KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The Leadership Flywheel: Building a Self-Managing Team That Scales Without You

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Summary:This episode dives deep into the "Flywheel" concept popularized by Jim Collins, applying it specifically to real estate leadership and team building. Ryan Hawk discusses how to shift from being a "solopreneur in a team leader's body" to a true CEO by creating systems that generate their own momentum. Agents and team leaders will learn how to identify their specific business "handles," remove operational friction, and empower team members to make high-level decisions, ultimately creating a business that thrives even when the founder is offline.

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. We are at the turning point of the agent to CEO process. So really diving into the final component and really getting into working on working on kind of condensing down

into kind of a webinar project kind of working on and we had to pull three out kind of in the webinar not trying to teach all six pull three out what would be the three clarity compass the execution roadmap and the leadership flywheel

so you know one of the most important pieces because I don't know about you, Joel, just kind of in the fractional side of things, kind of with your client base, kind of what you're seeing, at least for those that are, and Renee and I had this conversation today too, right?

Everything we do always comes back to this piece, right? It always comes back here to the people component in every aspect. We were talking about PBD business planning, workshop before you jumped in Renee and i was talking with uh i was kind of just sharing my my two cents on it and i wasn't blown away like i was last year to jump in and immediately give some praise on the survey um i wasn't disgusted enough to jump in and give some feedback on the survey so i fell into the passive on the net promoter score right i fell into

the seven and eight category and um was just kind of sharing why why i was i was kind of thinking that way but one one of the things pbd talked about is like listen as you go through this you'll understand it's more than a business planning it's a life planning exercise and joel so i'm sure i don't know if you saw rene's post her her and albert got away to the lake uh one of the lake houses And really, it was almost kind of forced it, right, Renee? Forced into that situation. But even throughout that process, right? Like, where is the next move?

Where is the next support? Where is the next help? And as we kind of walk through this and Renee, you've been privy to this writing, you know, alongside us for so many years now. It was always, you know, 2019, it was that human person. right? To where we're at today, it's like, let me check the box on AI first. Let me check the box on a VA second.

Let me check the box on a fractional person before making the full-time commitment. And even on the VA side of things, I know we tend to, you know, we've defaulted to the Philippines. that's just kind of been our go-to, obviously, connections with Justin and then Joel. But clients having great VA rock stars, Brazil, Mexico, right? Even, you know, other parts of the globe being able to find really, really good talent. And so I think kind of looking at this dynamic, really just depends kind of the season that we're all in and really what we're looking for. So I'm excited to, you know, bring this home as going to be the last power hour of the year.

And kind of talking with Joel, what we want to do with this moving into the new year. But, you know, of the six-part series here of the agent to CEO process, videos are, I don't even, know where the videos are of this. Ivva can probably chime in and put it in the chat where they are. Obviously, they all are, I believe, living on the podcast. I will find out what Roselle and the team have done with them. We're streaming into Honey Badger Nation, so I'm assuming all six of them are inside of Honey Badger Nation, so those are there as well. But I want to get into the final component here of the leadership flywheel. So the core concept is, is really the complete system for building that self-managing, self-sustaining team that drives

the business forward. Starts with us being the architect. And one of the key words that we've really brought into, and thanks to Joel, really chiming in, and it's the consolidation of the main functions getting lean. modern org structure engine for attracting A players. So define a player. The definition that kind of we subscribe to on the A player is somebody that gets the job done 90% of the time in the given pay range.

What is that compensation structure in that given pay range, right? You know, somebody in the C, Certain levels starts to change. A player definition starts to change as we continue to grow up to that point. And it really just creates that culture. I mean, it's a development system, right? And it really momentum and they take ownership in what they do and how they show up. So I'm really excited to dive in.

And Joel, you want to give any kind of context to. as we're really diving into this step in the process. We've talked about it a few times, but it might be worth kind of revisiting just what a flywheel is. And as it relates to business, I know this came from Jim Collins, but essentially what a flywheel is,

it's a wheel that stores its own energy so that it can maintain its own momentum. That's like the technical side. So when we're talking about a flywheel in business, what we're talking about is something that, that as it turns, it builds momentum, not loses momentum. So to use a real basic example, okay, we generate a lead, we convert a lead, we fulfill on a lead,

we get a closing, we have funds to put back into lead generation, which we're then gonna convert. And it builds its own momentum and keeps going. And so that's the idea of the flywheel. And I love the reframing of it as the leadership flywheel because it takes that idea of building momentum that sustains itself to the leadership level, which I think is really brilliant for demonstrating the power of leadership and the people's side of the business. It goes back to one of the, I don't want to say core values, maybe virtues or

