KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Tina Caul

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Hello, hello, hello, everybody. It's Michael Valdez with another episode of Real Estate Mastery podcast. Today's guest, oh my gosh, this is somebody who I've known for years now. We've actually even traveled together. It's amazing. She's an incredible leader, an incredible leader in our industry, and someone that I just adore, Miss Tina Call is going to be joining me today. Tina, come on in.

How are you? I'm good, friend. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Thank you. You look great. You look great. We both look. Just a filter. It is. It is. It's our filters. So I love this. I love the fact that I get to talk to you. You are an incredible human being. I've known you probably since like day one of my being at EXP almost four years now. And we have grown together in friendship and even traveled together. And you and your husband, Kevin, and It's just been a great friendship, but you have such an amazing career in real estate. You run one of the largest organizations that we have at EXP. You have an incredible team, but you also have an incredible story.

So I would love to start with how you even got started in real estate. Oh, well, I was a nanny. I was a college dropout. And college wasn't for me, Michael. I just didn't know what I was doing there. So I nannyed for a family. and Kevin and I wanted to buy a house. So I interviewed a couple agents and our real estate agent, Joe Bommerito.

I was one of these clients that had all the research done, everything like executed perfectly. I was like, this is the house we're seeing. Here's the taxes. And she's like, you're really good at this. I think you should become a real estate agent. I said, no, I'm not a salesperson. And so she chased me for a few weeks, ended up paying for my license. Oh, wow.

I got me into real estate. And I passed the first time. And the rest was history. I was 23 years old and now I'm 40, I'll be 46 this year. And so real estate has been my life, my calling, and my passion is still here for it today. All right. So now you just did two decades of like your career in 32 seconds. So let's bring it down just a little bit more.

I can break it down more. I'm saying like that was like what got me into real estate. But I love that story that you didn't think you were a salesperson, which I love. and we'll get into that in a second. But tell me where you started your real estate career, because then I know you did a move without knowing anyone in that particular area where you are now, which I think is a fascinating thing,

to come in and do that and get to being number one in that area. But I don't want to jump ahead in your story. You tell it. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I was 23 years old. I didn't know anything, right? And I looked 12. So, you know, I started in Michigan, Gross Point.

a very affluent, you know, older community. And so it was, you know, everybody that I worked with, they're like, how old are you? How old are you? How old are you? How old are you? So I remember I went and bought a used Cadillac Catara. I went and bought fake readers so I could look older. And I just wore a suit because I'm like, well, no one's going to ever think I'm 23 with my readers, my old Cadillac and my suit. And it did. It did squelch like the, hmm, how old are you? So from there, you know, my career was normal.

It was, I had to learn from people in my office. There was no formal training. They threw me in an office and said, good luck, call people. And I was good at talking to people, but I had a very turbulent start. 20, 25 deals a year. You know, I did well and I got like the accolades. But to me, knowing what I know now, that was average. You know, I didn't really have formal training.

Market crashed in 2006. I went from making 150 grand a year. to 40. And I was like, this is not fun anymore. I love decorating an interior design. So I was leaving real estate. I put an ad out in the yellow pages all in a day design. I was starting a new company, a decorating company. I got two clients that paid me $50 an hour to remodel like the furniture in their home and go shopping for them. And then as I was cleaning out my desk, literally this is a true story, there was like a flyer in the desk. And it was from seven years prior and it said, come to the Mike Ferry retreat and earn $500,000 a year. And I was like, that's not going to happen. Crumble,

crumple, throw it away. And then I checked my email a day later. And it was, hey, we're having this action workshop with this Mike Ferry guy in Romulus, which wasn't far from my home. And I'm like, well, I'm praying for change. God's sending me signals, but I'm not taking them. Maybe this is a signal. So I packed up five of our agents. Again, it was 2006. The market was crashing. I was doing short sales, people that had bought their home for $300,000, I'm selling them for 60. And you know being in the market a long time, short sales are long sales. They were terrible. So I was doing that. And we went to this retreat and in the room, I was exposed to agents that were standing up saying, I make $200,000. I make $300. I make $400. And I'm like, who are these crazy agents making all this

