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And so we're going to talk today about how you build your team of people as you build your business.
But again, I want you to feel free to jump any time.
So the first question, I'd let just put out to the chat if you're participating.
And this is, I think, a ton question.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the principles.
There's a saying that you can go fast alone, but you can only go far together.
And so we're talking about what that means and how to specifically I use.
I'm going to share some of the things that I do.
And then hopefully some of you who have successes will jump in and share some of the things you do.
So anybody here want to answer?
If you have a team, how many people do you have on your team?
If it's zero, if it's just me, put just me.
And I won't call you out by name.
Okay, so Lynn says she's part of five active agents.
Okay.
Thank you for sharing that.
Me, eight on our team.
Jack is just me.
Jack is not just your junior family and every sporting event
between here and Mississippi, or Indiana, I guess, now.
Okay, so I think we'll find, if everybody participated,
I wish you all would.
You make more money when you participate.
But what I'll say is that whether or not you're in a team
has nothing to do with your legal format, right?
Me and I have three bars agents in my brokerage
help me show great shelley so what i want to say is you'll often hear me talk about my team
or our team i say it all the time now from a from a company point of view
expe has different formats you can choose to participate you can be your independent agent
by yourself you can be a domestic i think it's called domestic couple team where you're
married, and you and your wife count as one, basically, you don't pay two caps or two fees.
Then there's a something team with like, yeah, usually smaller groups of people together,
and they hire new agents underneath them, and there's a call mega teams, mega icon teams.
They have like, you know, hundreds of people underneath them.
So there's all kinds of formats.
And when we put a production up, we reported by as individuals or as teams for different
awards.
So I'll tell you that I am just me.
Now I say I'm a team.
I say people go, well, Bill, you know, you do a lot of business, you have a lot of things going on.
I have a huge team.
And that's the point of this.
It's not about the people who legally sign a contract to work for me or in a brokerage, I guess, work in alignment with whatever the legal term would be.
We have an attorney here.
I'd be a little careful.
What that terminology is.
But it's really how you approach people, right?
And I would suggest to you that everybody should be on your team.
If you had eight billion people in your team, you're going to win.
And so what I want to say is there's many ways to organize, and I don't know your particular structure.
I know personally, I don't want employees.
Now, maybe part of it is I'm at 64 years old with two grandkids now.
I'm making really good money.
I've put it a lot of way.
I just have the energy to put up with other people's stories much anymore, drama.
I'm glad to help you.
But if you're not going to help yourself, I just don't have the energy.
to put your authority notice and terminate employees.
I'm in Los Angeles, California,
where my experience is the worst place to have employees in America.
And so for a lot of reasons, I don't have employees.
And I'm always trying to keep my business simple.
And so it's simpler for me to either make agreements with agents individually
and for administrative work to work on a contract basis.
That's my team.
I have one TSA used primarily.
I have seven other virtual systems that do.
different jobs. I have 20 agents that I've brought to my company, another 23 that they've brought
intern to them for total of 43. But not them work for me directly. And unlike most brokerages,
I don't collect commission from any of them unless I refer them in business. That's a different,
that's a transaction, not a team, right? So on almost all my listings, and I'm just sharing with you how I'm
format it. I will look for somebody to, as I call assistant listing agent format for 10% of commission,
they do the work at the property. They'll make sure there's brochures. They'll meet the inspectors,
the appraisers, the showings, the lockboxes, take the initial photos. There's certain work I
outlined for them to do in exchange for a small piece of the commission. And then they get all the buyer
leads. They can put their sign up if they want to get leads. Getting a little complicated. My point is,
each listing I do vary who that is based on location type of property how their workload is I've made it simple so all the team members are interchangeable they're easy to replace so it was a vacation I don't care I've got for the people I could pick somebody else and put them in there the other thing is in my structure I use virtual assistance for all my administrative work so often I tell people I'll do something like I have attorneys who ask me for deeds I had one once and he asked me for it I sent it to him like said to him
within a little bit. And he said, well, Bill, if you have like an app or a person gets it for you,
I'm glad to go direct. I said, no, no, I want you to call me. You know, yes, I have people.
And yes, I'm not spent all the long on my computer getting documents and email. I'm not going to do
hours of administrative work. I have people do it for me, but I want you to call me.
And so the key is to find people to delegate to. Now that's a different topic I do on delegation and how to
do $400 hour work and delegate it out anything below that or certainly below $100 an hour
work to somebody else. That's a whole different discussion. Recently I had to get a lockbox
where I live in West L.A. to sunset, you know, sunset strip area. So back and forth, if I just
drove there and back, it's probably at this time of day, it's probably by an hour drive,
assuming I find the person drop off the box. And I hired a delivery service just to go there. It cost
me 30, 40 bucks, but save me an hour for $30.40. Another example is, you know, on a personal,
if my wife, fortunately, is now cancer-free. Last year and a half has been fighting cancer.
Numerous doctor's appointments. I would ask her, do you need me to take you emotionally? I'll do it.
Do you need me take you physically? Of course, I'll do it. Do you need me take you safety-wise?
Like I said, night, I'll do it. But if you just need a ride, let's use Uber.
because I can't really afford to be an Uber and I can't drive you and come back and then pick you up and come back.
That's two rides where I could for $20 to have somebody else do it properly.
So that's different delegating work.
