KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Is Your Brokerage Holding You Back!

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

Summary:Are you working for your brokerage or is it working for you? This episode provides a crucial "brokerage check-up," revealing the red flags that signal your current company may be hindering your growth and earning potential. Learn how to evaluate your brokerage's support, commission structure, and culture to determine if it's time to make a strategic move that aligns with your professional goals and empowers your success.Bullet Point TakeawaysLack of Support & Growth Opportunities: A brokerage should be your biggest cheerleader, providing consistent training, mentorship, and opportunities for professional development. If you feel stuck, with a lack of hands-on guidance or no clear path for advancement, your brokerage may not be a good fit.Poor Culture & Communication: A company culture that prioritizes competition over collaboration, has a high turnover rate, or lacks leadership transparency can drain your energy and motivation. Look for a brokerage with a supportive, familial atmosphere where agents are willing to help each other succeed.Outdated Technology & Marketing: In today's digital-first market, a brokerage that relies on outdated technology, provides generic marketing materials, or doesn't support personal branding is a major red flag. You need modern tools, a robust CRM, and technology that streamlines your business and keeps you competitive.Unfavorable Commission & Fee Structure: Be critical of your commission split and fee structure. A high split is meaningless if you're not getting the support and leads to close deals. Look for a structure that is transparent, fair, and provides a clear path to increasing your take-home pay, with options like revenue sharing or stock opportunities.Minimal Opportunity for Passive Income: The real estate landscape is evolving beyond traditional commissions. If your brokerage offers no avenues for passive income, such as revenue sharing or stock options, it may be limiting your long-term wealth-building potential.Topics:Real Estate BrokerageChoosing a BrokerageSwitching BrokeragesRealtor Career GrowthCommission SplitCall-to-ActionIs your brokerage an asset or a liability? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and make the most strategic decision for your real estate career!

a guy in our organization. He has two million invested in, similar to you, AJ, some of those syndicate deals that throws off about 10,000 a month. And I'm like, two million that throws off 10,000 a month. I pay $85 a month. I've only brought over about 45, 50 agents to EXP. I took off 22 days. I wasn't physically at my home in March, and I had six weeks. In March, not last year. Yeah. Yeah, in a single month. So, and granted, I've been, I've been, been, you know, in the agent helping agents game. So I have a different sort of entry point into this. But when I realized that I hadn't done a good job of like I have, I've accumulated, you know, and I've made a lot of money in the different businesses, but I didn't have like any sort of like

massively leverage income stream or residual income, you know, and you bring over one agent to XP. It's the equivalent. It's actually 10 times better than acquiring a rental property. Like in our market, you'd be lucky to get a rental property for $200,000 that throws off $200 a month. And you need $40,000 cash to buy it. Yeah. You need $40,000 cash to buy that one rental property. It throws off $200 a month. You pay $85 a month into our model.

You bring one agent over that caps, and that's about $250 a month. They bring over a couple agents and all of a sudden, you know, you're at $6, $800 a month, which doesn't sound like a lot of money, but that's the equivalent of owning three rental properties. So I think this is a really timely discussion for really every agent, every independent brokerage. And it's, are you partnered with the right brokerage to take you through these uncertain times? And that applies to the independents out there too, right? Because, you know, they're essentially partnered with themselves. Are they operating on the best platform to navigate these uncertain economic times?

So in this training or in this show, we're really breaking it down to the same. six main pillars that we look at to really evaluate a business, a brokerage. So it's an interesting question. And AJ, there's one thing that you said that I really didn't quite understand until I moved my business into this platform. You use the word platform. And I never heard that word before EXP. So like any agent listening, and I wish I would have realized this earlier, you kind of have

your business, you know, and you could be independent. but you have a set of tools and infrastructure, and you want to be partnered with a brokerage that gives you the easiest path to what I think is time and money freedom. And that's called the platform. So the brokerage you're with now is the platform that you're choosing to put your business on top of. And the bigger question is, is that platform the right platform

for you to succeed in the next two to three years, think is going to be really gnarly. I think NAR is telling us at least 30%. I think it's going to be more than 30% of agents will get out of the industry. And so that is kind of the guiding. That's like our theme for this show is like, are you really on the right platform to succeed? And then beyond these uncertain economic times, it's really a question of like, is your brokerage putting you in a position to earn multiple streams of income and have a chance of exiting production at some point, right? There isn't a pot of gold at the end of the production rainbow. So that's the essence of the conversation today. Brother John, what say you? Man, that's a lot.

