're going to naturally just attract those types of people that want to be around you, whether it's clients or whether it's agents or whether it's whatever. So I know for me, like I deal in the like ultra luxury space in West Calgary. And, you know, I'm working with extremely high net worth individuals, all that's not in. And I don't think I've ever worn a suit to a listing appointment. You know, like I'll all show up in like what's just what I'm wearing right now where,

you know, there's not necessarily holes in the jeans, but at the same time, just more kind of a little bit more real. Like what you see is what you get. I'm uncomfortable in a suit. And, and I find that that tends to resonate with,

with clients. And if it doesn't, if I have a client that is like, man, why isn't this guy, you know, driving this particular type of car or wearing that particular type of holding,

then it's not a fit from the start. And that's cool, you know, and I just get to work with people that I want to work with. So I, you know, this may not necessarily be the right answer, but I think the answer is sort of like just stop caring so much what people maybe think or what that perception is because the people that care may not necessarily be the people that you want to work with anyways, if that means. You know, but, yeah, that's probably a horrible answer. No, I love it. Yeah. You know, you're totally authentic. with yourself and if people like you for being you then that's the perfect fit for business as

well and if they expect you to show up in a uh a nice car and a nice suit and that's just not you we're not the right fit from the very start yeah totally yeah and i mean that's sometimes like sometimes the conversation comes up and it's like you know i was expecting you to be driving to a fortune gt3 and i'm like i'll have loved one uh one day but i'm not going to be taking that when i do own that car i'm not going to be bringing it to a listing appointment because that's just not the way that i'm going to roll like i want to show up i want to be the guy that says like i'm confidently the right person for this and i'm going to help you get the most amount of money when it's all said and done but i want that to be the focus of the client as opposed to what i'm driving or what i'm wearing or

you know where i'm living or any of those kind of things i love it man no jonathan i absolutely love you as the person as uh as a team leader you're such um you know you should be the poster child for for what EXP really is. And, you know, I, I tend to, you know, really buy into a lot of that ego stuff, my whole career, right? So I'm really truly learning from you. Thank you. Thank you for showing the way. And thank you for showing me how to be a better father and a better husband.

And, you know, keeping your priority straight. So I learned a lot from today. I don't know about you guys. What a great, great interview. Jonathan, if there's one thing that you would tell the age of you. out there to succeed in 2024 and beyond, what would it be? If you don't have a plan, make a plan. Like sit down, take, we're so busy in this business, running onto the next thing or

answering emails or, you know, answering texts or chasing the odd lead, whatever it is. Like, book an appointment with yourself for one hour and just sit down and write, like, where are you going? What are you actually trying to accomplish? Just figure that out. Figure out where do you want to go. And then from there, you can reverse engineer it to how you're going to get there. But it doesn't matter if it's number of deals or profitability or volume or whatever it is or getting your health under control, whatever it is.

Just get super crystal clear on where it is that you're going. And then you know how to get there. Oh, I love that. Guys, sit down and we always work in our business a lot, but we don't work on our business too much. if you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail. So sit down this week, just one hour, maybe just write down exactly what you want your life to look like. Financial, family, business, whatever it may be. Plan ahead.

Jonathan, thank you. I think we need a part two, three, four, five. And we need to have you on our team building mastermind. Jonathan, thank you for today. John, I just want to say mutual respect to you, brother. You know, you said a lot of really nice things about me, but 100% just right back at you. And I also want to thank you for being the captain of this ship in the XP Canada. You're doing a phenomenal job.

And I'm glad to see that it's you at the helm there. So keep it up. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. Okay, take care. See you guys. Look, and we just covered the tactical framework for creating a sustainable real estate business

that values systems over some of those family vibes and accountability over excuses. So if scaling is this impossible task for, you. It may be because as long as you are the only person who can do the job, it's going to be impossible to scale. So what you must do is you must build a business that can run independent of your production. So identify that one task that you do every day at a system or an assistant or even some AI automation could do instead and delegate that by this time next week. And if you are ready to stop trading time for money, make sure that you are locked into our weekly Friday focus here on KGCI, Real Estate on Air.

We focus each and every Friday on the systems that you need each week to move your real estate business forward. And it's always free at real estate onair.fm on your iPhone and Android with the always free real estate on air mobile app. And if you want that always free, real estate on air mobile app for iPhone and Android, all you got to do is just search KGCI in the Apple App Store or on Google Play.