KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The CEO Execution Roadmap: 90-Day Sprints to Scale Your Business

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Summary:Host John Kitchens and guest Joel break down the "Execution Roadmap," the fifth stage in transitioning from a real estate agent to a CEO. They explore the theory of constraints, emphasizing that businesses fail not from a lack of hard work, but from solving the wrong problems. The episode provides a tactical framework for establishing 90-day sprints, defining "done" through measurable key results, and assigning single-point ownership using the "DACI" model. This approach eliminates overwhelm and ensures strategy translates into high-impact action.

Seven-figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO. Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcast experience. This is your host, John Kitchens. Get ready to think bigger and transform your business into a path to lasting freedom. All right. Well, appreciate the little break to be able to, I would say, recharged, but getting a few days to get recharged. And it's been really good, man. we, you know, jump in, there's a couple things, Joel, that I wanted to to share with you

that I found, you know, kind of really, really interesting. And one is, you know, from Hermosi, and then the other is from podcast episode that Mr. Rogan had last week that had, that had Jensen, the CEO of NVIDIA on. And if you get a chance to listen to that one, Bud, I'm telling you, it's really, really insightful because of understanding the power and that AI wouldn't be where it's at without Nvidia and about what they did. But his origin story and how this company should not even be in existence, right? Like you hear like, of all great, of all the companies, right?

but like shoe dog like with Nike, right? The Nike story is like Nike should never have been Nike, right? Like there's no way that they should even have even existed. And if you listen to Jensen tell the story of Nvidia, it's the same thing. And they were building gaming console. I don't know if it was for Sony or what they were doing early on and couldn't deliver. They had the wrong technology. They were wrong.

They were just wrong. They missed it. And he ended up having to go back. And, you know, the contract that they had, they had one client. They ended up having the contract. And I know I'm butchering the whole story. You got to go listen to it. But the whole point was is that he went back and said, you know, we can't fulfill on the contract.

However, I need the money. And it's like, well, you ain't even got a product. How do you, like, what do you mean you need the money? He's like, but I need, I need, you know, willing to make this investment. and so made the end up making the investment a couple days after and the only reason that he made the investment was $5 million. The only reason that he made the investment is because he believed in Jensen. He believed in him.

And it just started to make me think, right, like it's always, and we talk about it too, right? It's always the jockey. We talked about Howard with Tiger Leeds, non-compete, starts WI Lopo. Go bet on Howard. like if Dwayne Legate got back in the game, go bet on Dwayne, right? We talk about Eric at Hoosie. Go bet on Eric.

Go bet on the jockeys. And it was just a really good example. But he said something in there. He said, because they were talking about what's going to get disrupted with AI. And we've had a lot of great conversations with it. Obviously, we've had Nick on, Eric on. Actually, I think I've got Eric on,

expert mentors next week. And so one of the things that he said in there, because Joe was obviously with his relationship with Elon and talking about, you know, what's going to get disrupted, what's going to go. And he said, listen, he said if your job is the task, that's going to get, that's going to get automated, right? Like if your job, his example was if your job is to cut up food, you're going to get replaced, right? Quiz and art is going to replace you. Like, you're going to be replaced. But if your job is a purpose, that's not going to get replaced.

And he gives a great example about radiologists because a couple of years ago, they said the radiologist jobs are going to be extinct. AI will take care of it. And he said, however, there are more radiologists now after AI has taken over the radiologist industry. There's more radiologists now than before when saying AI was going to take him out. He said, but what AI did is helped with the imaging and the diagnosis to be able to help identify fast. That's where AI has helped. And so it's just a really good example of how he gives it.

But the word that's been ringing with me, and I don't want to dive too much into it because I'm going to get to kind of the whole topic of this evening. And this is just for us to think about as we're talking about like strategic planning and moving and like what is our role in the real estate space moving forward into the future. like our, what is our, what is our role with buyers? What is our role with sellers, with investors? What is our role? And he said, what is your purpose in that role? Like, what do you really do? Like, what's the real thing that you move the needle?

What's the real purpose? And he said, focus on that. And so that's what Joel, we've been talking about last year into this year and all of this year. It's not the AI driven agent. It's the AI driven consumer. So where does that shrink our purpose in the transaction? Where does that shrink our purpose in the relationship? So just something interesting to think about. Go listen to the episode. It is fantastic. I would like one and a half speed or a little bit, maybe a little bit faster just because they have some some pauses and, you know, he's very, you know, thinking through and intentional in the conversation. So

go listen to that. But getting into the point as we've been working through the agent to CEO process, we're on the fifth element, if you will, the fifth stage, fifth component of the process. But I want to read something that was in Hermosi's Minute last week. It came out on Thursday of last week. and he talks about the one thing. And I want to read this just a little bit. And what he talks about is that most businesses fail because they work on the wrong stuff. Not because they don't work hard.

This is mostly because the hardest problems are the ones that usually you don't know how to solve yet. And neither does anyone else on your team. So you focus on the ones you do know, know how to solve rather than beginning on the unknown path. And I thought this is so fitting as we're talking about really kind of that execution roadmap, which is strategy. And good strategy is solving the right problem.