Like, you know, I'm listening to you and I hear what you're saying because I know your journey and I think it's pretty cool, the three of us, how we all kind of started out in the Charlotte area. And larger, you're still in that Charlotte area. AJ, you're on an island in Puerto Rico. I'm over in Bosom, Montana. So we all kind of started in the same nucleus and now we're all over, which, you know, I think gives us each different perspectives. You know, I'm hearing the conversations that are happening in real estate right now. And, you know, I think a lot of people aren't really assessing where they're at as regards to time and money freedom. I think they're assessing where they're at on if they're going to survive or not.

And I think that's why this call is going to be really important for people because we're having those conversations. We know you're not alone. And, you know, when I look back to my journey, you know, I started out with an independent. It was a great experience. I did real well out of the gate. I moved down to Charlotte. I thought, hey, we're just going to continue this as business as usual. Started out with another independent.

It didn't go so great. I was in a new market, a new environment. There was new types of people I was selling to. And ultimately, I went and I sought a proven path. And I found that form of that proven path at the time at Remax. My coach was with Remax. He was a big Remax guy. So I went to Remax.

I followed along the path that was laid before me. I had tremendous success. And I really didn't think anything of it. I'm like, I'm at remax and that was as much thought as I gave it. I was following a path. And it wasn't until I saw something I liked better, which came in the form of another independent that was doing things a little bit differently. They had a cool coffee shop atmosphere. And it made me reevaluate, why am I giving six figures a year to remax when we use a hot air balloon and I don't even like hot air balloons?

And I said, but I like this coffee shop thing. So I ended up leaving Remax going independent with my own brokerage. And similar to you, Lars, I ran it like a team. It didn't run like a brokerage. And everything was good and everybody was happy until we weren't. Until I found myself in my own proverbial shift where my business model was succeeding to the detriment of my own success because agents were coming in and they were leaving. And that's when I eventually said, okay, let me reevaluate.

And when I started to reevaluate, that's what ultimately led me to EXP. with what's being offered right now at EXP to help people through this shift, ask yourself how you're going to compete with that. Maybe what you have is better. That's for you to decide. But what I'm finding right now is that people are asking the questions that they haven't been asking in a long time. Awesome. And I'll share my background a little bit. And then we'll dive into these six categories that you should really be using to evaluate your brokerage or the brokerage you're at.

So I think a lot of times when agents get their license. They just join whatever brokerage either maybe was speaking at their pre-licensing class or the one that they see the most. Or maybe they used an agent from that brokerage to sell their house or buy house before. And they don't really put much thought into it. It's kind of like, you know, if you just joined a brokerage randomly, it's like going into, you know, thick sporting goods or the Nike, you know, shoe store to buy a pair of shoes and you're like a basketball player, but you're just going to buy any pair of shoes there. Like you got to know what game you're playing before you can.

buy that specific pair of shoes. So if you go into your real estate career and you're not partnered with the right brokerage, you're really going to struggle playing that game. Like Lars was at a brokerage where they're selling mostly condos and he's like, I want to sell, you know, single family homes and condos and build this business and not just be so niche. You know, there's these companies that maybe they charge $300 a transaction, but they provide no training, no support. And and you're looking to build a big business and be part of this amazing culture it and grow, well, you're probably going to be limited there. You know, that's for the agents that are just selling a handful of deals a year.