aspirational values that we saw that we ran with for a long time was the leaders creating leaders, creating leaders, right? So you can kind of see that dynamic working within itself as you're, you know, you're growing and then you're giving them the opportunity to grow and to pour into people. It's really the whole plus minus an equal concept, right? So, you know, no matter where you're at in the organization, you got somebody that that's, you know, mentoring, inspiring, that you're looking up to, that's guiding you, coaching you, leading you. You got somebody that that you're coaching leading, you know, as well, right? You have that responsibility. And then you got your peers that you know somebody that's holding you accountable that's running side by

side with you so that first step to to joel's point is the structure which is the flywheel so designing that machine itself right and where we start is the fAC right the functional accountability chart and where we've all been guilty is that we have a great human and then we just tried to build something around that person, which is putting the cart before the horse. And so it's really the opposite. Like, let me build based upon all of the previous steps of where we're at, where we're going to go, charting the course, how am I thinking about it? Where's my, mindset to be able to operate and work through the theory of constraints at this point? What is our profit engine? How does this thing go? And what's the

roadmap over the next 90 days. So what is what is this leadership flywheel? What is this dynamic? What are the functional accountability pieces that we need to execute that roadmap that's fueling and driving our engine that's moving us to the destination that we're trying to get to? So it, you know, I love the flywheel because it pushes it and we can build momentum and keep going. You can also make the case, right? It's kind of like a ladder, right? Just come down back up, down back up. So this piece of it right here is like, what does the function have to look like to be able to support that?

And there's certain things at certain times. There's things that based upon the functions that we're putting on, the support that we need around us in what that looks like. So define that first. and define it the leanest, most effective structure for the business as it is. And, you know, maybe your KT, Joel and I were talking about this, the consolidation of roles, right? Used to be six or seven seats and we would wear a bunch of those hats at the table. But those seats are getting brought together, right?

Head of company, head of growth, ops finance, working together. and then experience. And especially if, you know, this is massive to be able to have somebody that owns the experience as the time that we're in and the direction we're going. And I think, you know, you get up 10, 15 agents. The experience on the agent has to be a focus, not as well as, you know, buyers and sellers in the marketplace. So somebody has to own experience.

If not, it's you, right? So you head of company, head of growth. I mean, you're wearing that hat as well. So back to right things, right order, AI first principle, right? We want to apply AI first principle, strategically integrating automation, VAs, fractional talent to handle the functional tasks. and so we want to make sure that we're really clearing the path to when we do make those hires it's high impact leadership potential roles because if we're if we're doing all of those things

first to help us grow and in fuel then when it's time to make that that really calculated strategic hire that's that's where we can go. of dumping all the money into somebody that's not quite the role that we need that we can solve with AI, VA, VA, and less than somebody that's in office, that's not that A player caliber I think is super important to remember. And we have to make sure that we're not making the mistake that we've all made in hiring out of pain instead of out of strategic gain. like we've all been guilty of that right we bring in loved ones we bring in family and that's where it gets messy real messy so we want to be really really strategic i mean you know they hear

you know the slow slow to hire because i think two men is that we haven't taken the time to fill out the function and what is going to be success because once we know that and who they are and what capabilities, what do they bring to the table, what's their DNA, what's their makeup, then I think you can go fast. I think the slow part is the work of exactly what it is that we need them to perform. Yeah. And then I think as we move into an era with AI and tech and VAs where there's fewer tasks to do, it becomes more and more important to be able to find people who are problem solvers, critical thinkers, and resourceful. I think for me, the number one, if there's somebody that's in office with me, a U.S.

base hire, the number one thing that I'm looking for now is resourceful. What I always tell people is a great, a great policy, not a bad or policy or a great system, a policy is going to deal with 80% of the situations that it's designed to deal with, and there's going to always be the 20% that are weird, one-offs, and just, you know, strange stuff happens. And so you have to have those people who can do with that 20% now. And if you find one, you can get incredibly leveraged because that resourcefulness is really a multiplier in the business. It's also unfortunately one of the hardest things to interview for, which more and more I'm looking for kind of proof of success and past performance. But I think talking about the definition of the A player shifts a little bit more from kind of being able to get it done to really being able to be resourceful and solve problems.

