KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Bulletproof Your Business: From Survival Mode to Scale with John Kitchens

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

💼 If one slow quarter could tank your entire business, it’s time to rethink your foundation. In this episode of KGCI Real Estate On Air Live, host Ian Wheatley is joined by elite real estate coach John Kitchens, host of The John Kitchens Coach Podcast Experience, for a masterclass in building a business that’s built to last.From personal habits to business structure, strategy, and team alignment, John lays out the complete blueprint for agents who want to move from chaos to clarity, and from grind to growth.What You’ll Learn 📌🔹 [06:31] Bulletproofing Starts with You – Health, habits, and leadership drive everything. You can’t scale what you can’t sustain. 🔹 [09:12] Vision Attracts Talent – If your business doesn’t have a clear vision, your top people won’t stick around. 🔹 [13:25] Fix the Right Problem First – Use strategic planning to solve your business’s biggest bottleneck every 90 days. 🔹 [14:06] Are the Right People on the Bus? – How misaligned team members are killing momentum—and what to do about it. 🔹 [15:26] Do What Gives You Energy – Learn how to use your “unique ability” to increase productivity and avoid burnout.Episode Breakdown ⏳⏳ 00:00 - 02:24 | Opening Monologue – Activity without structure is survival mode. Here’s how to escape it. 📰 02:41 - 06:05 | Housing Headlines – Inventory is up, buyers are cautious, builder deals are back, and mortgage rates are dipping (for now) 🎙 06:31 - 18:56 | Exclusive Interview with John Kitchens – Bulletproofing yourself, your systems, and your team so you can scale sustainably 💡 19:06 - 20:22 | Top 5 Takeaways Recap – Ian unpacks the big lessons from John: self-leadership, vision, bottlenecks, energy zones, and the growth ladder 😆 21:03 - 22:27 | Real Estate Confessions – CRM fails, AI misfires, charcuterie-gate, and the coaching call gone wrong 📣 22:51 - 23:20 | Friday Focus Preview + CTA – Don’t miss 6 hours of coaching from Kitchens, Randy Byrd, Stuart Hyslop, and more🚀 From Hustle to Health to High PerformanceJohn Kitchens reminds us that growth without structure is just grind. Whether you’re closing 12 deals a year or scaling a team of 20, this episode will show you how to stabilize your systems, align your team, and lead like a true CEO.📲 Listen On-Demand: Available now on the KGCI app or wherever you stream your podcasts 📘 Get Your Growth Score: Take John’s 8-factor assessment at MyGrowthScore.com 📆 Join Friday Focus: A full-day strategy session to help agents move from survival to scale, only on KGCI 💬 Have a confession or question? DM us on Instagram or Facebook—we may feature you on next week’s show!

Anything is you've got to pull it for yourself first. It's the whole oxygen mask concept, you know, concept. Why you put your zone first? Because if not, then you're no good to anybody else. And so it has to start there. This is KGCI 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 exclusive interviews with top agents, we are here to unlock your full potential and help you thrive. Thousands of agents trust KGGELMAN. GCI every week. Now it's your turn. Let's go live. Here's Ian Wheatley. Hey, if you're over on YouTube, it's great to see you. Happy to be with you. streaming over at real estate onair.fm. Anywhere on that always free, real estate on air mobile app for iPhone and Android and a little later on. Wherever you listen to podcasts, I'm Ian Wheatley. This is Real Estate on air live. And if your real estate business feels like you are one slow quarter away from panic mode,

you don't have a business. You have yourself a gamble. honest. But you might be saying to yourself, you're closing deals and isn't that enough? Well, if we're honest about it, the answer is no. Because activity without structure, that's survival mode, my friend. And you're grinding a deal to deal with out of real safety net. But you're grinding. I'm proud of you. But we could do better. So today, John Kitchens, one of the sharpest coaches in the real estate game is joining us right here at Real State On Air Live to show you how to bulletproof your business so you can move from survival. to stability and eventually to scale.