So when I got my real estate license, I was like, you know, I want like lawyers open this up with time, freedom, money, freedom. And the third one, I always throw on top of location freedom. And I was like, I'm joining Keller Williams because I read Millionaire Real Estate agent prior to getting my license. And I was like, there's this, you know, if you guys haven't read it, it's still a great book to read a little outdated for sure, but but still good for the mindset. So I read it, I was like, there's this thing called the seventh level agent where you can actually exit your business and it runs without you and you're still making all this money and you get to go live your dream life.

So that's why I joined Keller Williams because at least I knew the game I was playing. I wanted that freedom. What I discovered pretty quickly at Keller Williams was, man, this idea of residual income in the form of running a team being a seventh level exiting yourself from that team. That's kind of like a unicorn. maybe not a unicorn, maybe more, what would be another really rare animal that actually exists? Because there are some seventh level agents, but they're so rare, you're likely to never see one. Maybe it's like a whale shark or something. I don't know.

My definition of seventh level was, from what I understood, was like being totally gone. You know, like Laura successfully rent his businesses one day a week selling, you know, millions of homes a year. Certainly hundreds and hundreds of homes a year one day a week. Like I think that's like the true dream being fully exited. Like you're just, you know, I mean, John, we're talking about pulling the rip cord and just being gone. You know, no one ever sees you again. That's really the myth.

But I want to have any of these six categories. I want to start with the ones that I think more or less the average producing agent, average to good producing agent would start looking at first, maybe to the newer agent. And then the last pillars or categories that I want to look at are the ones that really the independent brokerages would be looking at. the top producing agents. So I just want to start with culture. I put that down for number one because I think during the uncertain economic times,

this becomes more important than ever. And people are really seeking a culture of winning, a culture of safety, security, stability, more so than they might in a growing market, in a growing economy. When houses are easy to sell, they're just like, I just got to join the brokerage that has some training in the lowest splits because I'm just going to crush it. But now they're like, who am I surrounding myself with? I think that's really important right now.

And what I discovered after joining EXP that the culture was second to none. You know, everyone like Keller Williams, like culture, culture, culture. And I thought by joining the XP, I was actually going to be losing culture, to be honest. But for all the other benefits, I was like, okay, I'm willing to lose that temporarily and help recreate that. And what I discovered, it was like, this is like next level culture because we're so aligned financially. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. But do you guys have anything you want to add to the culture piece of why an agent should be evaluating that when looking at the broker they're currently with? Yeah.

And you know what the funny thing is, you know, as agents are looking at their brokerage now because things are super uncertain, that probably is still the biggest, as an insider, two and a half years in, and comparing it to anything else I had been a part of, it's like 10x culture. And it's still the hardest thing as an outsider. Like, how could you possibly have culture when you guys don't have a physical offer in my market? When I said, but the world that you'll enter into, it's like it's not the 50 agents in your office and you're like the number five agent in your office. Like who's really like what is culture? Is it collaboration? Are they teaching you their best stuff? Is it open book?

Is it, you know, like they really want you to win? They don't really want you to win, right? Because if you're winning in their market, they're losing. And I found every brand that I've been with has sort of had that scarcity mindset when it came to culture, even the company. And I was in the top 100, the best agents with, you know, one of the larger franchises, Keller Williams. And there wasn't really like this like here, here, here, just take it all. Like here's my best stuff, right? It was like it was more, you know, look at what I'm doing.

And it wasn't like, this is really hard, guys, avoid this. Maybe one or two or three of those top team leaders ever shared that any of it was hard and the truth about it. And like, try this instead. So when I think of culture, it's the hardest thing to explain, you know, being in this world and knowing that it's 10x more impactful. Like really, it will change your life sort of collaboration and support and people really caring about you, not just in your little real estate office, but all around the country. You know, you'll get to know folks that are just playing the game of real estate in life at levels that you couldn't really imagine. So I'm interested to see what you guys have to say about even just practically. How do you communicate the culture of EXP and game changers and what we built to someone that thinks culture is like water cooler talk?