money in a downward market? So I didn't have a lot of money at the time, but I literally whipped out my credit card. said, if they can do it, I can do it. And I hired a coach that day. And I came home and I remember telling Kevin, because I knew he would be so mad. I said, honey, I'm going back to college. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, I'm going to go back to college and I'm going to get real, I'm going to get certified in real estate again. And he's like, what the hell are you talking about? So I told him about the coach. He was pissed. He's like, this is a scheme. They took your money. What do you mean a coach? Like, who has a coach in real estate? So anyway, long story short, that next 12 months, I went from thousand back to 150. I learned how to call expired listings for sale by owners. I learned scripts,

dialogue, time management, prospect. I had structure. And with structure came my tenacity, following a path, and boom. I was like, now I can do this anywhere. So Kevin and I had a dream to move out of Michigan. We had seasonal depression because the sun comes out about 160 days out of the year. And so we decided we were going to relocate and we literally Googled best places to live. And Carrie, North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh popped up, and we packed our bags, and within 12 months we were there, and launched our career here, calling expireds and Fisbo's, sold 36 homes our first year, 55 the next, 85 the following. And by year four, I was selling over 100 homes a year, and the wheels were falling off. And in 2014, I hired my first partner, buyer's agent,

who's still with me today, Laura Payne. And, you know, we started to build and grow. I, decided that the passion for real estate was still there, but I needed more leverage. I left remax. I was one second. I want to get to you building your team in a minute, but there was a couple of things that I want to break down. First of all, you know that I started with Mike Ferry also. Oh, I didn't know that. In 2003. Yeah. So that was the his error, right? So this is, this is, and for those that don't know, this is Tom Ferry's father. Yeah. He started in 19. I know. He was an original coach. Yes, he was the original coach and he coached a lot of us in the industry. And that structure is so important. So right. Because that's what really gets you in that, that mode. And first of all, I love the fact that you thought that 20 to 25 sales was sucking in real estate. So that just tells everyone who's listening the, the, really the tenacity that you have, Tina, because it truly is, you do have.

And you follow a plan. And first of all, I think there's 12 of you because you are this bright and cheerful at seven in the morning or at nine o'clock at night because you and I were on a call at 9 p.m. last night. And here you are, it's just as cheerful. And it is amazing. So there's probably four or five of you.

But that's okay. We won't even talk about your cloning. Yes, my sister. Yes. But now you start talking about you created this. You started with your business. it became successful. You started doing the scripts.

You started doing what you were supposed to do in order to build a business. And now you've built your business to the point where now you have to create a team. Tell me the transition, because I think that's a really interesting part of an agent's trajectory, where they are so busy as a solo entrepreneur that then they say, okay, I need to expand. and I need to be able to do this with more people so that I can serve more people. At what point that that happened and tell me how you created your team? Okay, so real quick, I want to go back to when I said 25 deals sucks. It actually doesn't suck because the national average.

But here's where my mind was. Oh, my God, I suck because I'm standing in a room of people doing hundreds of deals so your mind expands to the possibilities. What am I capable of? I look lazy compared to these people, but it doesn't suck. So it's actually quite remarkable. It's amazing, actually. It is.

It's amazing. So if you're doing 25 deals, you're on track, but you can get to 50. So anyway, looking at that, I mean, here's the thing. I think real estate is the only industry where you get your license, you get into the solopreneur role, but they never teach you scalability. They say you're the marketing manager. You're the prospecting ISA. you're the outside sales, inside sales, you're the admin.

You do 500 roles and then you never spend the money to scale and build a duplicatable business. And so you're just stuck in a job, hopefully a high paying job, and you're tired and you're working from 9 to 9 to 11 and you're taking vacations and you're texting people. You don't even have a life. And so I woke up literally in 2017. I'm like, there's got to be a better way. I was in remax at the time, great company. And I was just Laura and Leslie and two assistants.

