KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Real Estate Mastery With Kevin Kauffman

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Hey guys, it's Michael Valdez. How are you? Coming back to another episode of Real Estate Mastery podcast. And today's guest, oh my God, it's actually such an incredible human being. He is one of the top team leaders in the country. Mr. Kevin Kaufman joining me today. Kevin, how are you, my brother? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me here. Oh, my God. Well, first of all, I love your heart. I know that I thanked you already, but I'm going to thank you publicly. This man, actually, I saw him last year at EXPCon and I said to him, oh, my God, those sneakers are the best thing I've ever seen. And he sort of says to me, what size are you? And the next day, they were in my mailbox. And I was just rocking them at a meeting we had in Dallas. I got to tell you, I had so many compliments. So thank you for your kindness and your heart and who you are, my brother. Oh, man, my pleasure. I love that.

Like when you came up, first of all, those shoes are just so unique. And the fact that you liked them, I'm like, listen, here's what I recognize. I wear a black t-shirt and jeans every day. The one thing I have going is shoes. And I only wear those because I have to. What I'm trying to say is I'm not the most fashionable guy, but I recognize when someone is. And when you're like, those are cool shoes, I was like, holy, you know, like Michael said these are cool. They're actually cool.

I got to go with this. So I love that, man. I love it. That was awesome. And we're going to, look, we're going to break down everything that we were going to do today. I was giving you a whole list of questions, but our world changed on Friday. So we're going to have a conversation on NAR, what that means, the settlement, what it means for our industry. You know, we had everyone is talking about this.

There's so much confusion out there. Just yesterday we had one of our dearest friends, Leo Pereja, on a call with Holly Mayberry that had 50,000 people on a YouTube live. you guys were a part of another call with you, Kevin and Leo, that had about 6,000 people on it. So people are starving for this information. But before we jump in, I want people to know a little bit about you, your real estate background, how you got into this industry, because the conversation we're going to have,

I want them to know is from someone who has been here, understands this industry, has a lens, like very few people do, and then let's break into our conversation. So tell me how you got started in this business. You know, I love, I love anytime somebody asked me this question, for most people, this can be boring, but I, this always reminds me of my first mentor, Professor Goodner. So I had a teacher. I was going to, I was going back to school. Like I started, I tried college right out of high school. It didn't work out for me. And so later on as an adult learner, I was going back to school because I realized, like the corporate thing wasn't going to work for me.

And I needed to work for myself. And I just had a mentor that kind of got in my way when it came and taught me about real estate and he taught me about money. And he sent me on this journey. Now, it's not like he was a real estate agent. He was actually a real estate investor. I had no intentions of becoming a real estate agent. But I wanted to be a real estate investor. And he taught me right away, one of the very first things he said to me at the very first coffee,

breakfast we went to. He said, listen, if you're going to be an investor, it's not like you're going to quit your job tomorrow. Like, you're working for at least five more years. And that's if you do everything right. So my completely not knowing anything about anything was like, I guess I'll get a job in real estate. And that's literally why I got a real estate license. Because I just thought, if I got to work, I should probably work in the field that I kind of want to be in anyways. And so that's what sent me on the path to getting a real estate license and ultimately started a real business. And so, okay, now fast track. So you and your partner, Fred, run one of the top teams, literally in the country, but certainly in your state. And you run in actually a few states.

So tell me where you are now. Give me a little bit about that background, what you've built really quickly, and then we'll jump into our conversation. Yeah. You know, today it looks like the vast majority of our production is here in the greater Phoenix area, though we still have a couple agents in Denver where we've been selling real estate since 2014. Oh my gosh. That's almost 10 years ago now. Later this will be 10 years that we've been selling real estate in multiple markets. And like any other business that's been around for, see, Fred and I've been working together for 16 years now. The reality is there's been lots of changes. What it looks like today is most of our agents and production is done here in the Tempe area,

or I should say in the greater Phoenix area. I'm actually, sitting in Tempe right now. But we still have some of our expansion agents there and Nashville and then Phoenix here. And it's taken on a lot of iterations. We've had to go through a lot of changes like everything else in business, anything that survived this long. Like you're going to have to adapt and change. And we've certainly done that with our sales business over the years. You know, I love the idea of adaptability and change. Right. So this is my 20th year in the real estate business and when you start thinking about the last two decades of where there has been change in our industry and where there has been opportunity because that's really where I want