you know with the agents not selling any homes yeah I actually like to start out by asking them what it what is it to them like what is what does culture mean to you and what culture do you currently feel like you're getting where you are you know I was explaining I just brought over an independent this morning you know a company of 15 agents and you know we were talking about this culture idea and I said you guys are an independent right so like imagine this imagine it were we're in our market and we have the top 10 agents in our market and we get together and we compare business plans when we open up our laptops

and we share everything. Our listing presentation, our agent agreements, our profit and loss statement. I said, what is the reality of that happening in your current market? The reality is zero. Like that's never going to happen in your market. But at EXP, we have top agents throughout the country and that's exactly what we do. You know, we can get on some of our top agents and team leaders at EXP or selling north of 1,500 homes per year. They'll give you the business plan, the listing presentation, they'll show you their profit and loss, like all of that. Like, that's true collaboration. And I think that's what leads to true culture. Right now, people say culture because it's a buzzword. But I think what people are really looking for is they're looking for safety and

security. And they feel safe and secure in the arms of people that they know and they can see and feel. And, you know, I just tell people like, we're here for you. You know, Lars, I know what you do for your organization, AJ, I know what you've done for us and continue to do for your organization. Like, we're there for you. We've been there before in many cases, so we know how to put our arms around you and help you move forward. So, you know, if you want an office, have an office. If whatever you're doing right now for culture, do that at EXP, but you'll get so many more layers of help and support that you really never experienced anything like it until you're here. Yeah. Culture is an interesting piece that you need to be so purposeful to create a winning fun culture. It just doesn't happen. And, you know, my goal by moderating this call was to try to be as unbiased as possible. And we bring up EXP a lot, obviously, because that's the brokerage we're all with right now. So if you're watching this and you're like, you know, I don't really care about EXP, that's fine. These categories, you should still be evaluating for yourself before the brokerages. But I think EXP did.

such a good job with the culture piece and people like us who have joined the company and took ownership over the company because we truly are agent partners. We have equity in the company and all that. We're like, we're going to be purposeful on this culture piece because we don't have offices. So what does it look like to have this culture that agents would want to be a part of? And it was a purposeful decision that was made and is made every day at EXP by top leaders in the company like us, establishing Game Changers Nation inside of EXP to provide additional support. And there's other groups that have done that. So the culture has just been unbelievable.

So just be thinking, you're like, what culture are you part of? Are you loving it? Or do you feel like you could grow more somewhere else? So that's the culture piece. The next one is training. Training is going to be and is and has always been a key pillar to any successful brokerage. What I personally discovered when I was at Keller Williams is the training, and the training

was good to get me started and I would show up to all the classes they had and it was like eating from a buffet of all these different topics and regeneration strategies and I would try each one and never really go deep on any of them and never really got I guess momentum going because I was always just trying these different things stopping and starting and I think of it like an actual buffet of food you know it's like you go to this buffet and there's all these things available at first I was actually at the buffet at the Ritz Carlton here I lived and like they had King crab legs and like unbelievable things that I like never even like seen like that were made and I tried like I tried to eat as much as I could but I left like unfulfilled in that meal because there was just like too much you know I would have been happy just eating the foods that I really loved and and I feel that way about lead generation you you leave those training classes at your your local brokerage not fulfilled in in your business and oftentimes failing but like I was and then I hired outside coaching and for me that was like going to to the Ruth Chris.

That was like getting exactly what I wanted, exactly what I needed. And my business took off, went from only selling six homes my first year to 36 to my second year, all because of that. So I sure all that to say that no matter what brokerage you're at, I believe you'll get better service, training, support, accountability by hiring an outside coach because they're the experts. They're a coaching company. They're not a brokerage that is trying to coach agents.

So that's been my experience with the training. So if you don't have the money, then of course you got to be looking at what training is my current brokerage providing. And at EXP, I'll just say we have over 60 hours a week of live training talked by some of the biggest coaches, biggest influencers and biggest producers in the nation. So the training is really good. But hiring an outside coach to me is always the best solution. I'll let you go again, Lars, and then John follow up. Yeah, so I certainly agree with that statement, you know, being, being one of those outside coaches.

