KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The CEO Playbook: Scaling From 12 to 80+ Agents Through Purposeful Growth

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Summary:In this episode, host John Kitchens interviews Brett Sikora on the transition from accidental growth to intentional scaling. Sikora details how his team doubled down during market shifts, growing from a small group to over 80 agents by identifying specific "avatars" and implementing a strict 10% conversion rate for recruiting. Agents and team leaders will learn the importance of protecting culture, understanding true profitability versus "messy" team growth, and why 1-on-1 coaching is the most effective lever for increasing per-agent productivity.

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. What is happening, everybody, man? Thank you guys. Turing into episode 307 of Expert Mentors Live. Got Mr. Brett Secura back in the house.

Bro, I had to have the team go back and look. And I was like, I said, when was Brett last on? And July 8th of 20. Dude. Yeah. EML 109. Leading agents into production and creating a culture that's contagious to agents that want more out of life. Man, what a journey over last five years.

A lot has happened for sure. Yeah. Dude, I would not have thought we were that long ago. And I was like hard of COVID lockdown. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You guys were way locked down.

We were still trying to figure out ways how we could, you know, get down to Florida and get some breathing room. Definitely. So talk to me, man. You know, you look back and, you know, the size of that team dramatically different than where it was. I mean, what from that point to kind of where we're at? I mean, what was kind of the spark for you to look in and grow and scale differently?

Yeah. It's actually interesting that it's, But it's interesting that that was the time because it brings me back to, I want to say, the state that we were in that's happened. It's happened to me twice in these past five years. So that was, we were in lockdown. I mean, that was one of those things where, you know, March of 2020, the world shuts down, at least for us, and depending on what state you're in, world shuts down, agents.

are like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do now? We switched to daily huddles. We were doing, you know, virtual happy hours with our team. We were like, we were pulling vacant lists and have an agent's prospect like homes that we knew were vacant because we could go show them, sell them. Sellers were freaking out. So it's actually kind of easy to get a vacant homelisting at the time and prospect it. But we were for, we were given that decision where you could either, you know, just hang and kind of like see where. it goes or you can hammer down and you can like really say how do i get market share right now in that scenario um for instance we had isa's prospecting agents like in the heart of it to bring them

into our organization and i remember getting calls from team leaders saying like yo what are you doing this is crazy stop calling my agents and i'm saying yo that's my job dude that's what feeds my family this is what this is what I do day in and day out if you want to give me a roster of agents I'll make sure they're not on my list I respect you we're cool but you can call any of my agents and they're not going anywhere like this is this this this is that culture that we were like you know really marching through when you and I met in July of 2020 and the second time that it happened uh and I tell people when things are not great that's when it doesn't feel like it but you're really like if you're if you're getting

action, you're going leaps and bounds ahead of, like, it's going to have such a slingshot effect when things get easier. So then things did get easier, September 2020, it started to come around. And then the next hurdle that we had was 2022. The rates came up. And we didn't feel it immediately in New Jersey. But by Q3, it was almost like September. Everybody was just like, maybe rates aren't going to come back down.

And they started to think differently around things. And they started to pull back. So we were in this next version of, do we chill? Do we shave expenses? Do we just kind of like get through this and see what it's like? Or do we double down? And do we hammer right now? And we chose to hammer.

And that's fast forward to 2025. What I was saying to you earlier, the tide has been out for three years. So now we're seeing these broker owners, these team leaders, these folks that maybe they scale, back or maybe they hammered and it didn't work. And now they're in a financial or agent atrophy issue or cultural misalignment. And I don't want to say they're giving up, but you're starting to see, you know, a lot of older broker owners are just, they're rolling up at this point. They're, they're moving on. Team leaders are saying like, hey, maybe maybe there is a better option.