The Rick on stage in Cleveland at Agent to CEO, like I had forgot all about this. And it was letters to Garcia. And when he said that, I was like, oh my gosh, because what Rick was talking about was resourcefulness. That's also about taking initiative. But to me, one of the most important things in that high. process is some way to test their resourcefulness. That's what you've got to have. You've got to have somebody that can problem solve.

You've got somebody that can try to just figure it out, right? And especially for a lot of us in the size of our businesses, we need resourceful people around us. We need people that are not afraid to just jump into, you know, Google it, social media, grok it like open AI who's it like go like all of the information's out there like go so I think that's super important

to be able to think about it to me that goes into the second thing which is finding the A players to me job done 90% of the time you ain't getting the job done 90% of the time if you ain't resourceful it's just it's not going to happen you have to be able to solve problems

And so when we kind of activate that engine, it really provides the initial push to get the flywheel going. Right. So we got to do, we got to, what's the structure? What's the push? And we want to use ways to establish and put agreements in place. John and I talk about this all the time. agreements versus expectations. If we are not using data-driven scorecards, if we're not really how we're going to measure success, then to me, then we're just operating with expectations. And we're all

guilty of it. I mean, listen, I mean, I've got some dynamics now that are still muddy on agreements. And, you know, if the needle was leaning one way or the other, it's going to be leaning a little bit more towards expectations than all the way over on the agreement side of things. So really being able to get real clear on that and, you know, really clear on what we're looking for. Because if we're going AI, we're going, you know, VA, we're going fractional before we make a fool. And listen, you know, Joel, you've worked.

worked with really a player, you know, VA. But I just think from a salary cap perspective, that's kind of the order in the sequence we need, we need to go. And you're looking for people that can truly lead. And we've both, I mean, I've got people on my team right now that are, that can truly lead. And you as well. So I think it's super important as we're making that push. define for you what an A player is and they have the potential to really become a leader that owns that function and owns that role. And once we have the structure, we have the push, then it's keep it spinning, right? So how do we develop that momentum? And this is the leadership development loop that really makes this thing spin faster and faster and faster. And it's really

taking ownership in the function, taking ownership in the systems that they're that they're responsible for. And having that process for delegating, you know, really the word Joel is empowerment, right? Really empowering your team with authority. Give them the paths, give them the mentorship opportunities, give them, you know, accountability. And that's really what, they're looking at to be able to take over. And especially as, you know, you get some rock stars, man, they want to give back. They want, they want that opportunity to lead. Like, give that. Don't, don't, don't, don't handicap them. Like, really set the stage in that end of 2020, sitting in Key West, Renee, Joel, you've heard the story many of times. Sitting there,

I can see it as vivid as today. Sloan and I are there. We've got our big buckets. Killing some time before we headed the airport. And I looked out of him and I said, bro, what was the most important decision that you made this year?

Didn't even hesitate. Daily wins. I was like, tell me more. Before 9 a.m. Everybody on the team declares what's the one thing within their control that they will do that's going to move

new business forward every word in there was important right within their control new business they're going to do it today no matter what and as soon as they got it done they would jump back in the group and say hey

I got my win and what he started creating was the company couldn't win until every agent won. 20 agents, 19 of them win, one doesn't. We didn't win today. He led it for a while, and then he started letting some of his team lead.

So he's creating a culture of, we declare, we're clear. We know what we must do in order to move our business forward. we create a culture of accountability, public accountability. And then he started creating a culture of leadership because he started letting other people lead, calling people out, holding people accountable, not letting people slip through cracks. And they started taking ownership. And they would be like, Joel, how many times have you won this year? Listen, man, I win 98% of the time.

98% of the time when I lead the daily, we win. So we started creating that culture, created a culture of competitiveness as well. So there was a lot of things that the ripple effects of installing that one system of what it created in the culture. But it was a way for him to also cultivate leadership within the organization, the type of leadership that he wanted. Public accountability, we do what we say we're going to do. We're crystal clear on the activities that are within our control for us to win and move our business forward. So it was just fantastic.

It was like one of the best things, you know, in the last five, six years that I've heard that really is a culture changer by implementing and making one decision. So kind of looking at this, we just, we just can't hire a great team, right? We have to design. We are the architect of that. The leadership flywheel is the three. part system for building that team. We designed the lean modern structure using FAC and AI to ensure maximum efficiency. We provide the recruiting engine to fuel the structure with a player talent.