Bad strategy is ignoring it, or not even aware of it. And I think this is just so fitting to kind of kick off this conversation as we dive into the execution roadmap. out. And down here what he talks about is why second best problems are deadly. Working on your second best problem is reasonable. Nobody will blame you. But when you work on second best problems, you get second best problem returns. These are typically incremental improvements, not orders of magnitude, and that's where the real value lies. So here's the question. Here's the question you want to ask yourself. If we could only work, only work on one thing for the next 90 days, that two to

three X'd the business, what would it be? Not two, one. And if you can't answer, answering that question becomes your first priority. So as we kind of talk through this, I think that's just a great frame for what we're going to dive into today. Common constraints. These are common constraints. Doesn't mean this is your constraint, but these are just common constraints. And I don't want to lead the witness. But as we go through this, I just want you to kind of think about this because it becomes about awareness. And then once we have an awareness, now we start asking questions to open up choices and opportunities and moves and what do we do.

And this is where Joel, you and I are really, really good at is discernment, poking holes, thinking about this, what about this? Here's, you know, secondary ripple effect. The other thing I think you'll really love about the conversation, he keeps talking about first order principles, first principles, first principles. But these are common constraints. So basically, if you're under six figures, you don't have an offer people want. If you're not able to get to six figures, it's because you don't have an offer people want. So what we kind of talked about in the profit engine, we talked about identifying who is,

the best ICP, not the best Avatar, the best ICP. And the difference to me is Avatar, you get more into a lot of demographics, you get into a lot of age, you get into, you just get into a lot of things that don't really matter. You get into ICP is what's their pain? Like what pain are these people in? And remember, we're painkillers, we're not vitamin companies. And so what is my value proposition to solve the pain in the market? So would you say, coach, would you say kind of,

using that distinction, which I really like, you want to build your offer with your ICP, and then you use an avatar for your marketing or messaging. Is that kind of a distinction? Yep, yep. I would agree 100%. Right. Your direct dog whistle call to action has got to be your ICP. I think your brand, your imaging, kind of how you're showing up is going to really kind of resonate. So like the example I love to give is who do you want to work with? How old are they, right? So our social media, our content, not now, we're going to do direct callouts there, but are just our brand, our content. We want to show up on the channel that they're at. So like Renee's a great example because she's working with the right size, you know, avatar,

demographic, and she knows their pain point. She knows that ICP. They're on Facebook. So Renee needs to live on Facebook because her people live on Facebook. That's where she needs to show up. So I think that's a really good distinction. 100K, six figure to 500K, Hermosi calls the constraint. You don't generate enough leads. If you can't get to half a million, you don't generate enough leads. Half a million to a million, you're not able to close enough leads. So remember, write things right order.

You got a value proposition, you got an offer. You generate leads. You convert leads. And then this is what we know all too well. A million to three million, which he calls the swamp. You can't deliver without doing everything yourself. Man. So you're either doing 80% of the production, 70% of the production,

then the deals you do have with your team, you're handholding, you're coaching, you're leading them through. or you're having to take over and do the deal for them. And then you're giving them 50, 60 cents of the dollar that you just had to do everything on. So how true is that, right? And I think that's kind of, kind of the sweet spot. From there and beyond, it's all about right people, right? It's, it's what, who got you here, won't get you there.

It's ones and threes kicks in at that point, right? But it's just interesting kind of, kind of thinking through this point today and really identifying what the real constraint. That's what I love about Hermosi, right? Because he operates in the theory of constraints. And so just the real constraint, this is kind of some clues. Doesn't mean it is, but here's some clues. And don't focus on the second thing. Focus on the number one thing. And that's, I love that question. If we could do one thing over the next 90 days, first quarter, that's going to two to three X the business for you. So say you did 500. thousand this year, what would get us to a million? What would get us to 1.5 in GCI in the next 12

months if we focused on that one thing in the next 90 days? But if we're at the 500, it's probably we're not generating enough of the right leads, generating of the right opportunities. So what are all the things that we have to do to generate better opportunities? So something to think about as we really jump through. Joel, anything that you want to touch on? Yeah, that idea that it just that it never stops in business like asking and answering that question. I'll give you an example, kind of what I mean by that is I've been in, you know, companies that have gone from six to seven, seven to eight figures within, you know, a few years, really, really fast growth. And sometimes when we're at that, you know, three million, five million mark, we'll hire really top notch people. And they come in and they're like, I can't believe you guys don't have X, Y, Z already.

I can't believe you don't have a really good training system. I can't believe you don't have a really good whatever it is, right? And the reason is always that wasn't important until now. Last year we were focused on sales. The year before that, we were focused on lead generation. Before that, we were focused on something else. And so, you know, there's lots of companies that fail that have really pretty well-built-out systems for everything, but they don't make any money because they didn't focus on the right things.

So when you're asking this, like literally, what is the one thing? Well, it's probably not the one thing is creating a good onboarding system. The one thing is probably recruiting. And if we have some success with recruiting, now the one thing becomes our great onboarding program. And now the one thing becomes, okay, we got too many agents and not enough leads. Now it's back to lead generation. But we get the order mixed up a lot because we're afraid that, you know, we won't look like we have it together. We're afraid that our systems will get stressed or broken.

And so the danger there, though, is that, well, we never take action on what the one thing actually is. So, you know, a great example there. Well, creating a really good onboarding system, that's valuable. But that's your second order problem or your second level problem, right? Your first one's probably still recruiting. Or it's like, hey, we're not generating leads because we don't have good follow-up systems. It's like, well, if you have good follow-up systems, but no leads, now you just punted, you just punted on lead generation. And so again, valuable, but not the one thing.