But I will say this, inside game changers. So I almost sometimes forget to talk about EXP University. When I look back on my journey, a small independent, you know, that I started my career at, there was no training, literally none. You know, I met him as my broker when I was buying investment properties and I spent, you know, he got me. into real estate. So that was the blessing there. Then I went to a remax for three years. I did 100 days to greatness. I'm like, I'm never going to do a pop by.

In a million years, you will never have me pop by your house. Do not worry about it if you're one. So I'm like, okay, that's not great. And I didn't plug into any of their systems for training. And then I bought a rematch just because I was essentially pushed out of that remax because I was building a business too big. And the broker pushed me out, right? So how crazy is that?

And just so I would have to change my yard signs, I went and paid $25,000 for remax brokerage and another $400,000 over five years to not plug into anything. And then KW, I would say certainly they are probably the biggest cheerleaders of training. But it's not stuff that you can, you know, you can tactically grant. and you're still, they still want to sell you into their captive coaching program, right? So that is a massive business, you know, Maps coaching. And they've got great coaches, right? But then when I look at, you know, what we built in Game Changers, this EXP University,

where our top agents have to teach on their best stuff because it's a culture requirement for them to earn a chunk of the icon award, right? So again, our interests are aligned. They're getting a chunk of their $16,000 cap back in the XP. stock to train on their best stuff. Here's my best stuff. I'm good at social media. I'm good at AI.

I'm good at here's my listing presentation. So that's really cool. And then in Game Changers, we every Tuesday, we do a training specific on a topic. So it's a little bit like a buffet, you know, spread. So you need to pick and choose what you're going to do. But we had a guy come on, took 21 listings in 74 days, over a thousand listings in 10 years, solo agent work less than 30 hours a week. We had someone come on who took,

just recently took 30 day, 30 listings in 90 days, are you doing Facebook lives? We had a guy today just teach us how to do like three AI tools that will help you grow your real estate business. We just every, it's just more and more of the best people giving away their best stuff. So yes, for sure, I think everyone needs a coach if you wanna develop in that area.

But at the same time, there's good, stuff. Like someone in my organization, one of my direct partners trained us on open houses. We had like dozen people say that's the best open house training I've ever seen. She turns a single open house into three commission checks like clockwork. And it's just like, you know, and I was an open house, you know, guru, but we have people that know the thing that you can use in your business. So anyway, a little bit of a commercial for what we're doing, but training is really, really important.

Yeah, I mean, EXP has the largest training buffet I've ever seen, right? And then I think what we do in Game Changers is we curate that with people that we know are excelling in their business and offer a great training product to our people that's more focused on, you know, somebody who's actually doing the thing that they're training on in our group that we know. We know them personally. I think brokers in general right now are struggling with the training piece because they feel the heaviness on their shoulders of like, what am I going to talk about this week? And they think that because the market's down and their agents are being less effective or productive, that they're going to train their way out of it. I actually don't agree with that.

I think there's so much training out there and there's so many great trainings at a lot of brokerages. But it's not the training. It's the focus and it's the accountability that's going to get them beyond where they are right now. And once we have the focus and the accountability, then we can hope. going in on the training that we need to meet those needs of the direction that we're going. So like if I walk into a college university, they got a ton of great courses and classes.

But if I just start taking a class here and a class there and a class here and a class there, what am I going to come out with? Am I going to get a degree? Probably not. I'm just going to get a lot of great classes. And I think we approach real estate the same way as like, hey, let's let's be a mentor to these people and let's focus on what is AJ trying to accomplish? Where is he at in his career right now?

What's going to be the best moves for him to make? And that's where this thing with EXP comes full circle because we are mentors and guides to these people that we shepherd and we get to work with and we get to lock arms and collaborate with. And we offer a foundation and infrastructure that has so much. Whereas like maybe you're out of brokerage right now. Maybe you are the broker. And you're a one person point of contact for all of your agents.

and your agents have one person point of contract, and you're trying to help all of those people who are in different areas of their business get to their next step, their next level. And it can be overwhelming and daunting in a market like this where everything feels like the brakes were put on. But at EXP, we're able to offer these classes like we do in Game Changers.