Got to get clear on what a player talent is for you given where your business is at. And then finally, we install the development and delegation systems that create true ownership, right? They take ownership, transforming your team into that self-managing, self-sustaining force for growth. And this is just that unstoppable momentum, right, that allows you to kind of move out of that role and really own head of company. So benefits, elite team structure using the FAC and AI first approach to design that lean, profitable, and highly accountable organization. predictable A player recruiting engine and that unstoppable momentum.

I mean, that's the three steps to the leadership flywheel. Joel, anything that we want to add in on that? No, I don't think so. I think you really nailed it with the daily wins, but that's a great example of providing opportunities for people to step up into small leadership roles. And like you said, people want that. you're you're there there's no coincidence that that top performers in every industry almost always

become some kind of coach or mentor later in their career like people want to help other people they want to step up into leadership um not everybody of course and that's fine too but if you just make it available you will find the people who are going to step up into leadership roles in your company so make it easy for them to step up we used to have uh different people lead our daily huddles every day and share something you know kind of personal or business development so you like just a real small way for people to step into leading something, leading a meeting, leading a huddle. So find ways for people to step into those. They don't have to be formal. They don't have to be paid, but make it available for people. And you'll find people who step into that.

That's such a great point. Because I struggled with this for the longest time. I was like, man, how am I going to compensate these people? And that held me back for the longest time. And I had a coach tell me, he's like, bro, you ain't got to pay them. Like, there's people that will, volunteer that want to take on those roles. Now, if it becomes a full-time thing, you know, we're 180 days in, yeah, and they've earned it, then let's figure out some incentive. Let's figure out compensation, right? But there's people that just love to lead and give. It's the plus, minus, and equal within the organization. There's people that I was like, duh, I did that, right? I didn't ask for compensation. I just jumped in and contributed and jumped on calls. I mean,

honestly that's how remember we used to do the three calls every week c hs a chb a and then role play you know how many years wally and i did that without getting paid years we did those three calls without getting paid it's just love to jump in right like believe so much in those systems in that process we would just go and there's people like that and there's there's people in your organization that want to give back right there's just people wired that way to be able to do those things. So when we really start to build this out, right, so you get down into the nitty gritty of it, I think we hit on it really well, but I just want to give some more context to each of the three parts. So the structure we're talking about FAC,

functional accountability chart. This is really the blueprint for our organizations. And it does the separation from people to roles, right? Don't think about the person. Think about the role. and so what functions do you need for your business and I mean real estate simple I mean just just all business needs all the same things you also need to have somebody that you know typically your head of company or you're working with somebody coach mentor that's giving you ideas you got to have somebody to manage the ideas you got somebody to execute the ideas so that's typically us in the beginning right we're doing it all and you got a sales and marketing mechanism, right? So there's kind of a head of growth. Most of the time, we're over both until

we're not. Maybe we have an assistant that's helping us on the marketing execution side of things. We're typically head of sales, especially if we have agents. We're really pushing on those people until we're not. And then you've got kind of the operational, you know, back in, back of the house, everything back of the house, T.C. side of things, compliant side of things. And then, you know, somebody's got to be helping us with the bookkeeping, being able to see the math. Ideally, the person that's kind of watching the math and watching the budget operationally, making sure everything's staying efficient. We're not wasting anything.

And then somebody to help out with experience to your team and to buyers and sellers, because that's going to be the secret sauce that grows our repeat and referral business and retention business, is that that focus on experience. So you have those functions, then you start to look at, okay, what are the three to five, seven max critical activities in each of those functions? What are they responsible for? Okay. You have to, we have to do that before we start putting names in the box. Got to get clear on those functions.

how are you going to measure success? What is winning? What is losing? We have to get real clear on that. Hey, before we move on, every great business strategy starts with one question. What's really holding us back? If you're not sure how to answer that,

take five minutes and complete the growth score assessment. It gives you insight into the eight areas that drive growth and will show you exactly where to focus to increase revenue, improve operations, and grow with confidence. go to my growthscore.com and take the assessment now. Now back to the show. Joel, anything else on the FAC? Just take the time to really do it honestly.

And we'll often find that the person who is supposed to be head of operations isn't really head of operations, for example, or the person who's supposed to be in the box for sales isn't really in the box for sales. actually still in that box. So take the time to do it honestly. Again, remove people from the equation in the beginning. But do it, do it honestly and take the time to do it because it really is a valuable tool. And it becomes a blueprint for what your, what your staff and, you know, the people side of the business is going to be. Yeah, 100%. You know, the, I mean, the default question, right, is if, you know, shit hits the fan, who's ultimately responsible? You got to go through,

right? Put the names that you think are in there. No two names in the box. How many empty boxes do you have? So it's really important. It's eye-opening to go through, you know, current reality of how it is. And then, okay, what adjustments? What do we need to make? What are we concerned about, right?