So it's like this, this becomes a mental model that you have to use constantly of what really is the one thing. Yeah. I love it. And it also comes back to our right steps, right order, right? What's the sequential step? What's the right steps in the, what's the conveyor belt, right? Let's lay out our conveyor belt. And it's like raw materials, leads, engagement, getting to engage.

and, you know, depending upon how the raw material drops onto the conveyor belt, you know, is going to determine, you know, how the engagement that leads to a conversation. If they're, you know, a little bit closer to the goal line, you know, they're going to engage a lot faster and they're going to engage differently. but we've got to engage that leads to a conversation, conversations that lead to an appointment, an appointment that leads to face-to-face, face-to-face that leads to agree-to-do business, then being a seller or a buyer, we get them to the closing table, and then, you know, you and I are always talking about, let's extend the conveyor belt one more step. And that one more step is that they referred somebody to us. That's the additional step.

It doesn't stop at the closing table. We still have another step to go. we need to still love and nurture on them until they're sending referrals. But we get a lot of people that want to jump to the end of the conveyor belt when stuff is they're not even getting enough raw material onto the conveyor belt. So it's just making sure that we're focused on. It's the whole, you know, triage effect too, right? Like we're stepping over nothing happening dropping onto the conveyor belt to go work down here.

It's the same that you're in an operating room and you've got, you know, three people laying on the floor that are bleeding out, and you step over to them to go sit next to the guy to diagnose that has a little sniffle. And it's like, what are you doing? You're talking to the guy that has a cold versus somebody that's about to die on your, you know, on your, you know, emergency room floor. So it's just, it's just good, whatever, like you said, those mental models that really help you. That's why we have the CEO's operating system as part of this process, because you've got to know how to think and think through these, these different pieces as we're trying to narrow the focus of this is the thing.

We have to solve this thing that allows everything else to continue. And really, this is where the strategy, this meets action, right? Because when we look at kind of what our profit engine is, kind of how we're going to generate opportunities of our value proposition to the right people, and that's an alignment to how we chart at the course because we know where we're going, right? you know the soul of our company and that's the reason that we know the soul of our company is because we did the diagnosis of where we're at and at the end of the day what is that that exit strategy of where we want to be so they all work together and they're you know we talk about being a flywheel

it is it is a ladder but it also can cross puzzle into every i mean it's almost like a matrix if you will. So this is step five. It's the execution roadmap. And we talk about it where where strategy meets, meets action and really translates the grand design of the profit engine that we touched on, you know, the session before into a, this is the plan. Okay. And it's critical for overcoming the feeling of overwhelmed that we all feel because we operate in chaos. And a fear that this will be a heavy lift. And it's because we don't know how to unpack it to where it's super simple in the step by step for it to happen.

One of the great tools that we have is the impact filter that really helps through this. But it's also the same thing that we do to reverse engineer our goals. And we're like, okay, well, I want to make $250,000. year okay well my average sales price is X okay great I got to sell X number of houses okay well then that means I need to take X number of pieces of business and I need to have face-to-face with X number of people I need to set X number of appointments I need X number of conversations I need X number of leads it's the same thing when we

unpack these things that we need to execute and the one thing start with the end in mind and reverse engineer and that that's where commitment comes in you know my belief I don't believe you commit and figure it out I believe figure out what it is you want, reverse engineer, what it's going to take for that to be true, and then ask yourself, is that something you're willing to commit to? And so the core concept of the execution roadmap is really the system that converts our plan into a focused 90-day action plan, because that's it. You don't want to go beyond 90 days, right?

It's just the 90-day cycles, it's just how we're wired, how our brains work, just stay focused on that. and it really breaks down the long-term vision into quarterly sprints. And within those sprints, you can even break it down even further, right? Like, this is what I'm going to do over the next 30 days, then the next 30 days, the next 30 days. As you'll see, as you can really unpack this. But you start to look out, okay, you know, we've got four major initiatives this year, okay? Right order, which one unlocks the biggest constraint first, and then we can move to the next one. And this really helps you and, you know, your assistants, your team, people around you that are

supporting in helping not overwhelmed, right? Because if you come out of them and you're like, hey, this is our goal for the year. These are all the things that we need to do. And it's going to be like, oh, wow, how are we going to get that done? I don't know, but this is what we're going to focus on on the next 90 days. We're going to get that done. And then we'll reevaluate going in. And sometimes, Joel, right? Like, we think that these are the things that have to be true, but we unlock a quarter or two. We do a couple things. We're like, oh, wow, that wasn't even necessary.

We don't even need to do that. Or like, man, this is even more critical. We need to move this up. So as you kind of go and you start executing, it's really, really important. And so this is the bridge between our blueprint, which was the profit engine, which, like what we talked about, like I said, last time and real world, right? This is really putting things into action. Yeah. And it's a skill. I talk about this all the time with people. Strategic planning, the execution, rhythm, the stuff is all a skill that you have to develop and your business has to develop. And that's why it's so important just to start, just to start doing it, start getting in the routine, start getting in the rhythm of planning, start working on it because you get better at spotting those things that, okay, that's not really the priority. Or you get better at saying, here's what we're actually capable of doing in a quarter. Sometimes you overshoot it, sometimes you undershoot it. You figure. out what you're capable of and then you can increase that. But it's just it's just a skill.