And we were selling, you know, hundreds of homes. And I'm like, there's got to be a better way. So I thought to myself, okay, I'm running this team. But most of the income, the 130 deals is coming from me. If I'm going to start a team, that's a second business. If you asked me right now, could you go open a dairy queen? I'd say, you're crazy. No, I can't open that.

But what do agents do? They start teams. That's a business. You're opening a brokerage. And agents don't see it as a brokerage, but it is every sense of the word. It's a brokerage. So what I did is I left Remax. I saved $100,000 by walking out the door.

I went to Keller Williams. I had my $23,000. I knew my business expense. I took the other $80,000 and I invested in people. And I hired my first operation slash sales manager. And I said, you're going to recruit. You're going to grow these people. You're going to have them follow the same system that I follow.

And I know that in order to replace my income, we need. about 20 agents selling about 16 homes each. We can do that. So we set out on that plan and I was still in the trenches making the money to funnel this second business without taking my eye off of the income producing activities that I needed to do. And that's where most agents fail. They go right to being a team leader, their deals fall and the business falls apart. And they're like, being a team leader sucks. No, you kind of were a part-time leader. You know, you really would. Wow. Wow. So I did. I knew I couldn't be a part-time leader and do something really well. I wanted to be a full-time salesperson who was running a second organization.

So once we got to that, I still then saw holes in the plan. The red book, I devoured. That's how Keller Williams got me. They gave me the red book and I went, man, this is really cool. But the problem was the ascension model from agent to CEO. The problem was the CEO team leader still had to stay in a recruiting influential role because they were constantly recruiting agents who were leaving them. And you couldn't really bring the talent that you wanted on because there was scarcity mindset,

which I remember some team leaders going, don't hire that person. They're just going to leave you. I'm like, wait, I don't want to hire the best person that I found. Like, this is ridiculous. Like, it's ridiculous. So I wanted to hire talent. And then I was like, let me think of a better way. So I was going to go independent.

But thank God for Michelle Sayward, my fairy godmother at Mike Ferry. she's a pain in the ass and she called me so many times about EXP and I finally just said to her, stop calling me about this stupid company. I'm not going. But she found me in a really weak moment, Michael, and I was laying in bed and I think an agent had just left. And she's like, please just do me a favor. Watch this video. And I think it's the solution.

Don't be a stubborn Italian. And I'm like, fine, I'll watch the video. So I watched this video and it was Rob Flick and Gene Frederick. And immediately, you know, when you just say, you. see something and you know, I was like, waking Kevin up. I'm like, honey, we're going to ex-be realty. And he's like, go to bed. Weird out. It was like 12 o'clock at night by that time. So we woke up in the morning. I talked to Pam. I talked to Kevin. I said, discern this for me. Look at this. Do you see what I see? We're doing this. They were like slow down action taker.

So they slowed me down for about six months. I flew. I met Glenn. I came to events. I'm like, these are the happiest fricking realtors I've ever met in my life. Like, who says their real estate company changed their life. Like you don't hear that. Oh my God, yes. So anyway, long story short, we moved to EXP. It was myself and seven agents. Now five years later, our team went from 72 million to 400 million. We have 55 agents on our team. We sold 880 homes last year. I finally left the business. My last sale was three years ago. Hallelujah. And I get to be in a new role, which is which is leadership. And I'm learning and I'm failing every day. day and just, you know, working through it. Hardest thing I've ever done, but truly it was a calling

for me. It's like, I have fun. Kevin and I, because of EXP, because of our investments, we were very wise to invest in real estate. We don't have to work, but we get to. We get to. So it's a different perspective. And that's what I tell my team all the time. I don't have to wake up and do this, but I'm accountable to you guys. And it's fun. So I love that you gave that incredible background, that you gave that story because it truly is. You're an incredible leader and your humility is amazing. And you just have this servant heart. And so now I want to talk about where we are in the industry with what's happening,

