KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Starting Over in Kentucky With a New Team

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Welcome back to the agent gold mine. Ellie and I are here today. It's just the two of us hanging out. And we are going to talk about something that I was going to surprise Allie with. And then because we were supposed to report this a week ago. And then she pushed her their meeting because she was on vacation and blah, blah, blah. And so now she knows the news. And you probably do too, listeners. But okay, I'm going to tell you. I'm so excited. I'm excited.

I have a ton of questions, you know, because I watch. this. I watched you reveal the news on Rubin's Facebook Live and I was like, what? So let's get into it. What is the reaction I wanted to capture, Ali. I wanted it for me, but that's fine. Okay, so the news is, which is, this is so funny because anyone who's known me for the past two and a half, three years would never believe that I am saying the words that I am about to say. They're like, no, fuck no, no, she'll be would never say that. This is the news. I am, along with Dre, starting the Five Pillars team in Lexington, Kentucky. And when I say team, you know, we have Five Pillars Nation, which is our amazing online, you know,

community through EXPR, our family. And this now is going to be a Five Pillars, but hyperlocal, and it's going to be a traditional team, which is what I've been shitting on, inadvertently shitting on. You know, I did the team for a couple of years. You guys know that. and then I shut it down for a bunch of reasons. And now I've fully recovered and had this hindsight 2020 moment. And now we're doing it again here and Lexington, where Drake and I are not licensed,

neither of us. I'm going through the licensing now and I'm like, wow, this is terrible. And so we don't know anything about the area. We have no sphere of influence. It's going to be a fucking wild ride. Okay, Allie. The obvious question, why? Why?

Okay. Because and I ask why in case for those that don't know, you know, say you're like, listening to this for the first time, you had a team in North Carolina. And it got to the point where I'm totally, like my words, not yours, you started to babysit. You know, like the team was growing and then there's a lot of overhead and there's a lot of managing and new agents and experience agents and personalities. Why start a team? Okay. Because we have been living. Okay. So when I shut down the team, I went through this period of complete identity. crisis where I had built this entire world, this entire personality around real estate, investor,

team leader, agent, all this stuff. And I knew and still do know a bunch in this area. Like I fucking, I know a lot about real estate. And so it, although I hated so many things that my life had become in that real estate world, I still knew it. I'm so good at it. And I have it took, it took years to gain that much skill set and that much knowledge in an industry. So if I were to go pick up and go to a different industry, I would have to start the ground up in learning all of those things that took me years to learn, experience, and body, et cetera. And I'm like, oh, God, the idea of starting our response terrible. Okay. So what can I do within real estate that is not the team, but I still get, you know, all of the perks of having this experience, right?

So that's when I decided it was going to be a coach and I decided I was going to do YouTube and I was going to speak and I was going to, dude, you name it. I dabbled over the next, you know, this identity crisis period and none of them like hit for me. And none of them felt like this is it. And I was still recovering. So I was like, oh, fuck the team, never going back to that. But what I found is that although I love the online, you know, world and community, I also personally, have been missing the idea of planting roots in something that's hyper-local. Because, Allie, you get this.

Military. You're always moving. And so I grew up an Army brat where I moved every single year back then. It wasn't these two or three years since. It was like every single year I was the new kid. And then I got into the Army and moved again. But even like in when I was in Fayetteville for Bragg and we were building that team, I was like, I don't want to be in Fayette forever.

It's like that. And then moving to Charlotte, I was like, maybe, but I was like, yeah, I was. So I've never in my life been somewhere where I want to plant roots. Like I want to stay here. I love it here. It's great. So it's kind of like now that I'm bought into a location, I'm like, why would I not buy into this community in a way where also I can take all of my experiences and lessons learned

and do it differently this time around and not have a million teammates and babysit them have like in the beginning. There's going to be five pillar team is going to be me and drag for a long time until we have all of our shit ironed out and then when it's ready it's like the handpicked exact person who has the personality and you know all the things no more than five maybe 10 people it's just going to be it's going to be all of the things I learned put into action dang okay so yeah you are rooting yourself even further into Lexington yeah yeah so what were you mentioned making a lot mistakes with the previous with the previous team what name some of them that you're not

