KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Ricky Carruth

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

You're listening to Expansion, the podcast for EXP agents. Expand your skills, expand your value. Here's your host, Glenn Sanford. Hey, everyone, Glenn Sanford here. Welcome to Expansion, a podcast on personal professional development here at EXP Realty. And today I'm super excited to be talking to Ricky Carruth, a two-time icon agent from Gulf Shores, Alabama. Welcome, Ricky. Hey, Glenn, how you doing, big guy?

Good, good, good. Yeah, well, normally, you know, when hurricanes come through, it kind of hits you guys, but this time it took a turn through Florida. But how are you guys, how's the world down there? How's your guys' weather, anything crazy? Really good, man. Yeah, that's, that storm could have hit us just as easy. I saw it coming up and I thought that could very easily. hit us and it's going to be a bad one. So we get hit by a big storm like that, maybe once every eight to 10 years. I know exactly what they're going through down there. And I just feel so bad about what's going on. As far as our area, we had about 20 mile an hour winds. We were, the sun was out and we didn't get any rain. So we really dodged a bullet there. But no, everything is good in our world and, you know, lovely. So.

Awesome. Great, great to hear. And obviously we're doing some stuff with extend a hand to really add a lot of focus to help our agents out in Florida that got hit. But onto the podcast here, you've been in the business 20 years. You and I, I think, first met, if I'm not mistaken, it was at the NASDAQ event in New York. Probably what, three or so years ago, maybe 2019. Is that sound about right? 2020, 2020. 2020, okay. Yeah, so it was January then 2020. Yep, yep. Okay. Yeah, so, and then you made the move over shortly after that, but you've got a very unique style of, one, how you build your business, but then you've also build a, you've got a unique coaching business that helps agents succeed.

So, you know, I'm curious, what did you do before? real estate. Yeah, that is a good question. So I grew up roofing houses. My dad was a roofer. He owned a roofing business and Carruth roofing actually. And he owned that business for maybe 30 plus years. He was actually on the roof with the crews laying shingles, laying metal, doing tar, doing flat roofs, decor, everything else. And so when I was about 12, well, before then, I was I was like eight or nine years old. He had his cleaning up job sites. Me and my brother, we were cleaning up, you know, the grounds. And by the time I was maybe 13, I was laying shingles. You know, so that's kind of the environment I grew up in. And, you know, thank God for it.

Because growing up in that really hardcore blue collar environment, where my dad still owned the business. So it's like I saw it from both sides as far as, you know, hard work and running a business. My mom owned a hair salon. And so she owned her own business and she cut the hair. So it's like I got to see my parents both work really hard to build businesses that they own. And so that's a really unique situation I was brought up in. It was tough. And they were hard on us, but for good reason. You know, they had the best intentions.

And honestly, you know, by the time I graduated high school, had a football scholarship to Missouri Valley and didn't know what I was going to do. And, you know, my mom wanted me to be a doctor. dad wanted me to be a lawyer, but at the end of the day, I failed a history class at University of Alabama. I was four different colleges in two years. And I decided I'm going to try to get my real estate license since it was just one class. And honestly, I didn't know if I wanted to do it or not. You know, I finished the class and I realized, like I thought when you got your real estate license, they put it on your driver's license or something and it's just there for life and you can go sell houses and, you know, that's it. I didn't realize continuing it and fees and all this other stuff

and commitment, you know, you have to go find a broker. Well, you got to take the test in a year. Find a broker 90 days. Da, da, da, da, da, da. I was like, this is too much commitment for me right now. I don't know what I want to do with my life. So I came back from Alabama, hopped up back on the roof for three days. And I'm going to go take that real estate test and see if I can't make a career out of this.

So that's kind of how it all went down. But I concierged at a hotel, cooked pizzas. I was a head grill cook. to see if your restaurant, serve tables, painted houses, framed houses, landscaping, probably did a little bit of everything before I got into real estate. Now, it's kind of surprising in some respects because you seem like a very disciplined guy, at least from the last few years, it seems like you've got a very structured way of approaching things.