with all the noise that's out there, with all the confusion that's out there. We're talking about the NAR settlement. We're talking about everything that's happening in our industry, Buyer's Commission, where you have mainstream media confusing the of the public, where now you are really in the state of confusion and unrest and scarcity and fear. Right. And so now we needed a level head. And that's why I wanted to ask you those qualifying questions on your background, because

you've become a wonderful leader in this space, in conversation, and everything that you've done in your own social media, everything that you've done with some of our colleagues and leaders and agent leaders at EXP to talk about this. So tell me what your thoughts are first of what the whole NAR thing means to you, and then we'll break it down a little bit further. You know, for me, I think that, you know, I've watched in the last 24 years, there's always opportunists, right? There's people that say, oh, I see an opportunity.

I'm going to go for it. We've got to remember that the consumers were not protected here. They were confused. They all got their $14.15 that they might get. you know, whatever, whatever intention there was to do something for good, it didn't happen. So at the end of the day, though, what I really woke up the next day and told my team, I'm like, guys, we've been doing this a very long time. We have always set our rates.

We have always told the seller, you know, what our value is. And we've always offered a commission to a by-side transaction. You've got to remember as a seller, you know, the average agent sells four homes. if I have a quarter of my income in the car, I am going to go to the property that pays me the most. That's just the real. That's human nature. So if we all of a sudden say, we're not going to pay these agents, well, 90% of people use a real estate agent because it's a cumbersome transaction. There's encroachments and building inspections and utility easements and flood topo maps.

The consumers do not want to do this alone. They are going to pay an agent. And they have always been able to do it alone. They've always been able to go to Staples, pick up a contract, and go buy a house, and do it alone. I've been doing this 24 years. I have found those DIYers or whatever. And so that idea of like realtors are going away and discount brokerages are going to take over, I don't think so because I don't know about you, but when I'm going to go make the largest purchase that most humans make, two, three hundred,

thousand to a million, 10 million, 20 million dollars. If I'm in a lawsuit, I'm not doing the court case alone. I'm not saying, you know what, I'm just going to go to chat GPT and see what I'm supposed to say to the judge to, you know, defend myself on this half a million dollar issue. Like nobody does that in their right mind. Most consumers are not going to do this on their own. They're not. It's a highly emotional, you know, process. So for us, we're like, so what? Who cares? we're going to still do what we do. Now you hear the agents that say, which I think is insanity,

oh, all these agents are going to go out of the business because they don't know how to set their value. That's not true. The majority of agents are out of the business. They're selling two homes a year, three homes a year. That is not in the business. That is a hobbyist. That is a person that doesn't make their job seriously enough, right?

So they're not in the business. They will stay, and they will do it for even less money. So nothing is going to change other than where we put our checks and balances. This is a credit that's coming from the seller or a credit that's coming from the buyer. If a buyer is going to buy a house for $500,000 and they are not offering a compensation package, I bet you the buyer is not going to pay $5.15 for that house. They're probably going to offer $4.85 because they have to pay 3% or 2% or whatever they negotiate. So I really don't see a huge issue.

And I'm not just trying to be positive patsy. I'm just trying to say there's opportunity and everything. Yeah, skill up. Get better at explaining and setting your value. But I know I'm worth every penny when a buyer is attached to my hip versus them doing it alone. And you just nailed it. That really is what it's all about. You know, I was at a mastermind with Leo last week in Oakland.

And we had a question that or actually a statement that Dan B or one of our colleagues had said. And he said one of them. his team members had said to him, I just got a great new listing. And so his next question was, great, was it a buyer or a seller? And we need to start changing the conversation because we need to treat a buyer as we would a seller. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. The other side of the transaction, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so when you start thinking about the value, and you've said it a few times in that response, when you start thinking about the value that you bring to a buyer, if your value is so strong,

that you become invaluable to them in that transaction, you become priceless. So price is never an issue. No, no. And the thing is, and I agree, you know, we talked about that because it's funny, my agents, of course, the next day we were like, they're like, so what are we supposed to do different? We already have strategic planning sessions.