We're able to give people direction, and then we're able to come beside them like a broker would, but they're not paying us a broker split. and we're able to be their mentor and help them to get to their next level. And that's what I find to be the most fulfilling and rewarding thing about this whole experience is our hands aren't tied anymore.

Yeah, you know that it's like training in this day and age with YouTube and podcasts, it really, to a large extent, has become a commodity. And there's so much of it. And what you need is a strong, competent mentor that can help you navigate the force. So you can actually get down.

to what your goals are. And that's what's cool about EXP2 because you actually have a sponsor in the company and a mentor if you're a newer agent that can help you do that. I think that's crucial. So tech. So again, I feel the same way about tech as I do training to a large extent. The tech that your broker is going to provide you, especially if they developed it, I won't mention any companies who recently developed their own tech, but to a large extent, they have been complete failures. So I always use the CRM systems that the tech outside. side of the brokerage what they were offering and you know their tech companies they're there's CRM companies they're not a brokerage trying to be a tech company so I always approach

it that way I'll give a quick one in this so I was in the room when one of those companies launched tech that they're not tech companies it's just it's a legacy you know broker trying to put something in place to make you more sticky to the company and there's the the the the latest version of this is another company where the sexiest tech ever, but it's less than a 5% adoption rate in the company. So having like in the different verticals of technology, transaction processing, communicating within the brokerage, your CRM, just make sure to me, make sure you're on third party tech that is the best in those in the technology that you need. And at our brokerage, it's $85 a month for all of the technology, all of the training. And so, yeah, really quick conversation on tech. But you don't want to put your business in your brokerage tech.

I think it's just a bad idea. I've always coached that way for 10 years, real estate B school. It's just a really bad idea. I would just say that tech is a tool, learn how to swing the hammer and move on. Like we spend way too much time talking about tech because we're always being sold tech and too little time talking about taking action. So like find the tech you're going to use. I don't care which one it is as long as it's decent and move on and focus on the actions that are going to lead to the results. Yeah.

And if your email is currently your name at kdw.com at remax.com, change that immediately. If you ever leave, you definitely need your own email where your clients are emailing you. A quick tip there. I literally, I literally have someone right now in that situation that she's like, I can't leave because my email is my company's email. It sounds like 50 homes a year. Yeah. I use my company. email is like my email that I give out when I want like a free newsletter or something that

they might sell my email to somebody else type of deal so it's like if that goes the way I'm okay like I got AJ oh I'm not going to say my email I don't want but people are probably going to figure it out now but that's all right the next one we're going to go to uh to splits so splits are certainly important one of the things that that I learned and really helped me as I was building my traditional real estate team when I was still at color Williams and then at EXP was just this concept that Lars taught me through real estate B school of value-based commission splits. I think a lot of agents have this concept of, man, you know, I want to pay as little as possible. Like that's, that's all they can see is I just need to pay as little as possible, but they're not getting any value.

It's like you need sometimes to pay a little bit more than the values even outsized to what you're paying. So splits always be thinking value-based, like is what I'm paying getting me the value that I that I need or expect in return. So my first broker, my first 10 months, that that ended quickly because I sold 27 homes in 10 months. I don't think maybe one or two deals, you know, came from my broker and I was on like a 60-40 split. I'm like, I don't know how this can continue, right? Because I'm taking all the expenses. And I did 250 top line and he got like 100 grand or something. And I'm like, I don't I don't think we can we can keep doing this. just make sure the brokerage you're at.

I mean, just know your numbers. We talk to agents all the time. We're like, would it be helpful to just do a side-by-side comparison of the platform you're on now and how much it costs you to run your business on that platform versus what it would look like at EXP? And we've had agents, you know, top agents selling 50, 60 homes that would save like $12,000 to $15,000 a month. Oh, wow. Like coming over. And they're still worried about, well, this brokerages mean, the name means something.