Was that, did that happen at a particular point in time? Was there a decision that got made or were you always disciplined? It just hadn't shown up yet. As far as being committed, the commitment part? Yeah, exactly. The thing was is, no, I'm all in on whatever I do, 100%, 100 million percent. And I've always been very structured and disciplined. And so that's why I hesitated real estate there at the very beginning because I knew that

if once I committed, that was it. And I was so early in my life that I wanted to make sure I was making the best decision possible before I committed, because once I commit, it's over. So that's all the hesitation was, was to make sure that I felt like it was going to be what I wanted to go all in on because whatever I was going to do, I was going to go all in. So, but once I made the decision, it was over. You know, I went all in and, you know, the rest is history. So I've always been really good at math, not in terms of like the very high levels. of algebra and stuff like that, but more of commonsensical, above average, you know, basic math really good at. I can just visualize things. I could kind of put two and two together. And so

it helps me understand, you know, in terms of what I'm doing today, how that can multiply into really massive things over time. And so I've always been a very big visionary. You know, my mom, she was a big dreamer, right? And so big dreamers always, you know, they think that one idea is going to put them over the top, right? My dad's always been a conservative hard worker that scared to dream big because he thinks he's going to lose everything he worked hard for. So again, I got best of both worlds, big dreamer, visionary, and hard work to go behind the big dream. You know, I ain't realized all this growing up, but I was kind of born into this environment that was very conducive for, you know, to put me in the position that I am now, which is, you know, lofty dreams, but willing to put in the work over time and put those daily habits in

place. Awesome. So now, you've been a very productive agent. I think you're, you're a solo agent, if I'm not mistaken. You've continued to be in production. And you've also built a fairly good-sized rev share organization as well. I've got a question here that was actually put on my sheet here, which was how is ZHP allowed you to step away from production to travel, speak, and coach. And if I'm not, if I'm reading it right, you're still producing.

Well, not really. I kind of stepped away. I'm still doing some parts of the business. But honestly, my dad, you know, he's in the business now. I got him off of the roof after I was in the business for maybe three or four years. And yeah, it was the hardest things they ever had to do, you know, showing him. how to do an email and stuff like that. But that was 20 years ago.

He runs all the sales at this point. So we have a deal worked out there where I can step back and help build him, his and eyes, both of our organization. And so, man, thank God for EXP because after 20 years, I did 100 deals a year for eight years in a row as a single agent with one assistant. Last year was the eighth year that I did that. And honestly, I was really burn out on it as much as I loved it. I was getting to where I was kind of cringing every time a seller or a client would call me.

And that's not really a good sign. And I had all these other things going on, speaking, writing, coaching, other businesses and things of that nature. And I just got to the point where I needed to focus on these other things. And, you know, was I making enough without EXP to step out of production? yeah, but not as comfortably, right? And that RevShare created that cushion that put me over the top where I was more than comfortable with stepping out of production the way that I have and able to really focus on the things that I really enjoy.

See, every step of the way you'll reach this plateau where you may feel, you know, either burn out or you don't love it anymore or whatever the case may be. So many agents tell me, oh, I love sales, I'm going to do it forever. You know, yeah, you will until you don't. And you're going to reach this place where you become bored. And that's where I was, you know, bored. And that's why I started coaching and writing and speaking. But that was in 2017.

I was still with Remax. And, you know, no, EXP wasn't even on my radar at that point. In fact, I think you were negative on EXP, at least I think, of one of those old YouTube videos, if I remember right. Kind of, but more so of it doesn't matter where you're at. It was more of the message. But yeah, because the classic early days of EXP recruit breath agents, right, which you don't really see that a whole lot anymore. It's still there, but not like it was whatsoever.

But I had to wrap my head around the entire philosophy, which is it's a platform you use to build your company. And so within building your company, you've got direct influence over your organization. organization and how they operate, how they interact, how they try to attract, so on and so forth. And so it's, it's, it's, I mean, you can correct me from wrong, but the way I see it is the are these different groups. It's, it's almost equivalent to different brokerages within the mothership, whereas now you're susceptible to their, their stuff, their infrastructure, their, you know, coaching, training, so forth that they provide on top of the infrastructure

EXP has in place. Whereas if there's a group out there that, you know, doesn't really recruit the way that you feel like is, you know, best or, you know, gives the best impression and stuff like that.