Maybe I could be within a platform where I don't have to worry about my individual. individual profitability as much and I can do what I'm really, really good at and focus on that. So those were the two big things that happened, you know, within the last five years that have kind of created where we're at today as an organization. What were you looking at to take, you know, I'm always interested in not the decision, but how you came to be to make the decision. What was kind of that, what were you looking at,

where you were you paying attention to, to make that first decision to hit the gas and not play defense? What was, what was that that you were kind of looking out in the decision, you know, helped you make that decision? I think that for me,

when I realized that like, this is the world we're in for longer than we want to be in it for, I think it was, I think I was telling the agents in our organization by, we shut down March 13th. It was a Friday, Friday the 13th. I remember that Monday, nobody went, nobody in New Jersey went back to work for in person for probably two years after. Like, it was a while. But by April 4th, the consumer that was entering our world, like by April 4th, I don't know why that date stuck in my head, but I remember it clearly, that's when I was saying, if you've met

them from this day on, these people are transacting in this market. So we're going to client got furloughed. They don't want to buy right now. Cool. We're moving on from them. We're here when they're ready. But we have a whole new pool of buyers coming through right now. And I was able to identify that they were 1,000 percent willing to transact. They had job security. They had already gotten past that furlough and everything. And they knew like, hey, my business is going to make money in this, in this, and we're going to be okay. So that that's what I would, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's where it was. I was able to figure out that there was a whole new world of buyers that weren't panicked like 90% of the realtors were. And they were willing to transact and we hammered and we went after

all of them. So it was a calculated decision. Yeah. But, but I could sense it. And that's when I was like, okay, let's go time. We're going to get realtors. We're going to go do, you know, we're going after it. Dude, I think that's such a great distinction and not paying attention to what your peers are doing around you, but actually getting into the data of what's truly going on here. And I think it's the, you know, looking for the opportunity. Because in any market, you've been playing this game long enough, you know, in any market there's an opportunity. So, you know, do you sit back and become paralyzed with everybody around you? Or, you know, do you know to start looking where the dang opportunity is and then being able to go solve that problem instead of just sitting back waiting for things to

clear themselves out. On the growth side of things, Brett, yourself and at this point, man, you've talked to so many team leaders and you've seen, you know, under the hood. Most of them grow accidentally, right? They, or they catch the wave and they ride the wave. What did you guys do? after you saw that opportunity, you saw the buyers, you're like, okay, there's something, you know, here. Let's go do this. Let's hammer on this. But once you knew you had that momentum, what did you, the decision did you make to grow on purpose as you guys went from 12 to 80 plus agents where you're at now?

What were you intentional about to make that growth jump? Yeah. So much like I mentioned earlier where I was like, this is my job. is what I'm going to do. And I apologize if you're on the other side of the table of this, but it's how we eat. So it's a sales job, man. It's a numbers game. Nobody focuses on the amount of like you take a Mike Ferry agent, which is like my background. You take a marketing base. You take, okay, cool, how many billboards are up, how many mailers are going at, all of this. Like let's focus on all of the data to figure out what an ROI is around conversion.

How many of these lead into a listing lead? How many listing leads actually get held? how many turn, you know, so on, so on, so on. Nobody does that for recruiting with these smaller teams. Nobody's focused on the numbers thing. So like you're saying, they grow by accident. They have somebody that reaches out to them. They like doing the transaction. They jive well.

And they're like, hey, let's date. This is a great idea. There's actually no process to figure out whether or not they should be dating that person. And just dating can be very costly with the wrong people. I've seen, I've seen scenarios where they bring in a toxic, person to their organization, that person then internally spoils the whole thing and then pulls that organization out. And overnight, they lose like seven agents and they're only a nine agent team. I hear that, like seeing that story far more often than I want it to be. So for us,

we don't take new agents. We don't take part-time agents. We may make an exception on either of those, like if a part-time agent's already grooving, doing 10 million a year and they're a firefighter or something, cool, we'll rock with you. We'll figure, like, we'll make this work. If a brand-new agent comes in, they're like, hey, I hated corporate America. I quit my job. I got two kids. I got mortgage payment. I'm going to make this work. I'm like, cool. We'll rock with you, too. But if you have both of those, it's really tough to make real estate work. So like, if you're brand new and you're part-time, that's just like a definite no for us. And, and you're a definite no for us. And when I look at a lot of these organizations, too, from a team standpoint, they have brand

new agents in their world that are part-time, that aren't selling homes, that are on their roster that should not be here. So that was another decision we made. In fall of 2022, we said we are no longer going to recruit new agents. And I want to say for probably two and a half years, we might have let three or four into an organization of like 200. So that's how many like didn't, did not make the cut or we just wouldn't even, you know, get into the conversation. From there, we launched a mentorship program this year and everything.