I'm like, oh my gosh, what are we talking about? $12,000 a month. So, yeah, so just make sure to AJ's point that what you're investing, you're getting, you know, a multiple of value out of it. I think agents are seeking security. So I think it's a less, less about the split conversation. But you have to make that evaluation of like, this is what it's costing me to be where I am. What would it cost me to be at EXP, 16,000? dollar year cap and what could I do with the difference what I can do with the difference is where your

opportunity is because that's where you can generate a return and you know in my case I was an independent so I wasn't paying anybody anything and I moved my whole independent over to expe so now I go from paying nothing to paying something now why would I do that that doesn't seem financially smart well when you understand what the return on investment can be with all the additional pillars of income it was a no-brainer for me real quick make sure you're on a cap right and and it's a value-based deal point. But John and I brought over, it was a 70, not all the agents came, but it was a 70 agent. I won't name the brokerage, but they were a transaction fee model. And they were trained by that owner to hate the CAP model. The CAP model is a way that you'd pay in more money. Sixty-nine of the 70 agents would pay less into the EXP model versus where they

they were at. And if you were to ask all of them, just based on like, tell them what the two, 70 out of 70 would have said they would have paid more at EXP versus where they were at. So wherever you're at, this conversation is still appropriate. The fifth category is going to be equity in your company. Like are you gaining equity in your company? Are you becoming a partner in the company for helping build a company? And this goes back to our split at EXP. We do have a cap. So the most you can pay is, $16,000 in splits to EXP. And if you're a top producing agent, you actually get your entire cap back in stock,

which is unbelievable. I was actually able to sell the stock that I got my first year as an icon agent with EXP. Sold it three years later. It was valued then about $200,000. So the stock went up really, really good. And I purchased my mom a house for cash. So that's like a really big deal getting equity in your company. It's life changing really versus I used to.

love it at Keller Williams. I'd get a, I'd get a just a piece of paper, like a flimsy piece of paper, not laminated like this. This is nice, but a flimsy piece of paper, no frame. And I had a black cap, you know, a cap, a black ball cap, and said caper across with my name on it. Like, that was like what I'd get. I was like, you know, that's not very good. Like, if you're a top producer in your company for helping it grow, you should be getting equity so that you have an exit strategy. Yeah, this is really easy. Either you do or you don't. Yeah. That's the whole conversation, you know, and folks will pick on this and not just specific to our brokerage, but folks that don't have this will pick on this and say, well, how's the stock doing now? It's like, what are you getting? Like, you're getting nothing. So like, what are we what are we talking about? So either you have this or you don't. And if you don't have it, you cannot pick on a company that offers it. Yeah, for me, 30 seconds on this was, you know, when I came over to EXP and I was a evaluating whether or not this move was for me. I actually looked at the stock and I looked back five years and I said, well, over the past five years, I would have hit the icon agent status every single year. They would have given me $16,000 of stock each and every year. And I looked at that stock, what it would have, you know, traded for then $16,000 worth and what it would have been worth today. And it was over a million dollars. And I said, by me being an independent, quote unquote, not paying anybody, I left a million dollars on the table over the last five years. And

And that was a big decision for me moving forward. Yeah. And now you can also, uh, you also get a dividend as a shareholder with the XP stock, which is pretty cool. Now the last one, and I, I think this is the most important when it becomes, when it comes to an exit strategy or retirement plan, financial independence, retiring early, whatever your goals are around money. And that is cash flow.

That is residual income. That's what you can live on on a monthly basis to, you know, achieve your dream. lifestyle regardless of your age. And at EXP, we have revenue share. So the sixth category is, does your brokerage have a way for you to create a significant or, or any income stream residually? You know, so this is multiple streams of income. And, you know, when I first joined EXP, I was at Keller Williams, they have profit share. What I discovered is I worked it for a few years and got up to a few hundred dollars a month. And I realized that was not going to help me achieve my financial goals.