You know, we're all terrible the first time we did strategic planning. We came out with this strategic plan that had seven priorities with, you know, six sub priorities for each one. Yeah. And failed at everything, right? But it's okay, we learned really quickly, way too many priorities. We have to, we have to get this down. And then, you know, we overshoot. We have one overambitious priority. We figure out, okay, here's what we're actually capable of executing on it in a 90-day period. And we get, we get better at that. We refine that, but you just have to start doing it because it's a skill, it's a skill to develop. Yeah. So the key activities of us kind of rocking through this is establishing that 90-day sprint.

And this really comes from identifying the single most important objective for the, for the upcoming quarter, the upcoming 90 days. And remember, like, listen, I laugh at this because I'm like, if you just focused on one a quarter, that's four key initiatives per year. Like, when we try to do five or six at a time. Like we end up doing half a one. So we don't even get the one fully done to your point. And so this really comes back to that question. If we can only work on one thing for the next 90 days that would two to three X the business, what would it be? And it has to move the biggest constraint. And it's either a traffic or demand problem. It's somewhere in a conversion piece conversion problem. It's somewhere in a fulfillment problem. And if your business is headcount,

if you're in the agent business, it's going to be retention. And so you just got to kind of find where the real constraint is and what's going to be the one thing that's going to two to three X the business in the next, you know, 12 months. So the second key initiative is setting key results. This is super important, right? Because if without the key results, Joel, we can't have really good agreements. What is done, right? So for that priority, we're going to have three, four, five, maybe six measurable outcomes, right? I come back to the impact filter. What is success, right? There's five, six, seven boxes. What is success? What are the, what are the measurables? What are the results? What are the key things that have to have come in place?

These aren't just tasks. These are results. What is the result that is going to come from? this and why this is important and because it helps us identify clarity on what done looks like and in that is so so key is like where does where does the scope start where does it stop what is done and we've always used kind of that objective statement we are successful when i didn't like we are successful if we are successful when and that's where it can become smart specific measurable you know is it attainable in our time frame is it relevant to the constraint and what we're trying to accomplish and what is the time bound by win and then always like you know come back over it thank goodness for you know AI because now we can take the objective statement and and then throw it in

there and say I need you to dummy this down to a fourth grade reading level right I need you to dummy this down to a third grade because so that's the you right smart you because if like listen I we've we've laid out objectives and I look at it afterwards and I'm like I don't even know what this means. And I was helped part creating it. And so I think now with it with AI is like take it, okay, help me help me, you know, make this more concise. Ask me question, you know, one question at time, whatever you need to make it more clear. And I need you to put it on a third or fourth grade reading level. Yeah. There are some awesome examples in the book, good strategy, bad strategy of the fluff, you know, full of buzzwords doesn't say anything. You read them and they're like,

wow, that's inspiring. And but okay, what does it mean? mean and it doesn't mean anything. Yeah. So that's a great, great point. And it's like it is. It's just pretty words that don't mean anything. And then the third key activity, right? We're going to establish the one thing, the main objective.

What are the key results? And the third, third thing that is so, so, so stinking important. Single point ownership. And remember, Oprah, one person ultimately responsible. That's it. one person ultimately responsible. The question we would always ask ourselves, sorry if we've got kids around earmuffs,

if shit hit the fan, and you got to use that word specifically, if it hits the fan, who's ultimately responsible? And so that's where you assign true, true ownership. The other framework that I really like to use is the Dacey model, Joel. So you have the driver,

one person ultimately responsible, who's driving this objective, then you got a counterbalance. So who's going to approve done is done? And Joel, I don't know if you do this. I do this with some clients. If they don't have somebody that's going to be an approver, I'll be the approver, I'll be the approver, right? Outside counsel, outside coach, outside mentor, outside resource.

If you don't have somebody else that can really hold you accountable, find somebody that will and let them be the approver. C in the Dacey is contributor. Who's contributing to getting these things done? Just because you own it doesn't mean you have to do all of it. And then I is who needs to be informed. So that's a great framework to be able to work through. The Dacey model driver, approver, contributors informed.

And always remember, no two names in the box, one person ultimately responsible. That's why we never say when you have heads of, you got heads of company. You can't put two names. There's no two heads of company because there's a lack of accountability. There's a lack of I thought you were doing this. No, I thought you were doing that because they won't take the time to nail the agreement.

They operate with expectations. So it's just really good in framework. So those are the three key activities. Joel, anything out of those three that like, hey, super pay attention to. I think they're all extremely important. I think where I see a lot of people fail right now is as head of company or as team leader, you're saying that somebody is the owner of it, but you're not treating them like that. They don't have the decision-making ability.

They can't move quickly. Maybe they don't have the resources they want. So if you're putting somebody in charge, really in charge, and asking them to own a priority or own a piece of execution, you have to equip them for that. They have to give, they have to be clear on what authority they have, what decisions can they make, how much money can they spend? Can they fire somebody on the team or can they not fire? All of that stuff is really important.