to focus this conversation because a lot of people are like my god the sky is falling so for those of you that have been living under a rock on Friday, NARA has decided to settle their commission, buyer commission lawsuit and it was a big number and people are like, what does this mean? What does this mean. And so right now, the idea that there will not be a buyer's compensation as a co-compensation on MLS transactions in that little box does not mean that buyers commissions are going away. So tell me what your viewpoint is on this, because I know that you were on a Zoom yesterday, but there was about six or seven of you. So it was limited time. So tell me. Tell me. me what your thoughts are on this? You know, here's my thoughts. First of all, there's more questions

than there are answers today. 100%. Like everyone, like the response that people are having right now, to me it's kind of funny because it makes a lot of assumptions. And the reality is we actually have more questions today than we did on Friday or Thursday. And so my hot take, though, is like, good. I actually think things just got better. And the reason I say that is because this is going to force the industry to be more professional. Something I'm very fortunate.

I had somebody who was like the office manager for the brokerage I was at early on when Fred and I had only been in business together for about a year, year and a half, she came to us and she said, I want to talk to you guys about this thing called the buyer broker. I think you should be using it. I was like, what are you talking about? So she told us about it, why we should use it, and we implemented it in 2009. And I've been teaching every agent that's joined my team for, which is 100 plus agents now over that time frame,

like that is the very first thing I've taught any agents that ever joined my team. Because I believe in consulting, not presenting. I believe in giving a clear picture and providing your unique selling proposition to, your clients prior to ever opening a door for them. And so that's been my, so like in a way, that's just how I was raised in the industry, right, is we start with by consulting with people. And so because of that, I'm just like, cool, now the rest of the industry is going to be forced to do that. And here's what I saw. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of people with these knee-jerk reactions. A lot of people were sad. They took Friday's news as bad.

bad news, which tells me we're going to see contraction in our industry. And I think that's bad. Listen, I know we are an agent count industry, meaning the more of us, kind of that everything rises together. And sometimes you've got to, you've got to clear things out. And what happens? The cream always rises to the top. I actually believe there's going to be a bigger opportunity for real estate agents going forward than there was prior to this ruling or excuse me, prior to this settlement. And again, that's just if things get laid out the way things got to be approved. There's a lot more questions that have to be answered. Now, you just said something that's interesting. For the last 15 years, you've been using a buyer agreement already, 15 years. So this is your daily.

This is business as usual, right? And so the other thing that you just talked about was really seeing this business as a consultant to your client. And that is what is a differentiator in why you and Fred have been so successful with the team that you've built, the 100 agents that you've brought into your organization, the idea that you deal with this in a way that you're dealing with your clients like that day in and day out. Now, remember, two, three, four years ago, when somebody listed something at breakfast and by lunchtime, they had seven offers. That was not a real, real economy for us or a real market.

And it was actually irresponsible for these kids that were in the market, watching reality shows thinking they were going to become millionaires. And unfortunately, some of them did because it was the worst thing that could have happened. And so they weren't consulting their clients. So tell me about that. Tell me the, let's talk about something that I think we, said over and over in the last 48 hours is value. Talk to me about the value that you bring to your client if they're a buyer, for example. Yeah, you know, I think that first of all,

it's going to be different for all of us. Yeah. You know, the word value is a word that is very, very, you know, it's subjective. Like, it's what, what is value to you and what is value to me can be very different things. I mean, unless we're talking about shoes. So like what when it comes to value, it's going to be different. And so at the end of the day, just because one consumer sees something as value doesn't mean all my other clients are going to see something as value. I think as an industry, though, we've looked at our value as access to getting physically inside the home. It's like the key, that magic key. Prior to that, it was the data. It was the ability to see those online. That went away. the key thing is the key really hasn't gone away but it's also it has that's been democratized as well

though because you don't have to have agents presence for showing there's things like showing agents so i think what i go well what can i control what can what can a tech company or anybody else kind of not take away for me they can't take away my my ability to build a relationship with somebody they can't take away my ability to help give them sound financial and real estate state advice and or my reading, my interpretation of what's going on with the market, they can't take away my ability to go out and find opportunities that are not currently available in a data feed, i.e. off market properties or whatever the thing is, right? Or my ability to understand maybe a special need that they might have in their next home. And

sometimes you just got to sit belly to belly with people to figure out what's important to them and what's value to them. I've got this client. Now, we've done four transactions with him since 2012. I met him in 2008, but we've done the four transactions since 2012. And the very first thing that I knew about him, and this remained true for all four transactions, is he wanted to be in Gilbert, Arizona because of the school district because of the because of the special services the schools in Gilbert, Arizona provide to students like his at the time young child. I knew that about him. Yep. And so you don't know that about somebody. That doesn't show up in a data feed. So what, what can I bring to the relationship that doesn't show up in a data feed? To me, that is how you build