We started bringing back the new agents. But what we did that really worked for our growth is we built an organization that was for the producing agent to go sell more homes, more efficiently, more effectively, enjoy more free time with their kids, more vacations with their spouse, whatever the goals may be, buy more investment. properties. Like we want to go in and geek out on that. So our organization was built with that as the avatar. And much like we were, you know, wrapping about earlier, we can get into a conversation with an $80 million producer and clearly show how their world will be better in our world if they run the play that's designed for them to run. So that's a long-winded way of saying as a team leader, deciding what your avatar is, is even an important piece of the puzzle. Is it just out of fear and not having a recruiting or hiring process?

You don't know what to say no to, yes to. Is that kind of where they get caught? I like this person. You know, I think we sometimes I'm just even, as I'm talking out loud, I think optimistically, we believe we can help everybody. It doesn't mean we should. It just feels that way. Is that how they sometimes allow those part-time agents?

Because I see it all the time as well as you do. And it's hard for them to just say no. Like, no. It's like, no, you've got to be full-time. You've got to commit. Or like you said, a professional that's not going to rob you of resources, but still getting after it in their off hours. why do team leads allow these part-time agents on their team?

I mean, I did. You just want you want numbers. You want bodies at the beginning. You want to say you have a team of 10 people. You want to say you have a team of eight people. When we're running the M&A model, which we spoke about earlier, one of my first questions that I have to the team leader that's coming in is who in your roster should not be here when we switch because this is a really good time to punt, you know, those folks. And I'll go in and

I want to say scare them, but I'll be, I'll, I will get real with them and get face to face and say, like, are you committed to this? Do you want this? I want you to want this. We have race horses back here. They want race horses around them so they can all run faster. Are you interested in that? And if the answer is yes, I'm like, cool, that's it. That's my test. Like, let's, let's rock. Here's what it looks like. But if they if they're kind of like, I don't really want this guy to like care if I sell more homes or not. That's not that's not what we're looking for, you know? Yeah. I love that. One of I always, I always, one of my favorite recruiting lines just since we're on the topics, I always say like if if you want to be better than where you are today, like if you

want to grow, if you want to hammer, if you want to have like, if you want to go back to when you swiped your credit card to get your real estate license and live that dream that you had in your head with Lamborghinis and $3 million a year, whatever it may be, I'm your guy. If you want to stay where you're at, though, and you feel like this feels good and you like your broker because he's a good friend and that, like, I will, I will completely upset you. So like, that sentence, it, it, it leaves the complacent people there and it wakes up the person that's like, yeah, what am I doing? Like, I didn't get my real estate license to make 72 grand a year. Like, like, that's, like, that's, Let's go.

You know, I got a family. It's go time. Yeah. I've seen quite a few that just kind of default into, you know, next thing they know, they've got three, four, five, six people. They just organically don't, not even sure how it happened, but it happened. Yeah. Looking at anybody that is thinking about making a jump and in growing,

obviously we, you know, we touch the hot stove. It's always easier, you know, looking back. What would you tell them, like, listen. And besides be clear on the avatar, are there any other systems or structures you want to have the plumbing in place before you, you know, sheet rock and close everything out and finish everything up? Like what needs to be in to limit, I'm not going to say prevent, but limit the amount of chaos that growth brings. Yeah. So I think too, like the question, and I always had this with listing appointments with buyer, like when I was taking out buyers, whatever. it, but like you have to ask, is what you're bringing them into actually better for them?

Like, is it built? And do you have an onboarding process or do you have a mentorship process? Or like, what, you have to have a process of some sort. And you can go on chat, GPT and have it, like, create something for you. You need a play that you need to start sticking to. It doesn't need to be perfect. And ours is still, like, getting audited and changed as things go. we actually found out recently we give people too much information when they start to onboard with us. So like we're trying to get it, you know, in stages now so that they're not just getting hit with a fire hose when they come through. So like you want to always be playing around with that. But one of the things that I say to people is that your pipeline's not big enough.

So like you're just taking the like six agents reached out. They want to join your team. You took all six. That's awesome. You just recruited 100% of the people that have expressed interest in joining. with no avatar identified. And the reality is when we look at our numbers, we have about 20 conversations,

either starting from me or they're starting from us, from those usually get into about 10 meetings or so that will then take a deeper dive, like a gap analysis, a needs analysis. And then from there, we'll get into about five that'll really be like this, let's explore, like let's make an offer. Some people don't like our split.