We already have like equity analysis conversations. Like I make them change the way that they frame things because they're professionals. They're strategists that have, like I tell them, we're marketers that happen to sell real estate with a real estate license. Like we are strategists. So, you know, when a buyer starts to pay, they're going to pay attention. They're not going to go with every door opener. They're going to be discerning. They're going to say, Michael, how many homes have you sold? What is your company about? It's going to be the same presentation that we have always, we have always done with a buyer because we won't work with a buyer that won't sit with us and we show them our process. You know, so we create a lot

of doubt in their, when we meet them, they know that they're probably not doing this right if they've just picked an agent. Like, wait, you didn't interview? You didn't look at it. Right? If you're going to go with a brand new agent versus myself, then that agent maybe should only charge you 1% because we're not the same value. You're not going to get the same amount of value between me at 3% and them at one. So if you want to go with a discount agent, go, you know, but they get to decide. That's the cool thing. I think there's either greater opportunity when value isn't regulated. Right, right. When it's not half of the. commission when you can just dictate your own value, that's exactly what you're going to get paid

for. Exactly. Exactly. And wait till there's more lawsuits and more agents or more buyers and sellers that decide to do it on their own to test the waters. I think we're going to have a little bit of a shit show. And then it's going to even out and go, oh, yeah, wait, we do need you. I mean, this is not, yeah, this is not a travel agent. This is not somebody that's dispensable. Even though when you look at travel agents today, that's such a myth that they're out of business. the travel agents of today make tons of money. They're amazing at what they do, right? And they're niche. And they're in the best. They're looking for corporations. Like, everybody finds a way. So it's so true. Yeah. All right. So you were telling me about some of your failures. Tell me the

greatest lesson that you've learned from one of your failures. I think for me, like I'm a recovering people pleaser. You know, I always want to have like a good environment. Harmony is one of my themes. Like I love, I don't like conflict. I'm a happy person. When people like the people that worked with me, the longest like, you know, Ashley or Laura will tell you like, do you ever get mad? And I'm like, no, because what I'm going to about to be mad and give energy to is it, is it really worth it five years from now? I'm not going to remember this moment. I can't let somebody affect my energy over something so ridiculous. So I was always the calm at the office, whenever. things were falling apart. So, but I think that, you know, when you start to grow and you start to have

success, you know, people are, I always say like, who are your real friends? If you didn't have anything, would they still be by your side? Or is it just like, I want to be, I want to be that person that walks in the room and make sure I go talk to Michael Valdes because, you know, I got to be in that proximity. And you get a lot of that noise. And for me, like, it was, it was a little bit about that as you grow and you get a little bit of attention. And then you go, wait, what is this? It's just, this is not who I am. This is not my soul. I'm just a human. Like, I look at myself as just a regular real estate agent. I've worked 24 years. I better be more successful than somebody doing it for five or else I'm a moron. Like, I've been doing this 24 years. I better have some accolades now. Like, come on.

So I think it's, I think it's, you know, just learning to not listen to your own, what do they say, press release? and not fall in love with your own trophies and the pat's on the back. Yeah. So staying humble, I think would be that. The other thing is you're not going to be everything for everyone. You're not going to make everyone happy. So when you're leading, you have to make those tough decisions for the business for everybody involved versus trying to make everybody happy.

So I've had to make tough decisions in the past year and, you know, relationships, severing some of those business, you know, just a lot of things that were not suiting the business. So I think that's the hardest part for me. So I think that that outlook and that viewpoint that's very sort of zen-like, doesn't come just from the 20 years plus in the business. Tell me who the most influential person in your life has been and why. You know, for me, it's Kevin, actually. Kevin is one of these people that he doesn't care what people think.

He's like, really true. It doesn't get a crap, as you know, right? He's like, I'm not going to, what Kevin always tells me, He's like, honey, when you walk into these rooms, because I would have self-doubt and like, you know, am I smart enough? Am I worthy enough? This was years ago. And he'd be like, honey, everybody's full of shit. Everybody is that young kid that's walking in a room going, I hope I can find some friends and look cool.