My team is all those people, right?
And I want to think of that the goal here is we're looking to build a business, not a job.
And I will tell you, even if you just have a job, let's say you say to me today,
like, well, but I work, you know, full-time at wherever Macy's or Google.
I work part-time in real estate.
I always say, take the attitude.
My mentor taught me when I came out of college.
No, you're in business for yourself.
You just rented out yourself full-time to the employer,
40 hours a week or whatever terms you make with your employer to one customer.
And I'm going to pay you a W-2.
You're going to pay taxes and all that that means.
But if you take the attitude that you're a bit of,
business and even when you're an employee, you're really a business, you just made yourself
an employee for that business. Then you start looking at your time differently and the value of
your time because you can make money. I can make money. Anytime I call people confirm me
business, I make money. That's my basic job. I'm the rainmaker of my business. And I will say one last
thing. I'm going to get my soapbox a little bit. A lot of people real estate talk about teams, in my opinion,
particularly some of the, I want badmouth another real estate company like Keller Williams
where I used to work. I don't want to say the name and embarrass Kelly Williams, but I feel
like a lot of these companies have these training programs that really are almost enslaving agents
back to the broker of the team leader. And the teams are run for the benefit of the team leader
rather than for the individual. Whereas really when I did employ people when I was younger and
had the ambition to do that, I always looked at employees as important resources or
job was to make them more valuable by teaching them, helping them grow. And the value of success
was the employee's growth. And if they went to other places within our network, an example,
I ran a large brokerage and the owner didn't allow top agents to hire our frontline staff,
like the receptionist and the admin staff. I said, that's crazy. Of course we want our brokers
to hire our staff because our staff knows our ways. And then our top brokers are, our top
agents will stay with us. So I would tell you that a team in my concept is about everybody winning.
And if you can help everybody win, right? I have a TC, for example. I want her to have more
business when she wants it. She's busy. She has more business. I'm not going to market her.
But she does. My job is to help her be more successful. Let me ask you, when I do that,
when I help get business to my TC, when I call her, do you think she takes care of me?
she might put your file down and work on mine.
And frankly, I don't care if you want her attention,
you give her more business too, then we'll both win.
Right?
That's both help her.
So a team is not a way to slave others.
A team should be a way to build synergies and win.
So let me just recover those five kind of mindsets
before we get into details.
Because otherwise the details will make sense.
How do you build a team?
On your own, you can go fast, but together you can go far.
If you want to go far, you need other people to help you be successful, number one.
Number two, there's a lot of different formats.
Don't get stuck on the format.
Now, I'm kind of creative and I'm educated and I've been around a while.
So you always should start by copying a format or a template and then adjust it to yourself.
But there's a lot of ways to do it.
Don't get stuck on this is the only way to run a business.
May real estate agents get to a brokerage and think, well, that's the only way to run it
the way they see it, you understand there's many ways toward a business. I'll never forget when I left,
I was a broker, general manager for a seven branch office I helped build. And when I left him,
I met one of the other leading owners called me to interview me. And his business was totally different.
Our business was Mike Ferry, phone calling. We had call centers set up in the office. His office was
based on printed material. He had a huge, he had a printing company within his real estate company.
and he used that to give marking material to his agents,
flyers and mailers and stuff.
And he had a staging company
and he had a whole methodology
and how to use that, right?
That they would give the staging for free
if they did the listing
and then the adjusted listing was free every 30 days.
If they cut the price by 5%,
he had a whole system behind it.
I had never seen business done that way.
It was eye-opening to learn a new format.
So I want to just tell you,
don't get stuck on the structures,
many ways to organize.
Three, I shared you how I do.
business with with it's just me I mean I'm in a room there's nobody around me my
wife is outside but I have a team but we get a lot done you know we I'm closing
25 or three deals myself I have 43 total agents are closing deals I have events going
on I show I have events I show up at I did nothing a month but show up because my
team's running that for me for it's about building a business not a job and even
you have a job is about building a business you just aren't paying a
attention. And fifth is a team is a way to empower other people is not a tool to enslave others.
You don't build a team because other people are going to work hard and make you money so you can
not work hard. It doesn't work that way. Great leaders are at the front. Great leaders are leading
the troops not following behind you. Bad leaders are always back in headquarters while the troops are
suffering and they don't know what's going on. And so those are the five mindsets I would think about,
but I want to give you the concept. When I say, how do you build a
your business? How do you build it building your team? The team is part of the concept of what I
call leverage. So what's leverage mean? Anybody want to explain me in real estate? How do you create
leverage in your business? A lover is something that you put in some effort and it gets amplified
twice, three times, ten times. How do you in real estate, what are ways that we can leverage our time?
Anybody want to share? Anybody want to share? How do you create leverage in real estate? How do you create leverage
in real estate? Peter's part of my team. I talked to Peter and he goes to the courthouse in Orange County
and brings me back great information. Peter, how do you create leverage in real estate?
I think to create leverage for me is to create value in myself and leverage the tools,
whatever tools I have around me to kind of get what I need. Okay, so there are two concepts.
One is your skills is a lever, right? The more skilled you are, the more
value create for the people, more business you get. And second, there are tools. Some tools are
levers. Some tools are time sucks, correct? Yes. As rules and agents, we are constantly bombarded
with sparkling new tools. Every day, I must get three texts offering me leads. And they can't
come out and say what they really are. They have to lie about it. Well, they're not going to say,
well, pay this this and we'll give you this many leads or pay this percentage will give you leads. I'm not
I'm buying leads from anybody.