value with a prospect or with a client? You know, that's all about expertise, right? And it's expertise within a marketplace. When I ran my team, when I was selling in Miami, and it was the idea that my team had to target different areas throughout Miami. And if somebody on the team wanted to take lead in that area, they had to do a presentation to the rest of the team members. And if anyone of that team members had a question they couldn't answer, I would

wouldn't give them that farm area because they had to be the expert and provide the value to everyone else. So they needed to know what every house was, what the value was, why the value was there, the idea of the school system, exactly what you talked about, where the ranking was in the school on a national level, why it was important to that consumer. You're not selling real estate. You're selling a lifestyle. And if someone is coming in, tell me what that feels like. for me and my family that's going to to inhabit these four walls. What does that mean to my family? That is the more that you brought value to them.

I had a client that wanted to, they bought in one of the most exclusive areas in Miami called Fisher Island. And there was a school there and the buyer was foreign and wanted his child to get into the school. And because I had a relationship that I had sold other homes there. I knew the dean of the school. I actually got their child accepted before he actually moved into his home. So that's something you can't do in and out of the MLS. Because I provided so much value, I became invaluable to him at which point I was priceless.

Right. So there wasn't ever a question of price. It's the value that you bring on an expertise level. Yeah. You know, I love that. You listened to what a need was. So a lot of agents, so especially if I'm talking about recruiting, but this is also the truth in with buyers and sellers as consumers.

And it turns out all human beings, if you will listen to somebody, they will tell you what they need. And then all you have to do is be a resource for providing something to them that they've already told you that they want or need. It's not hard. You talked about the shoe thing. You brought that up at the beginning.

Like the reality is in that moment, that was value to you. Could anybody have done it? Yes, but nobody else heard the conversation you and I had. Even though we were in a room of like 50 people, nobody else heard you say that to me. And in that moment, I'm always looking at I, listen, it's easy for me. I feel like I get more credit than I should because that sort of comes to. naturally to me. However, if you're not that type of person, you can train yourself to look for those opportunities because they are in every conversation if you will look for them. So when you

talk about how to create value for buyers, for sellers, for your peers, just listen. And it's that easy. I mean, that moment deepened our friendship. And that was, you know, it was like, oh my God, I didn't expect it, right? When you hand somebody value they don't expect, you deepen a relationship to a level you didn't even think existed. Yeah, it's true. And we've got to take that approach with our clients. Yes.

And approach with our agents. We have to take that approach with really everybody in our life who is a part of something we're doing that we want to grow. want to bring more value to our community, that's where we start. If we want to bring, if we want to grow our real estate sales, we got to deepen our relationships. You know, I was thinking about some of the bigger mistakes I've ever made in my business. One of them was like, we went wide. We went really wide for a while in our business and we should have been going deeper. Yeah. And that's a big mistake that I think a lot of, uh, kind of entrepreneurs make.

regardless of industry is they want to go wide and set of deep. And the real, the gold, if you will, it's in going deep. And that includes people. That includes relationships. You know, I love that. There's something as I was doing a little bit more research for us on this conversation. Something that I thought was really beautiful was one of the mantras that you had for your team, where you say you begin with the end in mind. And when that is such a powerful statement, tell me what that means in relation to that. Because I think it just, just falls perfectly with the conversation we're having. You know, here's how that came to be.

Fred and I needed a real estate team name because neither one of us were willing to put our names and phone numbers on the sign. True story. So we needed a team name. And what came to me was a friend of ours had a real estate training company, like an investment training company. And he had this sign up that said, begin with the end in mind. And he had attributed that to Isaiah 4610. And I won't go into why,

but it was a lesson he got from Stephen Covey. It's one of the seven habits of highly effective people, beginning with the end in mind. Well, Fred and I got started together in business in February of 2008. I don't know what the market was like for you in Miami, but in Arizona, the prices were literally dropping. All we did were short sales. And the thing about a short sale was, whatever I did today, from the day I consulted with the seller all the way up to the way I presented paperwork to the bank in my negotiations, the way I presented paperwork differently to the two banks in my negotiation. I was always having to think with the end in mind. So for us, that one jumped off the page at us when I was like, what about Group 4610?

Because think with the end in mind is the thing that makes the most sense for us as agents out there doing short sales every day. And then we realize it actually kind of applies everywhere. You know, it's so funny. You said that you didn't know what the market was for Miami. Actually, Miami and Las Vegas had the worst markets with in 2008 at the worst part of the market. 2008, 2009 was my best year in real estate. And something that you actually said at the beginning of this is the idea of being agile.