going to be doing now yes I have a whole PowerPoint oh I know but I want to just stand to the right pages of being like I have all this written out okay so some differences from last time to this time so this time I am going to build it from the ground up Drake and I are with the five pillars of building a real business in mind. Whereas the first time around I built the business around me. Like it was, you know, I was the solo agent who did really well and then they built a team and I had all the connections and the relationships and the lead generation was kind of a funnel through me as opposed to building it with a scalable, repeatable process in mind that did not rely on

a personality individual. So that's one of the things. I have so many things I could say. Yeah, you were the center, you were the hub of, you know, who are the referral agents, what are the vendors, the attorneys, you know, just all the things. And actually, I kind of want to skip forward. What is your, what is your ideal avatar? So you said five to 10 agents, right? Is that they hear, did I hear that right? Yes. And handpicked, specifically handpicked, what are you looking for? Okay, so that is something that we haven't entirely flushed out yet because we're not there yet. Like, I'm not recruited. Right now, I'm not looking to bring on agents at all. We have a whole marketing strategy that we have yet to actually do. So we need to do it first and

work out all the kinks before we can identify the exact ideal agent. But I have, I have some notes just off the top of the head. It's, okay, core values have to be perfectly aligned. There has to be past performance. That's a big one, past performance, and then a fire in the eyes. Okay. And so real quick, the core values, we're talking about our, Drake and I have fleshed out some new core values that we are implementing. But basically, it's ownership, obviously, a Adaptability, you have to be able to adapt with the times, adjust, overcome, be that flexible type of thing. Follow through, which I'm not sure if this is the exact word we're going to use, but like the you can't just start and not finish. You have to.

You know what was the fucking last one? Oh, honest. No, no. These are core values. Sorry. Core values. Then we'll get to pass to form. So the last one is honest.

And that's honest with yourself and with others. So obviously when people say, oh, they must be honest, they're usually talking about honesty and interactions. Duh. If you're an agent, you need to be fucking honest. I'm talking, we're also talking about being honest with yourself. Are you okay with feedback and being reflecting on situations and being honest with you were the problem, if they were the problem, and where things actually need to be corrected?

So many people fucking struggle with that because it hurts to be honest with yourself. Yeah, it does. And I think that's why a lot of people, very, very side note, I think that's why a lot of people say that they don't regret anything in their life. You know, because if they were to regret, that would fucking hurt, you know, instead of changing. So, okay, wow. Okay, previously also you said the five pillars in case people don't know, what are the five pillars? Yes. Okay.

So the five pillars are vision, which sometimes we call this bedrock within our community. But basically it's like it's the roadmap. It is the vision for where you want your business to go. This is very, very fucking hard to sketch out if you're a brand new agent. Just because you don't know. That's why this hindsight 2020. But one of the things we are doing differently in this category in particular is we're building the vision using the EOS model.

So the entrepreneurial operating system traction is a very popular book in our in our entrepreneurial space. But we literally have read the book twice now. We're going through it chapter by chapter. We're building it out in this 90 app. It's EOS app that has all of the different pieces of EOS that you can plug and play into. So anyway, you asked for the five a goddamn, I've talked so much. Okay. Vision. Then the core three in the middle, marketing, sales, and operations. So marketing being, how are you? It's the lead generation. And the lead generation. the brand building. How are you bringing people into your world, your sphere? Once they're in there, then starts the sales process. And the sales process is from that moment that the lead comes in

all the way up until they're under an agreement, under contract, which begins the operations. So that is your listing coordination process, your contract is closed, but also any of the other operational things that occur within a business. And then the last one is finances. So your financial health, profit and losses, having a really good take on where your money is and your business, something that I did not so great at round one. Very excited for the opportunity at round two, actually. But yeah, those are five pillars, Ellie. Yeah, perfect. Okay. Which is very similar, like the trainings that we have already within the five pillars nation, you know, especially like the ones on Tuesdays. Okay, cool. That's what that's what they follow. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

you want to move to Lexington? You'll probably have passed. No, you don't. Just kidding. Okay, I've seen some photos and I'm like, wow, there's like real grass and it looks like kind of nice. Not the hail, not your photos of the hail. No, thank you. None of that.

