KGCI: Real Estate on Air - eXp Realty Pros & Cons

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Hi, and welcome back to the high-performance agent podcast. I'm your host, Tina Beliveau, and I'm here with my buddy, Laura Malick. And we just recorded an episode that will release the week before this about whether it's time to change or think about making a change in your real estate brokerage. And we were saying to each other, let's do a follow-up episode about where to move. And then we decided to kind of finesse that a little bit because we both are at EXP and we're happy there currently to basically be like, you know, let's do EXP Realty pros and cons. And we want this. So we're not recruiters. We are not like trying to sell you on anything. We're more like if you want to listen in and like be a fly on the wall while we talk about what we do and don't like about EXP. And we

mostly love it. But there are some like funny things that we can kind of point out that are, you know, on the list of the cons. So if this is your jam, keep listening. If you'd rather hear anything else. Don't worry. we have another library full of episodes. So let's talk about the pros and the cons. Should we start with the pros? That feels like the natural, organic thing to do. Yes, absolutely. Start with the good stuff.

And can we actually start with a very brief version of the story? I moved to EXP in March 2020. When did you come? How long is it been? 2021. It'll be three years this August. Okay, so it was a full year later. I couldn't remember if you joined that spring or like the following.

So why did you start seeking EXP out? Let's start there. It came to a point where I was unhappy at my brokerage. I was really wanting change. I really felt like agents wanted. I guess I would, I don't know if I'd call myself like, I don't really like term modern agent, but I think you said in the last episode, I wanted to, my playbook was different on how I wanted to run my real estate business. So I felt very stuck. I felt very alone in an office like no one was doing business the way I was. wanted to. There weren't as many at my particular office any moms in real estate. I think that's important. And I was like, but where do I, where do I go? Because I also thought it was still a really great

company. I was there for six years. You know, they taught me so much. But at the end of the day, I felt like there was more. And I kept hitting a ceiling. And then honestly, I'd watched your journey. And I really respected who you are as an agent. I respect. I respect. how you did business. I wanted to do business always very similar to you. And so I got curious, which is what we talked. And I was like, okay, you were at the same, like, you know, a similar office, which just helped me because it was just a little bit relatable. You could understand the environment I was in. And I wanted to understand the pros and cons of what it would be like to come over to EXP. I love it. And it's funny. This kind of brings back the conversations we have

when you were thinking about moving. Because I think we had several conversations. Your husband was on at least one of the Zooms. I remember giving you a spreadsheet, breaking down the financials. But I think the thing we talked about the most was the topic of who. And you brought this up in the prior episode, but you were really focused on who can I surround myself with, who can I plug into. And that was really the primary driver of your move. And then, of course, all the logistics and the things about the brokerage needed to make sense. But looking back, how do you feel about the decision you made? 100% happy. And the way I made it.

And the way I made it. Yes. Yeah. There's that. Yes. I mean, obviously, I'm still here. I couldn't be happier. And I think I was at a point too where I was unhappy with my work and like kind of

questioning if I wanted to stay in real estate when it really wasn't that. It was an environment. I wanted a different environment. And here like it's a, I think it's a pro is that you can build whatever you want inside this environment. Like you get to hang your license with EXP. and you can build a team, like without a team. Like I feel like if agents from anywhere in the United States want to be in my world and want to learn from me, they can do that.

And I think that's really amazing. So, you know, I have connections in South Dakota and Colorado and I actually have some agents in New Jersey. And like, they want to, they want to be connected and they want to learn from me. And this platform, like, allows you to do that. And no other brokerage does. Yeah. And do you want to, I think that's a really major topic. And this came up in the accompanying episode to this of in my old traditional brokerages,

there was no way for me to be compensated for my time and energy and wisdom to help agents. And I wanted to, but you get to a point in your productivity and your life as a mom or just a person where you can't just give it all. You can't give your time away if there's, it just doesn't make sense. So, so EXP works really well for that. There's a few other brokers that work really well. I feel like EXP has it very, very much dialed in. So can you say a little bit about the kind of people you have been able to bring into your world and what that even means for someone who doesn't understand how EXP works?