They have to act like they're going to throw me a listing.
I kind of play along sometimes because I know what I did.
But we get offered sparkly toys, but we have to realize there's real tools and levers,
and then there's fake.
One of the tools is people.
The more people we talk to, the more people we create value for,
the more successful will be because we can create more value for customers.
So when I save your team, when I wrote this out, I said,
well, how many people are really on my team?
So I started making a list that categorize them.
So let me just share with you how I look at my team.
And I want you to think of your business with a similar team or tell me I'm wrong,
if you think I'm off track here.
So the first category of my team is within transactions.
I have a bunch of people.
I have a transaction coordinator.
I only use one in particular.
You could use a couple, split them up, whatever.
I just try to keep it simple.
I'll tell you a quick story.
one of my top agents in my group, Annabel Pacheco, joined her company, needed a T.C., and I introduced her to mine.
But six months later, she called me on the phone one day and said, hey, Bill, I have, and I remember her name, to be honest, I have Mary on the phone with me.
I go, yeah?
He goes, you know, Mary.
I'm like, no, who's Mary?
She said to me, no, you know Mary you talk to all the time.
And I said, who?
I don't talk to a Mary.
What are you talking about?
She said, Mary is your T.
And I said, Annabelle, you don't understand.
I've never talked to her. I only communicate through email because of T.C. in my book,
I want to communicate as efficiently as I can. It has to be very good at taking instructions via
email. I had never talked to Mary. If I did, I don't remember. I never talked to her
phone. I never saw on a Zoom call. But I closed like 100 deals with her. I didn't care to talk to
her. I'm not looking for any more female relationships. I'm Mary and I have a daughter. So I have
I have enough, right?
But my point is that she's part of my team.
I look at her as your team.
How is your workload?
How are they treating you?
And then the company I'm with,
XP, had an in-house department,
and they closed it down.
And so I hired her externally to do my work.
And I ask her, hey, we have a market event.
You're welcome to come for free.
I offer her what I might charge a vendor as an advertiser
because I wouldn't help my team member build her business.
I recently referred her some business and she gave me a thank you.
She discounted the fee.
Like, I remember what it was, $25, $50.
It was very nice.
But that's not why I'd do it.
Why do you think I want to refer her business?
Why do you think I would refer to my TC business?
Aren't I worried that she might be too busy for me?
No, can you tell what happens?
When I call, I am sure if there's a stack of other people's files, including yours,
she puts them aside and pulls mine out.
because she knows she's going to get paid.
I'm going to treat her right, and I'm going to bring her some business.
That's what you want team members do.
So once my team members is my T's say another team member
that many of you don't think of as your team member is my broker.
Why is that?
Now, in my case, being a probate agent, I have more difficult
in different transactions than any other realtor than a standard realtor, right?
Because probate adds a layer of complexity.
It adds legality to it, adds attorneys, it adds drawing.
drama adds non-interested parties, errors and such.
So I've come to invest time with my broker where they, you know, I do training for them for free.
I, whenever they ask me for anything, I get them.
I always make a point of saying hello to them.
I put time into that relationship.
So when I need something, I get the benefit of the doubt, right?
And I need that.
As I build my team, I would be that connector.
That one sounds obvious.
Another one in terms of paper should be an attorney.
I have multiple I can call.
When I have a question of how things should be done in probate or in real estate,
we have as a realtor you have the California Association of Realtor Attorney hotline.
Every member gets out for free.
But sometimes I have questions specific to probate that they're not going to handle.
I have attorney friends I'll call and say, hey, have a question.
I'm working on this angle.
Can you help me with it?
They're glad to help me because I'm part of the team with them.
So we shall have attorneys that can help us train.
Now, how do you earn that by giving referrals, by giving them business?
I also have team members to help me with a property.
In my case, I have a team member who does the sign or the sign writer if they want to do it or brochure box.
They have the showings, they have inspections, they meet the appraiser, they meet the, I refer them to the buyer leads and they handle all the buyers.
Another one is all the reports, a transaction.
Who's your title company?
It's interesting to me when agents call me, I'll say, well, you need to get the deed.
Now, I could pull up deeds across America because my team member gives me access to certain reports.
But I want to encourage you as agents, you all should find a title representative who's more than just a rep.
And don't settle for ballgame tickets or coffee or donuts or something stupid like that.
I'm running a business.
I want the title rep who's going to help me generate business.
business. I got into probate initially because of Tata rep, Kevin Sales, a lawyer's title.
I brought him to train my agents and I just was fascinated by the concept. Before I even did
production myself in probate, the title rep helped me. You know, I didn't ask him for money
or co-sponsoring or a party or whatever. I made a lot of money because he helped me and I
helped him, right? How about your escrow? Or if in other states, your closing attorney.
Are they team member? Are they just somebody that you have to deal with once in a while?
Well, what would treating them like a team member look like?
If you took that relationship, instead of I have to open escrow somewhere, I have to open a closing somewhere, to what would it, what would it look like if there was somebody in our case, escrow in California, in other states closing attorney?
What would it look like if that person felt like they were your partner in your business?
NHD reports. Where do you get those from? Who's your vendor?