So they don't join us. Like that happens, it's okay. But we have a standard around splits and we know why we have value in regard to the splits that we put on the organization. And then from that, about two agents join. So it's about 10% of everything that has a conversation that becomes a lead actually ends up in the organization. So when you look at those 60 folks, or sorry, those six folks, did they have 66, you know, or 60 conversations in, order to get down to that. And if they focus on like that simplicity of it, even when you're hiring a transaction manager, they hire the first one that they meet with that makes them feel

good. But there's no process to actually make sure they're the right person for that. There's no working interview. There's no, you know, go meet with 20 transaction managers. And I guarantee you'll find somebody that's really, really good in that makes of your folks. Yeah. Is that the move that looks good on paper, but at the end of the day, sucks all the profitability out of, out of the team growth is just bringing on anybody with the pulse instead of really vetting them out, because, you know, you're bringing all these people in, you're robbing resources, that's taking time away from the team lead, which takes them out of production. Is that kind of the thing that that probably hurts profitability the most or is there

something else? No, I would say that. I mean, that and then I went through it, but people spending money to go try to solve the problem, to. So like, let's say you bring on six folks, they're killing you from a time standpoint, which people don't value their own time. They don't realize how much of a resource that is that goes into folks, especially if you have that agent, you know, I would say like your average team leader, just an average. Like if we looked at EXP across the board, maybe it's like team leaders doing eight to 10 million or something like that, then creates this team with, you know, six people

like we're talking about and then that's like maybe they'll do another four million or so you know it's like that 12 to 18 million maybe um same with k w like that just seems to be a pretty common messy team size where where the like you said it's not really a team um the profitability stinks uh and that's the thing like that team leader without the team we just make 250 grand a year you know and and live a much more simple life but when you start to get pulled into these one hour meetings and you're making 250 grand a year. What is that? $400 an hour or $300.

I don't know what it calculates to it, but it's a decent chunk. So you're getting pulled aside and it's just zapping you on that. It's creating fatigue within your own world so that it becomes more difficult to go create $250,000 or $250,000 again in income. And, you know, you just start to get spread thin. You start to burn out. You're trying to solve all this with all these gada minutes.

And then that's when the hire comes on. You make somebody a director of sales or you make them a sales manager within your organization. But is that the right person that's supposed to be doing that? So that's the game, man. It's like when you have the right people that want to grow their business with the right amount of time allocation, this guy's the limit. And I hate to say it, but like we were just in, you know, a large team meeting. We're talking about how do we grow everybody internally by 20% year over year.

And my answer was one-on-ones with them. And it's not systems and it's not this and it's not that. It's like what is important to them around their goals? And that's like, that's coaching, man. And it's like, it's coaching, coaching doesn't provide a system. And coaching tells you how to run a system, how to run a play, how to, how to, how to pull on your why, how to, how to make you get to wherever you want to go. So I think that a lot of people think, I need fellow to do this. I need this to do that.

I need that. I need a huge marketing budget. I need, I'm like, no, you need your agents to make contacts. You need your agents that have conversations with people that they already know about buying or selling real estate. Hey, quick pause before we keep going. This market is shifting fast, and if you've been feeling the pressure, you're not alone. But here's the thing. It's not going to slow down so you can catch up.

I've opened a limited number of executive 101 coaching spots this month for agents who are ready to stop spinning their wheels and lead with clarity. If that's you, head to john kitchens.com coach and let's make it happen. Now, back to the episode. Here's the script, you know. have a conversation to build a relationship. I mean, it's like fundamentally, you know, don't, don't overthink it. It still is, it's a trust game, right? Especially more and more so we're moving, moving into. And obviously with AI and content, it's like, okay, what do I really trust? And I think that's where the deepening of the relationship. And for you, your customer has

moved from the buyer and seller to the real estate agent. So how do you continue to build trust with your client, which is the real estate agent, and that has to be the one-on-one touches, right? As much as, you know, I love from a time aspect, one to many, you still have to incorporate a one-to-one to truly make that impact. And that's where you said from a coaching standpoint, because it's easy to hide in a one-to-mini if you're an agent and a mini and you're coming to one. But it's easier in a one-to-one situation for what I think our coaches are really instrumental. I mean, they bring a lot of different things to the table, but the big thing is just helping hold that mirror up, right, for you to get a good look. But they can also take the mirror and over here on the side in our

blind spots, what we can't see. And they give us some perspective to be able to see it. And you as a team lead, you do start to wear that coach hat as you're coaching your leaders, you're coaching your key people. And it's one of the things that I love what you said, you know, before we went, before we came on was our next evolution is leaders creating leaders, creating leaders, us pouring into that first level of leadership, giving them the tools to pour into the next level of leadership, giving them the tools to pour in the next level of leadership. And that creates that culture and that organization of leadership, which is everything. And that, I mean, you don't get to the size that you're at without leadership.