Things that we know we need to start juggling around and moving around. And, you know, listen, the goal changes, the engine changes, the destination changes, the team has to change every time you change one component everything changes and we get we get lazy with this right because we don't want to go through that process we don't want to think about that just like i'll just have them to do that just just do it but are they qualified to do it are we are we setting them up for failure are we putting our name in a box setting ourselves up for failure you know listen the people game is just a probability game and we just want to stack the the probability the the greatest in our favor. It's why an A player is not 100%, 90% of the time they get the job done.

Not 100. 90%. So we got to be really mindful of that, that when we're stacking this deck and we're building this out, we're just trying to stack the probabilities in our favor. That's all we're trying to do. We're just playing probabilities when it comes to people. Yeah. We talk a lot about, or in the broader leadership, conversation. We talk a lot about kind of like burdens of leadership. And this is one of the areas where it shows up because we made a bad hire. We didn't lead a person correctly. We changed the strategy, but now that person no longer fits anymore. Like these are the reasons that it like that this stuff sucks when you're a leader and you have to let somebody go. Maybe it's not

their fault that they can't be on the team anymore. Maybe that's a high character person that doesn't have the skill set or just can't get it together. Like these things, these things suck about being a leader, but you have to face them head on. You have to make those tough decisions because you owe it to everybody else in the organization to make those tough calls and do the right thing when it comes to this, even if it's your fault that it didn't work out. Even if you failed as a leader, that doesn't change the bottom line fact that that person might have to go or they can't be here anymore. And it sucks. And it takes a lot of courage, but it holds a lot of businesses back who aren't willing to take on that burden for, you know, for the bigger picture.

Yeah, 100%. So once we start to kind of look through that, get that initial piece in place, the next is kind of the AI leverage on it. So once we have that, you know, we want to kind of run to start running through some of those activities and some of those things. And can AI automate our kind of augment this down, right? So AI tool, right, first drafts of our listing descriptions. automate our CRM, you know, workflows for lead nurture.

Can a chatbot handle initial, you know, inquiries? The goal is to eliminate the task entirely or make it a human 10x more efficient, right? So it's really what we're trying to look is how can we, you know, become more efficient or automate with this point, right? So like even one of our, one of our pieces right now that Chris is working on with Go High Level is like, I'm like, listen, she's like, hey, we need to automate this, we need to do this, we need to do that. So I had that David Marquette moment, right, and turn the ship around. It's like, just tell me what you're going to do. And then just go do it, right?

Like, you see that there's things here that are not here. And I'm like, you don't have to ask permission, do it. Because it's going to make us more efficient. It's going to make the system optimized. It's going to make it better. Like, do it. Like, you don't have to ask. Just tell me what you're going to do.

Just go do it. So that was kind of an aha moment that we had this week as we were, you know, kind of talking about rocks going into, going into, you know, as we were building out our roadmap for the next 90 days. We were, you know, looking at those things. It's not the one thing, but it's the thing that's going to really clean so much up that will make the one thing more efficient. So being able to have that in place. so maybe even think Renee with you with with your with your back in you know talent you know things to optimize AI more efficient you know things that can can be put in place maybe that's not the one thing but that is the project for that person that they're going to work on on the first 90 days

right so like that's what verne would always would say right like you know one thing on on the P&L one thing on the balance sheet and maybe one system we're going to improve, right? That would be like you would only have, you know, ever have three things, but it would be one system that we're going to improve if that system didn't improve the balance sheet, which was a long-term asset, like a YouTube channel or, you know, a radio campaign or whatever the case. And then obviously we're doing, you know, things now to either play defense or improve, you know, cash flow and revenue. So go through the AI automation augmentation. And they start to ask yourself, right, could we get a specialized,

and this is what I love about, you know, when you look at the kind of from a VA perspective, we can get precision instruments, right? We can play chess with the VAs, right? We can have the rook. We can have, you know, the knight. We could have these different specialized pieces. Whereas when we're hiring, most of the time when for us, we're hiring U.S. talent, we're having to hire checker pieces, right? That can move all different directions.