That's coming up at about five minutes right here on Real Estate on Air Live. It is a sneak peek of this week's Friday Focus, where we're going to be bringing John together with many of our favorite coaches here on Real Estate on Air Live, including Lars Hedenborg, the founder of Real Estate B-school, coach Randy Bird from Like a Boss, keynote speaker, coach John Marone. And if you need proof that what works, works anywhere on planet Earth, we'll be getting that international perspective from South Africa's Stuart Hisslob. We will be going live to the Friday Focus for six to eight hours each week right after the big age of meeting Friday morning here on KGCI Real Estate on Air.

And of course, we put everything on demand same day and next day on the always free Real Estate on Air mobile app for iPhone and Android as well as all of our podcast platforms, including Apple Podcast, Spotify, I heart. And now, drum roll, please, YouTube music. See? I listen. All right. John's checking in with us in about four minutes right here on Real Estate on Air Live. I'm Ian Wheatley. Right now, it's time for housing headlines. Pending home sales slipped in July down 0.4% from June, according to the National Association of Realtors, even as they stayed slightly above last year's level. Now, the West showed some legit gains, but the Northeast are bad. Drag the numbers down. And Norris Chief economist Lawrence Ewan is warning that buyers are still cautious, even as more inventory is on the shelf.

But agents, what this means for all of us is that longer decision cycles are at play here. So stay top of mind. Consistent follow-up is the difference between a stalled lead and a closed deal. Now, over to existing home sales, those shot up 2% in July to the 4.01 million base, that according to the National Association of Realtors and Reuters. Now, prices, they barely move just up. 2% year over year. That's 25 straight months of growth. But it's the slowest pace in those 25 straight months. So inventory is the big story here. It's at the highest levels we've seen since 2020, giving buyers the strongest negotiating position that they've had in the last five years. So

translation agents, buyers got some leverage. Prep your sellers to price realistically and give your buyer's permission to negotiate with. some more confidence. All right. Also, keeping an eye on mortgage rates, those eased off the gas a bit. The 30-year fix rate dropped to 6.56% according to Bloomberg. That's the lowest since last October. Now, Barron's is noting that this is tied up to bond yields, not fed cuts and market watches, warning that the drop may not last. But here's the opportunity. Investopedia says that even a tiny slide to 6.3% could unlock refinancing for millions of homeowners. So agents don't dismiss a small rate move. A quarter point could mean your pipeline just got fatter with buyers and refi

conversations. And here's the shocker of the week, at least last week, new homes are now less expensive than existing ones. That's according to the New York Post. that median new build is closing for nearly $20,000 less than resale. Why? Well, builders, they're overloaded with inventory in some parts of the country and they're cutting some deals. Meanwhile, Investipedia says that housing wealth is slipping. That's not great. As price growth is lagging inflation.

All right. And we also have some Zillow data that shows the split by region, right? Where Midwest and Northeast values are climbing, but the South and the West, they're cooling off a bit. And Reuters confirms the builder sentiment is at its lowest level in the last couple of years going back to 2022 with two thirds of builders now offering incentives across the country.

So agents. This is a choose your own adventure market. All right. Leverage builder deals to help some buyers, coach sellers on pricing pressure. and adjust your playbook wherever you are, region by region, because one size ain't fit in all right now. That's tech of your housing headlines here on Real Estate on Air Live. I'm Ian Wheatley. KGCI, Real Estate on Air Live, I'm Ian Wheatley.

And if you want to move from survival mode to scale, you need to bulletproof your business. And I am joined by none better who can coach us through that than the great John Kitchens, host of the John Kitchens coach podcast experience streaming here on KGCI Real Estate on Air. John, thanks for popping by to Real Estate on Air Live. Pleasure being here, brother. Appreciate it. So when we say bulletproof, what kind of systems are we thinking or what kind of structure are we talking about? Yeah.