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And that's, it's a, it's a, it's a fun game to play. All of this, dude, these are all games. Like, this is like a, it's like, you know what I mean? It's like a, it's a different level of a video game where it's like the matrix it's like let's go let's go let's go have some fun let's go let's go bend some rules let's go do things i don't know i just dig it one of my like this is a little extreme but one of the things i say too like let's say that team leader with six people on their team that that none of them are pending right now and say your average price points um 500 000 a month or 500 000 in your market if all six of them penned that's three million dollars in pending month. So like, let's say if you can get three million per month, that's 36 million out of those

six people in theory that could be closing. And then if I say, cool, if I ever put a gun to your head and say, you need to get all of them to pen every single month for the next 12 months. What are you going to do? And it's like, you'll do whatever it takes. And none of it is like saying, hey, go into that giant mastermind once a week and I'm not going to watch you go do it. And then like, And it's like, no, I'm going to go knock on your door because I'm going to die unless you actually penned a home this month. Come on, you're coming into the office with me. Let's go.

We got to make calls. We got to go. We got to go. But that's like, again, it's an extreme, but it's the simplicity of this where anybody's capable of pending a home. Like, anybody can do it. We have agents that are not well scripted. They're not great at getting into rapport right away with folks.

You might have a strong accent, whatever it may be. But through like repetitious, you know, boredom. and actually doing what their job is, which is connecting, having a human connection with folks at scale, they build a pipeline and then people transact. Yeah, it is.

I mean, it's pretty simple. We tend to overcomplicate it. Or it's what I see with agents overcomplicating it. Maybe it's the, they want to over entrepreneur it or whatever the case may be. But like, keep it simple.

For you, brother, on kind of the growth, right? So you're making this. We're gaining that traction. We're gaining that momentum. and kind of shifting out of growth, right?

Because the way I think about growth is sometimes our revenue and our expenses kind of ride together. Yep. Right. And then you can get to, you know, where we have, you know, to where we can kind of, kind of flat line out on the expenses, but our revenue keeps growing, start to start to scale, right? So things that we could utilize across other aspects.

We're not just keep adding expenses. when you guys started, you know, making that jump. And as somebody's thinking about kind of an expansion standpoint into new markets, when did it start to make sense for you guys? Or when would it have been, oh, man, that was a mistake. What should be thinking about? Because I know you're going to laugh because you're going to go to the mistake. But when does it make sense and when does it not?

It never makes sense. Don't expand. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. Don't do it. You have to, so you have to have, you have to have, so you have to have your core business. New Jersey is our hub, right?

Like, so everybody, everything spins off of like, we have the most amount of staff in New Jersey. We have the most amount of agents in New Jersey. Most amount of offices in New Jersey. Most amount of offices in New Jersey. The economy of scale is there. So we're able to take profitability from New Jersey and then invest it in other markets. But what I would say is that, you have to have a strong leader in that market.

I would say that's the, that's like the big, you need that like, that person can grow. That guy or a gal, they are like a magnet for real estate agents that can come into that. So, you know, if you're looking within like the XP umbrella, for instance, who's a really good recruiter that like doesn't have a sales system behind them to help them recruit even more? That can be your person. And then I would make the decision to go in around that person. one of the things I personally do with our expansion is it has to be a very dense area of real estate agents as well. I had an opportunity to go to Palm Beach, for instance. Gentleman was doing 50 plus million per year, wanted to do something with us.