And we're trying to, you got to do this, you got to do that. You're not good at anything. But I think that's where we can, you know, really specialize with the, with the VAs, right? Like, like, I got Chris. She owns Go High Level, right? Got Roselle. She owns the podcast and social media. Have Iva that connects, does all the customer service, does all the onboarding, does all

all the touches, reaches out to podcast guests, so she's the human interaction. Then you've got Angel that does all of the copyright. So you can be like, you can be precise when you move to that next step just because of the salary cap implications where we didn't have that prior to 20. We did, but it was like my out desk. If you, one of the exciting things about VAs and to tie this all the way back to a player, a major piece of the definition of a player that you use coach is in a given price range. Yes. So a lot of times with VAs we're like, oh, well, how cheap could I get that?

But that's the wrong question. The right question is how incredible of a person can I afford? Yes. I've raised the ceiling for what it means to be in a player because I can pay $8 an hour for my social media manager instead of $5 an hour and get a drastically more quality. qualified, skilled experience person. Drastically. That's the mindset shift with VAs.

Yes. I've raised the ceiling on the level of talent I can bring into my organization. It's not just that I've reduced my payroll cost as low as possible. Great point. I'm so glad you made, you articulated it that way. That was so spot on. That's so good. Once we have that VA component, then can this be outsourced to a Joel, right?

Can this be outsourced? to a to a fractional expert right so you look at um like even even when kinder brought me in right like if fractional was a thing back then that would have probably been the best move for him right and and so i think that just logically makes sense as the next step is that especially you know looking at some of these teams that they need a Joel, they need a JK, they're just not quite there. They don't want to make that commitment, but I need this many hours to get that thing done across, you know, to be able to help. So I think the fractional move is just such a great strategic move. when we know we don't quite need 40 hours a week in that main leadership function,

a true, like Joel, a C-O, true C-O, like, man, I'm not quite there. You know, I'm not quite there to, you know, six figures plus, plus, plus, but, man, I need 10 hours, right? I need seven hours. I need this, and I need this leadership capability, right? So being able to have that component in there, to me, is, you know, the final step before we look at bringing, you know, somebody else. Because you can get a Joel. You can get world class, but not have, you know, what it would cost to bring Joel in, you know, full time to be able to have that component in there. Yeah.

And these trends all kind of compound on each other too, right? Because if I come in, you know, my, my month. monthly fee as a fractional versus full time kind of at my experience level. You can have my fee for fractional, hire two VAs and install a really great piece of software or AI in your business and still be half of what you'd be paying a full-time, you know, CEO at that level. So the, you know, the VA talent, the AI component, these things like all the trends are supporting each other because I can use VAs more effectively as a fractional, but I can also, I can also justify we don't need full time because we've got people to do the tasks or again

spend money on on the tech that's going to be really top notch. So all of these, the AI, the VA, the fractional, all of these trends really kind of support each other. And the cool thing is that sometimes you might skip the VA, go right to the fractional. And part of the fractional is to get the VAs in, right? Yeah, I'm doing it for a client right now, interviewing, interviewing and hiring VAs for them. So, yeah. So 100%, right? That's why that fractional might, jump the line because I'm so busy. I just don't have time. I have time to go through the hiring process. I just I just like, hey, got you. Make the fractional pull the trigger, make that commitment and let them build, build that out for you. That would be a great example. I mean, one of many examples of

how to really utilize Joel in that role. So I want to push through just because of, just want to be sensitive to time. So get back into that second part, right? So the first part is we're designing the structure. The second part. is the push and this is where we really start to build out that scorecard right and it's it's data driven how are we measuring success what's the role what's the mission of that what's the core purpose of of this of this function of what this a player is going to to do like what do they what what difference do they make what's the outcome right three five six seven Max, probably three to five, most critical, non-negotiable, measurable results this person must

achieve. Lead to appointment conversion, nine out of 10 on the net promoter score. If you've got a larger team and they're measuring buyer-seller, but they also need to measure agent. So maybe they're juggling both net promoter scores. You know, like even what I did with Tracy on the TC side of things is that. that Tracy, we don't, we don't, we close on time or we close early. How I'm going to measure one part of your success is that we never push. We never push. We close on time or we close early.

That was one of her key metrics. It changed the whole dynamic in the closing department because she knew. So guess what? She was informing the agents on all the time. Hey, abstracting is taking X number of days. Appraisals on VA are taking X number of days. Appraisals on the other other other loans are taking X number of days. Title company is running at X. Home inspection. If you use these home inspectors, they're they're this far out. So she was proactively managing the time frames because do not write a contract when abstracting is taking three weeks and you're setting it to close in two and a half weeks. She would murder you. And what else she did was take ownership over stuff that wasn't her job, right? She made the extra call to the lender, even though it was our seller.