So how like the people that I brought into my world? Yeah. Like you basically people come to EXP and they name you as their sponsor. And what that means is when you sponsor somebody in a company like EXP and the similar ones that are out there, they put your name down when they join. and then you receive a small percentage of their commissions, but it doesn't come out of their pocket. It comes out of the EXP side of the cap. So there's basically a financial incentive for you to help people

and to build culture and to build a community of people who help one another and plug into one another. So that's basically, you said it so well, it's a way to have a team without actually having a team, right? Yes. You don't have the responsibility necessarily or the overhead or all of the obligation and duties of bringing people. into like the level of a team, which is almost like being an employee, right, in the best way,

ideally. But it's a high level of commitment, a high level of time and energy. Whereas like the revenue share model or, you know, a lot of people call it their national team. There's so many euphemisms. I think if you're researching it online, it can actually be very confusing. People call it their national team. They call it be my business partner. But it's basically a way of saying you're in my sponsorship tree in this company. And therefore I will, you know, help you in X, Y and Z ways. So you've been able to mentor, right? I'm just curious. I think it was so cool, like when you brought those guys in from New Jersey. It was how did you make that connection? Was that through a class you taught? I just have always kind of created community. And so this happened

to be like a virtual book club. It was another agent. We had stayed in contact. And then he was doing virtual book club. And then we got connected. And then the agent got curious and wanted to know more. But it's been like at the old brokerage, I love to train help agents build their business, help you kind of get if you're like have a few deals underneath your belt but like you're wanting to really get full momentum. I love helping agents with that. And this gives me a platform that if agents truly want to learn the systems, the tools, the mindset, how to do it, I get to pour into them and then I get in return from EXP, I get compensated for that. And before I was at a brokerage where I was pouring into people and I was not getting anything back. And so it was like a win-win. And so now

of like I've made it to like you've given me the idea, but there's two ways. And you do it similar. If you're not part of EXP and you want to learn from me, absolutely you can. Here's the cost. And if you want to come be in my world and be closer and get access to us and the tools, you can come be at EXP. And I liked that platform of just being able to build the brand and that there's two ways to work with me. You don't have to be at EXP. That's a huge bonus. Yeah. And again, but if it isn't aligned, like there's a lot of other ways to work with me. And for me, I love that because I don't have to have this recruiter hat on or even some of the retention dynamics that we talked about in the prior episode of kind of worrying about whether people are going to stay

or go or whatever. Like it just takes all of that off the table. So it's nice. It's kind of like choose your own adventure, right? Yes, choose your own adventure. How do you want to be connected and for how long and in what way? There are a lot of ways to do that. And that's one thing you were telling me before we started talking to is that, you know, as we were kind of prepping for this, is you also love that you can change your seat at the table. What do you mean by that? What I meant by that was I felt I was stuck at my office with those people that were at my office. And if I wanted to find someone who was doing something different or wanted to find moms in real estate or if I wanted to highly get involved with investors, I was only surrounded by those

people versus being at EXP. I can find that community. I can either create it if I I wanted to or it's already out there that there's agents who are doing what I want to do. And I can align myself with them, create that community and learn from them that I don't have to switch another office. Like the office is national. So it's huge. There's no reason why you can't find what you're looking for. It's out there.

But I felt like so restricted at a small office. And I just didn't want that. I think there's so many ways to do business. And I felt the brokerage I was at specifically was, you know, you lead Jen from 9 to 11. Like, you know, like you call it. Spires and you call those Fisbos. And they work, absolutely. But there's just, there's more ways to find business. And so I always wanted to be able to evolve. And I feel like EXP is that platform where you can always evolve. There's never a ceiling here. Yeah. And I think, you know, one thing that's nice about

being at a company like EXP at this time in 2024 is the company is already scaled. There's 80 or 90,000 agents, something like that. So there's already that network to tap into. And I will say I've gotten more agent referral business at EXP than in any prior brokerage because the infrastructure is set up so well. There's basically this workplace thing, which is kind of like Facebook, but everybody in EXP is on it. So you basically have the most powerful referral directory. And then you can also vet people in there. You can interview them. It's very easy to be found.

So I've done way more in and outbound referral business. It just wasn't something. It was something that happened to me before a sort of like a lucky, thing versus being an out-and-out strategy. I switch the subject really quick, but this is what's interesting. Do I know how I actually found EXP before I came to talk to you? Yes. I was a productivity coach in my office where I was helping agents get into business and into momentum, and I could see that the system was not working.

I could see that the agents getting into the industry in the last few years. They want things different. They want to be taught a different way. They maybe need a little fish or hand holding. And I was like, the program needs to change. And I was like knocking on people's door like this needs to change. And someone was like, fine, go go draw it out. And so I started mapping out what I thought it should look like. And then I go, oh my gosh, this is EXP. And that's when I realized. That's when I realized because I was like, you need to host trainings where everybody can go. It shouldn't be at one office. It shouldn't be just per the state. It should everybody should be able to go to this training because the agents need different things. And I was like, well, EXP beat me to it. So I should. probably go see what they have going on. But I wanted to share that because that's really what sparked the conversation with you. Yeah. And it's funny. If you listened, anyone listening to this,

listened to the prior episode, I definitely talked about my journey of switching to EXP from Keller Williams. That's where I just happened to be before going to EXP. And I think it was kind of a similar thing where I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, definitely didn't want to own or even run a brokerage after the taste that I got on the inner workings, just like you did. It's really hard to work in a system that doesn't work the way it needs to or the way that you think it should or it just has like financial or structural inefficiencies. And that was one of the things I found in that prior office structure. There was like a lot of different people eating pieces of the pie. And it was just very hard to fund the kind of training your talk about to have that infrastructure to do it that way.