Like, I don't care if you're Glenn Sanford or Michael Valdez. We all have those insecurities, right? And so I think now I'm at peace. I walk into a room and I'm actually looking at the person. I'm seeing who they are. I'm having a great conversation. I'm not worried about what their title is or who I'm choosing. In fact, a funny story is with Leo, and I always tease him about this.

He came up to me at one of the events, and he had been with us for a year. This shows you how much I'm not like a kiss butt. And he's like waiting and I'm talking to someone. He's waiting and waiting and waiting. And I thought it was like a fan. By the way, he is. But I was like, oh, God. You know, because I kind of hate it's like, oh, God.

And now I have to go like, hi. and oh, I loved your talk, and that's fine, and I love that. But he's like, hey, he's like, you don't know who I am, do you? And I'm like, no, I don't. He's like, we've been chatting. It's Leo. I'm like, oh, my God, Leo, because we were dealing with some kind of internal issue. And they were in my opinion.

But it just goes to show you, like, I don't pay attention to all of that. Yeah. You know, anyway, so it's just kind of a fun moment. I love that. And it's true what you say about your husband. It's, you know, I do love his sense of, humor and everything. He sent me a text last week and it was like, you know, he's, he's a funny guy. He is funny. And he's calm. He's one of the nicest humans. He's calm. He doesn't get wound up.

He is my sense of calm. He'll be like, honey, why are we doing all this? Like, what is this illusion that we're living? You know, so he tries to ground me back, but I have more like tenacity and goals and stuff like that. So I love it. You guys are a perfect match. We are. So now tell me a business book recommendation for the audience. What are you reading? What do you love? Well, I mean, there's a couple right now. So if you look at like what's on my here, I'll show you what's on my, I've got, you know, high performance, right? So we're reading about that leadership essence. So I'm leading about that, emotional intelligence, the self-aware leader, a lot of John Maxwell right now, because again, I'm in a different season. I knew I had to lead buyers and sellers, but that was different.

It was sales. Even though this is sales and influence, it's just a different percentage. It's just a different perspective. So everything, John Maxwell and Pat Lanchone. Okay. This is good. Those are great ones. All right, I have one final question for you. And this one might take you a little while to answer because you didn't read the questions I sent you. Oh, I didn't.

Caroline, why don't you send them to me? I actually, this is a question that I love asking all of my guests. And I usually end with this one. So in your book of life, what is this? this chapter called and why um i think this chapter is called uh my way my way because i think you know i think before it was serving everybody else the buyers the sellers who who am i you know like you're constantly working for others but i think it was um jerek robins that said this at one of our conferences. He said, you know, your first mountain that you climb is for you, right? You are the warrior for your family. And then you get to look back and help others. And it's like, I've been helping

others my whole life. Like literally, 23 years. I've been in the trenches, helping people, solving their problems and the agents. So now it's like, what's my way? So I say no to a lot of things because it doesn't jive with what I want. And so now I'm like, I'm okay saying no. I don't feel guilty. I don't need to please anyone. If it's something that excites me, I'm going to say yes. If it's something that doesn't, I'm going to say no. So I've said no a lot this year. So it's my way. Saying no is really very powerful. It is. It's really liberating. It is. Yeah. Yeah. I don't need the validation anymore. I don't need the. Did you achieve it? The pads on the back, the external. I don't need it. I've already achieved a lot of the things that I wanted to achieve. And now it's like,

Okay, I get to have fun. When do we get to at least enjoy what we achieved? I love that. Tina Call, you're amazing. You really are. You know, it's every time that I get to spend time with you, I always end up just smiling more, and I always end up learning from what you've said.

So your insight is always wonderful. And I appreciate you sharing today. And this has always been just a fun conversation. Always love hanging out with you. And I always love having a chat with you. So thank you very, very much. for this time. And thank you everybody who's been listening to us. And there'll be a lot more of this interview over the next few days. So thank you all very, very much. Hi, y'all.