I mean, that's a great, great question to be able to think about and, you know, always talk about, you know, write things, right order. And, you know, in order to bulletproof the business, you've got to, bulletproof yourself. And I think that's, you know, the thing that I've seen too many times, you know, over the last 20 years. And opportunity really over the last 13, 14, you know, getting into, you know, the one-on-one coaching space, man, just how many people, maybe the business is rocking, but life and health and relationships are suffering. And we were no different. Just not understanding, you know, where we need to, you know, put the time and the energy and the other equities do matter, right?

And so I think that's the first step to bulletproofing anything is you've got to pull to proof yourself first. It's the whole oxygen mask, you know, concept, why you put yours on first? Because if not, then you're no good to anybody else. And so it has to start there and it becomes, it has to be habit. And, you know, what are those habits that they have to be for you to become the best version of yourself and it's prioritizing that and understanding that you know your your your leadership is in direct proportion you know to to your business your business is in direct proportion to the

leadership capabilities and what's the number one rule of leadership lead by example and so if you're if you're not showing up the best version of you then there's no way the best the version you know the business is going to be the best version that it can possibly be you can stress your way to a certain point. We were, I mean, we did it, you know, top 10 in the world for Caldwell Banker and we stressed our way to, to where it was. And that meant, that meant, you know, health wasn't a priority. That meant relationships weren't a priority. And we didn't put those things, right things in the right order. So when you, you know, you step back and you really want to bulletproof it, it has to start there first. Once you have you as the priority, then the business, once you get into the business,

there's a handful of things that you have to have. You've got to have, make sure that you have a massive vision. And I'm a big vision guy. Without a vision, the village will perish because I've been a part of companies and organizations that there was no vision and there's no people, right? because your talent, you're really talented people will not, they won't hang around if they don't see a future. And that's where the vision is, right? The vision talks about the future. And you've got to have solid values that you base on, you make decisions. That was a big deal coming over to EXP,

understanding the vision, understanding the values of the organization, how they make decisions, agent first, agile. But the big one for me with at EXP has always been sustainability. and getting to see that play out in action, now I don't question what leadership does, because I know they're gonna do what is sustainable for the company for the foreseeable future. And so that's a great example of decision-making filters

that you gotta have in your organization. You gotta have a purpose. Why does this company exist, right? Like what good is this serving? And then what is the impossible goal with the impossible timeline? You know, we operate within the theory of constraints and we've always thought that way, right? Like when an agent comes in, it's like, man, you know, what do agents always say?

I want to make, you know, first year. I want to make 100,000. I want to make six figures. Well, okay, we can get you there. But what if you had to make 100,000 in the next 30 days? How would you do it? Right? So we're hardwired to solve problems and why not solve bigger problems?

And I remember Glenn talking about this a few years ago and really challenging because a lot of of our key leaders, especially on the revenue side of thing, on the revenue share side of things, had gone complacent. They started coasting. And a lot of them have and they still have. But you have to set like crazy impossible goals with impossible timelines to force you to think differently. And especially now, right? In the AI error that we're in, you have to think strategically. You have to think differently. You have to think bigger. And so that's, that has to be in place. Then, then, you know, it comes down to, you know, the business model. Really, what is what is the business model that you're operating within? We're on a great platform

at EXP, the best platform to be on to build an exceptional organization that removes a lot of the things that would keep you up at night when you own your own company. When it comes to, you know, agents and when it comes to, you know, especially the liability side of things, that's like the biggest thing. Like most people don't understand that, but when they can take legal and the E&O and the insurance off my plate and I don't have to think about that anymore, I can sleep better at night. And that's a big deal you don't understand unless you've owned independently your own, your own business, your own company. So being able to have the business model, you know, understanding the type of business that you're in, how you're monetizing it, what's the structure, what's the budget, what's the cost structure, what are my revenue streams. So making sure that you've got good money revenue streams coming in, being able to, you know, focus on where the market's going, where the puck is going, where the opportunity.