I got on Zillow. I searched the realtors in the area. And it's just like, I don't think, like what I'm seeing, I don't think I can go in and like do damage here, you know. but like a Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, those Austin, like, those are all areas where, like, I know I'll jive well with the realtors. I know they'll understand tech. I know that we'll have, like, a funnel that I can actually pick from. So like that's the, Tammy Pack, she's our sponsor. She's in Fredericksburg, Texas. There's only so much of a market there. So at some point, you just, you can't grow beyond that. So we look for areas, you know, know we're in bellingham washington we're in chicago illinois we're in raleigh north carolina we're in

orlando and sarasota and tampa like it's it's areas that that you can just the sky is the limit you can go well oh you can do billions of sales in those areas with hundreds of agents to choose from thousands of agents to choose from dude that's such a such a great um way to way to look at it instead of thinking that you're going to go into this small little town where there's you know how much opportunity is really really there so i i love that distinction to to be mindful of before just expanding to expand because you got somebody that wants to, like you said, the gentleman down there in doing the 50 million. Let's flip the script.

Okay. So say you're a team leader. What do I need to know as a team lead? What do I need to be clear on financially before being open to expanding or merging with you? Yeah. I mean, I think that I think that understanding your finances. is a big piece to the puzzle too. Like I think that a lot of folks,

when I look at team leaders, P&Ls, a lot of them, like let's say they're profitable. Some aren't profitable, but let's use a profitable one. Like I was saying to you earlier, let's say somebody's doing 30 million a year in production, their teams are doing another 50 million, they're doing 80 million altogether. When I look at their P&Ls,

a lot of times that's 750 grand in GCI that's coming from that 30 million is actually losing money on the 50 million of what's happening within the team because there's a marketing person that's hired specifically for the team or there's paying 15 grand a month to get Zillow leads that aren't getting converted by the team or whatever it may be.

I think that from a team leader standpoint, it's being very clear and aware around like what your P&L looks like. And then we can have an educated conversation around how we're able to change that and make that better day one with the idea of a merger. Yeah, back to the just fundamental knowing what the heck the P&L is and what, you know, what makes sense, right? What's driving it, what's sucking it down.

You know, our big thing, obviously is, you know, obviously with profitability within the salary cap, but like most people just don't know those things and they get there because they stress their way just out of sheer hustle. and just stacking as much cash as they can, but they don't really understand or consistently pay attention to it. So I love that. Just know the financials before even thinking about it. And really what's driving the business.

And think about this. I mean, even the teams that are built on kind of one pedestal of being one of these referral portal companies that like understanding your customer acquisition cost, right? And they're like, well, you know, I only make this, you know, it only cost me this or whatever. And it's like, yeah, but you're giving on a $10,000 commission, you're giving $4,000 for a customer acquisition cost because it's a 40% referral. But they don't know how to look at the math.

The math is not 6,000. The math is 10,000. Topline revenue. You've got 40% out in cost of sale. And then if you got an agent on that deal, like you're splitting 60%. percent, right? You're making three grand. You're making 30 percent off of that. So it's just understanding the financials. I love, I love that. What for you, back to back to your side of the story, when you guys started scaling across markets coming out of Jersey going into, like you said,

into the rallies, getting out in Chicago, all the way out in Washington, what first started, what started to break first? Yeah. Um, When we, so Chicago was our first expansion. We, we, one of our top agents, Dan Spitz, crushes it, was from Chicago originally and wanted to move back home. And I was like, yeah, let's go do it. I thought that my whole core in New Jersey was going to be able to support him there doing what he's doing.

So I would say that what broke was the fact that it was very difficult to, like even transaction management. Like I thought that New Jersey housing that was going to be able to take care of that. So we ended up having to go third party on TC. So that became an extra expense that I didn't think was going to be happening. Then he grew, which is a good problem. So then we ended up having to go get an office, which I didn't think was an expense that was going to have to happen as quickly as it did. It was, again, good problem to have.

Then he needed somebody to like manage with him because he's also still a killer listing agent that like, you know, we're talking about time getting put away. So there's an expense that came along with that where we hired somebody for there. And it just keeps going and going and going. And that's why, like I would say from a mistake or like what I didn't know, like we didn't have a plan on what production levels needed to look like in order to then release another hire as it goes through. And I just like we have that playbook now. You know that, okay, cool, when you're, when you're out 100 million and then you're going and you cross over the 200 million line, we're going to need a larger office for the folks that are, that are, you know, coming through.

Or we're going to need a dedicated marketing person to be in your office, working with the agents, editing their videos, doing all that stuff. But that's what I didn't know and I didn't think about. So we actually, we went into the red on that for probably two years. Like it was a, like it. And that's what I say with people like looking for expansion, like it's sexy. Gary Keller pushed it. So people started doing it.