She made the extra call to the title company and started pestering them to get the closing statements done on time, right? Yeah, that's not my job. It wouldn't be my fault if, you know, they screwed up, but I'm still going to make sure they don't screw up now. So it's just a total mindset shift. Yeah, it's brilliant. Yeah. And then the competencies, right? So this goes back to step two, which was charting the course of pulling our values out. So behavior, Goes back to Joel, what you mentioned. One of your, one of your, you know, competencies is resourcefulness. So you better put it in here, right?

You want to lay that out. Demonstrates our core value of, you know, always be resourceful or whatever the case is, right? You know, demonstrate our core value of owning the outcome, right? We never point fingers, extreme ownership. We own the outcome. So that's the scorecard that we have to build out before we even start hiring to the position. And then the third phase is the developmental phase, right? This is where it becomes self-sustaining. This is making the moves, bringing A players in, get the flywheel moving.

To your point with the Tracy example, the ownership transfer starts to happen. They own the outcome. You know, they are really committed to moving that needle. And then the other thing I think is really important. Once they start to really own that scorecard, own that fund, function is that you've got to start to chart the growth path, right? Like, what does the next level look like for you? And that goes back to like one of my values is, you know, personal, you know, commitment to personal and professional growth daily. I want to chart that growth path for you.

What does that look like, right? That's why Book of the Month Club, this is what we're reading. Hey, this is the training that I need you, you know, to commit to. What training do you want to commit to? What other books do you? you want to read? What should we add to the book club? What does that growth look like? Because you've got to be able to chart that out for them, right? Hey, as we continue to grow, we get to that next level. You're probably going to need some support. So let's get to this milestone. Let's revisit it.

I know you can successfully handle 50 open files at a given time. Once we break that threshold, we'll look at bringing somebody in for you to lead to support. It's what we did with Tracy. is right Tracy your next path is to move you into head of operations we're going to make a hire on the tc side of things that you're going to lead you're going to lead ashley and ashley's going to be your tc that you oversee it's your whole upper you know department darline on the finance she's going to report to you as well so you guys have that component right so you start developing and mapping that growth trajectory out for them to me is super important the last thing like we've all been a part of it the last thing i want to be a part of is is like man there's no

future here. Like I got a ceiling because the second that we know we have a ceiling, we start looking for other opportunities. That's awesome. Joel, and that's it, man. I mean, I think, you know, other than charting that, I think it's, you know, the most important skills that they need to develop outside of their day to day, but really around, you know, how they got to become a better leader. And, and I think, you know, once you start getting into this component, it's so important, you know, how we're showing up and how we're modeling the behavior, you know, for the, for those individuals as well. So leadership fly well. Yeah. And I think, you know, an important piece of this is leaderships for everybody in the organization. It's not just if you have a formal role, right? So

whether it's leading the daily wins or leading a huddle or just we're going to focus on leadership development for you to lead your client relationships better or to even just lead the processes you're responsible for better. It fits for everybody. I have a tool I use with some clients who really want to invest in kind of the team growth that I call upskill OS. And it's basically targeting a, targeting a skill that you want to develop every quarter. But one of the things I have in there is that once a year leadership is that skill for everybody in the organization. So once a year, there's a quarterly focus on leadership. For the other three quarters, it could be anything else. It could be I want to get better at having tough conversations. I get better at

CMAs. I mean, it could be anything. But once a year, everybody in their organizations focused on leadership. So good. I'll tell you by default, one of the things that we did with our agents, it wasn't the daily accountability piece. But one of the things, and it was out of pain was our Thursday lunch and learns, right? That was the sales training side of things. We had our team meeting on Tuesday where we had, you know, the whole organization, you know, vision, kind of where we're at, numbers, issues, things that we need to be paying attention to, what's going on in the marketplace, blah, blah, blah, blah. But Thursdays was 100% focused on improving one aspect as it related to the agent growth

and skill set and sales side of things. And it was just out of like, I can't do this anymore. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to rotate whatever you feel you're the best in the world at when it comes to sales. you're going to teach on that day. We'll provide lunch, but you got to develop the curriculum.

You got to have the handout. You got to have the presentation. So it started cultivating that in the team. And they wanted to one up each other. So it got better and better and better. And one would teach on open houses. One would teach on, you know, expired script conversion. One would, you know, just whatever it was.