You know, like right now we're talking, this is a, this is a half to market, meaning that people are only buying and selling if they have to. This is not, I would not be nice to. This is a have to market. So knowing that your business is built around the have to's in your offers are to the half to markets, the motivated sellers that, you know, the buyers, what, you know, what do they, you know, want, what do they need? So being able to have that.

Once you get there, Ian, it's all about the plan, right? It's the strategy that we have, right? And the thing for us moving in the future as the thought leaders, that there's such an emphasis on strategic thinking and planning and executing, the way we've always thought about strategy is always solving the right problem, right? Bad strategy, you don't even address the problem. problem. So talking about operating within theory of constraints, there's always a constraint somewhere and are we solving that constraint? For most agents, it's going to be around traffic and

conversion. So is your strategy to generate the right traffic to the right offer and then being able to convert it? For most people, that's the biggest problem. So we got our strategy around that. And that would be the most common failure point probably for you would see in an agent run business? Yeah, for most of the time, right? They just don't know how to create demand or enough of the right demand. Right. And then, you know, then it turns into a conversion problem when they do have the demand. So being able to fix what that is.

Then the final component, Ian, is the people. It's the team. And I promise you, the biggest thing that I'm seeing right now for businesses in agents that are stalling out is that they have the wrong people around them. And a lot of it has come from people that came in when the business was a little bit easier. And they got lax on their skill set. They got lacks on their accountability. And so they're not built for the headwind market that we're in right now. So it's who, then what, Jim Collins always says.

So the process is having the right team that can execute the strategy within the business model and pursuit of the vision. It's it goes up and down, right? That's just it's how it works. I like to think of it as a ladder, right? The vision, the goal, the mountains at the top, and then all the way down and then back, back up. But I can trace most of the time back to your people. And I can quickly get to the pain point by show me your people. What's your team?

What are they doing? How are they executing? What are their vital metrics? What are their vital responsibilities? Show me their calendar. What are they doing? Right. And so to fix a lot of the agent's situation to really bulletproof their business, they need to make sure that they've got the right team around them.

Got it. And what are some of those systems that would protect the agent from burnout, a slow season, sudden macroeconomic downward pressure that is completely outside of their control? What are some of those systems and what do they look like? Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing is making sure that they're doing the thing that they, that they that gives them energy right within within the business itself um Dan Martel's book is is the best buy back your time it's the best how to the best to understand the concept of who not how obviously that's Dan Sullivan right Dan Sullivan's concept of who not how and then that the actual how do you put it into work is Martel's book buy back your time and we're trying to get into

the productivity quadrant that he talks about that one we're doing the thing that gives us energy and the thing that makes the business the most amount of money. And that's where we want to live, right? That's the 70% of our working time space. We want to do those things that give us energy, that we're the best in the world out, that we love doing, that also makes the company the most amount of money.

And for some, you know, I had a gentleman one time when we were going through this concept, and he goes, unique ability and exceptional activities are pretty much the same except for one thing. One gives you energy, one doesn't. And he goes, I'm world class at listings, but it doesn't give me any energy. But I love talking to agents.

So great. Well, then guess what? You get to recruit agents because that's what you love to do. You love to, that gives you energy. It's the same thing, right? It's articulating your value. It's listening to what they're wanting to accomplish. And then how your unique value can help them do that.

It's the same thing with sellers. The same thing with buyers. It's the same thing with agents. One, for him, didn't give them energy. one did. So guess what we were going to allocate 70% of his working time is recruiting and talking to agents. And so built the business model around that recruiting agents. And for the agents that are listening in right now, we're chatting with John Kitchens, the host of the John Kitchens coach podcast experience streaming here on KGCI real estate on air. You know, how can an agent diagnose themselves?