But like I don't know Brian Gubernick personally, but I, from what I see, I think he pulled back on all the expansion. He was like the king of expansion. So I just tell people like be very cautious with it because there's so much business to be done like in New Jersey alone. I could do billions and billions of real estate, specifically in New Jersey, in a New York City suburb area. Florida, if you're in Orlando, if you're in Sarasota, like you can just do all that.

All of our offices in New Jersey, they're just like a 45 minute drive from one to another, but it's a 90 minute radius of New York City with Hoboken being like the epicenter. And that's just like you can do so much damage there. So point being is, yes, it's sexy to go launch in Chicago. It's sexy to talk about nine offices and in, you know, eight states. But the reality is I have a 1,200 square foot office in Hoboken,

and it has 72 agents tagged out of it. They come in with their stuff. They leave with their stuff. There's usually never more than like five or eight in there at a time. It's never like people have closings there and stuff. It's a beautiful office. It works really well. But that's that's profit.

You know, that's what profit looks like. It's interesting, right? It's certain pivot points, right? you pivot on, you know, head count, you pivot on transaction count, right? So it's like understanding those things to when you start to, you know, make additional resources on on certain, certain pivot points. But to your point, as you were kind of talking through there, if somebody's thinking about it, what would you say like the number one question that they have to answer if they're

thinking about expanding? Why? Like what's the, again, it's a, it's really a lot of times it's an ego based decision. It's like, why do you really want to do that? The number one thing I would say would be call Brett or call John, and let's talk about why you want to do it. What is the real reason? Now, for me, top producer, moving back to Chicago,

I love them. I want to work with them. I want to do some damage with them. Like, we're killing it now. It just was two years of like, this is hard. You know, it was really hard. And now it's like, no, now we're grooving. So I, I, that taught, like I had an emotional connection to an absolute badass that I wanted to continue to work with.

And that's, that's like my why in a lot of the areas that we, that we landed is like a badass comes across my desk. And I'm like, let's rock. Like, I'll invest in, I'll have this not make sense for 12 months or 18 months financially. because I think we can go do some really big and bad things together. That's how Florida just came about. We tried Florida two years ago. We kept everything up and running. So we were still connected in Florida.

And we had a couple agents there. And then somebody reached out to me and was like, yo, I got a killer in Florida. And I was like, I don't want to do Florida. And we were like, no, no, no, I got a killer. And I was like, okay, let's meet the killer. So we met with Jamie. She's out in Florida. She's awesome.

And I said, Jamie, but I'm going to launch in Florida. I want to have 150 transactions like recruited the day I say, go. So go get people in front of me. I want more killers. I want to see these people be recruited on an idea, on a concept. So then she fills up the room with a Zoom and there's, there's, you know, 12 people on it. And I'm like, all right, cool. And then Chris Tarda, who's one of my big New Jersey guys, he's meeting with them.

And Chris was the one originally called me. I was like, all right, Chris. And then so he's in another room. And then I get on another Zoom and there's 12 more people. And I'm like, all right. You guys are, you know, you're doing the work without a job right now still. Like you're doing the work on an idea to prove to me that you can do it. And I'm like, so Jamie and Chris just rocked it.

And I'm like, cool, let's launch Florida again. Let's do it. What's funny about that, then another gentleman who's, I can't announce him yet, but he's coming in. And his right-hand gal, they reach out. And they're like, I saw you're in Florida now. And I was like, yeah, we're here. And they're like, we like you. Let's talk.

Let's talk about it, you know. So then, so anyway, that's how like, I'd venture to say between, you know, it's December, we should check back in in one year. I'd venture to say with what's happening in Florida right now, we'll probably have like 300 plus closing in the next 12 months. That's awesome. And so that's the, I couldn't say no. I would say like investment property.

Any investment property ever bought, it was financially irresponsible for me to not buy the investment property. It was such a good deal that I would go do a capital raise. I would call my dad and ask for a couple bucks. I would do like, I had to buy it because it would make money. And any time that I just bought an investment property to buy it, but I didn't need to buy it because it wasn't a screaming deal. I would like break even or lose money.

So that's like, look at the realtors that are coming into your world or look at the expansion opportunities. And if you're like, that person's different. This person's like awesome. And if the market supports it, like I said earlier, then it's like that that's, that's, that's, that's my why at least. That's why I'm like. And that's and my why is like, dude, I want agents around me.