Otherwise, it just ultimately falls back on you because now you've got somebody who doesn't have clarity and doesn't have real authority coming to you for a bunch of decisions anyway. So if you really want them to own it, you have to empower them to own it, give them the resources they need, the authority they need, the clarity they need. And then, you know, be okay with some mistakes as they're learning how to execute, just like we're learning as a business how to execute. you know, be ready to jump in and help if they need it. But if you, if you ask somebody to own something, you know, make sure that they really have the ability to do that, that you're giving them the ability to do that. Yeah. Absolutely. And so remember the benefits of this guys, eliminate overwhelm, right? Translate your, our grand vision into a simple manageable 90 day, you know, plan that the entire team, the entire your support team, this is also good to, you, Joel, like,

even, you know, most real estate, there's a lot of, you know, single agents, some help. Sometimes it's family. Sometimes it's, you know, significant others, you know, all kind of working together. Or, you know, the significant others trying to, you know, support you in your business. Now you have a plan. You can come to them and say, hey, listen, this is my, this is my 90-day focus. This is where I'm at. This is my plan. And then once they know the plan, they can support the plan. That's where I've seen a lot of turbulence in relationships in this business is that, you know, the real estate professional doesn't have the plan to be able to articulate and convey it and share it to keep those informed to help support the plan. Right. So you can avoid a lot of friction with spouses, with family, with your kiddos, with everything.

Just real simple. If they don't know the plan, they can't support the plan. So now you've got a plan, articulate it to them so that, you know, they can support it. Yeah. Yeah. The other is going to be driving that laser focused execution, right? Like even this morning, even with even with my team, right? I'm like, this is our one thing.

And then, hey, what are we focused on today? Got a couple things creeped in. I'm like, no, that's not the one thing. That has nothing to do with the one thing. Like the one thing. Like, we're not saying no to that. We're just saying no to that right now. That's definitely important.

It's a priority, but it's not the priority. And I think that's important distinction to understand because that's a second or third to Hermosi's point, which means you're going to get second, third, best problem returns. We want the big return. That's why we've got to focus on the one thing. And then the other is, man, true accountability. right like you said Joel man really empowering the team like you said empower the team give them clear metrics and I think in ownership and I think sometimes too give them some framework right most of the time it's financial decisions so I remember

where we learn this and you'll you'll appreciate this just because you know how you got into the industry on the TC side of things man we got tired of coming in for $100, $200 questions, right? $50 questions. And it's like, listen, we always ask you, what do you, what do you think should happen? Almost 99% of the time you think and say exactly what we would do. So, like, listen, if it's, if our transaction fee will cover the decision, make the decision. And it's, it's, it's like, stop over overthinking it. Layla Hermosi has a deal six foot six inch

six inch putts, six inch putts, right? Like you don't even have to think about a six inch putt, you just walk up, hit it, right? Because if you think about it, then you're going to, oh, right, I got to think. You know, you're going to make a problem out of no problem at all. We're talking six inch put.

And so to me that's like a six inch decision, right? It's like, does it, is our, well, our transaction fee cover it, then make the decision. So I think that's given them clear, framework, but what I've seen is that you've got to give them kind of a financial framework. I can give you full autonomy, but also I need you to understand the financial ramifications. Like, I don't want you to make a decision if, you know, it's going to cost thousands.

But if it's going to cost a couple hundred bucks, we would make the same decision. Like, just do it. Just do it. I love that. Hey, quick break before we move on. If you've ever wished you could clone yourself to handle all the behind-the-scenes stuff in your business, I've got the next best. think. Coachkitchens.AI is your 24-7 AI powered real estate business assistant. It's built for agents

who want to stop guessing and start executing faster. Check it out at coachcitchens.com. You can see how it can plug right into your business today. All right, back to the episode. So looking at the roadmap, there's a couple things to kind of think about with it. And this is where I would use kind of the questions in the framework and the exercises. And I was thinking about this this morning, Joel, driving in. When we look at kind of strategic plans, obviously we've had the one-page plan, that we, you know, the straight line plan, the one-page plan from Vern. We have, you know, the VTO.

But I'm starting to see, especially the agents and the teams that have really embraced AI, they're starting to build their plans with AI. and talking through and it's got all the, you know, the AI, you know, bullet points. You can tell, like, they went through this. AI helped them build out the plan. So I was thinking, like, I don't think it matters as long as you just build it in whatever framework, whatever you feel comfortable with. And so thinking through these exercises, these are great, great exercises and conversations

that we can have with AI to be able to work through it. So when you think about this 90-day plan, it's almost. like blueprint to breakthrough. And really a system that will help us close the gap and get to the results. Staying within the 90-day focus of alignment, accountability. And use this framework. Like, guys, it's rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

Exercise. When you hear the word exercise, exercise is not a one and done. Exercise is, we're doing it over and over and over. And so part, part one is, is really, what is that one thing? You know, procrastination usually comes from a lack of clarity. Greatest enemy of execution is a lack of focus, trying to do too many things. Too many, Joel, I love your, I love your concept, too many half-built bridges. And, or just trying to do too much.

And so when we look at this, really laying out the single most important objective, Now, I can get behind. You know, if you've got your team that's qualified, built to handle that one thing and you have other people, maybe they're doing a focus within something else. Maybe, maybe we're improving. You know, Vern's take was always something that's going to hit the P&L and something that's going to hit the balance sheet. What he was saying is something that's going to dramatically increase revenues or cut expenses. And then the balance sheet is going to be something that's going to build equity, going to build long term. So like YouTube channel is long term.