So in that period of time is when they came up with something called, vulture funds. You remember vulture funds? Yeah. So vulture funds were private equity funds that were targeting all of the homes that you were selling at short sales and all of those developers that could not finish their project and buying all of these properties on bulk at half price and getting them all rented. So I had the first fund manager and my background was banking. I was in banking for 10 years. And I had the first fund manager that called me up and wanted to actually look at a home for him and his wife as a personal investment. And I showed them the house, it was actually a penthouse apartment in one of the buildings. And I said, it's too high in this current market.

We went to lunch. And he said to me, you're talking yourself out of a six-figure commission. I said, I don't think it's right for you. And so he says, why would you do that in the environment? that we're in. And I said, because I don't think it's right for you. And then he said to me, he revealed that he was actually one of the larger Vulture Fund, private equity funds. And he hired me on the spot on retainer to give everything that he wanted through his parameters and start writing contracts. It actually saw that. And I actually did two other deals with other hedge fund managers

that were doing the same thing for everything he rejected to then go to them for consideration. So I had the best year ever in real estate. It was only because, to your point, I listened and I was agile. It was the end in mind. It's amazing what happens when you operate that way. We get so focused. And listen, we're human beings. I think it's kind of like baked into our software and our system is to like we think

about ourselves. So we have to like take the time to go, hold on. I get like slow myself down. Let me think about somebody else. Let me think about this other person. And what's funny is because it could seem selfish, but the reality is slowing yourself down to think about other people will do nothing but help your personal results because you're helping other people. I just love the way that that works. It's so true. Now tell me, you know, as we're continuing to talk about the the settlement and what's happening in our industry, you know, there were about five different companies that broke down what the NAR settlement meant yesterday.

And we had 50,000 people on our conversation. And so what it said was that people were starving for knowledge. Now, when you start looking at this, tell me the advantage of, you know, an EXP in this space. as being the largest independent. Tell me what advantage there is for someone when you start looking at the chaos that's happening and the misinformation, as you were saying earlier,

why is EXP important in this conversation? Well, I mean, first of all, hat tip to Leo and Holly, two people who I happen to adore and love for just being out in front and going, hey, here's what we know so far. Here's what we think.

Here's the bigger questions. So for one, just being at a company with leadership like that, because here's the deal. There's a lot more companies where their leadership didn't go out and lead yesterday. Like they probably shouldn't. And so it just shows the type of people that we have. And I want to always be in business with people like that,

with people like Holly and Leo and, quite frankly, the rest of our team. And so there's that part. But then I also look at Leo and I were on a Zoom with Kyle and Dan and Kendall and Veronica and Tina right after and Dylan. And what I saw in the comments I got afterward were thank you so much for letting me hear this from an agent's perspective. So when you have a company like ours that is literally set up,

So our interests are aligned as agents, as real estate professionals. It's not just like this isn't all on you as the leader of our company. It's not all on Glenn or Leo or Holly. Like the agents are going, no, no, no, no. Let me shoulder this load with you. Let me help lead. And to me, that's the biggest advantage that we have. Leo says this all the time.

Anybody could copy our model. You can never copy our people. They have the best people. and when you have the best people and you align their interests like is baked into our cake into our system, what happens is you get the best results. That's why we have the best results. It's why we sell more real estate than anybody. It's why they're top producers.

It's why Dan, Kyle and I were texting each other all weekend going, hey, let's get prepped for this Zoom on Monday or this stream on Monday because we got to bring it for the other agents. like at the end of the day we're we're shareholders in this company and all we want is for this company to grow and for the agents that are part of this company to grow and when you have agents going let me go side by side with my leadership team and so this isn't all on you guys like it's just a magical combination and what happens is for us you know I'll go put my agent hat back on for us on the ground floor selling real estate and there's nothing better than knowing this guy's got my back. I can pick up the phone and I can call, I can call Dan right now. I can pick up the phone and I could call Veronica right now and say, I need help and they're going to

help me. And that has more value than any amount of company dollar will ever cost. That's such a beautiful statement. And, you know, I got to tell you the idea of what you just said and the power of what you just said, the idea that you're a, the agent leadership, those six of you that were on that call the other day yesterday, that you came together to help other agents as well, and you had about five or six thousand people on your call. And that was powerful because that was the best minds across the country coming together and saying,

we're the company that puts, not just that sells the most homes, we see it in a different way that puts the most amount of families in their homes. And when you start dealing with somebody's family, that's when it really gets real. And when you start looking at this, you know, Glenn, Leo, Holly, myself, we were all agents, too. So we see it from your perspective. Every decision we make, we make with an agent in mind, what are they going through? What's Kevin going through?