But the rest looked pretty cool. It is so great. I just lay in my backyard like I did this yesterday and just touch the grass. It's so soft. It's like a fucking pillow. It's a greening pillow with a little some bugs. That's okay. Yeah. I was going to make a little bit about shaving arm. armpits. But you have the Subaru. So, okay, let's go to past performance. Do you have any numbers on

on that? Numbers, no. But what I mean by past performance is in our, in my experience, I was going to loop you into this alley. You might agree. You may not. Usually the people who do really well in real estate have a past performance experience of working really hard in something else. And what I mean by that is like military is a really common example that we had like those people who were high performers in the military, but also in the military environment where you have to suffer and you, God, it sucks. And people are unhappy and you're unhappy, but you still have to work through it and figure out a way to win and it calluses you in a way that when you come to real estate,

you're like, oh, this is normal. The one that we were going to target those, specifically for Lexington is the home of University of Kentucky, which is a big university. They have an awesome basketball team. They have a bunch of sports. So we were like, dude, what if we target the top tier athletes who couldn't make it, you know, pro or whatever, and they love Lexington. And those, they're competitive. They're hustlers.

They're used to putting in the work. They're used to delayed gratification. You know, I'm just like, wow. Okay, are we going to be the team of athletes? Maybe. You're going to be the shortest one. I love it. That's what I meant by past performance.

Does that make sense? Okay, that totally makes sense. Yeah, because I know like in, as I've spoken to also like other broker owners when they're looking to recruit, there it's it's one thing to already know what they can do the business. You know, they've been an agent for whatever, about of years, but they do, you know, 12, 20 plus transactions a year. But also there are so many brand new.

new agents that are going to crush and, you know, how can you tell? So yes, you can have a couple of interviews with them, but also what have you done in your past? Are you cold color by trade? Or you, you know, whatever it is, a lot of different ways to measure persistence and grit and and just the drive. Yeah, there was a time where I like blew up. I was like, God, new agents stuck. But you know what?

I think back to you, Allie. I mean, I took the call with you before you were even. I think fully licensed and I just you know what's funny I'm gonna send this to you I was just rolling through my phone the other day like trying to organize all these pictures from yours past and I came across this one I saved of you on your Instagram being like I just decided to join five pillars nation with the Shelby Oswar back and I was just like oh my god this moment like it was so cool I remember that I remember that you yeah yeah That's cool. Okay. But you are new agent and you're you came out fucking swinging is what I'm

saying. Yeah. And you know like there were there were some other people that I interviewed that I could tell weren't going to give me the time of day like in the interview they weren't give me the time of day because they already had that mentality of new agent probably not you know 87% chance of her not making it which is what a lot of broker owners and just recruiters think it's it's hard not to think that way when the numbers are the numbers but like it's and it's really hard to figure out who's going to survive and who's going to like it because it's more than just survival are they going to like it and it's too impossible so okay i want to move to fire in the eye how do you further elaborate on that this further further elaborating is just

kind of what i'll go back to the military and the athletes military tend to have this chip on their shoulder oh yeah where they're like I'm gonna fuck it, I'll let this world on fire. I'll show you, because everyone in the military was like, you're gonna fail when you get out. You're gonna be, you know, the, so there's this chip, which equates to the fire in the eyes. And then with athletes, I think they have a similar vibe of like competition

and, you know, standing up to a challenge. And, you know, and this is, by the way, these are so hard to find, like this type of energy, which is again, why it's gonna be so small. Whereas the first time around, this is what I did. I was like, oh, you're like military, you're an investor. Like, you're my people, which is true. You are my people. But that doesn't mean that they need to be a part of your team because what it turns

into is resources and time and energy. And chances are they didn't even really, I mean, they just got their license to invest anyway, half of them. So I won't make that mistake again. You can be a part of, you know, get your license by all means. but in regards to this close-knit team, real, real, real, hard to get in there. Are you going to have an office? Are you going to be scrappy?