In my case, I don't really have anybody who sells them, but my escrow officer has a friend who does them.
So between the vendors, I say, whoever you like, because my escrow officer is my team member.
Right? And she has her NHD person who is her team member.
How about home warranty? Now, I'm a listing agent primarily.
So most of my buyers, and most of my buyers are investors, don't buy warranties.
But on the listing side, they will offer the warranty to start for the seller before the close of escrow.
From the day of listing.
They can prorate the warranty, taking out clothes of escrow, and the service hasn't paid for it.
But that way, the coverage started under the seller.
So the buyer moves in and all of a sudden the air conditioning doesn't work.
It's presumed it's been working while the seller was there.
So the warranty becomes one of my partners.
I recently interviewed Choice Home Warrantty as my warranty partner on my YouTube channel.
Why?
I want to promote her business.
Why is that, Bill?
Because when I call her, I want you to put you guys on hold to take my phone call.
Nothing personal.
And I want to put everybody's on call on hold.
I'm trying to sell some houses here.
So again, those are the people regarding the trust.
Who did I leave out?
Anybody else have partners related to the transaction that I left out?
I can just cover it TSC broker attorney, cars attorney.
Who's going to go to the signs, showings, and meet inspections, and that stuff?
Title, escort closing, H.D. and warranty.
I just named nine potential team members that you all should have on your team.
Did I leave anybody out regarding transactions?
Jack Lapitos.
And this may not fall under so much for what you do.
I think it's important in almost every real estate transaction, especially if you don't have great
contact with the current owner, surveyor.
Especially in West LA.
Because in West LA, where they put up the fences, the property lines were mere suggestion.
And so sometimes you want to get a surveyor out there to figure out, is the fence actually on the property line?
Because if your, if the fence is five feet over,
feet over or even two feet over and then you buy this property you may be buying litigation
where the person who go well i want to take down the fence and put it on the property line well that
might be in the middle of your driveway if you're if your garage is in the backyard so in almost
every case that i deal with there's two people i reach out to which is i get a title company to get
the copy of the most recent deeds or sometimes all the deeds and a surveyor to at least
least go out and eyeball for me and make sure the fences are relatively close to where they need to be.
You know, then you trigger it in my head. Of course, the AC heater guy, the termite guy, the sewer
inspection guy or gal, the handyman guy or gal, all those other vendors, all those other people.
And so what I've always done my whole career is when I meet that person, I get their business card.
They call me now or email me. I put them in my social media and solicited them for referrals.
They're part of my business, I'm part my team.
And when people say, do you know somebody?
I have them in my database.
I can easily refer them out.
I try to interview them on video.
So when people ask me, I can send an email with them
with the interview that I did for just today.
I was talking to an attorney who does probate administration
and needs a connection to a great banker
who can help him some specific things of probate.
And I happen to have interviewed a great banker.
I think the best banker for that business
is American Business Bank for doing more called joint control accounts.
And I made the reduction.
But I also had interviewed that banker and sent to YouTube with him so he can see the guy
in interview him.
Why?
Because I want him to use my banker because my banker is part of my team.
I didn't have that on there.
That's kind of general business.
Banker.
I'm going to add that to my list of.
I'm making me, I do these calls related to myself as much as you guys.
You know, true confession here.
I'm hoping I'm learning here as I'm going along.
But again, they become part of your team.
My job is to feed them, so in turn, they're going to feed me.
Just got a phone call today from somebody who's like a real estate coach who I'd send
some referrals to.
Call me today with a probate lead to say to me.
So we want to create a team and I'll do it so that I get referrals.
I do it to help them knowing somehow the business comes back to me.
I don't really worry about it.
Okay.
Now, the second area I made a list of team members is specifically related to probate.
Meaning in probate, we have a whole other cast of characters that we add to our list,
that we should be looking for the opportunity to add them to our team instead of looking at them
as some mystery piece or that we understand. So for example, I listed off the probate bond company.
Any of you have a probate where your seller is selling the house, a listing, whether it's full authority or limited,
you know, a good number of them, not all of them.
Sometimes the bond's waived.
If in the will, it waives bond, and they qualify the bond is waived.
But I would say most of the time in a probate case, even a minimal bond is needed.
Have you met the bond company?
Particularly out of Los Angeles.
LA is a very big consultant company.
But in smaller areas, there's usually a guy or gal that goes to the court, networks with the judges,
networks with attorneys, goes to bar meetings from a bond.
bond company. It's like a, it's a bond to guarantee the administrator, executor, in case
that goes wrong, they cover them for, I don't know what the exact range of coverage is,
but shortages or mistakes or things like that. Bond company, probate advanced company. I've had
someone on this call. A critical piece, but again, it's not just my customer needs money,
it's this person should be part of my team. I want to interview this.
them. I want to promote them. I want them to think of me as a key member of their business.
So when they have referral, who do I want them to call? Everybody together? I want them to call me.
And you want them to call who? Me. No, you want to call you, of course. So how do you do that?
You do that by creating value for them. So probably advanced company, obviously, attorneys.
Now, one of the big mistakes, I actually interviewed Jack Lapidus, I'm members on this call,
or the real estate investing call about referring to attorneys, working with attorneys.
And commonly people, and I watch it happen to them all the time, will say, oh, I need an
attorney.
Oh, well, there's Jack.