That doesn't have anything to do with you. You can build your organization and influence your agents, you know, to go out and attract and sell and build their businesses. You know, you can try to rub off on them however you feel. But it was funny in the NASDAQ when we met. We sat down because I had 25,000 agents in my organization and my coaching program.

And you guys had 25,000 agents in your organization at the time with the XP. And that was really cool. And I remember you sit down and taking a lot of time with me, never tried to recruit me at all whatsoever. And the feeling I got was that EXP was a company that cares about agents a whole lot. much more than anything I've ever seen. And at that point, I still wasn't interested, but it came to the point where I was going to leave where I was. And then I took a really hard look and realized, wow, you know, this is a platform that you can really take and you can really build something significant. And so I think a lot of people that come over, it comes down to timing, you know.

Yeah, it just wasn't, and it wasn't about EXP. I got to come to EXP. It was about it's time to move on. from where I am, you know, what's my best options, you know? Right. Mm-hmm. Yep. And I think that's been, my MO has always been, you know, really just meet some people

where they're at. And then what I typically will do is then look at just internally, do we solve that for this, we call it this persona of an agent. And if not, what can we go do in the background so that we can sort of, of address that need, you know, in going forward. So I tend to just be honest up front. And for a while, we didn't, we weren't a good brokerage for brand new agents. Now we've got a pretty robust training program.

We've got some inter programs. Obviously, you've got your programs provided by agents like yours that are out there, that are helping agents succeed even from the very beginning. in the early days, if you were a new age and I would say, hey, love your enthusiasm, love your passion, but we're not the right place for you. So I think just meeting people where they're at just makes a ton of sense. Yeah, 100%. So you've been obviously building a good-sized organization.

I think you've attracted some of the largest, I don't know, how many people do you have front line to you in the EXP? It's like 150. 150, 150, something like that. Pretty cool. So what was your secret to attracting all of those folks into, to EXP? Man, everybody has their own thing. I think everybody has to try to figure out what they're, what there's so many different ways

to do it. And I think everyone has to try to figure out what their, what their thing is. How do they start their conversations and really come in contact? I mean, social media is the way, you know, but. it all has to lead back to real conversation. Same as property owners. You can do all the social media you want, but if you're not funneling to real conversations

to try to figure out what's going on with them, you know, what we can do to help them, what they're looking to accomplish, and so forth, then we're not going to get anywhere with anyone, property owners, real estate agents, or anyone under the sun. So the biggest thing for me was through my coaching program,

just providing so much value and building those relationships and building that brand. And then being able to parlay off of everything that I've done. I mean, I've got agents who, I mean, there's thousands of agents who said they wouldn't even be in the business anymore if it wasn't for zero to diamond. You know, so my name goes a long way. So that's kind of how I did it.

But honestly, you can piggyback off someone like me. You can find someone in your organization upline who has done something similar. I mean, the rickies are everywhere with an expe. that have created influence or learned the system or how-toes. And so that's how I attracted personally. As far as my downline and trying to help those guys bring agents in, I've recently started doing a call every week, you know, presenting and where I'm presenting, you know,

the company and our organization and all the benefits and how great everything is. And that's been working really well. You know, so there's a lot of ways to do it, but it all has to be value driven today. there's too much, too many people just trying to, you know, sell your product or sell you a coaching program or upsell you and stuff like that. And if you can be a little different in terms of really trying to create that relationship, that's my take. I mean, the other side of it is, is come right out and say EXP and see if they're interested. And that way, you're not tricking them into

a relationship with something that you want on the back end. But I don't really believe that either because when I do ask them about their brokerage and EXP and stuff like that, that's not the reason why I'm in the relationship with them. I coach a lot of agents for free that are not within EXP. So to me, I'm trying to better the entire industry. Not just EXP, not just a certain brokerage or a certain group, but anyone that needs help. And we do free one-on-one coaching.