How can they figure out if they're in a survival phase or a stability phase or they're in a scaling phase. How can they figure that out? We put together one of the best assessments that I remember when I gave it to Kendra for the first time to take. He goes, bro. He goes, this is the best assessment on our business that I've ever seen. And it's eight, it's, there's, there's eight growth factors. So you can go take the assessment for free. It's my growth score.com, my growth score.com, go take it. It is the best assessment. I have all of my clients, our team meet. we do it every 90 days. We assess it every 90 days. Because the thing is, it's going to point out where you're deficient in your business. What is the biggest constraint, right? And then you have to

put your strategy on that solving that constraint. And then you do it in 90 days. Did we move the needle on that? And then something else is going to fall off. So it's important to do that every 90 days, but my growth score.com. It is the best assessment on your business that you'll ever take. It'll It'll point out precisely where you need to be focused and then you need to build your strategy around it. All right. So that's my growthscore.com. You would say that'd probably be the first move for anyone who's looking to make some sort of level up move. 100%.

All righty. Bygrossor.com. John Kitchens, host of the John Kitchens coach podcast experience. Thanks for checking in to Real Estate on air live. Appreciate it, brother. Thank you. There were so many incredible tidbits that we could pull out from that conversation with John Kitchens. you just heard right here on real estate on air live.

But I did my best to boil them down to five. Here are my top five takeaways in a particular order from the conversation with John Kitchens, host of the John Kitchens coach podcast experience streaming right here on KGCI, real estate on air. At number one, bulletproof starts with you. If you're running on fumes, your business is going to, too. Health, habits, leadership. It all flows from you, the agent. Number two, vision attracts talent.

No vision, no people. Top talent won't stick around if they can't see a future with you. Number three, find the constraint and then fix it. Okay? The bottleneck in your business tells you where to focus. Nail it first and then move on. Number four, play where you get your energy, okay? Spend your time in the zones.

They give you fuel and makes the business money because that's where growth lives. And at number five, survival, stability. scale. It's a ladder. It's not a leap. Use tools like my growthscore.com to know exactly what rung you're standing on. And those are your top five takeaways. Simple, practical, ready for action heard here on a real estate on air live. Now, don't forget this conversation is going deeper this Friday on KGCI real estate on air with our weekly Friday focus where we will be following right along with the strategies from other top real estate coaches to make sure that you go from survival mode to scale mode and make your business bulletproof.

All right, it is time to lighten things up. It is time for Real Estate Confessions. These are your stories. DM us on Facebook and Instagram and let us know that crazy thing that happened to this week because let's be honest, it's crazy out here in real estate. But before we dive in, we've got to get 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 right, it's your moment. It is time for real estate confessions because in real estate, truth is stranger than fiction. Tried to bulletproof my business with a new CRM.

Forgot to migrate my contacts. Now I just have an expensive blank screen. Told my coach I was scaling. My assistant quit two weeks after I finally got them trained. Tried to save time by having Chat GPT write my follow-up text. Forgot to swap out the insert name field. Now all my clients think I'm dating a Rachel. I'm not.

Held a broker's open and forgot snacks. One agent asked if it was B.Y.O. Sharkoutery. I smiled like I meant to create a fasting-themed showing experience. Never stand between an agent and their free lunch. That is something they don't teach you in your pre-licensing course. Do you have a real estate confession of your own? I promise I'll keep your identity a secret. So drop us a message on Facebook and Instagram.

Give us a follow to while you're there. And I bet you'll be on next week. A special thanks to John Kitchens. Here is John Kitchens coach podcast experience streaming right here on KGCI Real Estate on air. John's going to be back with us on Friday for a weekly Friday. for a weekly Friday focus where he and many of the other real estate coaches streaming here on KGCI Real Estate on Air will be sharing with you how they bring agents from survival to scale.

Listen live on that always free Real Estate on Air mobile app for iPhone and Android or listen your way wherever you listen to podcast. Just be sure to subscribe so you don't forget to tune in. I'm Ian Wheatley. This is Real Estate on Air Live. Be good.