He does everything with real estate.
No, he does.
And I think that you miss the opportunity when you get a lead rather just throwing out a name
because I'm going to tell you, if you ask me to respond to that, hey, I need a probate attorney,
nine on ten times I would pick the wrong person
because it's no different than a doctor
with a patient walking in the room saying,
oh, here's a surgery for you.
Or based on how you're walking,
here's what we're going to do.
We're just going to do some heart surgery on you.
You need to find out, well, exactly what's the issue
you're what you're trying to do?
What count is it in?
What's the customer like?
How much money is involved?
All those are going to narrow down to the right attorney
rather than just one.
So you need to have, I think,
at least three attorneys in your,
your Rolodex. And probably in each of those three, one in every geography work. And maybe also
male and female, because people work better than one or the other or how I rush you and split it up.
But you need three, a probate administration attorney, a probate litigation attorney.
Now this is true if you're in California. And then a probate avoidance attorney,
a.k.a. in a state, you need two of those three in California for sure. You need
probate litigation. I literally today was talking to a leading probate attorney who does estate
planning, who does not do litigation. And he was asking me to help him find people for litigation
cases too. Very hard to find probate litigation is a very narrow field, very specialized. But still,
when you like to have attorneys call you with that problem, like I take those calls all day
long. I would book myself at my desk eight hours a day and filled in those phone calls, right?
having an attorney is calling me for help because I want to be the value to them.
So those are three you need to have.
And that way when people say, hey, I need an attorney and probate, tell me a little bit more.
What are you trying to do?
Trying to avoid probate?
Is there a trust, you know, involved and you need to work through the trust or issue a new trust or whatever it might be?
Another group of people we deal with is real estate agents is paralegals.
I just can't tell you how often.
I talk to agents and ask them, they'll ask me questions about something.
I say, well, do you talk to attorney? No, whenever I call, I just get the paralegal.
Well, who do you think really does the work? Let's be honest.
I mean, the paralegal doesn't go to court and talk to the judge, but who does all the other work?
Who do you really think does all that?
And now I'm going to put down attorneys. I'm talking about the work that we normally see
is not really the attorney's work. It's his product. He's responsible for it or she.
I say he, I imagine myself, but he or she.
But really, at the phase we're in probate, usually it's just the paperwork.
That's the paralegal.
The attorney has designed the game plan, maybe, and advised the client of the game plan,
and executed at court.
But the paralegal really runs the paperwork and the process.
So don't tell me you can't get the attorney.
Talk to the paralegal.
Now, a lot of trainees these days use virtual paralegals, paralegals in other countries,
those other countries are on different timelines, all that's complicated,
but at least make the effort to find out.
Literally last week I was referring an attorney to a probate paralegal to help him
because he somebody has paralegal's way behind and stuff isn't getting done right.
He's frustrated.
I refer him to somebody to help with that.
Next court personnel.
Now, another call I do on Tuesdays for probate mastery,
we have Courtney on who lives in, I think it's Virginia, if I remember correctly,
who he went to court.
And good looking guy, young, energetic, million-dollar,
smile and he just hit off with one of the court employees. Well, how valuable is that? Like,
I literally, I'm on the phone with the trainees, I can't get a hold of the court department.
Well, if you knew the gal that worked in that office, not in LA, LA is a different market.
L.A., our government is different. But in most places where the government officials treat you
as decent human beings, the court, the judges are great, the court personnel in the room are great.
It's the administering people on the outside that are difficult.
In other counties, you can walk up to the desk where you file documents
and they'll help you, answer your questions, right?
How valuable is that?
Peter was in the Orange County.
That was your experience, right?
Just down the road a bit.
So the court person, they're part of your team.
I mean, are you ever going to go back again?
Yeah, next time you go back, bring her a Starbucks card, thank you.
I used to bring candy at Christmas time.
I bring the C's candy boxes.
and I had a bunch of my briefcase.
I didn't carry them.
I wouldn't be to see them.
I wouldn't feel like it was special.
I brought this for you just going to say, thank you.
And I gave one to the sheriffs.
I gave one to the people in the research room.
And then also another potential partner is how do you get documents?
Now, in L.A., again, a little different.
For probate, you got to go to downtown to Stanley Mosque
and stand in the line to get the documents or use a document service.
Which one do you do?
You need to have one of those solutions.
Either you got to go, you've got somebody else who's going to go,
or you have a service that's going to go.
Those are your three choices.
There can't be a fourth, which is there's a document I need to get to close my escrow
and nobody's ever going to pick it up.
That's not an option, I'm presuming.
So I have a service.
I had an attorney last week who said, well, gee, we need to get this document right away.
Can you help me?
Of course.
I can get you in 24 hours.
He said, yeah, just send me the invoice for it.
So it was beautiful.
I just went online.
it took four minutes to order the document pickup.
And to the attorney, he would have to call his paralegal,
who knows if she's available, I just got it done.
Where attorney who refers me, you know,
I've so far about $2 million, no, $3 million worth of private business.
How many times do I order for document pickup for him?
As long as he wants, he's part of my team, and I'm part of his team.
And the legal service is part of my team.
Is this helpful?
You guys are getting a picture?
But I go here's expand your thinking, right, from I'm just this guy on my own to know everybody's part of my team.
They all can help me and I can help them.
And if I help them, they'll help me more.