To me, a YouTube channel hits the balance sheet more so than the P&L, right? That's kind of how I kind of interpret it if we're looking at what are we installing within the real estate space. So there's some things there to kind of think about. My caveat would be do not do a two unless you have 95% of the resources. available because only five or 10% can do this one thing. Maybe I would take it a case by case, but my default would be one thing. And then Joel, maybe it is like, you know, I think I can get this done in 30 days. Great.

Well, then let's run a 30 day sprint and then we'll revisit where we're at and then we can recalibrate for the next 60 days. Yeah. And that's a, that's a method that I really like kind of taking that approach in smaller businesses and real estate teams because a lot of time a lot of times what it's going to take to execute on something it might only be 30 days and then it just needs to run it needs to work you know but the but once it's built and running the management of that process sometimes is a lot less effort so then if we said all right we have three quarterly priorities but we're still we're

going to do them in order we're not we're not doing them concurrently we're not trying to do them all at the same time so i love that framework i love the idea of saying hey i think we can do this in 30 days. Here's what we're going to do after that. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's a major thing and it's going to be 90 days and it's one thing. But sometimes, sometimes it's the most important thing we can do to move the needle is not that hard or complicated. We still need to do it first, but what are we going to do after that? So yeah, that's that's the that's the path to multiple priorities. It's still almost, almost never we're doing them at the same time. Yeah. I think a little thing just because I don't want to lose it, we're going to be wrong.

And it's the whole concept, just because you start a book, doesn't mean you have to finish a book. And so sometimes you get in and you think this was your one thing and you get in and you start realizing, whoa, whoa, whoa, we miss something. This isn't our one thing. Our one thing's over here. And it's okay to pause and go course correct and recalibrate. It is absolutely okay. And listen, like, I forget. But obviously listening to that in the next episode on Rogan, he had John Sina, which

you want a great life philosophy. Go listen to that one. Holy smokes. And he talked about, you just, you know, we don't take advantage of the opportunities that come our way. He said, but he goes, I want to go, I want to be in the Hall of Fame. And he's using baseball analogy. And he said, if you hit three out of ten pitches for your career,

You are in the Hall of Fame. Think about that. That means you fail 70% of the time. And the way he said in Rogan, and I was like, dude, like, think about that. If you only are successful 30% of the time, that means you're going to be in the Hall of Fame. And so I think it's just really good here as you're going through in our business is that we're going to be wrong. And listen, we want to be less wrong. we're trying to stack the probability and odds in our favor.

But just remember, if you hit 300, you're in the Hall of Fame. So I think I just wanted to share that because that's, sometimes we beat ourselves up. And then we get paralyzed. We don't do anything about it. Like, I think the fastest thing that we can do is when we jump in and we miss the mark is immediately course correct. And don't, it's my favorite concept. It's outcome over ego.

And it's like, listen, if you are trying to be right, that's where your ego will kick in. all we're trying to do is get to write get to the outcome so it's outcome over ego and you got to ask yourself am i trying to be right or am i trying to help us get to right and and so those are just good little frames context here we are throwing stuff back up into the to the operating system these are just ways to help us think think better and i think it's just just really important so exercise one is the is really the strategic review right layout the profit engine, review the economic model, your value propositions, how lead flow systems, how we're servicing the opportunities.

And if it's you, you're having, you know, AI is helping you work through this. Your coach is helping you work through this. People on your team. Where is the single biggest gap between our business model, our profit engine, and our current reality, right? and a lot of that in the clarity compass will help us of our current reality, but how we're trying to make this business make money. And what is the biggest gap?

And what is the one domino we could push this quarter that would make all of the others start to fall? Keep going back. Traffic, conversion, fulfillment, retention. And so, or, you know, financials, right? We're spending too much. We've got line items that are not optimized. We've got more money going out that's not getting a return that we need to just cut.

Maybe we're bloated not only financially. Maybe we're bloated with people. Right. So that could also be a domino to fall. I had Joel had Will Mayhan. If you remember Will, Oklahoma City market had Will had Will. on and he had grown, you know, his brokerage up to over 120 agents. And he was bloated with a bunch of people that were sucking up resources that weren't

utilizing for the people that were actually showing up. And he ended up reducing down to about 85, 90 agents. And he did that coming into 25, and they doubled production. With 40 fewer agents, they doubled production. And so his domino was I got to get I got to get rid of You know the canopy cover that's that's robbing resources from the plant life below that's trying to grow And so I think it's just you know kind of identifying where that that constraint what is the one domino That can accelerate and you know I'm a belief of you know don't go hire anybody that has a pulse

I mean hire people and focus on agent productivity I believe you can make agents more productive more more productive more productive. And it's just a great, like the way he said, I'm like, yep, exactly, right? How many times have we heard that over and over and over, you know, when you, you know, cut the bloke, cut the dead weight, it frees everybody else up to continue to rise. So find that, what is the one domino that we can push this quarter that makes all the others to fall. The second is start to brainstorm these objectives. So build.

What new system or capability do we need to create, right? Man, I really think we need to pull the trigger on YouTube, right? That was what we needed to build, like with Trav, right? Like, we need to build. Your main thing right now is we need to build. We need to build a YouTube channel. We need to build an infrastructure. We need to build something.