So for me, coming to EXP was great because it was all there. I didn't have to worry about or create any of it. I could. If I wanted to, like, create my own little crew or go above and beyond, I could. But it was all strictly optional because everything was there that I needed. And that's one of the things that I love about the company is everything is there and it just works. So the workplace, like the directory and sort of that like portal to find everybody, it works. The CRM that they give you KVCorps, it works really well. The brokers are great. the company was created pre-COVID to operate in a post-COVID world, like just, you know, go a digital first company. It works so well.

And then for me, one of my criteria was that the company has to make sense from a team perspective. There need to be team caps. Everything needs to be very, like, controlled as far as the cost for the team to be affiliated with the brokerage and run the business, especially the way I run my team. It's much more like service-based. I have more overhead. I staff, I pay for a lot more. So it really needs to make sense from that perspective for me.

And then the benefit, the financial kind of extra benefit for me is the fact that the company does give you stock in return for producing. And I think there's sort of like a fallacy out there that people join EXP and just recruit to it because those people are very loud. So like those voices are loud. So that can seem like that's the majority when I would say it's more like the minority. But for me, you know, when you, when I, joined EXP, they gave me stock when I had my first closing. When I had when I capped, they gave me more

stock. And then when I got to the icon status, you know, you can get all of your cap back or some of it, depending on whether you want to like teach for the company and all of that. And that's really what has been so fun for me too, back to what you said is EXP has a national teaching platform, a national place to take courses. And I get to teach. And then I get to reach more agents. I get to do what I love, but I do it for my house and I'm not, you know, in an office environment where there's like a lot of distraction associated with that. And there is a benefit for me to teaching because I do have agent facing offers. I do have my academy. I do have mini courses and all this other stuff. So I meet agents. And if they like really vibe with what I teach and the way I do things,

the way you were seeking for like, I want to hear from someone who builds this way and where can I find those people? Like when you find that, it's like, I'm just like come to me. like tell me everything, give me your playbook, and then how can I help you and all of that. So it just really enabled me to have that like mutual exchange of value with people who are like minded and make impact. Okay. So those are a lot of the pros. I made a little list before we got started.

I wrote, I get to teach the technology works well. I like the training. And we've filled our own. I will say on the technology that I think a lot of brokerages say this. to like we're tech enabled or we have really great tech. And the one thing I love about the tech is that it was very, very easy and plug and play. Like the fact that workplace looks like Facebook, I didn't have to like relearn how anything works because I know how Facebook works. I know how to find the Maryland group. I know how to find the women in real estate tab. Like I thought it was so easy to plug and play,

which also saves time. So I just wanted to throw that note. But I completely agree. Yeah. What was kind of what was kind of a con, what I thought was what I thought was going. What I thought was going to be a con, but wasn't. Where I was confused is that there were some loud people in my area that were EXP that I didn't necessarily wanted to be associated with. And I didn't realize that there's inside the world, you have to join the right world. As in, just to clarify what you're saying, you pick your sponsor and they don't need to be in your area. They can be anywhere in the world. I had no idea. I had no idea. And that's really what held me back, honestly, from looking for a little while was because I was kind of just comparing it to the only few close people that I knew.

And then obviously watched your journey. But it's always like the who's your sponsor and who are you lined with is the most important. And so it's like a con. But then it led into the great things. I was like, oh, you explained how it worked for me. Yeah. I love that you, you just made me think of something else. So I think like there was that for you an initial misunderstanding of, oh, I have to be sponsored by someone in my local market. Not true. One of my initial miscarriage. One of my initial misgivings about EXP was I didn't like the logo and I didn't like the brand. Yes. I don't like blue and orange. I did not like blue and orange and there was a different logo. They changed it. I think in 2021. So about a year and a half after I moved, it's much better. I still don't love the colors, but

the way I black. Well, yeah, and I use the white version of it a lot too. Just like my brand has black and gold. So sometimes I do black and gold. But you can change the logo color. There's like brand guidelines, but that was something that I just, I couldn't imagine how blue and orange were going to go with my brand. It sounds so stupid, but I did not like that at all. And I think that's also, you know, I like that the company does continue to change and innovate and it doesn't take 20 years to go, okay, okay, we'll change it. Like, they knew that they needed to change it. So, so that was one thing. And then I do want to say one of my other cons is that EXP world, if anyone has seen it.