So number three area of team members is business people, right?
Who's your accountant?
I went with a accounting company that actually promoted me on a real estate event with hundreds of people online.
and as a result, there used to be a couple really, really good people.
I haven't got any business out of it yet, but that's how business it works.
It's just time.
You keep working at it.
In fact, it turns out one of the, the managing partner, a big law firm that is probate,
also knows my son-in-law who's at a wealth management company because they do business together.
So who knows how that works out?
But your accountant, are they helping with your business?
Does your accountant do probate or trust account?
One of the toughest things that stumble administrators and executors is the accounting.
Just keeping track of the invoices and putting together a simple spreadsheet of the accounts.
Obviously some accounting is more complicated than others.
Some are simple, but even simple accounting has to be done.
And then accountants need bookkeepers.
I have a bookkeeper.
Does your bookkeeper help you your business?
I don't keep my own books now.
I have a bookkeeper does it for me.
But I also want things done a certain way.
She's part of my team.
How about investors?
I don't mean investors in your business.
I mean investors you work with.
People who are looking to buy and sell property.
Certainly they're customers too,
but they're also partners in that they help me get business.
They help introduce me to people.
So I want to help them.
There are times that I refer them business.
I have nothing to do with it.
I'm not going to make any money on it.
Why is that?
Because we're part of a team.
And if they buy more properties and fix and flip, I get more listings.
It just works out that way.
And then when I added, I just thought about this call earlier, was a banker.
Where do you bank?
Now, I used to bank at Wells Fargo because I would often go to court and need a cashier's check.
And Wells Fargo, there's two near me.
And they're easy to park, go in and get a cashier's check.
But now I don't do that business as often.
So I'm thinking, well, maybe there's another banker will come along.
that I can, they'll appreciate my business,
and I can also refer them business,
and that's what I've been doing now
with this new bank I'm working with.
So the banker's part of my team.
The next category is real estate agents.
Those of you who are agents on the call,
I often, as recently as two days ago,
have agents say to me,
I don't want to put them in my database
because they're agents.
I was at a conference where their training agents how to use YouTube,
and they said, we're not going to give you our channel because we don't want you to subscribe to it,
because we don't want our channel with agents. We want a channel just with consumers.
And I thought, well, that seems silly. Number one, real estate agents buy and sell houses more than
anybody. They're investors, typically, more likely to have second homes,
and more likely to buy homes.
Number two, referring business in the area.
Number three, their customers,
if you go into YouTube or Facebook,
and you connect, your customers kind of start
to become their customers.
We've all seen that if you're on YouTube,
I'll say, oh, so-and-so also like this video.
So of course I want realtors to like my videos.
Of course I want them to be in my social media.
I'm going to give you the opportunity to do business with me.
In the same time, if you're not active,
maybe you retire, maybe you're out of the business.
So of course I want as many people as possible.
So part of it is just working together that way.
I also on my team have agents that show property for me.
There's an app I use called Show Me, where you go in, if I need to show a property,
I don't show it.
I don't show property, basically.
There's exceptions, but the last hundred houses I've sold in the last few years,
I've shown two because it's just not productive, driving their back or showing people property.
I'll make an appointment and then have an agent show up and show them the property.
But now that agents are in my system, they're part of my team.
I want them to give my customers better service than the other agent's customers.
I want them to know who I am.
Another one is cooperative agents.
When you're a listing agent, how do you treat the buyers agents?
I try to treat them all like customers.
Generally, I'll double in my own deals.
So I want to get all their information.
I want to put them in my system.
I want to stay in touch with them. I want them to appreciate me. I've had other agents refer me
listings. Hey, Bill, I've got this list. I can't quite get it. Not a probate expert. Can we co-listed?
Yeah, I do that all the time. But it's more than just that. It's also, I want every one of you,
when you see my listing, gosh, this is great. I can sell one of bills listings and learn how to do
probate from him on the deal. I would love that. But you really want all of their, you want, you want their support.
and one way is treat them like their prospective customers, not like competitors.
The truth is, we have this call today 20 or so live on Zoom, another 20 or 30 between Facebook and
YouTube and, well, about 200 to watch this in the next week, total.
So people say, well, Bill, you train your competitors.
No, I'm training my team members.
There's 200 agents who are going to watch this, and there's a million agents in the United States
who aren't.
There's 100,000 agents in LA.
if we get all the business, well, who besides me would like, if we got all the business in
LA, he'd be okay with that? If we got all the business in California split up amongst us.
Okay, I thought you guys would be okay. I'm okay with that. My hands up. What? How did my hand
go up? That's weird. Okay. I'm sorry, Jack the piece has his hand up. Yeah, so I get a ton of referrals
from other lawyers, and I know it's different for real estate agents, but I talk with real estate agents
because I represent a lot of them.
And I said, do you look at other agents as competitors or potential partners?
And they say, oh, competitors.
I say, if you're on one side of a deal and there's an agent on the other side of the deal,
are you guys working together or are you enemies?
We go, what are they enemies?
I'm like, okay, how do you reconcile that to when you're a dual agent?
It's like, oh, yeah, actually we should be working together.
When I'm in litigation with another attorney,
I'm working with that person to resolve the case.
When I'm, you know, I have a bunch of other real estate attorneys and we all refer to each other because for whatever reason, it's too big.