The second is we need a fix, right? what we currently have is broke. It's underperforming. It's holding us back. You know, we're generating a bunch of leads. We're generating, we're taking clients, but we're missing the onboarding side of things to your onboarding question. So sometimes we need to fix. So we either need to build something.

We need to fix something. Or, this is my favorite, we need to optimize something. What is already working? have we squeezed all of the juice that we could scale or improve to get a better return, get a massive return, get a 2 to 3x return more than what we're getting if we just optimized it more. And got a client that's been a longtime Bafini disciple, right? built her whole business on the buffini system uses the buffini and she doesn't really want to do more production but i our word going into 26 is more and she guys she's like more i don't want to do

more i said well i'm talking about more invites to your events for your a pluses your a's more content from those events. And listen, you're in a small market. Do you know what people love more? Like love? They love swag. Can we do more swag to your people creating an element of walking billboards out in the marketplace for you? And it was like, we're not trying to do more production,

but we're going to do more of the thing that's working. We're going to continue to optimize the one thing. So I thought that was a great example, Joel, with that first, you know, that exercise there with brainstorming what objective around that we're trying to do. We're trying to build something new. We're trying to fix something that's broken or we're trying to optimize something that's already working. What do you think about kind of running it? through one of those filters.

Yeah. Do you think, I love the, I love the distinctions between them because I just, it's a framework for people to think through how do I prioritize or how do I pick the project. So great example, build, okay, we're going to start from scratch with something. We need to do a YouTube channel. Perfect example. Fix something. I mean, we've all got stuff in our business.

It's not working the way it's supposed to. It's probably our CRMs for most of us. Do we need to fix the way we're following up? Do we need to fix that? I love that. Optimize. I think of optimize like, hey, we're doing a pretty good job keeping in touch with our past clients, but let's optimize that. Let's add touches. Let's add an event. Let's add something else. There's more meat on the bone here. Let's optimize that. And then, you know, just growing something too. So a lot of times it's let, you know, let's just do more of this. And then we'll see what happens. And we'll see what stresses or which breaks. And we'll fix that. You know, let's double our

paper-click budget and and see what happens. So sometimes it's a, you know, it's a, it's a growth thing too, which could fit into optimize, but I like, I like those distinctions. You know, because then it gives us, we can, we can ask better questions of ourselves with kind of those, those categories in mind, what's broken, what's not, what's not working the right way, what's working pretty good, but could be great, you know, what, what's working fantastic and we just need to double down on it. Or, you know, in the build category, what, you know, what's, you know, what are we not doing that we should be doing? So I love the simplicity of that because it helps us ask better questions of ourselves.

And then we come up with a better result. Makes me kind of thing, too, as we're talking through that, like Kyle Davis, right? Strongest Cash Offer, right? We built it. We were optimizing. But then now we're in the fix it phase. And so once it's fixed, then we'll probably move into the optimization phase and keep working that one thing because that's the thing that's driving. which leads me to, you know, once you think you have it, you know, I think kind of running it through a little bit of a litmus test of is it singular?

Right? We've all been guilty of this. Is it truly one objective or is it two or three rolled into one? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's usually why we don't finish things is because we start to unpack and we realize that there's more here and it's like, ah, this should have been two priorities. Oh, wait. This should have been three things instead of one. We called it our social media priority, but we had to do Facebook ads and fix our YouTube channel and start Instagram. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's a great example. Is it inspiring, right? Does it feel like a challenge the team can get excited about, right? Is it really going to help us move, move the needle in the business? And then, you know, three, I think is it strategic? Does it directly advance the vision laid out, you know, in our profit engine? Does it really help us, you know, really move the soul of the company of where we're trying to go. And then finally, you know, get that objective statement written, right? We are successful when I think, you know, maybe a good formula. We talk about, you know, which variable from what to what by when.

But I kind of like this one. What is the action? What are we going to focus on in order to what? what's the desired business I'm going to say outcome but impact contribution so launch our guaranteed offer program in order to become the number one choice

for move up sellers in our market right that's real clear we know exactly what it is and so I think really getting it into that objective statement that's where you got to to really because this is this is what it is

this is kind of what it's focused on and this is our desired business impact. Like, you know, we're doing this because we want this, we want to be known as the number one choice for move-up sellers or distress sellers in our marketplace or whatever the case may be. But I think it's really good. And then I would then say, by when. That'd be the only other thing I'd add in there. By when. By when? By when do we want to have this launched? What is done? And that moves us into, to kind of, You know, the second part, I'm going to go through here pretty quick for time's sake.

The second part is really the key results, right? So what we talked about in the beginning. What are the measurables? The key results are really, guys, just the evidence that the dream came true, right? How do we know the objective is a dream? How do we know what came true? And task, measurable outcomes that are non-negotiable. If you achieve the key results, we won.

We won the quarter if we achieved it. So what are our measurables for each of them? ensure they pass the test of it's a result, not a task. It has to have a number. And is it stretch, right? Is it going to stretch us? Ambitious, but not impossible. It's going to stretch us.

And remember, a good key result should be, make you a little nervous. And then is it clear? And then draft them out, right? So we want to increase listing appointment conversion rate from 60% to 75%. I remember, you know, we did, you know, we did this with Jim and Leanne really early on, right? We identified what their, their key measurables. We saw that there was a deficiency and how do we know that we're going to move them, right? So if we know, you know, hey, we don't have any, we're moving into motivated seller.