I was like, yeah, 300 bucks a month. That's a couple nice dinners out, but it's not going to change my life. So when I saw the EXP Revenue Share model, I was like, okay, this is an opportunity to drastically change my life if this works out. And I've been here seven years now. We've proven the model. So it does work. I was just kind of taking a risk back then, but it worked out. So my goal was like, if I can just make $25,000 a month, like, you know, just $25,000.

$25,000 a month residual. It's a lot of money for some people. It still is a lot of money to me. I make much more than that now, but it's a lot of money. So $25,000 a month residual within five years after joining EXP, I would have been, gosh, I would have been about 35 when that five-year plan came to fruition, that I was going to be completely financially free. Like dream financial freedom number. This was aspirational lifestyle. And I was going to just go live life of my dreams on revenue share. And it happened in just 8.000. months after joining expe, which is really awesome. So for me, it was about financial independence and being able to do what I want at a young age. Yeah, no, it's, it's totally incredible. I mean, it's changed my life too. I look at the 20 years I put into real estate before EXP, a lot of hard work, a lot of success, but nowhere near where I got to in a short period of time with EXP. What I love about this is that, you know, people helped you do that, AJ. Like you came into this model, you took a risk. 18 months later, you hit your five-year goal of making 25,000 a month and you've never made less since then. What's cool about that, though,

is when you introduced the company to me and brought me in, you were able to show me the shortcut to that success and the company was growing faster. So what took you 18 months to do, you helped me do in eight months. So, you know, I hit 25,000 in my eight month with EXP. And the cool thing is, is the company's growing even faster and we're bringing people in and helping them experience that kind of growth. So it's super cool, man. Like I'm excited. I'm grateful. You know, you can make a lot of money in real estate. But if all of your money is transactional, you have to hit the reset button after every transaction and after every year.

Yeah. So this was the part of the model that that had me the most excited. But only when I looked at it, there was something, AJ, that you showed me. It was essentially like how much, and this is how I was running. my real estate business was to throw off cash to, you know, get this pile of money that threw off, you know, whatever. Invested in it would throw off dividends, you know, so I could low off the cash flow. But it takes a lot of money. Like $25,000 is $300,000 a year.

It's like $6, $7 million in the bank or whatever investment vehicle you have it in, right? I was talking to a guy in our organization. He has $2 million invested in, similar to you, A.J. some of those syndicate deals that throws off about 10,000 a month. And I'm like, two million that throws off 10,000 a month, you know, in the agent helping agents game. So I have a different sort of entry point into this. But when I realized that I hadn't done a good job of like I have, I've accumulated, you know, and I've made a lot of money in the different businesses, but I didn't have like any sort of like massively leveraged income stream or residual income. You know, and you bring

over one agent to EXP, it's the equivalent. It's actually 10 times better than acquiring a rental property. Like in our market, you'd be lucky to get a rental property for $200,000 that throws off $200 a month. And you need $40,000 cash to buy it. Yeah. You need $40,000 cash to buy that one rental property. It throws off $200 a month. You pay $85 a month into our model. You bring one agent over that caps and that's about $250 a month. They bring over a couple agents and all of a sudden, you know, you're at $6, $800 a month, which doesn't sound like a lot of money, but that's the equivalent of owning three rental properties that you have to save six figures to acquire those properties. So when you really wrap your head around that, you know, you can look at this platform

differently. And there are too many examples at this point. I've heard what, 100 plus examples of like, who's that person that brought a thousand, you know, into there. And nobody brings in a thousand agents. That's the cool thing. You can look at that person and say, well, you know, I can't bring in a thousand agents, but nobody brought in a thousand agents. They brought in 15 or 20 agents that went out and had friends who had friends who had friends. And that's the thing that you can't really understand anyone can come in. When you have your head around those numbers, you've got to figure it out anyway. So is the program? that you're in, are they helping you figure out how to generate cash flow outside of real estate sales?