It's too small. I'm busy. I'm not busy, whatever. And it's very much the same with real estate agents where, you know, they're too busy. They're not busy enough.
They're the house. It's too big. It's too small. I don't like working with that probate attorney. I don't like working, you know, oh, that judge drives me crazy. So I'm going to hand it off to that person.
And it's not, even though it feels like it, it's not a zero-sum game.
Everyone can make a bunch of money off of it.
And sometimes it works out better if you give something away to someone else.
And then down the road, there's going to be something.
They're going to think of you first when they have something to give away.
Right.
Well said.
I've always powdered in myself.
As a client, I had a case 30 years ago.
And attorneys were so friendly, you showed me crazy.
because I hated the guy who was suing me.
He was a philanderer.
He was a cheat.
He was a liar.
He was a bully.
And at the end of the day, I got some money from him.
I didn't lose anything.
But the attorneys were so friendly to show me crazy.
He said, look, Bill, we've got to get along where else if we're fighting,
it's going to make it worse.
It's going to cost you more in the long way.
Like we have to communicate.
And I always feel like there are times, unfortunately,
when I get an agent who's dishonest,
I need to protect my customer from them, then, yeah, then I'm going to throw down.
Like, if you want to go to the mat, let's go to the mats, because my job is to protect my customer.
But 99 of 100 are, you know, 80 of 100, I want to be cooperative.
I want the other agent to like me and trust me.
And I want to put deposits in that relationship early to try to get through the process.
I really work hard in the beginning to make an assessment.
and if I can be as friendly as I can do.
Now, the problem is once somebody shows you their teeth,
you have to treat them as,
once I realize somebody is just dishonest,
man, then you have to just scrutinize everything.
But Jack has 100% right.
And I think watching attorneys work gave me an idea what's possible.
And I want to say as realtors,
we're the ultimate cooperative business.
The existence of the MLS is two guys got together and said,
I got this listed, you got that listed,
let's put together and also try to sell each other's listings.
Well, that makes sense.
That's all the MLS is. It's us.
We own-
They're called cooperating brokers, aren't they?
Well, that's what they're called.
A lot of things are called.
A lot of things, but yeah, they're called exactly.
That's the term cooperating brokers for a reason.
So why not make the effort to go another thing?
I'll give you a little tip,
and I hope I'm not giving.
way a secret here that would make it less special. If you guys ever saw my listing,
but I'll tell you that every time I ever sell a property, I send a gift to the buyer's agent
and just say, thank you. Usually it's a book that I find inspiring. Generally, it's Grant Cardone's
10x book because I think it could change people's lives and I want to send something. But over the
years, I've changed it. That's the current one. I just send them a little thank you note and
have the book delivered to them as a thank you. Not a big deal that costs a lot of money,
but it's something to say I appreciate the time we spent working together.
I didn't have to do it, right?
Because what do you think next time that person?
I had an agent one time call me.
It's so funny.
We closed the deal and she called me like a week or two later.
I had to put her name together because her name was fairly common.
And her name was very common.
And she said to me, by the way, you have a problem in your listing, blah, blah, blah.
She was like my eyes and ears.
She said, do you remember me, do you?
I said, no.
She said, I'm the buyer's agent that sold your listing at blank.
I'm like, oh, wow, it's so nice of you to call me, tell me.
Why do you think she did that?
Because we're like friends.
I never met her.
I never saw her.
Okay, here's another group you guys are going to find funny.
All the colleagues at your brokerage, they're all part of your team.
Now, you get kind of sucked into the team, into the broker's team, but you need to
suck them into your team.
What do you do to create value for your colleagues that they want to do business with
you, I don't mean just going to the staff meetings or the company parties, and I do do that.
But what do you do to promote a relationship with you in the business on top of that?
There's a lot of different ways you can do that.
You can teach classes, you can offer value, you can be the person who shares your content
with the other agents in the office that's helpful, right?
And I would say find something you're known for, like probate, maybe, and share that with your other
agents in your office or your brokerage. Be the resource so that when you're, and I'm going to tell you,
most of your brokers who, if you're not at the XP, most of your brokers don't know what they're talking
about in probate, having talked to many of them. Be the resource so that your broker calls you and
says, hey, Peter, hey, Joe, you know, I know you've been doing a lot of probate. I know you've been
learning a lot about it. I got a question. Can you help me with it? Now, you may not know the
answer, but you know the guy who might have the answer for you or the guy you can point
to the answer, right? You want to be the person. You may not be the person, but you would have
a person that call that either is the person or gets the person. That makes sense? Oftentimes on the
training on the probate mastery and before that, all the leads, they teach you should build your
Rolodex before you start. I say wrong. Prospect, and as you meet people, put them in your Rolodex.
You talk to somebody, you meet him in a network event.
I do plumbing.
Now you got your plumbing contractor guy.
Call him, meet him, have coffee with him.
Whatever your methodology is.
I would interview him on a video, post my social media, share his business.
Right.
So when people need plumbing, they're going to call me.
They're not going to remember the plumber.
They're going to say, hey, Bill, I saw you interviewed a plumber two months ago.
I need a plumber.
Can you help me?
Yeah, I wouldn't be that guy.
I don't know anything about plumbing.
I do turn water on and off.
and I do flush, but I know how the pipes work, but I know a guy, right?
So you want to be the resource to the agents at your office, at your brokerage, at your company.