I want leadership around me. I want staff. I want everybody to truly live that like swipe the credit card. moment and have the best experience possible in the world of real estate because it's been an amazing thing for me and we're continuously growing our world as big as we could possibly get it so that you know five years from now somebody could be sitting at my level within my own organization because the thing just keeps leveling up and leveling up and and doing you know really cool things brother i love that the um you know just as it kind of kind of wrap up here um there was so

much wisdom in what you just shared right there. And I mean, I love the distinction of, I don't really, it's not like a screaming deal. I buy it to buy it. It's kind of a kind of a break even. But it's, it's almost like Tim Ferriss, right? It's like either it's either a hell yes or it's a no. Yeah. And that's kind of what it, what I'm hearing. That's what it kind of feels like. What other message do these team leaders need to hear right now? If, yeah, I think that the hell yes. I use. a gut check a lot of times where I'm like if something feels funky if it feels like just a smidge of like this doesn't feel like this is going to work or this person's going to do something funky

or i question their integrity say that's that that that that is it that is an absolute no is very empowering and like freeing to say no um and like know your worth as a team leader and know your worth and also like think about this is how i always think about it think about like who's already in your tribe as a team leader If you bring in a shithead, that person's pulling you away from the people who are not shitheads to have their best experience. So we see that all the time too. Be cautious as a team leader where you have like six agents, for instance, three of them are killers. Three aren't.

And you're putting time into the three that aren't because they're asking stupid questions all day long. And you haven't even done like a 2006 goal setting thing with your three that are killing it. They're looking at companies like ours right now. They're talking to us because you're ignoring them thinking they're okay. because they're just running on a high team split or something and like doing their own thing. But you've never sat down to actually ask, are you happy? Are you really fulfilling? Like what, like, is life what it should be right now? What do you want to do? What do you want out of this? And if you, again, back to my like one-to-one, like it's not a system. It's not a process.

It's like, go connect with that person and let them know that you are here. You're listening. You want to make sure that you are going to support them in whatever their goals are for 2006. Let's get clear on them. And let's move towards that. And it's, you know, you don't need a ton of tech. You don't need anything fancy. You need to be able to make their life better.

I don't know if you ever went down the infusion rabbit hole, but, you know, Clayt Mask, CEO. And we were in Clayt's mastermind for, for many years. And, you know, had to fly to, had to fly out to, Glinda had to fly out there, you know, three times a year. And we would always like, man, do we have to go and we would, you know, be leaving and be like, man, this is the greatest. I can't believe we were even thinking or not going.

But one of the cladisms, if you will, that he would, he would always say and he reminded to your point was B players are who you spend time with instead of your family. And that really resonated to your point there that we're exhausting, spending time with these B, maybe C players. and we're not focused on the A players and spending time with them. And so it's just a great reminder. I love that. And I'm hoping the team leaders that, you know, will listen to this,

understand how important the one-on-ones truly are. Brett, take us home. What are you most excited about into 26th, the next phase of the team's growth? I think for us, what's super fun is, you know, we'll do about $650 million this year. in sales volume and, you know, over 1,300, 1,300 transactions. And we're freaking stable, man.

So, like, we are feeling good. We were just at triple play in Atlantic City last night. We had an amazing, you know, year-end party. You rented out a big bar. And I barely have a hangover today. So I behave well enough, you know? Good, good, good. But, dude, we're feeling good, man.

we are just really feeling good and feeling like we have lightning in a bottle right now. So like I said, with Florida, with everything we're doing, I'm excited to see what's happening in 2006 because it feels dialed in. Yeah. Some of the things you shared off camera that I'm excited to hear will continue to improve that value proposition, which just makes you guys even more attractive and more value to be able to pour back into, and you mean, you're sitting scale. So you'd be able to pour back into, you know, the agents and especially the agents

that are, you know, bought into the vision, bought into what you guys are trying to accomplish. I think you've set the vision so large that everybody coming on board knows they can accomplish their dreams by aligning and writing with you guys. So kudos, brother. Nice, man. I totally appreciate it.

We will, let's do it again. And a lot sooner, we're not going to wait five years to do this again. No, I love it, man. Thank you so much. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks, guys. We'll see it. 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.coach.

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.