It wasn't the most. So, EXP world, if you know what I'm talking about or don't know, it was an app that you would download to your desktop or laptop computer and attend training. And what was cool about it is that it's like a virtual world that you literally have an avatar and you can walk around in and go into a certain auditorium or classroom and take a class. The problems with it were, number one, it looks kind of silly. two, it wasn't mobile friendly. And if you're not very good at games, you had to learn how to work that.

Yeah, it was actually not super intuitive. So I feel kind of bad railing on it. But most people would see XP world and be like, what in the world is that? But I learned how to use it really because I was teaching. So I was kind of forced to adopt it. I think some people tried it once, didn't really enjoy using it, and then just leaned on workplace and whatever. But EXP has just changed that to like a web-based thing. I haven't previewed it yet, but I'm sure that they've solved all the problems.

I would say that's a con that's going out the door. But those were some things that I've heard that are, you know, people say are downsides. Early on a lot of talk about the brand and is it luxury? Are they in enough markets? And now the company's really grown. So like the growth is kind of spoken for itself. So those were some of the things. And I think a lot of people say EXP is full of recruiters.

And it's funny, I think KW is full of recruiters. EXP is full of recruiters. Real is full of recruiters. And most brokerages should, like most brokerages should be. And if they, if they create a plan, like, that's their job to find agents. And if they create opportunities for other agents to find agents, like, that's a business. But just make sure you're associating yourself with real estate agents that are doing real estate activities and not recruiting. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think if a company is growing, they're probably recruiting. Like companies don't magically grow on their own. they either pay managers and recruiters, which is a little bit more the KW model of like kind of the individual offices and the leadership really drive growth like recruiting in the area. Companies like EXP and Real and probably others I'm not even thinking of, they incentivize the agents to recruit by creating these like revenue sharing models. Otherwise, you have other companies that grow by other different, like other methods. So like some of the traditional companies,

and if you don't know what I mean by traditional, listen to the prior episode about whether you should move brokerages, they buy agents. They will sign you up with a contract and it'll be like golden handcuffs for a period of time where they'll give you money up front or marketing services up front, but then you have to stay there for a period of time or you have to pay them back. And again, none of that's bad, but that's just another way to grow. So you grow by sort of these personal efforts of influencing or you buy people and you make offers. And some of those companies, accrue a lot of debt that way and then later they, you know, lay off half their staff or whatever. So I feel like there's there's all kinds of ups and downs. But for me, I would say I've been

overall really happy at EXP because I've run my team without interference. That's my number one criteria is I need my team to run as seamlessly as possible as profitably as possible. It's what, you know, pays for me to take care of my family. And it's, of course, very important to me that the people on my team have what they need and are happy to. And then two, I have all those opportunities to grow, to teach, to coach, to train, to build my network, to, and to change my activities as my goals change, right? There have been times where I did a little bit of recruiting, or at least I posted about our, you know, little mentorship group that we have at EXP. There are times where I haven't talked about that at all. There have been times where I've just

strictly focused on my team's production or staffing or goals. I've also launched this podcast. You know, I've launched my academy. So I like that I'm just in an environment where I can kind of choose my own adventure. That's really, I would call that the subline to this episode. EXP, pros and cons, subheading, choose your own adventure. But I think you make a really good point that there's a lot of seasons that we go through. And it's not just business, right? It's personal and business.

And I feel like EXP is that great platform. that if you need a little less outside noise and you need a little less trainings and what are agents doing and who's producing the most is you can really kind of dial back from that and focus on what you need to focus on without feeling like guilty or bad about yourself or I know that's I'm speaking from myself but I love that but you can also dive in to all the communities that are out there and you know go out to the trainings and teach like you can you can turn it on and turn it off really easily. And I really like that piece to that. You can get as as involved you want or not involved. Yeah, Laura, I think that's like a really important point because I

experienced a level of that, what you were just talking about at every other office that had a physical office where the brokerage kind of wanted me to be at the sales meetings. They wanted me to participate. It's very pronounced at Keller Williams. But it happened at a lot of the other offices, too, where there was sort of by virtue of like a physical space and a physical manager that I would like run into and agents, there were like social pressures and expectations and desires that I felt the sense of obligation to participate in to some degree. And with EXP, I'm like, leave me. It's terrible. But like I want to, I, the reason I'm self-employed is because I am the captain of my own ship.