Like, we need to increase from five motivated seller opportunities to 27, right, whatever, whatever the increase is. So being able to have that there that we can see, I think is super important. And then the third and final component to me is the most important. And Joel, you can speak to this. You're one at the best at designing this, but really installing the rhythm of execution. And, you know, our plans without a rhythm of accountability is like a paperweight. This is where we make the roadmap real by assessing clear ownership and establishing the weekly sprint that drives progress. So one, we assign single point ownership that we talked about earlier.

So who is, who's the one, OPR, one person ultimately responsible. Two is the weekly sprint. So this is a non-negotiable. You got to have that in there. High energy, quick to the point, make it as long as it needs to be, not longer, not shorter. And really, this is the heartbeat. This is the heartbeat of the execution. and stay consistent, same time, same day, come prepared.

This is a reporting meeting, not a working session. That's different. This is just reporting, this accountability, high energy, what did we accomplish where we're at? Anything that turns into brainstorming strategic, that's offline. Hey, let's jump, take that offline. Let's take that offline. Let's take offline. And remember, roadblocks are opportunities.

We're stuck. And the goal is to identify them. can, you know, solve after the meeting. Okay, we're just identifying. We're not problem solving. And so being able to do that and just keep it real quick, right? Two minute update. Hey, boom, this is where we're at. Hey, boom, this is where we're at. Hey, boom, this is where we're at. Oh, wait. Hey, this is, this is where we're at. Okay, great. Well, what are your top priorities to move this week? And roadblocks, right? I'm blocked because. Like, why? How come come what's causing you so being able to go there and and so to me that that really brings it together

i think for us where we learned that kind of rhythm and joel adds in context was was um scrum right jeff sutherland's book scrum red book it's like if you really want to execute fast um scrum is the process yeah yeah and scrum has a ton of value even if you if you don't decide to run the full scrum methodology, there's still a ton of value in the principles behind it. The idea of the backlog, the idea of the sprint, the idea of, you know, the different roles with Scrum Master and who's kind of driving these meetings. There's a ton of valuable stuff in there. But yeah, I totally agree.

The number one reason we fail is getting this rhythm wrong. Yeah. Because we either furiously start and have an, a, you know, a massive burst of activity, and then team leader, whoever's owning it, tends to check out, and then it just kind of fizzles. Or, you know, we do execute really well, but then we don't have this in place and it slowly dies. And that happens a lot, too. Gosh, we were really dialed in for a month and then we were pretty dialed in for a month, and then we were kind of dialed in for a month, and then it just, you know, it just dies.

So the ongoing accountability doesn't always have to be weekly, but it has to be weekly while we're in the middle of that project or executing on that thing. And after it's done, okay, you know, we defined done, it's done now. How do we make sure it's functioning properly for the long term? There's a separate but equally important accountability cadence to that where we're checking in. Some things it's weekly, some things it's monthly, some things that's quarterly, some things it's annually, but there's still some kind of cadence. We only look at our employee handbook once a

year, but we look at our employee handbook every year, and this is still, you know, is this still accurate for us. But we're going to look at our CRM results every week, no matter what, forever. So, you know, once it's, once it's done, it's not done. It's never done. There's still some kind of accountability cadence where we're looking at the results. And the more important it is, you know, the more often we're typically looking at it. I love it. Brother, that, you know, kind of wraps us up on, and listen, guys, like, what Joel just broke down, like, I'm even struggling with it right now, right?

And have understood this and known this process for a long time. And it's sometimes because, you know, trying to do too much. And I know kind of obviously for some folks, I think, you know, depending upon kind of where they're at right like speed speed is is absolutely critical you know moving moving forward moving into the future and so i think you know moving as fast as you possibly can but continuing to go faster but also i think that when we've tried to do so much and it's the whole less than more and so find kind of that theme i think you know even even for me man i think the i think the theme is is maybe just going to be like get skinny you know just just you know shed any any bloat anything that is non

useful that's non-critical that doesn't matter doesn't like because a lot of the times you can stop doing things and it's not even going to it won't even matter right it won't even matter and you know sometimes i i even question you know all the dang calls and all the stuff like that but i'm like man but if i stop that then where's the content going to come from where the conversation's going to come from. So, but there are certain things that we do that you're like, man, is this, does this, is this absolutely critical? So whatever that theme is, wherever you're at, I think, you know, going through this process here that we just touched on today will help you really start to identify what you must say yes to, but more importantly, no. And remember, no is a

complete sentence. But at least not for right now. And I think that's what to your point, you know, that's what the backlog's for, things that can, you know, you know, you know, get put in. Hey, we feel this is going to be important, but it's just not important right now. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right.

Well, thank you guys. We wrapped up the fifth component of the agent to CEO process. We will be back next week before I think we take advantage of the, you know, holidays, the last two weeks of the year. But join us next week, which I think brings it all together with the leadership flywheel. So. Love it. Joel, appreciate you. Sandra, great seeing you. Thank you guys. Thanks. Thanks, Iva.

Bye. Thanks for tuning in. If you're done guessing and ready to lead like a real CEO with a custom strategy, real accountability, and proven systems, check out my executive 101 coaching at john kitchens. Fill out the application and book your one-on-one call with me. Be sure to hit follow so you never miss an episode. Catch you on the next one.