I create a group at DXP for probate internally, and we have almost 3,000 members in that group.
And the good news is we get to share content together.
We get to share ideas together, share leads together.
And last is networking with other agents.
So many of you go to networking events, you meet somebody, you try to figure what they do,
and then you discover they're an Asian.
Ugh, they're just another Asian.
No, they're a human being.
They're a human being.
They're a person.
And there's multiple ways that you can do business together over time.
If you look at that opportunity, maybe they go out of business and they need to refer to somebody that they trust and like.
Maybe they move out of the area.
Maybe they hire you on their team.
Maybe you bring them in your office as a buyer's agent.
I don't know, but you don't know until you start the relationship.
And so I want you to get the concept that everybody, everybody is part of your team.
And so when people call me sometimes and say, so people, so Bill, how many people are in your team?
I always have a tough time to answer to the question because, you know, from a legal perspective at EXP, it's just me.
but I like to believe I have an army behind me because I want to do a lot of business,
a massive business, but massive business requires a massive army.
Okay, so those are the people, this took a long ago I thought it would.
Wow.
Okay, 52 after the hour, I covered a lot of talking today.
Questions first on this topic.
Anything about building your team, how to leverage yourself with other people?
Any questions on the concept or a specific team member types?
Anybody, no?
I guess it might be participative.
Anybody have any questions?
No?
I don't have a question, but I do go back to what you're referring to that, you know,
the listing agent or depending on what side of the transaction you're on,
you're pretty much working together.
And, you know, I always see it as when I'm representing a buyer is the listing agent is my best friend
because they're technically the one getting me paid at the end of the day.
So I always make sure the relationship is strong with them.
And going back to the team and creating value in your team, the office I was at,
there's 115 agents.
And out of those 115 agents, no one really knew probate.
So anytime there was an issue, they would just, hey, go talk to Peter.
And then they would come.
And you said it, sometimes I don't have the answer.
but I'm at least able to give them some form of value and they could leave talking with me
knowing more than what they knew when we first meet.
So I 100% agree with that and it's very strong.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I mean, I know you and I spoke.
I don't remember what company you work for, but here's what I remember is you're in Orange County.
And if I need somebody to go into a county courthouse, I might be able to call you and talk to you
into it because you're on my team.
Well, I'm actually, I'm in San Diego.
Ooh, I'm sorry, San Diego.
Yes.
Okay, well, my memory's also good.
I have it in my notes.
Let me see you.
619, yeah, no, San Diego.
Yeah, I knew you were in a court that I don't go too often, but occasionally has something come up.
And so I put my system.
I look up in New San Diego.
Oh, Peter.
Oh, yeah, we talked.
Yes, yeah.
And going to the courthouse and trying to build relationships, like I've been speaking with the probate examiner.
Anytime I could, I'll call the probate clerk and just try to get some information.
And, dude, that's gold.
Yeah, I want them to know my name.
I want them to become familiar with me.
I just was talking with a lady.
Her name is Lynette, Mary Skull.
She's one of the probate examiners on the case.
And all that is I found some court paperwork.
I found her name called it.
Super simple, very easy to do.
You can never, literally last night,
I have an attorney who had a hearing this morning.
And a question, he would have loved talking examiner.
And I did show him where the email address was.
In LA, you get the email address, they're never going to respond to you.
They just never, they just don't typically.
But because we call the probate examiner, another answer is the probate attorney,
is what we call them in Los Angeles County and other courts that call them different things.
But you don't know what the person who advises the judge,
recommends the judge what to do or not to.
And they're the recommend the judge, yes, this is good enough or it's not good enough.
And yes, the judge can overrule them.
But you can ask some questions and get information that you can't learn that in law school.
No, it was gold, man.
When I was speaking with her, she gave me so much reassurance on, you know, just whatever knowledge I was trying to bring to the table.
And she was very nice, very cool to speak with.
I'm actually going to give her a call tomorrow just to kind of thank her for everything she's done and how nice she was with me.
And she put up with all my questions.
and yeah gold gold it was gold man very nice good so that's networking with people in the courthouse
and that again a little different in los angeles you're not going to get that that that is i once saw
i bought a property where the county administrator attorney showed up i had chance to talk to him
guys name a number and i did once call him and ask him a question again gold and you get a chance
to talk to a guy who has that kind of uh or gal who has that kind of expertise you're not paying you know
you call an attorney you know per hour is very expensive and if they can help you it's worth a lot
good for you man good for yeah it was it was really great and another way i just went to an
they had an estate cell i was just driving and i saw an estate cell i was like hey let me just
pull over maybe i could find some old comic books or some old skateboarding things that i like
but as i was there i started talking to the lady who was throwing the cell got to meet her and i
saw i told her how professional her work is i liked how she was working how she priced everything
and i got her business card i've already called her twice i've talked to her and and hopefully i don't
have any business for her now but like you said earlier you just when the time comes and you have
that opportunity i'm going to go to her right away exactly exactly good i looked at i had that my
list estate sales staging companies junk out companies yes right so i i used uh 180 gotcha
one time and I took a video with me and the guys in front of the truck and from the house.
They're glad to do it and because they went on their social media, they're a big franchise.
I got a bunch of views my video because of that. So it was fun. It was also fun to do. That's the key thing
is do stuff you enjoy.