I want to go this way today. I don't want to explain it, apologize for it. I don't want someone to be like, why weren't you at my, you know, broker's open or whatever? Because, you know, I don't, I think it's just so nice for me to have permission to just have full control of my business, full control. I mean, the ultimate full control is to run your own brokerage. I just, it's just never interested me. That's something a lot of people have asked me. But I think, you know, the-

I think you can do that enough here that, like, without taking all the, I can't imagine all that legal, legal overhead of owning your own brokerage and like you're not leading your own brokerage but you can do it here you can I can create a team lead and create agents working for me and help guide them and mentor them and coach them while letting ex be the broker yeah and it's so funny because I feel like this could be a funny little like anecdote for us to end on part of why I haven't felt attracted to running my own brokerage is I feel like you know you've got this broker side of compliance and dealing with like conflicts with other sides. And I just, I like outsourcing that. And we were having a laugh that I don't love the compliance process at EXP, but part of it is because we don't use SkySlope. So we have to kind of

separate our contract in a way that isn't like super user friendly. And you were like giving me a hard time that our team never adopted SkySlope. But really the bottom line is I am just allergic to compliant. Just talking about it, I'm like agitated. So like I don't want to be the broker. I don't want to have all of that, like, responsibility of all the things that come with being a broker. So I'd rather outsource that for a $16,000 cap. And I, you know, I kind of offset that with other streams of income through the company, like the stock and the revenue share. So for me, in the scale of my annual gross commission income, the cap is so minimal that it's a very simple outsource decision for me. But everybody's different. So I think that's where hopefully

this episode didn't just feel like, you know, us saying, you know, you need to do this and this is the way to do it. But just to really think through what matters to you and why. Please don't talk about compliance. That's all that. Well, going back to that with the brokerage and compliance is actually, that's what also stood out to me was that EXP was running it more like a business and had, they have multiple people working for compliance versus at an office of, in my office was, I don't know, two or three hundred. They had three or four people. and leadership trying to do all those things. And like you have your brokerages and then you have your transaction support and then you have your financial support. Like you have your accounting group. Like because they're running at like a big business, there's people who excel at what they do and you can find them right away. And so I also loved that because I wasn't like trying to chase the one person down to get it and then hearing back from them days later and then they don't know the answer. Yeah, I think you're pointing to something really important, which is like the value of a centralized business model where, like you said, there are these kind of pools of people and if compliance

person A is out sick, then it's not cascading down to be your problem. And I think, you know, small businesses, small offices can definitely have those challenges. We have it in our real estate team. Like if something happened to one of our agents or our, you know, main admin, like we would have a huge problem. That's a risk I choose to run because we're a small business and I can't staff up like that. I don't choose to. But I like to leverage that in my brokerage where I don't have to worry about those kinds of things because they've centralized their systems and they've also set up their financial model to where they have the scale and scale can bring a lot of things. I just don't find joy in scaling a brokerage, which is why I will pay for that service and then

focus on the things that I enjoy personally scaling, which is many, many other things. So back to choose your own adventure. That's going to be the tagline. And if anyone is questions. Well, usually do you have, do you have questions? I feel like you could give like, if someone's looking to make a brokerage, what are like three to five things that they should ask themselves putting you on the spot, sorry. Yeah, no, it's great. What kind of environment do I want to be in?

What kind of mentorship and leadership do I need that I'm not getting right now? What level of freedom and autonomy do I want to have in my company? What training and support do I actually need? actually being the keyword. And you said something so beautiful in our prior episode about staying curious. So I think this is a question I'll sit with for myself is where could I start getting curious where I've been making assumptions and judgments? I love that.

Those are just some off the cuffs. I love it. But those are the real questions. I feel like people go to what are the commission splits and this and like it's part. But these are the questions that matter. That's how you're going to be happy by answering these because you're answering them about what do you want. Yeah.

And it's like tuning into that inner. We're both like pointing to our hearts. Like tuning into our inner. And I don't even want to be like the tweet about it, but just like tuning into what you really want to need and tuning out the noise, the expectations, the obligations, the personal connections and feelings we have that can really like color our judgment. against what is really right for us and for our business. So let's leave it there. As always, we welcome follow-up conversation. And yeah, thanks for listening as we unpack pros and cons.

Choose your own adventure. We'll talk to you soon. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the High Performance Agent Podcast. Make sure to subscribe by hitting the follow button so you don't miss the next episode. And check the show notes for links to all of my goodies, including my newsletter filled with tips for ambitious agents. You can also find me on Instagram at Tina Beliveau. Talk to you soon.