You'd like meet up, you know, random places? TBD, Drake really, really wants an office. I know with EXP having an office is a whole other layer of a couple more challenges. I have never run a formal team. What is the overhead going to look like even without the office? What are the splits going to be? Let's talk money. Yeah. Well, in the beginning, just me and Drake, the overhead, it won't be too much overhead. We are, we've decided on brevity, which is one of the more expensive CRM. So that's $400 a month. And then there's a ton of little fees that just come with what we want to do. So I think what I'll say now is that in the beginning, there's not going to be much overhead, probably around $1,500 or less, depending on what we decide to be our marketing spend for ads. We're going to be.

to do Facebook ads. And that's Drake's Lane. So you can ask him. I'd get him on the podcast if you want. But in regards to splits, the intent at this point in time is for there to be 50 of these splits. This is, we're going to have to decide, though, down the road once we get our own personal reps in and figure out how much time it takes to convert the leads, you know, how much of everything are we going to take off their shoulders, which in my opinion, I want it to be like the most value forward team ever, obviously. But in regard to every bit of the marketing, it won't be one of those teams where you have to find your own leads. You have to lead generate. Like the leads are going to fucking pour in using this market strategy that we're doing,

marketing strategy. And then their responsibility is talking to the lead and nurturing the lead and going on appointments and getting under contract. And once it goes under contract, the operations, the contract to close, the listing coordination, all of that stuff will be handled, as well as all of like the miscellaneous goodies, you know, like having the preferred vendors like you talked about and also having all of the lovely touches. Like I want to do the Lolo gifts and client giant and adorable, thoughtful, closing gifts and events. Like I want to do all of those things. But yeah, I think it's going to be a fucking great deal for the agents. Yeah, for the, yeah, for the agents.

Wow. how is this going to be profitable? I've spoken to a lot, you know, a lot, as you know, a lot of broker owners are not running. They have to be in the business still because otherwise their, their team, their brokerage is not profitable. Are you also going to be doing or are you going to be leading? In the beginning. Profitability. I'm 100%. In the beginning, Drake and I are the agents on the team. In the beginning, absolutely. I think, and that's that's kind of a different mindset. than I did the first time around too, where it's I don't want to do so many transactions that I fucking hate my life. My first time around, I was like, push, push, push, go, go, go.

I need every penny for investing and all these other things I'm doing. And it was just a constant full strength. I don't want to do that. I want to do work with the clients I want. And as long as that makes me happy, continue working with clients that I want. Eventually, I want it to be to a place where if I don't want to do any leads at all, then the sales agents with the accountability in place. the training and accountability over those sales agents will sustain the business. And you asked,

how will we do that? Well, it'll be a lot easier to do this time around because our target price point is a million dollar mark or higher, really. I mean, it's not like we're going to turn down anything that's 400. Probably, I don't think I'll do anything less than 400 for sure. But like 500 and up target price point in the millions will be a huge, huge difference than the average price point of $155,000 to my first year around because when you do that, you were splitting pennies. No one's happy. But if you have more money to deal with for essentially the same amount of work. Wow.

Strategy. Amazing. Wow. I'm happy for you both. That's exciting. When are you going to be finalizing this? Like around what when can people expect to start joining? Depends. Well, joining, dude, not even anytime soon.

Like you can set us referrals starting as soon as we're licensed, which will, this is a 96 hour course and I'm like 11% done. So we'll see. By the end of this month, which is April, we would, we're both aiming to be licensed. And at that point in time, we'll probably do just us for probably a year, I would say to really, because that's the thing. I'm not so different too. I'm not in a rush. Like I'm staying here forever forever and I want to get to know the people in my community and I want to do an amazing job. I don't want to just, you know, close a deal because I'm terrified that I don't have money to pay my whatever next month. It's a different mindset.

Yeah, that's the plan. Always subject to change. But that's yeah. That's the rough timeline. Yeah, who knows we can go out and just fucking crush out the gate and be like, okay, we need you now, agents. Then we'll come on here and be like, who wants to move to Kentucky? We have a great opportunity. for select five people. Yeah. Good. That's so exciting. I'm happy for you both. Is there, is there anything that we didn't cover? Well, I do uncover five pillars nation. And because I had someone asked me like, hey, what happens with five pillars nation? Literally everything that we're doing now, which is our business development once a week, our strips once a week, our sink where we have experts come in to talk about investing once a month. We have experts to come in and talk about

our agent business once a month. Plus all of our collaborations, all of our chats, and the one-on-ones that Alliot, all of that is exactly the same except better. Because I think that I know that me going through it again is going to bring so much relevancy right back into the training that, because it comes, okay, so this is what happens to like coaches and shit online. They're like, well, this is how I did it three years ago.

This is what used to work, but that doesn't have to be me anymore because I'm fucking in it with you guys. You know? Yeah. Yes. Yes. I love it. I love it. The five pillars team, Lexington, Kentucky.

Watch out. Damn right.