And at that point, I didn't care. It was just like, do something. Who's next? What's your topic? Okay, great. And that really started to develop that in there as well. So it was really cool. Renee.

The question, A players. We keep talking about A players. And in my experience, we tend to maybe put a lot on your A players. That's why they're A players. They can get a lot of stuff done, right? So I've heard two different theories. You know, we want to have the people on the bench, you know. that you're not quite ready to bring on board yet, but you want to have them on the bench.

I don't know how to do that to have somebody sitting on the bench kind of waiting for you, if you will. And then that person, that a player, how do we avoid and what are we using to make sure that we don't have overwhelm that then leads to burnout to where that person, you know, you said don't hire out of pain, A lot of times that person is so overworked. They leads to burnout. Performance starts to decline or they see themselves out. They're just like, I'm out.

I can't do this anymore. And then you're back to hiring out of pain. So have all these notes. And I'm like, where does that, how are we doing the check-ins? What does that look like to make sure that we're not burning out our A players? I love the fact that we have the AI piece now, right? We didn't really have that before. So, hey, what kind of AI can help you?

avoid the burnout. But above and beyond that, what metrics are we using? What are we, what documents are we using to really evaluate if this is a performance issue or if it's a burnout issue? And do we need to split this into two rules versus just having that A player? Am I making sense? Yeah. Yeah. The first part of the answer is if you want to protect your A players from burnout, it's not not allow C players in the organization that your A players have to cover up for. So if you have somebody that needs to go because you know that your A player is going to pick up the slack, then that person just got to go and we got to replace that. We got to replace that role. So that's one. I pay really close attention to the hours that we're working.

And you can jump to hours worked with an A player. You can't jump to hours worked with with non-A players because they might just be wasting time. If you know they're an A player and their hours are creeping up, I'd look really carefully at that. I have a philosophy of basically what I'm going to ask of you is directly related to your opportunity with the company. So for my executives at Sphere Rocket, for example, you have, you know, you've got multi-six figure opportunities here.

I'm going to ask a lot of you, but your staff members on kind of the lower levels of the organization, they don't have as big of an opportunity here. I'm not expecting them to work 70. hours a week. So I keep a really close eye on the hours worked because if that creeps up, that's a path to burnout. Unless it's for a short, well-defined time, that's always going to happen. Hey, guys, I need everybody all hands on deck for a month here to sort this up. You can go, you can redline them for a quarter. You can push maybe two quarters.

You can't go a third. Yeah. So if you know you're redlining, If you know you're redlining and you've like, damn, I've redlined them for two quarters in a row, I've got to throttle off hard. But I love that, Joel. Especially true on your staff because we tend to be, you know, less motivated by the upside potential of something than your salespeople are going to be. So you have to be even more careful of the staff because now I'm working extra time getting burned out. But for what? I'm not making any more money or at least not substantially more money.

And that gets discouraging quick. So I'd keep a close eye on hours. I would try to cultivate a relationship with them where you could be pretty blunt about that kind of stuff. That doesn't always work. That's difficult. There's a tendency to want to tell you, no, I'm fine, because we want to please you as boss, right? So that can't take that kind of whole hog if they say they're fine. they might not be.

And then, yeah, are things ending up on their plate that shouldn't be on their plate? That's a big one that we might need another hire or is they're picking up slack from somebody else. I don't know if that answer is kind of the core of it. I don't know if you were looking for something more tactical, we could go there. No, it does. And I love the Don't Let C players in the organization that the A players have to cover up for. I think that happened a lot.

That's the big one. Yeah. That's the big one. That's the thing, too, like, if they see you're allowing C player behavior, they're not going to tolerate it much longer. They'll slowly start to creep on you. They'll be looking at other, like, where they would have never entertained other options, they'll start entertaining other options.

The C players is the quickest way to kill them. For sure. Good stuff. Renee, you good? It was fire. Joel, brother, I appreciate you. Been fun running through these six steps. And I know we'll be back in the new year.

We just don't quite know sure how and when that's going to look. But definitely be back. For you guys watching the recording later, we'd love your feedback too. Do you want to keep doing this same time, this kind of thing? or what would you guys like to see what would be valuable? We want to keep getting back to the community here at New Badger Nation. For sure. Awesome.

Guys, thank you. Thanks, guys. 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.coach. Fill out the application and book your one-on-one call with me.

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