I've got certified coaches in my program. We do free one-on-one coaching as well. I've got 20 certified zero-to-dime. and coaches. We coach agents, you know, from any brokerage. So we're just trying to do good work into the industry. And we feel like the ripple effects of what we're doing is really going to create some massive impact, not just now, but further down the road. Awesome. And yeah, it's pretty, you have a pretty unique program. How do you, how do you decide which, which agents to coach? I think you've got some hoops. You have them jump through as well.

as probably some other processes. So we have, we do it every quarter. So I've got a 60 day challenge. And so we coach them through the 60 days. So it's just a 60 day one-on-one coaching program. Then we take a month off to recalibrate and regroup. And then so every quarter we kick off a new group that we're coaching one-on-one through the program.

So every quarter we'll have about 1,000 or 2,000 somewhere in their applicants that want it. But we can only take on about 100. And so it's really kind of random. honestly. We just, I'm literally don't know who the agents are. I'm just picking them off the list and connecting them with, you know, one of our coaches. And the coaches, you know, we have a, a playbook of how the whole process works from start to finish, intro calls and, you know, every week of the 60 days. So they kind of take it and run with it from there. But it's really kind of random, honestly.

There's a lot of demand, you know, but we can only handle so many. Awesome. So, so what, what adjustments have you made to your career. I think you mentioned maybe getting out of production, getting on the road a bit more, but are there some things that you've done that have helped you be more successful? I mean, it's always a work in progress, you know? You're always tweaking. I mean, I'm tweaking my morning routine all the time. I mean, yes, I want to make a video and say, here's my morning routine, but next week, or two weeks from now, it would be different, you know? workout routines, diet. I mean, it's always changing. And so I think that's the name of the game is to to understand that the things that make people successful, these huge success stories, they didn't do anything,

you know, crazy. It was really small things that were really easy to do, but really easy not to do, you know, that got them where they were, it's just over time. And so I've just always got the bigger picture in mind, three to five to ten years down the road. And so every little thing I do, I'm thinking about how does this affect me in five years? You know, how is this helping the bigger mission and the bigger vision and everything? But I got to say, I mean,

one thing I've been doing here lately for the past couple weeks is drinking a gallon of water every day. And I got to tell you that I feel happier. I feel more satisfied. I don't feel so anxious. I feel like my workouts are more productive. You know, I have more energy. It's been really life-changing because I have so much going on.

I can stay in this state of, oh, God, what am I, you know, forgetting? And, you know, am I doing everything? And I'm behind. And I want to do this project and that project. And I can't ever get to the end of it. Dehydration, I'm telling you. I think plays into a lot of people's what they think is mental health issues. Of course, there's people with serious mental health issues,

but I think there's a big percentage of that group that could solve that with, it's just a dehydration causing you to feel differently, you know, and negatively. Yeah, well, and I'm going to go drink some more water just on that note. after this we've got some cool things on the success health front that we're going to be rolling out here in the next few weeks as well

which is all just geared around getting data and using that data to make decisions on how to just improve things in your life so whether they be wearables whether it be internal

whether they be you know diet and exercise just all of those things bring it together I got an aura ring Yeah, so I've got the aura ring here. And right now I'm trying out the whoop bracelet here. Oh, yeah, I heard about the whoop. I got the Apple Watch.

And then I've also got over here, I've got a levels continuous glucose monitor. So I'm monitoring like everything I can at the moment. The glucose monitor, that's that sugar. That's like if you're eating too much sugar kind of spice, it shows you a spike. It shows you, it shows your spike, shows you know, just your general. trend. I was at an event two or three weeks ago and actually it's where I got the the continuous glucose monitor and they were serving as dinner late at night around 7, 730 at night, which I normally don't. I normally eat earlier in the day and I've got this and I was like in a range that I wasn't

actually super excited about from a blood glucose level and then I got left there and got back into more my intermittent fasting routine and some of the other stuff. And finally, I've got it back into the, to the normal range. But it took some work, took some work to sort of get back to, you know, between the 70 and 100, which is considered to be sort of that normal range. But I was like 110, 115. And I'm going, I'm pre-diabetic. And I'm like, there's no freaking way I'm pre-diabetic.