What's Dan going through? What's Veronica going through? What's Tina going through? In that day, because you're the ones in the front line doing that every single day. putting families in their homes. That's the important part of it. Yeah, it really is. It is.

What's the best advice Kevin Kaufman was ever given? The best advice, ooh. Get a job or keep your job. Keep your job. You're not going to become a real estate investor overnight. That one, you know, at the end of the day, that one might have turned out to be the best piece of advice. you know, I've been lucky, Michael.

Here's the deal. And sorry if this steals any thunder about if you ask why I chose EXP, but at the end of the day, I've spent my entire real estate career, which in the end of May will be 17 years. Yep. Trying to get in rooms and getting myself in rooms with other people. It's how I know Leo, right?

It's how we became buddies, trying to learn from the best of the best, not just in our industry, but outside of it. And so I think of the fact that I'm always, I'm always on the go trying to learn, trying to collaborate, mastermind, whatever word you want to use, I want to learn. Because I'm going to number one, I'm going to go apply it to my business and I'm going to share it with somebody else. And I'm going to help them apply it to their business. And so I'm not sure if that's the best advice. I've ever gotten was necessarily like, hey, go learn from others. But it was to just always be

learning, just be learning based. Because at the end of the day, that's the thing that's paid off the most. I mean, that's why I'm an EXP is because it is baked into our cake, which is the ability to help others and learn from others. Like, that's the thing that's most important to me. I love that one. All right, based on being learning based, what's on Kevin Kaufman's nightstand or audible right now. What's the best book right now for you? So right now I'm reading the Daily Dad by Ryan Holiday. And so that's just a little short one page every day, which I love because I've got two, I've got two young girls and I love being their dad. So I'm reading that every day. And truthfully, like no joke, I should have taken a picture of this. It's a met. My nightstand right

now has, I think, 12 different books on it because I'm trying to learn. No, it does because I just bought these all in the last week. So I'm trying to learn to become a better storyteller and presenter. And so I quite literally have 10 books next to my my bookstand or next to my nightstand right now or on my nightstand that I've been going through every single one of them. Some of them I'm also listening to the audio when I go out and go for my rucks in the morning. But right now they're about 10 different books on the subject of telling stories. stories or being a better presenter, fill in the blank, some other version of that. You know, I actually love that about you because it actually reveals how dedicated your

to what you were just saying of helping others, because you're looking at other methodology to get the point of what you want to bring to somebody and value in a more efficient way. I, gosh, I had that conversation with my coach yesterday. She said, tell me more. She said, what's going on? And I said something like, trying to learn how to be a better storyteller. She's like, okay, I hear those words a lot. What does that mean?

So I told her, I'm trying to be more effective and efficient in delivering messages and teaching to the people on my real estate sales team. I mean, my family, my organization within EXP, if I'm on a stage, if I'm any sort of presentation period, like that's, this is something I'm trying to get better at. And yeah, it's just, it's important to me. I want to be more effective and efficient at it. I love that. All right, I have one final question for you.

So in your book of life, now that we keep that theme going, so in your book of life, what is this chapter called and why? What is this chapter called? You know, this chapter, this is an interesting chapter, first of all. maybe it'd be called the ups and downs because in a lot of ways things have never been better and in a lot of ways things have never been as challenging won't get into it too much business is amazing business is amazing for the most part personal life is amazing I've had a few challenges that have got my doctors you know scratching their heads and so it's kind of man it's

like the it's that balance of life of like not everything is all good and not everything is all bad ever and it just it never is there's always maybe the chapter is called this two shall pass you know now that because i couldn't i can't complain about anything um and i know there's i could come up with a few things i'd like i'd like for to be better but um yeah i think i might have just come up with two or three chapters there Well, we keep writing our book of life every single day, and that's the beauty of it. All right, let's close it up and bring it back. So as we're talking about the people who are, as we started this interview,

crazy about everything that's going on, the noise that's going on right now, give everyone one piece of advice on everything that's going on right now. We broke down some of it. We talked about value. We talked about going back to the basics. What's that one piece of advice you want to leave people with? Just keep your head off. on straight, stay focused.

I'll go back to something I said earlier. We actually have more questions than we have answers today. Nothing is final. Don't make any assumptions. Look for leadership and get around people. If you're not around people that are leading, go get around people that are leading. I love that. Like you, my friend, Kevin Kaufman, thank you so much, my brother.

Thank you for your words. Thank you for the time today. Thank you for my shoes. And thank you for being you, man. I really, really care a lot about who you are, your voice, and what you do to change people's lives. So thanks for the time today, my brother. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Thank you.