But it's nice to have the data to understand what affects your blood sugars and what can sort of push you in one direction or another. I saw Mr. Wornifle had something like that. It was some kind of glucose tracker. It was under his wrist, I think, but I'm going to get one of those because I'm going to start keeping track of that as well. Yeah.

It's fun to gamify and then see what foods and everything else that can affect stuff. Well, last question, back on the real estate front. So obviously you built a big business. Your dad's now helping run the real estate. business. How do you manage lead gen? And do you have a particular CRM strategy or CRM that you use? I'll show you my CRM. It's real complicated, you know, piece of software. I never really had a CRM. I always just use notebook, honestly. And it's kind of wild to hear telling, you know, the tech and Mr. Tech that, you know, founded XB that he's a notebook, but always did. So I really just focus on

Um, the, I always have a, here's, here's the been the secret equation to me for closing how many ever deals I want to close. If I have 15 to 20 active buyers and sellers at one time who are, who are thinking about doing something with me, I'm going to close one a week. If I have 25 plus, then I'm going to close two a week. And I did that for, you know, that's 100 deals a year. So I did that for eight years straight. I always kept a list of 25 to 30, uh, active buyers and sellers. If I ever got below that, I would just ramp up prospecting to make sure I'm always hitting that number. I would take people off the list that needed to go to me or move forward or bought through another agent. I would take them off. So I'm really maintaining the real number. But that, I've, I've, have so many agents that

go by that and they'll close either, if they want to close one a week, they have 15 to 20. If they want to ramp it up to two a week, they need 25 plus. So I always kept that on a Google sheet and and within my notebook. That's all I needed, because I only needed my 25. Otherwise, anybody I talked to that I made a great first impression

with that, you know, gave me their contact information. I throw them in, I use constant contacts to send a weekly email every Wednesday. So that's when out every Wednesday since 2007 is literally the foundation.

It's the reason why I was able to close 100 deals a year because no one ever forgets who I am. You know, it's such a high organic reach. compared to social media. Of course, you want to stack social media on top of the weekly email. But, you know, between the weekly email,

and I even like it better than text, honestly, because text is still that intimate place where, you know, when you get spam or business text there, it's still kind of awkward, you know. I still like email with the right branding and the right way, of course, and creating original content, you know. But now through,

this changing market, which, I mean, everyone is very telegraphed. The market couldn't be that hot for long at all. I mean, prices can't go up that much that quick for, you know, years and years and years. And honestly, with, you know, interest rates and everything else, I've been telling everybody this for years. Closings are not going to stop. We're going to have 4.8 million transactions this year down. down 20%, but we had four million in 2008. We're still 800,000 proper, you know, closings higher.

When you multiply that times two, we're at 10 million, 10 million, 10 million, five million sellers, five million buyers. It's amazing how many transactions are happening right now, even with interest rates coming up. And if you're on the side of the glass half, you know, half empty, 20% empty versus 80% full, you know, me, the agents that were complaining about no inventory last year. right now they're complaining about too much inventory this year right there the complainers are just going to keep complaining the winners are going to keep winning because they know it's a it's a people

game and they're going to maintain that list of the the amount of people that might buy or sell through them in the next six months and they're going to continue closing deals no matter what awesome this has been this is this is great and i know we can spend more more time uh on this and i'm I want to be respectful of your time. I also want to make sure that we leave enough time for what we've all got for the rest of the day. But Ricky, thank you so much for jumping on. And then where can people find you? I know there's a lot of places, but where would be a couple places?

I think the best place is Instagram, honestly, Ricky Carroo. And that link goes everywhere to the coaching, to the YouTube. to the, you know, everywhere else. I answer all my Instagram messages every day. That's probably the best place. Okay, awesome. Instagram it is. And if I'm not following you there, I will be following you there shortly.

And thanks again for being on here. And thanks, everyone, for listening and watching, because I think we also have a YouTube stream that we're building out with some of these as well. So thanks again. And until next time, you may be. Good a great day. Talk to you soon. You've been listening to Expansion. Tune in every Tuesday and Thursday for new episodes.

Thanks for being the best part of VXP.